People were milling around now, pairing off into new couples, and Sumner hung back by the punch bowl, waiting until the new song had begun. Then he crossed the room to a woman in a yellow pantsuit who was standing by the record player, arms crossed and watching the dancers with a half smile on her face. He came up to her grinning, extended his hand, and asked her to dance. She ran a hand through her short white hair, then nodded once before taking his hand and following him onto the floor. He slipped an arm around her waist, old-time style, and they began a neat box step, one-two-three-four. The music was cheerful and happy and everyone was smiling in this shiny room, where time could stop and you could forget about aching joints and old worries and let a young, handsome boy ask you to dance. I stood in the doorway and watched Sumner charm this woman as he had charmed me, and my sister, so many years ago. And I saw him through several more songs, each time waiting until everyone else was paired off and picking a woman who was standing alone watching the others. A wallflower wanting to join in but with something stopping her.
After a half hour the record man leaned into a microphone and said in a deep voice, “Last song, everyone. Last song.”
I waited for Sumner to repeat his ritual for this last dance on this summer afternoon. He skirted the edge of the dancers, flitting in and out of my sight, a red blur among the shifting shapes. Then he cut right through the crowd, past women with their eyes closed, lost in the music, and walked a slow, steady pace right to me. He held out his hand, palm up like expecting a high five, and said, “Come on, Haven. It’s the last dance.”
“I don’t dance,” I said, my face flushing when I noticed all the couples on the floor were looking at us with that proud, attentive look of grandparents and spinster aunts.
“I’ll show you,” he said, still grinning. “Come on, twinkletoes.”
I put my hand into his and felt his fingers fold over mine, gently leading me to the edge of the floor. I was about to make some joke about how I dwarfed him but he put his arm around my waist and pulled me closer and suddenly I didn’t feel like joking about anything. He held my hand and concentrated on the music before saying, “Okay. Just do what I do.”
So I did. I’ve never been a dancer, always too clumsy and flailing. Dancing was for tiny girls and ballerinas, girls the size to be hoisted and dipped, easily enclosed in an arm. But as Sumner led me around the floor, my feet slowly getting used to the curve and glide of the steps, I didn’t think about how tall I was, or how gawky, or how I stood so far over him, his head at my neck. I closed my eyes and listened to the music, feeling his arm around me. I was tired, after this long day and it suddenly seemed like I wouldn’t even be able to stand up without Sumner there supporting me, holding my hand. The music was soaring, all soprano and harps and sadness, mourning some lost boy away at war, but still I kept my eyes shut and tried to remember every detail of this dance, because even then I knew that it wouldn’t last. It was just a moment, a perfect moment, as time stood still and fleetingly everything fell back into its proper place. I let him lead me around the floor of the senior center and forgot everything but the feel of his shoulder beneath my hand and his voice, saying softly, “There you go, Haven. That’s great. Can you believe it? You’re dancing.”
When the music stopped and I opened my eyes, all those elderly couples were grouped around us, applauding and smiling and nodding at each other, a silent consensus that what I’d felt wasn’t just imagined. There was something special about Sumner, something that spread across rooms and years and memories, and for the length of a song I’d been part of it once again.
“So,” he said once we were in his car and pulling out of the parking lot, “tell me what’s wrong.”
“Nothing,” I said, holding my hand out and letting the warm air push through it as we went down the street, back to the boulevard.
“Come on, Haven.” We were at a stoplight now, and he turned to look at me. His eyes were so blue behind his glasses, which were lopsided. “I know what happened at the mall.”
I kept my eyes on the light, waiting for the green. “That was no big thing,” I said, trying to conjure up my bold self, to hear that whooshing again that made me rise above it all, immune. “I quit anyway.”
He was still looking at me. “Haven. Don’t bullshit me now. I know when something’s wrong.”
And still we sat, at what had to be the longest light in the world, with him staring at me until I finally said, “I’m just pissed off at Ashley, okay? And my mother and all this wedding crap.” I sat back in my seat, balancing my feet on the dashboard the way I’d seen Ashley do all those years ago. “I really don’t want to talk about it.”
The light changed and we turned right, heading towards the mall and my neighborhood. “Well,” he said slowly, shifting gears, “don’t be so hard on Ashley. Getting married must be kind of stressful. She probably doesn’t mean to take it out on you.”
“It’s not about the wedding,” I said, realizing how tired I was of repeating these words and this sentiment. “God, Ashley did exist before this wedding, you know, and she was my sister a long time before she became the bride, and we have problems going way back that have nothing to do with this goddamn wedding anyway.”
“I know she existed before this,” he said gently. “I knew her once too, remember?”
“Yeah, but when you knew her she was different,” I said. “God, Sumner, you made her different. You changed her.”