Palmetto Moon (8 page)

“Yes.”

“What?” She blushes. “I haven’t even told you what I want.”

“Whatever it is, yes. I’ll do it
.
I’d do anything for you.”

“Really?”

He runs his hand through his hair, amazed that it’s possible to go from feeling as old and codgery as Joe Pike this morning to being a lovesick boy. He weighs saying the words for fear she’ll think he’s moving too fast, that he’s not sincere. But Frank’s more sure of what he feels for her than he is of anything. “I’ll do anything you want me to. But honest to God, Vada, if you don’t hurry up and eat so I can hold you in my arms on the dance floor, I think I’m going to die.”

She smiles at him and pushes her plate away like she’s ready to leave, too. Without looking at the tab, Frank throws too much money on the table. As they wind back toward the entrance, she reaches for his hand. “Night,” the cook snaps from the kitchen. When Frank asked him to turn Vada’s song up, he made no mention of the jarhead’s Semper Fi tattoo, like he might have if he wasn’t out on a date. He didn’t ask the cook if he’d been to war, so that he could tell Frank what he’d missed. Tonight is all about Vada Hadley.

The old lady keeping the door of the dance hall takes Frank’s dime and nods them in. The dance floor is full, so many bodies jiving to a big-band tune, looking like one pulsing mass. A pretty brunette saunters up to Frank and asks if he wants to buy a dollar’s worth of tickets from her. Before he can say anything, Vada pipes up, but her voice can’t be heard above the music. The song tails off as the woman is leaning in closer to Frank so that he can see her wares. Frank loves the annoyed look on Vada’s face. She holds their clasped hands up for the woman to see.

“Come on, honey,” the woman coos, “a little variety will only cost you ten cents a dance.”

“He’s with me,” Vada says above the noise, and the woman gives her a drop-dead look and slithers over to another guy. Vada looks at Frank with steely blue eyes for confirmation.

“
Yes, ma’am
.” They fold into the throbbing crowd and start moving as the band plays a snappy Dizzy Gillespie number. The other girls writhe around, sweating and red, but not Vada. Her movements are effortless and so graceful, her feet barely touch the floor. Frank struggles to keep up with her. She’s lost in the wail of the orchestra, eyes closed, completely unaware of anything but the music until the applause at the end of the song brings her back to him.

She smiles and stands on her tiptoes so Frank can hear her above the crowd. “Do you come here often?”

He shakes his head. “Not in a long time. Anybody ever tell you you’re a damn-fine dancer?”

“You just did.” She grabs his hand, pulls him into the middle of the floor, and stutters out a few dance steps. He tries to follow but has a hard time watching her feet when he’s so lost in her face. She takes his face in her hands and points it at her swiveling hips. “It’s the jitterbug, silly.” Holy mother of God. She leads. Frank follows and sort of picks it up until the last few bars of the staccato tune end.

The air is thick and humid with a thousand girlie perfumes, too much Old Spice, and sweat. Frank’s shirt sticks to him, and it’s hard to breathe, or maybe he’s afraid to breathe, afraid that he’ll discover this perfect date was just a product of too much wishing, hoping. Desire. But it’s not just him. The whole room is so full of wanting, the couple next to them start making out on the dance floor like they are possessed. Two burly bouncers pull them apart and throw the guy out without warning. But the rules listed on the four-foot-by-six-foot piece of plywood on the way in strictly prohibit inappropriate public displays of affection on the dance floor.

Vada laughs and falls into his arms, breathing hard against his chest, and he’s grateful a slow song starts up so he can keep her there. She rests her head on his shoulder; he rests his chin on her crown and prays that his private doesn’t salute her again. She snuggles even closer, looks up at him, and smiles. A thin veil of sweat beads just above the most kissable lips Frank has ever seen in his life. He keeps shuffling his feet slowly in time to the music, wanting to be controlled, not wanting to rush something that he wants to last forever.

He doesn’t hear her sigh above the noise of the crowd, but feels it against his chest. He can’t take this anymore. “Do you want to get out of here?” His lips linger close to her ear and make her shudder. She doesn’t look at him but runs her slender fingers down his chest like she doesn’t want the embrace to end any more than Frank does. She looks into his face and nods, no warm smile, just longing tinged with something else.

Frank’s choice is between the gazebo out back, overlooking a small pond, a place lovers go, and back to the car and, ultimately, Round O. He’s not ready to take her home, so he takes her hand and leads her to the back of the dance hall. The bouncer opens the door. The night air is sticky and hot, but so much cooler than the writhing inferno inside. “Sure you want to step outside? You’ll have to pay to come back in.”

He looks at Vada to see what she wants; she smiles at him. “I’m sure.”

They walk down toward the gazebo, draped with lovers making out, pressed up against the railings, sitting on hard wooden benches Frank is sure they don’t feel. The moon is generous, and he can see Vada blush when they get close enough to hear the heavy breathing, the moaning, the whispered declarations of love and forever. Vada goes over to the side of the gazebo that’s open to the pond below; she takes off her shoes, dangling her feet above the black water.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” She stretches out her long legs and smiles at him, teasing before she scoops up a handful of water and flicks it on him. Frank laughs, and she laughs, too, shutting out all the lovers’ sounds and the night sounds, too. He sits beside her and pulls her close so that her feet aren’t dangling over the edge anymore. “See that?” He points out into the lily pads that are lovingly choking the pond to death. She peers out onto the moonlit lake until she sees the massive gator impersonating a log, and then she draws her knees up to her chest like a little girl.

“Vada?” She nuzzles closer to him. “Can I kiss you?”

She turns her face up to his, and her smile dissolves into yearning as they move toward each other. His lips graze against hers, nuzzling them so that when she runs her tongue across her lips it touches his. He can’t help but be tentative, like she’s breakable, like what they have is breakable, but the kiss deepens. Her breathing quickens, and Frank is sure he can feel her heart beating against his.

Floodlights come on, blinding them, and the old woman who took their ticket hollers that the dance is over and everybody has to clear out. Frank’s forehead is still pressed against Vada’s. He’s afraid to move, afraid the spell will be broken. He helps her up, and she looks up at him and smiles. “Frank?” There’s something monstrous and wrong about this night ending, about taking her back to the boardinghouse. Frank wants to take her away from here, but he doesn’t think she’s ready for happily ever after with him, at least not yet. She puts her hands on his face and runs her thumbs across his stubble. “Thank you. This was the most perfect evening ever.”

They walk back to the car, hand in hand, looking at each other like lovers. He wants to be her lover, wants to be what she wants, what she needs. He opens the door for her; she slides in and over to the middle of the bench seat. He drives with his arm around her and doesn’t give a rat’s ass if Miss Mamie is watching when he pulls up to the house. He doesn’t ask for permission to kiss her. He doesn’t have to. She presses into him, and he feels that same current pass between them as when he first shook her hand, multiplied by a thousand.

“I have to go.” She presses her forehead against his.

He gets out and opens the door for her, taking her hand, easing her out of the car without taking his eyes off of hers. She looks at the house and then gives him a little wave. “Thank you again, Frank, for a wonderful evening.” She starts up the walkway ahead of him, her way of asking him not to walk her to the doorstep, not to kiss her good night in front of God and everybody.

“Vada?” She turns and takes his breath away. The familiar figure at the lace curtains raps on the window, making the panes rattle ominously. At the most, he is a few feet from her, but it feels like more. “What do you want from me?” The question didn’t come out at all like Frank meant it to, or maybe it did. “Whatever it is, I meant what I said. I’ll do it.”

“After I tell you, you might change your mind.”

“Never.”

“Do you have to work Wednesday night?” Frank shakes his head and says the diner’s not open in the evenings, and only for breakfast that day, like the majority of Christian businesses that close early for midweek prayer services. “Pick me up for church around 5:45. We’ll talk after that.”

The porch light comes on, and the front door opens. Miss Mamie comes out onto the stoop with her hands on her barn-size hips, giving Frank her best burn-in-hell look, and he just might for what he’s thinking about doing if she gets between him and his girl. He nods his head at Vada and gets back in the Plymouth, knowing he won’t sleep a wink tonight.

“You better watch yourself, missy. You being a schoolteacher and all. Staying out until eleven o’clock? I told you when you rented the room I wouldn’t stand for any cavorting.”

My body is still flush from Frank’s good-bye, but I’d burn every last pair of shoes I own before I give this busybody the satisfaction of thinking she’s shamed me. “Miss Mamie, I was not, as you say, cavorting. I was on a proper date with Frank Darling, who, by the way, is a perfect gentleman.”

My tone is giving the old bat the vapors. “Furthermore, I overheard you on the phone this morning and know for a fact that you’re having money troubles. I paid my rent six months in advance, and unless you’re prepared to give that money back, I suggest you keep your opinions and your innuendos to yourself.”

I turn to glide victoriously toward the stairs, but a huge mitt grabs my slender arm. I look down at the meaty hand, red as the old woman’s face, and stare defiantly. Inside I’m terrified. And what if she throws me out? Where would I go? Back to Charleston? I don’t want that.

Angry lines zigzag across the witch’s face; her beady black eyes are no better than the gator’s in the pond. “Watch yourself,” the woman says hoarsely and lets go before retreating to her den.

“What was that all about?” Claire slips into the hallway in her bathrobe. Her hair is undone and hangs down below her waist. “Are you all right?”

“Yes. Honestly, I don’t want to cause any trouble. But that woman just gets to me.” Vada lowers her voice. “Are the boys asleep?”

“Yes. Daniel was upset with me for embarrassing him.” Claire smiles. “Says he’ll never have a chance with you now.”

“Oh, he’s so sweet.”

“He’s smitten with you, Vada, as smitten as Frank Darling.” Vada laughs and blushes. “I’m sorry, but I couldn’t help but watch you on the walkway just now. I could feel the longing all the way up here.” Claire peeks in on the boys, sprawled across the same cot, a mass of arms and legs.

“Come to my room, and I’ll tell you all about it.”