What a Night to Go Dancing

Ned’s was the only bar in town that played music good enough to dance to. There was the Kensington downtown, but they only boasted a piano player who acted as background noise for diners.

Ned’s was nothing to write home about, and occasionally there was a suspicious character or two, but generally it provided a place for the local couples to go and press up against each other.

It was just outside the main drag of town. Far enough to be respectable but close enough that driving home a bit tipsy wouldn’t be an issue.

Charlie had decided he wanted to go out dancing that evening and so they had.

He’d invited along the Millers who had recently moved into the house down the road. He liked Larry well enough, and Kitty found his wife, Evelyn, quite beguiling.

They’d attended dinner parties together in the neighborhood. Evelyn seemed somewhat shy and reserved. She stood away from the others, a bit aloof at times. She had attractive blonde hair and clear, pale eyes.

Kitty had followed her out onto the Bishop’s back patio, not certain why. Like a moth drawn to a flame.

Evelyn had not minded her presence. They’d smoked cigarettes and talked about the banalities of life that people who had just met spoke of.

Evelyn had two children. Older than Kitty’s three children. She had been married sixteen years. Kitty had been married eleven.

Evelyn had seemed to grow bored of the conversation and Kitty had wanted to ask her to tell her something real, but they were swept back inside when Charlie found them.

Kitty had been happy when Charlie had thought to invite Larry and Evelyn that evening.

They’d picked them up on the way to Ned’s. Evelyn had sat behind Kitty and as the men talked, their eyes met in the rearview mirror.

Kitty watched Evelyn when they got to the bar. They sat at a booth in the corner. Evelyn’s eyes darted about as she sat smoking a cigarette. Uncomfortable.

Their eyes met again when Evelyn sipped her highball.

The alcohol seemed to relax her. Her full, red lips smiled at Kitty.

Her eyes seemed darker, like two sapphires.

The music pulled them to the dance floor, and they danced with their rightful spouses.

Charlie was a good dancer. He’d always loved taking her dancing, from the time they’d first started dating.

She looked over Charlie’s shoulder when he turned her about and caught sight of Larry with his arms about Evelyn.

Evelyn’s eyes were absent as her husband twirled her, as if she were a million miles away.

Kitty was certain Evelyn did not like dancing.

There was another round of highballs and then they began scrambling partners. Larry danced with Kitty and Charlie danced with Evelyn.

Larry was not as graceful as Charlie. He was a bit careless and clumsy. His hand rested a little too low on Kitty’s back and he held her a bit too tightly.

Kitty could feel her cheeks blossom red.

She caught sight of Evelyn dancing with Charlie. She was laughing at something he’d said, but her eyes had wandered to Kitty and Larry dancing.

Their eyes met.

She was watching Kitty.

Kitty felt embarrassed.

She asked Larry if they could stop, complaining that her feet hurt. He let her go and took up with a redheaded woman.

Kitty ordered another highball and sat at the booth, watching Charlie spin Evelyn about.

Evelyn did not seem to care much that her husband was dancing with the redhead. She didn’t glance in his direction. She seemed to simply ignore his presence all together.

Kitty watched Evelyn lean into Charlie and say something and he playfully pouted before releasing her.

He followed Evelyn back to the table and took a sip of his highball. “Care to dance, hon?” He looked at Kitty.

“No, thanks.” She waved off her husband and he went off to find another dance partner.

She noticed he chose a brunette who sat next to a rather bored looking man. She looked eager to dance and her face lit up when Charlie asked.

Evelyn had taken the seat next to her. She lit a cigarette. Sweat glistened on her forehead, which she wiped daintily at with a napkin. She drank back the rest of her highball as if it were water. “Care to get out of here for a bit of fresh air?” She asked finally, leaning over so that Kitty could smell her perfume and the smoke of her cigarette.

It was intoxicating.

“Yes.” Kitty knew that neither Charlie nor Larry would miss them if they were to slip out for a bit.

Evelyn put out her cigarette and gathered up her purse. Kitty followed her.

They went out a side door and found themselves walking unsteadily on their heels over gravel.

Kitty nearly fell but Evelyn grabbed for her, holding her up. There was a shock at the accidental nearness and then they were laughing, Evelyn clasping her close to her so they could balance together.

They made it to the asphalt, arms still linked, and stood near Charlie’s Buick. “God, I hate dancing.” Evelyn was laughing, their arms came undone. She reached into her purse. “Care for a cigarette?” She offered.

“Thank you.” She took one from Evelyn’s golden cigarette case and placed it between her lips. Evelyn did the same and then extracted her matching lighter.

The light flickered, illuminating their features. Evelyn’s lipstick was a bit smeared, but the rest of her was perfectly in place. Her face hardly betrayed a thing as she leaned towards Kitty, reaching up, fingers briefly brushing Kitty’s cheek, as she shielded the lighter from the gentle evening breeze.

Kitty’s cigarette caught and she immediately missed the nearness of Evelyn when she straightened to light her own cigarette.

“It’s not fair.” Evelyn was saying.

“What’s not?” Kitty asked as a cloud of smoke escaped from her lips.

“I would have asked you to dance but we’re both women.” Evelyn’s lip turned up a bit, as if in an amused smile. “Larry’s an awful dancer but he’ll get any gal in there pressed up against him.”

Kitty felt her cheeks go red again.

Evelyn laughed darkly. “It’s all right. You can agree with me about his dancing. Your husband’s a really wonderful dancer though.”

It was more than she had said at the dinner party before, and Kitty felt as if she didn’t know how to respond to her.

She hardly knew her and yet she liked her so terribly much.

She liked the way Evelyn casually leaned against the side of Charlie’s car. Bringing the cigarette to her lips like a movie star might.

She turned to look at Kitty.

Kitty looked at her in return.

“You’re awfully pretty, you know.” Evelyn said. There wasn’t any shyness in the statement.

Kitty bowed her head, smoked, looked off away at the interstate just over the hill.

They could hear the music pouring out from the bar. A car roared to a stop in the parking lot. Car doors opened, slammed shut, laughter emanated about them.

“I didn’t mean to embarrass you.” Evelyn exhaled roughly and smashed out the butt of her cigarette beneath her heel.

“You didn’t.” Kitty insisted rather too loudly.

Evelyn was looking at her again with her pale eyes. Wide and smiling.

Kitty looked about them.

The parking lot was empty just then.

There were no overhead lights.

They were in darkness.

Kitty put out her cigarette beneath her heel and turned to look at Evelyn. “We should…” but neither moved.

Kitty stepped closer to where Evelyn was leaning against the car. Evelyn smiled, their eyes locking. Kitty moved a little and Evelyn met her. The kiss was tentative, lips ghosting over lips. Kitty sighed and Evelyn’s arm snaked about her, held her close and gave over to the kiss.

The bar door opened somewhere behind them - drunken laughter spilling out into the night around them.

They stepped apart from one another.

In the dim light Kitty could tell that Evelyn’s lipstick was smeared and knew hers would be as well.

“Perhaps we should be getting back inside.” Evelyn pulled out a compact and used the little light there was to smooth out her lips again.

She clasped Kitty’s chin between her fingers and carefully wiped at her lips and then reapplied her own lipstick to Kitty’s lips.

“Charlie won’t even notice.” She patted Kitty’s cheek and then dropped the lipstick back into her purse. She linked her arm through Kitty’s and clasped at her as they moved back towards Ned’s.

Kitty didn’t want to go back inside. Her head still reeling.

Had it even happened? Had she imagined it?

“Can we…” she stopped before they could walk inside the bar.

“I certainly hope so.” Evelyn winked and then was pulling her back inside and when Charlie seemed to notice they had returned Kitty heard Evelyn say that they’d been freshening up in the little girl’s room.

Evelyn took up dancing with her husband as if nothing had just happened and Kitty resented the way he was holding her. So close. When only moments before she had been…

“Are you all right, hon?” Charlie had taken her by the arm. She had forgotten how readable she could be.

“Yes, yes. I guess I’m just not in the mood for dancing tonight.”

“Ah, honey. One more song and we’ll go.” He promised, kissing her on the cheek.

But she begged him off and he found a blonde woman to dance with.

She sat at the booth drinking back another highball. Her eyes fixed on Evelyn, who looked at her whenever Larry’s back was to Kitty.

Charlie drove them carefully home.

Evelyn sat behind her as she had before and when Kitty glanced in the rearview mirror their eyes collided again.

It wasn’t fair when they dropped them off at their house and Charlie pulled out of the driveway and Kitty watched Larry put his arm about Evelyn as they walked back up the path to their home. It wasn’t fair when Charlie, warm and happy from a night of dancing, wanted to take her to bed.

It wasn’t fair that a whole weekend stretched out with no word from Evelyn. As if she didn’t even exist.

It was only in her dreams that the image of it, the feel of it, returned to her, and she’d wake up hot and aroused.

It was Monday, as she cleaned up the kitchen after having made the children breakfast and sent them off to school, that she heard the phone ringing.

“Would you care to come over for some coffee?” The voice on the other end was real.

Evelyn was real.

Kitty dressed and pressed perfume to her pulse points and made sure that her hair was neatly curled about her face. She walked down the street, past the several houses that separated them.

The door opened before she could knock and Evelyn stood in her peignoir and nothing else, cigarette in hand, smoke curling from her lips. “Well, aren’t you a picture?” She mused and then closed the door behind them and pressed Kitty against it.

Their lips met again. Hungry.

And there was nothing to stop them this time.