Chapter 28
Twenty-Eight
In late-summer Fontain, the vineyards gather to celebrate the harvest season with a grape-stomping festival. It’s overindulgence dressed as tradition, and I haven’t been in years.
Nash and I went just days before he got the phone call about the position in DC and I found out I was pregnant. In bare feet, we climbed into an oversized half barrel and grapes squished between our toes. We both laughed; it was completely disgusting.
The air was hot, the sun was low, the music from a bluegrass band blasted through the speakers.
Nash pulled me close—one hand firm on my back, the other gentle as it held my palm—and stopped our stomping to start dancing.
Right there in the middle of people smashing grapes and with grapes between our own toes, he said, “I hope I get to dance in grapes with you until the day I die, Rue Conway.”
And I, with a deliriously happy smile on my face, said, “Someone once said that dancing has been part of every good moment of history.”
“Sounds smart,” Nash said before kissing me. “Stick with him.”
The only time Jonathan and I danced was at his brother’s wedding over a year ago, and we never made it through a whole song due to his groomsman’s duties and whiskey-induced dental consultations.
It wouldn’t matter if we had; no dance could ever compare to that one in a vat of grapes.
As sure as Nash’s arm is covered in black lines marking moments of history, that memory is branded right to the timeline of my life, never to be erased or outdone.
To say I’m less than thrilled about dancing would be the biggest understatement of the entire history of man. Based on how anxious I am just hearing the word and the way, briefly, I thought of Nash’s hands on me—the curve of my hips and lines of my back—I can’t put myself in that position.
Nash and Cap, oblivious, lead me into the community center, laughing as they go. Their easy joy amplifies my dread as we step into a large room with a drop ceiling, terrible lighting, and seemingly every senior citizen in the state of South Carolina.
And Sunny.
Who’s wearing a purple spandex jumpsuit and pointing her battery-operated fan toward her face. The gold hoops in her ears bracket a big smile.
“What is this?” I ask in a strained whisper.
“I told you.” Nash grins. “Dancing.”
“Hey, fam,” Sunny belts out, too loud for how close she is to us. She snaps her fingers and dips her hips from side to side. “Cappy, baby, you ready to get your groove on?”
“I love dancing,” Cap says with a chuckle from next to me.
“You can barely walk,” I whisper-snip at him. I don’t want to do this. My life is falling apart, I’m engaged to someone else, and dancing means closeness and touching. My dress is too small and my feelings too big and this is not at all what I came here to do. “How the hell are you going to dance?”
He jabs his cane onto my exposed toes, making me yelp. “Mind your own damn business.”
“Honey child—” Sunny smiles, letting me know she’s pushing my buttons. “You ready to get your groove back?”
“I have my groove, thanks,” I say dryly.
She makes an incredulous sound before giving Nash a pointed look. “Hope you practiced, bossman. Your wife even smiles like she’s beat deaf.”
Nash chuckles. “Now, Sunny, play nice.”
“And I’m not smiling,” I sneer.
“Mhm,” she says with raised brows. “That’s what I’m talkin’ ’bout.” To Nash she says sweetly, “Thanks again for last night.”
It is none of my business, yet my jaw drops straight to the stained linoleum floor. Nash was with Sunny.
All he says: “It was fun.”
She leaves to greet other dancers, and I try really hard not to care about what she just implied nor the mental acrobatics it has me doing. As nonchalantly as I can muster, I ask, “You were with Sunny last night?”
He shakes hands with someone walking in, barely looking my way to say, “I was.”
It’s none of my business yet I need to know. “Why?”
Sunny shouts to the room, “We’ll start in five minutes, y’all!” Our fellow dancers fall silent. “Pick a partner. Cappy baby, you with me.”
The room returns to a conversational buzz, and Nash fights a smile to say, “Why do you think?”
“Why do you do that?” I demand, jabbing my fists into my dress-covered hips.
“Do what?” he asks innocently. “I’m not doing anything.”
“You’re gaslighting me, for one. And you make me ask you questions a million different ways when you already know what I’m trying to ask, and it makes me crazy.”
“Because you need practice asking what you want to know,” he says, “and I like seeing you crazy.”
Damn him.
“I don’t want to dance.”
“Why the hell not?” Cap asks with a grunt. “Iris basically danced all day when I knew her. Don’t think I ever saw her walk.”
He smiles fondly, and I want to kick his good leg.
“I’m not my mother,” I remind him. “And I only dance in the kitchen with my daughter.”
“I like dancing in kitchens,” Nash says, poking me in the ribs like this is hilarious and one of the women he might be sleeping with isn’t sashaying around in spandex with a spray fan.
“Why are you so tense? You love dancing. Oh”—he leans in close to whisper—“is this because I was with Sunny last night?”
I want to slap him.
“She like this when you married her?” Cap asks, adjusting his oxygen tubes at his ears.
Nash shakes his head. “She’s been away from me too long. The dentist must not be a dancer.”
I could scream.
At the nerve.
Of this.
Man.
I pull my shoulders back. “And why is Sunny here?”
“She teaches senior dance classes once a week,” Nash says, “and here we are.”
“What a coinkydink,” I say flatly. “And you do this regularly?”
“Much as I can.”
Cap hacks out a cough next to me, waving me off when I give him a concerned look.
“Your girlfriend like spending time with Scary Sunny and the seniors of the area?” I ask, combative.
He looks at me sideways. “Who wouldn’t?”
I might growl.
This man has me questioning my engagement while plotting his murder. This isn’t pre-wedding jitters: My brain is fucked.
“Alright, y’all,” Sunny announces. “We learnin’ the Carolina Shag tonight but makin’ it fresh, know what I mean?”
A few people around us woo! at this news.
“Cappy baby,” Sunny says. “Ready to show ’em how it’s done?”
Cap grunts, shoves his cane in my hands, then limps toward her.
As riled up as I am, I can’t help but smile. Oxygen over one shoulder and forest of chest hair in plain view, my dad stands in the center of the room like Fred Astaire ready to trot across the dance floor.
“Now the Shag originated on the coast of the Carolinas,” Sunny explains. “The man gets to lead, meaning Cappy here’s gonna be gettin’ all the control.”
Sunny wiggles her brows in his direction; Cap grunts and grins.
“We start with the basic steps.” She demonstrates back and forth steps, moving effortlessly as she counts “One and two, three and four, rock step” over and over as she does. “Try it with me, Cappy.”
They stand shoulder to shoulder and demonstrate the steps. Sunny has impressive rhythm. Even without music playing, her hips move and shoulders shimmy like a full band is playing.
My dad, much to my surprise, doesn’t miss a beat either. He’s more rigid, but he shuffles his feet exactly the way she tells him. Across the room, our eyes meet, both of our brows lifting. Mine meaning, how the hell can you do that? His, watch and learn, kiddo.
“Y’all try.” Sunny turns the music up—an oldies song suiting the dance perfectly—then loudly counts the repeated steps as the room begins a collective shuffle to her commands.
“Ready?” Nash asks.
Stiff, I face the same direction as everyone else, standing shoulder to shoulder with him and practicing the basic steps.
More than once, I fall out of step.
Less than once, he does.
“I suck at this.” I miss the next step as everyone around me glides effortlessly, especially Nash. “Why do I suck at this?”
“Relax.” He does this thing where he pops his butt out and lets his knees bend a little more than necessary. There’s a bounce in his movements, but it’s smooth. He’s showing off and we’re only on the basic step.
“Alright, y’all,” Sunny shouts. “Now we gonna face our partners and do it again. No touching. Read their body.”
She and Cap demonstrate, laughing as they face each other. His prosthetic foot drags and the oxygen tank bobbles on his shoulder, but he’s right on beat.
She starts the music and Nash and I face each other. I stare at his feet, flustered he’s moving so easily. Flustered that I’m dancing with him. Flustered the next step is going to be us touching and he might be sleeping with Sunny and Emma.
“Look at me,” he demands.
I do. Against my will and right in his eyes.
Sunny shouts our next instructions. “Now, right and left hands connect, male lead.” She pauses for everyone to get in position.
“There should be tension when you step away that’ll help bring you back together.
That’s all Shaggin’ is. The pull back before the comin’ together. Tension gettin’ you to the good stuff.”
At this, Nash’s lips twitch, his palm out for me to take. “You ready to Shag?”
I slap my hand in his and roll my eyes at his double entendre. Another lively oldies song starts, Sunny hollering the count as we begin to move.
“You aren’t letting me lead,” Nash says, moving his feet easily.
“I am,” I argue.
We dance a few more steps with me staring at his feet, both of us jerking at the other’s hand.
“Look at me and let me lead.”
“I. Am.” I step on his toes.
“You are not,” he argues. “Watch.”
He stops but I keep moving, tugging at his hand to get him to follow and stepping on his toes when he doesn’t. Again.
“Pretty sure that’s called leading.”
Inside: I scream.
“I didn’t want to dance to begin with.”
Sunny appears next to us, hands on her hips, smile too big for my liking. “What seems to be the problem with the happy couple?”
“She won’t let me lead,” Nash says, smug.