Don’t Let Me Go(23)

“Not really.”

“Like a stamp on a letter?”

“Right! I remember! When you stamp a letter, the stamp stays down. Right. So a stamp is when I stamp down, with both taps at the same time, heel tap and ball tap, and then I leave my weight on that foot.”

“Right. Stamp with your right, shift your weight right, lift up your left, stamp with your left, shift your weight left, repeat.”

“This is easy,” Grace said, after the third or fourth stamp cycle. “Too easy.”

“That’s why now you’re supposed to think about the rest of your body.”

“Oh, right. My arms,” she said, still stamping. “What should they do?”

“Ask them.”

“That’s dumb.”

“Try it before you say it’s dumb.”

Grace’s arms came up to about waist level and began to shift in rhythm with the stamps. Billy smiled inwardly.

“Good thing nobody lives downstairs except us,” Grace said.

“Indeed a good thing,” Billy replied.

Except, just at that moment, someone knocked on the door. All motion froze in the kitchen, and they waited there in silence for a beat or two, staring through the open kitchen entryway to Billy’s front door.

“Damn it to hell!” Billy said, under his breath. “Why do people keep knocking on my door? Nobody ever knocked on my door except delivery guys. For years. And now all of a sudden this is like a daily occurrence.”

“It’s my fault,” Grace said, in a surprisingly restrained whisper.

“Not really.”

“It started when you said you’d look after me, though.”

“True enough.” Then more loudly, Billy called out, “Who’s there?”

“It’s Eileen Ferguson. Your downstairs neighbor.”

Billy exchanged a look with Grace.

“Is she supposed to know you’re here?”

“I’m not sure.”

Billy took a deep breath, walked to the door, undid all of the locks except the safety chain, and opened the door several inches, hoping he was the only one able to hear the pounding of his heart.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Too loud?”

“Yeah, kind of. I’m trying to take a nap, and whatever you’re doing up here sounds like that dance company that does the stomp dancing with trash cans on their feet.”

“Sorry. Didn’t realize anybody would be trying to sleep at this hour.”

If she caught the mild dig, she chose not to let on.

She looked bad. Billy knew he was a fine one to judge, yet he couldn’t surgically remove the judging from his nature. It was simply too much a part of him now. Sure, he probably looked like hell, too. Then again, he hadn’t gone out to knock on a neighbor’s door. If he had, he would certainly have freshened up a bit first.

Well, he wouldn’t have gone in the first place. Let’s be real. But theoretically.

“Well, I was. Have you seen my daughter? Grace? Do you know Grace?”

“Everybody in the building knows Grace.”

“Do you know where she is?”

“I…know she’s OK.”

She shot him a skeptical look.

“If you don’t know where she is, how do you know she’s OK?”

“Because we have something of a schedule,” Billy said, wondering if he’d just revealed too much. “Grace is at school, and then somebody picks her up, and then somebody takes care of her until Rayleen gets home, and then she’s with Rayleen. So she’s either at school, or with Felipe, or with me, or with Rayleen.”

“But if she was with you, you’d know it.”

“So true!” Billy said, jokingly, making light of the gaffe as best he could.

“Hmm. I didn’t know about that schedule thing. I thought it was all just Rayleen. But that’s nice, I guess. That’s good. For Grace. I guess. Well, if you see her, will you tell her to come home?”

“I will. If I see her I will.”

“Thanks,” she said, and peeled away down the hall.

Billy closed and locked the door again, then stood with his back leaned against it, breathing out the excess stress.

He rejoined Grace in the kitchen. The girl was still halfway practicing stamps, but without ever lifting her feet.

Just shifting her weight and bending her knees. And having arms.

“Good arms,” he said.

“Thank you. It sucks that now I can’t dance. Why did it have to wake her up? Nothing ever wakes her up except maybe an hour a day. And it has to be now.”

“She wants you home.”

Grace sighed.

“OK,” she said. “This shouldn’t take very long.”

She unlaced and pulled off Billy’s tap shoes as if saying goodbye to an old friend.

? ? ?

Not two minutes later, she was back.

“She was already out again. I bet it wouldn’t wake her up this time.”

“Not willing to risk it,” Billy said.

“We could go outside.”

“You could go outside.”

“Oh, right. I forgot. Maybe we could just go out on your patio. Your patio isn’t right over my house.”