The Midnight Dancers: A Fairy Tale Retold (The Fairy Tale Novels)

  Paul shook his head. “Oh, come on. I never thought he meant that women couldn’t wear beautiful clothing. The inside is more important than the outside, obviously, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be concerned with your personal appearance.”

  “I’ve got it,” Becca said, snapping her fingers. “Rachel, you could be a Christian clothing designer. You know, make Mennonite calico dresses and little caps, and eighteenth-century Quaker dresses with high collars—Sallie would love that. I bet Dad would set you up doing that.”

  Rachel couldn’t control her snickers. “Don’t you dare mention it to him. If Paul tells him I should be a clothing designer, he’ll consider it a word from God and start the company for me.”

  “Yes! And you could work from home—from right upstairs in the sewing room! And you could hire all of us!” Becca went on. They both convulsed with giggles.

  Paul looked from one to the other. “That’s not what I meant,” he said. “I mean, why can’t you go to a regular design school and learn the trade, and then work in the regular fashion industry?”

  Rachel shook her head. He was dense. “There’s no way. Dad would never pay for me to go to some school staffed with heathens and homosexuals. So save your breath.”

  “I think you might be selling him short,” Paul said, after a pause.

  Rachel felt a flicker of anger. “I know my father,” she said. “Maybe you were in the military with him, but I’ve lived with him all my life. You don’t know him the way I do.”

  Paul persisted. “Can’t you tell him how you feel, what you really want to do? Don’t you think he’ll listen?”

  Rachel stared at Paul incredulously.

  Becca stated, “You must be crazy.”

  Rachel said, “No, he’s not crazy.” She rubbed her forehead. “Paul, can you talk that way with your father?”

  “Sure.” Paul was earnest. His brown eyes were big and round, like a perturbed puppy dog’s.

  “Well, you’re a son, not a daughter. And your father is probably very different from my father,” Rachel said. “It’s not like that in our house.”

  “You mean, if you were to tell him what you really thought and what you really wanted, he wouldn’t listen?”

  “He couldn’t listen. It doesn’t even occur to him. If I did that, he would take it as defiance. And he’d probably throw me out of the house.” Rachel said evenly.

  “So you don’t tell him what you really think, or what you really feel?”

  Becca snorted and shook her head. “Are you kidding? If Rachel were to ever do that, I wouldn’t want to be around to see it.”

  Rachel did not laugh. She responded quietly, “I do everything I can to avoid that kind of confrontation. He’s happier thinking that I’m living the way he would want me to live, and thinking the way he would want me to think.”

  “And are you? And do you?”

  Rachel couldn’t help laughing at him this time. “You can’t handle this, can you? Would you rather see me rebel? Show up at the dinner table in a miniskirt and start cursing everyone out?”

  “Is that what you really want to do?”

  “That’s certainly what I’ve felt like doing, sometimes.”

  “But that wouldn’t be your real self, would it? After you get beyond the anger? What is it that you really want to do?”

  “I don’t know,” she said distantly.

  Paul looked down at his hands. “I guess I could never pretend to live out something I didn’t really believe in,” he said finally. “I would feel like a hypocrite.”

  Burning inside, Rachel kept her voice calm. “And so maybe we are hypocrites. What else can we do?”

  Paul was silent, and then he spoke, with effort. “You could start to believe in what you’re living.”

  Becca rolled her eyes. But Rachel merely stared at him.

  “You don’t know us. You don’t understand our life,” she said coldly, and added, “You should shut up now.”

  Paul looked at the ground, silent. Then he picked up his colored vest, which he had left on the ground, and walked away.

  “What a jerk,” Becca said beneath her breath.

  Despite the chill in her heart, Rachel shook her head. “He just doesn’t understand.”

  thirteen

  Paul swam with the younger girls at the Durhams, then hiked back to his campsite and fell fast asleep for about two hours. He roused himself before evening, walked to town, bought a sandwich for dinner, and found a pay phone outside the deli. Using a phone card, he called home.

  His younger sister answered the phone and said, “Hey, you’re not dead. Everyone’s been wondering how you’ve been doing.”

  “I’m doing great, Annie. How’s everybody?”

  “Oh, you know, doing the summer thing. Working jobs. Wishing we were on vacation.”

  “Hey, is Dad there?”

  “Yeah. Right here.”

  “Dad?”

  “Paul! I was just thinking about you this morning. How’s the life of a wandering juggler?”

  “Oh, doing great. Very interesting. Actually, it’s the interesting part I wanted to talk to you about. I wanted to ask you for some parenting advice. Not for myself. Remember that colonel I mentioned to you? I’ve gotten to know him a bit down here, and he’s having some problems re-connecting with his daughters now that he’s back from his tour. I know you and my sisters always seemed to get along great despite your military absences, so I was wondering if you’d divulge any of your secrets to me, so I could pass them on to him.”

  His father was surprised, and started with the usual disclaimer that he hadn’t been a perfect parent, and only could speak from his experience, but then went on to give some thoughts. Paul, who had his journal with him, scribbled down notes. They talked for a long time, and when he hung up, Paul felt he had at least a few things to suggest to Colonel Durham.

  Rachel was faced with a problem that night. Linette didn’t wake up. When the others stole out of their beds and grabbed their things, Linette lay in bed, her blond hair across the pillow, snoring.

  Debbie tried to shake her awake, but she just rolled over and went to sleep again, complaining, not ever really coming up to consciousness.

  “She’s had a hard day juggling,” Miriam said.

  “I’ve had a hard day juggling too,” Debbie yawned, complaining. “Can’t we all stay home tonight and sleep?”

  “No,” Rachel said. “I want to go.” She glanced at the others, who nodded. This was a problem they hadn’t planned on.

  “Debbie, stay here with her,” Miriam said.

  “No!” Debbie objected abruptly. “I’m not going to stay here!”

  Rachel looked at Cheryl, who shook her head no. Rachel didn’t bother to ask.

  “Okay,” she said. “We’ll leave her here.”

  Everyone looked shocked, a bit dismayed.

  “Oh, come on!” Rachel hissed. “We’re leaving her alone in her own bed, for Pete’s sake! She’ll be safe!”

  Maybe not the best decision, but the substance of leadership was quick decisions. You couldn’t always hope to make wise ones.

  “Things are crowded tonight,” Michael observed when he met them at the quay.

  “We’re short a boat now,” Rachel said, taking his hand to get out. “Kirk had to move to West Virginia.”

  “That’s too bad,” Michael said in surprise. “I didn’t know he was leaving.”

  “We didn’t either,” Prisca said dismally. “Typical local manners. He just told us last night.” She shrugged as she walked over to the tables. “I won’t miss him much.”

  “Really? And why not?” Michael asked.

  “Well, he was always kind of an outsider.”

  Rachel again felt she had to intervene. “I still liked him,” she said. “He was very laid back. Nothing bothered him.” Not even being unabashedly dropped by both Prisca and Tammy in favor of rich men. She had come to realize that Kirk was a self-secure person, despite his rough edges.
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  “Did you think he was an outsider?” Michael asked, pulling out a chair for Rachel.

  “Oh, sort of.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know,” she mused, even though she did know. Kirk was from a lower-class family, while everyone from their set was upper-middle-class or higher. There must be a diplomatic way to say this. “He was just different from the rest of us. He went to public school, he worked at a gas station, he didn’t go to our church. Plus he wasn’t a…” She stopped abruptly, ashamed, suddenly realizing that Michael himself was most likely not a Christian.

  But Michael seemed to deduce what she was going to say. “He wasn’t a Christian, like the rest of you? And why would you exclude someone who wasn’t part of your church?” he asked.

  “It’s not that,” Prisca said, barging in. “It’s not as though we believe that only members of our church will be saved. You just have to be a Christian.”

  “Oh! But he wasn’t a Christian.”

  “Well, no. He said he believed in God, but didn’t think he believed in Jesus,” Prisca said.

  “And so you excluded him?”

  “No, we didn’t try to.”

  “But it kept him on the outside.”

  “I guess so. But it wasn’t his fault or anything,” Prisca assured him.

  Rachel listened to these exchanges, burning with mortification. “Michael, we’re not trying to say we would exclude you because you don’t believe,” she managed to say.

  “Oh, I know. But I’m just pointing out to you that, like it or not, your beliefs affect your behavior. You all knew that Kirk was not a Christian, so you never drew him into your ‘inner circle.’”

  Rachel was perplexed. “I don’t know,” she said at last, “like Prisca just said, we didn’t want to exclude him.”

  “No. It just ‘happened’ that way,” Michael said, his eyes dancing again. Then he paused, “Let me ask you this. Would you date someone who wasn’t a believer?”

  “Daddy wouldn’t let us,” Prisca said instantly.

  “But would you?”

  “Probably not,” Prisca said. “I want to have a lot in common with the man I marry, and I’m a Christian, so I’ll probably only date Christians because that’s the sort of man I want to marry.” Rachel was mildly surprised to hear Prisca say this, but Prisca always seemed to be changing her mind with her emotions.

  “And you, Rachel?” he pressed her.

  She couldn’t meet his eyes. “I don’t know if it makes a difference to me or not,” she said.

  He didn’t pursue the matter, but then unexpectedly asked her to dance with him.

  This was the second dance, and it was as magical as the first one had been. She would have melted in his arms, but after the dance, he released her again, with aggravating coolness.

  He went on to adopt a teasing mood, and said everything with a nonchalance that made Rachel look at him twice to find out if he was bantering with her or not. What became frustrating was that he seemed to be set on flustering her. Which, she knew he knew, he was easily capable of doing.

  “Are you upset with me?” she demanded at last as he handed her a wine cooler.

  But all he said, with a mild smile, was, “I told you when I met you, Rachel, that I am a nice man.”

  “Michael is always nice,” Prisca said to Michael’s crony Brad, who had joined them at the table by the bay.

  “But I may not remain nice,” Michael cocked his head to Rachel. “I saw you beside the bay today with another man.”

  “Another man?” Rachel asked.

  “Another man,” Michael said solemnly. “I had my binoculars, and I could see you both.”

  She stared at him in incredulity. Whatever could he mean? Then, blankly, “Paul?”

  “Is that his name?”

  “Oh!” She was relieved. “Him? He’s just a friend. Of my sisters. My younger sisters. He teaches them how to juggle.”

  “So he’s just a ‘friend,’” Michael pronounced.

  “If you want to call him that.”

  “Is he your lover?”

  “No!” She looked fiercely at Prisca, who was snorting and laughing. Clearly, Michael was out to get her hackles up tonight.

  “She’s blushing,” Brad observed.

  “That’s because it was an embarrassing question—oh, be quiet, Prisca.” Rachel touched her cheeks, surprised at herself. “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “So, Rachel is more broadminded than I thought,” Michael’s lip twitched, his eyes dancing. “Not just ‘one wife for life’ for you, is it?”

  “No! I mean, yes. One husband,” Rachel glared at her sister, unable to meet Michael’s eyes.

  “Have you kissed him?”

  She attempted to compose and stared back at him defiantly. “No. Why are you giving me the inquisition?”

  He folded his hands and put them to his lips. “Because he looks like he wants to kiss you.”

  This was news to Rachel. She floundered. “He’s just a friend of my dad’s, really. That’s how we met him.”

  “Ah ha! So he’s the suitable suitor Daddy picked out for you then?”

  “No! Not at all. He’s Catholic, for one thing.”

  Michael looked blank. “So, you’re not allowed to marry unbelievers or Catholics.”

  “No—yes. Well, that’s not how we would put it.”

  “But it amounts to the same thing,” Michael said. “Or am I missing something?”

  Rachel grew uncomfortable. She glanced at Prisca, who mouthed, “Babylonian Mystery Religion.”

  “So this Paul is not the clean-cut baby-faced character he first appears to be,” Michael mused. “I think I’m jealous. You’re obviously attracted to his darker side.”

  As the most recent emotion she had felt towards Paul was weary annoyance, she was about to object, when she suddenly recalled him sitting on the rock, his lean intent figure arched over his flute, his bare skin glistening with the splendor of the wild beauty of his music. There was something about him, but she wasn’t sure what it was—Paul was focused on something, bent towards it, something that she couldn’t see, but which reflected its brilliance on him.

  It was uncanny, and these thoughts, fleeting through her mind in an instant, made her flush again.

  “Yes,” said Michael, observing her. “I am jealous.” But she still couldn’t tell if he were joking or not.

  When they got up to leave, Michael took her hand, and as he led her to the boat, suddenly, as they passed through a shadow, he curled her to him and kissed her on the lips, deeply and swiftly, and then released her.

  “Rachel,” he said softly. “You’re too beautiful to be a Christian.” And, as if nothing had happened, they walked on.

  She had been kissed before—in grade school, on the playground, and her sophomore year, during a turgid school romance that quickly went sour. It was not the first time, but it still rattled her. Her attempts to say any goodnights to him faltered, and she ended up stumbling onto Alan’s boat, befuddled and wondering.

  As they left the island, her mind cleared momentarily. He was playing with her, testing her, pushing her away and then pulling her back. It was a game, and she wasn’t sure why he was playing it. Like the songs said, in many ways, he was bad for her, but she still liked him.

  Perhaps, she thought, biting a strand of hair that had blown in her mouth, because he was shy of revealing his true feelings. Perhaps he was insecure. She had heard rich men sometimes were—mistrustful.

  And then Paul’s words, “You spend more time with a worthwhile one…you might even marry her…” came back to her again.

  Furious, she looked out at the bay again and wished, she wished that Michael had kissed her a bit longer.

  As they drew closer to the shore of their house, she felt herself wilting, like a balloon caving in. The thought of going back to family life and home just now was excruciating.

  “Well, you were lucky,” Prisca breathed in her ear. ??
?I saw you and Michael.”

  Furious, she turned on her sister. “Be quiet!” she spat. “You were hardly supportive tonight!”

  “There’s no need to get so—” Prisca was defensive.

  Rachel didn’t want Alan and Rich to hear. “I said, shut up!”

  She attempted to calm herself, but when they drew closer to the shore, she made out a white figure on the beach, huddled there.

  Alan pulled under the willows. The girls got out, and Rachel went over to Linette. The small blond girl was wrapped in a blanket, but she was shivering. Her hair was damp and her face was tear-stained.

  “I woke up in the dark, and I was all alone,” she said, and her voice was quavering. “I was all alone!” she wailed.

  The guys halted by the boats, uncomfortable. Rachel looked at Alan. “Good night,” she said distantly. The guys melted away, back into the boats, and pulled out.

  “Why did you leave me?” Linette cried. She grabbed Rachel’s arm and said again, “Why did you leave me?”

  “You were tired—you needed to sleep,” Rachel said sharply.

  “Then why didn’t someone stay with me?”

  “No one wanted to stay.”

  Linette collapsed on the beach and began to sob. Cheryl came over and hugged her. She looked up at Rachel, her features blaming and guilty all at once.

  Rachel turned and looked at the retreating boats. The guys started their engines and roared off. Then she turned back to the youngest sister, attempting to formulate some pat words of comfort.

  But Linette was growing more and more hysterical. “Don’t you guys ever do that again!”

  “We’re sorry,” Rachel said woodenly.

  Linette wiped her eyes with her fists and croaked. “If you ever do that again, I’ll go into Mom and Dad’s bedroom, and I’ll tell them!”

  “You will NOT!” In one swift movement Rachel seized the young girl by the shoulders and squeezed, lifting her off the ground.

  Cheryl gasped and Linette, first scared by the movement, began to cry even harder.

  “Let her go!” Cheryl shrieked, and seized Rachel by the hair. Rachel dropped Linette, and staggered backwards. She caught herself. She had almost, almost punched Cheryl.