Waltz
“Jack?”
“Hm.”
Sweaty from his afternoon run, Jack had been about to pour himself a glass of water. At Nico’s question he paused, stepped away from the sink and twirled around the kitchen’s centre island in a carefully measured cadence. “Sure. Why?” He queried once he stood by Nico’s side.
“We got thrown out of the dance class.”
“Oh?”
Nico raised his chin to meet Jack’s eyes, and his expression put Jack on alert.
“It wasn’t Daniel’s fault,” he said, words tumbling over each other.
“The instructor’s a creep. He keeps touching everyone.
Hands on hips and arse and all. Daniel kept stepping away from him, but he wasn’t having it and kept yanking him back and…
I’m sorry, Jack. I think… I think I was rude. ”
“Did you hit him?”
“No.”
“That’s a shame.”
Nico snorted. “Maybe. He said unless we did as we were told we could leave, so we left. Jess came out with us, but now she’s pissed at Daniel.”
“That doesn’t surprise me. She has two left feet. Needs all the help she can get.” Jack liked Jess, but the girl had an attitude, especially when things didn’t go her way. “Who did you team up with in the end?”
“Carol Williams.”
Jack flipped through his mental index. “Slim, blonde, with a ponytail? From the fencing team?”
“That’s her.”
“Good choice. She knows how to move.”
“She came out with us, too. So now… we need to learn to waltz, or we can’t attend the ball. Not that I’d mind that, but…”
“Daniel and the girls do?”
“Yeah.”
“Right. Not to worry.” Jack set his empty water glass in the sink. “Let me get cleaned up and then we’ll sort it out, ‘kay?” He made his way up the stairs, mind going at double speed, and the moment he was showered and dressed, he reached for his phone.
“Hey, Jack. I thought you’d call,” Jess’s mother greeted cheerfully. “I’ve already had words with Jess. Told her how much of a cow she’s been. She should be grateful your two won’t take shit from Manville.”
“Yeah. I’m pleased they tackled the matter and without bloodshed. Nico even admitted he was rude.”
“He couldn’t have been rude enough, from what I’m hearing. Sorry about Jess, though.”
“They’ll make up again, I’m sure.” Jack paused on the landing, eyes on the view outside, an idea taking shape. “You wanna come over and help me teach those kids to dance? If we clear out the dining room, there’s plenty of space.”
Choking sounds came from the other end of the line.
“What?”
“You’re nuts,” Pauline gasped. “I can’t waltz or trot or whatever he’s teaching them in that class!”
“Really? Come over anyway and I’ll teach you, too.”
“You can waltz? Really? I had you pegged for trance or rock or something.”
“I don’t say no to that, but right now the kids need to waltz, so waltz it is. Are you in?”
Pauline laughed. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world. Want me to pick up Carol on the way over?”
“If you could. I need to shift furniture and sort out the music.”
“Get the boys to help.”
“Don’t be silly. Daniel needs an hour to dress for Jess and Nico needs an hour to give him grief over it. No way am I getting in the middle of that.”
“Well, in that case, I’ll bring the girls and ice cream. And I’ll make sure Carol’s mum knows what’s going on.”
Jack thanked the universe for competent allies. “Sounds good to me.”
Dinner hour was long past, and even the sunset had dimmed to a memory beyond the western horizon, yet light and laughter spilled from every downstairs window.
Gareth locked his car to strains of Strauss’s Blue Danube and checked his phone for messages.
He mentally reviewed the day’s schedule, wondering where he’d dropped the ball.
Nothing came to mind. The right-hand side of his diary, where he noted commitments outside of his job as Head of Security at Nancarrow Mining, had been blank.
It usually was on Fridays, which for him tended to be split between a finance review in the morning and a board meeting in the afternoon.
It guaranteed a weekend free from distractions, though it could make for a long Friday—as it had today.
Another burst of laughter drifted from the house, bright in the growing darkness.
Unsure of his reception, Gareth ignored the front door in favour of the path leading around the side of the house to the garden. The French doors stood open, and three couples twirled and wobbled through a dining room devoid of table and chairs amid bellowed instructions and waves of giggles.
Gareth’s gaze found Jack, who twirled Jessica’s mother around the room, his posture perfect. Near the French doors, Daniel’s attempt to spin Jess had turned into an undignified wobble. And opposite him, Nico and a willowy girl as tall as he was stepped and spun a little more gracefully.
“Hi, Gareth.” Nico spotted him first. He stopped his attempts at ballroom dancing and grinned. “Can you waltz?”
“Of course he can waltz.” Jack smiled a greeting. “He was an officer.”
“Officers need to dance?”
The dismay in Nico’s voice reminded Gareth of a conversation he’d had with Jack about Nico’s potential career choices. It seemed Jack had been right.
He set his briefcase beside the door and surveyed the proceedings. “What are you all doing? I thought you had dance lessons at school.”
“We thought so, too.” Pauline came over and held out a hand in greeting. She was flushed and grinning from ear to ear. “It didn’t work out, so Jack suggested that he’d teach the kids here. And if you really can waltz, then maybe you could take charge of Jess and give Daniel’s bruised toes a rest.”
“Mum! You’re awful.”
Pauline shrugged, not looking at her daughter. “Daniel is too nice to call you out, so I’m doing it for him.”
“Guys, I’m done. One more and then we’ll call it a night.” Jack pressed buttons on the sound system. The music changed from Viennese to English waltz and the four teenagers twirled more neatly around the room.
Unable to spot any sign of Jess stepping on Daniel’s toes, Gareth held his peace. He noted Jack’s smile and Pauline’s downright evil grin and waited to find out what had prompted dance lessons in their dining room.
“How about sage green for the downstairs bathroom?” Nico asked an hour later, when they’d restored the dining room and had settled in the kitchen with pizza, salad, and garlic bread on the table between them.
It was rather late for dinner, but the boys didn’t have school the next day, and Gareth was determined to sleep in.
Not that Jack would join him. His keen interest at Nico’s questions made that plain.
“Sage green?”
“Or bamboo wallpaper and grey tiles?”
Jack tipped his head, contemplating the idea. “Bamboo wallpaper? Like panelling?”
“No. More like a hi-res photo of a bamboo forest.” Nico held out his tablet for Jack to take. “It’s printed on a roll, and you put it up like wallpaper.”
Gareth sipped his wine and let the week slide off his shoulders.
He wanted to ask about the impromptu dance lesson, find out what had caused the tension in Daniel’s shoulders and the false cheer in Nico’s voice, but he knew better.
They’d never pushed the boys to share when they weren’t ready, and he wouldn’t start now.
Jack didn’t either. He scrutinised the images on Nico’s tablet, then tilted the screen for Gareth to see. “I like the idea of greenery,” he said. “It’s peaceful, and the bathroom’s too small for real plants.”
“You’re not thinking of putting it on all the walls, are you?”
Nico shook his head. “That’d be claustrophobic. But I can print out sheets of it and tack them up on the wall, so we can see what it looks like.”
“Good idea,” Jack praised. “It will help us pick paint, too.” He moved pizza boards out of the way and slid their book of paint samples into the middle of the table.
“I have some free time this weekend. If we can agree on the colours for the downstairs bathroom and the hallway, I can get on with that.”
Gareth swallowed his grin with the last bite of pizza.
He knew Jack loved to decorate. But watching him come home carrying paint pots or toting the latest discovery from a thrift store or architectural salvage yard was something else.
Not that Gareth complained. He had little interest in plastering, plumbing, or wielding a paint brush and preferred to leave the renovating to Jack.
They debated shades of green, talked about matching colours for the hallway, and bit by bit, the normality of their evening settled the boys’ unease. Gareth drew a breath of relief and sent a smile in Jack’s direction. Whatever was going on in their lives, Jack had it covered.
It lacked ten minutes to one o’clock when Gareth stepped from the bathroom, towel-drying his hair.
Jack was already under the covers, but not yet ready to call it a night.
What little Nico had told him about their trouble at school had rung an alarm bell in Jack’s mind, and he swiped through screen after screen, skimming Barrington Manville’s social media accounts.
“Did they tell you what happened?” he asked as Gareth slid into bed.
“Daniel refused to follow orders, Nico was rude, and the dance teacher told them it was his way or the highway,” Gareth summarised what he’d learned after Jack had gone upstairs. “That was Nico’s take. Daniel didn’t say a word and barely looked at me.”
“He’s feeling guilty even though there’s no reason for it.”
“I got the same impression, so I didn’t push.” Gareth settled into the mattress and offered Jack a shoulder to lean on.
Jack took it, having long since learned that it soothed them both. “Nico was rude on Daniel’s behalf. Manville kept touching Daniel and blocked his attempts to step out of reach. Nico intervened. And Carol told me he touches the girls, too.”
“And nobody’s mentioned it?”
Jack shrugged. “It’s not an easy thing to talk about. Especially at that age. For one, it’s embarrassing. For another…”
“They’re worried nobody will believe it.”
“Quite.” Jack exhaled, grateful that Gareth understood without the need for a lengthy explanation.
Though, seeing what his mother did for a living, maybe that wasn’t surprising.
“This is hearsay, okay? According to Carol, Manville’s behaviour is nothing new.
When a girl in a previous year threatened to report him, he asked how she was going to prove that she didn’t lead him on.
Teenage hormones, crush on the teacher, asking for it… ”
“The usual.”
“Yeah. The girls don’t want that kind of grief, so they stick together, protect each other as best they can, and put up with.”
“That’s the trouble with boys,” Gareth mused as he turned on his side, yawning and eyes already half shut. “They tend not to run in packs. Not at this age.”
“And they want to solve all their problems themselves, of course.” Jack abandoned his search, parked his tablet on the bedside table, and slid deeper into the bed. “I’m glad they told you. I’m damned glad Nico asked me for help.”
“They know they’re safe with us.” Gareth snuck an arm around Jack’s waist and nodded at the tablet. “Got anywhere?”
“Not yet. I’m just doing the basics. Website, Twitter, Facebook… Website and Twitter are clean. Facebook has the odd image of the classes he teaches. If I had more data—”
“You wouldn’t be in bed at all right now, but settled in your turret, stalking the dance teacher until he hasn’t a single secret left.”
“You know me too well.”
“And you’re worried.”
“Maybe. I didn’t like what Carol told me.”
“Not Nico?”
“Of course, but Nico has my kind of radar, including the overreactions. Carol, though… I can’t discount that.”
Gareth tensed and his question, when it came, betrayed his uncertainty. “Which bothers you?”
“Let it go, Gareth.” Jack sighed as he turned out the bedside light. “I don’t live in blissful ignorance, so yes, it bothers me. Doesn’t mean it amounts to anything.”
“You’re done looking?”
Jack snuggled in, not complaining when Gareth pulled him closer. “In your dreams.”