And it’s a fine night for dancing, thought Cecy.
“… for dancing,” murmured Ann Leary.
Then she was in the tub and the soap creaming on her white seal shoulders, small nests of soap beneath her arms, and the flesh of her warm breasts moving in her hands and Cecy moving the mouth, making the smile, keeping the actions going. There must be no pause, no hesitation, or the entire pantomime might fall in ruins! Ann Leary must be kept moving, doing, acting, wash here, soap there, now out! Rub with a towel! Now perfume and powder!
“You!” Ann caught herself in the mirror, all whiteness and pinkness like lilies and carnations. “Who are you tonight?”
“I’m a girl seventeen.” Cecy gazed from her violet eyes. “You can’t see me. Do you know I’m here?”
Ann Leary shook her head. “I’ve rented my body to an April witch, for sure.”
“Close, very close!” laughed Cecy. “Now, on with your dressing.”
The luxury of feeling good clothes move over an ample body! And then the halloo outside.
“Ann, Tom’s back!”
“Tell him to wait.” Ann sat down suddenly. “Tell him I’m not going to that dance.”
“What?” said her mother, in the door.
Cecy snapped back into attention. It had been a fatal relaxing, a fatal moment of leaving Ann’s body for only an instant. She had heard the distant sound of horses’ hoofs and the rig rambling through moonlit spring country. For a second she thought, I’ll go find Tom and sit in his head and see what it’s like to be in a man of twenty-two on a night like this. And so she had started quickly across a heather field, but now, like a bird to a cage, flew back and rustled and beat about in Ann Leary’s head.
“Ann!”
“Tell him to go away!”
“Ann!” Cecy settled down and spread her thoughts.
But Ann had the bit in her mouth now. “No, no, I hate him!”
I shouldn’t have left—even for a moment. Cecy poured her mind into the hands of the young girl, into the heart, into the head, softly, softly. Stand up, she thought.
Ann stood.
Put on your coat!
Ann put on her coat.
Now, march!
No! thought Ann Leary.
March!
“Ann,” said her mother, “don’t keep Tom waiting another minute. You get on out there now and no nonsense. What’s come over you?”
“Nothing, Mother. Good night. We’ll be home late.”
Ann and Cecy ran together into the spring evening.
A room full of softly dancing pigeons ruffling their quiet, trailing feathers, a room full of peacocks, a room full of rainbow eyes and lights. And in the center of it, around, around, around, danced Ann Leary.
“Oh, it is a fine evening,” said Cecy.
“Oh, it’s a fine evening,” said Ann.
“You’re odd,” said Tom.
The music whirled them in dimness, in rivers of song; they floated, they bobbed, they sank down, they arose for air, they gasped, they clutched each other like drowning people and whirled on again, in fan motions, in whispers and sighs, to “Beautiful Ohio.”
Cecy hummed. Ann’s lips parted and the music came out.
“Yes, I’m odd,” said Cecy.
“You’re not the same,” said Tom.
“No, not tonight.”
“You’re not the Ann Leary I knew.”
“No, not at all, at all,” whispered Cecy, miles and miles away. “No, not at all,” said the moved lips.
“I’ve the funniest feeling,” said Tom.
“About what?”
“About you.” He held her back and danced her and looked into her glowing face, watching for something. “Your eyes,” he said, “I can’t figure it.”
“Do you see me?” asked Cecy.
“Part of you’s here, Ann, and part of you’s not.” Tom turned her carefully, his face uneasy.
“Yes.”
“Why did you come with me?”
“I didn’t want to come,” said Ann.
“Why, then?”
“Something made me.”
“What?”
“I don’t know.” Ann’s voice was faintly hysterical.
“Now, now, hush, hush,” whispered Cecy. “Hush, that’s it. Around, around.”
They whispered and rustled and rose and fell away in the dark room, with the music moving and turning them.
“But you did come to the dance,” said Tom.
“I did,” said Cecy.
“Here.” And he danced her lightly out an open door and walked her quietly away from the hall and the music and the people.
They climbed up and sat together in the rig.
“Ann,” he said, taking her hands, trembling. “Ann.” But the way he said the name it was as if it wasn’t her name. He kept glancing into her pale face, and now her eyes were open again. “I used to love you, you know that,” he said.
“I know.”
“But you’ve always been fickle and I didn’t want to be hurt.”
“It’s just as well, we’re very young,” said Ann.
“No, I mean to say, I’m sorry,” said Cecy.
“What do you mean?” Tom dropped her hands and stiffened.
The night was warm and the smell of the earth shimmered up all about them where they sat, and the fresh trees breathed one leaf against another in a shaking and rustling.
“I don’t know,” said Ann.
“Oh, but I know,” said Cecy. “You’re tall and you’re the finest-looking man in all the world. This is a good evening; this is an evening I’ll always remember, being with you.” She put out the alien cold hand to find his reluctant hand again and bring it back, and warm it and hold it very tight.
“But,” said Tom, blinking, “tonight you’re here, you’re there. One minute one way, the next minute another. I wanted to take you to the dance tonight for old times’ sake. I meant nothing by it when I first asked you. And then, when we were standing at the well, I knew something had changed, really changed, about you. You were different. There was something new and soft, something …” He groped for a word. “I don’t know, I can’t say. The way you looked. Something about your voice. And I know I’m in love with you again.”
“No,” said Cecy. “With me, with me.”
“And I’m afraid of being in love with you,” he said. “You’ll hurt me again.”
“I might,” said Ann.
No, no, I’d love you with all my heart! thought Cecy. Ann, say it to him, say it for me. Say you’d love him with all your heart.
Ann said nothing.
Tom moved quietly closer