Standing Still A Novel by Kelly Simmons

Author:Kelly Simmons
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: 0743289730
Publisher: Atria Books
Published: 2009-02-10T08:00:00+00:00

WE DISCOVER A mutual preference for plain pizza. This works out well, given our situation. The newspaper stays on His bed while we go over the rest of the menu. I sense He wants me to ask Him for it.

His head leans in, next to mine, as we look over the salads and side dishes. I could head-butt Him, I suppose. I could bite His earlobe. Instead I sit. It is warmer with Him so close. He smells clean, vaguely citrusy. Or was that just the orange peel still in the trash?

He steps outside to order the pie and a salad. When He comes in, we discuss other foods we like: dark beer, chocolate. “Warm tortillas,” He says. “Raspberries,” I say. “Avocadoes.”

“I know.” He smiles.

I am about to ask for the paper.

“Do you like to dance?” He asks suddenly.

Usually there is music in the background when someone asks. His foot is not tapping; there is no stereo in room 7.

“Yes,” I answer. I think of an old boyfriend who taught me to swing dance. The thrill of flying into his arms. “I dance with my daughters on the weekends,” I add.

“What about with your husband?”

I shrug. I stop short of telling him how Sam and I used to dance; how I loved the pressure of his hand against my back, the knowing, the guiding, the man-in-charge feeling. If I tell him I like Latin music will we cha-cha on the shag?

“Are you a good dancer?”

He is taunting me now, eyes two-stepping, asking for it.

I smile. I had stayed long enough with that swing dancer to learn every move.

“I could jitterbug with both hands tied behind my back,” I say.

He laughs. “You’d have to.”

Solid conversations about mindless things. They keep me out of my head. That’s what the doctors used to say: “Try to stay outside of the thoughts…. If you can’t change them, order them to stop…. If they don’t stop, rise above them.” I imagine all my psychiatrists looking through the opening in the curtains, nodding in approval, as if through the one-way mirror. “She is doing better,” they will whisper to one another. I think of them as a unit, these doctors from different cities who’ve heard the same story. They are a kind of family.

He takes the menu back from me. His eyes linger on the Bible on the nightstand.

“You are religious?” There is a hint of judgment in the lilt of His voice.

I suddenly fear this discussion: What if He isn’t Catholic, but Muslim? Have I misread His ethnicity, His intentions?

“I wanted something to read,” I say. “Like the newspaper.”

He fingers it on His bed. “I just didn’t want to upset you.”

“Oh God,” I say. “The kids? Is something wrong? No one’s come, no one’s fo—”

“They have been found.”

“But are they—”

His eyes are soft but serious. “They are fine. I just didn’t want to make you more nervous than you already are.”

He turns away from me, as if He’s watching for the pizza delivery.

“Give me that paper.

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