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“You can
dance, you can jive
Having the
time of your life
Ooh, see
that girl, watch that scene
Digging the
dancing queen...”
Aggie Wade lifted her eyes
from the physics textbook she was studying and looked at her
best friend, Marley Cameron, sighing as she heard the opening
bars of ‘Dancing Queen’ by ABBA from her mother’s bedroom
upstairs for about the tenth time today.
“Gimme a break…” she
muttered, rolling her eyes heavenward. She understood that the
song was her mother’s favorite, and that it brought back
memories of better times. Heaven knew that Barbara Wade had few
good memories these days. Not many had been made since that day
not quite four years ago when a pick-up truck driven by a drunk,
and traveling in excess of sixty miles an hour, had run a red
light at Coldwater Canyon Boulevard and Ventura Boulevard, and
had broad-sided the Toyota Camry being driven by Terry Wade,
Aggie’s father. He had been killed instantly, and Barbara, a
once sparkling, witty and hip woman of forty-one was instantly
turned into a paraplegic. In the space of a few heartbeats,
Barbara had lost her beloved husband of twenty-two years, and
any hope for future happiness.
At the very young age of
seventeen, Aggie had reversed roles with Barbara, becoming her
crippled mother’s provider, companion and support. Terry had
left an insurance policy worth half a million dollars, and with
their home being theirs, free and clear, there were few money
worries. However, trying to finish high school while taking care
of her invalid mother was no easy task for Aggie. Good fortune,
sound advice and help with coping with the myriad details of
arranging for her father’s funeral and her mother’s care had
come in the form of Maggie Cameron, Barbara’s best friend, and
Marley’s mother. The Cameron’s home was next door to the
Wade’s on tree lined Radford Avenue in Studio City. Maggie had
been a godsend; Aggie would have been lost without her.
Marley turned green eyes
on Aggie in sympathy. She knew the history of the song, and
though she understood Aggie’s exasperation with continually
hearing it, at the same time, she thought that the story that
went with it a glamorous and romantic tale.
Terry Wade and Barbara
Walker had been high school sweethearts in a small town in
Texas. Both had expected that they would graduate from high
school, get married and go to work at either of the army
ammunition depots that were the main sources of employment in a
tiny town with a population of just under fifty thousand souls.
Eventually, Barb would quit working to stay home with the family
they would raise; a boy who would look like Terry, and a girl
who would resemble Barbara.
Fate intervened in the
destiny that had been that of so many of their friends in the
mid-seventies in the shape of the Disco craze. Terry and Barb
had discovered that the flashy dancing style came naturally to
them. Weekends became a time to hang out at Sharkey’s, a local
pizza parlor that had added a disco studio to cater to the fans
of the fad. With all of their friends, they danced the night
away to songs like “SOS” and “Mamma Mia” by ABBA, “You
Sexy Thing” by Hot Chocolate, and “Love to Love You, Baby”
by Donna Summer. They saw ‘Saturday Night Fever’ and were
inspired by the hip performances of John Travolta and Karen Lynn
Gorney as Tony and Stephanie. Improvising on some of the dance
moves of Travolta and Gorney from the movie, Terry and Barb soon
became the stars of the dance floor at Sharkey’s.
A chance to escape the
fate that would soon overtake many of the friends arrived in the
form of a dance contest, a la ‘Saturday Night Fever’, held
by Sharkey’s. The winners of the contest would receive an
all-expense paid trip to Hollywood to compete on the ‘Stars of
Tomorrow’, a popular talent showcase for amateur performers
hoping for their big break. Terry and Barb won the contest
handily. They agreed that they would put off starting college
until they had competed in ‘Stars of Tomorrow’ and
discovered if they had what it took to make it in the rough and
tumble world of show business.
They only placed second in
the show, but they received a few offers for parts in a couple
of live stage performances; however, since neither of them had
any formal dance training, such offers soon petered out.
Both of them had
immediately fallen in love with Hollywood, though, and decided
to stay. They were married at West Hollywood Presbyterian
Church, and set up housekeeping in a beautiful little guesthouse
high in Beachwood Canyon. Terry worked during the day as a
security officer while he attended night school to obtain a real
estate license. Barb worked at Robinson’s Department Store in
downtown Los Angeles during the day, and sold Avon in her spare
time.
In early 1979, Barb
discovered that she was pregnant, and would bear their first
child in early November. Terry was thrilled at the prospect of
becoming a father. Barbara quit her job at Robinson’s, and
through the real estate agency he was now employed by, they
purchased a three-bedroom Spanish-style stucco on Radford Avenue
in Studio City. Aggie would grow up in that home.
Their daughter was born a
week early, making her entrance into the world on Halloween,
instead of on Barb’s original due date of November 7th. Barb
and Terry named her Aggie, after Agnetha Faltskog, the blonde
bombshell of ABBA, their favorite group.
So now they were just an
average Southern California family, but their one moment of
glory had never really faded from Barb’s memory. Her fifteen
minutes of fame had been captured for posterity in the form of
two volumous scrapbooks full of photos, news clippings and print
articles about their victory at Sharkey’s, the ‘Stars of
Tomorrow’ contest, and every other performance they had given,
from sources ranging from their hometown newspaper to the Daily
Variety, and the Hollywood Reporter. There were also videos of
their performances for any who cared to view them. Barbara even
still had the yellow lace and chiffon dress she had worn for ‘Stars
of Tomorrow’, along with the shoes and jewelry she’d worn
with it. It was almost as if she were in perpetual mourning for
that lost dream.
Aggie had always
understood that her mother wanted to keep the memory of what had
been the high point of her life alive. After all, if it had not
been for that one moment of bright triumph, she and Terry would
have been just another average married couple living in a
backwoods town in Texas, instead of living in this beautiful
Southern California home. Sometimes, though, she thought her
mother worked at keeping that moment in the past shining at the
expense of the current one.
Now that her dad was gone,
the memories were all that her mother seemed to have left. Aggie
had no doubt that her mother loved her, but sometimes she
doubted that it was as much as Barb loved the memory of being
the Dancing Queen. Aggie was sad because she had even fewer
memories to hold on to. Terry had been a wonderful father, but
her time with him had been far too short. She knew that he would
not have wanted either Aggie or Barb to stop living because he
was gone.
“Aggie!” her mother’s
voice drifted down from her bedroom. “Aggie, I need your help…”
“Coming, Mom!” Aggie
called. She put her pen down and stood up. “I’ll be back in
just a minute.” she told Marley, who nodded.
When she got upstairs, she
was amazed to find her mother sitting up in bed, looking better
than she had in months. It was a pleasant surprise.
“What is it, Mom?” she
asked.
“Where’s my make-up,
Aggie?” Barb asked. “I feel like sprucing up a bit. And
would you do my hair for me?”
“Sure, Mom. No problem.”
She was so pleased that her mother was taking an interest in her
appearance that she didn’t mind taking the time out from her
studies. “Let me tell Marley that I’ll be back down to
finish studying in just a bit.”
After letting Marley know
what she was going to be doing, she headed back up stairs to her
mother. Barbara was looking at one of her scrapbooks. It was
open to a page with a photo of her in the yellow dress she’d
worn for ‘Stars of Tomorrow’. She ran her fingers across the
photo lovingly.
“Such a beautiful dress…”
she murmured. “Your dad always said I was a knock-out that
night…”
“You sure were, Mom. Now…
how about getting started on that make-over you wanted?”
“Yes… let’s do.”
Barb replied.
Twenty minutes later,
Aggie had expertly highlighted her mother’s face with just the
right touches of makeup, and brushed her gilt-blonde hair into a
becoming style.
“You look great, Mom.”
Aggie commented. “What’s the occasion?”
Barb’s eyes had a
dreamy, far away look to them. “Your dad and I are going
dancing tonight.” she murmured.
Aggie’s heart dropped
into her stomach. In the three years since Terry’s death, Barb
had never shown any of the continuing symptoms of denial that so
many grieving wives displayed. After a normal period of
disbelief, she had accepted his death, albeit begrudgingly. Now,
all of a sudden, she seemed to have slipped right into the
middle of a giant pit of disavowal.
She gingerly sat down on
the edge of the bed and brushed a stray lock of hair from Barb’s
forehead with a gentle touch.
“Mom, Dad’s dead. You
know that. He’s been gone for nearly four years now.”
The look on Barb’s face
didn’t change. “Do you know that today is the twenty-third
anniversary of our appearance on ‘Stars of Tomorrow’?” she
asked softly. Aggie looked at the date beneath the photo… June
21, 1978, 8:00 p.m. She hadn’t realized that.
“Gosh, no, Mom, I didn’t.
That’s quite a milestone, isn’t it?”
Barbara didn’t seem to
hear. “We have to celebrate it, you know.” She said. “My
yellow dress… I have to wear my yellow dress. It’s an
anniversary, after all.”
Aggie felt tears welling
up in her eyes. Maybe her mom was getting worse, instead of
better.
“I’m sure daddy would
have wanted to celebrate it, too, if things had been different.”
“Of course he wants to
celebrate it, honey!” Barb insisted. “Now, can you please
get my yellow dress?”
“Mom, that dress has
been sealed up in plastic to preserve it for years now. If you
took it out and tried to put it on, it would probably fall to
pieces.”
“Nonsense, Jessie… I
only bought the dress just this week, and I paid a pretty penny
for it, too! Why on earth would it be falling apart?”
Another shock ran through
Aggie. Not only was her mother experiencing some sort of memory
lapse, but Barb had also actually called her by Aggie’s aunt’s
name. Jessie, Barb’s oldest sister had passed away ten years
earlier.
“Look, Mom, I don’t
know why you experiencing this sudden problem with your memory,
but you may be getting stressed out. I’ll get your medication
for you, and you can lie back down and rest.”
“I don’t need any
damned medicine, and I don’t have time to rest, Jessie!”
Barbara flared in an uncharacteristic rage. “I need my damned
dress! Terry will be here to get me soon, and I need to be
ready!”
Aggie was at a loss for
what to do. With a sigh, she got up and went to the closet. She
took the yellow dress, which was still sheathed in its
vacuum-packed plastic and laid it across the back of a chair
across the room from Barb’s bed, hoping to shock her mother
out of this sudden delusion of hers.
“There’s the dress,
Mom.” she said, hating herself for having to resort to such
cruelty. ”If you want it, you have to get up and get it
yourself! It’s not good for you to pretend to yourself the way
you’re doing. Dad’s not coming to take you dancing tonight
because Dad is dead! And how can you dance? You can’t even
walk any more! Why would you do this to yourself and to me?”
Tears filled her eyes as
Barb raised her head and looked at her daughter with a slight,
knowing smile on her face.
“I love you, Aggie.”
she said softly. “Always remember that, no matter what. And
your dad says he loves you, too.”
Unable to bear this sudden
change in her mother any longer, Aggie turned and fled the room,
her remorse for being so cruel to her mother almost
overwhelming.
By the time she reached
the kitchen where Marley was still deep in her studies, she had
managed to pull herself together and give her friend a brief
smile.
“Is everything all
right?” Marley asked.
Aggie nodded. “She’s
just a bit over-emotional tonight. It’s the anniversary of the
night that she and dad appeared on ‘Stars of Tomorrow’.”
“I see.” Marley
replied. “So… ready to hit the books again?”
Aggie nodded, and bent
back to the task at hand. About ten minutes had passed when
Marley suddenly sat straight up in her chair, a bewildered look
on her face.
“Did you feel that?”
she asked, her face marred by a nervous frown.
“Feel what?”
Marley rubbed the back of
her neck. “It was like someone put an ice-cold hand on the
back of my neck.”
Aggie shook her head. “Didn’t
feel a thing.”
“And the smell!”
Marley went on. ”Do you have roses anywhere in the house?”
Again, Aggie shook her
head. “No. Roses always upset Mom too much to have them
around. Dad gave her a dozen yellow roses to match her dress on
the night of the show, and she’s hasn’t been able to bear
having them around her since he died.”
“That’s very strange,
because the smell is overpowering, almost smothering. I’m
surprised that you don’t smell it.”
At that moment, two things
happened. A clock in the living room that had belonged to her
dad and hadn’t worked in years suddenly chimed eight o’clock;
and once again, ‘Dancing Queen’ began playing again
upstairs.
Aggie looked at Marley in
despair. “Can you come up with me? She really needs to get
some rest, and maybe seeing you will help to settle her down.”
With Marley by her side,
Aggie ascended the stairs once more and turned into her mother’s
bedroom. As she entered, she found herself glued into place with
shock, her stomach freezing in both fear and amazement. What she
saw would remain with her with the rest of her life.
Her mother, who had been
bedridden for nearly four years, who had not taken a single step
in as long, lay on her bed, attired in the yellow dress that
Aggie had placed on a chair some fifteen feet away. The dress
was as perfect as it must have been on the day her mother had
bought it. Barb wore the peau de soie pumps that had been dyed
specially to match the dress, and the citrine parure of
necklace, bracelets and earrings that she’d also bought to
match the dress.
Her face was haloed with a
bright white light that emphasized the brilliant, ecstatic smile
of welcome that caressed her lips. It was plainly apparent that
whatever entity that had caused Barbara Wade to be a living,
breathing person had departed what was now only the shell it had
once inhabited.
Aggie didn’t know what
was the more shocking; the sight of the dozen yellow roses that
lay across the middle of Barbara’s still body, or the brief
glimpse of an image that she saw in the mirror of the dresser
next to the bed… that of two people dancing toward a brilliant
light in the distance… an eighteen-year-old Barbara and a
twenty-year old Terry, both of whom looked back at her through
the mirror, giving her dazzling smiles that were a mixture of
love and regret as they whirled away from her into the light.
The darkness closed over
her, even as she heard Marley’s frightened voice calling her
name and thankfully, Aggie knew no more.
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