All that week and into the next, the only thing anybody in town could talk about was the Valentine’s Day dance. At school, the girls went round and round about what they were going to wear and the boys went on and on about how their mothers were making them go.
I’d sit to the side of them, listening to their chirping and chattering, thinking how their jaws would drop when they saw me lindy-hopping across the dance floor. I didn’t think it would matter if I had on a nice dress or if Opal let me brush a little color on my cheeks. The only thing they’d remember from that dance was how jealous they were of my swinging and swaying. I wasn’t one for bragging or thinking more of myself than I ought, but I was getting pretty good at dancing.
I didn’t say one word to them about it, either. I wanted them to be surprised.
Opal had helped me pick out a dress for the occasion. It was one that’d gotten just a little too small on her. Eating at our table once or twice a day had done her some good. All she had to do to that dress was hem it up an inch or two. I only had to twirl to make it swoop up away from my knees. It was pink with white polka dots and a pretty white collar she’d bleached fresh just for me.
“I’ll do your hair if you want,” she’d said. “I could put it in curlers.”
“Yes, please,” I’d said, hoping I’d end up looking just like Shirley Temple.
As for Ray, the only reason he was coming was because he’d heard there was going to be a cakewalk. For a nickel he’d get to walk around until the music stopped. Depending on where he ended up, he could win a cake. I knew for a fact that most the ladies in town had gone without sugar in their coffee to be able to make those cakes.
When I’d asked Aunt Carrie why they’d do something like that, she’d said sometimes all it took was baking a pretty cake to make a woman feel like times were normal again.
“It reminds us of how things were,” she’d said. “Back when times weren’t so hard and baking a cake was the most normal thing in the world to do. I think it helps us have hope—even a little bit—that times can be like that again.”
“Do you think they ever will?” I asked.
“No. Not completely.” She’d smiled at me. “But they might just be better. We’ll have to wait and see.”
I thought I understood because whenever I imagined what it might be like to dance in the American Legion, I felt that maybe things weren’t so bad as I sometimes thought they were. When I visited those daydreams I forgot about Mama being gone and about the way Hazel sneered at me from across the classroom or even how Delores stared like a scared little deer whenever I said a word to her. The only thing I thought of was how good it felt to dance. Every bad feeling shuffled back into a dark corner of my mind.
If only I could’ve swept them all the way out I’d have been a whole lot better off.
Every once in a while Daddy’d drive me home from school. On the coldest days it didn’t matter how many layers of scarf I held over my nose and mouth or how I worked at breathing nice and easy like Doctor Barnett had told me to, the freezing air still got to me, making my lungs tighten up and causing me to struggle for breath.
It was a Tuesday and Daddy’d not only dropped me off at school, but he’d told me to wait inside for him to get me that afternoon. He didn’t want me sitting out in the schoolyard for fear I’d catch my death from how the wind whipped. Those days were hardest for breathing, like the rushing wind would’ve liked nothing more than to steal the air right out of me.
“And I’ll see you after I get done at work, okay?” he said after driving me all the way up in front of the house on Magnolia Street. “Go right inside, hear?”
I nodded, putting my hand on the latch to open my side of the truck.
“Pearlie?” he said, reaching over and squeezing my hand that was closest to him. “I love you, darlin’.”
“Love you, too, Daddy,” I said, smiling at him over my shoulder before pushing open the door and stepping out.
The wind smacked me right in the face and I tried not to gasp at how freezing cold the air was. Rushing toward the porch, I tried my very best not to slip and fall on any hidden patch of ice. Turning, I waved at Daddy just before opening the front door and stepping inside.
On the other side of the door, I untied my boots so they wouldn’t get snow on the living room floor. In my stocking feet, I padded my way to the closet to hang up my coat.
Opal came from the kitchen, wiping her hands dry on a towel.
“Have a good day?” she asked.
“Sure I did,” I answered. “How about you?”
“Just the normal.” She smiled. “Just a couple more days until the dance.”
“I know.”
“You think you’re ready?”
“Might be.”
“How about we work on those triple steps today?” she asked. “Maybe try doing a few underarm spins?”
She didn’t have to ask me twice.
That night I dreamed of dancing. Trumpets blasted and drums boomed. My shoes tapped on the dance floor as I made my way to the center. I swung my arms at my sides, making circles with my hands in the air and shimmying for all I was worth. Kicking my feet, I caused my skirt to swish from one side to the other.
And that skirt was of the deepest purple, so deep it almost looked black.
I stomped and spun and hopped. All the folks standing around me in a circle cheered out, hollering my name, whistling and clapping and moving their shoulders to the beat.
But then the music changed. The clarinets held out one long sour note. The trombones groaned and the trumpets sighed. All the dancers in the circle went on with their clapping like nothing had changed.
Then the floor dropped out from under me and I fell, the skirt of deepest purple flew up so it covered over all of me except my legs and underthings. I tried pushing it down, tried getting free from it, but the fabric tangled me as I fell, fell, fell.
Down, down, down.
All of the sudden I was on the floor of the living room. Mama stood in front of the davenport, carpetbag in hand. Without looking at me she walked to the door and opened it, then stepped out to the porch.
Then she was back, standing in front of the davenport again, same carpetbag hanging from her fist. She walked to the door, opened it, stepped out.
Back to the davenport. Leaving. Back. Leaving. Over and again and over and again. It must’ve been a hundred times I watched her walk away from me just to come right back to that same spot, her feet firm on the living room floor.
And from somewhere above me the music went on and on.