Don’t Let Me Go(60)

He stood nearly still, rhythmically tapping the toe tap of his right shoe and hearing the question in his head as if for the first time.

Then he held completely still, not even tapping.

“Do we want to?” he asked out loud.

But no answer seemed to present itself, and there was more choreography to be done, and changing the subject again sounded attractive.

“Maybe something syncopated,” he said, trying out some wings, some traveling wing steps with toe hits, because they were more sophisticated.

He’d spent several minutes, and worked out quite a fancy routine, before realizing the flaw in his thinking. He stopped dead and thought it over more deeply.

“No,” he said out loud. “Big mistake there, Billy Boy. You’re visualizing your audience. Visualize hers. They don’t want something that sophisticated. In fact, they might even think she was making mistakes, falling off her rhythm. No, they’ll want something dependable. Balanced. User-friendly. Yet flashy! Everybody likes a little flash.”

“I’ve got it,” he said, and moved into something different.

A series of trebles. Treble hops. Seven on one side, seven on the other, then bring it in tight, maybe down to four on each side, then two, then tighten up for a nice ending…

He counted it out as he danced it.

“One, two, three, four, five, six seven, hop…one, two, three, four, five, six seven, hop…one, two, three, four…one, two, three, four…one and a two, and a one and a two, and a one and a two, and a three and a stop.”

He ended suddenly with one foot smartly raised. A sudden burst of ending. The applause moment. He stood still, just for a split second expecting to hear it.

Instead he heard a signal knock at his door.

He walked carefully across the carpet to open it.

On the other side of the door was Grace, and a man Billy had never met. An African-American man with a shaved head and a full beard shot through with gray. He wasn’t terribly old, though. Maybe mid-forties. He had eyes that Billy could only describe as sparkly. He had a single ruby stud-earring in his left lobe.

“Oh, my God, Billy!” Grace shrieked. “Look at you! You’re all dressed!”

“Don’t make it sound like such a rare occasion,” he said, flipping his chin subtly in the direction of the stranger.

It was a hint that sailed well over Grace’s head.

“It’s only the very first time since I’ve known you, Billy, so that’s pretty rare, don’t you think?”

“Who’s your friend?” Billy asked, hoping his face wasn’t obviously red.

“This is Jesse. He’s our new neighbor.”

Jesse looked right into Billy’s eyes, causing him to look away. He wondered if Jesse was smart enough to sense that Billy did that with everyone. Equal opportunity evasion.

Then Jesse reached out a hand and Billy shook it, bearing up under the pressure of the nerve signals, which he felt as shards of glass in his brain and gut, warning him against skin contact with any stranger.

In fact, he suddenly wondered, should Grace be hanging around the building with a man none of them knew?

Billy took a deep breath. He’d always prided himself on being a good judge of character. Remembering this, he forced himself to look directly into the stranger’s eyes for a fraction of a second. Then he looked away again, and let out a long breath of air.

It was OK. Jesse was OK.

“So,” Billy said, wanting to normalize the conversation, “you moved in upstairs? Mr. Lafferty’s old place?”

“Yeah,” Grace said. “He did. The apartment where Mr. Lafferty shot himself. But it’s OK. Because Jesse doesn’t scare so easy. Not like our last new neighbor.”

“What last new neighbor?”

“Oh, right. You never even met her, did you? She was here for, like, one day. Then she said there was a creepy vibe in there and she moved out. I told Jesse but he didn’t care. He said he had some…what did you say you had, Jesse?”

“Sage,” Jesse said. “White sage.” It was the first time Billy had heard his voice. It was deep, smooth and reassuring.

“Yeah, sage,” Grace said. “That’s it. He said he was going to grunge the place with white sage.”

“Smudge,” Jesse said.

“Huh?”

“I said I was going to smudge the apartment with white sage.”

“Oh, right. Smudge. Where did I get grunge?”

“I’m not sure. Somewhere in your interesting and imaginative brain, I’ve no doubt.”

“Anyway,” Grace said, “when you smudge with white sage it chases away evil spirits.”

“Actually,” Jesse said, “I don’t really believe there is such a thing as evil spirits, but if somebody left some bad energy hanging around, it might help. If I really thought there was some kind of spirit haunting the place, which I very much doubt, I wouldn’t so much chase him away as make peace with him.”

“That would be a better tack to take with Mr. Lafferty,” Billy said.

“It’s a better tack to take with everybody,” Jesse replied.

Then they all stood awkwardly for a moment, and Billy realized he was being rude by not inviting them in. But he didn’t do strangers in the apartment, especially not on short notice.