The Jane Austen Book Club (17 page)

Unless he was a goofy-looking dancer. “You do know how to dance?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said, which didn't mean anything, lots of people who couldn't dance thought they could.

“You don't look like a dancer.” Jocelyn hated to press, but this was important.

“What do I look like?”

Who could say? He looked like a country-western singer. A college professor. A plumber. A spy. He had no distinctive look. “You look like someone who reads science fiction,” Jocelyn guessed, but apparently it was the wrong answer, even though he claimed to love those books so.

“I have three older sisters. I can dance,” Grigg said, and he sounded really, really annoyed.

On country dancing:

The Beauty of this agreeable Exercise (I mean when perform'd in the Genteel Character) is very much eclipsed and destroyed by certain Faults. . . . One or two Couples either by Carelessness or Want of better Instruction will put the whole Set in Disorder.

 

—
KELLOM TOMLINSON
, Dancing Master

“Prudie and I went to the Scottish games at the Yolo County Fairgrounds last weekend,” Dean told Bernadette. “Suddenly she's craving the Highlands. Have you ever been?”

“Not to the games,” Bernadette said. “But to the fairgrounds, Lord yes. When I was young I danced all over the state every
single summer. Of course, county fairs were much tinier then. They were so small they'd fit in your pocket.” She waited to see whether anyone wanted to hear more. No one told her to go on. No one changed the subject, either. Dean was smiling at her. Prudie was stirring her drink with her celery. The data was unclear.

But Dean and Prudie were both so very young. Bernadette could see that if anything interesting was to be said tonight, it fell to her to say it. “I was in a group called the Five Little Peppers,” she continued. “My mother thought tap dancing was the ticket to Hollywood. She was real ambitious for me. And real out-of-date. Even then, late forties, early fifties, tap dancing was—what do the kids say now? Played?”

“Okay,” said Prudie. Her pale face had frozen over at the word “mother.” Bernadette felt so sorry for her.

“Were you and your mother close?” Prudie asked.

“I liked my father better,” Bernadette said. “My mother was sort of a pill.”

 

We lived in Torrance then, so we were close to Hollywood, but not as close as Torrance is to Hollywood now, seeing as the roads and the cars are all different. I took tap and ballet at Miss Olive's. I was the best dancer there, which didn't mean squat, but gave Mother ideas. Dad was a dentist with an office in the back of our house, and one day he worked on someone who knew someone who knew someone in pictures. Mother pushed and prodded and coaxed and sulked until Dad got us introduced to someone somewhere in that chain of someones.

Mother paid Miss Olive to choreograph a special number just for me—“The Little Dutch Girl.” I had this lace apron to pull over my face and peek out from, and I had to learn to tap in those big wooden shoes. Over we drove. And then I never even got to dance. That Hollywood muckety-muck took one look at me.
“Not pretty enough,” he said, and that was the end of that, except that Dad made it clear he thought he'd humiliated himself for nothing and he wasn't doing it again.

I didn't really care. I always had a lot of self-confidence and the studio guy just seemed like a horrid man. Mother was the one hurt by it. She said how we wouldn't ever go to any picture he produced, so I never did get to see
Easter Parade
until it was on television, even though everyone said Judy Garland and Fred Astaire were so great together.

Anyway, Miss Olive told Mother about this group called the Five Little Peppers and how they were looking to replace one of their girls. I auditioned in my silly wooden shoes, because Mother had paid for the choreography and wanted a return on that investment. You couldn't do a heel roll in those shoes to save your life. But the Peppers took me because I was the right height.

It was a stair-step group. I was taken on as the first stair, which meant I was the tallest. I was eleven then, the fifth stair was only five.

The thing about a stair-step group is that the littlest stair gets a lot of attention simply for being little. The littlest is pretty much always a spoiled little apple. The first stair gets a lot of attention if she's pretty, which, never mind what
some
people said, I was okay to look at.

Being first stair actually made me a better person. Kinder, more tolerant. All that attention turned me good. It didn't last. I didn't grow and the second stair did, and the next summer we switched places. I learned that the girls in between the first stair and the last stair, well, they're just the girls in between.

Especially the tallest of the girls in between. I was the nicest girl in the Peppers when I was first stair, but when I wasn't, then the new first stair was the nicest. Funny how that worked.

Our manager was this tyrannical old woman we were made to
call Madame Dubois. Emphasis on the second syllable like that. Ma
dame
. We called her other things when we were on our own. Madame Dubois was our manager, our micro-manager. She told us how to do our makeup, how to pack our suitcases, what books we should read, what foods we should eat, and who our friends should be. Nothing was too large or too small to be left in our incapable hands. She gave us notes after every performance, even though she wasn't a dancer and never had been. My notes were always about how I should practice. “You'll never be really good unless you practice,” she said. And fair enough. I never really did and I never really was.

Our bookings were handled by an oily guy named Lloyd Hucksley. He had spent the war as a supply sergeant and now was scuttling around doing whatever Madame Dubois got into her head he should do.

I danced with the Peppers for eight years. Other girls came and left. For a couple of seasons my best friend was the third stair. Mattie Murphy. But then she started getting taller and I didn't and then she stopped getting taller, so we were the same height. We knew one of us would have to leave. It was awful to feel that coming and not be able to do a blessed thing about it. Mattie was a better dancer, but I was the better-looking. I knew how it would be. I asked Mother to let me quit so Mattie wouldn't have to. And also because Lloyd Hucksley seemed like he was getting sweet on me, now that I was older.

Oh, I had my reasons for wanting to go, but Mother wouldn't hear of it. What would happen to my motion picture career if I up and left the Peppers? When Mattie and Lloyd got married, you could have knocked me over with a feather.

After Mattie left I was the third stair. You'd think I would have met a lot of people; we traveled so much. You'd think it was
a real exciting life. You'd be surprised what a steady set entertains at the county fairs. Everywhere we went it was the same faces, the same conversations. I was always wishing for more of an assortment. That's when I got so into books.

Mother was turning desperate. She made me perform everywhere, family gatherings, cocktail parties. She even made me dance for Dad's patients, because, she said, you just never know who's going to turn out to
be
someone. Can you imagine? You go to have a tooth pulled and there's a top-hat-and-cane number thrown in? Dad finally put a stop to it, thank the Lord. Though some of those patients were very appreciative. People will sit through anything if it puts off a tooth extraction.

S
ylvia was standing in the walk-in closet, looking at the empty clothes-rod where Daniel's suits and shirts used to hang. Perhaps it was time for her clothes to spread out a bit, enjoy the open space.

“I've been thinking about Charlotte,” Allegra said. She was still in the bedroom, sprawled on the bed. “In
Pride and Prejudice.
Lizzie's friend who marries the tedious Mr. Collins. I've been thinking about why she married him.”

“Oh, yes,” Sylvia answered. “The troubling case of Charlotte Lucas.”

The only sign of Daniel left in the closet was years and years of paperwork—taxes filed jointly, warranties for appliances picked out together, smog tests passed, mortgage payments paid. And on the top shelf, letters written during the summer of 1970, when Daniel drove to the East Coast and back with a college friend. Someday soon Sylvia would get those letters down, re-read them. In thirty-two years of marriage she and Daniel had
spent very little time apart. She'd no memory of what they'd written to each other during that early separation. There might be something in the letters that would be useful now, some sort of clue about what had happened and why. Some guidance for living alone.

Some guidance for living alone as long as Daniel was coming back. Until tonight Sylvia had been able to behave as if he were just away somewhere, on another trip. She hadn't even tried to pretend this; it pretended itself. Tonight, when she would see Daniel with Pam for the first time—Allegra had met Pam, Sylvia hadn't—tonight he would really be gone.

She put her game face on and walked back into the bedroom. “I like Charlotte a ton,” Sylvia said. “I admire her. Jocelyn doesn't. Jocelyn has very high standards. Jocelyn has contempt for people who settle. Jocelyn, you'll note, is not married and never has been. But Charlotte has no options. She sees one chance for herself and she makes it happen. I find that moving.”

“Sexy,” Allegra said. She was referring to Sylvia's dress, a thin, clingy knit with a low neckline.

“It's too hot for a knit,” Sylvia said. She wasn't sure that sexy was the look she was going for. She didn't want Daniel to think she'd tried too hard, cared too much. She skinned out of it, went back to the closet. “Does Charlotte really have fewer options than Lizzie?” Allegra asked. “Lizzie's already in her twenties. No one's proposed to her yet. She has no money and lives in a small, confined society. But she won't settle for Collins. Why should Charlotte?”

“Lizzie is pretty. It makes all the difference in the world.” Sylvia zipped herself into her linen sheath and came out again. “What do you think? Too casual?”

“You can always dress something like that up,” Allegra said. “The right shoes. Jewelry. You should iron it.”

Too hot for ironing. Sylvia took the dress off. “It does bother me that Austen wouldn't make up a good man who finds Charlotte worth having. The Brontës would have told her story very differently.”

“Charlotte on Charlotte,” Allegra said. “I will always love the Brontës best. But that's just me—I like a book with storms in it. What I was thinking was that Charlotte Lucas might be gay. Remember when she says she's not romantic like Lizzie? Maybe that's what she means. Maybe that's why there's no point in holding out for a better offer.” Allegra rolled onto her back and propped her wineglass onto her face so as to get the last drops. Sylvia could see her nose through the curved glass. Even this, on Allegra, was a flattering look.

“Are you saying Austen meant her to be gay?” Sylvia asked. “Or that she's gay and Austen doesn't know it?”

Sylvia preferred the latter. There was something appealing in thinking of a character with a secret life that her author knew nothing about. Slipping off while the author's back was turned, to find love in her own way. Showing up just in time to deliver the next bit of dialogue with an innocent face. If Sylvia were a character in a book, that's the kind of character she'd want to be.

But wouldn't.

G
rigg and Jocelyn found themselves behind a tractor on the way to the freeway. Grigg edged out a couple of times, only to fall back, when he probably would have made it past just fine if he'd really hit the gas. That's what Jocelyn would have done. The air-conditioning in his car was too feeble for the Valley summer. She could feel her makeup melting into her mandarin collar.

There was dust on the dashboard, and a large collection of
cups and wrappers from various snacks and meals around her feet. Jocelyn hadn't offered to drive her own car, because it had been five whole days since she'd vacuumed it. The passenger-side window was streaked with dog spit and nose prints. She hadn't wanted to ask Grigg, all dressed up as he would be, to deal with dog hair and dirt. Evidently he'd had no similar compunction.

“Say,” Grigg said. They'd made it onto the freeway, and the tractor disappeared behind them in a stink of exhaust. Sacramento had some of the worst air quality in the country.

Grigg was driving exactly the legal limit; Jocelyn could see the speedometer. Daniel was the only other driver she knew who did that. In the whole world. “Say,” Grigg repeated. “Did you ever read those books I bought for you? The Le Guins?”

“Not yet.” Jocelyn felt a tiny sting of conscience. Feeling guilty did not improve her mood. Book-giving became a pushy, intrusive action when it was followed by “So how did you like those books?” Jocelyn gave many, many books away and never asked whether anyone had liked them.

Why should she apologize over not reading two books she'd never asked for? She didn't have to actually read science fiction to know what she thought of it. She'd seen
Star Wars
. When would Grigg get off her case about those damn books?