Pretending to Dance (16 page)

“Had an idea,” Daddy said now as I opened a document for the second-to-last chapter of his book. He was going to make his goal of finishing the book by summer's end. “I think your friend Stacy lives on the way to my office, right? So how about when Russell takes me to work Monday afternoon, we drop you off at her house for a few hours, if it's okay with her mother. We can pick you up on our way home.”

“Cool!” I said. Stacy and I talked on the phone nearly every day but I hadn't seen her in the week since we slept in the springhouse. Our conversations had taken a strange turn, in that I'd talk about the New Kids and she'd talk about Bryan, who she now referred to as her boyfriend, and Chris, that boy she wanted to fix me up with. Every time she changed the subject to them, I felt a mixture of excitement and trepidation. It made me want to hold my old amethyst palm stone in my hand to calm myself down. I actually planned to get the stone from the secret rock in the springhouse the next time I got the chance. “I'll call her later and see if it's okay,” I said.

“Great,” he said, then he nodded toward the computer. “Ready for chapter eleven?” he asked.

He started dictating again and I started typing, and we worked for another half hour before he said we should quit for the day. I saved the document, then turned to him.

“You know what I really, really want to do today?” I asked.

“What's that?”

“The zip line!” I said.

“The zip line?” he asked. “Where'd that idea come from?”

“And I want you to do it, too,” I said. “Seriously.”

“Oh man, Molly. Do you know how much work that is for Russell?”

“He won't mind.” I was pretty certain he wouldn't. “And I can help him.”

“I don't think—”

“Come on,” I pleaded. “You know you want to do it.”

He smiled, then glanced out the window. “Pretty day for it,” he admitted. “We'll see if Russell has the time. But first, there's something else I need you to do for me.”

“Sure,” I said.

“Start a new document.”

I felt like groaning. We'd been at it for hours this morning. But I obediently opened a new document on the computer. “Ready,” I said, my hands on the keyboard.

“Now right in the center, type the words
pretend to dance
.”

“What?” I laughed.

“You heard me right.
Pretend to dance
.”

I typed the sentence. “Is this for one of your clients?”

“Now print it,” he said, ignoring my question.

“Whatever.” I hit print and the page worked its way through the printer.

“Now get an envelope.”

I reached into the desk drawer and pulled out an envelope.

“Fold the paper up and seal it inside.”

I did as he asked.

“Now, what's your favorite music to dance to these days when you're at Amalia's?”

I thought about it a moment. “Rachmaninoff's second concerto,” I said.

“Good Lord!” He laughed. “She has you dancing to the eastern European composers? Wrist-slitting music. Way too heavy!”

I pouted. “I think it's beautiful,” I said.

He wiped the smile off his face, but it looked like it took some effort. “You're right. It's beautiful. But we need something lighter.”

“At the end of our lesson, she always puts on ‘Footloose' and we just dance around. It's our tradition.”

“Kenny Loggins?” he asked.

“Uh-huh.” I sang a couple of lines, bopping my head to the music, and he nodded.

“Perfect,” he said. “On the envelope, write
play ‘Footloose
.'”

I held my hand above the envelope. “What's this for, Daddy?” I asked.

“Just write it.”

I did.

“Okay, leave the envelope on the desk. Mom will take care of it.”

I propped the envelope up against the printer and looked at him. “Okay?” I asked.

“Perfect,” he said. “Now how about you find Russell and see if he has time to take us on the zip line?”

 

21

 

Russell was in the kitchen, counting Daddy's pills into his weekly pill container, and I waited at the kitchen table until he was finished. I knew there weren't as many pills as there used to be because Daddy'd given up on the experimental drug he'd been taking. It had only seemed to make him worse. Mom wanted to get him into another study, but he wasn't eligible because of the type of MS he had.

Russell screwed the lid on the last pill bottle and looked over at me. “What's on your mind?” he asked.

“Could you help Daddy and me ride the zip line today?”

He raised his eyebrows in surprise, but then he smiled. “That's some smart thinking, Molly,” he said, pressing the top of the pill case shut. “He loves the zip line.”

“Oh good!” I clapped my hands together. “You'll do it?”

“Yes, but I think we'll need some help.”

“Maybe Uncle Trevor's home,” I said. Having Uncle Trevor with us would sap some of the fun out of the afternoon, but he was brawny and strong and I guessed that was what we needed.

Russell shook his head. “After that meeting last night, I don't think Trevor'll be in a mood to help your father,” he said. “Try Amalia. We don't need brute force. Just another pair of hands.”

I called Amalia and she said she'd be happy to help. I told her we'd pick her up in about an hour. Then I got the two harnesses and the helmets out of our shed and put them in the rear of the van.

Daddy sat in his chair in the middle of the second row of seats in the van, while I sat up front with Russell. The van didn't start when Russell turned the key. It sort of made a chugging sound but didn't catch, and my heart sank. All this for nothing? On the third try, though, he got it going.

“I've got to take the van in, Graham,” he said, looking at Daddy in the rearview mirror. “What's your schedule like next week? Is there a day we can do without it?”

“Tuesday,” Daddy said. “Sounds like the battery.” Our van was worth nearly as much as our house, Daddy always said. It had been specially built to transport him and his chair and it was usually very reliable, but it occasionally acted up. Without the van, Daddy could go nowhere, and I was afraid Russell might nix this whole adventure. What if the van got stuck by the zip line platform and we couldn't get it home?

But he put the van in gear and we took off. As we drove up the loop road, it occurred to me that I could pick up my palm stone on the way.

“Could we stop by the springhouse, please?” I asked when we were nearly to the springhouse path. “I need to get something.”

“Sure,” Russell said. He pulled to the side of the road near the path and kept the engine running while I hopped out of the van and ran down the leaf-and-ivy-littered path to the springhouse. Inside, I climbed onto my twin bed under Johnny Depp's watchful eyes. I pulled the fake stone away from the wall and reached into the dark space for the amethyst palm stone, slipping it into the pocket of my shorts.

Back in the van, Daddy and Russell were talking about the Asheville Tourists baseball team, but they stopped when I got in, and Russell began driving again.

“Get what you needed?” Daddy asked me, as if he knew.

“Uh-huh.” I remembered telling him my palm stone was in the secret rock. He probably thought I wanted it for the ride on the zip line. I'd let him think that. He didn't need to know I wanted it to get through those “I want to fix you up with this boy” conversations with Stacy.

Russell turned onto the narrow lane that led to Amalia's house. We bumped along the road for a little while, and when he pulled into the clearing by her house, she was waiting out front, sitting on a tree stump that someone had carved into the shape of a chair years before I was born.

She opened the side door of the van and got in, sitting down next to my father's chair, and the whole van filled with the honeysuckle scent of her hair.

“Hey, everybody,” she said. She reached around the side of my seat to squeeze my shoulder.

“Hey,” I said back to her as Russell started up the road again.

“How're you feeling after last night?” I heard her ask my father. Was she talking about the meeting? That was the only thing I knew of that had happened last night, but it seemed like a weird question for her to ask.

“Excellent,” Daddy said. “You?”

She didn't answer right away, or maybe she'd spoken too quietly for me to hear. Then she said something that sounded like
brokenhearted
and my father said something even harder to hear. I glanced at Russell who kept his eyes on the road, pretending there was no conversation at all happening behind us. I tried to do the same.

We passed Nanny's house, then made a little turn into the woods, and the zip line platform poked up through the trees to our right. Even though it had been a year since any of us had been on the zip line, we all seemed to know the drill. Russell lowered the van's mechanical ramp and Amalia pushed the wheelchair down it to the ground. I got the harnesses and helmets from the rear of the van, while Russell headed for the cables that hung from the platform high above us.

Amalia wheeled Daddy to the foot of the platform, and I handed one of the harnesses and helmets to Russell, then headed for the platform stairs. “See you at the top, Dad!” I said.

I climbed the hundred and thirty-two steps to the platform without once stopping to catch my breath, though I'd really slowed down by the time I reached the top. I'd forgotten how beautiful it was up there. I set down the harness and gulped in the clean mountain air. Standing next to the hoist, I looked over the railing to see Russell and Amalia still struggling to fit my father's uncooperative body into the harness. I had a flash of guilt that I'd suggested the zip line at all. Maybe I was only making things worse for him. Whenever I had to move part of his body, I understood why Russell had those thick, ropy muscles in his arms. Daddy's limbs were rigid and almost impossible to bend. It was like trying to move something far heavier than its mass. I once heard Uncle Trevor say that lifting Daddy was like lifting a “deadweight,” and Russell had cut him a look that could kill.

“Hello, down there!” I called, trying to make my voice cheerful, mostly for my own sake.

Amalia looked up and waved. “How's the atmosphere up there?” she called.

“Awesome!” I said.

Russell looked up at me. “He's hooked up,” he said. “You ready?”

“Yup. Tell me when.”

“Now,” Russell said.

I started the hoist, watching as the cables lifted my father from his wheelchair. Uncle Trevor had come up with the whole hoist idea years ago, when it became impossible for Daddy to make it up the steps. Slowly, my father rose into the air and I watched his blue helmet getting closer and closer to me. The hoist groaned and clanked so noisily that, if I hadn't known the sounds were normal, I would have been worried. Russell and Amalia had disappeared from the ground below and I knew they were climbing the stairs to the platform. I hoped at least one of them made it to the top by the time Daddy was even with the gate. I'd never had to pull him onto the platform by myself and doubted I could do it. As my father rose closer, I saw the stillness of his body. His legs dangled. His arms looked rigid against his sides. It was like looking at a lifeless body and I had to turn my gaze out to the trees, my throat suddenly tight.

I heard Russell and Amalia on the stairs below, getting closer, their steps slowing down while their breathing sped up. In a moment, the hoist pulled my father even with the platform, and I stopped the machine. He dangled there, smiling at me.

“Hey, Daddy,” I said, opening the hinged gate on the side of the platform.

“Hey, kiddo,” he said.

“We're here, we're here!” Amalia announced as she and Russell emerged from the steps onto the platform. She bent over to catch her breath, her hair nearly sweeping the wooden floor.

“Good job, Molly,” Russell said. He held on to the railing, his back muscles tensing beneath his black T-shirt as he stretched to reach the crane, swinging it forward to bring Daddy onto the platform. I never would have been able to do it by myself.

In a moment, we had my father on the floor of the platform and Russell moved the carabiners from his harness to the zip line. Then Amalia and I kept Daddy sitting upright while Russell adjusted the harness so that my father was suspended a foot or so from the floor.

“All right,” Russell said, straightening up. He handed me one of the walkie-talkies. “I'll go to the other end and tell you when to let him go.” The zip line ended on a bed of soft pine needles. It had a braking system that slowed it way down before reaching the trees, but in my father's case, it was still important that someone be there to help him stop.

Daddy hadn't been kidding when he said how much work the zip line was for Russell, I thought. I grabbed Russell's wrist as he headed for the stairs and he looked at me expectantly.

“Thank you.” I tried to say it quietly so that only he would hear, and I thought I succeeded.

He smiled at me. “It's okay, Molly,” he said, just as quietly. “It's all good.”

I listened as Russell started down the steps, then turned back to my father. He was suspended a couple of feet in the air above the platform, his feet against the gate that would hold him in until Russell gave the all clear. I sat down in one corner of the platform by the gate and Amalia sat in the other, both of us facing my father. After a couple of minutes, we heard the van start up far below us, and I let out my breath in relief, grateful that the fading battery seemed to have healed itself.

Amalia's gaze was on my father. “Uncomfortable?” she asked him.

“Not at all,” Daddy said. “Merely anticipatory.”