Chapter 1 Citizen of the Century （2012） #2
Donald Bellingham looks up and smiles. “Never leave for the gig without it. Do I know you?”
“No,” I say, “my mom. She was at a dance you DJ’d way back in the early sixties. She said you snuck in your father’s big band records.”
He grins. “Yeah, I caught hell for that. Who was your mother?”
“Andrea Robertson,” I say, picking the name at random. Andrea was my best pupil in period two American Lit.
“Sure, I remember her.” His vague smile says he doesn’t.
“I don’t suppose you still have any of those old records, do you?”
“God, no. Long gone. But I’ve got all kinds of big band stuff on CD. Do I feel a request coming on?”
“Actually, you do. But it’s kind of special.”
He laughs. “Ain’t they all.”
I tell him what I want, and Donald—as eager to please as ever—agrees. As I start back toward the end of the block, where the woman I came to see is now being helped to punch by the mayor, Donald calls after me. “I never caught your name.”
“Amberson,” I tell him over my shoulder. “George Amberson.”
“And you want it at eight-fifteen?”
“On the dot. Time is of the essence, Donald. Let’s hope it cooperates.”
Five minutes later, Donald Bellingham nukes Jodie with “At the Hop” and dancers fill the street under the Texas sunset.
8
At ten past eight, Donald plays a slow Alan Jackson tune, one even grown-ups can dance to. Sadie is left alone for the first time since the speechifying ended, and I approach her. My heart beating so hard it seems to shake my whole body.
“Miz Dunhill?”
She turns, smiling and looking up a little. She’s tall, but I’m taller. Always was. “Yes?”
“My name is George Amberson. I wanted to tell you how much I admire you and all the good work you’ve done.”
Her smile grows a little puzzled. “Thank you, sir. I don’t recognize you, but the name seems familiar. Are you from Jodie?”
I can no longer travel in time, and I certainly can’t read minds, but I know what she’s thinking, just the same. I hear that name in my dreams.
“I am, and I’m not.” And before she can pursue it: “May I ask what sparked your interest in public service?”
Her smile is now just a lingering ghost around the corners of her mouth. “And you want to know because—?”
“Was it the assassination? The Kennedy assassination?”
“Why… I guess it was, in a way. I like to think I would have gotten involved in the wider world anyway, but I suppose it started there. It left this part of Texas with…” Her left hand rises involuntarily toward her cheek, then drops again.
“… such a scar. Mr. Amberson, where do I know you from? Because I do know you, I’m sure of it. ”
“Can I ask another question?”
She looks at me with mounting perplexity. I glance at my watch. Eight-fourteen. Almost time. Unless Donald forgets, of course… and I don’t think he will. To quote some old fifties song or other, some things are just meant to be.
“The Sadie Hawkins dance, back in 1961. Who did you get to chaperone with you when Coach Borman’s mother broke her hip? Do you recall?”
Her mouth drops open, then slowly closes. The mayor and his wife approach, see us in deep conversation, and veer off. We are in our own little capsule here; just Jake and Sadie. The way it was once upon a time.
“Don Haggarty,” she says. “It was like shapping a dance with the village idiot. Mr. Amberson—”
But before she can finish, Donald Bellingham comes in through eight tall loudspeakers, right on cue: “Okay, Jodie, here’s a blast from the past, a platter that really matters, only the best and by request!”
Then it comes, that smooth brass intro from a long-gone band:
Bah-dah-dah… bah-dah-da-dee-dum…
“Oh my God, ‘In the Mood,’ ” Sadie says. “I used to lindy to this one.”
I hold out my hand. “Come on. Let’s do the thing.”
She laughs, shaking her head. “My swing-dancing days are far behind me, I’m afraid, Mr. Amberson.”
“But you’re not too old to waltz. As Donald used to say in the old days, ‘Out of your seats and on your feets.’ And call me George. Please.”
In the street, couples are jitterbugging. A few of them are even trying to lindy-hop, but none of them can swing it the way Sadie and I could swing it, back in the day. Not even close.
She takes my hand like a woman in a dream. She is in a dream, and so am I. Like all sweet dreams, it will be brief… but brevity makes sweetness, doesn’t it? Yes, I think so. Because when the time is gone, you can never get it back.
Party lights hang over the street, yellow and red and green. Sadie stumbles over someone’s chair, but I’m ready for this and catch her easily by the arm.
“Sorry, clumsy,” she says.
“You always were, Sadie. One of your more endearing traits.”
Before she can ask about that, I slip my arm around her waist. She slips hers around mine, still looking up at me.
The lights skate across her cheeks and shine in her eyes.
We clasp hands, fingers folding together naturally, and for me the years fall away like a coat that’s too heavy and too tight.
In that moment I hope one thing above all others: that she was not too busy to find at least one good man, one who disposed of John Clayton’s fucking broom once and for all.
She speaks in a voice almost too low to be heard over the music, but I hear her—I always did. “Who are you, George?”
“Someone you knew in another life, honey.”
Then the music takes us, the music rolls away the years, and we dance.
January 2, 2009–December 18, 2010
Sarasota, Florida
Lovell, Maine