Cue date night, my parents' weekly public display of expertly faked affection. Once a week my mother and father dance cheek to cheek in front of the bustling crowd at the popular retro nightclub they frequent, giving the public a dependable romantic show. I imagine Morris spends those nights alone in the condo he shares with Dad, swilling eighteen-year-old scotch while sitting around in his underwear and building GPS tracking equipment out of tongue depressors and white chocolate chips just because he can. It's usually all the reason he needs, really.
If this were simply the usual date night, though, Morris would have contacted me by now with a placating phone message and a sincere apology for my inconvenience. The fact that he hasn't is more discomforting than I would have thought.
“I suppose I'll just head over to Swing and see if I can intercept them,” I say, my own apology to Nate bleeding through my words as I rise to my feet.
I expect him to shrug and go on his merry way, but Nate has other ideas. He bolts to his feet like a skittish colt, thumbs already hooked in the fraying waistband of his lived-in jeans. “Hey, I'll go with you,” he suggests. A cold melting weight floats in my stomach, a new and sudden occupant. “We're slower than a Sunday service for drunks around here today and besides, I ain't seen your mama in ages. Ivy's been avoiding my ass for some silly reason or another.”
He slings his arm around my shoulders, tucks me close, smothers me in his impenetrable cloud of earthy wood-and-leather cologne. It's the casual affection that does me in, the guileless glee at meeting up with me once again. Bringing Nate with me right now will be a mistake that might chip away at the secrets I hold dear. He embodies the spur of the moment, the devious chase, an unstable upset in any situation, but above all else, he does not
know
.
I take a deep breath, hold the lungful of air for a little longer than normal, then blow it all out, making a silent decision. When I exhale again, it's a surrendering shove of oxygen, aimed at the heavily sprayed bangs which are probably long ruined by now.
“Let's go, then,” I say, and take his hand in mine.
4.
We materialize in the ladies room of Swing, crammed chest-to-chest in the handicapped stall.
With anyone else, I might be scrambling to escape the stall before my passenger spouted off any lascivious propositions. But this is Nate, more like a brother than my own brother's ever attempted to be. So I know he won't get the wrong idea when I slump forward into his arms, my forehead pressing against his sternum.
“Whoa there, Vera.” He clutches onto my shoulders, the sole support keeping me upright as I sway on my heels. “You know, we could have called a cab. They do still have those here.”
I laugh softly, steadying my quaking hands with a few cleansing breaths. “Well, I'll just have to practice my landings, won't I?”
His answer is an inelegant, derisive snort.
“All right, so maybe 'practice' isn't quite what one wants to hear at a moment like this,” I murmur.
Nate makes a soft amused noise and brushes his lips across the pale arch of my temple. “Peaches, you just keep talking and I'm guessing I'll find myself in a happier frame of mind soon enough.”
That perks my spirits up, knowing that Nate will always be happy to see me. I thread my fingers through his, fumbling my own slightly calloused fingertips over the unsettling smoothness of his. Nate's immortality possesses a few downsides, like an inability to scar or acquire wear and the growth of his supposedly thick golden hair slowing to a crawl before it finally began to fall out years ago. Nate's been shaving off the piebald patches left behind since before I met him. It probably doesn't even grow anymore by now.
“Come on,” I whisper, pulling open the stall door and peering around the pink porcelain exterior of the bathroom to verify we're the only occupants. “Let's go excavate my parents from whatever trouble they're getting themselves into, shall we?”
“I don't think your dad's gonna be all that thrilled if we get him out of this particular brand of trouble, you know what I mean?”
I ignore him and tug him behind me out into the club.
I haven't been to Swing in years, and it's apparent as soon as we surface from the dimly lit hallway leading to the restrooms that I've missed a major overhaul in the interior design. What once was red wallpaper and ebony wood stain has been replaced with cream wall coverings and rich chestnut accents.
For as long as my parents have indulged in their public-relations dance displays here once a week, Swing has prided itself in its dedication to preserving and encouraging classic dance in timely styles. Just try to swan in the front door attired in a barely-there miniskirt and request anything dumped into the radio mainstream by a former boy-band member or treacly pop princess. The customers will cackle in gleeful delight as you're ordered to leave and probably pat you on the head on your way out as a condescending dismissal.
It's not that the clientele of Swing spit on the trendy bejeweled twenty-somethings swaggering through their midweek barhopping or anything so crass. Swing maintains a carefully cultivated atmosphere, mixed drinks that cost an exorbitant amount but taste like ambrosia, shuffling theme nights that include period-era dress code regulations and a full orchestra to perform the appropriate musical genre.
Needless to say, there used to be some nights at Swing I rarely missed, back when they were the only chances I was allowed to be myself.
Luckily, neither one of us is offending the dress code too badly tonight. The orchestra pounds its way through a Benny Goodman standard, half of the musicians enthusiastically following the energetic tempo to their stomping feet. Women with plump waves in their hair and jackpot cherries on their swishing skirts cling to their dates, allowing men in wingtips and button-down shirts to twirl them around the dance floor. Couples taking a breather nurse martinis and sip from beers as they lean towards the walls to give others more room, pressing back against delicate cream wallpaper and stained accents.
“You sure your mom and dad would hit this place up tonight? Looks a bit too energetic for Everett's tastes, if you ask me.”
I tilt my head to give him a teasing glance and a lively grin. “You really don't talk to my dad all that much, do you?”
“Not even a little bit, peaches.” Nate blushes, ducking his head. “Everett's never been the talkative sort as is, especially if it's about you kids or your mom.”
I tear my gaze back to the dance floor, center myself on the infectious bounce and jam of the music rather than my crystal-clear mental vision of my father. He'd be tall and broad, his dark hair graying at the temples, his expression reliably stoic. He'd split his days between saving people with my mother and rescuing others with the rest of the Brigade, saying nothing to his teammates about what he engaged in when he headed home, but letting their rampant imaginations fill in the blanks. He'd go home and fall asleep in Morris's arms, and for the first time all day, he would breathe.
I think I'm going to throw up.
It's then that I spot my mother's effervescent smile as she and my father dance past us, weaving between other couples unfazed by the legendary superheroes prancing along with the music beside them. It's an understandably calm response. My parents come to Swing every week, plaster on cheerful smiles and make themselves a spectacle until closing. Regulars know them well and question if there's something wrong when they arrive late or miss a scheduled night. The day after my father left my mom, twenty hours after he toted bulging luggage out of my mother's apartment, the two of them were photographed performing an ardent jitterbug at Swing, their grins a secretive promise.
That's my parents in a nutshell. Pretense first, everything else second.
I dodge through the crowd before Nate can stop me, weave between dancing pairs who shout their annoyance in my wake. This could wait, I suppose. It would be a lot less confrontational if I simply hovered on the sidelines, waiting for them to escape the bustling dance floor for a cool refreshment and pouncing on them then. But that crack in Morris's smooth facade won't leave my memory. Morris wouldn't have come to me looking for my assistance if Dad's disappearance were due to something as pedestrian as the same weekly dance night he's been indulging in with Mom since they broke it off.
Something is not right, that much I recognize.
Swerving around a rotund man who moves more gracefully than most of the thinner people on the dance floor, I finally come face to face with my mother and father. His bulky hand clutches her fingertips lightly as she spins, and her untamed ebony curls encircle her body from the twirling motion. Dad throws a disturbingly out-of-character smirk to the fascinated onlookers, not even deigning to glance Mom's way before catching her in a backwards dip.
“Dad?”
Mom rights herself in an agile move, gaping with blatant joy at the sight of me. Dad's smirk doesn't falter, and one hand slides lower on Mom's back in a silent sign of possession.
I swallow hard. I really didn't prepare for this nearly as well as I thought I had.
“Vera! What are you doing here, sweetheart?” Mom sweeps me into a stifling hug, too constricting, reeking of cloying floral perfume. I should be wondering what's brought on this abrupt bout of motherly affection, but I can't tear my eyes off my father.
“I was just in the city for the afternoon,” I hear myself say. “And I haven't seen you in ages, so I just thought you wouldn't mind –“
“No, no, that's wonderful,” Mom says. She doesn't let go, giving me another gentle squeeze, then whispers in my ear, “I've got fantastic news.”
Nate weasels his way through the jitterbugging masses, beaming from ear to ear as he claps Dad's meaty fist in an affable handshake.
“Vera?”
“I'm listening,” I blurt out, although I pay more attention to Dad's far too jovial behavior. Mom smooths her hand over my curls, some comforting gesture she presumably picked up from either a Lifetime movie or some much more soft-hearted mother whose child she saved in between posed photo ops.
I fidget, unused to the attention.
“It's your father,” she says, her voice pitched low enough for only me to hear. “He's coming home, Vera.”
I have never been what one would call a successful drinker. Hazel once referred to me as a dime-store lush, her teasing old-fashioned name for a girlfriend who could pick up a buzz just from sniffing the fumes from a freshly opened bottle of light beer. Arguing in my own defense would have been a moot point. I sampled my first alcoholic beverage when I was fifteen and ever since my body has stood firm on its decision to respond to the slightest taste of liquor by writhing suggestively on pool tables and then falling into a swoon that is quite frankly more of a belly flop onto the floor.
However, I can maintain some modicum of dignity if I stick to a much less regulated drug – caffeine.
My heel continues its frantic tapping against the floor, the repetitive sound muffled by the vigorous melody of the band. I lean back so my elbows rest on the bar, propping me up in a lewd recline that does fabulous things to my figure, if I do say so myself. The dewy glass I've been sipping soda from for the past half hour contains more water than cola by now, mere slivers of ice rattling at the bottom.
I should order a refresher, but I'm a wee bit preoccupied.
My mother's whispered declaration stunned me into silence, gifting my dad with a perfect opportunity to cajole her onto the dance floor once again. That left me gaping after them, afraid I resembled an oxygen-starved fish flopping on a boat dock, and unable to explain my thunderstruck response to Nate.
This doesn't make a lick of sense.
I drum my fingernails, neatly manicured and a vivid fire engine red, on the brass-plated edge of the bar as I fix my gaze on my parents over the lipstick-stained rim of my glass. They appear to be thrilled with one another, their blissful eyes only on themselves, their smiles dizzy with rapturous euphoria. The rest of us might as well not even be at Swing. We could simply be faceless cardboard cutouts existing as bothersome obstacles as far as the two of them are concerned. I'm supposed to believe, just like everyone else here, that they're wallowing in their own classic love story.
But then again, I've met them. Worst of all, I've met Morris.
Something here feels
wrong
.
“Care to dance, little lady?”
Nate's breathless voice lures me out of my troubled reverie. He signals to the bartender for a beer, pouring out charm like he's got an endless supply of it tucked away somewhere. I haven't paid attention to where he's been the past few minutes, presumably off romancing the loneliest of wallflowers. Nate likes his women shy and sad, needing a good pick-me-up. I like my men quiet and awkward and my women loud and opinionated. There's a good reason we've never dated and never will. We'll just never be each other's type.
"I'll pass," I say, my lips twisting in a wry smile.
His chilled beer arrives along with a saucy wink from the bartender. He's already wound up and spinning wild, I can already tell. As far as he knows, he's acquired beer, women, friends, a night off and a happy boss in the past half hour or so. It's no wonder he doesn't seem the least bit off-kilter.
"You better loosen up, Vera, or there ain't no way in hell you're getting out of that tight dress of yours later." His grin is wicked as he waves the steaming-cool neck of the bottle towards me. "You want to join the party? I'll let you smell my beer."
"Ha, ha, very funny."
"I'm no comedian, ma'am, I'm just some lowly cowboy," he drawls.
I can't help but laugh. "Speaking of, you haven't been kicked out yet? You're toeing the line on Swing's dress code a little more daringly than they'll usually allow for."
“Aw, the bouncer's a friend of mine, that's all.” He pulls a face at the sour tone of my voice. "Hell, you'd think you'd be happier to see your mom and dad again. You haven't been back in the city in, what ..."
"Five years," I say. My mom's furious shouts ring in my ears on occasion, and a tiny sickle-shaped scar still adorns my chin from a wayward chip of shattered porcelain. Apparently Mom hadn't adored her precious china quite enough not to throw it at me as I packed to leave.
On the dance floor, she beams as Dad guides her into a playful pirouette, excusing herself when she bumps into another dancer.
My stomach threatens to eject its contents at the sight.
"You okay?"
I start at Nate's question, the genuine concern in his words. Guilt swims through me. I wish I could tell him what was bothering me without opening a can of worms I'd rather not share with anyone outside my immediate family. God knows it's just not my secret to tell.
"I'm fine," I say, then run a reassuring hand over his forearm. "I'm just in an odd mood tonight, I suppose. Look, why don't you try and see if you can convince another one of those skittish little girls over there to join your sorry ass out on the dance floor?"
Nate ventures a hopeful glimpse towards the jittery young women sprinkled here and there along the edges of the dance hall, best friends or sisters, homely girls who've been dragged along by friends or relatives who abandoned them for a more attractive party. You can spot them easily, dotting the edges of the dance floor and taking up valuable seats at the bar. He's probably already mentally anticipating how much fun it will be to charm them away from the quiet safety of their seats and draw them out of their shells in between playful dips and sly self-deprecating jokes. So enjoyably predictable, that man.