Dancing in the Dark Read Online Free PDF Page B

went to her, who shouted and defied and tossed her head and went freely, not caring, out the door when she wanted to. She bowled them over with the volume of her demands.
    I mean only that we were quite different, not that I disliked my sister.
    They were my family. When I went away, I expect I missed them. Among all the strangers in the world, they knew me best.
    They haven’t come to see me here, nor have they written. Do they hate me now, do I frighten them, or are they just not allowed to come or write?
    They must be terribly bewildered and ashamed, I imagine. More than anybody else, except of course for Harry’s parents, they must wonder why.
    They must all have wept, and mourned for one thing or another.
    “Dear Edna,” my mother-in-law once said to me, patting my shoulder, “you’re so good for Harry.”

7
    I even practised kissing with that full-length mirror in my bedroom: long, passionate twistings of lips against cool, smooth glass. Trying to see how it might be.
    I thought, “Some day, this is really going to happen,” but couldn’t imagine. He was tall and dark but had no face.
    I progressed to embraces with my pillow, more responsive. Practising again: one would hate, when the time came, to be clumsy or not know how.
    But was it possible the mirror and the pillow would be all there ever was?
    No, this could not be possible, however unimaginable it might be, getting there from here.
    I experimented with lipstick and mascara, blush and powder. I checked the growth of my breasts, wanting them large enough to mould desirability beneath blouses and sweaters, but not so large as to be vulgar. At a certain point, they stopped growing and I was pleased.
    It was all so
difficult.
I watched amazed as Stella, three years after me, moved so gracefully, easily, into all the places that caused me pain.
    Standing by a wall in the high school auditorium, waiting to be asked to dance, waiting and waiting. Watching the others, wondering how it worked. I really thought (I still think) they knew some secret, those people with their shining skin and laughter, their swinging hair and flinging arms, their shuffling, leaping feet. There was some secret that they all knew and that nobody had told me and that nobody would ever tell me. And it showed, that I didn’t know.
    I smiled and smiled. My face hurt with the smiling. A band of boys, classmates, but they looked different up there on the stage, playing Presley: “Don’t Step on My Blue Suede Shoes.” I moved my body to the rhythm and tapped my feet and kept on smiling, but that was not the secret. Those others, agile on the dance floor, did not step on each other’s shoes (not blue suede but white pumps, or saddle shoes with white ankle socks). When the music turned slow, girls laid their heads on boys’ shoulders and something steamy seemed to rise from the floor.
    I couldn’t help watching.
    Home, I turned again to my pillow. If I were part of two, I understood, I would be inside and able to look out, instead of the reverse. Being held, that must be something.
    I kissed the pillow. “Good night, dear,” I whispered. “Sleep well.”
    Ah, Harry was so beautiful. He saved my life.
    I never told him that. It would have terrified him.
    He used to say, “Edna, loosen up. Nobody’s going to bite.” Not true. I never had faith that someone wouldn’t, gleaming teeth lurching from the crowd, gripping my too-free wrist.
    And I was right, after all. Even the most-loved people slash like animals under certain circumstances.
    I thought, “Maybe if I watch carefully, I’ll see what the secret is.” This involved not being watched myself. I preferredin any case to go unnoticed, until I could work it out. Because if people were looking, might I not make them laugh by doing something awkward or foolish? A pimple on my chin would blaze at them if they were looking, whereas if they were not, it would go quietly away. If I stumbled or lost the trail of a sentence when I