good time.
Whenever possible, Julie liked to go dancing after she visited Thomas at
Cielo Vista. In the thrall of the music, keeping time to the beat,
focused on the patterns of the dance, she was able to put everything
else out of her mind-even guilt, even grief. Nothing else freed her so
completely. Bobby liked to dance too, especially swing. Tuck in, throw
out, change places, pull push, do a tight whip, tuck in again, throw
out, trade places with both hands linked, back to basic position…
Music soothed, but dance had the power to fill the heart with joy a to
numb those parts of it that were bruised.
During the musicians’ break, Bobby and Julie sipped beer at a table near
the edge of the parquet dance floor. They talked about everything
except Thomas, and eventually they got around to The Dream-specifically,
how to furnish the seaside bungalow if they ever bought it. Though they
would not spend a fortune on furniture, they agreed that they could
indulge themselves with two pieces from the swing era: maybe a bronze
and marble Art Deco cabinet by Emile-Jacques Ruhlman and definitely a
Wurlitzer jukebox.
“The model 950,” Julie said.
“It was gorgeous. Bubble tub Leaping gazelles on the front panels.”
“Fewer than four thousand were made. Hitler’s fault. Wurlitzer
retooled for war production. The model 500 is pretty too -or the 700.”
“Nice, but they’re not the 950.”
“Not as expensive as the 950, either.”
“You’re counting pennies when we’re talking ultimate beauty?” He said,
“Ultimate beauty is the Wurlitzer 950?”
“That’s right. What else?”
“To me, you’re the ultimate beauty.”
“Sweet,” she said.
“But I still want the 950.”
“To you, aren’t I the ultimate beauty?”
He batted his eyelashes.
“To me, you’re just a difficult man who won’t let me have my Wurlitzer
950,” she said, enjoying the game.
“What about a Seeburg? A Packard Player-moor? Okay. A Rock-ola?”
“Rock-ola made some beautiful boxes,” she agreed.
“We’ll buy one of those and the Wurlitzer 950.”
“You’ll spend our money like a drunken sailor.”
“I was born to be rich. Stork got confused. Didn’t deliver me to the
Rockefellers.”
“Wouldn’t you like to get your hands on that stork now?”
“Got him years ago. Cooked him, ate him for Christmas dinner. He was
delicious, but I’d still rather be a Rockefeller.”
“Happy?” Bobby asked.
“Delirious. And it’s not just the beer. I don’t know why, but tonight
I feel better than I’ve felt in ages. I think we’re going to get where
we want to go, Bobby. I think we’re going to retire early and live a
long happy life by the sea.”
His smile faded as she talked. Now he was frowning. She said, “What’s
wrong with you, Sourpuss?”
“Nothing.”
“Don’t kid me. You’ve been a little strange all day. You’ve tried to
hide it, but something’s on your mind.”
He sipped his beer. Then: “Well, you’ve got this good feeling that
everything’s going to be fine, but I’ve got a bad feeling.”
“You? Mr. Blue Skies?” He was still frowning.
“Maybe you should confine yourself to office work for a while, stay off
the firing line.”
“Why?”
“My bad feeling.”
“Which is?” “That I’m going to lose you.”
“Just try.”
WITH ITS invisible baton, the wind conducted a chorus of whispery voices
in the hedgerow. The dense Eugenias formed a seven-foot-high wall
around three sides of the two-acre property, and they would have been
higher than the house itself if Candy had not used power trimmers to
chop off the tops of them a couple of times each year.
He opened the waist-high, wrought-iron gate between the two stone
pilasters, and stepped out onto the graveled shoulder of the county
road. To his left, the two-lane blacktop wound up into the hills for
another couple of miles. To his right, it dropped down toward the
distant coast, past houses on lots that were more parsimoniously
proportioned the nearer they were to the shore, until in town they were
only a tenth as big as the Pollard place. As the land descended
westward, lights were clustered in ever greater concentration-then
stopped abruptly, several miles away, as if crowding against a black