Ballroom: A Novel (16 page)

“We talked about this. You can’t bother me at work.” As she stepped toward him, he could see the indentation of her panties across her thighs, the vee of her crotch where the fit of her skirt pulled across her groin.

“Look, you can’t just show up like that in the middle of the night. We have a real good time together, but I just need to know when I’m going to see you. And you never take me any place. Like you’re ashamed of me. I’ve been seeing you for almost a year.”

“It’s only been six months,” he argued.

“I want to go out: to a movie, or dinner, to a show or dancing, like we’re a couple. Plan a vacation or something, like a cruise. I’ve been thinking about my future, and if things don’t change between us, I’m not going to see you anymore.”

“I got to think about it.” He didn’t want this at work. Not now, not when he was filling out forms for City College. “I’ll call you; we’ll get together, talk about it. Just not here.” All he could think was that she was going to make trouble for him; that he’d lose his job. He didn’t want any problems from Simon. She was spoiling things, begging and whining, and besides, he didn’t want to go to dinners and movies.

A
t the end of February she burst into his office, her face flushed and angry. “What did you do to my books?”

“You made mistakes, Miss Fine.” She had become more and more demanding, and yet he could find no way to stop seeing her, or stop himself desiring her. He decided to arrange it so that Simon would fire her without a confrontation on his part, and he’d changed enough of her numbers to create major errors in her paperwork.

“Don’t call me Miss Fine. I didn’t make any mistakes. My work is perfect. You finagled my numbers, you piece of shit!”

“You’ve been late every morning for the past two weeks. Your time card was punched in at ten thirty almost every morning.” He tried to hold himself together, act managerial.

“I wasn’t feeling good. I’ve had some stomach trouble. I went to the doctor.”

“We’re busy right now. See your doctor after work.”

“Why are you doing this to me?” Her shoulders began to shake, and her chin quivered. He knew she was going to cry.

“I don’t want to discuss this in the office. I’m not doing anything. It’s over, that’s all. Over.”

“You keep saying that, and then you show up at my place.” Then she said it so quickly and so quietly he almost didn’t hear her. “I’m pregnant.”

“Pregnant? No. You can’t be.” He slammed his fist into the desk, stood up in disbelief, strode to his office door, looking up and down the hallway to be certain that no one had overheard. His breath was caught somewhere in his chest.

“How did you get pregnant? Not from me. I’m not marrying you, Belle. I’ve got plans.” He tried to keep his voice to a whisper. “There’s no room for marriage and babies in my plans. It must be some other guy.”

He handed her his handkerchief as she sobbed, tempted to take hold of her and push the hair out of her eyes, comfort her. He wouldn’t give in.

“You’ll have to help me. You know it’s you. I’ll need money to see someone.”

“What do you mean? Who are you going to see?”

“I’ll have to get rid of it.”

“Get rid of it?” He thought of how his own mother had never come back for him.

“I can’t have a baby. I’ve got to work. I haven’t got any family to help me. You are all I have. You’ve got to help me. It will cost five hundred dollars.”

He had never asked her about her family. He hardly knew anything about her. Was she threatening him? Would she tell Simon? He’d be ruined. He needed $500 to go to night school. It was half his savings. He didn’t want to marry her. That was certain.

The following week, as he passed her desk, he quietly handed her an envelope with five hundred-dollar bills wrapped in several pieces of paper. A few minutes later, she knocked on the door of his office.

“Thanks, Harry.” When she looked at him with the familiar docile expression of gratitude, he knew she was still waiting for him, and he wanted her. Then his anger stirred again, and he reminded himself how he would feel after.

“I don’t want to talk about this matter anymore, Miss Fine.”

“Would you go with me?” she pleaded. “I have no one to go with me. I’ve got to go to a place on the Upper West Side at nine thirty next Friday. I’m not sure if it’s even a doctor’s office. The instructions say to take the freight elevator. They told me I will need somebody to take me home. That I won’t be feeling so good. The only other person I could ask is Patty, but I don’t want it to get around the office. Please, Harry, I’m begging you.”

It was all too much for him. He had work to do, things to take care of. And if she asked Patty, everyone in the office would know Belle was pregnant and possibly find out that he was responsible.

A
t nine thirty on Friday night, he met Belle on West Eighty-Sixth. She sheepishly took his hand as they went up a freight elevator toward the sixth floor. Her fingers were ice cold, while his were hot and damp.

“I’m really scared.”

“It’ll be all right. Don’t worry. I’ll be here. I’m sorry this had to happen, that you have to go through this. It’ll be all right. I brought you something.” He could see she’d been crying a lot; her eyes were red and swollen.

“You brought
me
something?” She began to cry.

The little blue teddy bear had been in the window of a store on Avenue A. The girl had wrapped it in blue paper with a blue ribbon. Belle buried her nose in the blue fur of its belly, and looked up at Harry in her sweet way. He was frightened, too. Just that morning he’d read the
Daily News
headlines that the cut-up body of a young woman had been found in a sewer after a botched abortion. It had almost made him sick, and he hoped Belle hadn’t seen the paper.

An Indian doctor met them when the elevator stopped and guided them through a dark kitchen, down a hallway into an examining room. Everything smelled of exotic curry spices that made Harry’s head reel. He was grateful that the rooms seemed orderly and clean. The doctor was courteous and gentle with Belle. With his arm around Harry’s shoulder, the doctor escorted him through more unlit passages to a waiting room, assuring him it would not take long while Harry waited. He leafed through
New Yorker
magazines, and listened for any sounds he might hear from the office. The only noise came from the steam coming through pipes. What if it didn’t work? What if he killed her? Could he be the doctor in the newspaper that cut up that woman? If Belle lived and was still pregnant, should he marry her?

At almost eleven, the doctor came for Harry and helped him take Belle back through the same route to the freight elevator. He handed Harry instructions and antibiotics.

“Next time, you two, be more careful. And, young lady, see your doctor for a diaphragm. I don’t want to ever see either one of you again.”

The elevator door clanked shut, and it was just the two of them. Belle almost fell. She seemed foggy, as though she were drunk. She leaned all her weight on him as the elevator descended to the street. It was snowing heavily, and he was relieved he was able to find a taxi. Without a word, he took her to her apartment, eager to get back to his own home.

Y
our work’s been careless, Miss Fine. Mr. Simon’s concerned about whether you really fit in here.”

“I’ll be leaving in two weeks,
Mister
Korn.” She was unafraid to look him in the eye. “March first.” The flush of her cheeks and the strand of hair in her eye disturbed him. He’d stopped seeing her after the abortion, once he knew she was all right. He’d upped his Jack LaLanne workouts, lifting heavier weights, swimming for an hour and a half. He made lists, lists of workout and swim time, lap counts, groceries, food and water intake, and the fluctuations of his weight. On nights when he thought of Belle, he went to the Broadway Palace, where he paid girls to dance while musicians sleepily played Latin songs. He wanted to forget her.

Of the dozen dance hostesses, Tina Ostrov was still his favorite. She was beautiful, leggy enough to be a showgirl, and her English was improving.

“Soon I will go Hollywood to be movie star,” Tina had eagerly told him when he first danced with her, soon after she had emigrated from Russia. “Maybe work Las Vegas first. Sing, dance, make money.”

He was relieved to see her again, but didn’t want any conversation, only to dance with her obliging body. He bought enough tickets to dance with her for half an hour and then nodded toward the bandstand. Tina understood. Slipping a bill into her hand, he led her behind the blue velvet curtain, spattered with stars. There in the dark, Tina, the fragrance of oranges on her skin, allowed him to touch her as she brought him relief. No words, no kisses, no blue ruffled curtains. That was enough for Harry, lost in those moments, fast, easy, the band playing his favorite Latin rhythms.

C
oming to the party, Mr. Korn? Belle Fine’s leaving. She’s going on a cruise to Bermuda and then to a new job at a travel agency on Fifty-Seventh Street,” said Patty Kelley. “We’re taking her to Luchow’s on Fourteenth Street.”

“I got a meeting with a supplier.”

It was his twenty-fifth birthday, and he spent it alone, swimming laps, furious that her dreams were coming true.

Returning to the office, he found a pale blue envelope on his desk.

Before tearing it into pieces, he held it to his mouth, took in her perfume on the stationery; then he threw the pieces in the cafeteria trash.

A
s years passed, there were one-night stands with women he met at Roseland and other dance places around the city. When he began giving private lessons, he was careful never to get romantic with any of his students. It wasn’t as if he didn’t have the opportunity.

Such a man at the head of a dancing school would be of infinite assistance to the young men and women coming upon the stage of action. In his class he would teach pupils the laws of good behavior; he would warn them concerning the evils of bad association; he would instruct them in the importance of regularity of habit and of keeping proper hours; with which instruction he would reform many abuses that now exist at public entertainments.

                
—Thomas E. Hill,
Evils of the Ball
, 1883

W
hat you doin’ Tuesday, sweetheart? You wanna go dancin’, Sarah?”

It’s the first week of February. She can hardly believe that Tony D remembers her name. He has this funny tough-guy way of speaking that reminds her of movie gangsters like Jimmy Cagney.

“Sure. Where?” She’s flattered and excited to have a real dance date.

“China Kim’s, in College Point. My buddies all go there on Tuesdays. Great buffet, all you can eat. Good DJ, too, and a good floor. I think you got what it takes, Sarah.”

And just like that, they are partners.

O
n Tuesday Tony picks her up at the subway station in his blue Chevy Impala and pays for her at China Kim’s—her admission, her drinks, her food—and then drives her home at the end of the evening. All his buddies, who meet there regularly, love Tony and whisper in her ear how lucky she is to be his partner. They tell Tony he’s found “a winner.”

“You guys look great together,” Rocky, one of Tony’s oldest friends, says to her. “I never seen Tony so happy. Not in a long time. You’re a hell of a dancer, and don’t let Tony tell you no different.”

Rocky’s wife Delores nods in agreement, taking Sarah’s hand and squeezing it. Tony and Sarah sit with Rocky and Delores and their crowd of older Italian men and their wives. They only talk about the music and make comments about dancers. Gabriel Katz is also there, dancing with a fashionable new partner, but he doesn’t seem to notice her.

O
n Wednesday, Sarah and Tony practice at the Fifty-Second Street Y; weekends, they dance at the Copa, or Our Lady of Sorrows, the church on the Lower East Side. Maria and Angel are there, and greet her by name. She is thrilled to be dancing five nights a week. Everywhere they go, she looks for Gabriel, and usually she sees him. It goes without saying that everyone is on their own on Sundays at the Ballroom, except Maria and Angel, but at the end of the evening Tony asks Sarah if she needs a ride home, and drives her all the way to Brooklyn.

“I wouldn’t want nothing to happen to you, Sarah,” he says. Happy with a kiss on the cheek, he waits until she is inside and has flipped the outside light switch twice.

D
on’t get serious,” Tina Ostrov warns her. “Don’t expect anything from Tony, and keep your distance from his crowd.”

It is good times with Tony, but she has to admit they have nothing to talk about. She wonders if he lives in one of the grim, vinyl-sided houses in Queens with a little patch of lawn near Main Street, his Impala parked in the driveway. She prefers not to think too much about or know too much about where and how he lives. She can’t quite fathom going out with a man like Tony.

W
hat kind of work do you do?” Sarah asks Tony. It’s Wednesday, and they are taking a break from a practice at the Fifty-Second Street Y. They’ve been dancing for almost two hours without stopping, and she knows that she has the best dance partner in the room.

“I haven’t worked for a coupla years. I worked construction. Had a back injury on the job.”

He dances well for a man with a back injury, she thinks. “So what do you do with your days?”

“Stuff.” He shrugs. “Errands. Read the paper. See some of the guys about some investments. Dance wit’ you.” He laughs and gives her a hug. “And in winter, I go down to Florida.”