Page 2 of Right in Front of You

MOLLY, AGE 10

Dancing feet. Dozens of them.

That was my view of tonight’s Fall Fest as I sat underneath the table. Atop, rows of freshly baked apple pies cooled, releasing their saucy-sweet aroma. I’d crawled under here because I liked watching the adult feet move across the dance floor. How did they know where to take the next step, and how to spare their toes from pain?

There were red shoes and orange shoes. The purple ones were Mrs. Gladstone’s. They had a small broomstick attached at the heel, even though Mrs. Gladstone wasn’t a witch. The shiny black shoes were Doctor Burke’s, although I didn’t know what he was doing dancing with my mother. Hers had sunflowers at the toes. The tablecloth lifted at one end and Carter crawled underneath, joining me in my hiding spot.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Watching dancing shoes,” I said.

“Do you want some apple pie?”

“Sure.”

I liked that Carter never looked down upon my odd behavior. I knew that others did, but not Carter. I just liked to stay out of the way and out of view. It felt safer that way. He sat down beside me with one plate, two forks, and a slab of apple pie. That meant the parents were having too much fun to notice their kids cutting chunks out of the dessert and helping themselves. Fall Fest, with all the pie cutting, dancing, and kids frolicking without a care, had been a tradition in Hope Bay ever since I could remember. And since I could only recall about six years back of my ten-year life, which was more than half… well, let’s just say that it had been a long time of us eating slabs of delicious apple pie.

“Why do you stay here every year?” he asked. “Everyone else is dancing. So should you.”

“Because it’s quiet.”

Carter looked at me funny as the music from our local band blasted on the other side of the tablecloth.

“I can concentrate better,” I tried explaining.

“What does that mean?” he asked.

“Why do you have so many questions?”

“Because you’re interesting.”

“Hmm, well, if you must know, I like watching people. You can tell a lot about a person by the way they dance. Like Mrs. Sanders. She’s heavier on her feet, but that’s because she’s pregnant, so she can’t move as fast. Her steps are very cautious. Or Mr. James – look at the way he’s hopping now. It’s because he’s lost all that weight. Oh” – I pointed toward the red shoes – “Look at the bounce in Mr. Grafton’s steps. Halloween is his favorite time of year because he gets to scare all the kids at his haunted house.”

“Doctor Burke’s shoes look very close to your mother’s.” Carter was so focused on reading the behavior of dancing feet that funny horizontal lines formed on his forehead and he looked like my grandfather on my mother’s side, God rest his soul.

I followed his gaze to the dance floor. My mother had been dancing with the doctor the entire night. I haven’t seen her this happy in a long time, but father being away for a week, working, must have contributed to her good mood. She never smiled as much when he was around.

“I know. They love to dance together. They always have.”

“Your father doesn’t like to dance?”

“He’s out of town. I don’t think Doctor Burke would be dancing with my mother if Father was here.” And that was an understatement. Once when I was little, Father became jealous when I was sick and mom took me to see Doctor Burke. Father punched him. From then on, when I fell ill, unless I could find a way to sneak to the town’s clinic behind his back, I was left to fend for myself with home remedies. That’s how I learned about the benefits of ginger, honey, and lemon.

“So they don’t like each other?” he asked.

“I guess not.”

The music stopped and so did the dancing. Before parting, I saw Doctor Burke’s right foot in between my mother’s. She stepped up on her tiptoes. I wondered if she was whispering something in his ear. They did a lot of whispering when they were together. Outside, a bang of thunder vibrated through the air.

“Do you want to dance, Molly?”

“No, I’m clumsy on my feet. I’ll get blisters in five minutes and also crush your toes.”

“So?”

“You don’t like your toes?”

He laughed and crossed his arms over his chest, waiting for my answer.

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