The Midnight Dancers: A Fairy Tale Retold (29 page)

Paul followed Rachel as she walked out to the south side of the house. He hadn’t been in this section before.  She went down some stone steps to a small herb garden terraced into the ground. It was a very pretty spot, with a stone bench on one side. She tossed her hair over her shoulder and sat down on the end of the bench, her arms folded, her dark lashes lowered over her eyes.

Paul sat down on the other end, and leaned forward, his hands on his knees, looking at the herb garden. It was planted in the shape of a cross, with a sand path around it. It was simple, pristine, and beautiful. 

He couldn’t look at Rachel.  Her competence, skill, and real concern for her sisters made him genuinely admire her.  He respected her. But because of this, he knew she was capable of hurting him more than the others could.

“Dad said I needed to apologize to you,” she said at last, stiffly.

He watched a tiny white butterfly flit from one plant head to another.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“I forgive you.”

There was silence.  Finally she heaved a sigh and pushed back her hair. “So, are you going to tell him?” she asked.

Paul turned and met the blue-green eyes that were looking at him resentfully. “I think
you
should tell him,” he said

“What? Tell him everything?”

He closed his eyes and nodded. When he looked at her again, she was turned away, shaking her head.

“So that’s why you haven’t told him? Because you want me to tell him?” she asked, her voice touched with irony.

He nodded again.

“You’re insane.”

He shrugged. “Rachel, how much longer do you think you girls can keep this up before he finds out?”

“We’ll see, won’t we?”

“It’s…perilous.”

“Perilous? Don’t you mean wrong?”

He shook his head. “There’s nothing wrong with taking a midnight boat ride, going to visit friends, and dancing under the moonlight.”

“Some people at my church would disagree.”

He shrugged. “It’s not intrinsically immoral. But what’s wrong is that you’re doing something like this in secret. Without your parents’ knowledge. It’s imprudent. And going to that island is courting danger. For yourself, and especially for your younger sisters. You love them, don’t you?”

“Yes,” she said defensively.

“Then why don’t you stop?”

She toyed with her hair for a long moment before she answered. When she did, that smile was on her lips again. “Because I don’t think it’s dangerous. And even if it is, isn’t dying from danger better than dying of boredom?” She laughed shortly.

“You’re bored?”

“Yes. Bored with always trying to be good.”

“Are you sure you know what goodness is?”

She looked at him curiously. “What is it, then?”

He paused, and thoughts flew through his mind—mountains, trees swaying in the wind, his father kissing his mother, sitting around the supper table with his brothers and sisters, Mass—the beautiful statues, the lovely paintings in the church, the glory of stained-glass windows, the harmony of the liturgy and music, the poetry of the human body—

Using phrases he had learned in theology class and read in books, he attempted to articulate what goodness was—its power, its concreteness, above all, its beauty—a tangible, hands-on beauty as well as a spirit-lifting, mind-firing beauty—theology and poetry and philosophy and mathematics and order and the romp of playfulness—new babies and bulbs shooting from the earth and creases on the hands of an elderly lady who had spent her life in service to others—

He knew he wasn’t an orator, or a particularly good communicator. He spoke haltingly, rambling, then, gaining certainty from the truth of what he was saying, grew effusive, quoting the saints and poets and prophets, recalling sayings of the popes and philosophers, trying to paint a verbal portrait of what goodness was, and why loving it was so critical.

And Rachel smiled, listened to him, and looked up at the sky. He noticed it was getting dark. The moon would soon be rising.

“Paul,” she said softly, and he realized he had been talking for some time without her really listening.

He felt defeated. She had grown up listening to sermons, he realized. Some of them had probably been quite sound, and quite eloquent. But they had no effect on her. Words were not going to win her heart.

He fell silent.

She rose, then turned and looked at him. “Are you still going to follow us?” she asked, a bit mocking.

“Yes.”

She lowered her chin and looked up at him. “Michael wouldn’t like that, if I told him.”

“I suspect you’re right. Are you going to tell him?”

She half-smiled, and then changed her tone. “No,” she said gravely, her eyes serious. “Because of my younger sisters. They like having you with us.”

He felt a surge of frustration with her, and he wanted to stop her from going. But he hadn’t chosen that path.

“All right,” he said, dropping his gaze to hide his disappointment. She was effectively immunized against preaching, theology, and philosophy. It might hold her interest momentarily, but it couldn’t change her heart.

He wondered what there was in the world that could.

The midnight butterfly dress still wasn’t done. After putting on the skirt once, Rachel had been dissatisfied with the way it looked. Normally, she wouldn’t have cared, but after this much effort, she felt the dress had to be perfect. So she entered into the long process of ripping out stitches and doing the basting over again. And she had decided to alter the neckline.  But Prisca’s birthday was at the end of the week, and Michael had promised a special party for her. She was determined to wear it by then.

That night, trying to be classic in the 1940’s navy blue dress, she strolled out of the cave, a bit nervous. She glanced around to see if Paul was skulking in the bushes. But she couldn’t see any sign of him.

“What does he look like?” she asked Debbie in a low voice.

“He’s all in black, with a ninja mask that covers his face,” Debbie said. “He’s very tricky to find. I can never find him until we’re in the boat.”

“I see,” Rachel said thoughtfully, and decided to put all thoughts of Paul out of her mind. He had always seemed determined to be a bridge linking one cosmos with another, refusing to let the world be nicely divided between night and day.  A devout Catholic who played the flute as sensually as a pagan god, a clean-cut juggler for kids by day, a ninja bodyguard by night. He didn’t fit, and he wouldn’t leave her alone. But at least he wasn’t stopping her.

Heaving a sigh in frustration, she slid and jumped down to the beach, hearing the motors coming closer. She stood on the wet sand, holding her sandals in her hand. Now there were only four boats instead of five. At least they still had four.

The guys pulled up beneath the willows, then came out to greet the girls and hang out for a few minutes. Pete lit up a cigarette, careful to stand downwind.

Prisca danced down the slope in a short purple dress she had bought last week.  “Sallie’s taking me to the doctor’s,” she informed the guys.

“What for?” Pete asked.

“She said I needed a checkup. Tammy thinks they’ve finally figured out I’m a human disease.”  She bounced up and down. “Pete, can you give me a smoke?”

Rachel said warningly, “Pete, don’t.”

“Oh, you party pooper,” Prisca scoffed. “It’s just one.”

“You’ll smell,” Rachel said.

“Oh, all right.”

Rachel turned just in time to see a thin dark shadow slide from the trunk of the willow tree to the boats bobbing in the dark water. She abruptly turned away, and tried to forget she had seen anything.

The ride to the island was uneventful, and Michael and his friends met them at the quay as before.

“You are coming on Friday, aren’t you?” he asked Rachel as he gave her a hand up.

“For Prisca’s birthday? Of course,” she said. “We’re all looking forward to it.”

“Good,” he said, and drew her apart. He said in a low voice, “I’m thinking of inviting a special friend for Prisca. Tell me, do you think she prefers blond or dark-haired men?”

“I can’t tell,” she said, thinking. “Dark-haired, I think.”

“Which do you prefer?” he asked, looking at her, his eyes smoky.

She laughed. “Now that’s a loaded question.”

“Is it? Or do you prefer another alternative, like brown hair?”

“I prefer nice men, if that’s what you’re asking,” she said coyly, curling her arm around his.

“Good,” he said. “Would you dance with me?”

“Sure.”

They danced several times that night, and Rachel was hence more distracted than usual. She forgot about looking over her shoulder to detect Paul’s presence. To tell the truth, she had forgotten he was there.

Paul sat cross-legged in the crook of his oak tree, aware that Rachel was just below him, swaying in the arms of the master of the island. He felt enormously insignificant just now.  Apparently all the girls now knew he was with them, but they barely seemed to care, with the exception of Melanie, Linette, and Debbie.

He couldn’t help watching as Michael crooked an arm languidly around Rachel and cupped her face in his hand. Paul caught a glimpse of her green-sapphire eyes flashing up at Michael as a smile toyed about her lips. Paul looked away as they kissed.

How much longer could this go on?
he wondered. The magic of the island seemed overarching, seductively irresistible. Even if the girls were to stop coming here, would they ever stop yearning for it, for the forbidden something beyond their reach?

The problem was, he knew, that in the heart of the forbidden fruit was nothing but dust, an empty husk of life, its potential wasted, its soul shriveled into rot. But how much further would Rachel eat into this fruit before she found the bitter core? He didn’t want to see that happen to her, but he felt, at times, helpless to prevent it.

He shifted his position on the knobby branches and centered his breathing again.
Trust.

On the way home, Rachel leaned over the boat, watching Michael’s figure until their wake curved around the island, hiding him from sight. Even then, she still sighed, and tried to rouse herself to enter into the talk. Now that Tammy, the other prima donna, was in the boat, Rachel didn’t feel the need to always keep the conversation going. Perhaps she would just let her sophisticated stepsister be the queen bee for the evening.

But she was roused out of her reverie when she heard Tammy say, “And Keith was an absolute idiot tonight. Do you know what he did? He was smoking marijuana!”

They were all so close together that the rest of the boat was instantly silent. 

“For real?” Rich asked.

“Yes!” Tammy exclaimed, full of incredulous disdain. “Dillon offered him some. Actually, he offered us all some, but we all said no. Keith said no too, but then, when we had started dancing, he went off with Dillon and had some. Pete found him and told him he was a numbskull, and Keith just started cursing him out. What an idiot. Can you believe he’s such an idiot?”

There was silence. Alan said, “Keith’s parents divorced a year ago. He took it hard.”

“He did?” Rachel hadn’t known that. Keith had always projected such a cool persona.