Howard Norman - Next Life Might Be Kinder

When the Boswell Sisters song ended, Arnie Moran all but shouted into the microphone, “Let your fancy feet get their money’s worth!” Right away he punched the jukebox buttons and on came another fast tune, and this was when I saw Alfonse Padgett, who’d been dancing with a woman across the room, make a beeline for Elizabeth. Elizabeth’s partner had gone to the ladies’, and when she returned shot Padgett a nasty look, then stomped out of the ballroom, which of course left Padgett’s recent dance partner the odd woman out. Arnie Moran didn’t miss a trick. He saw the lopsided arithmetic of the situation and jumped chivalrously from the bandstand, bowed deeply in front of the abandoned woman, took her in his arms, and dipped her back with dexterity and flair. She was at once convinced.

But now Alfonse Padgett was holding Elizabeth and insisting that they slow their movements. I could see Elizabeth acquiesce for the sake of not making a scene, but she kept Padgett at arm’s length. He’d press forward; Elizabeth would stiffen her arms. In a moment, Arnie Moran navigated his partner close to Padgett and kicked him in the ankle without breaking stride. Padgett winced, then let go of Elizabeth and limped over and sat on the bandstand. When Arnie Moran sashayed his partner past Padgett, Padgett formed a pistol with his finger and thumb, aimed it at Arnie Moran, and pulled the trigger.

When the song ended, Elizabeth walked over to me and threw her arms around my neck. She smelled of perfume and sweat in a way that made for an elixir, and whispered, “I did pretty well until the creep made his move — really creepy. You recognize him? It’s bellman Padgett, who delivered my chaise longue. Let’s go now. I’m all done in.”

Elizabeth’s Welsh accent seemed to become more pronounced when she was upset or dramatically flirtatious or when she chose to be very emphatic. Like when she said, “I’m all done in.”

It was about nine-thirty when we got back to our apartment. Elizabeth right away ran a hot bath and, once she slid into the claw-footed bathtub, left the bathroom door wide open. I was sitting at the kitchen table. “Wash my back?” she called out.

I went in and sat on the rim of the bathtub and took up a washcloth. As I massaged her back in slow eddies, she said, “Enjoy watching us klutzes dance?”

“You looked great. You really did.”

“Some partner I had, huh? I mean the first one. Name, as it turns out, is Grancel Fitz. Her husband owns the hotel.”

“In fact, that was their daughter, Miriam, on the dance floor, too.”

“Dancing with the bellman Jacob Grune, right? She might be jailbait, do you think?”

“With her mother chaperoning?”

“I’ve got news for you, O innocent husband of mine. My bet is that it might’ve been jailbait Miriam chaperoning her mother. Want to know why I say that?”

I dipped the washcloth into the sudsy water, leaned forward, and squeezed the water over Elizabeth’s breasts, purposely touching her nipples, circling each one with my thumb, just for a moment. “No fair,” she said. “Oh, I get it, maybe thinking of Miriam Fitz as jailbait turned you on. Better watch that.”

“Okay, what’s your theory?”

“ Because— it was revealed to me in the ladies’ room, in no uncertain terms, that Mrs. Grancel Fitz is more than a student of the intermediate lindy with Mr. Arnie Moran.”

“Goodness, she’d have to be really organized to keep track of everything. Husband in one room, dance instructor in another. Me, I couldn’t have a secret life. I’d forget it was there.”

“Continue with the washcloth, please. There’s more.”

“All in an evening’s detective work for Elizabeth Church Lattimore, right? How do you find out so much, so quickly?”

“You just talk and then listen. I can teach you.”

“Never mind.”

“Okay, so… Oh, that feels so nice, Sam. Okay, so, furthermore, my dance partner, Grancel, she wanted, you know, to be my partner. You know, elsewhere but the ballroom.”

“Well, she’s got ambidextrous taste there. She’s also got good taste. And I don’t mean with Arnie Moran.”

“Mental telepathy, Sam! You and me have mental telepathy, because that’s exactly what I said to her invitation. I said, ‘You’ve got good taste.’ I meant to shut it down right there with that quip. But she came right back with, ‘I bet you taste good.’”

“Fast on her feet, Mrs. Fitz. I really like the name Grancel, though.”

“Me too.”

“Can I get in the tub with you?”

“No.”

“How about now?”

“No. What did you make of Arnie Moran?”

“Right out of central casting or what?”

“I’m not so sure,” Elizabeth said. “He seemed, I don’t know, genuine.”

“A genuine something, that’s for sure. Anyway, you caught on to the lindy fast.”

“The lindy’s pretty basic, actually. But Arnie Moran’s a good teacher. ‘Just be loose as a goose in a caboose.’ He says things like that.” Elizabeth stood up and I wrapped a towel around her. “I liked how I felt after the lesson,” she said, “but I had to wash the creep bellman Alfonse Padgett off,” she said.

We then removed directly to the Victorian chaise longue.

THE FOURTH OR fifth day I was in the cottage, I said to Philip and Cynthia, over coffee and strudel in their living room after dinner, “As you know, my wife Elizabeth died. But now I’m in luck, because I’m allowed visits with her on the beach behind your house. This began the first night I moved in. How she located me here I don’t know. She lines up books. We sometimes have conversations.” When I said these things, I noticed the look of surprise on their faces. But that was all, really. Neither of them said, “What? What are you talking about?” or any such thing. “My mind’s not in any fragile or dangerous condition,” I said. “I want you to rest assured of that. Please rest assured. But your guests may be bothered or curious, so if you’re having a dinner party, say, and I’m on the beach, you might want to come up with some explanation. That I’m a stargazer or something. I could buy a modestly priced telescope.”

“That won’t be necessary,” Philip said.

“Really, it’s none of our business,” Cynthia said. “Consider the beach yours. Swim there if you like to swim, but the water’s cold even in summer. As for Elizabeth — for my money, for as long as seeing her lasts, you’re one of the lucky ones.”

Who are these good people? I thought. Why aren’t they upset at what I’ve just told them? Maybe it’s too much to take in, just over coffee. Maybe later they’ll get freaked out. Maybe they’ll try to buy the cottage back. But at least now they know this about me. Not a hint of condescension from Philip and Cynthia, whatever they thought or spoke privately about later, and no follow-up inquiry. Though one evening, when I’d stepped into their house (note taped to the door: Sam, come in! ), I heard Cynthia’s voice coming from the kitchen: “You know I’m hardly the mystical type, Philip, but if I die in a car wreck, I mean, you never know what might happen next. I might want to hang around and keep an eye on you.” And Philip replied, “You could make a friend of Elizabeth Church on the beach out back.” So I knew they were tossing things around in conversation. Of course they were. I walked into the kitchen and Philip said, “Oh, Sam, hello. Drink?”

Philip is sixty-one; he retired from practicing law three years ago. He was able to do this, financially, because he’d litigated a class-action suit against an Ontario-based pharmaceutical company. The case was in all the papers; the settlement was astronomical. Philip’s fee set him up nicely. After a few glasses of wine one night, he’d said, “At that point in time, my passion was not the law but to get out of the law. I didn’t much like myself in those days. I did some good work, I suppose. But I had just about shut down toward the profession. Some days, and no melodrama intended here, I felt like I was drowning. Then, after the lawsuit was settled, we went on holiday to the south of France. Just for two weeks. While there, my daughter gave me a book of Japanese haiku. It was a birthday present. This may sound, I don’t know, typical, in some midlife-crisis way, but I couldn’t possibly have predicted the effect this collection had. One haiku in particular, and please don’t get the impression I spontaneously had become a Buddhist. It wasn’t that. I suppose I’d brought a rather surprising sort of philosophical need along to France. I can recite it: ‘How far to the end of the world? Why, just a day’s journey.’ That’s the whole thing. I read myself into it and kept reading myself into it. I didn’t crave transcendence, spiritual instruction, none of that. I wanted a different journey. I wanted out of the world of lawyers. Take it a day at a time. Spend more time with Cynthia and our daughter. First day back from France, I gave my notice. Oh, I’m hardly missed, I’m sure. No attorney at base is indispensable, no matter what said attorney would like to think. Next thing I did was start to give training sessions to young attorneys in several countries in East Africa — human rights matters, mainly. I’d traveled there in my twenties and loved the landscapes and the people. I’d like to go back. Generally, we spend all year here in Port Medway, except for December and January, when we’re in Toronto. Our daughter Lauren’s there with the two granddaughters. I do my best thinking in Port Medway. Cynthia does her best work here, too.”