Dancing in the Dark (13 page)

Wiping his mouth with a folded napkin from a stack by the side of one of the small ovens Tom looks up surprised and sees Laura standing in the kitchen doorway with a drink in her hand. He wonders vaguely if it’s the same drink, probably yes, perhaps not. She smiles as if with a great satisfaction, as if she has just accomplished some mission or endeavour of some kind. The dog is still with her, looking inquisitively at one of the tables on which presumably there is something that smells good.

“Come on in,” he says, “the water’s wonderful.” He wonders what the dog does all day when she goes to work, he has an image of her in the morning shower, caps of white soap tumbling from her bright red hair, her breasts. Then he wonders if perhaps some agency or person has actually sent her to New York.

“Hmmm, no,” she puts one hand on her trim stomach and shakes her head deliciously, “I couldn’t eat a thing. I’ll feel hungry later on. You’ve eaten.”

“Ah, sure, why? Do I have a food stain on my new shirt?” He’s wearing a pale blue denim shirt.

“No,” she says, “it looks great.” When she says this and puts her hand against his chest he takes her in his arms and kisses her.

In the big yellow cab heading west on 59th to where she lives, somewhere around Columbus Circle, she leans back in the seat and puts her head on his shoulder. “I’m exhausted,” she says. The driver is fumbling around with the car radio and tunes in on an old 1977 song by Meat Loaf called “Paradise by the Dashboard Light.” Tom remembers the song, he feels almost nostalgic, he was still in college.

“Do you remember this song, ‘Paradise on the Dashboard’?” he asks her, misremembering the title, letting one casual hand flop on her white
knee, in the dark of the cab her knee has an almost bright glowing colour.

“No,” she says mysteriously, “I was in the southwest …”

“Oh,” he says. The dog sits in the front seat head sometimes weaving from side to side, mouth open, panting.

Some of these works have appeared in same or different versions in the following magazines and imprints:
Canadian Fiction Magazine
, 20th Anniversary Issue;
Descant; Exile; This Magazine; Quarry
; and a special limited edition chapbook by “L    e    t    t    e    r    s book shop,” prop. Nicky Drombolis. The author would like to take the occasion to thank these editors and various people like Peter McPhee, Ayanna Black, Gord Robertson, Lelah Ferguson, who have made intelligent suggestions, as well as Stan Dragland and the editorial department at McClelland & Stewart.

The author would also like to thank the Canada Council, the Ontario Arts Council, and the Toronto Arts Council for their support.