Magnolia Wednesdays (10 page)

“You call this . . . light?” Vivien, who’d contemplated gridlock from the back of many an NYC cab, thought Upper Roswell Road could give Broadway a run for its money in terms of congestion.

Melanie shrugged as she wove through the traffic. A few minutes later she turned off the road and into a parking lot. A wooden sign read East Cobb Park.

“What happens here?” Vivien asked. It wasn’t even eight A.M.; theirs was one of only three vehicles in the lot.

“Walking,” Melanie said as she exited the van. Vivien followed behind her.

The park was small and simply laid out; a figure eight of walking track encircled by trees and in turn encircling grassy areas and a fenced playground. It was pretty here, restful. Vivien wouldn’t have minded vegging out at one of the picnic tables, maybe reading the paper stretched out under a tree. But Melanie stepped onto the concrete walking track and began to move smartly. Surprised, Vivien had to jog the first few steps to catch up to her.

“Why are we doing this?” Vivien had to bite the words out as she scurried to match Melanie’s pace.

“Exercise.” Melanie began to pump her arms. Pronounced heel-toe action followed. “It helps get the heart pumping and the juices flowing.”

Vivien bit back a complaint. She wasn’t exactly in peak physical condition. Given the way she was having to scramble to keep up, it was far more likely that her heart would race, not pump, and that her “juices” would slosh rather than flow. And she definitely wasn’t dressed for a workout. Had she really sneered at Melanie’s “mommy clothes”?

“You look like you’ve put on a couple of pounds. Walking’s a really good low-impact calorie burner.” Melanie smiled. “So’s dancing. Belly dance starts tomorrow night. We’ll get rid of that excess before you know it.”

Not likely, Vivien thought. As the only member of her family who was completely devoid of rhythm, she’d learned at a very early age to avoid dancing in all its forms.

Pride kept her chin up and her strides in line with Melanie’s as they walked briskly—some might say too briskly for the Charles Jourdan pumps Vivien wore—on the concrete path. She eyed each tree-shaded bench and picnic table they passed, wishing she could stop and sit for just a moment. But she refused to be the first to ask and did her best to hide how much effort she was expending to keep up.

They talked—when Vivien wasn’t too short of breath to form words—about inconsequential things. What time they were expected at Magnolia Hall for Sunday supper. Who had sublet Vivi’s apartment. How long Stone would be on assignment in Afghanistan. The lies Vivien had prepared about why she’d left her job at CIN and the reasons for her weight gain proved unnecessary. At least for the moment, Melanie seemed as eager as Vivien to stay away from anything that delved beneath the surface.

It was a great relief when Melanie finally slowed and then came to a stop. In truth, Vivien was more than ready to go back to the house and curl up for the rest of the morning. But when Melanie offered to drop her there so she could do just that, Vivien refused. So far she’d seen the high school and the businesses that lined Roswell Road. Not exactly enough information on which to base a series of columns.

And so the power walk eased into a marathon. For which Vivien had failed to train.

Strapped into the minivan, they drove from place to place at what felt like the speed of sound. Little more than an hour into Melanie’s errands, Vivien felt as if she’d traveled to the ends of the earth, even though they’d only traveled up and down the same three roads and hadn’t pushed outside a seven-mile radius.

At the post office they waited in line for twenty-five minutes to return a package to a mail-order catalogue company. This was followed by a drop-off at the alteration lady and a pickup at the dry cleaner. Then they were off to Target for household supplies and then to Office-Max for envelopes and flyers Melanie had had printed for the studio.

At eleven o’clock they drove back to the high school, where Vivien assisted Melanie with her two-hour shift on the “copy crew” where they made thousands of copies of things, then stuffed them—one at a time—into the appropriate mailboxes.

A text message from Shelby sent them to the closest bookstore for a book Shelby was required to read and had forgotten to buy and which they dropped back off at the front desk at the high school; that made their third trip to Pemberton that morning.

At the grocery store, Melanie ordered a deli platter and veggie tray for an upcoming committee meeting and picked up a few odds and ends. Then they went to Old Navy where Melanie bought Trip a pair of khakis and a button-down shirt to wear to supper on Sunday.

Like hamsters on a wheel they raced without stopping but got nowhere near a finish line.

Before each errand Melanie offered to run Vivien home, but as much as Vivien wanted to go there, she knew she had to make it through the day so that she could determine firsthand which parts of it might lead to a future column.

Lunch was a drive-through meal from Chik-fil-A, which Vivien, who was once again ravenous, devoured on the way to the Magnolia Ballroom. There Melanie gave a warm hug to an older woman with stark white hair and a penetrating gaze, who was manning Grandmother Gray’s antique writing desk.

“Vivi,” Melanie said as she straightened. “This is Ruth Melnick. She is truly fabulous. I don’t know how I’d run the studio without her.”

Ruth beamed at Melanie’s praise, then turned to consider Vivien. The wattage of her smile dimmed ever so slightly. “Nice to finally meet you,” she said. “You don’t get down here too often, do you?” The tone said, not often enough, and Vivien wondered just how much Melanie had confided in the older woman.

“Ruth is my Jewish mother,” Melanie said.

“We have a Jewish mother?” Vivien asked, trying, unaccountably, to win a smile from Ruth Melnick. “Does Caroline know?”

Melanie laughed.

Ruth was a tougher audience. “I’ve met your mother,” she said. “You have the same air about you.”

Melanie giggled again. All of them knew this was not a compliment.

“And you can tell this just from looking at me?” Vivien asked, annoyed now.

Ruth shrugged as if she really were related and therefore had the right to say whatever she felt. “I only know what Melanie’s told me.”

Melanie blushed. Vivien’s chin shot up, taking her nose with it. She knew because she had to look down it to see the look on Ruth Melnick’s face.

“Oh, yes.” Ruth nodded. “You definitely resemble her.”

Mother Melnick turned back to Melanie. “The Hendersons are waiting over there.” Ruth nodded toward a couple who appeared to be even older than Ruth. “They want to start on the Latin dances. They’re going on a cruise over the holidays.”

“Let me just go change shoes.” Melanie waved to the couple, signaling that she’d be right with them.

Vivien plunked down at a skirted table. She toed her shoes off as Melanie walked out onto the dance floor. Her sister smiled at the couple and introduced herself. Vivien yawned.

By the time Melanie had her students ready to practice to music, Vivien was ready to admit defeat and beg to be put in a cab, despite the fact that she hadn’t actually seen one since they’d left the airport yesterday. A small whimper escaped her lips at the lovely thought.

But when Melanie walked past to put on another piece of music and whispered, “Vivi, you look dead and bored to boot. Why don’t you let me see if Ruth can run you home?” Vivien knew she couldn’t cave. She was not going to give Ruth Melnick the opportunity to pronounce her lazy or disinterested. And there was always the chance she’d find something in the lesson that she might write about.

When the Hendersons left, Melanie brought over the flyers and envelopes they’d picked up earlier. Ruth brought a roll of stamps. “So how long are you planning to stay this time?” Ruth asked as she and Melanie sat down on either side of Vivi.

“I’m not sure,” Vivien said, noting Ruth’s protective posture. She had the sense the woman would throw herself in front of Melanie, maybe even take a bullet for her, if necessary. “I’m taking a, um, somewhat open-ended break from work.”

Ruth sniffed, but made no other comment. Vivien could just picture the woman’s internal bullshit-o-meter clanging loudly.

In the near-empty ballroom they prepared the mailing, with Vivien stuffing the newly printed flyers into the envelopes, Melanie affixing the address label and postage on each, then passing it on to Ruth, who glued the envelopes shut. On the way home, Melanie and Vivien would stop back at the post office to mail them.

Home.
The word practically made Vivien tremble with relief.

And speaking of relief, once again, Vivien’s stomach rumbled. “Melanie, is there anything to eat here?” Vivien asked.

“You’re hungry?” Melanie checked her watch as if time had anything to do with the yawning pit in Vivien’s stomach. “We just ate two hours ago.”

“And your point is?” Vivien asked as her stomach rumbled again, or maybe that was just an echo in the emptiness.

“I think we have some cookies from the last practice party,” Melanie said. “And maybe some chips, too.”

“Bless you!” Vivien followed directions down the lone hallway to the kitchen, where she poked through the cabinets. The chips hadn’t been opened, but she found two different bags of cookies and wolfed down one oatmeal and one chocolate chip right there before filling a plate to take back to Melanie and Ruth. When they both refused them, Vivien settled the plate in front of her. Although she tried to slow her rate of consumption to near-normal levels, the look Melanie and Ruth tried to share over her head told her no one was fooled.

Vivien munched and stuffed envelopes, perking up with each cookie she consumed, until she felt almost revived. There were several private lessons going on now out on the dance floor, little pockets of activity in various corners of the long, rectangular space, and she watched for a while, unable to miss how focused the students looked as they tried to master the steps and how happy they appeared when things started to come together. The music changed regularly, each instructor taking a turn selecting what would play so that his or her students could practice what they were learning.

“We’ve got six registered for the Wednesday night belly-dancing class, including me and the bride-to-be,” Ruth said to Melanie as she affixed the final mailing labels.

“You can add Vivi and me to the list,” Melanie said. “Vivi’s not so keen about dancing, but belly dancing is great exercise and there’s no partner to maim.” She grinned. “Um, worry about.”

Ruth made no comment, but Vivi had no doubt that the woman would enjoy watching Vivien humiliate herself. Which was all the more reason not to let it happen. Now that her sugar high had begun to wear off, the only thing Vivien was interested in was getting back to Melanie’s and crawling into bed. Well, okay maybe that was two things, but they were very closely intertwined.

As she followed Melanie to the minivan and climbed slowly into the passenger seat, she wondered how Melanie could look so . . . awake. They still had to go back to the post office to mail out the envelopes they’d just stuffed and addressed. And then, according to Melanie, there was dinner to be fixed. Homework to be supervised. Children to be spoken to.

Vivien yawned, her lids impossibly heavy.

Her chin nodded down to her chest as Melanie pulled the van out into traffic. As her head ultimately came to rest against the window her last semi-coherent thought was that triathletes had nothing on her sister and the other women she’d seen racing in and out of the establishments in east Cobb today. She was too sleepy to worry about a lead-in sentence, but somewhere in her subconscious she knew she had the subject for her second column.

She was asleep before they got to the post office and only roused when they got back to Melanie’s. Later as she hugged the pillow and curled on her side, Vivien knew there was something she’d meant to tell Melanie. Something about not dancing. Ever. She yawned, trying to hold on to the thought even as she dove more deeply down into the welcoming abyss of sleep.

First thing tomorrow morning just as soon as she woke up and tossed Shelby out of bed, she’d make sure that Melanie understood. You could lead a klutz to a ballroom, but that didn’t mean you could make her dance.

10

I
’M HERE,” VIVIEN said from between clenched teeth.

“But as I’ve told you about a thousand times now, I’d rather just watch.”

Vivien and Melanie stood in front of the mirrors at the far end of the Magnolia Ballroom dance floor. The six other members of the Wednesday night beginning belly-dance class, as well as their instructor, stood in a ragged line about five feet away from them, trying to act as if they weren’t watching or listening.

“Vivi, this could be your opportunity to learn how to dance once and for all. Mother was practically a prima ballerina; I started dancing before I could walk. Even Daddy and Ham can pick out the rhythm of a song and are able to lead. There is no way someone from our gene pool could be as utterly helpless on a dance floor as you pretend to be.”

“I am not pretending.” Vivien removed her arm from her sister’s grasp, but was careful to keep her voice low. Vivi sneaked a peek over her shoulder at the assembled students. The kindest adjective she could think of for them was “eclectic.”

Ruth Melnick, who was both short and barrel-chested, was the oldest. She wore black knit pants and a matching top and had tied the chiffon hip scarf that Naranya had brought for each student low on her hip—or at least the place where her hips should have been. It was bright red.

Diana and Delores Shipley were in their midthirties. Vivien had automatically christened them Tweedle Di and Tweedle Dee, due to the glaring disparity in their sizes. Tweedle Diana was tall and leggy while Tweedle Delores was much shorter and markedly rounder. They had blondish-brown hair and were attractive in a girl-next-door kind of way. Individually they wouldn’t have drawn a second look; viewed as a pair it was impossible not to puzzle over the vagaries of heredity and the randomness of nature.

Angela Richman fell between the Shipley sisters height-wise and appeared to be the youngest member of the class. Her deep red hair had golden highlights and she wore it in a short layered style that drew attention to her heart-shaped face and deep green eyes. The wrists that poked out from her long-sleeved black T-shirt were downright knobby and her ankles and bare feet were narrow and trim, but the black yoga pants and T flopped loosely around her, at least a full size too big.

Vivien, who had squeezed into the only pair of black pants that still buttoned and tried to hide her burgeoning breasts and expanding waistline beneath a stretchy black camisole and black-and-white-striped overblouse, envied her the extra room.

Sally Hailstock, a fortysomething English teacher at Pemberton, had had a good bit of trouble stretching the chiffon hip scarf all the way across her broad hips, but she had a hearty laugh and a lot of enthusiasm. Beside her, Lourdes Gonzales’s body in black leggings and matching jogging bra appeared quite small and curvy. She tied the lime green hip scarf at a jaunty angle and gave her hips a good shake to make the scarf coins jangle.

Vivien did not want to wear a scarf that jangled or learn how to isolate any body parts, which was apparently what the first lessons were all about. She seriously doubted that she could control her stomach muscles at this point—not that she’d ever possessed abs of steel—and she didn’t want to draw attention to that fact. She drew a deep breath in a vain attempt to regain her composure and to find the upper hand. “I’d really rather sit this first one out. And maybe start next week.”

“No.” That was it. No negotiating, no conversation. Somehow, when Vivien wasn’t looking, her little sister had begun to grow a backbone. “This will be a lot easier than couples’ dancing and it doesn’t really matter how good you are; only that you do it.” She took Vivi by the elbow, placed her beside Sally, and tied a neon pink scarf with gold coin-shaped jangles around her hips.

“Naranya’s a really good teacher,” Melanie said as she tied a scarf around her own hips and stepped into line on Vivi’s other side. “I’m sure you’ll do fine.”

But as Naranya punched a key on a laptop computer and the plaintive strains of Middle Eastern music wailed out of the speakers, Vivi suspected her sister’s assurances belonged with the better-known and equally untrue “the check is in the mail” and “I’ll still respect you in the morning.”

“I am Naranya de Costa,” their instructor began. “I am from Brazil. Een my country there are many Egyptian and Lebanese and belly dancing is very big. Wherever you go, depending on the country, the version that ees danced is unique to that part of the world. You weel be getting a mixture of Brazilian, Middle Eastern, and American. But we all begin in the same way. With the stretching.”

A group tango lesson was underway in an opposite corner of the studio, and a middle-aged couple was being tutored near them, everyone with their patch of mirror. Angela kept her gaze fixed on the golden-skinned darkhaired Naranya, and occasionally on the other members of the class; too often when she glanced in a mirror it was Fangie who appeared.

All chatter ceased as Naranya raised her arms above her head and clasped her hands together, stretching upward. The class followed. Carefully, Naranya led them through a series of stretches, demonstrating each thoroughly. Once her intro was completed, Naranya was not a big talker, but moved slowly and carefully, sometimes moving or turning in a different direction so that everyone could see the subtleties of each movement.

Angela had been exercising relentlessly for three years and had tried all kinds of classes, so the stretching was both familiar and comfortable. Next came the isolation exercises, which were a bit more challenging. Angela kept her gaze on their instructor and the mirrored wall behind her intentionally out of focus. Occasionally, she closed her eyes in an effort to feel the roll of her shoulder, the sway of an arm, the shift of her rib cage. After a lifetime of trying to ignore her body, it was the oddest thing to tune in so carefully to its individual components.

“Now for the basic dance position, we turn to the side with our legs in a . . .” Naranya paused, looking for the right word and tossed a hank of heavy dark hair back over one shoulder. “Our legs they are parallel. Now we pretend to walk a step, we don’t do eet, we just pretend. And we put all of our weight onto the back leg.”

They “assumed the position” as best they could, all of their gazes trained on Naranya.

“Yes, yes,” the instructor said. “That ees it. Point your tailbone to the floor.”

She waited for them to adjust themselves. Some, Angela noted, did this more successfully than others. “Hold your arms out away from your body. Your chest, eet must be held high.”

There were giggles and more than a few groans as Naranya moved from student to student checking their positions and making slight adjustments. The hip lift and drop was slightly more challenging.

“Pretend that you have a string tied to your right hip bone and somebody is pulling up on it,” Naranya said to the taller Shipley sister as everyone’s hips went up and down.

“I hate to break it to you,” Vivien huffed nearby, “but my hips don’t actually seem to work independently.”

“Mine don’t, either.” This from the English teacher who looked like what Angela still felt: too big, overstuffed, hopelessly jiggly.

Ruth snorted and Angela stole a glance at the whitehaired woman. Even though Ruth’s body was shaped more like a block of wood than an hourglass, she’d been able to turn the hip lift and drop into the “bounce” it was meant to be.

“Eees good, Ruth,” Naranya said, smiling as they all watched Ruth’s hip go up and down.

Lourdes was doing pretty well, too. She’d started smiling the minute the music started and hadn’t stopped since.

Melanie’s arms curved gracefully out to either side and her hip moved fluidly up and down in short controlled movements. She moved in front of Vivien to demonstrate. “You’ve got to
feel
your hip, Vivi. Shut out all the . . . stuff . . . and feel it. You’ve got to get the hip bounce before you can move on to the half-moon.”

The hour went by in a blur of calculated moves and laughter. They ended as they had begun, with a series of stretches. “You must practice this week,” Naranya said as she collected the hip scarves. “And next week we weel add on to our movements. I weel bring tapes of practice music for next time for anyone who wants eet.”

“So what did you think?” Melanie asked after they’d waved good-bye to the Shipley sisters and then Lourdes and Sally.

“It was fun,” Angela said. “I like the dance aspect, and it’s kinder and gentler than Pilates.”

Melanie smiled.

“And if there’s even a tiny chance of developing stomach muscles like Naranya’s, I’m sold.” Maybe she and James should take some ballroom lessons to get ready for their first dance together as husband and wife, like her matron of honor, Susan, had. “How many lessons would we need to get ready for the wedding?”

“We have packages of either seven or twelve that include parents and other important family members,” Melanie replied. “It just depends on how much work you feel you need to put in. And how choreographed you’d like the dance to be.”

“We’re not getting married until April.” Angela’s voice broke on the word “married.” “We wouldn’t need to do anything right away, would we?”

“No, of course not.” Melanie hurried to reassure.

Angela felt Ruth’s considering gaze. Vivien hid a yawn behind her hand.

“But you could bring him to a practice party one Friday or Saturday night just to see how you both feel about it,” Melanie said. “It’s mostly social, but the admission includes an hour dance lesson before the DJ starts. There’s food and drink, too.”

But by the time they said their good-byes, Angela was no longer thinking about dancing. She was thinking that April was nowhere near as comfortably far off as it used to be.