Chapter 7 #2
There is a woman in a glass ticket booth. Her shoulders shake to the beat of the music as she hands out tickets to the long line of men in front of her.
In the center of the room is the dance floor.
It’s sectioned off with rich red velvet ropes, manned by a boy at each of the four entrances taking tickets from the dancers.
Above them sits the band: ten polished men dressed in white jackets and black bow ties, with slickly coiffed hair and shiny brass instruments, led by a single conductor, all in white.
His dancing is rhythmic as he moves his hands back and forth. It’s almost hypnotizing.
The music picks up, drums beating out a wild tempo. This new tune draws excited gasps from the crowd and then a mad rush of bodies heading toward the dance floor.
“Over here.” Kitty pulls me into the mob. We weave and duck through various groups, talking, laughing, and dancing. Closer and closer to the band.
“There!” She finally stops, spinning around to grab both my hands. “To the left. Dark hair. Completely dreamy. Do you see him?”
My eyes drift past the bassist, the trumpeter, and the trombone player to the direction Kitty was headed only a moment before.
There is a group standing in a circle, talking.
Three women and three men. Two of the men are of average height, blond; the third is dark-haired and very much as dreamy as Kitty described, with a strong jaw, immaculate suit, and broad chest.
And I watch him snake his arm around a very pretty brunette.
“How do I look?” Kitty fluffs her hair but doesn’t wait for my answer. Before I can stop her, she whips back around, her eyes landing on Beau just as he bends to whisper something in the woman’s ear. The woman laughs. Kitty freezes.
I wait to see what she will do next.
The Kitty I knew was brazen. She’d pause at the entrance to the dining room, waiting for everyone to turn in her direction before greeting them with a confident “Evening, darlings.” Or when the doctor visited her to check up on a lingering cough she’d had for weeks and couldn’t get a good angle with his stethoscope through the feathers on her robe, Kitty whipped it open and declared, “I’m sure this fine doctor has seen plenty of breasts in his life.
I doubt mine will make the highlight reel.
” Then, after seeing my mortified face, she scolded me with a single pointed finger.
“Don’t ever let your mind bully you into believing your body isn’t glorious. ”
She’d be the first to get up and dance to the terrible band assembled each year for the town’s Watermelon Festival, in a pair of pink polka-dot capri pants.
And she once lectured a two-hundred-pound tattooed biker on courtesy toward your fellow man when he parked his motorcycle too close to an accessible parking spot.
The Kitty in front of me seems to share her future self’s confidence. She straightens her shoulders, staring Beau and his companion down until he looks up and makes eye contact. But when she finally turns away, her chin high and lifted, there’s a sheen to her eyes, though not a single tear falls.
“I’m…not feeling well all of a sudden.” She blinks twice before fully facing me again. “Would it be okay if we left a little early? I don’t want to ruin your night, but I think it might be best if I go home.”
I open my mouth to say something. Yes? No? I know your boyfriend looks like a bit of a jerk right now, but I’m pretty sure it all works out in the end. Don’t worry. But a young woman interrupts, bounding into our tight little bubble, breathless and giggling and smelling like cheap gin.
“Kitty! Hello, Kitty!” Her hair is such a deep shade of brown that it’s almost black. Her curls are much wilder than Kitty’s, and she has a thin sheen of sweat across her brow, as if she has been dancing all evening.
Kitty wipes her cheeks with the back of her hand before smiling widely at this girl. “Lucy, gosh, I didn’t see you there.”
Lucy hands Kitty a square of folded paper from her pocket. “Knots asked me to give you this. He’s taking tickets now but wants to know if you’ll dance the next one with him.”
Kitty opens the paper and reads it briefly before folding it up again and tucking it into her pocket. “I don’t know….” She hesitates, her eyes shifting to me.
“You should go,” I tell her, not entirely sure why I’m saying it.
Kitty’s eyes shoot to Beau and then back. “With Knots?”
I shrug. “It’s just a dance, and you look so pretty tonight.”
The band begins to play again. It’s a quick and lively tune. Lucy begins to shake her shoulders to the rhythm. “The band is an absolute gas, Kit, come on! I’ll see you out there.” She squeezes Kitty’s arm before disappearing into the crowd heading toward the dance floor.
Kitty’s eyes drift to Beau again, and I can feel her reluctance returning.
I’m reminded suddenly of another Kitty-ism.
One she spouted after first receiving her cancer diagnosis.
She had asked me to attend the appointment with her.
Her daughter was supposed to be there but had a last-minute conflict, and Kitty wanted to make sure someone else was with her to get all the critical details.
The doctor was direct and grim: Kitty’s end was in sight.
She was quiet the entire drive back to Sunnyvale, only nodding when I asked if she was okay.
She returned to her suite as soon as we got back, requesting dinner to be served in her room.
I was in the dining hall a little later that night, helping to clear the remaining plates from dinner, when the lights dimmed, and the door to the kitchen swung open.
A sea of orange flames danced across the dining room as a husky voice sang, “Happy birthday to you.” I watched Kitty cross the carpet to set the cake in front of Mr. McNaught, then she kissed his cheek as he blew out the candles.
Swing music blasted through the speakers, and she had the whole dining room up and dancing within moments.
Hours later, when we were alone again, her arm looped through mine and her patent heels hanging from her other hand, I asked her, “How?”
How did she go from receiving devastating news one moment to becoming the life of the party the next? She leaned over and whispered the exact words I repeat to young Kitty now.
“Life may not be the party we signed up for, but while we’re here, we might as well dance.”
The young Kitty in front of me looks up, mouth open, then nods slowly as the words sink in. “You, my dear friend, are absolutely right.”