Nobody knew the wedding had taken place, except Tomás. If there had been witnesses, they’d disappeared. Tomás, himself, was only going on hearsay. “Meet my wife.”

Bob would explode when he found out about the marriage. He thought Shenar was a “gypsy hussy” with lots of skill but a wild imagination, little sense and an agenda. He said he couldn’t imagine what Frank saw in her.

It was easy to pick Shenar out. She was cutting a diagonal from the buffet to the musicians. She looked dazed. Tomás glanced intuitively toward the buffet. Bob was grinning at Frank. Frank was glaring at Bob.

Tomás intercepted Shenar with a lead dancer’s invitational stance just before she plowed into the bandstand. “I see Bob knows,” he smiled pleasantly. “Would you like to dance?”

“No,” she said, but she raised herself on demi-toe, grasped his arm, pirouetted away from him, then into him. Tomás hesitated before taking the lead.

“You really want to dance,” he breathed.

“Yes.”

Tomás checked on Frank over Shenar’s shoulder. Frank gave Tomás a nod. He seemed relieved. Tomás remembered Frank telling him, once before Frank’s and Shenar’s marriage, “She likes to dance.” He recalled a hint of terror in Frank’s voice.

At the time he didn’t think it was that big of a deal. “So, you can’t dance,” he admonished Frank. Now, he understood Frank’s terror. Shenar loved to dance the way a dancer loves to dance. For expression. Like conversation. Tomás knew how to converse. Maybe Frank didn’t.

Shenar’s movements weren’t gaudy. This was a private conversation. No one cleared the floor. Frank, several yards away behind the buffet table, didn’t seem threatened. He watched them dance. He nodded in appreciation when they finished. Aviva, though, to the right of the bandstand, eyes shining like an alert predator, appeared to be taking an interest in them. Her stare was so intense, Tomás squelched the urge to raise his eyebrows in her direction and point to himself.

For all he knew about Aviva, the most telling feature in her resume was her one word name. Tomás felt that gave him an inside look into her character; a little desperate to achieve something an over-achieving older sibling had not, or, failing that, align oneself with the right party. Although she was the one with the credentials on what was becoming euphemistically known as “this project”, Shenar’s daring was beginning to eclipse Aviva’s initial impetus. Tomás knew she must be waivering, this moment, in her loyalties. Maybe, he thought, holding Shenar, dancing with her as though they’d rehearsed, maybe it was time he approached Aviva. Washed away some of this dirt.

“He didn’t take it well.” Tomás nodded toward Bob, who was cajoling the keyboard player to give up his position. That was one good thing about Bob, Tomás considered. You could always count on him to do whatever stoked his ego most at any particular time. He’d rile people, but he would slip away when he felt the heat.

“Oh, he was very amused.” Frank lifted his chin and looked away from the bandstand. “He made some choice remarks. I don’t think I’m the only one who finds Shenar attractive, perverse as it may seem.”

Tomás jerked his head toward Frank in surprise.

Frank turned to face him. His face revealed that he realized the hastiness of his remark. “I, I don’t mean...” he stammered, “I mean,” then he stopped abruptly.

“Let’s face it,” he remembered Frank saying. “I won’t be around forever. I know how you feel about Shenar.” Tomás realized Frank had been scanning him for tics of confirmation. Tomás had been breathless, impassive. It was not that he didn’t know how much to reveal, it was that he wasn’t sure he had anything left to reveal. Not now that he was considering Aviva.

Tomás recalled the last sentence Frank had said, “You can have her when I die. She’ll need you, in fact.” Frank had not meant it as a joke, macabre, cynical, or otherwise. He had said this quietly, intentionally. He had caught Tomás’ attention with his eyes and held Tomás’ gaze while he said it. Eye contact between them lasted a moment longer than the sentence. Frank turned and left the buffet.

Tomás scanned the room to see if his thought had offended Shenar. She was carrying on an animated conversation with Aviva. Her back was turned to him. He accidentally caught Aviva’s eye and looked away demurely. He did not want to be noticed studying Shenar; better Aviva think he was flirting with her, rather than staring at Shenar.

Text & Graphics © 1999 by Gail Rae Hudson

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