Don’t Let Me Go(62)

“That’s why we’re having the meetings,” Grace said. A little exasperated, as though it should be obvious. “Nobody wants to tell somebody else bad stuff like that. You have to push a little harder to get that stuff out of people.”

“Are you ready to dance?”

He asked it quickly, in case she was about to push a little harder on him.

“Are you kidding? I’ve been ready for a week,” she said. “I’ll go get my tap shoes on. They’re at Rayleen’s. I’ll be right back. You won’t tell Rayleen my secret, right?”

“But she was there. She was there when you introduced her to Jesse. So, if he likes her, don’t you think she knows?”

“I don’t know. You never can tell with grown-ups. They miss some really obvious stuff. Anyway, I sure wouldn’t want her to know we were over here talking about it.”

“Talking about what?”

“About Jesse and Rayleen!” she shouted, fully exasperated, probably loud enough for Rayleen to hear across the hall.

“It’s kind of a joke,” Billy said. “It’s a little signal. It means I already forgot there was anything to tell.”

“Why didn’t you say so? How was I supposed to know that?”

“I thought everybody did. I thought it was a cultural thing. Like it was part of the collective unconscious by now.”

Grace rolled her eyes skyward.

“You’re so weird, Billy.”

“Thank you,” he said, quietly, to her back, as she walked out his door.

He made his way carefully back to the dance floor and moved slowly through the routine one more time. He ended even more crisply than before, and stood, one foot raised, again thinking he was about to hear applause.

But not his applause. It was not about him this time. This was Grace’s applause. Grace’s first experience with the public ovation.

“Oh, good God,” Billy said, suddenly, and out loud. “I really do need to be there. Shit.”





Grace



“Please somebody go first?” Grace whined.

She looked at every grown-up in the room, one at a time. Only Mrs. Hinman looked back. Maybe because Mrs. Hinman had already taken her turn, at the last meeting, and so wasn’t feeling under the gun. Grown-ups always acted different when you put the tiniest little bit of pressure on them.

Everybody was gathered at Rayleen’s. Everybody.

Even Billy was there. Dressed, yet. Standing with his back against the door, like his own apartment would save his life if he could just stay close to it. She caught him biting a thumbnail, but she figured if she yelled at him like she usually did, he might run home again, so she let it go by.

Rayleen was sitting cross-legged on the rug, her back up against the couch, where Jesse could only see her from behind. Grace wondered if Rayleen had figured that out on purpose.

Jesse sat looking around at all the faces like he was memorizing everything for later, and it was impossible for Grace to tell what he was thinking, though she watched him and wondered about it a lot.

Felipe bounced one knee up and down and stared at the rug as if rugs hypnotized him.

“Pleeeeease?”

Then Rayleen opened her mouth to talk, which Grace took to be a good sign. But it didn’t take long to realize her mistake.

“I don’t know about anybody else,” Rayleen said, a sharpness in her voice that Grace had only heard Rayleen use when addressing Grace’s mom, “but I’m feeling pressured by this. I am not ready for this,” she added, glancing halfway over her shoulder in the general direction of Jesse.

Grace’s face burned, and a line of ache radiated down into her belly. Rayleen had never spoken to her in an angry tone before, and to have it happen now, in front of all these people…including somebody new…well, it was nothing short of humiliating. Tears welled up behind her eyes, but she fought hard to hide them.

She opened her mouth, but no words came out.

Felipe looked up suddenly. Right into Grace’s eyes.

“I guess I could go,” he said.

She wanted to hug and kiss him, but it all happened too fast.

“I wasn’t alone,” Felipe said, his accent thicker than usual, which Grace had noticed before, usually when he was extra-tired or feeling emotional. “I mean, until just…well…not long. Pretty much just a little while ago. A few weeks. I had a girlfriend. We were gonna get married. I gave her a ring and everything, and we had a little son. Twenty months. And then one day I get home from work, and there’s this bag by my door. It has my toothbrush in it, and the spare shirts and underwear I kept at her house. And at the very bottom is the little box with the ring in it. The engagement ring I gave her. So I guess that’s that.”

Felipe allowed a silence to fall, and…wow. It was a very silent silence.

“Did she say why?” Grace asked, reverently.

“I can’t even get through to talk to her. I left a million messages. Finally I called her sister. And so her sister says there’s another guy, and there’s been another guy for mucho tiempo. A lot of time.”

More silence.

Rayleen seemed to have forgotten her irritation. She opened her mouth to speak, and the words came out soft and helpful, the way Grace wished Rayleen had spoken to her.