Annabel - Kathleen Winter [86]
“She’d love to hear you say that. Which one? Elvis, Gidget, or the Beach Boys . . . what?”
Wally Michelin had entered the gym with Tim McPhail, in her satin gown. Wayne saw now that it was longer than the short dresses, but shorter than the lemon meringue confection of Donna Palliser. Wally’s dress came just past her knees, and on its sleeveless shoulder she wore one white rose. Tim McPhail had not ordered his tux from Eunice, Wayne saw that right away. His had thin satin lapels, and his cummerbund matched Wally’s rose.
“Oh.” Gracie stood deflated, looking at Wayne watching the couple, who appeared to float though they were not yet dancing. Joe Cocker ended and Rodney Montague segued into Kenny Loggins and Stevie Wonder. Gracie danced half-heartedly, then told Wayne she had to go to the washroom. When she came back out, she looked fiercer. She led him out the fire exit, which was propped open with a chair. They stood among thistles. She swigged the brandy and handed it to him. What was Rodney playing now? The bass thumped under the muffled melody and a voice wailed out. Bowie. Wayne sat in the thistles. The air was fresh out here, the stars familiar yet distant.
“What’s so interesting about Wally Michelin anyway? She never so much as opens her mouth. Are you going to put your jacket down for me?”
“My jacket?”
“So I can sit too. Why would you want her?”
He took the jacket off and she arranged her dress so it fell inside the jacket’s lining and not on the ground. He leaned against the wall. He had not realized how rough bricks are. They snagged his shirt every time he lifted the flask. What he wanted, though he did not say this to Gracie, was to talk to Wally, for ever and ever.
“I don’t want her.”
“You sure looked like you wanted her. You looked like you wanted to run over there like a little dog and sit in her lap and lick her hand.”
“I didn’t want that.”
“Do you want to slow dance with her?”
Maybe that would be the thing. Not to feel Wally Michelin’s body heat the way he’d felt with Gracie. Not that. But if he could have one slow dance with Wally Michelin, it would break the silence. He knew now, from dancing with Gracie, you could say anything you wanted when you were that close. The normal restraint that made you keep things private was gone for the few minutes of the song; that’s what music did, with the darkness and the closeness. If he could get that close to Wally Michelin, for one dance: that’s what a dance was, he saw. It was to get the two of you in your own world. You could make that world anything you wanted. You could make it as far from here as possible, yet to the rest of the room you would look as if you were still here. They would have no idea where the two of you had gone.
He could hear Black River now, closer than the sound of Bowie or Billy Ocean or Joan Jett and the Blackhearts. Black River flowed behind the school and along the base of the Mealy Mountains. It went miles through birches and black spruce, and stayed small the whole way. He had often seen a leaf float down Black River without breaking the surface tension, and his mind had floated with it until the leaf went out of sight. Now the river’s sound was enticing: moving away from here on a journey, small and intimate, never-ending. That’s what the dance with Wally Michelin would be like, only shorter, unfortunately. A feeling of mystery and going forward with more than just your body. Underground streams feeding your mind. You’d ask questions and get lost together.
“What are you hoping to get with her? That you couldn’t have with me.”
“I don’t know.”
“You must know something or you wouldn’t be thinking it. I can feel you thinking it.” She undid his top buttons and laid her hand on that place over his heart that calmed everything. It was amazing how her hand knew the spot. She gave him more brandy. He swallowed a mouthful and its heat flowed to where her hand