Amy Inspired - Bethany Pierce [107]
“Someday, of course,” I replied automatically, though I wasn’t sure it was true. I thought of Brian, dealing with a confusion between his mother-in-law and the minister; our family suspicious of the dancing; Marie’s family bewildered by mine. The scene of barely contained chaos and strained diplomacy seemed discouragingly representative of the married life.
An old friend stole Grandma’s attention, and I took the chance to slip away. The caterers had already begun to clear the dinner dishes. The bare tabletops glowed opalescent in the moonlight. I traded my shoes for my shawl, stowing the heels beneath my dinner chair. The grass felt cool and wet against my blistered feet.
As I returned to the pavilion, I saw my father cross the dance floor with purpose to his step. He stopped when he came to my mother, who sat talking happily with some second cousin. He extended his hand. After a momentary hesitation, she accepted.
This was unprecedented: She did not dance, by rule.
My father led her to the dance floor, placed his arm around the small of her back, and together they began to sway in time. She let him lead, but barely. Her back was stiff, and they stood just close enough to manage a stilted sort of rhythm, the way I’d danced with boys at the junior high prom, elbows stiff and shoulders back. He made conversation. She spoke with the same polite economy with which she danced, calm but wary.
The song had not yet ended when Richard stepped in. My mother beamed at him. A new song began, lively and loud.
To the alarm of the watching Fundamentalists, my mother danced.
23
Monday I returned to Copenhagen. I spent the entire day in my pajamas eating cereal for breakfast and lunch, sleeping off the emotional upheaval of the last two weeks. By evening I was wide awake and restless. I got dressed, grabbed To Kill a Mockingbird, and locked the apartment behind me. The insects were loud, their invisible metropolis hustling in the trees. Downtown Copenhagen was all but abandoned. Occasionally a car passed. In the sandwich shops and liquor stores the cashiers leaned against their counters reading magazines, not expecting interruption. The entire town had the empty feeling of a house just cleaned from a long, overdrawn party: The crowds were dispersed, the beer bottles thrown out, and the hosts glad of a long-awaited, quiet sleep.
I walked the empty streets to The Brewery. A young man sat in the back corner writing on his laptop. Two older women were talking on the couch beside the front window. I took a seat at the bar. I didn’t recognize the barista who made my drink and was glad I didn’t have to talk to any of Zoë’s friends about how she was doing. Slowly, Harper Lee and the mocha worked their magic. I was tucked away in Alabama, pocketing treasures from a tree with Scout, when a hand bumped mine, startling me back to reality.
Eli stood behind the counter. He was wiping down the bar with a wet rag, the rag he’d collided with my hand. I was more than a little surprised to see him—I’d been keeping track of his schedule, strategically avoiding the café while he was working. And he wasn’t supposed to work nights.
“What are you reading?” he asked.
I showed him the cover.
“I read that in high school,” he said.
“Me, too.”
“You’re reading it again?”
“I read it every year.”
He walked to the other end of the counter, dragging the wet rag behind. “To be honest, I never finished it.”
“Well.” I opened my book up again. “Maybe we can still be friends.”
He grinned, his eyes on the counter where a spot of spilled coffee kept him momentarily busy.
I read two pages without remembering a word.
Within the hour the other customers began to leave. I