The Song of David

“What don’t you like? David Taggert, are you a hypocrite? You aren’t. I know you aren’t.” She was smiling, but not up at me, like other women did. She was smiling straight forward, at no one and nothing, and I felt an ache in my chest, a warning note. She would never smile at me like other women did. Was I okay with that? Because if I wasn’t, I needed to back the hell off. I was getting personal.

“Nah. You know what I mean. Why do you dance in a smoky bar, spinning around a pole, wearing next to nothing, for money that isn’t all that good? You’re a classy girl, Amelie, and pole-dancing just isn’t very classy.” Backing off wasn’t my style.

Her smile was gone, but she didn’t look angry. She stopped walking, her stick extended like she was strolling with an imaginary pet. Then she pulled the stick upright and tapped it sharply on the sidewalk.

“See this stick?”

I nodded and then remembered she couldn’t see me. “Yeah.”

She pushed it toward me and it knocked against my shoulder. “Being blind comes with a stick. Not a cute golden retriever. A stick. But this stick means I can walk down the street by myself. I can make my way to the store. It means I can go to school, walk to work, go to the movies, go out to eat. All by myself. This stick represents freedom to me.” She took a deep breath and I held mine.

“I guess I just replaced the stick with a pole—and when I dance, for a few hours, several nights a week, I’m living my dream. Even though it may not look that way to you. My mom wouldn’t have liked it. You’re right about that. But she isn’t here. And I have to make my own choices.”

Amelie stopped talking and waited, possibly to see if I was going to argue. When I didn’t, she continued.

“I used to dance and do gymnastics. I used to leap and turn. I could do it all. And I didn’t need a pole. Just like I used to walk down the street and chase my friends and live my life without my stick. But that isn’t an option anymore. That pole means I can still dance. I don’t need to see to dance in that cage. If that means I’m not a classy girl, so be it. It’s a tiny piece of a dream that I had to give up. And I’d rather have a piece of a dream than no dream at all.”

Well, shit. That made perfect sense. I felt myself nodding again, but punctuated it with words. “Okay. Okay, Millie. I sure as hell can’t argue with that.”

“So now I’m Millie?”

“Well, we’ve just established that you aren’t a classy girl,” I teased, and her laughter rang out again, echoing in the quiet street like a faraway church bell. “Amelie sounds like an aristocrat, Millie sounds a little more down home. A girl called Millie can be friends with a guy named Tag.”

“David?”

“Yeah?”

“I have a new favorite sound.”

“What’s that?”

“The way you say Millie. It shot straight to the top of my list. Promise me you’ll never call me Amelie again.”

Damn if my heart wasn’t pounding in my chest. She wasn’t flirting, was she? I couldn’t tell. All I knew was that I wanted to call her Millie again. And again. And again. Just because she asked me to.

“I promise . . . on one condition.”

She waited for me to name my price, a small smile tiptoeing across her mouth.

“I’ll keep calling you Millie if you call me Tag,” I said. “You callin’ me David makes me feel like you expect me to be someone I’m not. The people I care about the most call me Tag. That’s what fits.”

“I like calling you David. I think you’re classier than you give yourself credit for. And everyone calls you Tag. I want to be . . . different,” she admitted softly.

I felt a slice of pain and pleasure that had me holding back and leaning in simultaneously, but I pushed the feeling away with banter, the way I usually do.

“Oh, I’m very classy.” She laughed with me, the way I wanted her to. “But you bein’ special and different has nothing to do with what you call me, Millie. But you can call me any damn thing you want to.”

“Any damn thing doesn’t have the same ring as David, but okay,” she quipped.

“You’re a smart aleck, you know that, right?”

She nodded, grinning and gave my nickname a shot. “So, Tag.”

“Yeah, Millie?”

“Tomorrow’s Sunday. Do you go to church?”

“No. You?” I was guessing she did. Amelie was full of contradictions. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if she was a pole-dancing church-goer.

“In a manner of speaking. Church is hard for Henry. I could go alone. He’s fine at home by himself for a little while, obviously. But when I was younger, my mom would try and take us, and when Henry would get agitated or start making too much noise, she would take us out. That’s when I discovered one of my favorite sounds. You want to hear it?”

“Now?”

“No. Tomorrow. Eleven a.m.”

“At church?”

“At church.”

Well, damn. Maybe I should go to church. Work on saving my soul. “Okay.”

“Okay?” Her smile knocked me over, and I mentally kicked myself. I was spending too much time with her, and the more time I spent, the harder it was to keep my head on straight. Before I thought better of it I spoke. “We’re just friends, you and I, right Millie?”