Runabout (10 page)

}Tulsa May looked down at her brightly polished brown high-button shoes as if they might run away on her, and followed as best she could. After a few turns it felt surprisingly easy.

}"You're a natural!" Luther told her. "No one would believe that you've never danced before."

}"I sure hope Papa believes it."

}Luther raised his head to glance around the crowd. "The Rev's over to the right, next to Clyde Avery. He looks a little like he got a mouthful of bad poultry, but I think he's apt to survive."

}Tulsa May laughed out loud. It was such a warm, hearty sound that Luther spun her gaily around, nearly taking her breath away.

}"You've got the one-step down, Tulsy," he said. "Do you think you are ready to spiel?"

}Her eyes widened. "It would be scandalous."

}"Yes, ma'am," Luther agreed.

}Tulsa May's conscience pricked her only for a moment. "Let's give it a try."

}"Just hang on, honey," he said. "We're about to set Prattville, Oklahoma, on its ear."

}Slouching up to her, Luther bent his back to put his chin on her shoulder. His arm came around her tightly and pulled her up against the soft cotton stripes of his shirt, closer than a horseshoe on a hoof. The spiel was patterned after the movements of a waltz, only done in double time. They pivoted and spun, whirling swiftly in the middle of the dance floor.

}Tulsa May giggled in surprise at the strange, new sensation as Luther turned her again and again in faster and faster circles.

}"Oh, my!" was the only intelligible statement that she could come up with.

}Luther laughed at her breathless exclamations. Her step was quick and she followed with dexterity, but Luther had spun with more accomplished dancers. He was an experienced "tough dancer" and had spieled in dance halls near and far, but somehow, it had never been quite so much fun before.

}The dancers around them began to fall back to watch as the young couple tore up the floor, in the latest ragtime rage. Roses bloomed in Tulsa May's cheeks as she became aware of eyes upon her all around.

}But another, more disconcerting sensation was also plaguing her. As her gentleman escort bounced her fashionably around the stage, her bosom, restricted only by her crepe de chine corset cover and the pleated voile bodice of her gown, jiggled against him. Embarrassed, Tulsa May moved back slightly. To her consternation the jiggling only increased. Quickly, she pressed herself once more against Luther. It seemed that the only way to control the unseemly spectacle was to meld the softness of her bosom to the hardness of his chest.

}Luther appeared quite oblivious to Tulsa May's predicament and completely delighted at her decision to snuggle up close. She felt him smiling against the side of her neck. His warm whispers of encouragement sent shivers of electrified gooseflesh down her bodice to the points that she pressed so firmly against him.

}"I think the Rev is about to have a conniption," he said. "That is, if Miz Constance doesn't have one first."

}A flash fire of mortification sprang to Tulsa May's cheeks and she pulled back sharply from Luther's embrace. Once again unbound breasts began to wobble like apples in a washtub. Hurriedly, she pushed herself protectively once more against the warm masculine chest.

}She was choosing the lesser of two evils, she told herself.

}It was infinitely more ladylike to snuggle-spiel than to jiggle.

}

}"Merciful heavens!" Emma overheard the whispered exclamation from Fanny Penny, who stood not four feet away from Willie Dix's wheelchair. "It was pitiful enough that she got herself publicly jilted. Must she make a complete fool of herself in front of the whole town?"

}"Whatever do you mean?" came the reply. Emma surreptitiously glanced in that direction to identify the speaker. It was Cora Sparrow, Jedwin's wife.

}"You know exactly what I mean," Fanny continued loudly. "An old maid kicking up her heels with a young bachelor. It's downright embarrassing!" Mrs. Penny made a tutting sound of disapproval.

}"You are being silly, Fanny," Cora soothed. "Luther and Tulsa May are of a similar age. And they are just friends, and they always have been."

}Fanny's tone was huffy with disapproval. "If that is how
friends
dance, I would think her parents shouldn't allow her to have any."

}Although Emma genuinely disliked Mrs. Penny and would gladly disagree with her on whether the sky was blue or green, depending on which side the woman chose, Emma didn't like the looks of Luther's new spieling partner either.

}Emma's day had been a long one. Except for the temporary respite when Doc Odie escorted her among the booths, she'd been entirely alone with her father, struggling with his wheelchair over the grassy terrain. Oh, folks came over to talk—with her father. Willie Dix had been song leader at the community church for years. He was known and loved by all and they didn't hesitate to greet him. The friendliness of Prattville residents toward an ailing old man, however, did not extend to his daughter. She had been ignored, looked through, and occasionally openly snubbed by the ladies of the town. The gentlemen's words were usually more polite but they slid their gaze familiarly across Emma's body, their eyes speaking volumes more disrespect than the tongues of their wives.

}Emma Dix was a fallen woman. No amount of explanations or excuses would ever change that fact. And Emma did not have the will to even try. Were it not for her father, she never would have returned to Prattville. She had worked as a barmaid in Wetumka and Muskogee and discovered that the darker side of city life offered its own brand of friendship and acceptance. She could have stayed there, maybe married a down-on-his-luck gambler or liquored-up cowboy. No one there would ever have heard of Fremont Bateman, and he'd be as gone from her memory as he was from her life.

}But she had come back to Prattville to take care of her father because he needed her and she loved him. So she put up with the sly looks and the disapproving stares and did her duty as a daughter to the man who had given her life.

}"Isn't that your man up there ragging with the preacher's carrot-top?"

}Emma started since the words were whispered intimately in her ear. She turned to find Blue Turley, shined and spiffed and standing at her right shoulder.

}She raised an eyebrow haughtily. "What are you doing here, Turley? Did the pool room burn down?"

}His chuckle was low and humorless and held a trace of lewdness. "Just thought I'd see how the other half is living. What about you? Pretending to be something you ain't?"

}Emma smelled the scent of moonshine liquor on his breath, and chose not to answer.

}Turley motioned once more to the dance floor. "I heard down at Ruggy's place that he done dropped you fair and square. Everybody's talking about who that mighta been for. Now me, I woulda never expected it to be little Tulsa May."

}"They are friends," Emma said primly.

}Turley hesitated, watching the couple pivot and swirl before them. "Yep, I'd say they look right friendly like."

}Emma held herself stiffly beside him, not deigning to answer. Turley casually stepped close in behind her and slipped a hand around her waist.

}"Now that little preacher's daughter has a fine reputation," he continued. "But she sure ain't got what you got."

}As if to illustrate his words, Turley let his hand wander the curve of Emma's backside and surreptitiously squeezed her fanny through the material of her dress.

}Startled, Emma jumped and hastily moved forward against her father's wheelchair and away from the man's unwelcome touch. Setting her jaw tightly, she replied between clenched teeth, "I'm here for an outing with my father."

}Turley raised an eyebrow. He stepped to the side of the wheelchair and gave her father a patronizing smile. Then irreverently, he patted the shoulder of the old man and asked much too loudly, "How you doing today, Willie?"

}Dix raised a rheumy eye to the young man standing beside his daughter and his cheerful smile narrowed into one long thin line. "You're that fellow they call Turley, ain't you?"

}"Yes, sir," the younger man answered loudly, as if the man were deaf.

}Willie Dix gave Blue Turley an assessing look which was long and steady enough to make the younger man uncomfortable. Finally, Emma's father nodded with hesitance. " 'Spect you best be moving on now, Turley."

}Willie glanced up at his daughter's pale face and gave her a tender smile. "Emma dear, could we scoot up a bit closer to the stage? I'm enjoying watching all this dancing."

}

}"Good Lord almighty!" Clyde Avery exclaimed. He glanced apologetically at the reverend, who was standing beside him. "Excuse me, Preacher," he said hastily. "That's ... well, that's some dancing."

}Reverend Philemon Bruder stood stone-still watching his only daughter act in a manner that could be described in the best.of terms as imprudent. He glanced at his wife who was herself bug-eyed.

}Never had he allowed a member of his family to engage in any sort of dancing activity. And on numerous occasions he had sermoned on public dancing at community celebrations.

}"What on earth is she thinking of?" he heard his stunned wife whisper.

}The preacher was more than a little confused himself, There was a part of him that wanted to walk onto the stage, stop the music, and grab his errant offspring by the wrist and drag her home. She should be sent to her room for a week of prayer and chastisement!

}He sighed. There was another part of the reverend that watched his little girl, whom he loved so much, dancing and laughing and looking happier than he'd seen her since she'd been made a public embarrassment at her own engagement party.

}"Philemon—" Constance began to protest.

}"Reverend!"

}An indignant voice beside him halted whatever Constance was about to say.

}Titus Penny, proprietor of the Emporium, and his obviously angry wife Fanny stood staring with disapproval at the young couple on the dance floor.

}"Titus, Fanny," he said calmly. "It certainly is a lovely evening."

}"Reverend, I am shocked," Mrs. Penny said firmly. "I know that young Briggs is a friend of Tulsa May's. But this unseemly behavior—" She gestured to the spieling spectacle on the dance floor.

}The preacher's jaw hardened dangerously. He felt his wife stiffen beside him.

}"If we might have your permission, Reverend," she continued, "I would like to nip this outrageous display in the bud, before any of our other young people are corrupted."

}The reverend regarded Fanny unhappily and then glanced over at her husband, who clearly looked ill at ease and seemed to wish that the ground might open up and swallow him.

}"Make your point, Titus."