Dancing in Red Shoes Will Kill You by Dorian Cirrone

Author:Dorian Cirrone
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: HarperCollins

Chapter 9

By the time Gray arrived on Saturday night, my parents and Paterson had already left the house for the evening. A lucky break for me. No awkward introductions. No talk about portraits and penises. Just Gray and me on our way to his mother’s poetry reading.

The university was nearby, so there was no time for embarrassing silences in the car. Plus, there was always enough going on at Farts to talk about.

Once we were in the auditorium, the lights dimmed immediately and the program started. I’d never been to a poetry reading before, and I was feeling pretty proud of myself for being able to understand the first poet. But when Gray’s mother came out to read her work, it wasn’t as easy to follow. I caught a reference to Icarus—I’d learned about him when we’d studied mythology—but I couldn’t connect the image to the rest of the poem. Then there was one about a set of dishes that I couldn’t grasp at all. When the reading was over, so many students and teachers went up to the stage that Gray gave his mom a wave and told me we didn’t have to wait. Whew. I wasn’t sure if they gave quizzes after those kinds of things.

As he steered out of the parking lot and pulled into the nearest gas station, Gray turned to me. “My mom said I could use her car if I promised to get it washed. I didn’t have time to do it before the poetry reading. I hope you don’t mind? It will only take a couple of minutes.”

“No,” I said, “it’s fine.” I figured it might give me enough time to make up something semi-intelligent to say about his mother’s poems.

He fed a five-dollar bill into the machine. The green light flashed, “FORWARD, FORWARD,” then suddenly turned red and flashed, “SLOWLY, SLOWLY, SLOWLY,” then “STOP.” The car jolted.

I was about to tell Gray that I’d really enjoyed the readings when I suddenly felt a strange sensation—as if we were going forward, but I knew we weren’t.

“Are you okay?” Gray asked.

“It seemed like we were moving.”

Gray smiled. “Yeah, when the machine starts to come toward you, that happens.”

I looked up. The windshield went white, covered in soapy crystals. Then a giant brush headed toward us. I ducked involuntarily.

Gray smiled again. “You don’t go through car washes much, huh?”

I laughed self-consciously. “When I was three my mother took me through, and I screamed the whole time. After that, she left me home. Now I know why. It’s a little bit scary—if you’re three, I mean.”

Gray’s blue eyes sparkled. The side brushes gently rocked the car. “Paterson and I wash her car by hand,” I added. I wasn’t sure if I was babbling but I was suddenly even more nervous when I realized how close we were sitting in the darkened car.

“So what did you think of the poetry reading?”

“It was great,” I said. “Your mom was good and so was that other poet, the one who read the Barbie poems.

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