I quickly count at least thirty couples, everyone throwing their hands up and cheering.
Mary shushes them. “Before we begin…” She makes another Shh sound. “Before we begin, let’s go over the rules. You’ll be dancing in pairs. You’re required to remain in motion—that means, pick up one foot,” she says, demonstrating with her own feet, “and then the other. Shuffling is fine, but if you stop, or if a knee touches the ground, you’re out. Every forty-five minutes, I’ll sound the horn and you’ll get fifteen minutes to rest. Everyone understand?”
The crowd hoots and hollers.
Mary laughs. “Well, okay then. Ladies and gentlemen, I only have one more question for you: How long can you last?” She swings her arm up and the band springs to life.
The sound of “When the Saints Go Marching In” fills the too-crowded basement. I can’t help the huge smile that spreads ’cross my face. Mary searches for me, catches my eye, and lips, “Happy birthday.”
“Dance!” Blanche says to me, already holding on to Buck.
Everything is happening so fast that I feel a bit light-headed. I turn and find Clyde, with his thumbs dangling from his trousers’ belt loops.
“I also ain’t much of a dancer,” he says with a lopsided grin.
“You don’t like crowds. Or dancing. Why’d you agree to come?” I shout over the music, the laughter, the idle chatter. ’Round us, people already swing and twirl. In my mind, the answer I want to hear prickles the back of my neck.
“I had to meet you!” he shouts back.
A couple bumps me and I stumble to the side. Clyde grabs my arm to steady me. His touch and his response send shivers down my arms.
“I don’t happen upon many girls who can handle a gun like you,” Clyde adds.
This surprises me, and I laugh. “What?”
“You impressed me. Fearless.” He extends his other hand, nodding for me to take it. “I’ll warn you, though—you take my hand again and I may not be able to let you go.”
I stare at his hand like it’s foreign, hesitating. Truly, I don’t know the first thing ’bout the one and only Clyde Champion Barrow, besides his questionable past. And, really, this boy should remain a mystery from my past. But—I press my lips together—I like how he sees me.
Fearless.
Quick, as not to change my mind, I place my hand in Clyde’s, willing to let him swing me ’round the dance floor.
“I’m going to need your help here.” He tightens his hold of me. “I’m afraid I have two left feet.”
His modesty stirs something inside of me, and I raise Clyde’s arm to spin underneath and toward him. I stop against his chest. One hand embraces mine. The other drops to my lower back, and I suck in my belly, acutely aware of his fingertips holding me against him firmly.
I am just a lonesome trav’ler through this big, wide world of sin.
The upbeat Dixieland lyrics surround us, a contrast to how Clyde and I are moving, swaying back and forth, completely out of sync with the music, my palm flat on his chest.
Come and join me in my journey, ’cause it’s time that we begin.
“Bonnie,” Clyde says in his raspy tone, and hearing that name again hitches my breath. “Red is a good color on you.”
My cheeks grow hot, hotter as our eyes meet. I drop my gaze. “We ain’t dancing like everybody else.…” The others are twisting, twirling, fully engrossed in the energetic spirit of the dance marathon.
Clyde smirks, even as his heart pounds under my hand. “I told ya I ain’t much of a dancer.” He leans closer and adds, “Do you want to get out of here?”
“And do what?” I ask, trying to force my voice louder than the noise, louder than my own heart pounding in my ears.
Clyde grins at my response. I don’t know what he’s so happy ’bout; I didn’t say yes. Yet, I didn’t say no, either. He backpedals toward the exit of Doc’s. My hand begins to slide from his, and I feel the roughness of his calloused fingertips, before he regrips, not letting go.
And we’ll be there for that judgment, when the saints go marching in.
He knocks into dancing couples, but simply sidesteps, adjusting his path, his eyes not leaving me. I look over my shoulder, searching for Blanche.
Sorry, Clyde, I could say. Can’t go. Blanche insists I stay.
’Cept Buck swings Blanche ’round and she has an ear-to-ear smile on her face, not wasting a second on me. It’s not as if she’d help me anyway. That she-devil would most likely usher me out the door with Clyde.
I decide it can’t hurt to slip away for a few minutes, though it’s not lost on me how I joked Blanche wouldn’t make it three hours and here I am, not lasting three minutes.
We stumble up the stairs, onto the sidewalk. The cooler dusk air jars my senses, and I clutch my sequined neckline. My breath comes quicker, and I ask, “Where’re we going? I don’t want to be long.”
“You’ll see, Bonnie.”
“Clyde…” I look up, down Elm Street and steal back my hand. “I don’t know.”
He bobs his head and rubs his bare arms, as if he’s searching for the right thing to say.
But I don’t need the right thing; I need answers. Fearless or not, I can’t go running down the street hand in hand with a boy who knots my stomach with uncertainty. Not after Henry. Not after Roy.
I need to know more. “Your tattoo.” I hesitantly touch the same spot on my upper arm. “What do those letters mean?”
Clyde takes a deep breath, traces the USN, a solemn expression on his face. “I’m afraid it’s not a good memory.”
I picture the three letters on my own skin and say, “You don’t have to tell me.”
As I avert my eyes, then look back, Clyde slowly nods.
“It seems I do, Bonnie. ‘United States Navy,’ that’s what it stands for.”
The navy? I blink, remembering the naval officer who knocked on our door all those years ago, derailing our whole lives. “You served?” I manage to ask.
“Wanted to.” He rubs his mouth. “Got this here tattoo, rented a car, drove for hours, got turned away.”
I step closer to Clyde, letting a couple pass us more easily on the sidewalk. “They wouldn’t let you enlist?”
“A medical rejection. I had malaria as a boy. Almost took my life, but”—he taps his right ear—“ended up only taking a bit of my hearing.”
I wrap my arms ’round myself, as much for warmth as to keep from touching him. “I didn’t know. I’m sorry.”
Clyde sucks on a tooth, and I’m even more sorry I’m making him relive an unhappy memory. “Shouted real good. Punched a wall. Neither did me any good. So I left, kept driving after that,” he says. “Nowhere in particular. Just knew I needed to put miles between me and that moment.”
I cock my head to the side. “You got arrested, didn’t you, for not returning that car?”
Clyde laughs, and I startle at the noise. “Buck told ya ’bout that, did he?”