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“That turkey looks absolutely wonderful,” Ellie said, and handed me her plate. “Would you help
me to a drumstick, George? And don’t spare the stuffing.”
Sadie could be vulnerable, and Sadie could be clumsy, but Sadie could also be very, very brave.
How I loved her.
3
Lee, Marina, and June went to the de Mohrenschildts’ to see in the new year. I was left to my own
lonely devices, but when Sadie called and asked if I’d take her to the New Year’s Eve dance at Jodie’s
Bountiful Grange, I hesitated.
“I know what you’re thinking,” she said, “but this will be better than last year. We’ll make it
better, George.”
So there we were at eight o’clock, once more dancing beneath sagging nets of balloons. This year’s
band was called the Dominoes. They featured a four-man horn section instead of the Dick Dale–style
surf guitars that had dominated the previous year’s dance, but they also knew how to lay it down.
There were the same two bowls of pink lemonade and ginger ale, one soft and one spiked. There were
the same smokers clustered beneath the fire escape in the chill air. But it was better than last year.
There was a great sense of relief and happiness. The world had passed under a nuclear shadow in
October . . . but then it had passed back out again. I heard several approving comments about how
Kennedy had made the bad old Russian bear back down.
Around nine o’clock, during a slow dance, Sadie suddenly screamed and broke away from me. I was
sure she’d spotted John Clayton, and my heart jumped into my throat. But that had been a scream of
pure happiness, because the two newcomers she had spotted were Mike Coslaw—looking absurdly
handsome in a tweed topcoat—and Bobbi Jill Allnut. Sadie ran to them . . . and tripped over
someone’s foot. Mike caught her and swung her around. Bobbi Jill waved to me, a little shyly.
I shook Mike’s hand and kissed Bobbi Jill on the cheek. The disfiguring scar was now a faint pink
line. “Doctor says it’ll be all gone by next summer,” she said. “He called me his fastest-healing
patient. Thanks to you.”
“I got a part in Death of a Salesman, Mr. A.,” Mike said. “I’m playing Biff.”
“Type-casting,” I said. “Just watch out for flying pies.”
I saw him talking to the band’s lead singer during one of the breaks, and knew perfectly well what
was coming. When they got back on the stand, the singer said: “I’ve got a special request. Do we have
a George Amberson and Sadie Dunhill in the house? George and Sadie? Come on up here, George and
Sadie, outta your seats and onto your feets.”
We walked toward the bandstand through a storm of applause. Sadie was laughing and blushing.
She shook her fist at Mike. He grinned. The boy was leaving his face; the man was coming in. A little
shyly, but coming. The singer counted off, and the brass section swung into that downbeat I still hear
in my dreams.
Bah-dah-dah . . . bah-dah-da-dee-dum . . .
I held my hands out to her. She shook her head, but began to swing her hips a little just the same.
“Go get him, Miz Sadie!” Bobbi Jill shouted. “Do the thing!”
The crowd joined in. “Go! Go! Go!”
She gave in and took my hands. We danced.