Monthly Story (Feb. 25): Line of Dance

[Painting by Peter Truran}

Line of Dance

From the back, it looked like Woods at the refreshment table. But Woods and Lois had moved across the country two years ago. So it couldn’t be. Still, Stanton thought, look at that haircut. The clean-shaven back of the neck, a flat crown on top like a helicopter landing pad. They used to joke about that. A broad-backed six-footer. It might as well have been Woods. No other black man had ever come into this place.

Stanton told himself to relax. Find Marisa and dance. They were playing a nice foxtrot. Woods and Lois were out of their lives now. Then the guy at the refreshment table turned around. Woods, of course, wearing that fucking salesman’s smile. He’d been to the gym, too. Had trimmed down. By the look of those threads, he’d been reading GQ. Either him or Lois. She always dressed him well.

Stanton retreated through the crowd to the far side of the ballroom. On the way he caught a glimpse of Marisa dancing with fat Mike O’Neil. Well, okay. He didn’t feel like dancing with anyone else, but he should dance with someone anyway. Show he didn’t give a rip. Carla Erickson stepped into the space directly in front of him, shot a sidelong ask-me smile. Not a smooth dancer, but he put out his hand and she took it.

“And why do you look so glum tonight?” she said as they began.

Always talking too much when they danced. He regretted her right away. Doesn’t pay attention to the music. Constantly needs to readjust to keep time. An embarrassing flirt.

“Glum?” He raised his face to the ceiling. “Me? When have I ever been glum?”

She allowed herself an annoyed chuckle and managed to follow for a few steps. Line of dance went counterclockwise past the refreshment table. Stanton slowed their progress, let other couples pass, kept an eye out for Woods, kept time badly. They finished not ten feet from the table. Stanton thanked Carla with a nod and made for the other side of the room again. He craned his neck, searching, until face-to-face with Marisa.

“Woods is here,” he said.

She frowned. “Lois, too?”

“I don’t think so. I didn’t see her.”

“I hope not,” she said. She let out her breath. “Him I can take.”

Him I can take. Him I can take. She always could. She never had to, but she always could. It was Stanton who always had to. How many weekend evenings, dinners out, side trips to dance had he been stuck with Woods so the girls could have their friendship? But let’s not go there, he reminded himself. We do those sorts of things for the person we love. Endure the spouses of our partner’s friends.

“You’re not going to dance with him, are you?” he said.

She looked exasperated. “Well, if he asks me, Jeffrey,” she said. “What am I supposed to do?”

He wanted to say there’s such a thing as loyalty, but you don’t start that in a crowded ballroom. Maybe on the ride home or after the lights are out in bed. He knew she only meant that she had to be polite. If he were a better man he would march up to Woods and shake his hand, let bygones be bygones.

“Come on,” she said. “That’s a waltz. You’ll feel better.”

It worked that way. She had largely forgiven him for blowing up their friendship with Woods and Lois. He knew how painful it had been for her. What had Lois told Marisa? “I can’t respect you as long as you are with that Jeffrey Stanton, that damned racist, whether he knows it or not.” She cut Marisa off just like that. Brutal.

So—he was a “damned racist.” Whew. Then Lois had gone on a campaign of buttonholing Marisa’s friends into corner conferences, presumably telling her version, squeezing out her special poison. Sweet and sticky. He saw her doing it. He saw how the women Lois cornered glanced around uncomfortably. Lois didn’t realize she was alienating herself. Probably the reason they eventually moved away. Revenge bites you in the private parts. Poison gets on your fingers. People didn’t blame Marisa for the rupture. They knew it was Stanton. The dance community bubbled with private little dramas anyway. Still, a handful of women wouldn’t speak to Stanton. Never mind asking them to dance. Never mind trying to argue that it was never about race. The dance community was about fun and friendship. Nobody wanted to hear about race, for God’s sake. The world was just the way these people wanted it to be.

So he didn’t bother trying to tell his side of the story. But three years. That’s what it had been. For three years they’d spent at least one evening a week with Woods and Lois, sometimes more than one evening. The women’s closeness mystified him. How did they so easily fall into conversation that excluded the men? Even at the dinner table, the conversation didn’t go four ways, and Stanton found himself stranded with Woods, somehow closed out of whatever conversation the women had launched themselves into. Woods obviously never minded. He happily turned to Stanton with small talk, let Stanton begin to assert some idea or opinion, of which he had maybe too many, and then interrupt with the same refrain time after time: “Well, I’ll tell you…”

Stanton recognized it for what it was—top dog domination. He had an ego, too. A not exactly undersized one, so why couldn’t he finish a thought with this guy? Woods was big and smart, a wildly successful salesman. He could do practically anything, too. He completely remodeled Lois’s kitchen in a single weekend. By himself. No helper. He built her a new deck. Again, by himself. He put in the sliding glass doors alone. Stanton could have helped with that. He’d assisted on tons of those when he worked construction during college. He knew how tricky they were, and the doors Woods put in always stuck. He could have gotten it right with an extra set of hands, but Stanton had no intention of being Woods’ assistant. Not a prayer in hell of that happening. Then Woods landscaped her yard, too. Always the big hero. And always—always—friendly and outgoing, ready with a handshake and a smile. Loud friendly. A pumping handshake. Always knew the answer. Didn’t hear yours.

Irritated, Stanton nevertheless knew not to say, even to himself, Well, I’m not racist, but… Wouldn’t they roll their eyes at that, howl even. There were things he knew you didn’t say. And he liked saying that he and other men from his background and generation had won the birth lottery: Born white males in the world’s richest country at its richest and most powerful moment. The Jackpot Generation, he called them. But nobody likes being treated like a sidekick. And the way Woods flirted with Marisa? Compliments. Loads of them. Why did that bother Stanton so much when Woods did the same with every other woman he ever spoke to? Stanton knew as well as anyone the fraught history of white men’s fears about black men and white women, but told himself that wasn’t it.

“It’s the way he is,” said Marisa more than once, which didn’t capture what was going on either. “Maybe he’s insecure. Did you ever consider that?”

“About what?” said Stanton.

Marisa shook her head in wonder. “Are you from outer space? Do you see another black person in our dance community?” She went on to describe what Lois told her about the looks people gave them, a black man and a white woman. “After everything this country has been through, they still get looks,” she said. “That can’t be fun.”

“But, honestly,” said Stanton, “the guy is obnoxious, for whatever the reason.” Feeling accused rankled. Even implicitly. “It’s not like I’m some sort of KKK. I just don’t like the guy.”

Trust. He didn’t say that word. Woods made a lot of noise, set off friendly bells and whistles in every direction, puffed out smothering clouds of stories that ate up the surrounding oxygen, stampeded herds of facts and figures from God knows where, and wore, Stanton felt certain, a mask from which he measured the world with a pair of wary eyes. Stanton didn’t like to acknowledge how those eyes made him feel.

And wouldn’t it be just fucking dandy if they had moved back and that’s why Woods was there that night? Testing the air for Lois.

He found another dance partner and, for a few minutes of showing off his three or four East Coast swing moves, forgot about Woods. When it ended, he found himself again near the refreshment table, again not ten feet away from where Woods stood telling some funny story to a knot of Stanton’s friends. He could scurry away to the far side of the room again, like the groundhog that sees its shadow and hurries back into his hole, or he could saunter around to the other side of the refreshment table and say hello to Mike O’Neil, who stood there pouring the last of a bottle of red wine into his glass. The point was to ignore Woods without looking like you were ignoring Woods.

“So,” O’Neil began, lifting his chin to point, “Mr. Woods returns.” He took a thoughtful sip of his wine and nodded in the same direction. “I suppose he’s telling them how he has the world by the tail now.”

Stanton didn’t answer. He felt a particular ugliness from O’Neil. As far as Stanton knew, O’Neil never had much to do with Woods. Certainly not to the level he had. He spoke carefully. “He’s done well,” he said.

O’Neil raised his glass as if to toast. “Well, then,” he said, “here’s to Affirmative Action then.”

Stanton could easily—and self-righteously—dismiss such comments, but they did make him squirm. Words bubbled up of their own accord. Jig, and worse. He knew their sudden pleasure before he shooed them away. The insults he wanted to yell in traffic. The jokes he batted away with an indulgent smile. Was there a line between disliking Woods the man and those embarrassing impulses?

Well, he didn’t need to think about any of that. All he had to do was ignore Woods and get through the evening.

But then Woods turned around and caught Stanton’s eye. “How you doing, Jeffrey?” he said. “How’s everything going on your side of the table?” He grinned, starting to come around. “Gettin’ enough to eat over there? Let’s find out.”