The whole while I’m asking myself, How deep does the douchery go? What if it goes deeper than you think?
She says, “Maybe not.” And I hate the careful, closed-off tone because it’s like a fence between us.
“Listen. I brought you here because you’re better than some shitty Amos chain restaurant. I brought you here because when I was six, I fell off the roof of our house, and my dad smuggled a Clara’s pizza into the hospital, and those kinds of memories are pretty rare for me right now—the ones where my dad is this really great guy. I brought you here because this is the first place I wanted to go after I got out of the hospital and was well enough to sit up straight. I brought you here because it’s one of the few places in a sixty-mile radius, if not the entire state of Indiana, that isn’t boring or typical. Because you’re not boring or typical.”
And I realize every word is true.
I reach over the fence and take her hand. I kiss the knuckles, one by one. As I do I’m thinking, How does this girl mean so much to me?
“Libby Strout, you deserve to be seen.”
“People can’t help but see me.” She says this to the tablecloth.
“That’s not what I mean.”
We sit there swinging, and now I’m kicking myself for bringing her here. I should have just gone to Red Lobster where we could have been stared at by everyone at school, including maybe Caroline, and where my idiot friends could have come over and hijacked our date with their stupidity.
I say, “Wait here,” and then I’m up and out of the swing, down the stairs, and over to the jukebox, which hugs the wall behind the bus. This is the same jukebox my parents used to play when they were coming here on dates about sixty years ago. As I’m flipping through the musical choices, I’m thinking about how Libby Strout makes me want to drive thirty miles to the closest place that is almost good enough for her and run through crowded restaurants to find her the perfect song.
And then I see it. The Jackson 5. I choose the song I was looking for and also a couple of others—Sly and the Family Stone, Earth, Wind & Fire—so we can have a whole block of them. Then I go back to the table, which is the table in the upper northwest corner, the one with the girl in the purple dress.
She says, “You didn’t have to do that. You don’t have to do anything. I’m being dumb.”
“You could never be dumb.”
“I can be dumb.”
She takes a bite of pizza. I take a bite of pizza. We eat in this weird silence.
And then suddenly the song is playing, as in the song. I wipe my mouth with the napkin and toss it aside. I’m on my feet, hand out.
Libby blinks up at me. “What?”
“Come on.”
“Where?”
“Just come on.”
And I lead her down the stairs to the center of Clara’s, right to the one open spot, at the front of the restaurant, near the entrance to the dining room. Then I spin her into my arms, and we’re dancing. Oh so slowly. “I’ll Be There” is the obvious choice, but the one I chose is “Ben.” If ever a song was written for Libby and me, it’s this one. Two broken, lonely people who maybe aren’t so broken or lonely anymore.
At first I’m aware of every eye in the room on us, but then all the faces fade away, and it’s just Libby and me, my hands on her waist, all that woman in my arms. We’re in perfect sync, moving together, making it up as we go.
I can feel the tears burning against the backs of my eyes. Every line is me, Libby Strout. It’s us, but mostly me. And also Jack. God.
I could cry in the arms of Jack Masselin as an entire restaurant of strangers watches, or I could push the tears back and down until they’re buried. I push them. And push them. I won’t let them out. At some point, he leans in and, just like that, without a word, kisses my face, first one cheek and then the other. He kisses me where the tears would be if I’d let them fall, and it’s the single loveliest thing anyone has ever done who wasn’t my mom. Suddenly I’m filled with this safe, warm feeling that I haven’t felt in a really long time. It’s the feeling of everything is going to be okay. You are going to be okay. You may already be okay. Let’s us be okay together, just you and me.
I suck in my breath and don’t breathe again until the song is over. The jukebox goes jumping right into the next track, which is a fast one, thank goodness, and that’s when Jack breaks out the moves.
He says, “Get a load of this, girl. If you can handle it.”
And he is grooving all over the place.
“Handle this!” And I’m dancing too, till we’re dancing like lunatics, and I don’t feel like crying anymore ever again.
He goes, “Do the Exploding Hair!”
And he shakes his head to the left, to the right, to the middle. He has an unfair advantage because his hair is so much bigger, but I do my best to shake my hair all around.
I go, “Do the Lightning Strike!” And I jump and shake, jump and shake like I’m being electrified. He starts jumping and shaking too, and at some point, I look around and a handful of other people are on their feet and dancing at their tables.
Jack says, “It’s a dance revolution!”
He takes my hand and twirls me round and round so that I’m spinning like a top and laughing. I think what an amazing world this would be if we all danced everywhere we went.
He walks me to the front door of my house, and when we get there I wait for him to kiss me good night, but instead he hugs me. This isn’t a Fat Girl Rodeo hug. It’s warm and enveloping in a good way, and I can smell the soap and outdoors on him, like he rolled in fresh grass. I want him to hold me forever, but then he pulls away and gazes down at me with half-closed eyes. “Good night, Libby.”