Alice Bliss - Laura Harrington [89]
“Okay.”
“A slow dance.”
“Okay.”
“And then we can go home.. . . Unless you want to stay.”
Alice takes a breath.
“I sort of promised John Kimball I would dance with him.”
“What?”
“It seemed so far-fetched at the time that I never really thought—”
“He asked you—?”
“Yeah.”
“What about Melissa?”
“That’s what I said.”
“Do you want to dance with him?”
“I don’t know. I mean, no, I mean . . . Henry, it’s not like a lot of people have ever asked me to dance.”
She looks at him.
“It was nice to be asked.”
“When did this happen?”
“At the Red Wings game.”
“I figured.”
“And then it was awkward and I didn’t know how to tell you, or if there was anything to tell. Which there isn’t. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“Can we just forget it now?”
Approaching the high school they can hear the deep bass notes thumping and vibrating all the way from the gym. The principal is at the entrance to the school, his tie loosened, talking to the police officer whose cruiser is idling in the street. He looks up and sees Alice and Henry heading to the back of the building.
“You two have tickets?”
Henry sprints over and hands him their tickets.
“Come on in.”
“We were planning to just hang out on the grass for a while.”
“You’re supposed to go inside so we know who’s who, what’s what, and who’s where.”
“Mr. Fisher,” Henry starts to explain—
“Alice, I’m so sorry to hear about your dad.”
“Thank you,” Alice says to the asphalt in front of her.
“Mr. Fisher, we don’t want to go inside, we just—”
“—You just what?”
Henry steps up close and speaks quietly for a moment. Mr. Fisher considers.
“If I make an exception can you stay out of trouble?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I mean it, Henry.”
“I know you do, Mr. Fisher.”
They give the school a wide berth as they walk around to the back. Behind the school the double doors to the gym are propped open, spilling music and light onto the parking lot and the edge of the playing fields. The dance committee has hung disco balls from the basketball hoops at either end of the gym floor. There’s a DJ at one end and a table full of cookies and punch at the other.
Alice and Henry skirt the edge of the light as they make their way to the lone maple tree behind the school. There are several boys hanging out at the doors who seem to catch their scent and gather, in a body, to begin some kind of taunt. But then they recognize Alice, or one of them does, and they decide to leave them alone.
It is dark enough now to see the stars, dark enough and late enough for the DJ to start to slow things down. Alice sees John Kimball come to the doorway, talk to the boys who are still there, look her way, and head back inside. He seems so far away. It all seems so far away. The baseball game seems like it happened in another lifetime to another girl.
A slow song begins. Henry turns to Alice and puts his hands on her waist. She puts her hands on his shoulders and then he draws her close and she puts her arms around his neck and suddenly without thinking about it too much or having a chance to mess it up, they are dancing. Henry feels the music like his own heartbeat and moves Alice gently over the rough ground as though they are gliding on a polished floor. Alice had been afraid she would not know how to do this, or that she would do it badly or trip or step on his feet. But Henry relaxes into the music and Alice relaxes into Henry and it is so lovely and so unexpected that she allows herself to rest her head on his shoulder. She closes her eyes and she is floating in space, she is riding the music with Henry; she is trusting her body and her feet and she is not thinking about anything but this.
One part of Henry, the dancing part, is inside the music and wants to stay there because that’s what he knows, that’s where he can just move and hold Alice. But when she puts her head on his shoulder and he takes one hand from her waist and puts it on her head, his fingers in her soft, soft hair, it takes his breath away. He stumbles in that moment and steps on her toes, but they right themselves, they take a breath, together.