Marcia Talley - Dead Man Dancing

‘Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach,’ I quoted.

‘Yes, except Jay can and does. He’s an inspirational teacher.’

‘Does Jay have many private students?’ I asked, recalling how much time he’d taken with Ruth before she’d been sidelined by the parking lot attack.

‘Quite a few. Melanie and Don, of course, then when Don shipped out, the time he spent working with Melanie and with Hutch.’ He rolled his eyes. ‘Then there’s always little Tessa Douglas and her dreadful mother.’

‘Preparing Tessa and little what’s-his-name for Tiny Ballroom ?’

Chance snorted. ‘Next thing you know it’ll be Dancing in Diapers .’ He shivered. ‘I don’t know about you, Hannah, but seeing manic grins pasted on orange-colored ten-year-old faces is pretty creepy.’

I laughed out loud. ‘Wearing Ken and Barbie clothes from the 1960s? I agree. Unnerving.’

I glanced around the empty studio. ‘It’s rather quiet today, isn’t it? This is the first time I’ve been here when Tessa and her mother weren’t. I was beginning to think they had an apartment out back or something.’

‘It’d be more convenient, that’s for sure. Tessa gets a lesson of some sort almost every day. Ballet, tap, ballroom.’

I thought about the price list Ruth had showed me, did some quick multiplication in my head and said, ‘That must cost Shirley a fortune.’

Chance’s eyes widened. ‘You kidding? Shirley gets a deep discount. Nudge-nudge-wink-wink.’

‘Are you implying…’ I began, thinking that if Jay and Shirley were having an affair, surely they wouldn’t have been as openly friendly around the studio as I’d recently observed.

He arched an eyebrow. ‘And he was working with Ruth Gannon for free.’

I froze. ‘Ruth is my sister. She’s not…’

Chance stopped me with a raised hand. ‘Sorry. Forget I said anything.’ He managed a boyish grin. ‘Bit of a late night last night. Not functioning on all cylinders, I’m afraid.’

I wondered if Chance meant to imply that Ruth was getting a nudge-nudge-wink-wink special rate from Jay. I’d just seen Chance tapping away on the office computer. He could have been whiling the time away playing Free Cell, of course, but since Chance had access to the studio’s computer files, including its financial records, he had to know how much students were paying and for what. I knew why Jay had been working with Ruth for free, and Chance should have known it, too: Ruth’s good showing on Shall We Dance? would have been a major coup for the studio, a bullet point on any franchise prospectus Jay might be mailing out. It still was, but the name Melanie Fosher would be getting set in Times New Roman font alongside of Gaylord Hutchinson instead of Ruth Gannon.

Did Chance suspect Ruth of having an affair with Jay? And if so, had he mentioned his groundless suspicions to anyone else?

‘Things are not always what they seem,’ I said, both in defense of my sister and, in spite of how much the woman annoyed me, Tessa’s mother, Shirley.

Chance shrugged his massive shoulders again, causing his neatly tucked T-shirt – ‘I Do All My Own Stunts’ – to inch upwards. ‘Whatever.’

‘Look, Chance,’ I said, gladly changing the subject, ‘I’m going up to the hospital. Are there any messages for Kay?’

Chance adjusted the belt that encircled his impossibly narrow waist. ‘Just tell her it’s all under control. We’re closing the studio on Monday and Tuesday, but starting Wednesday, I’m taking Jay’s students, and Melanie will be filling in with my classes, so we’re completely covered.’ He checked his watch again. ‘She should be here by now, in fact. Melanie, that is. We’ve got the Swing and Sway Seniors coming in on the van at two. Always a lively bunch, but Melanie can handle them.’

I made a mental note to mention the Swing and Sway Seniors to my father and Neelie, bid goodbye to Chance, and pointed my car west on 665 and north on I-97.

When I got to the hospital, a cheerful woman at reception informed me that Jay had been moved to a private room on the sixth floor. She pointed me in the direction of the elevator.

I found the room, and entered it quietly. Kay was sitting on a chair pulled up close to Jay’s hospital bed. On the bed, Jay seemed to be resting peacefully. An oxygen tube was strapped to his nose and an IV snaked into his arm. ‘Kay,’ I whispered.

Kay turned a worried, tear-streaked face to me. ‘Hello, Hannah.’

‘How’s he doing?’ I asked.

‘They’ve sedated him. He’s exhausted from throwing up.’ She got up from the chair, took my arm gently, and guided me into the hallway. ‘Let’s go somewhere where we can talk.’

Kay led me down the corridor to an upholstered settee in front of a picture window that let in the bright winter sunshine. Her eyes looked tired, the lashes still heavy with dark clumps of the make-up she’d worn for the previous day’s performance.

‘He seems better today, Hannah. At least the vomiting has stopped. But he’s really sick.’

‘What’s wrong?’

‘They don’t know.’ She twisted her hands in her lap. ‘They’re testing him for everything under the sun.’

‘So it’s not flu?’

Kay looked away from me, and stared out the window. ‘No.’

After a long moment she said, ‘Isn’t it amazing how life goes on?’ She pointed. ‘Those people down there in the street; those cars. My world’s tumbling down, and I feel like they should stop and share my pain. But, no. They go on and on as if nothing’s happened.’

‘I know how you feel,’ I said to Kay, confident that being familiar with my medical history because of Dance for the Cure, she’d realize that I wasn’t mouthing empty platitudes. After my cancer diagnosis, I remember being surprised to see the flowers still blooming in the planters outside the doctor’s office, people still driving along busy Bestgate Road, rushing to the mall on important errands. Later at the 7/11, someone had been arguing with the Vietnamese clerk because he’d had the bad judgment to run out of copies of the New York Times . ‘This is not a crisis,’ I remember telling the loudmouth jerk as I waited in line behind him to pay for my half and half. ‘You could be diagnosed with cancer. That would be a crisis.’ He’d given me a drop-dead look and stalked out, while the rest of the people in the line applauded. Maybe I’d given him something to think about.

Kay turned her attention from the activity on the streets of downtown Baltimore, blinking rapidly, saying nothing.

‘So, if it’s not the flu, what? Food poisoning?’ I prompted.

‘They’re not sure. He’s been complaining for weeks that his legs felt funny, like rubber, you know? But he danced through it, focusing on the routine. We almost made it, didn’t we, Hannah?’

I laid my hand over hers. ‘Your paso doble was brilliant. You’ll be back on the dance floor in no time.’

She arched a single darkly-penciled eyebrow. ‘Do you think they’re going to put that on television?’

From Kay’s expression, I couldn’t determine whether she hoped they would televise a clip of their performance, or prayed that they wouldn’t. I could picture it now, news at five, six and eleven – Kay’s leap, Jay’s catch and their fall – in slo-mo, over and over. I squeezed her hand reassuringly. ‘Don’t worry, Kay. There wasn’t anything on the evening news last night.’

Cameras hadn’t been allowed in the theater, but I wondered how many people had sneaked them in anyway, and how many views of Jay and Kay’s routine had been posted to YouTube by day’s end. I decided not to mention it.

Kay’s brows drew together as if I’d asked her a particularly difficult question, then just as suddenly, the look of concentration vanished. ‘I’m expecting the doctor in a few minutes. Guess I better get back to the room.’