Butterfly's Shadow - Lee Langley [85]
By the time Joey arrived at the dance, Woody Ichihashi’s Downbeats were well into their repertoire of Glenn Miller and Woody Herman. The dance floor was crowded, the music soared, coloured lights hung from the ceiling. As Woody put it: with the Downbeats on board, the mood was upbeat.
Joey wove through the crowd, keeping away from the dancers. Two circuits of the room confirmed what he had suspected: this place was not for him. Points of light glittered off shiny black hair and spectacles; mouths wide in laughter revealed teeth so even and so white his own seemed dull as old tombstones. He was caught in a crossfire of voices, none individually loud, built into a bombardment that almost drowned out the music.
A plump, jolly girl beckoned to him from behind a white-clothed trestle table.
‘Hi, welcome, irrasshaimase! I’m Amy.’
He nodded. Offered a half-hearted response.
‘Joey.’
She waved at the table.
‘So, Joey, help yourself: lemonade, cola – we even have ocean cocktail – sort of. I used tomato water, soy sauce and a drop of rice vinegar. It’s okay, maybe needs more salt.’
He looked doubtfully at the jug of liquid. ‘What’s that floating on top?’
‘Seaweed. Dehydrated. Not as good as fresh, obviously, but it’s not bad.’
‘Thanks.’ He took a glass of lemonade.
‘Where you from, Joey?’
‘Portland.’
‘My folks are from Washington county.’
‘Ah.’
He moved off, skirting the dance floor, aware of her disappointment, feeling bad but not so bad that he was prepared to extend the conversation. One slow circuit of the room and the lemonade was finished. He placed the glass carefully on a side table and headed for the door.
‘You don’t like the music.’
She wore a pale green dress printed with red flowers and in her hair a barrette on to which she had threaded an artificial crimson flower. Small, delicately built, she looked closely at Joey, her face tilted upwards.
‘My name’s Lily.’
‘Joey.’
‘Hi. So you don’t like the band.’
‘No, I mean yes. I like the music . . . Actually, I can’t really hear it. Too much noise, I guess.’
‘And you don’t like the people.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘I can tell.’
He shrugged. ‘I only got here a few minutes ago; that’s pretty quick to draw conclusions.’
‘Not really. You walk around the camp, always alone. You don’t come to the social evenings in the canteen.’
To be made conscious that he had been watched gave Joey a sense of wariness. In the future he would no longer be able to lose himself in solitude; she had taken away his greatest freedom: the ability to act unselfconsciously, and he felt a spurt of anger.
‘I certainly don’t like the idea of being watched – more than we already are, here.’
‘But you watch everyone. All the time. That’s okay?’
Suddenly he was part of someone else’s field trip.
‘Leave me out of this, okay? Get yourself another hobby.’
He stepped out into the warm night. Glancing back just before the door clicked shut he saw her face, a flinching whiteness, a recoil as though she had been slapped.
He should go straight back and apologise; he had been needlessly rude. He should go in and say sorry; she was standing right by the door. But as he stood debating with himself, a couple moved past him, murmuring polite phrases, blocking the doorway. A boy was approaching the girl in the green dress; he touched her arm and led her on to the dance floor. The door closed.
Backing away, Joey came in line with the window: the bright room was framed in the darkness like a movie screen – the naked light bulbs, touchingly transformed into glowing orbs with cheap coloured paper; the packed dance floor, bodies moving to a jumping beat. He picked out the girl in the red and green dress, the flower in her hair, smiling at her partner, looking straight into his eyes, no upward tilt.
He stood for a while, then walked on towards his hut, the music still loud in the night air, coming through the thin wood of the dance