I stood with my back to the gold brocade curtains and watched, sipping the sweet warm punch, afraid to spill on Mom's dress.
I figured out pretty quick that everyone in the ballroom knew each other. I overheard conversations and realized that they were all seniors in the local high school across the water, in West Palm Beach. This was the first dance of the year.
If I were pretty, a doll, a dish, maybe some of the boys would have gotten up the nerve to come and introduce themselves. But I saw their glances slide off me, like ugly was Vaseline, and I was coated with it.
I felt like I was disappearing. I clutched the punch glass, empty now. I couldn't seem to move to put it back on the table. If I moved a muscle, someone would notice me. The best I could do now was hope to stay invisible and then sneak out.
Then the worst thing happened. A boy noticed me.
He was the most unattractive boy in the room, a dogface, a Poindexter, the one who hadn't asked any girl to dance, because he knew that no girl wanted him to. But I was a stranger, so he figured, why not?
I realized that there was something worse than not being asked to dance. It was being asked to dance by the wrong boy.
He pushed himself off the wall as the band swung into "In the Mood" and the swirl of dresses took over the dance floor. I was trapped, caught between the dancers and the punch bowl.
"You don't recognize me, do you?" he said. "Which makes us even. Because it took me until now to recognize you. Swell dress." He waited another second, then said, "I'm a bellhop here. And I park the cars."
"Did you sneak in, too?"
"I go to the high school," he said. "You're the sneaker. Maybe I should call the manager."
I couldn't tell if he was serious. But a Florida kid wasn't going to get away with that with me. "Go ahead,"
I said. "Let's see what happens. Maybe it will liven up this lousy party."
He grinned at me. "I'm Wally."
"Evie."
"Yeah, I know. We know all the names of the guests. Not hard, since there's hardly any. You should see this place in December."
"So I hear."
"So what do you say? Do you want to dance?"
He was so far away from my dream of what this night could be. I saw three pimples on his chin, and how the comb marks were still in his hair. One of the prettier girls looked over and whispered to the boy she was dancing with. She giggled.
"No, thank you," I said. "I... don't want to dance. I have to go, anyway. See you around!"
I had to get out, and fast. I turned and put down my punch glass and then pushed at the French doors behind me. I felt the breeze on my face. The air was like water I could dive into and swim away in.
The pool looked so impossibly blue with the lights on — a blue I had never seen before in my life, not in the sky or the ocean or a dress. It was the cleanest blue I could imagine. I felt calmer just looking at it, and at the way the lights under the water made the shadows of the palms waver.
I felt a chair at the back of my knees, and I sat, petticoat crackling. I wanted to rip the whole dress off and tear my hair out of the hundreds of bobby pins Mrs. Grayson had stuck in my head (my scalp, I'm sure, was dotted with red pricks from each individual pin). Suddenly I was furious at them, at Mom and Mrs. Grayson, for dressing me up, knowing how stupid I looked, and launching me at that party like a battleship.
I took off one of the high-heeled sandals, the white sandals my mother prized, and threw it into the pool.
That's when I noticed him. He was on the other side of the pool, dressed in a white shirt and khaki pants. He had lowered the chair until it was flat, and he was lying back on it, face to the night sky, smoking a cigarette. He raised himself on his elbows and looked into the pool like he owned it.
"Well?" he said.
I didn't say anything. Was he going to report me to the manager, a man who smelled like Vitalis and only smiled at the rich guests?
"Aren't you going to let the other shoe drop?"
I took off the other one and threw it in.
"My kind of woman," he said.
Woman. From across the pool, in this dress, did I look like a woman? If I could just manage to beat it out of here, victory would be mine.
But then there were the shoes. I could maybe think of a reason they were soaked. (What? A waiter spilling a pitcher of ice water? A toilet overflow?) But I couldn't come up with a reason for them to be lost.
He stood up and started toward me. It took him a while to get to me because he had to walk around all the chairs and the deep end of the pool. I had plenty of chances to run, but I didn't. There was something that made me stay. I was afraid to be rude, I guess.
I'd always been such a good girl.
He sat on the end of the chaise next to me. He didn't look at me, but looked at the pool. "I'm more used to taking orders than giving them, but you do know, don't you, that it's a crime to be sad under a full moon."
But you do know, don't you ... You could hear the commas in his sentences. Nobody in Queens talked like that.
My feet dangled off the side of the chair. It was the only part of me he could see. I was embarrassed by my sunburned toes.
"I assume that you're a refugee from the dance inside."
"I escaped the enemy, captain," I said. I could see the side of his face, and his smile. "Ah," he said. "At long last, a promotion."
He turned and I saw him under the moon. My breath stopped. He was not just handsome, he was movie star handsome. Dark blond hair, a straight nose. A hunk of heaven, Margie would say.
"I was only a private," he said. "Disappointed?"
I shook my head, because how could I be disappointed in anything about him?
"But I do know," he continued, "how to salvage an evening for a girl in a party dress."
He stood up, bowed. Held out his hand. "May I have this dance?"
"Here?"
He frowned. "Oh, wait." He sat back down, and I felt disappointment thud inside me, even though I wasn't about to dance with him — that would be crazy. I didn't even know his name. He bent over, and I saw that he was untying his shoes. He dropped them and then stripped off his socks. His feet gleamed white in the moonlight. It seemed awfully forward to stare at them, so I looked away.
"I don't want to break your toes," he said. "I'm not a very good dancer."
He stood there with his hand out. I was too embarrassed to take it.
"And they danced by the light of the moon, the moon, the moon." I blurted this out, and my cheeks flared with heat. What a stupid thing to have said, to have quoted a nonsense poem! "The Owl and the Pussycat." Now he'd really think I was a child.
But his grin was slow and easy. "So come on, pussycat," he said.
This time I took his hand.
It wasn't as awkward as I thought it would be. Not after a minute. My dress crackled as we moved slowly around the deep end of the pool. He hummed. I recognized the tune.
For all we know, we may never meet again.
I wished Mom and Mrs. Grayson could see me now.
But then I didn't. This was better if no one saw. Better if it was my secret.
Every so often, our ankles brushed against each other, our toes. It felt like the most real thing that had ever happened to me. I was part of the hot, dark night. The night was all breath and air. I was all skin.
I had to remember every detail. His ankles. His fingers. The golden stubble on his cheek.
And then I forgot everything except the dance. I was able to dance for the first time in my life, really dance, and understand why it worked, one body against another body.
This may only be a dream…
Chapter 8