THAT NIGHT IN THE BIG OPEN ROOM the fire had burned down to embers. Our dinner was eaten, the dishes neglected, the bottle of St. Julien drunk to sediment. The night was black beyond the dusty windowpanes. Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong were singing “They Can’t Take That Away from Me” on the antique Phillips turntable that, following instructions in Claire’s notebook, I’d found wrapped in a musty blanket in a cupboard outside the kitchen.
At first, in deference to my complete lack of dancing skills, Claire guided me in a slow circle, treading water on land.
Through “Gee Baby, Ain’t I Good to You.” Through “I Won’t Dance.” Through “It Ain’t Necessarily So.” Through “A Fine Romance.”
I loved it anyway. I loved all the steps I didn’t know. I loved the awkwardness which with each subsequent song became more like an embrace, until our separate movements began to feel like one joined act, which was the dancing. I loved the two beautiful voices—one clean and limber and high, birdlike in its nimble airborne maneuvers; the other deep and rasped and lived-in though powerfully tender, a friend of the earth—two voices alternating, calling out to each other, talking, singing. I loved feeling that I had the right to hold her. I loved every one of the places where my body touched hers: our hips and thighs, her head on my chest, my left hand over her right, my other hand pressing the hot small of her back.
On and on. Through “Stompin’ at the Savoy.” Through “A Foggy Day.” Through “Don’t Be That Way.” Through “Summertime.” Through “Cheek to Cheek.”
Then the phone rang, and Claire lifted her head from my chest. She stepped back. The song continued to play but now the room had been cast down into silence. We stood frozen like figurines on a music box. Her face had lost its color, her eyes were aimed at the floor. Her nostrils were dilated and I could see her chest rising and falling with each breath. She stood like someone woken from a trance, thinking very hard, just beginning to feel the terror of it.
The phone rang again.
“My father,” she whispered.
“I’ll get it.”
She grabbed my arm. “Please don’t.” She turned and crossed the room. I realized that the record was still playing and I walked over and shut it off. Then the phone rang again, a sound loud enough to shatter any peace, and she answered it and learned that her father had died that afternoon.