Chapter 13: Dell
I’m done here.
Arianna looks frantic and flustered, her face red beneath a tousled halo of curls. I get the sense that someone’s really gotten to her, and it’s not hard to figure out who, between my crude cousin, my call-it-like-it-is mother, and no telling who else.
“Grace needs a change,” she says, holding out her hand for the diaper bag, which is still over my shoulder.
Instead of passing it off, I excuse myself from the racetrack crowd and walk with her to the bathrooms.
“You didn’t have to come with me,” she says, her voice flat. “I just needed an escape.” She gestures toward the “Women” sign. “I’m quite sure the men’s restroom doesn’t have a changing table.”
“Let’s go in here,” I say, and steer her toward the office door instead. There’s a meeting room off the back, and we can get away from the madness for a while.
Maybe escape out the window.
I’m hoping we’ve made a clean getaway from the crowd, but as I close the door, I see Daniel Dean has spotted us and lifted his spoon in a salute. Great.
We pass a desk and a door to another, smaller office. Then the meeting room. I open the door to that, and we pass through. I close and lock it.
“Good,” Arianna says. “Keep your cousin out. He wants to do some initiation.”
My brow crumples. “I don’t remember any initiation.”
“Well, he’s sure there is one.”
She takes the diaper bag from me and tugs the padded blanket from the side. Grace seems calmer away from the party. Arianna straightens her out on the pad and pulls off the pink diaper cover that matches her dress.
“How’s Grace?” I ask, leaning over her.
She reaches up with her little hands, her feet in tiny white socks coming up to my neck.
I shift aside so Arianna has more room to change her.
“I might be sorry I asked to meet your family,” Arianna says.
“I might be sorry I let them anywhere near you,” I reply.
We look down at Grace. Arianna whisks away one diaper and bundles her into a fresh one.
“She’s bound to be hungry,” Arianna says.
“We can hide back here and feed her.” I pick Grace up and hoist her to my shoulder.
Arianna empties a formula packet into a bottle and shakes it. “And then?”
“We skedaddle.”
This makes her laugh. “Skedaddle. I thought they only used that word in movies.”
“It’s a perfectly good word,” I say, relieved to see the tension leaving her face. “Like, let’s skedaddle to the opera for La Traviata.”
More laughter. I feel my own shoulders relaxing.
Arianna puts on a snooty expression. “Or, ‘Darling, shall we skedaddle to the Guggenheim for the children’s charity dinner?’”
“See? It’s the perfect word.”
I set Grace on her feet on the conference table. She bounces, holding my hand, loving the feeling of standing, if only for a moment. When she sees the bottle, she lets go to reach for it.
“Whoa, baby girl,” I say as she almost tumbles. “You’re not quite ready to be upright.”
“She’s getting there,” Arianna says. “She’ll be walking before we know it.”
Grace settles onto my arm, holding the bottle with both hands. When did she stop letting us feed her? The transition had been sudden. The sense that her baby time is escaping becomes so strong that I take the bottle from her little hands.
She lets me, content to fall back against the crook of my elbow and let me do the work. I let out a sigh of relief as she continues to drain the bottle. Dang, she can do it fast now.
“Where does the time go?” I ask Arianna. She’s putting away the supplies.
“It’s quick,” she says, tucking the pack of wipes into the bag. Then she plops down onto a cracked vinyl chair next to me.
“Dreary place, isn’t it?” I ask. The room is the same dull yellow as the main hall with dark paneled walls. At the end is a whiteboard, the ghostly colors of long-ago messages staining the surface.
“Oh, I don’t know. I think it serves its purpose,” Arianna says. “Not everything has to be shiny.” She brushes a cluster of crumbs from the tabletop and grimaces.
“I’ve been here a lot,” I say. “I hid in this office to escape my family more than once.”
“Some things never change,” she says, plucking at the “bride” shirt.
“Sorry they accosted you before you could even get your bearings,” I say. “I should have predicted that.”
“We need a bodyguard,” she says with a laugh. “To protect us from your cousin.”
“He’s not going to pull anything on me,” I say. “I’d like to see him try.”
“I think he remembers a version of you that is quite different from how you are now.”
Grace finishes the bottle, and I pull it away before she sucks air. I lift her to my shoulder. “Well, he has another thing coming if he thinks he’s going to initiate you into anything.” I pat Grace’s back. “I did that myself, I do believe.”
Arianna smiles. “I do believe you did.”
Grace lets out her trademark sailor belch and laughs, her legs kicking against my chest. I slide her down. “That’s all you got?” I ask.
She laughs and pummels her little fists against my chin. I recoil as if it’s a punch. “You pack a mean hit, little tiger.”
“So now what?” Arianna asks, reaching for the baby. “Do we brave the masses?”
“I think we’re done here,” I say, standing and shouldering the bag. “We met the fam, showed off the kid. Let’s call it a day.”
“I didn’t see you talk to your father,” she says.
This makes my jaw tense. “I have no intention to.” We head for the door.
“But you came all this way.”
“To see my mother,” he says. “And because you asked to meet her.”
“Them,” she says. “And I talked to your father.”
My hand stills on the doorknob. “What did he say?”
Her hesitation says everything.
I turn to her. “Did he insult you? Did he say something about Grace?”
“He didn’t see Grace that I know of. I was on my way to fetch her from your mom.”
“What did he say to you?” My anger is rising to the red zone.
“Just asked if I sucked the teat of the government,” she says, but I can tell there is more by the way she focuses on Grace, holding her hand and making a silly face to avoid saying anything else.
“We are done here,” I say, opening the door to the conference room.
“But it’s our party,” she says.
“No, it’s their party, and we’re their excuse.”
We head back through the office. But when we open the outside door, a mob is there waiting.
Daniel Dean stands close, arms crossed, hands placed so it looks like he has biceps. Aunt Marge and Mom flank him on either side.
Grandma Jessie’s there with her wheelchair and cane. And the whole Spencer clan, plus a few on the McDonald side. Other than my dad. Thankfully, he’s skipped this part of the festivities.
“Took ya long enough,” Grandma Jessie says. “Although, I guess if he takes his time, that’s good on you.” She winks at Arianna.
“We were changing the—” Arianna attempts, but her words are cut off by the blast of an air horn. Everyone covers their ears. Grace howls and starts to cry.
One of the kids, no telling whose, takes off holding the horn. A woman runs after him, shouting, “Rodney Jay Johnson, get back here right now!”
Mom shakes her head. “She’s got to get a handle on that boy.”
“It’s time for us to go,” I say, putting my hand on Grace. Arianna jiggles her to try and settle her after the scare.
“What?” Mom says. “We haven’t even started dancing yet. And I didn’t see you eat a bite of that pig Marge slaved over.”
“We’re vegetarians,” I lie. “No thanks.”
“Oh, no,” Daniel Dean says. “Initiating begins now, and we got the music all ready.”
I’m done with this lunkhead cousin. I stand close to him in my most intimidating stance. “Step aside.”
But he just laughs. “I don’t know where that works, but this here’s family, cuz. We don’t respond to threats.”
Arianna gasps and I turn to see that Aunt Marge has taken the baby again. Daniel Dean grabs Arianna’s hand and pulls her toward the dance floor.
I see red. I’m about to pound this asshole into the ground when Mom takes my arm. “Just roll with it, Hasmund. It’s all in good fun.”
“Neither of us find this fun, Mother.”
“You gotta lighten up,” she says. “The big city is making you all uptight.” She stands beside me, holding on with both hands.
Some teen I don’t know sits at a table with a receiver wired to two tall speakers on either side of the stage. After a second, the sound blasts out. A polka.
A bunch of the boys and men are on the floor in a circle. Daniel Dean delivers Arianna to the middle of them and lets her go.
She looks around at them. To her credit, she stands tall and self-assured. I’d be busting some balls.
The men stamp one foot with alternating claps. Then they launch into a side step, making the circle go around her. A few head the wrong way initially, and are shoved into the right direction.
This keeps up for a little bit, and Arianna gamely claps to the music, her white “bride” shirt ghostly in the bluish stage lights.
The men go in toward her, then back out, and the threat I feel when they converge on her makes it hard for me to stand aside.
My mom grips me like she knows she’d better hold on. The women have started to congregate, filling in the corners.
“You haven’t seen this before?” Mom asks. “I’m sure we did it back when you were a kid. When Grandma Jessie’s sister Louisa got remarried?”
I shake my head.
“I’m pretty sure you did,” Mom says. “You must’ve forgot.”
As they swoosh in and out on her, some vague memory starts to dislodge. I left around the time I would have participated in this dance, judging by who’s out there. And I never came back. I would only have seen it done by others.
Daniel Dean swoops in on Arianna, locking his elbow around hers and turning her around. She keeps up at first, but then he pivots and switches, catching her off guard.
But he snags her again, and the next time he switches, she’s ready.
“They say you can tell what kinda wife you’re gonna get by how she does this dance,” Mom says.
I do not give one shit whether she meets their expectations, but I’m mesmerized, watching her pick up the pattern. Uncle Travis moves in to take his turn with Arianna, and Daniel Dean falls back into the circle surrounding her.
The music goes on and on, each man coming in.
“You remember when you’re supposed to go out?” Mom asks.
“What?” I have no idea.
“It’s coming up,” she says. Then she pushes on my back and says, “GO!”
I lunge forward. The circle opens, and I get it. I’m supposed to take the last turn with Arianna.
I haven’t paid close enough attention to the turns or the pivots, but it doesn’t matter. My flush-faced bride has it on lock, and she turns me and makes sure I stay on the beat.
Around us, the circle dissolves as all the women claim their men. And I remember this part. I never jumped in because I didn’t have a girl. You only did the dance if someone would claim you at the end.
Muck-shoveling Hasmund didn’t have a girl to dance with at the end, so I never did.
But today, I’m in the center. And I have the best one of them all.