Page 99 of Two-Step
Mom squeezes my hand. “Would you show me the dance?”
Her request takes me by surprise. “The one from Iris’s movie?”
Mom nods.
I’ve signed an NDA that was twelve pages long, forbidding me from recording our lessons, posting about them on social media, identifying myself as Iris Adams’s dance instructor, divulging anything I know about the script—which is next to nothing—and on and on. But none of the stipulations forbade me from performing the choreography with someone else.
Even if it did, I’d still show one of the dances to my mom.
I take out my phone and find the song for the easier of Iris’s two numbers. As soon as the Two-Step rhythm starts, Mom puts her hands in position and follows my lead. She’s lighter on her feet than any one of our students.
Mom smiles as I lead her wordlessly through the first turn and then the second. She laughs when I twirl her in my hold and we sashay backward for the brush-off, a part of the dance I haven’t even tried with Iris yet.
The song finishes, and we each step back and bow to one another. Mom is beaming, the color high on her cheeks. If I didn’t know better, she looks just like her old self. It’s both agonizing and hopeful.
“Thank you, Beau,” she says, and even as she’s smiling, she begins to sniffle again, before tears spill from her eyes.
Fuck Alzheimer’s. Fuck its mood swings and its dementia. Fuck its indignities and its mercilessness.
Fuck it all to hell.
“Don’t mind me,” she says, sniffling, embarrassed.
I want to give her a way out. “You ready for lunch now, Mom?” I offer her my arm. She takes it lightly as though I’m escorting her into a ballroom.
“Of course,” she says, forgetting everything about me finding her crying, alone in this empty room ten minutes ago. “But I have to get back in time for class.”
* * *
After I teachNonc’safternoon classes, I go to the kitchen and knife into the chilled watermelon my neighbor Mrs. Thibodeaux gave me. It’s a hefty Millionaire seedless, and I cut the deep pink flesh into cubes. My guess is that if I cut it up this way, instead of slicing it, Iris will eat more of it, and that’s my goal. I put out a bowl of walnuts and another of pretzels, but I know she probably won’t touch the pretzels.
I check the clock on the microwave at least three times as it crawls toward six. Today, more than any other day yet, I just want to see her.
I tell myself it’s the visit with Mom, followed by the depressing phone call with Val, and then the equally depressing talk withNonc.Seeing Iris always cheers me up. She’s funny and easy to be with.
But there’s no point in ignoring it.
I ache to see her.
The hour-and-thirty-minute lesson will go by too fast, but at least I’ll get a dose of her presence. I remember asking Ramon, bitterly, what Iris was like when she wasn’ton.He said she’s never on. Never putting on a show. Donning a persona. I know that now.
But she’sin.Iris’s presence is all-in. All the time.
I have no problem being in the moment. I’ve just never known what it’s felt like to be in the moment so fully with someone else. Not until I met Iris. Not until I started seeing her for who she really is, I mean. Open. Innocent. Good-hearted.
I’m thinking all of this when the crunch of gravel in the back lot grabs my attention. My heart ratchets itself into a restless beat in my chest, and I have to keep myself from going to the door and meeting her on the porch.
A moment later, the door swings open, and my patience is rewarded. Iris is the first one in, and she greets me with a full smile.
“Hi.” It’s just one word. Two letters, but the way she says it makes me feel like she’s been waiting all day to say it. To me.
“Iris.” I greet her with her name because I like it better than anyhi, hey,orhello.And, yeah, saying it out loud feels like I’m claiming her.
I want to claim her.
Her gaze drops to the table and her mouth forms a softO.“Watermelon,” she breathes, a little awestruck, “I love watermelon… But you know you don’t have to do this.”
I don’t think she expects it, but Iris isn’t surprised anymore when I put out a snack for her. She is grateful though. Every time. And she eats something every time. I love it.
