Barb's eyes glowed. “Gosh, it's good to see you two together again. Is this . . . I mean, are you two seeing each other?”
Michael glanced at Bess.
Bess glanced at Michael.
“No, not really,” she said.
“Too bad. On the dance floor you look like you've never been apart.”
“We're having a good time, anyway.”
“So are we. How many times do you think the four of us went out dancing?”
“Who knows?”
“What happened anyway? Why did we all stop seeing each other?” Barb asked.
They all studied one another, recalling the fondness of the past and those awful months when the marriage was breaking up.
Bess spoke up. “I know one reason I stopped calling you. I didn't want you to have to take sides or choose between us.”
“But that's silly.”
“Is it? You were friends to both of us. I was afraid that anything I said to you might have been misconstrued as a bid for sympathy. And in a way, it probably would have been.”
“I suppose you're right but we missed you, we wanted to help.”
Michael said, “I felt pretty much the same as Bess, afraid to look as if I wanted you to take my side, so I just backed off.”
Don had been sitting silently, listening. He sat forward, working the bottom of his glass against the tabletop as if it were a rubber stamp.
“Can I be honest here?”
Every eye turned to him. “Of course,” Michael replied.
“When you two broke up, you want to know what I felt?” He waited but no one said a word. “I felt betrayed. We knew you two were having your differences but you never let on exactly how bad they were. Then one day you called and said, ‘We're getting a divorce,' and selfish as it sounds now, I actually got angry. We had all these years invested in a four-way friendship, and all of a sudden—pouff!—you guys were dissolving it. The absolute truth of it is, I never blamed either one of you more than the other. Both Barb and I looked at your relationship through pretty clear eyes, and we were probably closer to you than anyone else at that time. Anyway, when you said you were getting divorced from each other it felt as if you were getting divorced from us.”
Bess reached over and covered his hand. “Oh, Don . . .”
Now that he'd said his piece, he looked sheepish. “I know I sound like a selfish pig.”
“No, you don't.”
“I probably never would have said that if I hadn't had a couple of drinks.”
Michael said, “I think it's good that the four of us can talk this way. We always could, that's why we were such good friends.”
Bess added, “I never really looked at our breakup from your viewpoint before. I suppose I might have felt the same way if you'd been the ones divorcing.”
Barb spoke in a caring tone. “I know you said you haven't been seeing each other but is there any chance you two might get back together? If I'm speaking out of line, tell me to shut up.”
Silence fell over the group before Bess said, in the kindest tone possible, “Shut up, Barb.”
* * *
Randy and Maryann had danced the entire night long, talking little in the raucousness, playing eye games. When the second set ended she fanned herself with a hand while he freed his bow tie and collar button and said, “Hey, it's hot in here. Want to go outside and cool off?”
“Sure.”
They left the ballroom, walked down the grand staircase and collected her coat.
Outside, stars shone. The fecund smell of thawing earth lifted from the surrounding grounds and farmlands. Someplace nearby, rivulets of melted snow could be heard gurgling toward lower terrain. The air was heavy with damp that had left the painted floor of the veranda slippery.
Randy took Maryann's arm and walked her to the far end, where they stood looking out over the driveway while the evergreens below them threw out a pungent scent like gin.
Now don't say Jesus, he thought.
“You're a good dancer,” Maryann said as he released her arm and braced his shoulder against a fluted pillar.
“So are you.”
“No, I'm not. I'm just average but an average dancer looks better when she dances with a good one.”
“Maybe it's you making me look good.”
“No, I don't think so. You must get it from your mom and dad. They look great out there on the dance floor together.”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
“Besides, you're a drummer. It makes sense—good rhythm, good dancer.”
“I never really danced much.”
“Neither did I.”
“Too busy getting straight A's?”
“You don't like that, do you?”
He shrugged.
“Why?”
“It scares me.”
“Scares you! You?”
“Don't look so surprised. Things scare guys, you know.”
“Why should my straight A's scare you?”
“It's not just them, it's the kind of girl you are.”
“What kind am I?”
“Goody two-shoes. Church group. National Honor Society, I bet.”
She made no reply.
“Right?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“I haven't been around many girls like you.”
“What kind have you been around?”
He chuckled and looked away. “You don't want to know.”
“No, I guess I don't.”
They stood awhile, looking out over the horseshoe-shaped drive, surrounded by the burgeoning spring night, a moon as thin and white as a daisy petal, and tree shadows like black lace upon the lawns. Once he looked over at her and she met his gaze, Randy with his ivory tuxedo sleeve braced upon the pale pillar, Maryann with her hands joined primly on the veranda railing.
“So a guy like me just doesn't . . . you know . . . make a play for a girl like you.”
“Not even if you asked first and she said yes?”
Miss Maryann Padgett, in her proper little navy-blue coat, stood with her shoes perched neatly side-by-side, her hands on that railing, waiting. Randy drew his shoulder from the pillar and turned toward her, standing close without touching. She, too, turned to him.
“I've been thinking about you a lot since I met you.”
“Have you?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, then . . . ?” Her invitation was just reserved enough to make it acceptable.
He lowered his head and kissed her the way he used to kiss girls when he was in the seventh grade. Lips only, nothing wet, nothing else touching. She put her hands on his shoulders but kept her distance. He embraced her cautiously, letting her make the choice about the proximity of bodies. Close but not too close, she chose, resting against him the way chalk rests on a blackboard: a touch and it'll disappear. He offered his tongue and she accepted shyly, tasting the way she smelled—fresh, flowery, no alcohol or smoke. As kisses went, it remained chaste, but all the while sweetness coursed through him and he experienced a return to the innocent emotions of first kisses, knowing he wanted more of this girl than he either deserved or probably ought to dream about.
He lifted his head and kept a little space between them. Their fingertips were joined at arm's length.
“Pretty wild, huh?” He smiled, lopsided. “You and me, and Lisa and Mark?”
“Yeah, pretty wild.”
“I wish I had my car tonight so I could drive you home.”
“I have mine. Maybe I can drive you home.”
“Is that an invitation?”
“It is.”
“Then I accept.”
She started to turn away but he stopped her. “One other thing.”
“What?”
“Would you go out with me next Saturday? We could go to a movie or something.”
“Let me think about it.”
“All right.”
He took a turn at turning away but she kept his hand and stood where she'd
been. “I've thought about it.” She smiled. “Yes.”
“Yes?”
“Yes. With my parents' approval.”
“Oh, of course.” As if a parent had approved of him since he'd turned thirteen. “So what do you say we go dance some more?”
Smiling, they returned inside.
The band was blasting out “Good Lovin' ” and the dancers were getting into it. His mom and dad were still on the floor, having a grand old time with their friends the Maholics and Grandma Stella and her date, who'd turned out to be a neat guy after all. Stella and the old dude were dancing the way old people do, looking ridiculous but enjoying it anyway. Randy and Maryann melded into the edge of the crowd and picked up the beat.
When the song ended, Randy heard Lisa's voice over the amplifiers and turned in surprise to see her standing on stage with a microphone.
“Hey, everybody, listen up!” When the crowd noise abated she said, “It's my special night so I get what I want, right? Well, I want my little brother up here—Randy, where are you?” She shaded her eyes and scanned the room. “Randy come up here, will you?”
Randy suffered some friendly nudging while panic sluiced through him. Jesus, no, not without getting wrecked first! But everyone was looking at him and there was no way he could slip outside and sneak a hit.
“A lot of you don't know it but my little brother is one of the better drummers around. Matter of fact, he's the best.” She turned to the lead guitar man. “You don't mind if Randy sits in on one, do you, Jay?” And to the crowd, “I've been listening to him pounding his drums in his bedroom since he was three months old—well, that might possibly have been his heels on the wall beside his crib but you know what I mean. He hasn't done a lot of this in public, and he's a little shy about it, so after you hog-tie him and carry him up here, give him a hand, okay?”
Randy, genuinely embarrassed, was being encouraged to go onstage by a throng of his peers who circled him and Maryann.
“Yeah, Randy, do it!”
“Come on, man, hammer those skins!”
Maryann took his hand and said, “Go ahead, Randy, please.”
With his palms sweating, he removed his tuxedo jacket and handed it to her. “Okay, but don't run away.”
The drummer backed off his stool and stood as Randy leaped onto the stage and picked his way around the bass drum and cymbals. They did a little talking about sticks and Randy selected a pair from a quiver hanging on a drum. He straddled the revolving stool, gave the bass drum a few fast thumps, did a riff from high to low across the five drums circling him, tested the height of the cymbals and said to the lead guitar man, “How 'bout a little George Michael? You guys know ‘Faith'?”
“Yo! ‘Faith' we got.” And to the band, “Give him a little ‘Faith,' on his beat.”
Randy gave them a lead-in on the rim and struck into the driving, syncopated beat of the song.
On the dance floor, Michael forgot to start dancing with Bess. She nudged him and he made a halfhearted attempt to do justice to both but the drumming won out. He bobbed absently while watching, entranced, as his son became immersed in the music, his attention shifting from drum to drum, to cymbal to drum, now bending, now reaching, now twirling a stick till it blurred. Some silent signal was exchanged and the band dropped off, giving Randy a solo. His intensity was total, his immersion complete. There were he and the drums and the rhythm running from his brain to his limbs.
Most of the crowd had stopped dancing and stood entranced, clapping to the rhythm. Those who continued dancing did so facing the stage.
At Michael's side Bess said, “He's good, isn't he?”
“My God, when did this happen?”
“It's been happening since he was thirteen. It's the only thing he really cares about.”
“What the hell's he doing working in that nut house?”
“He's scared.”
“Of what? Success?”
“Possibly. More probably of failure.”
“Has he auditioned anywhere?”
“Not that I know of.”
“He's got to, Bess. Tell him he's got to.”
“You tell him.”
The drum solo ended and the band picked up the last verse while on the floor Bess and Michael danced it out, reading messages in each other's eyes.
A roar of applause went up as Randy struck the cymbals for the last time and the song ended. He rested his hands on his thighs, smiled shyly and let the drumsticks slip back into the quiver.
“Good job, Randy,” the band's drummer said, returning to the stage, shaking Randy's hand. “Who did you say you play with again?”
“I don't.”
The drummer stopped cold, stared at Randy a moment and straddling his seat, said, “You ought to get yourself an agent, man.”
“Thanks. Maybe I will.”
On his way back to Maryann, he felt like Charlie Watts. She was smiling, holding his jacket while he slipped it on, then taking his arm, unconsciously resting her breast against it.
“You even look like George Michael,” she said, still smiling proudly. “But I suppose all the girls tell you that.”
“Now if I could only sing like him.”
“You don't have to sing. You can play drums. You're really good, Randy.”
None of the applause counted as much as her approval. “Thanks,” he said, and wondered if it would still feel like this after twenty-five years of performing—the way Watts had been performing with the Stones all these years—the rush, the exhilaration, the high!
Suddenly his mother was there, kissing his cheek. “Sounds much better in a club than coming up the stairs.” And his father, clapping his shoulder and squeezing hard, with a glint of immense pride in his smile.
“You've got to get out of that nut house, Randy. You're too good to squander all that talent.”
If he moved, Randy knew, even half-moved toward his Dad he'd be in his arms and this stellar moment would be complete. But how could he do that with Maryann looking on? And his mother? And half the wedding guests? And Lisa coming at him with a big smile on her face, trailed by Mark? Then she was there and the moment was lost.
Jamming in somebody's basement had never been like this. By the time his praises had been sung by everyone who knew him and some who didn't, he still felt like a zinging neon comet and thought if he didn't smoke some grass to celebrate, he'd never have another chance to get the high-on-high. Christ, it'd be wild!
He looked around and Maryann was gone.
“Where's Maryann?” he asked.
“She went to the ladies' room. Said she'd be right back.”
“Listen, Lisa, I'm kind of warm. I gotta go outside and cool off some, okay?”
Lisa mock-punched his arm. “Yeah, sure, little bro. And thanks again for playing.”
He slumped his shoulders, gave her a crooked smile and saluted himself away.
“Any time.”
Outside, he returned to the shadows at the far end of the veranda. The earth still smelled musty, and the runnels were still running, and the thump of the drums could be registered through the soles of his shoes. He packed his bat, lit it, took the hit and held it deep in his lungs, his eyes closed, blocking out the stars and the cars and the naked trees. It didn't take long. By the time he left the veranda he believed he was Charlie Watts.
He went inside to find Maryann. She was sitting at a table with her parents and some of her aunts and uncles.
“Hey, Maryann,” he said, “let's dance.”
Her eyes were like ice picks as she turned and took a chunk out of him. “No, thank you.”
If he hadn't been stoned he might have done the sensible thing and backed off. Instead, he gripped her arm. “Hey, what do you mean?”
She jerked her arm free. “I think you know what I mean.”
“What'd I do?”
Everyone at the table was watching. Maryann looked as if she hated him as she jumped to her feet. He smiled blearily at the group and mumbled, “
Sorry . . .” then followed her out into the hall. They stood at the top of the elegant stairway down which they'd walked together such a short time earlier.
“I don't hang around with potheads, Randy,” she said.
“Hey, wait, I don't—”
“Don't lie. I came outside looking for you and I saw you and I know what was in that little pipe! You can find your own way home, and as far as Saturday night goes, it's off. Go smoke your pot and be a loser. I don't care.”
She picked up her skirts, turned and hurried away.
Chapter 12
BESS AND MICHAEL RECLINED in the backseat of the limousine, a faint sense of motion scuttling up from the trunk and massaging the backs of their heads through the supple leather. Michael was laughing, deep in his throat. His eyes were closed.
“What are you laughing about?”
“This car feels like a Ferris wheel.”
She rolled her head to look at him. “Michael, you're drunk.”
“Yes, I am. First time for months and it feels spectacular. How 'bout you?” He rolled his head to look at her.
“A little, maybe.”
“How does it feel?”
She faced upward again, closed her eyes and laughed deep in her throat. They enjoyed some silence, and the purring, easy-chair ride, the subtle euphoria created by the dancing and drinking and the presence of each other. In time, he spoke.
“You know what?”
“What?”
“I don't feel much like a grandpa.”
“You don't dance much like a grandpa.”
“Do you feel like a grandma?”
“Mm-mm.”
“I don't remember my grandpa and grandma dancing like that when I was young.”
“Me either. Mine raised irises and built birdhouses.”
“Hey, Bess, come here.” He clamped her wrist, tipped her his way and put an arm around her.
“Just what do you think you're doing, Michael Curran?”
“I'm feelin' good!” he said, exaggerating an accent. “And I'm feelin' baaad!”
She laughed, rolling her face against his lapel. “This is ridiculous. You and I are divorced. What are we doing snuggling in the backseat of a limo?”
“We bein' bad! And it feel so good we gonna keep right on doin' it!” He leaned forward and asked the driver, “How much time have we got?”