Tiny Dancer Read Online Free PDF Page A

smoke.”
    I got up and went to the window, closing it. “Neighbors are cooking out again.”
    “Oh, the pagans! I’m so jealous, we only have the lake behind us.” Her treble voice dipped when she said “the lake”.
    I wanted to go to the beach so badly with the Johnsons that all I could do was resist the urge for the rest of the afternoon to strangle her.
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     

Chapter 2
    I got up early the next morning for Sunday was the annual Peach Festival and parade. A summer rain was coming down . I took it upon myself to make use of the time. The dance costumes still hung in the closet shoved further back with each passing month. I packed them away along with my little sister’s shoes, although I left our last winning trophy from 1961 on the hall stand.
    The weatherman this past Friday had predicted many days of sunshine on the way . I  looked forward to the first summer weekend not spent performing. Not only did I have that hope waiting as a day enjoyed out of the house, but now the Johnsons had planned their trip to the ocean this Tuesday. Irene had even come to the door when she picked Claudia up Saturday to beg Daddy to let me accompany them. She was good to take the initiative often on my behalf. “To keep Claudia company since I’ll be visiting with my friend,” Irene had explained to Daddy. She was visiting an old college roommate who bought a house on Wrightsville Beach. The woman was a college professor teaching at the state university. I was aware of Irene’s kind heart toward me and suspected she had arranged the trip to draw me away from the shadows that had descended upon the Currys. Irene was a funny woman to be around. Funny mothers were hard to come by in the 60s. I often reminded Claudia of her good fortune whenever she complained about how she never seemed to satisfy her mother or her daddy. She was born to privilege and lacked my insight.
    Vesta had overheard the conversation and intercepted Daddy once Irene had driven away. “Not now, Flynn. You know what day Tuesday is. How inappropriate! Surely if Irene Johnson will think about the timing of it all, she’ll drop the matter, for crying out loud.”
    I for one suspected Irene had kept a careful calendar and timed her beach invitation accordingly.
    Vesta was not the only one skilled at plying her way. I played on Daddy’s sympathies while staying out of the path of Vesta’s brooding. “I haven’t asked to go anywhere in a year, Daddy,” I said, begging his consent.
    “It’s the date, honey , a year to the day” He did not bother to make eye contact. Worse, he left me standing alone at the foot of the stairs.
    I wound my way upstairs, close on his heels. Then he closed the bedroom door. 
    “I have no life,” I said, but no one heard. I imagined Claudia under a beach umbrella smiling, sanctimonious. Claudia might devilishly pick out a postcard and mail it to me, filling me in on everything I missed. I set aside only a few seconds to hate her all over again.
    I did understand Vesta’s side of the matter. I was not cold hearted as was implied. I simply wanted to be anywhere but here where my guilt took on its own life.
    I picked through a box of our dance shoes. Siobhan’s hairpieces had fallen into a mob of curls. I pulled them apart as best I could. Then my hand struck a small box, one I lifted out of the mess of costume accessories. It appeared fashioned from an old cigar box. Her six-year-old writing scrawled on the lid said only “The Box.”
    I opened the lid curious since she had never mentioned it to me. It was mostly filled with little buttons, an earring with no mate, notes passed to her by her school friends. At the bottom of the stack of notes lay a few photographs. The one of the two of us standing on a dock took me back to the summer we spent with an aunt who lived on a lake in the Appalachians. The next photo though was a peculiar picture. Siobhan held out a big pan