The class was already in progress when Miss Burton arrived. One of her frequent partners, an elderly retired lawyer, a widower named Jacobson, waved to her out of a fast rhumba and Miss Burton waved back, thinking, one of these days he’s going to drop dead right on the floor. I just hope it’s not me he’s dancing with when it happens.
The instructor screamed over the music at no one in particular, “Don’t sway your hips! Forget about your hips! If your feet are doing the right thing your hips will do the right thing. Do I make myself heard?”
He made himself heard but hips refused to be forgotten.
Miss Burton tapped her foot and surveyed the room from the doorway. Not many spectators tonight. A woman with a little girl. A pair of teen-agers, a boy and a girl, with matching shirts and matching expressions of boredom. A middle-aged woman wearing a pound of pearls. And, standing right next to Miss Burton herself, a man with bushy gray hair that seemed to emphasize the youthful alertness of his face. He looked as though he had wandered into the place by mistake, but now that he was there he was determined to get the most out of it.
He said, with a slight frown, “I don’t understand the business about not swaying your hips. That’s a rhumba they’re doing, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“I thought in a rhumba you were supposed to sway your hips.”
Miss Burton smiled. “You’re new here, aren’t you?”
“Yes. My first time.”
“Are you going to be in the class?”
“I guess so,” the man said, sounding rather pained. “I guess I have to.”
“Why? There’s no law about it.”
“Well, you see I won a scholarship. I can’t very well waste it.”
“What kind of scholarship?”
“There was this advertisement in the paper showing pictures of people doing various kinds of dances. If you identified the dances correctly you were given a scholarship, thirty dollars’ worth of free lessons. I won. I can’t understand it exactly,” he added. “I mean, there are a lot of people know more about dancing than I do, thousands of them. But I won.”
Miss Burton didn’t want to hurt his feelings but she didn’t want him to be taken in, either. He was so naïve and earnest, a little bit like Mr. Kellogg. “I’m sure you could win lots of real contests if you put your mind to it.”
“This one wasn’t real?”
“No. Everybody won. It was just a come-on so the Kent Academy could get the names of people who are interested in dancing.”
“But I’m not interested in dancing. I’m just interested in contests.”
Miss Burton whooped with laughter. “Oh dear. That’s a good joke on the Academy. What other kind of contests do you go in for?”
“Any kind. Also tests. I buy all the magazines and do the tests, like, for instance, ‘Would You Make a Good Engineer?’, or ‘What Is Your Social I.Q.?’, or ‘Can You Qualify as a Quiz Contestant?’ Things like that. I do pretty well in them.” He added with a sigh: “I guess they’re rigged too, like this here contest.”
“Oh, I don’t believe that,” Miss Burton said loyally. “Maybe you really would make a good engineer.”
“I hope so. I do some engineering occasionally.”
“What kind of engineering?”
“It’s classified.”
“You mean, like secret missiles and things?”
“That’s close enough,” he replied. “What do you do?”
“Me? Oh, I’m just a secretary. I work for Rupert Kellogg. He’s an accountant.”
“I’ve heard of him.” Too often, he thought. Much too often.
“He’s the best accountant in town. The best boss too.”
“You don’t say.”
“Other bosses I’ve had used to get their mean days. Mr. Kellogg never has a mean day.”
“I bet children and dogs take to him right off the bat.”
“Maybe you mean that as a joke, but it’s absolutely true. Mr. Kellogg’s crazy about animals. You know what he told me once? He told me he didn’t really like being an accountant, he wanted to open a pet store.”
“Why doesn’t he?”
“His wife comes from a ritzy family. They wouldn’t approve, I guess.”
Old Mr. Jacobson, the retired lawyer, rhumbaed past, wriggling like a nervous snake, and gave Miss Burton a grin and a wink. His face was as moist and red as a sliced beet.
“He seems to be having a fine time,” the man said.
“That’s Mr. Jacobson. He knows all the dances perfectly, only he can’t keep time.”
“He’s certainly caught the spirit of the thing anyway.”
“I’ll say. One of these days he’s going to drop dead right on this very floor. It kind of spoils my evening thinking about it.”
The music ended, and the instructor announced in a tired shriek that the next number would be a change of pace, the slicker waltz, and would the men kindly remember that a good strong lead was necessary in this one, especially at the turns?
Mr. Jacobson sped in Miss Burton’s direction. Miss Burton turned red and whispered an anguished “Oh dear.” But she didn’t have enough nerve, or presence of mind, to head for the powder room. So she stood her ground and uttered a short, quiet prayer: Don’t let this be the night.
Mr. Jacobson was as merry as Old King Cole. “Come on, Miss B. Let’s have at it!”
“Oh, don’t you think you’d better rest a bit?”
“Nonsense. I have the whole week to rest. Thursday’s my night to shake a leg.”
“Yes. Well.”
Miss Burton surrendered reluctantly to Mr. Jacobson’s bony arms and good strong lead. This might be, could very well be, Mr. Jacobson’s last dance. The least she could do was to make it as pleasant as possible for him by trying to follow him properly, and at the same time watch his face for any telltale signs of the end approaching. She wasn’t sure what the signs would be, and the strain of looking up at him gave her a crick in the neck.
“You’re not concentrating tonight, Miss B.”
“Oh yes, I am,” Miss Burton said grimly.
“Loosen up a little. Relax. Enjoy yourself. This is supposed to be fun.”
“Yes.”
“What’s the matter, something on your mind?”
“Just — the usual.”
“Get it off. Tell someone. Tell me.”
“Oh, dear me, no,” Miss Burton said hastily. “Haven’t we been having lovely weather this fall? Of course, we can’t expect you — it to last.”
Mr. Jacobson didn’t catch the error because the instructor had raised his voice again. “This is ballroom dancing. This is not real life. In real life women don’t like to be pushed around. In ballroom dancing they expect to be, they want to be, they have to be! So lead, gentlemen! You’re not zombies! Lead!”
“You have a real good lead,” Miss Burton said.
“And you have a mighty fine follow,” Mr. Jacobson replied gallantly.
“No, I haven’t, not really. I do all the dances much better at home in my bare feet. I get shook up when people watch me.”
“Such as the man at the door?”
“Oh dear, is he watching me? My goodness.”
“Watching people is his business, or part of it.”
“What do you mean?”
“He’s a private detective named Dodd. I used to see him hanging around the Hall of Justice. He had a lot of nicknames in those days, the least objectionable of which was Fingers, because he had a finger in every pie.”
“It must be a case of mistaken identity,” Miss Burton said in a high, tight voice. “He told me he was an engineer. He’s doing secret work.”
Mr. Jacobson chuckled. “On whom?”