The Midnight Dancers: A Fairy Tale Retold (16 page)

Paul was juggling.

Bap bap bap bap, bapbap bap bap

The rhythm of juggling was broken only by his occasional toss under his knee or over his back. He was sweating in the hot sun, but concentrated.

Bapbap bap bap, bapbap bap bap

He really wanted to step back into the shade, but that put him a bit closer to the craft booth behind him than he felt was comfortable. There was a ring of day-care children watching him, and he broke his rhythm to wipe his hand swiftly across his brow, making a face as he did so. The grown ups chuckled.

Bap bap!
He caught the clubs and bowed. The kids clapped and then an adult said, “Okay, let’s go see what’s over here,” and the day-care group moved reluctantly on. Paul took a moment to pull out a handkerchief and wiped his brow more thoroughly, then took a drink from his water bottle. Hot, hot work. There weren’t many tips in his basket so far today, but that didn’t bother him.

What
was
bothering him was Rachel. He wasn’t exactly sure how to put the feeling into words.
Maybe because I’ve never had to deal with girls like her before. I’ve usually just tried to stay out of their way.

And if Rachel Durham found out what I was up to, I doubt she would be happy with me.
He couldn’t help feeling like something of a sneak.

Plus I’m still not sure whether what I’m doing is a good idea or not…

Sitting down on a wooden crate that he had staked out as his own, he pulled out his flute, and began to play slowly, recovering his breath. The music absorbed him for a while. Passersby might not have recognized the tune, but it was an old hymn to the Virgin Mary. If singing was praying twice, maybe this melody would serve as double the prayers.

Rachel entered the fabric store with the sense of treading onto forbidden ground. At the same time she felt a delicious pleasure: she was one step closer to the midnight butterfly dress.

As she made her way down the “sin” aisle, Rachel thought smugly,
Well, Mrs. Pearson, today I have a perfectly legitimate excuse to be in the formal fabric section, thank you. I have to look at black materials and find a good price.

Rachel studied the rows of black silky material judiciously. She had already picked out a simple clown costume pattern from the books in the back, while browsing the evening gown sections for inspiration. Fortunately, she knew her own body sizes so well she didn’t need a pattern. Just this fall she had sewn a Renaissance dress for a play on John Hus that included an irritating and complicated closely fit bodice. Modern clothes were decidedly less complicated.

A quick search of the black fabrics (which were on clearance, since it was summer) revealed that satin was the cheapest fabric. Three yards would make two pairs of clown pants for the girls, but Rachel shamelessly bought six, plus a few lengths of white cotton for tunic-dresses. She began exploring the evening fabrics again for special fabric for the sashes—and for her dress.

As she wandered, she remembered how the pastor’s wife had warmly complimented her Renaissance dress after the play, and Rachel had tasted the hypocrisy. Why was it fine to wear a fancy dress for a show less than an hour long, but wrong to wear a modern version of the same dress to a dance for the same amount of time?
Maybe anything Christian that happened in the past is fine,
she thought,
but today we’re just so immoral that it’s bad.

 If so, I was born in the wrong time period. And with the wrong talent.

A bit depressed, she found a bolt of glitzy material with rainbow-colored diamonds on it and tossed it in the cart. Then, rousing herself, she began to go through the remaining fabric with the discretion of a connoisseur. She couldn’t waste this chance.

The bodice had to be of just the right fabric, in order for it to be the perfect dress. On the first try, she found nothing, and was disappointed. Methodically, she began to go through the bolts again, adjusting the image in her mind to fit the reality of the choices before her. 

Then, she saw it. A bolt with not much left on it, wedged between two other inferior fabrics. She seized it and ran her fingers over it. It had to be silk. She checked the top label. Yes, a silk blend.

It was a knit material, woven into a tube, black and blue and silver running all together into a shimmering blend of subtlety and glamour.

Her breath caught in her throat. Yes, this was it. She checked the price. Thirty-four dollars a yard! But she didn’t need a yard. Anxiously, she measured from her chest to her navel. Maybe fifteen inches.  She could work it carefully, make it just to size, and she could make it. Why, maybe she could add a satin band at the top—that would need even less. Yes, she could do it… Thirty-four divided by two was … seventeen dollars. Mathematics was a wonderful thing.  She could add this material to the order for the juggling outfits and her dad would never be the wiser.

Triumphantly, she brought the bolt to the cutting counter and asked for a tape measure so that she could narrow it down to the exact inch.  Finding out the fabric was twenty-five percent off was merely the icing on the cake.

Paul looked up from his flute playing and saw her coming towards him. She was swinging a yellow plastic shopping bag gaily, her dark brown hair falling carelessly around her face and into her eyes. He knew she was conscious of attracting attention, and relishing it. But he also knew she was not seeking
his
attentions. There was the same mocking half-smile on her tanned face. But she lacked her usual bored swagger. Obviously she was up to something, something that had to do with her midnight excursions.

He switched to a happy dance tune as she sauntered up. As she paused beside him, he finished with a flourish and bowed to his audience.

She watched him with interest as he passed his basket. As his onlookers wandered off, she said, “Do you make much money doing this?”

“Enough to live on,” he said, unable to meet her eyes. He hated being divided, keeping secrets.

“Is this how you’re going to live, then?” she asked, as though in response to his thoughts.

He shrugged. “Until I finish medical school and my residency.”

She laughed, apparently thinking he was making a joke. “I bought your fabric,” she said, swinging up the bag expectantly. She showed him black shiny material. “For the pants,” she said. “I’ll make them kind of puffy, with elastic at the knees. Okay?”

“That works,” he said.

Then she pulled out white material that looked like something to make curtains. “This is cotton,” she informed him. “Because I figured they might get hot. I can make big blousy tunics, with round collars and full sleeves with elastic at the wrists. The tunics will go about halfway down to their knees, and the pants will come out under them. Okay?”

“Sure,” he said. He couldn’t picture this at all, but it was clear that she could, and that was what mattered.

“And this,” she said, pulling out a length of glittering fabric decorated with harlequin diamonds in a variety of colors, “is for sashes, but I could probably make some hats out of it too, if you wanted. If I have time.”

He fingered the shining material, and smiled. “That is neat stuff,” he said. “That’ll work just fine.”

“Good!” She seemed pleased too. “I put it on my dad’s credit card. It wasn’t much.” She told him the total, and he agreed. 

“Thanks a lot!” he said. “I hope it’s not too much work for you.”

“Oh, no. It’ll be fun.” She flashed a smile at him. “See you.” And off she went.

And of course, she had a gorgeous smile, with those glinting green-blue eyes. It was good to see her a bit more animated. But all the same, whether she realized it or not, she had begun a dangerous dance.
And maybe I have too
, he thought.

Feeling a tightness in his chest, he picked up his flute again and blew out a long sustained note. The wisest way out of this mess would also be the longer road, and the more precarious one. He wondered how it would turn out.

When Rachel set foot on the island quay that night, she felt the same tingle in her spine she had felt when she first saw Michael. She didn’t know what that meant, but she knew it made her feel aware and alert. A not entirely pleasant feeling but mixed with anticipation of pleasure.

On the way over, Alan and Prisca and Rachel had talked eagerly and enthusiastically about the previous night’s close call, but now that they were back on the island, Alan seemed uncertain. He shoved his hands in his pockets and looked around.

“Hey, there’s tables,” he said, pointing to a corner of the portico near the edge of the waterside forest.

The girls looked in surprise. “You’re right,” Rachel said, going over to them. There were several light metal tables and chairs.  “Almost as though he was expecting us.”

“Well, he
is
expecting us,” Prisca huffed. “He said so himself.”

“Then where is the guy?” Alan asked.

Kirk’s boat pulled up to the quay and Tammy got out. The other two boats were coming in. Rachel, distracted, looked back at the steps leading up to the house, and saw a movement.

“I think he’s coming down,” she said.

I wonder if he’ll invite us up to the house
, she thought to herself, and felt that same thrill of tense anticipation.

But Michael didn’t invite them to go up to the house. He came down carrying a boom box. “I brought my own,” he said nonchalantly. “Thought I’d give your valiant little CD player a rest.”

The boom box was stacked with nine CDs and an iPod shuffle. The music played and some of the girls danced. But Rachel sat with Michael at one of the tables, and talked. Alan and Prisca sat with them a while, as well, but Rachel and Michael did most of the talking.

Actually, he asked questions and she told him more about herself. About her family, about her mother dying and her father remarrying. About their school, and their family. About what she planned to do with her life.

“Not much,” she said ruefully. “I can sew.  I can file. I guess I can get a job as the church assistant secretary, if I wanted it.”

“Which you don’t,” Michael supplied.

She laughed. “No way,” she said. “Dad and I butt heads about the church enough as it is. Being in closer quarters might either ruin the church or result in murder.”

“You’re a smart girl. Why don’t you go to college?”

“Dad and Sallie are willing to send me to the Bible college outside Baltimore, but I’m not sure I want to go. It’ll just be more school.  I’ll still be living at home, still doing the same old stuff.”

“And you don’t want to do that.”

She paused. “No, not really.”

“What do you want to do, Rachel?” he probed.

She clasped her hands on her knee and looked up at the stars. “I really don’t know,” she confessed.

“Do you want to be an actress?”

She laughed. “Not particularly. Why? Do you think I’d make a good one?”

“You have to ask? Fishing for a compliment?”

“No,” and she giggled at him. “When I was little, I wanted to be a nurse.”

“Then why not be a nurse?”

“I don’t know,” she sighed.