11/22/63

The speeches commemorating Jodie’s centennial are over. The one given by the woman chosen by the Historical Society and Town Council as the Citizen of the Century was charmingly brief, that of the mayor longwinded but informative. I learned that Sadie had served one term as mayor herself and four terms in the Texas State Legislature, but that was the least of it. There was her charitable work, her ceaseless efforts to improve the quality of education at DCHS, and her year’s sabbatical to do volunteer work in post-Katrina New Orleans. There was the Texas State Library program for blind students, an initiative to improve hospital services for veterans, and her ceaseless (and continuing, even at eighty) efforts to provide better state services to the indigent mentally ill. In 1996 she had been offered a chance to run for the U.S. Congress but declined, saying she had plenty to do at the grassroots.

She never remarried. She never left Jodie. She’s still tall, her body unbent by osteoporosis. And she’s still beautiful, her long white hair flowing down her back almost to her waist.

Now the speeches are over, and Main Street has been closed off. A banner at each end of the two-block business section proclaims

STREET DANCE, 7PM — MIDNITE!

Y’ALL COME!

Sadie is surrounded by well-wishers — some of whom I think I still recognize — so I take a walk down to the DJ’s platform in front of what used to be the Western Auto and is now a Walgreens. The guy fussing with the records and CDs is a sixty-something with thinning gray hair and a considerable paunch, but I’d know those square-bear pink-rimmed specs anywhere.

“Hello, Donald,” I say. “See you’ve still got the round mound of sound.”

Donald Bellingham looks up and smiles. “Never leave for the gig without it. Do I know you?”

“No,” I say, “my mom. She was at a dance you DJ’d way back in the early sixties. She said you snuck in your father’s big band records.”

He grins. “Yeah, I caught hell for that. Who was your mother?”

“Andrea Robertson,” I say, picking the name at random. Andrea was my best pupil in period two American Lit.

“Sure, I remember her.” His vague smile says he doesn’t.

“I don’t suppose you still have any of those old records, do you?”

“God, no. Long gone. But I’ve got all kinds of big band stuff on CD. Do I feel a request coming on?”

“Actually, you do. But it’s kind of special.”

He laughs. “Ain’t they all.”

I tell him what I want, and Donald — as eager to please as ever — agrees. As I start back toward the end of the block, where the woman I came to see is now being helped to punch by the mayor, Donald calls after me. “I never caught your name.”

“Amberson,” I tell him over my shoulder. “George Amberson.”

“And you want it at eight-fifteen?”

“On the dot. Time is of the essence, Donald. Let’s hope it cooperates.”

Five minutes later, Donald Bellingham nukes Jodie with “At the Hop” and dancers fill the street under the Texas sunset.

8

At ten past eight, Donald plays a slow Alan Jackson tune, one even grown-ups can dance to. Sadie is left alone for the first time since the speechifying ended, and I approach her. My heart beating so hard it seems to shake my whole body.

“Miz Dunhill?”

She turns, smiling and looking up a little. She’s tall, but I’m taller. Always was. “Yes?”

“My name is George Amberson. I wanted to tell you how much I admire you and all the good work you’ve done.”

Her smile grows a little puzzled. “Thank you, sir. I don’t recognize you, but the name seems familiar. Are you from Jodie?”

I can no longer travel in time, and I certainly can’t read minds, but I know what she’s thinking, just the same. I hear that name in my dreams.

“I am, and I’m not.” And before she can pursue it: “May I ask what sparked your interest in public service?”

Her smile is now just a lingering ghost around the corners of her mouth. “And you want to know because—?”

“Was it the assassination? The Kennedy assassination?”

“Why… I guess it was, in a way. I like to think I would have gotten involved in the wider world anyway, but I suppose it started there. It left this part of Texas with…” Her left hand rises involuntarily toward her cheek, then drops again. “… such a scar. Mr. Amberson, where do I know you from? Because I do know you, I’m sure of it.”

“Can I ask another question?”

She looks at me with mounting perplexity. I glance at my watch. Eight-fourteen. Almost time. Unless Donald forgets, of course… and I don’t think he will. To quote some old fifties song or other, some things are just meant to be.

“The Sadie Hawkins dance, back in 1961. Who did you get to chaperone with you when Coach Borman’s mother broke her hip? Do you recall?”

Her mouth drops open, then slowly closes. The mayor and his wife approach, see us in deep conversation, and veer off. We are in our own little capsule here; just Jake and Sadie. The way it was once upon a time.

“Don Haggarty,” she says. “It was like shapping a dance with the village idiot. Mr. Amberson—”