Tiny Dancer by Patricia Hickman Read Free Book Online Page A

said he could take us on a night cruise.” There was something in her voice that said she had a thing for Mitch.
    “So you’re still teaching at UNC?” asked Irene, accepting her offer of a cold drink.
    “ I still do, yes. I keep a small house across the street from campus in Chapel Hill.” Dottie led Irene away from the girls into her dining room.
    Claudia and I unpacked in the guest room Dottie had prepared for us. Pink sheets and rosy quilts made the bedroom appear to blush the color of Pepto Bismol. I shared a bureau with Claudia, the top covered entirely with Dottie’s grandchildren’s framed photographs.
    “ We’ve got to talk your mother’s friend out of the boat ride,” I said.
    Claudia laughed. “She is a gabby woman. She driving you crazy already?”
    “I made plans for us.”
    “Like what?”
    “Billy Thornton and some of his classmates are staying not far from here in a hostel.”
    “Billy Thornton’s friends? Your dance teacher? How could they be any fun?”
    “ He’s fun to me. And you’d like him too. He’s not uptight like some of the other seniors,” I said, defending Billy. “I talked to him late last night on the phone. He told me right where they would be tonight and said we should look them up.”
    “Is he the reason you aimed my mother at the oyster bar?”
    “Yes.”
    Claudia laughed. “If you’d let me in on a few things, I could help out, you know. My mother’s not hard to turn around. But she can’t think I’m trying to meet boys or we’re done for.” She opened a closet and spied a record player. She squealed and pulled it down, plugging it in between the twin beds.
    I riffled through Dottie’s collection of records. Nothing before 1960 caught my attention but one. I put on a record by Billie Holiday. Daddy liked her, that I knew. I’d heard him playing her songs after Vesta had gone to bed. He danced with Mama to Billie Holiday. She always said I got my dance moves from Daddy, but she was being modest. Everyone said Alice Curry was the best dancer in Moore County and beyond.
    The last time he sat listening to the record, I heard him cry softly in the privacy of his bedroom. He played records that I knew he had taken from our closet. Those were the albums that made him think of Siobhan. He played Billy Holiday for my mother.
    A feeling of melancholy swept over me. “I think I’ve done something bad.”
    “You? Never,” she said, joining me, poking through the albums.
    “Tomorrow is the anniversary of the accident. I should have stayed, at least for Daddy’s sake.”
    “We can’t have any fun if you’re going to be like that.” She made a silly face, trying to make me laugh.
    I knew she was right. Here I was oceanside, inviting along a funeral. “I’ll do better.”
    “You like your dance teacher, don’t you?” Claudia was smiling as if she knew everything about me, which she seldom did. She stretched across the bed she claimed for herself. “Don’t look at me like that. I figured it out a long time ago. He’s all you talk about.”
    “You know he’s a friend. My dance teacher is all and nothing more.” She and I had argued about a good many things. This was the first time she stuck her nose in matters pertaining to Billy though in such a way as to imply I had a thing for him. In spite of the dance competitions I had won and the long hours Siobhan and I had spent in training, Claudia scarcely acknowledged my dancer’s life away from our small circle of school friends. “You know Billy’s like a member of the family. Besides, he’s too old for me.” I changed the subject. “Let’s ask Dottie if we can boat tomorrow night. You’re prone to seasickness and don’t want to ruin the first day.”
    Claudia rolled onto her back, a smile forming.
     
                                                                         * * * * *
     
    I struggled with whether or not to call Billy’s