She looks at me with mounting perplexity. I glance at my watch. Eight-fourteen. Almost time. Unless Donald forgets, of course… and I don’t think he will. To quote some old fifties song or other, some things are just meant to be.
“The Sadie Hawkins dance, back in 1961. Who did you get to chaperone with you when Coach Borman’s mother broke her hip? Do you recall?”
Her mouth drops open, then slowly closes. The mayor and his wife approach, see us in deep conversation, and veer off. We are in our own little capsule here; just Jake and Sadie. The way it was once upon a time.
“Don Haggarty,” she says. “It was like shapping a dance with the village idiot. Mr. Amberson—”
But before she can finish, Donald Bellingham comes in through eight tall loudspeakers, right on cue: “Okay, Jodie, here’s a blastfrom the past, a platter thatreallymatters, only the best and by request!”
Then it comes, that smooth brass intro from a long-gone band:
Bah-dah-dah… bah-dah-da-dee-dum…
“Oh my God, ‘In the Mood,’?” Sadie says. “I used to lindy to this one.”
I hold out my hand. “Come on. Let’s do the thing.”
She laughs, shaking her head. “My swing-dancing days are far behind me, I’m afraid, Mr. Amberson.”
“But you’re not too old to waltz. As Donald used to say in the old days, ‘Out of your seats and on your feets.’ And call me George. Please.”
In the street, couples are jitterbugging. A few of them are even trying to lindy-hop, but none of them can swing it the way Sadie and I could swing it, back in the day. Not even close.
She takes my hand like a woman in a dream. Sheisin a dream, and so am I. Like all sweet dreams, it will be brief… but brevitymakessweetness, doesn’t it? Yes, I think so. Because when the time is gone, you can never get it back.
Party lights hang over the street, yellow and red and green. Sadie stumbles over someone’s chair, but I’m ready for this and catch her easily by the arm.
“Sorry, clumsy,” she says.
“You always were, Sadie. One of your more endearing traits.”
Before she can ask about that, I slip my arm around her waist. She slips hers around mine, still looking up at me. The lights skate across her cheeks and shine in her eyes. We clasp hands, fingers folding together naturally, and for me the years fall away like a coat that’s too heavy and too tight. In that moment I hope one thing above all others: that she was not too busy to find at least one good man, one who disposed of John Clayton’s fucking broom once and for all.
She speaks in a voice almost too low to be heard over the music, but I hear her—I always did. “Whoareyou, George?”
“Someone you knew in another life, honey.”
Then the music takes us, the music rolls away the years, and we dance.
January 2, 2009–December 18, 2010
Sarasota, Florida
Lovell, Maine
