Ella Barrick - Dead Man Waltzing

“By all means.”

I hung up, thinking about what a weird thing a memoir was. Was it possible, I wondered, for Corinne, or anyone, to write a wholly truthful memoir? Not, I decided, thinking about how Danielle’s and my memories of our last trip to Jekyll Island differed. Nothing told from one person’s perspective could be more than one facet of truth, if that. I amused myself the rest of the way home imagining how my life story would differ if written by me or Danielle or an “objective” author like a reporter.

I couldn’t dive into the manuscript right when I got home, since I had back-to-back private sessions with two of my competitive students. As I said good-bye to the second one, Danielle breezed in, still in her work “uniform” of gray suit, pale blue blouse, and low-heeled black pumps. Dullsville. Only her red curls saved her from a blandness that would make Muzak look innovative. “I thought we’d get dinner somewhere first,” she said, wrinkling her nose at the sight of my sweaty, grubby self.

“First?”

“Aren’t you the one who invited me to go swimsuit shopping?”

“You didn’t take me up on it,” I said, releasing my ponytail from its elastic.

“Well, I must have, since I’m here.” She grinned unrepentantly.

“Fine. Let me shower,” I said, resigned. I didn’t want to go swimsuit shopping now; I wanted to read the manuscript. However, if there was a chance of getting Danielle to agree to vacation with me and Mom, I had to take it. Sisters.

An hour and a half later, me showered and both of us fed, we descended on the swimsuit department at T.J.Maxx. They had a large selection of suits and were relatively uncrowded in the early evening. Danielle and I each selected eight or ten suits and headed to the fitting room to try them on. We emerged from our dressing rooms simultaneously to inspect our first efforts in the three-way mirror. I wore a tomato red bikini with ruffles, and Danielle had on a black one-piece.

Danielle glared at me balefully. “No woman in her right mind goes swimsuit shopping with a professional dancer.”

I grinned and pirouetted, letting my hair fly. “Oh, come on. You’re in good shape, too; you’re just hiding your great bod under the world’s most hideous suit.”

Looking down at her tank-style suit, Danielle said, “You don’t like it? It fits well.”

I made a raspberry. “Let me pick one out for you.” Ducking into her dressing room, I sorted through the suits she’d selected. “Black tank, black tank with a zipper, navy tank-ooh, going out on a fashion limb there-another black tank, black tank with shirring,” I said, tossing them aside. “Boring, boring, boring! Stay here.” I marched out of the fitting area and back to the racks, forgetting I was still wearing the red bikini until I noticed people staring, especially a middle-aged man buying golf shirts who got tangled up in the spinning clothes rack. Ignoring the attention, I pulled three suits off the rack and took them to Danielle.

“Here.”

She took the suits reluctantly. “They’re so… unblack.”

“They’re bright, colorful, happy. Try them on.”

When Danielle came out in the first suit, a one-shoulder number in dark green with pink and coral flowers splashed across it, I gave her a wolf whistle. With her red hair tumbling over her shoulders, she looked like a tropical siren. Turning to and fro in front of the mirror, she gave a tentative smile. “You don’t think it’s too noticeable?”

“There’s no such thing,” I said with all the positivity of almost twenty years of dancing in skintight outfits spattered with sequins or rhinestones, or slit up to here and down to there , or with sheer illusion panels that skirted the FCC’s decency guidelines, or all of the above. “You look hot. Buy it.”

“Okay.” She giggled and tried on the other suits, and we walked out of the discount house an hour later, the happy owners of two new suits each. Deep dusk had settled over the parking lot, but plenty of traffic still zipped by on Highway 50. Late rush hour-the commuters who worked late to avoid the worst crush of traffic. With the possible exception of midnight until three a.m., every hour of the day in the greater D.C. area was rush hour of some kind.

“Does this mean you’re coming to Jekyll Island?” I asked.

She gave me a “don’t push me” look. “It means I’m planning for all eventualities, keeping my options open.”

“Spoken like a true union negotiator.”

Tucked up in bed an hour later, I started in on the first page of the manuscript, even though my eyelids were drooping. The first chapter consisted mainly of introductory-type comments-why Corinne was writing the memoir and a bit of ballroom dance history. The second and third chapters concerned her childhood and I skimmed those, even though her accounts of her father’s harshness (verging on abuse, it seemed to me) and her younger brother’s death from pneumonia at age four were riveting. The following chapters dealt with the way she fell in love with ballroom dance by watching all the old musicals in the local theater on Saturday afternoons, and her earliest dance lessons, paid for by the money her mother made sewing for neighbors in the evenings after her day’s work was done.

Corinne had just moved to New York City when I must have drifted off, because I awoke the next morning, one manuscript page crumpled under my cheek, the rest of them scattered on the floor where they’d fallen during the night. Great . A glance at the clock told me I didn’t have time to sort them out; Maurice would be here in half an hour to pick me up for the funeral. Hastily scooting the pages together, I stuck them in my bedside table and dashed for my closet. I didn’t have a single outfit anyone would call “solemn,” so I had to settle for a zebra-striped sheath dress that went almost to my knees, with black hose and strappy black sandals. I twisted my hair into a simple chignon and, thinking it was kind of Corinne-ish, added a small black hat with a wisp of veil that I’d worn when Rafe and I performed a foxtrot on the Ballroom with the B-Listers results show a couple years back. A slick of light makeup and I was waiting in the front hall when Maurice pulled up.

When we arrived at the Presbyterian church, Maurice deserted me with an apology to join the other ex-husbands in a front pew, across the aisle from Randolph and Turner Blakely. “Corinne drew up the seating charts,” Maurice explained in a low voice before he headed toward the altar, “and selected the music and the scripture passages for reading, and the flowers. It looks like Turner’s done a nice job of fulfilling her wishes.”

I gave Turner a silent apology for assuming he’d been the one determined to turn Corinne’s funeral into a spectacle; rather, it was Corinne orchestrating the drama from beyond the grave. I shivered and slotted myself into a pew near the back, where the scent of lilies and carnations wasn’t too overwhelming. I could just glimpse the oiled mahogany of the casket. I didn’t think I’d feel compelled to draw up a script for my funeral when the time came.

We were a few minutes early, and I watched as other mourners trickled in. Mrs. Laughlin entered on the arm of Jonathan Goudge, and they were ushered to the pew behind the ex-husbands. Marco Ingelido and his wife arrived and followed an usher to a pew only two in front of where I sat. I guessed they hadn’t made Corinne’s A-list. Lavinia Fremont arrived soon after in a beautifully cut black linen suit and a wide-brimmed hat with enough veil to hide Jimmy Hoffa. I recognized her by her limp, and by the fact that she was shown to the pew Mrs. Laughlin occupied.