Dance Away with Me(10)

The bruschetta was perfect, the bread crisp, the topping meaty and full of flavor.

There was something restorative about being in this beautiful, sun-splashed room with a woman who was so vital and alive. Tess surprised herself by realizing she was hungry. For the first time in forever, she could taste her food.

The front door opened, and North came in, a backpack slung over one shoulder of his heavy jacket. He stopped inside the door and gazed at Tess, not saying anything, not needing to. I told you to stay away, and yet here you are.

Her last bite of bruschetta lost its taste. “I was invited,” she said.

“And we’ve been having the best time!” Bianca’s lively chirp hit a flat note.

“Glad to hear it.”

He didn’t sound glad.

“You have to taste this,” Bianca said.

“Not hungry.” He shrugged off his backpack and set it on a long wooden bench.

“Don’t be such a grouch. We haven’t had anything this good since we got here.”

He shucked his jacket and advanced toward them. The closer he came, the stronger Tess’s urge grew to protect Bianca.

“I’ll get you some.” Bianca hopped up—or as near to hopping as she could manage—and went to the kitchen.

North stopped at the head of the table, the place where Bianca had been sitting, and gazed down at Tess. The February light coming through the windows fell on the long scar that ran down the side of his neck. “This isn’t good for her.”

Tess deliberately chose to misunderstand his words. “Vegetables and olives are highly nutritious.”

His wife reappeared with a plate. He took it, but didn’t sit. “You need to rest, Bianca.”

“I need to walk,” she said, showing a defiance she hadn’t previously exhibited. “Come on, Tess. You promised you’d go out with me.”

Tess had promised no such thing, but she was happy to comply. What she hadn’t counted on was Ian North’s insistence on accompanying them.

Bianca directed all her conversation toward Tess, an awkward process, since North had positioned himself at his wife’s side on the narrow trail, forcing Tess to lag behind. Whenever the ground was uneven, he took Bianca’s arm only to release it as soon as they reached steadier footing. As soon as she could, Tess made an excuse to leave.

Bianca stopped walking. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“That won’t work,” North said. “We have plans.”

“We can change them.”

“No, we can’t.”

Bianca shrugged, then rested her head against his arm while she smiled at Tess. “We’ll work it out. I know the two of us are going to be besties.”

Tess was less sure of that. The last thing she needed was to be pulled into the odd dynamics between these two.

*

A week passed. Tess danced at midnight when she couldn’t sleep, at three in the morning when a nightmare awakened her. She danced at sunrise, at sunset, and whenever she had trouble finding her next breath.

Bianca popped in unannounced—sometimes several times a day. Mostly Tess didn’t mind the visits, despite the one-sided nature of Bianca’s conversation. Far more annoying were Ian North’s intrusions. He invariably showed up with one excuse or another to pull his wife away.

“I can’t find my wallet. . . . We need to call in an order for groceries. . . . Let’s drive into Knoxville. . . .”

He acted as though Tess posed some kind of threat.

A week passed. Then another. Tess checked in with Trav’s parents, who were recovering from his loss better than she was. She texted her friends—cheery lighthearted lies.

Doing gr8. Mountains beautiful.

The structure of having a job forced her out of bed and reminded her to take a shower and comb her hair. She didn’t love her job, but she didn’t really hate it, either. Working at the Broken Chimney helped fill the hours, and Phish’s laid-back nature, combined with his marijuana habit, made him a genial boss.

One day when there was a lag between customers, Tess used the Broken Chimney’s intermittent WiFi to check out Bianca’s husband.

Ian Hamilton North IV, known by his street tag, IHN4, is the most well known of American street artists. The last member of the powerful North family, he is the only son of the deceased financier Ian Hamilton North III and socialite Celeste Brinkman North. Although graffiti artists customarily hide their identity, North has flaunted his by using his real initials in his tags—a practice generally ascribed to his troubled relationship with his parents. He gained notoriety as he abandoned street graffiti for more thoughtful work beginning—



She closed the computer as Mr. Felter banged on the counter, demanding an extra pump of hazelnut syrup in his coffee.

*

Phish’s pregnant niece Savannah was only slightly less rude to the customers than she was to Tess, and it became evident that Phish only kept her on out of loyalty to her father, his brother Dave. “Savannah didn’t use to be this bad,” Phish confided to Tess, “but then her ex-boyfriend knocked her up and left town. I knew he was a loser first time I met him. He never even heard of The Dead!”

In Phish’s eyes, no sin was greater than lack of reverence for the Grateful Dead.

Phish’s other employee was Savannah’s mother, Michelle, a deep-bosomed blonde who, at forty-two, also happened to be pregnant. “I thought it was perimenopause,” she announced to anyone who’d listen. “Ha!”