Body & Soul (29 page)

"She dances well," Ivan said.

Claude and Ivan went over to the bandstand and watched the musicians. A septet—rhythm section and four horns—with Lester Lanin calling out the tunes, which flowed one into the other without a break. "They don't use music," Claude said. "And watch how he flashes them the key signatures. See that! Three fingers down, three flats." They listened and watched until the end of the tune. "Look. One finger up.
One sharp. G major." As the new number began, the saxophones, trumpet, and trombone blended neatly.

"They're pretty good," Claude said, surprised. "They play together at least."

"Peppy," said Ivan. "Quite peppy, as usual."

"You've heard them before?"

"They play all these events. All the Social Register stuff." Ivan drained his punch.

"What's the Social Register?"

"There's Bitsy Ingalls," Ivan said, moving away. "I believe I will ask her to dance."

Claude, feeling self-conscious, went back to the punch bowl and took an inordinate amount of time serving himself. As he turned to look at the dance floor he saw Catherine dancing with another boy, and then yet a third boy cut in and waltzed her back into the crowd. Bearing his glass cup carefully, Claude moved to the wall and sat down on one of a line of empty chairs. The punch was surprisingly good, tart and slightly fizzy.

"I know who you are." A stocky girl with red hair and freckles swept her skirt behind her knees with one arm and sat down beside him. "You're Rawlings. Catherine told me." She was boyish, to the point that he somehow sensed her lack of comfort in the frilly clothes, and resolutely cheerful.

"Oh, yes," he said, hiding his pleasure at the thought that Catherine had actually mentioned him to someone else. "Hi."

"Brigett McMann. Are you going to play the piano?"

He hadn't even thought of it. For an instant he allowed himself the fantasy—the familiar comfort of the keyboard, the self-assertive rush he would feel knocking out, say,
Rhapsody in Blue
and watching their jaws drop—but he quickly squelched it. "Er, no."

"Well then, let's dance." She somehow eased him onto his feet before he knew what was happening. She put her hand on his right shoulder.

He was nervous, and yet in the back of his mind was the notion that he had to dance with Catherine at least once, and that he might as well try to get the feel of it with this girl, whose hand he now clasped. The band was playing "I've Got You Under My Skin" at a fairly brisk clip.

After a moment she said, "Is this something special?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I mean we're just standing here."

"Oh." He looked down for a second. "No, I'm trying to figure out, I'm trying to catch the—"

"Put your left foot forward." Brigett pulled him with gentle pressure. "Then to the side, then back. That's it." She smiled broadly. "Then start all over. Yeah. That's it!"

They began to dance. Responding to hints communicated through her hands, he began to get the hang of it and speeded up his movements until he caught the tempo of the tune.

"Terrific," she said, and moved in a bit closer. There was still plenty of air between their bodies, but now it was easier to turn. He marveled at her adroitness, how she anticipated the few little variations he began to introduce. It seemed like magic.

"Terrific," she said again. "Forget about me. Do anything you want and I'll follow. Really. "

"You mean it?"

"Absolutely. I know what I'm doing."

Feeling giddy, he tried a full turn and they made it without missing a beat. He could hardly believe it, and almost immediately did it in the opposite direction.

"Whee!" she said softly, light as a feather. "Isn't it fun?"

They smiled at each other, and he felt a sudden rush of gratefulness to her. A complete stranger, Brigett had brought him through this dreaded ritual easily and comfortably, as if it were nothing at all.

"I love to dance," she said, after somehow reading his body in such a way as to lead him, without his knowing it, into a particularly nifty move. It was as if she knew what he was going to do before he did, and got there ahead of him. "They say I'm the best dancer at Brearley." She laughed at her own daring.

Claude was intoxicated by the fact that he was really dancing, not just going through the motions, but dancing, the way they did in the movies. They kept on for tune after tune, and he believed he was cutting a fine figure. Eventually the music stopped. She gave him a pat on the shoulder.

"Have to go to the ladies'," she said. "Let's do it again sometime."

"You bet," he said, flushed. "Thank you."

She moved away, transformed back into an ordinary, stocky girl with red hair.

***

In the small men's room, he edged around a group of upperclassmen lounging by the marble washbasin drinking from small flasks. One of them offered his curved silver vessel. "Scotch?"

Claude took it and pretended to drink. A few drops entered his mouth and he almost coughed. "Thanks." He returned the flask and went to the urinal.

"I believe I am in love," one of the boys was saying, "struck through the heart like Romeo on the plaza."

"On the plaza?" another voice asked. "Was it the plaza?"

"Wherever it was."

A third voice, thick from whiskey: "Oh, it's just boobs. I'm sick of them and their precious boobs."

"Jenkins, you're an animal," the first voice said good-naturedly.

"A drunken animal," someone else added.

"I'm not going to be led around by my nose," Jenkins said.

"Ah," said the first voice, "would that she would only touch my nose." General laughter. "I'd follow her anywhere. Oh, yes, yes, take my nose!"

Claude zipped up and made his way back to the ballroom. He sat down on the edge of the bandstand and listened to the trombone player doing inside harmony. The music was slower now, with fewer people on the dance floor.

"Time to do your duty," Catherine said, surprising him, appearing from over his shoulder.

He stood up instantly. Avoiding his eye, she moved into his arms and they began to dance. The very abruptness of her nearness shocked him into silence. Unlike dancing with the other girl, this seemed intimate, the closeness of her body overwhelming his senses. His hand at her waist felt the curve of her body, and when the blue velvet shifted a millimeter under the light pressure of his fingers he became aware of her skin, of her smooth, hidden flesh. She was warm from dancing, emanating a faint scent like hot peaches. She moved in closer, her breasts touching him, and once, as he began a turn, he felt, for a delirious instant, the whole length of her body against his own.

"You can dance," she said. They were the same height, their faces very near. Still she did not look directly at him.

"I'm learning," he managed to say.

"Well, I guess I'm disappointed," she said. "I was imagining it would be like dancing school when I was a little girl. You know, one, two, three. Baby steps for baby feet."

He didn't know what to make of this remark.

"Oh, it's all right," she said, as if sensing his confusion. She saw something behind him and then he felt someone tap his back.

"No," Catherine said.

"Cutting in," said a voice behind Claude.

"I said no, Bobby." She put her cheek against Claude's. "Shove off." Her breath exploded in his ear, and then gently, whispering as they danced, "What a jerk." After a moment she took her cheek away.

He was surprised to find she was not as good as Brigett. Ivan had complimented Catherine as they'd watched her being swept away so firmly by the tall boy with the slicked-back hair, but now Claude discovered that with a tentative dancer like himself she was not so light on her feet. Rather than anticipating his moves, she was a fraction of a second late. There was something perfunctory to her dancing—it reminded him of the way her half-brother played the violin—and he could tell she took no particular pleasure in it. For himself, he cared about nothing but the chance to hold her, to be close to her, and this made him feel guilty, as if he were taking advantage.

When the music stopped he looked around for Ivan, took Catherine over for introductions and a final glass of punch. After some small talk Catherine said to Ivan, "I like England. That is, I've never been there, but I'd like to go."

"It's cold and damp, and the sun sets at four in the afternoon, but I like it too," he replied.

"Was it true about the buzz bombs? As long as you hear the buzz it's all right, but if it stops, you jump under a park bench or something?"

"That's what they say. I don't really know from my own experience. I was quite far from London, actually."

She laughed. "That's fun, the way you say 'actually' "

Ivan smiled. "It's pleasant to be able to amuse someone without expending any effort. Just by being one's self, as it were."

There was a brief silence. Claude felt uncomfortable and found himself blurting out a question he had previously decided not to ask.

"Don't you think it's funny," he said, trying to get her to look at him, "those war games Peter is playing with your mother?"

She did look at him, with a hint of sharpness. "Toy soldiers," she said.

"But the swastika. The stuff he says about Hitler."

"Oh, don't be so bourgeois. He's just a little boy."

Claude wasn't sure what she meant by bourgeois, so he said nothing.

"It was a pleasure meeting you," Ivan said. "See you anon, Claude." He walked away.

"He's the one you think is clever," Catherine said.

"Yes."

"You're probably right. Let's get out of here."

In the darkness of the Packard her face was pale and luminous. "Where should we drop you?"

He didn't want to leave her, but he also didn't want her to see where he lived. "Are you hungry? We could get a hamburger at Prexy's."

"Maybe another time," she said. "I'm expected at home. My grandfather will be there. They all went to the theater and he's supposed to be disappointed I didn't come."

"Oh." His mind spun emptily.

"What should I tell Charles?"

"Eighty-sixth and Lexington. I'm starving."

She leaned forward and rolled down the glass a few inches. "Eighty-sixth and Lexington, Charles."

"Yes, miss. Will we be parking?"

"No. I'm going on home."

"Very well, miss."

As she rolled up the glass partition she turned to look at Claude, head tilted, a faint smile on her lips. "Your first dance. You'll never forget it."

"I guess not," he said. "I guess I won't."

"Well, you were perfectly charming. You did very well. Thank you for taking me." She sat back, folding her hands on her lap.

They rode uptown in silence. He was dismally aware of the passage of each block. Eighty-third, Eighty-fourth, Eighty-fifth, closer and closer to the moment he would step outside the car and she would simply ride away, as if jettisoning both him and her memories of an unimportant evening.

"There's just one...," he started to say as the car pulled up. He grasped the lower part of his face in a reflexive nervous gesture, covering his mouth.

"What?"

He lowered his hand. "Why did you ask me to take you?"

"Oh, I don't know. A whim, I suppose," she said, a bit too quickly for him to believe her, a bit too flip.

"There must have been some reason," he said, looking down at the floor of the car. He held himself entirely still, as if giving her plenty of time to answer.

"Well," she said after a while, "I certainly don't belong there. I don't belong at any of those things, but sometimes I go, and I pretend. I picked you because you don't belong either. You come from nowhere, and you haven't any money. We're different from them," and a touch of anger entered her voice, "for different reasons. So is that enough?"

He was on dangerous ground. He didn't know why, but he could feel it—some charged, electric quality to her candor, something fast and threatening in her manner, as if at any moment she could reduce him to the status of a little boy, a child like Peter, whose Nazi games were without significance in view of his youth, ignorance, and innocence. Claude clung fast to himself, to the significance of his desire, to his knowledge of sublime forces on the other side of the wall, to the heat of his own body. Weisfeld and Fredericks strengthened him, like angels on his shoulder, and he was able to nod, slowly and calmly, to shake her hand, which disarmed her, and to get out of the car.

Two nights later he was in the balcony of the Loew's Orpheum, working on a pair of girls from Sacred Heart. One of them was smoking a cigarette, and as soon as he leaned forward from his row to theirs to ask for a match, they all knew what was up. The girls whispered to each other, giggled, and a book of matches was offered over a shoulder.

Ordinarily he would have been a good deal more circumspect and gradual in his approach, waiting for a hint or two of indirect encouragement, but he was in a state of great tension, something approaching desperation, and it made him reckless. He climbed over the row and sat down next to the smoking girl.

The other girl gave a little gasp. "You going to let him do that?"

"It's a free country." The girl with the cigarette was fifteen or sixteen, with curly hair, small ears, freckles, and a slightly pug nose. She stared directly at the screen.

He put his left foot on the back of the empty seat below him, and his right arm over the back of her seat, touching her lightly.

"You're a bold one," she said, blowing a thin stream of smoke with pursed lips and then turning to glance at him. She had chubby cheeks.

"Mary, what are you doing?" the other girl whispered in a high, tight voice. "What would Sister say?"

Mary turned back to the screen, took another puff of her cigarette, and said, "Fuck Sister."

Claude felt, simultaneously, a great rush of relief, a sense of expansion and lightness, as if he were about to float into the air, casting off some mysterious ballast, and at the same time a thrilling shock of sexual energy so powerful his legs began to tremble, even, for a brief moment, the skin of his face.