Chapter 16 Jack

Mr.Calamari had died at half past one the day before, his extended family gathered around like vultures at a kill. Jack couldn't help the macabre comparison, maybe because the entire family was big—big bellies, big laughs, big feelings.

Pauline, another nurse, said she heard Mr.Calamari was a mobster. Jack didn't generally put much stock in the things Pauline said—she tended to state opinions as stone-cold facts—but then, even Sandra said she didn't like to go into his room because she was afraid of who might be there. "Never know when contact with the mob is going to come back and haunt you," she'd said ominously.

Jack was off today. He was at the garden, mixing some plant food with a vengeance, based on a recipe Mr.Hauser had left behind. He had no tears—Guy Calamari was one of those rare patients Jack had from time to time whose death, as shameful as it was to admit, couldn't come soon enough. Calamari had called Jack a dick, said Pauline's ass could feed a nation. He told his wife he was sick of her hanging around and told his oldest son that he wasn't leaving him a bloody dime.

And still his teary-eyed family came, asking if he needed anything. What he needed, he said, was a gin and tonic. What he wanted was for them to shut the hell up; all their yap, yap, yap was driving him crazy. He said they were the reason he was dying, that they'd essentially killed him.

Once, as Jack was hooking up a saline drip to Mr.Calamari's beefy, tattooed arm, he asked Jack if he had family. Jack shook his head.

"Lucky you. Family is nothing but a pain in the ass."

Jack could have said he'd always wanted a family and, as a kid, asked Santa for one. And that as a man, he held out hope that he'd have one of his own eventually. He could have said that he hadn't given up.

But he didn't say anything because he'd learned that everyone comes to death on their own terms. Often, by the time people got to hospice, they were in so much pain or trapped in bodies that no longer functioned that they welcomed the peace and an end to the suffering. But some people came angry and confused, fearful and combative. Mr.Calamari belonged in that group. He felt wronged, like life owed him more than a mere sixty-four years. Tell that to the six-year-old who'd died from brain cancer last week.

Calamari's last act had been to yank his hand free of his daughter's grip even though he was unconscious. Jack reported this remarkable fact to Sandra. They both knew that in the final stages, patients weren't generally aware of hand-holding. But somehow Calamari had sensed one last opportunity to be a jerk and had taken it.

Jack finished mixing his plant food and was digging some holes for his new plantings—he was going to try green beans on the advice of Byron's mom—when he heard the familiar rattle of Catherine's wheelchair on the crushed granite path.

"Who'd you lose today?"

"A guy whose time had definitely come," he said. "How's your day?"

"Fine, I guess." She sighed and looked away.

This was not the Catherine Henry Jack had come to know and appreciate. She was generally full of news, gossip about the other plots, advice about who to vote for in the upcoming mayoral election, and sartorial critique of his gardening clothes. Jack dug another hole. "What's up?"

"Hmm?" She shifted her gaze to him again. "Nothing. I've got a lot on my mind."

"Like?"

"Like... life, kid. Bet you hear enough of that at your job. Bet people looking death in the face want to unburden themselves before they kick off."

Jack put the seedling into the ground and lightly tamped dirt around it. "Some do. Some don't. Depends on the person."

"Well, I believe if you've got something to say, say it. Better when you're alive and kicking and can do something about it." She rubbed her forehead and sighed again.

Jack stood up and brushed dirt from his knees. "Have you got something you want to say, Catherine?"

"You don't care. And there's no point—we're sunk."

"First of all, I wouldn't ask if I didn't care," he said and, without thinking, pulled up the lap rug she'd draped across her knees before it slipped off onto her feet. "And second, who's sunk?"

"It's a long story. Hey..." She peered up at him curiously. "You want to get out of here and do something fun?"

"Like what?"

"You'll see. I'll give you the address and you can meet me. I want it to be a surprise."

He eyed her suspiciously. "You and surprise are not two things I think should be in the same room."

"Come on, Jack. What are you afraid of?" She waggled her brows at him.

He had to admit he was intrigued. If anyone could surprise him, it just might be Catherine Henry. Besides, he had nothing going on for the rest of the day, and anything was better than going back to his apartment to dwell on Mr.Calamari. "Okay."

She obviously hadn't expected him to agree and grinned. "Walter? Walter! Come type in our address or whatever it is you do with the phones for our friend here."

***

Later, Jack paused in the middle of the sidewalk and looked again at the address Walter had given him. He was north of the Triangle, in a cluster of old buildings surrounding a parking lot. A closed warehouse was on one side, next to it a small, dilapidated theater with a marquee (blank), a ticket window (shades drawn), and some empty display case windows in the middle. At the other end, a twelve-unit brick apartment building faced the theater. Faded curtains billowed out of one of the windows. Some had boxes attached filled with fake flowers. The doors were painted a variety of colors, and the brick was crumbling on the west corner.

Was he surprised? Yes, he was.

He opened the door of the theater. The air-conditioning unit was making a terrible racket overhead, and he was immediately hit with a musty scent of dusty carpets and mildew. There were a few people inside milling about in dancewear—women in leotards and knee-length jersey skirts, men in black sweats. But most notably, they were all senior citizens. Maybe the theater had been repurposed as some sort of senior day care center.

He spotted Catherine near the entrance to the auditorium. She was wearing a dance leotard and a zip-up hoodie. She had sweater socks on her legs, straight out of the '80s fitness craze.

Her face lit with pleasure when she saw him. "You came. I didn't know if you would."

"I did. But where exactly did I come to?"

"This," she said, casting her arm out, "is the Triangle Theater."

He looked around. "A senior center of some type?"

"Excuse me? No, Jack, it is a theater.We are thespians! A dance class is starting soon."

"A dance class?" He smiled. He might have even smirked at the idea of these old cats dancing around.

"Is that funny?" Catherine snapped.

"No. It's..." He was fighting the urge to laugh. "It's great." He looked down to avoid her blazing look, and his gaze landed on her shoes. Tapshoes.

"Have you ever tap-danced, Jack?"

The laugh he'd been holding burst out of him. "Um... no."

"It's excellent for the brain, you know. You repeat complex steps and then do them in reverse. It's also great for balance. Not to mention it's a social art. What social art do you enjoy, Jack?"

"I don't know what a social art is."

"A social art is something that requires interaction with others. For example, one tap dancer often taps out a rhythm for another to follow." She leaned forward, into his personal space. "Social."

"Okay," he said and held up his hands, palms out. "I apologize. Tap dancing is not funny."

"It most certainly is not, which you'll see for yourself in a few minutes."

He would? Jack ran his hand through his hair and glanced at his watch. "I don't know—"

"Oh, I see." Catherine folded her arms as other thespians filed into the auditorium. "You're too good to watch us tap-dance."

Man, someonehad a bee in her bonnet. "That's not true."

"You're acting like it is."

"I'm not acting like anything."

"Your body language says it all. That's fine, Jack. Why don't you run back to all that death and—"

He threw up his hands. "Fine, okay, I'll watch."

Catherine grinned triumphantly.

The auditorium was small—maybe three hundred seats in total. Most were covered in pleather, splitting from overuse. He followed her down a worn center aisle to the stage. There was a distinct, old-folks-home smell, like disinfectant had been used in abundance. Or Bengay had been applied too liberally. The stage was scarred and needed to be refinished. The curtains had faded to a Pepto-Bismol pink and were dotted with what he guessed were moth holes.

"This place needs work," he said.

"Tell me about it," Catherine agreed.

The others had gone up onstage. A man in tap shoes, tights, a white T-shirt, and a sweater jauntily tied around his shoulders walked around, positioning them, spacing them evenly apart.

"Where should I sit?" Jack asked.

"What do you mean, ‘sit'? You're going to dance, aren't you?"

The idea was so absurd that Jack laughed. Catherine didn't. Jack stared at her. "What the hell, Catherine? Did you really ask me here to see if you could get me to tap-dance?"

"No, I asked you here to see the theater. But while you're here, I don't see why you won't give it a go. It's fun."

He could not believe he'd fallen for her "surprise." "I am not going to tap-dance. I don't dance."

She shrugged, and Jack had a glimpse of a twenty-year-old Catherine, who probably had known how to shrug and force horny young men to their knees with want. "Chicken."

"I'm not chicken. But I know my limits."

"Bok, bok, bok."

He sighed. "I hope you won't take this the wrong way, but you can be super annoying."

"Like that's news. You don't get to seventy-six years old and not understand a thing or two about yourself, pumpkin. Are you going to take the class or not?"

"All right, my darlings. We're starting small," the man in the sweater announced. "We'll begin with some simple toe-toe, heel-heel. Meredith, did you practice like I asked? Or am I doomed to spend the entire lesson correcting you?"

"Shut up, Jerry," a woman—presumably Meredith—said.

"Toe-toe, heel-heel. Can we do that?"

"Of course we can do that," a man said gruffly. "We're all veterans of the stage, Jerry."

"Here's your chance to dance with stage veterans," Catherine said.

Jack looked again at the stage. They had begun the toe-toe, heel-heel. More than one watched the feet of their neighbors. One of the women on the front row went rogue and began tapping out a different rhythm until Jerry forced her to stop. None of the seniors were taking it too seriously, judging by all the laughing and smiling.

It did look sort of fun.

"Catherine? Are you going to join the class or not?" Jerry asked. "Chop-chop. And if your boy toy is going to join us, get him up here. You can stuff him on the back row."

"Well, boy toy?" Catherine asked.

In a moment of sheer insanity, Jack said, "Okay, fine."

He followed her up onstage and was placed in the back row, where, he quickly discovered, all novices were placed. Catherine went to the front.

"Places, everyone!" Jerry shouted, unnecessarily loud. "Follow my lead!"

Jack tried to follow his lead: toe drop, heel drop, toe-heel, toe-heel, slide to the right, slide to the left, then heel touch—"Big step! Big step!" Jerry shouted and dropped into a curtsy toe touch. The group applauded themselves.

"Again!" Jerry said grandly and wove in and out of the three lines of dancers as he called out the moves. He paused behind Jack and said, "Your shapely legs are as flexible as four-by-fours, my good man." He startled Jack by putting his hands on his hips and pushing them forward. "Hips tucked. Weight centered over your feet, shoulders over your hips. My name is Jerry, by the way, should you need any private lessons."

Jerry walked to the front of the stage. "Are you ready to put this to music?"

The group roared that they were.

Jerry exited stage left, and in the next moment, "Uptown Funk"featuring Bruno Mars nearly blasted them off the stage.

They had to be kidding.

Oh, but Jerry was not kidding. He reappeared, clapping the beat. "Let's go again, and please, try not to move like a zombie apocalypse. One, two, three!"

Jack missed the first step and stumbled around, but he found his footing by keeping his eyes glued to the feet of the woman in front of him as Bruno blared from the speakers.

By the end of the lesson, Jack was panting along with the people on either side of him, laughing like he hadn't laughed in ages. It turned out that all he had to lose were his inhibitions and maybe a small piece of his dignity.

At the end of it, he informed Catherine that while he had enjoyed himself, he would not be hoodwinked into tap dancing again.

"Well, that works out for both of us because I really need you and your hammer," she said.

"What makes you think I have a hammer?"

"You look like the type."

He looked around that run-down little theater. What the hell had he gotten himself into? "I have a hammer, so I guess I am that type."

Catherine smiled. "How fortuitous."

How fortuitous indeed.