Come Dancing (17 page)

“At least he isn’t trying to get over on other women while you’re with him.”

“What do you mean? Is that what Sammy does?”
Man, it’s hot.
I clicked the AC back on, and it hummed to life.

“Oh, he’s constantly checking out other girls. But then I’m not supposed to look at anyone else because he’s a rock god, and I’m just a regular person. I think he’s getting ready to scout some new talent, so I might make my move first. Better the dumper than the dumpee.”

“Are you guys going to that party at the Mudd Club? Jack mentioned it, but I have no idea if he’s taking me. He may be taking his Sunday squeeze.”

“I think we’re going. If I see her there with Jack, I’ll bite her.”

“Enough about my woes. Tell me about your latest publicity coup.”

“I got up at four a.m. to escort Bobby Pavlocek to the
Morning Show
green room the other day,” she said nonchalantly.

“He’s the hockey player, right?”

“Yes, we’ve just come out with his memoir. He shags a new girl every five pages.”

“Was he a jerk?”

“You could say that. He changed clothes right in front of me; stripped down to his bvds like I was part of the furniture. Then he yelled at me because I didn’t have a tube of hair gel on me. As if I’m his personal groomer.”

“And people say PR isn’t glamorous.”

Vicky snorted. “Good luck with Dot this weekend.”

“I’ll need it.”

Big Apple Dreamin’

I was on edge all day at the thought of my mother’s visit. At six I left the office and walked up to the 42nd Street terminal. Dot stepped off the bus, looking around with wide eyes. She had on a tight pink top that revealed her bosom crease, and white pants with polka-dotted bikini underwear showing through. Her hair had been subjected to yet another color job that left it a brassier blonde than ever.

“Hi Mom,” I said, taking her bag. “How was your trip?” I didn’t try to hug her; my mother wasn’t touchy-feely, at least not with me.

“Oh, I had a great time with Darrell. He’s a scream.”

We walked over to the subway, Dot asking loudly “Is this safe?” as I led her into its overheated depths. “What is that
smell
?” she said, making people in the token line roll their eyes.

“Some kind of sewer leak.” She got stuck in the turnstile and I helped her through. “Mom. Try not to stare.” She’d been giving the hairy eyeball to a man who was mumbling and gesturing at the ceiling. The train roared into the station, and we pushed our way on. “Why do they let them write all over the walls?” she asked, looking at the graffiti. “You can’t read a word of it.”

When we got to my apartment, Dot glanced around, her nose wrinkling. “Geez, Julia, you’re paying three hundred for this? It’s teensy.”

“I told you it was small. For the neighborhood, it was a steal.”

“Not enough room in here to sling a cat.” She plopped down on the couch.

“Want a rum and cola?” I asked, recalling what she’d been drinking at Christmas.

“Oh, I’m off that. Do you have any gin?”

I’d spent fifteen bucks on the rum. “I can get some.”

“Don’t bother, I’ll make do with this tonight. What do you have planned? I thought we could go out dancing, since you like that so much.”

I had no intention of taking my mother to a club. “I got up really early,” I said, pouring her a hefty dose of liquor and topping it with an inch of soda. “Let’s stay in and catch up, okay?”

“I swear, sometimes I think I’m younger than you are. Oh, have I told you what Erwin did the other day? I was only ten minutes late getting back from my lunch break, and he yelled at me in front of Marie. I told him what’s what.”

She jutted her chin in that familiar way, and suddenly I was back in high school, hearing her justification for telling off her boss at the KwikMart; her reasons for arguing with her best friend. I zoned out as she described her latest dust-up. “After that, Marie’s son’s girlfriend came in; she’s the one who had the baby, but it’s been hard finding a sitter …” I listened to Marie’s son’s girlfriend’s troubles for half an hour, then I offered to run out for a pizza.

We shared our meal on my overturned milk crate; I still regretted not getting that gold-leaf table. As I draped some sheets on the sofa—I’d bought an extra set on Canal Street, since I was letting her have the futon all to herself—I brought up the subject of Jack, without stating exactly who he was.

“You know how you kept saying I should try to meet someone? Well, I finally did. But I’m not at all sure where it’s going.”

“When did this happen?” she asked with a sniff. I could tell she was getting her back up that I hadn’t mentioned it before.

“A little while ago. I didn’t say anything because I didn’t know if we were just friends, or what.”

“But you’re more than friends now?” She sat on the edge of the bed.

“Only for the past couple of weeks.”

“When were you going to tell me? All this time I’ve been worried about you. It’s hard enough being alone in a small town where you know everybody; I can’t imagine being single in a place like this.”

“I wanted to tell you in person.”

“Is he cute?” she wanted to know.

“I think he is. He has kind of long hair.”

“Is he a hippie of some sort?” she asked suspiciously.

“I wouldn’t call Jack a hippie. Actually he’s a musician.”

“What does he do for a job? He’s not mooching off you, is he? I know that type.” She scratched a match and lit a smoke.

“Oh no, he supports himself. His job
is
being a musician.”

“Does he do weddings and parties, that type of thing? He could probably make a pretty penny in New York City. There are a lot of rich people here,” she said with rounded eyes.

“I don’t think he’s ever done a wedding. He does ‘do’ a number of parties,” I added, smiling to myself. “Ready to turn in?”

“I guess. Try not to wake me if you get up at the crack of dawn. I like to get my beauty sleep.”

I crept outside at six and ran south toward Battery Park. As a light fog misted my face, I had a vision of my mother in her faded bathrobe, arguing with my father as she stirred pancake batter in the kitchen of our old house. Surely they’d had some good times together, but I couldn’t think of many. Mostly I recalled them sniping at each other about money or her job.

One of my best memories was when I was five, going with my parents to see a local band at the county fair. The air was thick with mid-July mugginess and the mouth-watering scents of funnel cakes and caramel apples, an undertone of cow-and-pig wafting over from the agricultural exhibits. Dad went to speak to the fiddler, a buddy from the factory, then came back and boosted me onto his shoulders to watch. My mother was regaling a group of her friends, her lipstick a vivid slash of red in the pasty-faced crowd.

There was a light smattering of applause when the musicians came onto the low platform. The fiddler made a joke about the ancient Chinese art of tu-ning as he corrected the pitch. Then he winked in my direction and spoke into the microphone: “I’m gonna start off with a Hank Williams tune, dedicated to Julia Nash, her Daddy’s favorite girl in the whole world who’s sitting right there on his shoulders.” Several people turned to smile at me, but I only had eyes for my young, handsome father. I worshipped the ground he walked on.

In a sober mood, I picked up bagels and coffee on the way in, paying with the bills I’d tucked under my sneaker tongue. I read a manuscript while my mother snoozed, enjoying the solitude. Sharing the loft with Dot brought to mind what it would be like if I lost my job and had to move back home with her. I’d be subjected to endless questions about why I was fired, and I-told-you-so comments about the futility of trying to make it in New York. I could see myself sitting at Buck’s with my mother a few years from now, trying to muster some interest in a guy on the next barstool who reminded me vaguely of a musician I once knew.

While Dot was in the shower, the phone rang.

“It’s me,” Jack said. “What are you doing tonight? I thought we’d get dinner. Unless you’re still being a stubborn bitch.”

God, I can’t wait to see him!

Damn, I won’t get to see him
. “My mom got in yesterday.”

“I forgot she was coming.”

“Yes, she’s here until tomorrow.” I couldn’t just ditch Dot. Unfortunately.

“So bring her along.” He said it like a challenge.

I heard the shower cut off. “Oh no, I wouldn’t—”

“Pick you up at seven. I’ll see you then, unless something comes up.”

“Okay, let me know if you change your mind.”

“I’ll let you know.”

I hung up, wondering if he would call later to back out of it. I couldn’t believe he’d suggest taking us both; how on earth would that go? I decided not to worry about it and just be glad I might get to see him tonight. When Dot emerged from the shower, I tried to compose my face so I didn’t have a smile plastered on it.

As she buttered her bagel, my mother filled me in on all the goings-on in our little town, including the far-flung relatives of her three best friends. She seemed to forget that I didn’t know the same people she did any more, or that I might not be fascinated by the details of Paulette’s sister-in-law’s divorce. She also asked a few more things about the guy I’d been seeing, such as how old he was. I told her she might meet him tonight, but I was still keeping Jack’s identity to myself. I was reluctant to answer a bunch of questions about how I came to be dating someone famous, particularly if he wound up canceling.

“He’s a little long in the tooth for you, isn’t he?” Dot commented when I said he was thirty-two. “Has he been married a few times?”

“No, he’s never been married.”

“Humph. Must be something wrong with him if he’s still single. You couldn’t meet someone your own age?”

“He’s the person I’m interested in.” Contemplatively I stirred my coffee. “I’m just not sure how interested he is in me.”

“
I
could be going out with someone thirty-two.”

I decided not to take the bait. “Let’s go for a walk. There are some places I want to show you.” I planned to get her good and tired, so she’d be less tightly wound by dinnertime.

We left my apartment and rambled around SoHo, and then I showed her my former dorm at NYU. As we ate our sandwiches on a bench in Washington Square, she commented loudly on the rollerbladers, the guy with a python scarved around his neck, women holding hands, and other oddities to her way of thinking. “Let’s head up Fifth,” I said, brushing crumbs from my lap.

By five-thirty, all the sightseeing had taken some of the tar out of her. We’d walked to the Empire State Building and rode the elevator to the observation deck to admire the view; then we went to the 42nd Street Library to see the lions. On the way home we stopped by Macy’s, which made the biggest impression of anywhere she’d been all day. “I’ve always wanted to go there,” she said. “Joan and Paulette will be so jealous.”

I let her shower first and fixed her up with a large gin and tonic while I got ready, having picked up the liquor on the way in. Instead of a beer I poured myself rum and drank it neat. I was so wired up to see Jack, I could hardly stand it. Selfishly I wished I could have him all to myself tonight.

At last we were all set. My mother wore a low-cut top and black pants that stretched tight across her rear. She’d put on a little weight over the years, but her figure was still good, and she had a pretty face under all the makeup.

At seven-thirty I heard Jack calling from the street. I ran to the window and told him we’d be right there, feeling tense about how this date with Dot would unfold. We went downstairs, my mother complaining about her aching bunions. Jack stood by the open car door, looking fantastic in my purple shirt from Alice’s, which he’d confiscated.

I took a big breath. “Jack, this is my mother, Dorothea. Mom, meet Jack.”

“Good to meet you, Dorothea,” Jack said.

I saw her starting to put his appearance together with his name, his British accent, and the fact that he was a musician.

“Call me Dot,” she said, staring at him.

“Let’s get in the car,” I said. “So we won’t miss our reservation.”

“Can you stay with me tonight?” Jack asked in a low voice as she was climbing in.

I was dying to be with him, but I wasn’t sure how Dot would take it. “I think I can.”

“Did you get your work done the other night? I hope it was worth what you gave up.”

“What was that?”

“Me making you come until you begged for mercy.”

Hopefully my mother wasn’t overhearing this. I got in the middle, introduced Mom to Rick, and we took off. The heat of Jack’s thigh snug against mine sent a ripple of lust surging through me.

“So Dot, I understand this is your first visit to the city,” Jack said, leaning forward in the seat.

“That’s right.” She poked me with her elbow. “Is that Jack Kipling?” she whispered audibly.

“Yes.”

“You’re going out with Jack Kipling?”

“Yes,” I said under my breath. “Mom, stop whispering, it’s rude.”

“I had to jump through hoops to get your daughter to go out with me,” Jack said.

“I can’t imagine why. She hasn’t had a date in ages.”

Jack cocked an eyebrow at me, biting back a smile. “What did you two do today? Did you see some of the sights?”

“She made me walk all the way up to the library and back,” my mother said. “I thought I was going to die.”

“You
walked
to 42nd Street and back? In this heat?”

“It wasn’t that hot,” I said. “We had lunch in Washington Square, and then I wanted to show her Fifth Avenue.”

“Julia should’ve had enough sense to take taxis on a day like this,” Jack said to Dot.

“Well, I survived,” she replied. “And I got to see Macy’s, which made it all worth it.”

“I hear it’s got quite a selection.”

“You’ve never been? Oh Julia, you’ll have to take him. I can’t believe you live so close by and haven’t seen it yet. That’s just a shame.”