Changing Partners 2

For the gang I worked with in the summer of '92. Thanks for getting my head on straight!

Aunt Arlene would have been proud of Dan, he was sure of that somehow, as he realized he'd arrived just in time for the last dance of the evening.

Heavenly shades of night were long since fallen as the opening strains of "Goodnight My Love" flooded the speakers. Dan wasn't surprised to see the last few lingering wallflowers racing to the dance floor in search of a partner. He remembered Aunt Arlene telling him that was always the last song played at their dances back in the fifties. "If there was a boy you'd had your eye on all night long, when you heard that song, you knew it was your last chance to catch his eye," she'd told him.

"But you never really had your eye on a boy in your life, did you, Aunt Arlene?" he'd had the temerity to ask. "I mean, no offense..."

"None taken, Dan, and you're right. But I was good at convincing myself I did. That was what you did in those days. And that was

the

song for that wonderful moment, your last chance for that thrill of being held...oh, but kids your age don't even care about that anymore, do you?"

Dan cared, and he was pretty sure Aunt Arlene knew he cared. But just now he was too awestruck with his surroundings to dwell on that, or even to look around for a partner. He wasn't yet sure if anyone saw him there anyway -- wasn't time-travel usually omniscient, so he was a ghost or a hologram or some such? But he'd finally done it, in any case: after all those long nights of listening to Aunt Arlene's records and poring over her yearbooks, here he was in nineteen-fifty-something, or at least looking in on it. Poodle skirts and crinolines as far as the eye could see in the dim light, and all the guys in tight jeans and white t-shirts -- including himself, he now saw, looking down.

A bump on the shoulder and an accompanying "sorry, pal" from a guy rushing past him answered his question -- he was really here! -- and also drew him into the past once and for all. He turned to his right to acknowledge the apology, but found himself instead face to face with a raven-haired beauty, resplendent in pink and white and smiling expectantly at him.

"Hi there! Would you like to dance?"

Dan was certain it was too good to be true and she was really asking some hulking football player standing just behind him. Then, as if to confirm his fears, he recalled Aunt Arlene telling him girls never asked boys to dance back then. But there she was, her beautiful eyes looking into his, and no gruff voice was answering her from behind him. Before she could burst into a mist of fairy dust, Dan whispered a bewildered "Yes!" and found himself enfolded delightfully in her arms. The crowded floor seemed to dissipate to nothing in particular as he looked in her eyes and broke into a shy grin. "Th-thanks for asking," he said. "I'm awfully shy, and I wouldn't have wanted this song to go to waste. Not this of all songs, you know?"

"That's sweet!" she said. "I'm usually really shy as well. But my mother always tells me, the world is changing and nowadays a girl can take the first step. Besides, I love quiet guys. You're not all boastful like most of them are. I'm Peggy Jean, by the way. Did you go to Northside? I just graduated from there."

"I'm...Danny." He hadn't gone by Danny since the fifth grade, but it sounded more "fifties" to him now. "I graduated last year, but...a long way away."

"Far away," Peggy Jean repeated with a smile. "That's great! I mean, I really want to get out of our nice safe suburb and see the whole world now that I'm grown up, you know? My father says that's ridiculous for a girl, I ought to be looking for a husband now that I'm out of school, but behind his back Mother is telling me she's all for me being on my own out there. Is that what you're doing now?"

"Yeah, you could say that," Dan said. "But right now I don't feel like going anywhere! This just feels too right!" He tightened his embrace just a bit and felt invincible gazing into her eyes, and they shared an easy laugh.

"Me neither!" Peggy Jean agreed. "I do want to go off and live my own life, no matter what my dad says, but I'll sure miss these dances! Good thing it's only June and we've still got all summer, isn't it? I feel like half a grown-up, but I kind of like it that way, you know?"

"So, tell me..." Dan began. But he was cut off by a call of

"Change Partners!"

from the PA system. He saw a twinge of regret in her lovely eyes, and then she was gone in a graceful swish, carried off in the arms of a new partner. Dan never even saw his face. In desperation and denial, he gazed across the crowded floor, searching in vain. A fleeting thought came of finding a new partner at least, but none of the girls were looking at him now. Instead, they were looking around -- as was he -- for the source of the voice calling his name. "Dan. Dan!"

Christ, no, not tonight!

But his mother's voice and her firm hand shaking his arm were not to be dreamed away. Dan opened his eyes and found himself in his own room and his own time. An odd combination of frustration and relief washed over him as he realized the dance was gone, but at least he hadn't really lost Peggy Jean...or had he?

"James is calling from the restaurant," his mother said, letting go his arm once she saw he was awake.

"Oh, good," Dan said. "I could use the hours." He stood up and made for the door, hoping against hope his mother hadn't seen her estranged sister's yearbooks spread out beside his bed or her 45s stacked on his bookcase. He had carelessly left his beloved "The Great Pretender" on the floor near the record player after playing it half a dozen times last night (and he'd finally given its B-side, "Just a Dancing Partner" a spin, which already had him thinking maybe that was why he'd had the dream), and now he saw her foot only inches away from it. At least she appeared not to have noticed.

No such luck. "You've been going through Aunt Arlene's stuff again, have you?" she said after him as he made his way down to her room to take the call. "Don't you have anything better to read this summer?"

"What if I don't?" Dan grumbled. He picked up the phone before his mother could mouth off at him further. "Hello?"

"Dan!"

"Yeah."

"I'm sorry to call you out of bed. Can you do lunch today? I'm gonna let John go."

"I thought that might be coming," Dan said with a chuckle. "Yeah, I'll be happy to do it."

"Great. Yeah, after the coffee incident last week, I'm all out of patience with him. So you can be here by eleven?"

"No problem, James. See you then." He exchanged thanks with his boss and hung up, turning to see his mother standing behind him in the doorway. "Got an extra shift today," he told her.

"That's nice, Dan. But I'd appreciate it if you'd leave Aunt Arlene's stuff alone from now on."

"It's my stuff now. She gave it to me, remember?"

"Yes, but I don't think she intended for you to stare at those pictures until you thought you were living in an air raid drill or something. Honestly, Dan, I'm glad you're so crazy about the fifties -- it means college isn't brainwashing you completely about social change and blah blah blah -- but enough is enough."

"She gave them to me, and she also told me all about how the fifties weren't all peaches and cream!" Dan retorted. "And believe me, I know what decade this is. A whole year of college and all the work I can find is waiting tables. That's why I'm really not too sure about going back to California."

"I can do without your whining, too," Mom warned him as he headed back upstairs to shower. "You

are

going back there in August! They might be a bunch of liberal heathens, but it's your future at stake. And I'd better not learn you're spending any more of your tips on beat up old 45s at Max's Wax, too!"

"That's Waxie Maxie's, actually, and I don't buy beat up 45s. They're all in very good condition."

"You think throwing your money away like that is funny, Dan?"

"I haven't bought anything there all week!" Dan protested, and it was true. Mom did not need to know that was only because he was toying with saving up his tips to buy the first-pressing copy of "Golden Teardrops" by the Flamingos that had been holding court over the cash register there with a $300 price tag. At least he could honestly say he'd held off on buying anything else above $10 or so in anticipation of that goal.

"Dan," Mom said through the bathroom door, with a gentleness he had rarely heard anytime, but especially not this summer, "I just want you to show some respect for your aunt's memory. Whatever kind of heathen she turned into, she was my sister."

Dan snorted in annoyance as he turned the water on and stepped into the shower. Respect for her memory! Aunt Arlene was alive and well, seventy-five years young and traveling across Europe with her new wife (and partner before that, for longer than Dan had even been alive). But his mother -- her much younger sister -- had joined most of the family in disowning her years ago when she had divorced her husband and come out.

Good old Aunt Arlene, the eldest of six children, had always borne the brunt of her parents' "strict discipline" -- a term Dan now recognized as a nice word for abuse -- throughout her youth back in California. She had not let that stop her from finding joy in the optimism and promise of that long-ago era, and living teenage life to the fullest in the first generation to have that luxury. No wonder she'd proven to be the most rebellious of the bunch, while his mother -- the spoiled youngest daughter -- had embraced their right-wing Christianity so completely and moved to the Gulf Coast to raise her own family among the like-minded. Dan had made the mistake of asking her about California a time or two, only to be hushed. "Bunch of evil nutcakes out there anymore," she always told him. "That's why I left, and that's how your aunt ended up so messed up."

And that was why Dan had made a point of applying to colleges out there, hoping to dip into the magical promise Aunt Arlene's many stories had always seemed to inspire despite her difficult family life (with which Dan could identify all too well). His mother had been dead set against it, until he'd been awarded a near-full scholarship at a big school out near LA that even she couldn't turn her nose up at. His first year out there had not gone particularly well, and he'd also seen enough of Southern California to know his aunt's youthful postwar wonderland were gone for good. That double whammy had him seriously considering dropping out. He had the rest of the summer to decide -- and to convince his parents to allow him to give up.

Fortunately, he'd been brave enough to mention that disappointment to Aunt Arlene when she'd stopped by the family home to collect her belongings after Grandma had died last spring. That visit had started out as a reinforcement of his feelings of the worst sort: the safe and well-kept suburb of Aunt Arlene's many stories had long since gone to seed, and Grandma's house had looked like the first act of one of those movies where a promising kid escapes from a suffocating home life. "I'm sorry, Aunt Arlene, but this is all just too typical," he'd whined to her. "All year it's just been one burst bubble after another. I've had it!"

Aunt Arlene, though, would have none of that. With a knowing smile for her favorite nephew -- one of the few who had escaped her family's curse of homophobia -- she had insisted, "Dan, no era looks as good in real life as in pictures a generation later. Growing up here, well, it

was

a beautiful neighborhood back then, but the things that went on inside the houses? You know what my family did to me, after all, and I wasn't the only one. Your bubble's been burst, kiddo, but that's going to help you in the long run if you let it. You just need to find the real beauty in your own time, and believe me, it's out there!"

"Yeah, but I just wonder am I looking in the wrong place?"

"If you're thinking life was perfect when I was your age, you are. But that's why you're so lucky, Dan. You can enjoy the good parts of those days without living through the bad parts. I will say, though, there's one point where you're right and it was better then."

"What's that?"

"It was okay to be innocent a little longer then, Dan. I think kids your age would do well to re-learn that lesson." On that note, she had insisted on giving him her yearbooks and records. "Believe me, I don't need them anymore, Dan," she'd told him over his protests. "I was there. I was young when it was magical to be young and okay to be innocent, so I don't need this elixir like you do. I just know you'll get a great education out of all this. And don't you dare drop out, kiddo. The world needs more smart cookies, especially the men who get it the way you do when it comes to women. It needs you."

"A great education?" Dan had asked. "I mean, thanks, I'm sure I'll love them, but an education?"

"There's so very much to learn about what life was really like back then, Dan," she'd told him. "Trust me on that. When you do, you'll see why today isn't so bad after all. And when you find a girl at that school of yours -- I know, I know, you haven't got a girlfriend, Dan, but you will, and trust me, these are

the

records to slow-dance to, I don't care what generation you are!"

She'd been right about that. Though Dan hadn't had a date all last semester, he had enjoyed many an evening listening to the .mp3s he'd burned of Aunt Arlene's 45s (to the point where his roommates had taken to singing "In the Still of the Nite" whenever he walked in the room) and imagining Peggy Jean there in his arms, though he hadn't known her name until just now. He hadn't even really known just what she looked like, he mused now. All he had really known was that she was out there somewhere in the mists of his longing for a simpler time and place. In all his late nights poring over doo-wop websites for more songs to learn and explore, he'd felt her presence, smelled her perfume, sensed the touch of her sweater against his fingertips and felt her arms around him countless times. But he had never actually seen her face or heard her voice clearly. How does one put a name and a face to the perfect fantasy of yesteryear, after all?

But now Dan had done it, and in one fleeting glimpse he'd known that last dance -- the "Goodnight My Love" dance -- was meant for her. And as for what happened after that...

On the matter of "after that," Dan wondered as he parked outside Jerry's Diner with minutes to spare, just what year had it been? For all his fantasizing about the perfect fifties slow dance, he'd never been able to decide just what year he'd want it to be. Aunt Arlene's records covered several years and the ones he'd bought himself at Waxie Maxie's had spread out the era even more, before and after, and he didn't want to eliminate any of his favorites by setting the year too early, or have them hopelessly out of date by setting it too late. But then again, since when did a dream have to match reality at all? Reasoning that he had already broken with reality somewhat by having lovely Peggy Jean ask him to dance instead of the other way around, he mused, why be a slave to reality?

Shaune, the bad-girl waitress of the summer, greeted him at the door with an all-too-clear answer to that question. Loitering on the front walk as usual in her detested pink and yellow uniform shirt and - also as usual - halfway through her last cigarette before their shift started, she gave Danny a warning rather than a greeting. "Watch it in there today, K-Penis is more pissed off than usual."

"You haven't slipped up and called him that to his face yet, have you?"

"If he looks at me again like the way he did when I went in there to put this monkey suit on, I'll call him that on purpose!"

"I think I'd pay good money to see that," Dan said. "See you in there?"

"If you're lucky," Shaune grumbled.

KP, the regional manager - the initials were really short for an Eastern European name no one could pronounce, but Shaune had sparked a trend among the rest of the crew - was chewing out James under his breath behind the counter while the last few breakfast customers were lingering over their coffee. Dan knew enough to just say hello and make his way back to the kitchen to clock in. The Byrds were playing on the jukebox - a bit late for Dan's mood with his wonderful dream still fresh in his mind, but fitting for the late morning somehow. Listening to fifties R&B during the day felt just as out of place as drinking beer before lunch.

Dan did his best to drag his feet on clocking in so that KP might be gone by the time he returned, but no such luck. He got away this time with a dirty look and a curt nod as KP stood in the doorway and handed Shaune yet another dressing down for being late and smelling like smoke. "Asshole," she grumbled when at last he was off.

"Watch your mouth," warned James from behind the cash register, where he was counting receipts. "But yeah. He is. Dan, you're on front room duty."

"No wonder you let John go, if he was due up front." Dan couldn't help himself.

"He did have a way with the guests, if only he ever got their orders right," James said.

"And then the coffee thing," Shaune began.

"Never mind that!" James cut her off. "We don't need anyone hearing about that who doesn't already know about it!"

Dan grinned as he picked up his notepad and water pitcher and headed off to make the rounds. Shaune wouldn't know tact if it walked in on her in the changing room, as she was always accusing Dan of trying to do...but her mouthing off made the job a lot more interesting anyway.

Not that working at an Americana-styled diner was ever too dull for Dan anyway. Jerry's Diner, just a few blocks from the beach, was a mainstay in town since World War II and had been accumulating memorabilia ever since then. Dan had loved the place on his visits there as a child, which had more than likely sown the seeds of his fondness for old time rock and roll. He had also proven to be a quick study as a waiter on his stint there the summer before, so on his arrival back from college he had all the hours a broke vinyl junkie could ask for. The jukeboxes at every booth and the ancient posters and ads covering the walls provided more inspiration for his late-night fantasizing about the ultimate nineteen-fifty-something dance. And last night, however fleetingly, he'd made it there!

"Off in your own world as usual, are you?" Shaune asked him some time later, after a busy but drama-free lunch rush.

"Totally," Dan said without apology as he collected up a generous tip from the biggest party of the day -- fifteen tourists from someplace up North that he couldn't quite place. "Did you ever have a dream you'd been trying to have?"

"Huh?"

"I did, last night, and I've been thinking of how to make it even better," he explained. No use telling Shaune about the fifties motif; she was a metalhead and couldn't tell Elvis Presley from Elvis Costello.

"Make it better," Shaune repeated. "So you still didn't get the changing room open in time to catch me, even in your dreams, huh?"

"That's right, I only caught a precious glimpse of your bra," Dan shot back.

"Yeah, right. What color is it?"

"Red," Dan guessed.

Shaune gaped down at her breasts and crossed her arms over them. "What the fuck, you

did

spy on me?!"

"Watch your mouth!" James snapped from behind the register.

It was a slow but steady afternoon, with just enough tourists drifting in from the beach to keep both Daniel and Shaune on duty, so he had plenty of time to ponder the loss of Peggy Jean while fetching people's sandwiches and drinks. What did it all mean to have such a fleeting taste of heaven anyway? If he'd gotten there once, surely he could do it again? What to make of her asking him to dance when that never would have happened back then -- what else could he change for the better? Diversity, he reasoned. His next visit would have beautiful girls of every race, and maybe some of the boys would rather dance with each other than with them. The girls, too. That would make a perfect tribute to Aunt Arlene, after all. But Daniel would only be there to find Peggy Jean again. If it was only a fleeting encounter in a dream, he would at least make sure it was a complete one, and a good one.