Authors: Joanne DeMaio
While waiting at the local railroad crossing, the gates lowered, lights flashing, George looks over at her. “I’m going to ask you to do something,” he says as the train rumbles past.
“Okay.”
“Close your eyes.”
“Close my eyes?”
“Just for a few minutes.” The gates lift and George continues on, driving over the tracks.
Amy turns in her seat and faces forward as they pass early ship captains’ waterside homes at the river’s edge. “All right. I can do that.” She closes her eyes and smiles.
“Don’t peek.”
“I won’t.” She rests her head on the seat.
Now he backtracks to get the vehicle headed in the right direction. He’d been taking random turns to keep her guessing their destination, steering her away from the road signs for Riverdale Park. He pulls into the gravel parking lot.
“Can I look?” she asks.
“No,” he answers quickly. “Not until I say so.” He parks in the front row of spaces at the far end. “I’m going to come around and help you out, but no matter what,
do not
open your eyes.” He watches her waiting for a moment, sees the anticipation on her face, in the pretty black and floral wrap dress she’d chosen, in the sterling star necklace around her neck, then steps out of the truck and takes in the view. It couldn’t be better.
* * *
George’s footsteps move around to her side of the truck. She hears the click of the door handle being pulled, feels the evening air sweep in, and feels his hand take hers. All her senses come alive behind closed eyes. She reaches her other hand out to him and he helps her step down; the silky folds of her dress fall easily along her legs.
“I’m going to put my arm around you.” His voice is close as he lets go of one hand to slip his arm around her waist and she loves the unspoken promise of a sweet time. Violins are playing, and a saxophone, a trumpet, drums. Waves of sound rise as the band’s warm-up lengthens. George walks a few steps forward. “Okay.” One violin grows increasingly insistent. “You can look.”
Amy opens her eyes and looks down the gentle hill of Riverdale Park. The bandshell sits at the bottom looking like a big scalloped seashell open over a stage. The outside of the shell is pastel blue, its inside a creamy white. From the hilltop where they stand, the stage illumination, along with the pale moonlight, give the effect of stardust shimmering from the skies.
“George, this is so beautiful.” A small orchestra fills the stage, the lone singer dressed in a black tuxedo and shuffling through sheet music, the dance floor spread out beneath a canopy of stars. Sudden tears blur the sight before her, making it all the more magical.
“Shall we?” George asks, taking her arm and waiting for two families to pass by with their coolers and folding chairs before leading her down a narrow paved walkway. Blankets and lawn chairs cover a wide expanse of grass around the stage area. Off to the side, they find an open space and Amy helps him spread out a blanket. He brought along a basket of cheese and crackers and tucked a bottle of wine with two wine glasses in beside the food. As they settle on the blanket, the band plays snippets of the love standards they’ll perform that night, teasing the audience with hints of what is yet to come.
“What a perfect first date,” Amy says, sitting with her legs folded beneath her, her wrap hanging low on her arms. She looks from the band to George. He sits close, an arm wrapped around a bent knee, taking in the sight.
“I’m glad you like it.”
And it’s apparent how he thought of everything, every detail. The basket is opened, the crackers and cheese squares set out on a small plate.
But it’s when the stage lights dim, the band quiets and the bandleader takes his position that the magic takes over. Applause rises from the dark lawn behind them and the soft strain of violins plays the opening notes of
Moon River
. George hands her a glass of wine as couples walk past to the dance floor. “To summer,” he says. “And to my hopeless romantic.”
Amy cups the glass and looks out at the orchestra about to serenade the night with old love songs. The cool evening air touches her shoulders as she sits beside this man who came so unexpectedly into her life.
Just like a fairy tale
, she remembers Celia saying. “And to our own Stardust Ballroom,” she adds, touching her glass to his.
* * *
Later, Amy glances at the black velvet sky dotted with glimmering sparkles. The stars above seem endless tonight. If only the evening were endless, too. When George holds her close dancing, sometimes singing to her softly, she feels his breath, his smile, the deep vibration of his voice against her ear. She feels the kiss he presses on the side of her head. His hand never leaves the small of her back.
If she can just keep a piece of this in her life, she would be no happier. That’s all it would take. Every time one of the old standards plays on the radio, it’ll bring her here, behind her closed eyes, into the shelter of George’s arms.
“You’re making my return to dating very easy, Mr. Carbone,” she says. Her one hand rests on his shoulder, the other lays in his upturned palm.
George looks past her shoulder, then leans in, his hand sliding down to her wrist and folding their arms between them. “So long as I’m your only date.” He pulls her in a little closer, the soft folds of her dress catching up with their steps.
“George.” She smiles lightly, she can’t help it, really. It’s that kind of night, he’d seen to it.
He steps back and watches her, never taking his eyes from hers, dipping his head closer. “What is it, sweetheart?” The song ends as he speaks and his arm slips around her waist, leading her to the dark shadows just past the dance floor, away from the other couples milling about. “What’s the matter?”
“I just love this,” she says as he bends to hear her words. “The music, that beautiful sky filled with summer stars. You’re too good to me.”
He nods and tips her chin up. “So you’re having a nice time?”
“Wonderful.” Amy looks at the softly illuminated stage from the shadows, feeling his presence alongside her body. The thing is, he has stood beside her ever since she invited him to dinner months ago. She needn’t fear loving him. “I love you so much,” she whispers, turning to him, taking his hands in hers and kissing him tenderly. His hands pull away from hers though, and he raises them to cup her face, deepening their kiss in the shadows. A breeze lifts off the distant river; the moon rises over the treetops.
When the bandleader’s voice begins singing the next song, his voice a little husky as the evening goes on, George kisses her a moment longer, then steps back, still cradling her face. “That’s our song,” he says.
Amy glances to the stage. “Your dedication that night.”
He hitches his head toward the music. “Come on, dance with me.” As he takes her in his arms on the dance floor, she lays her hand in his, squeezing his fingers gently.
And the bandleader sings about finding just the right someone to be true to.
Amy closes her eyes, remembering George’s dedication sent over the radio love lines. Now, beneath July starlight, the piano and bandleader perform in duet until the violins sweep quietly in, the brushes grazing the drums. If ever real stardust might fall from the summer sky, wouldn’t this be the moment?
The music continues like a dream, the lyrics suggesting that even thinking of George makes her glad.
Couples crowd the dance area knowing this is the last song of the set. Amy’s head rests on George’s shoulder, her eyes still closed, feeling the length of him pressed close, his arm holding her near. Her fingers fold around George’s and their arms curl between them now. Close, so close. She caresses his hand as he presses his face against her hair.
And the song goes on, the lovers thrilling each other in verse.
But her eyes open then. And her heart, it beats faster as she shifts her head slightly.
In the song, lovers are loving each other still.
George turns her gently, his step leading her still. Her fingers close tighter around his hand, feeling his gold ring press against her skin.
The saxophone, like a wisp of fog, leads the musical interlude between verses. Amy looks at George’s hand, at glimpses of his ring. And what she’s seeing is page after page after page of frustrated sketches filling a pad on her blue kitchen table. From every angle, sideways, above, right side, left side. Line sketched, cross-hatched, shaded and not. Pages and pages of pencil strokes stemming from deep memory. And from one question.
His hand on hers, and what …
What
? What is always missing?
She steps back.
The piano joins the sax, its ivory keys waltzing lightly in their own dance together. Amy shifts her fingers, prompting George to take them within his hand. Her skin feels the ruby ring. It is warm, from her hand being wrapped around it. The gold shimmers.
And she can’t breathe. Her lungs don’t want to inhale; her mind doesn’t want to admit. George’s hand covers hers now and she feels every bit of his calloused skin. The knot of his scar presses against her hand just like on that morning when she felt Grace’s shoe beneath it, his scarred hand on top. Just like when he looked her in the eye and told her to be strong.
It can’t be.
He
can’t be. George would never hurt her. Time stands still as she watches his hand through tears, just like then, immersed with this very man in a battle of wills over her daughter.
The bandleader reaches for the microphone.
She closes her eyes, remembering being on the pavement, her knees scraped raw, fear stealing her breath. But she’s not flashbacking. This is pure truth coming to her.
She knows it as she opens her eyes and sees the ruby ring through her tears the exact same way she saw that ring through her tears the morning Grace was taken. The moment her world stopped spinning. It makes her, this truth, it makes her step back from George.
“It’s you,” she whispers.
“What?”
They still dance, but like a shifting kaleidoscope, the pieces of his identity spin randomly, coming together as one. The word
cripe
, the way he double-tied Grace’s shoelaces one recent morning, the candy wrapper in her daughter’s pocket, his deep voice and scarred hand, and the painfully missing detail on her sketches. That one detail in clear focus now. She shakes her head, trying to rid the picture from her mind. Wanting desperately to deny it. Her eyes shift from the ruby ring to his eyes. Eyes that had been hooded, that have haunted her endlessly. Hosiery had been pulled over his face, compressing his features, his nose pulled to the side beneath the hosiery strain, his eyebrows splayed disparately. But the ruby ring was clear as day. “No, oh God, no.” She pulls further back and struggles to get a breath. “Say it,” she says.
“Say what? Amy, what’s wrong?”
Their step slows, but still his hand is on her back, resisting as she pulls away. She had never looked down the barrel of a gun until he held one on her. Until George had.
It’s not possible to dance; her body stops moving.
“Be strong.” Her voice shakes. When he closes his eyes for a long moment, she has her answer. Her body tenses and she twists her hand out of his. “Say it, George.” She looks away briefly, not
wanting
to see the truth, before returning her gaze to his one last time. “
Be strong
. Say it, damn it. Just
say
it for me.”
George reaches for her hands but she continues to back away, her eyes never leaving his, gauging his next move. She knows it’ll crush every last bit of love from her heart. A love she finally gave herself over to, trusting him completely. The truth constricts already, and she whips her hands back out of his reach.
“Amy. Please.”
She whispers as she inches away. “You bastard.”
And the song works toward its end, the lovers finding true love through all their faults.
“Amy, it’s not what you’re thinking.” George moves around a couple dancing close by, trying to stay within her reach. But she keeps the other couples between them now. “Amy, listen,” he insists, taking a young man by the arms and moving him aside, losing momentary sight of her, she sees that in his panicked searching her out.
It all takes new meaning now, the entire night, the dark, the music, the stars mocking her. She turns away and bumps into a woman, then sidesteps to get by. Her pace quickens as she looks back, seeing George on the dance floor, heading in her direction. “No, no,” she cries. There is some evil on her skin, on her arms, that her hands try to rub off as she moves past people out onto the expanse of lawn. A man grabs her arm and steadies her when her feet stumble. And in her rush, the night all blurs: blankets and lawn chairs, couples lounging and laughing, concerned looks. Pale moonlight pools ahead, far from the stage lights. She needs to get away. To warn her mother and to protect Grace.
And the band plays on, its melody fanning out through the park softly beneath the summer sky, an aural shimmering. The sound grows vast and distant. The last notes of the sax and piano wind their way to her as she bolts through darkness. Truth is there, too, in the song. The crowd thins farther back on the lawn and she hears her name. George’s voice calls out one last time, “Amy!” She makes it to a stand of trees, trees that against the night are only tall black shadows hiding her, giving her a second, only a second, to catch her breath and steal a look back.
And the final notes from their song, from
It Had to Be You
, rise up the hill.
It seems another world from which she is now suspended, that illuminated bandshell, the orchestra, the lights glittering. Her fairy tale.
Moonglow dapples the cluster of trees where she pauses without her purse, without her cell phone, without her wallet. She looks back toward their blanket, then turns in the other direction. Fighting a sob, finally, finally she runs.
Twenty-eight
GEORGE’S LIFE CLOSES IN ON him as he loosens the knot of his tie. Running across the lawn, he scans the sloping hill for any sign of her. “Sorry,” he says distractedly to a young family when he trips on their small cooler in his rush to detect even a trace of her, her blonde hair lifting as she runs, the sweep of her floral dress. Moonlight casts vague shadows on the hill that fool his eye with their indistinct shapes. He rights a webbed lawn chair his foot catches, righting it again when he overcompensates and tips it the other way. “Jesus Christ,” he says as he stops and wipes off his forehead.