Dead Eyes in Late Summer

THE DANCE

The Jackson family entered the grand foyer of the Howard home amid the large crowd of friends and relatives of everyone in Tulip Junction and beyond, as far down as Savannah. Delia, her brother, and their parents received each group as they entered, her father cupping the elbow of Captain Jackson, and Delia’s mother bussing Mary Jackson on each cheek like someone in a European novel. Adelyn’s head whirled with the images of fir boughs festooning the white banister, red holly berries peeking in and out. The fir gave off the aroma of Christmas trees and winter and freshness.

“Delia, I am truly pleased. You are ravishing in that dress.” Adelyn hugged her friend, who had hinted about her gown but, like all of the girls, revealed it only when she stood up in it. She wore a white beaded dress that grazed her shins, as Adelyn’s dress did hers. The beaded fringe of the dress alternated silver and white. “I can’t wait to see how those beads move when you dance.” As she spoke, she looked along the line of young men in black tuxedos helping young women fill their punch glasses. She also noticed some with little flasks adding something extra to the drinks.

“Don’t be craning your neck for him, he’s right over there, and he saw you as soon as you walked in.” Delia gestured with a shrug to her right shoulder over which Adelyn glanced to see the most burning eyes set in the most handsome face. He’s so dashing; he takes my breath away!

No sooner had she thought it than she knew he would have heard her thoughts, and her blush covered every inch of her face and slid down her neck.

“It’s all so exciting, isn’t it, Addie?” Delia took Adelyn’s arm and directed her to a young man with curly red hair. “This is Mister Lefebvre. Michael, this is Adelyn, my best friend, ever.” And she added hurriedly, “That is, till you came along.”

Delia’s new beau greeted her graciously, taking Adelyn’s hand and gently shaking it. Her long opera-length gloves stopped him from gallantly kissing her hand.

“What do you make of this new decade we’re entering? Don’t you think the new century should have started now? The excitement, the industry, all of it.” He smiled a tricky smile. “The bootleg whiskey, too, of course.”

“The new century now? What of everything invented till now?” Adelyn turned to see Garnett standing as close to her as humanly possible. She felt the warmth of his breath on her naked shoulders and turned to look at his fresh, ruddy, outdoors complexion. 

“We were just saying how fast everything is changing. Pretty soon, we’ll be wearing dresses shorter than these.” Delia turned her leg to show off her calf and ankle. She felt daring.

Garnett ignored Delia, spiriting Adelyn away so he could not be overheard. “Will you dance with me? Now?” He had his arm around her waist and moved them both onto the floor of the ballroom. All the rugs had been rolled up and put away. The orchestra sat high up on a bandstand playing something slow.

“My, you’re breathing like you just ran a race.” She looked up at him, glad she had worn two-inch heels to shorten the distance between her and Garnett and most of the boys who had suddenly grown tall. When he didn’t speak, she pressed her arm more firmly on his neck. “Well, did you?”

“Did I what?” Garnett’s serious expression looked like someone had just asked him for an overdue assignment.

“Did you just play some football outside with the others before you ran in here to dance?” She giggled so quietly he didn’t hear her, and when she saw how much sterner his expression had become, she regretted her remark. So very sensitive. 

“No, Miss, it’s your green dress and green eyes.” He stopped his train of thought and started again. “Your mama let you out in that dress?”

“Why, don’t you like it?” She pushed the thin strap up that had slid down from her shoulder. “Everyone’s wearing these…in Paris.”

His voice became impatient. “Paris? Someone sent for this dress all the way there?”

Adelyn straightened her back as their bodies moved with the music. She noticed he maintained a respectable space apart from her, but she also knew he could feel from the position of his hand on her back that she wore no more than a shimmy.

“You didn’t answer my question, Garnett Crawford. Don’t you like my gown?”

“Gown? Why, it’s barely a slip; there’s so little of it.”

He stuttered the last few words just as the band ended their set. A solo violinist stood to play a sweet old song, and everyone dancing stopped to hear it. Others took the break to get back to the punch bowl. Adelyn did not ponder Garnett’s remarks. At sixteen she knew little of men, but almost a woman, she understood his attraction to her and her slip of a dress.

“Thank you for the dance, Mr. Crawford. You certainly took advantage of Mrs. Smiley’s tea cotillions as a little one, learning to be graceful.”

“I’m happy to know you think so.”

The surge of the crowd broke them apart, friends interrupting them to chat, girls about gowns or men about football, and she wandered back toward the grand hallway. Lively conversations began as one boy, then another, stopped by to say hello. Some asked for her health and she had to remind herself that she had only lately been feeling well. These boys remembered she took ill, who had visited Delia’s brother and Adelyn’s cousin James that day. All but one came forward.

A light touch became a light encircling of her bare arm above her opera-length glove. Her skin tingled to the touch of flesh on flesh and she didn’t need to look; she knew him.

“I thought I’d better get hold of you before any more of those Casanovas tried to claim you.”

“What a funny thing to say. You think they could own me?” He guided her down the back hall and opened the door to the small porch on the back of the large mansion. With the moon shining high up, they didn’t need the porch light to see, yet no one would easily see them.

Innis kissed her, first soft, then probing, and then hard with an anxiety, a longing, almost a sadness. She was sixteen, but she felt it all, mostly the longing making her heart pump faster, feeling blood spilling from one valve to another. He touched her carefully but deliberately as he avoided wrinkling the rich silk dress, yet he felt all along her breasts until he pushed gently on her nipples, sending an electric bolt through her, beckoning as strong a physical wantonness in her as more experienced women would have known. She felt his body push against hers the way she knew it must feel like before she would be entered. “Enough. Adelyn, enough.”

Their ragged breathing revealed their passion; thankfully, he stopped them both. Only then did she consider their deepening desires. Yet she shamelessly kissed his face, his lips again, his open mouth.

“Stop now, Sugar.” And he took both her hands in his and just held her out and away from him. “My fault, come on. We need to be seen where we should be. We need to dance.”

Adelyn opened the little string purse, found her mirror, and brushed her hair back in place, thankful for the loose tendrils she had left undone. No one would suspect then, no one.

Somehow, she followed Innis back, grateful for the lights that had been lowered in the grand chandelier. They moved as one to the music.

And when I told them…

How beautiful you are…

They didn’t believe me!

They didn’t believe me!

“So much to be sad for, isn’t it, Innis? So many young men in the War and all those young people with the influenza.”

“Lots of good people gone.” He held her tighter than he probably should, and she read his mind when he hesitated and thought he should be more proper.

“Why do you do that? Why do you come to me, only to pull away?” She looked at him fully in the face, his clean jawline, his clear eyes.

“Because you’re sixteen.” Then a pause, and the song surrounded them. “Because I absolutely love you, in a reckless and wanton way. Because I almost lost you.”

His words puzzled Adelyn. “But what is wrong to feel that way? Surely not because I’m young.” She hesitated. “I’m not that young.”

Innis laughed. “You really don’t understand what a drug you are. I could have taken you so easily, so effortlessly, just moments ago.”

The intimacy of his words, of everything since they first met, hit her. “I didn’t…wasn’t going to do…that.”

Innis smiled at her, “Oh, little girl, yes you were.”

“Stop. You called me that the first time I met you. I think we’re better off just dancing.”

“And I’m inclined to agree.”

He whirled her around the floor to a waltz, the beads of her dress and the flow of the silk brushed her legs. She watched some of the other couples, and they seemed to be caught up in the evening and the music. We’re not so different.

“Yes, we are.” He murmured into her hair, careful not to seem as though he kissed her. Reading her thoughts, yet again.

The room looked more crowded than before. Some of the older folk relaxed on comfortable stuffed chairs, others at small tables where two or four could sit and visit. She could see them all in the dimmed lighting. She noticed candles were placed throughout, making it all so romantic. Faces stared back at her as they danced from one place to another.

“I bet I know almost everyone here.” She said half to herself and half to Innis.

“Bet not.” His smile had changed to a look of conspiracy, and she looked more closely as they came near, then moved away from one group or another. Something was different. Shadows masked the people at the back. The chandelier had transformed from lightbulbs to flickering candlelight, and the candles had burned down almost to the end. The room grew darker.

“I know just about everyone in Tulip Junction, Innis. Maybe with the exception of those just born tonight.” But she did not know these people. Their faces, worn, not just old, but otherworldly, and them all dressed in finery she’d expect at a laying out, at a funeral. Her skin began to crawl like spiders running along her veins. She felt her palms sweat and forced herself to look away from the people alongside the dance floor. She gazed into his face.

“Please, Innis, make it stop. I don’t want to see these people again.” Adelyn felt dizzy, shut her eyes, only that made it worse. “Please.”

Innis looked into her eyes. “I can’t explain, but if I concentrate, I can conjure old and even young who have passed out of this life. It’s like they’re waiting for me.” His voice turned low and haunted, shaking.

“Is that what I’m seeing? First you read my mind; I read yours. Now this?”

The room lightened and the music stopped. Innis took her out to the hall. He dipped a napkin into an ice bowl and pressed it to her forehead.

“Darling, you almost fainted.” They walked quietly out to the back porch, then onto the gravel drive to his big sedan parked against the tall bushes. The motor running, he opened the door to the warm inside, helped her into the back seat where a blanket lay spread out. He sat next to her as she straightened her dress around her.

Innis took her chin into his hand and brought her close to him. They kissed. Maybe the drinks she sneaked from some of the boys with flasks produced an urgency in her now, an abandonment. She pulled him close to her and hungrily probed his mouth, touched his tongue with hers. His groan just audible, as he brushed her ear with his lips and he pushed her dress up to open the bottom of her shimmy, his hand maddeningly deft at stroking and petting her until, almost there, he slowly pushed inside her.

She felt the fullness of him, a thrill went up in her all the way to her breathing as he plunged, slowly, slowly, until they both reached their climax. She held him in her a long, long time, stroking his hair, his face. So that’s what it is.

“Can’t I stay here with you? Maybe they’ll think you drove me home?” The light from the windows lit the car enough for her to see the crease in his brow and him slowly shaking his head ‘no’ as she spoke. She wanted to go back to where she had just been.

“I could stay with you all night, but that can’t be.” Innis stroked her face and felt her breath quicken on his face. “No, sweetheart, stop. I know you’re not to blame for any of this. You have to straighten yourself up and get back and mingle with your friends. Hear? Can you think of a way inside?”

Adelyn straightened her dress; the dark silk did not show wrinkles. “I don’t know what you’re fussing about. I’ll just scoot in the back door and straight up the back stairs to Delia’s room. All the girls take turns fixing their hair and whatnot. I’ll just have more to do.” She smiled, and her voice went all sultry.

“You are a wanton creature.” He kissed her again, and his lips scalded hers. “But you’re my creature.” His expression mixed tortured conscience with the desire to keep her with him. “Go.”

Adelyn slowly walked away from the car, the better to look and listen for some of the younger high school boys sneaking cigarettes. She saw no sign of anyone in the quiet night. She entered the house and the upstairs without incident. Effortlessly, she went into the bathroom at the top of the stairs and locked the door.

“My hair is a fright.”

She found a brush and brought her hair back from the brink of lost respectability. All the while she looked hard at herself in the mirror, looking for the change now that she’d been possessed. Her wanton side smoothed over any guilt she might have felt.

“I love him.” She said this aloud to the empty room, a statement of defiance more than a justification. Satisfied with her dress and hair, she opened the door and walked slowly down the grand staircase. Most of Tulip Junction filled the room below. Her eyes sought out Innis, but instead, she saw Garnett at the bottom, waiting for her. Despite her resolve to be collected, her heart felt a strange irregular beat, which she tried to brush away with conversation.

“Well now, Garnett Crawford. You waitin’ on me?”

“Expecting someone else?” The coldness in his voice said he knew, that she may not have looked different to herself when she glanced in a mirror, but Garnett saw it all.