“And hats,” Miriam says. For the evening Sandra has traded in her wool beret for a flapper’s doeskin cap, pea-green, the front brim folded up and away from her forehead.
O’Neil laughs and holds up a finger. “Right. Don’t forget hats.”
By the time they get to the table, it is after eight. Sandra is due back at the college at nine-thirty, to help the other band members set up for the dance in the ballroom, so they all order their steaks and eat quickly, everyone talking and drinking and eating at once in the crowded restaurant. Miriam was disappointed, at first, when she learned that Eliza and Stephen would come along-that her time with O’Neil would be diluted in this way-but now she thinks better of this; it is good to see him with his friends, a part of something entirely his own. The four talk easily, finishing one another’s sentences and laughing at jokes before they’ve ended, and though Sandra is the quietest one, Miriam can tell that she is, in some ways, the center, the planet around which they turn. When the conversation drifts too far into their college lives, it is always Sandra who leads it back to Arthur and Miriam, asking them questions about O’Neil or their stay in town, and always at a moment when this will seem natural. Stephen is the comedian, O’Neil the straight man who lets him shine; Eliza is the gay one, in love with her own beauty and the power it possesses. She flirts openly with O’Neil and even Arthur, but always offers something small-a sparkling glance, a touch of the hand-to Stephen, to remind him she’s with him. Miriam knows that this is what her son has wished for: to show her and Arthur the new family he has made.
The last of the wine is being served when Miriam looks up to find Sandra’s gaze upon her. A slightly too-long moment passes; then Sandra smiles.
“Let’s thank our hosts,” she says to everyone. Expressions of gratitude float over the table as goblets are raised. Miriam feels her face grow warm: how lovely to be thanked. But her pleasure goes deeper than this. These aren’t children talking, but grown-ups. Their thanks are genuine, something they’ve chosen to offer.
“Let’s not forget about your race,” Arthur adds.
O’Neil laughs and lifts his glass. “Fourth place. The highlight of my career.”
When they’re done, Miriam whispers to Arthur to flag down their waitress so they can pay the bill, but it turns out he’s already done this. Somehow he has slipped his credit card to the waitress and signed the bill without Miriam-or anyone-even noticing. As they’re getting ready to leave, Miriam pulls Arthur aside in the vestibule. “Eliza was right about you,” she says.
Arthur looks at her. “How’s that?”
She takes his arm and winks. “Very cool.”
Back at the college Sandra excuses herself to run ahead to the ballroom, and by the time the group arrives, they see her up on the stage with the other members of the jazz band, getting ready to play. Tables are spread out across the room where students and their parents are gathered; already a line has formed by the beer keg. The room is decorated with crepe paper and streamers and, over the stage, a large blue-and-gold banner, identical to the one at the college’s front entrance, that reads, Welcome Parents. A mirrored ball hangs from the center of the ceiling, spangling the floor and walls with a confetti of colored light.
“You’ll see, Mom,” O’Neil says happily. He loosens his tie and nods at the stage, where Sandra is talking to other members of the brass section. She is easy to pick out, even in the darkened room, because of her hat. As Miriam is watching her, she brings her trombone to her lips, pumps the slide three or four times, and releases a single, crisp note. “They’re really very good.”
The room fills up with parents and students. Onstage the band readies itself to play, testing their instruments with random notes that tense the crowd with anticipation. Then there is a pause, the bandleader raises his arms, and the music begins. After just a few phrases Miriam knows what she’s hearing: “In the Mood.”
She pulls Arthur close to speak over the music. “My God.” She laughs. “Just how old do they think we are?” But the band, as O’Neil predicted, is very good; already she can feel their precise rhythms moving through her. Why did she not think of this? A night of music: it’s what she needs.
“Come on.” Arthur steers her with a hand at her spine. “Let’s dance.”
She dances with Arthur, then O’Neil, then Stephen. A wonderful energy fills her. Song after song-“Satin Doll,” “Sentimental Journey,” “Something’s Gotta Give,” “Chain of Fools”-the dancing continues without rest. When the band finally breaks at ten-thirty, Sandra appears to drink a soda and dance with O’Neil-a DJ spins records to keep the party going-and then the band takes the stage again, kicking off their second set with a tart blast from the horn section and the theme from Hawaii Five-0. A wonderful, surprising, joke; whole tables rise to their feet and take the floor again.
The evening roars onward, a party so unexpectedly marvelous it cannot be refused. All through the second set Miriam dances; she cannot recall an evening when she danced so much, not for years and years. Arthur to O’Neil to Stephen and back again; when the band pauses between songs, she gets herself a cup of beer-just awful, thin and warm as dishwater, but somehow perfect-and stands off to one side to catch her breath and watch.
Then O’Neil is at her side. His face is flushed with pleasure, his brow glazed with sweat. He takes her by the hand. “Ready?”
“No, really. I’m exhausted.”
He laughs incredulously, and gives a little pull. “I won’t take no for an answer.”
“I just need a little breather, sweetie.”
“I don’t believe it.” He frowns, though not seriously. “Well. The next one, okay? With Sandra up onstage we’re one girl short.”
She nods. She cannot help herself; how marvelous, she thinks, to be called a girl. “The next one.”
She watches O’Neil head back into the crowd; she realizes that for the first time that evening, she is alone. And yet she does not feel alone. The wonderful music, the spinning lights, all O’Neil’s friends there (for more have arrived; he seems to know everyone); she has the uncanny sense of stepping into his life, and all the promise it contains. With her eyes she searches the open floor again and finds O’Neil dancing with a dark-haired girl she does not recognize; she sees Arthur dancing with Eliza, and Stephen, a solitary figure at the base of the stage, swaying his hips and pumping his fist, a beer in one hand and a lit cigarette in the other; she sees Sandra swinging her trombone back and forth in time to the music’s joyful rhythms. She knows that O’Neil has left her, that his life has begun, but the thought does not grieve her. It is as if time has thrown off its moorings, revealing all-that she, Miriam, has disappeared. She thinks of her father, gone twelve years, and her mother, too, sleeping her way into death not long after, as if it were not possible for her to remain in the world without him. A hole had opened; she had only to step through. After the funeral, the second in a year, Miriam walked alone through the Brooklyn apartment, not so much missing them as marveling at their absence. The places they had been, had sat and stood and walked and slept and eaten: fifty years of life in this place, and now they were gone. And yet their presence was vivid, palpable-a thing not seen but felt, like a parting of air. It was as if she were walking through the rooms of memory. She is remembering this, and watching too; the music stops-not the end of a song, merely a break in the action-the dancers stop in their tracks, and she sees O’Neil, the dark-haired girl swung out to the very tips of his fingers, throw back his head and laugh. The words, half remembered, form in her head. See? It is all so simple. The children are gone; they have flown away from you.