in Glenmara, the dancers went in pairs. Four women and men had already gone, their scores written on the board above the bar. One man had been disqualified for falling. (His friends caught him, though one sprained his finger in the process.)
“And in this corner, we have Aileen Flanagan, the local favorite, defending her title,” Richie said as if he were announcing the contenders in a boxing match. “How many years in a row has it been? I’ve lost track.”
Aileen laughed. “So have I, or I’m trying to!” She could be charming when she wanted to be.
Kate headed for the bar. Her legs shook. Nerves. Sullivan Deane caught her by the elbow and helped her up. He gave her a smile of encouragement before joining the band once again. “Good luck.”
Kate had a feeling she’d need it.
Aileen gave Kate a superior smile, as if she knew what it took to win—and she’d no doubt stood on that very spot many times before. She unleashed a flurry of steps right away, hardly waiting for the starting bell. Kate stood there, frozen, until Bernie called her name, and the spell—it had only been a matter of seconds, but felt longer—was broken and her legs released from momentary paralysis, her mind from the fear of taking the first step.
“Your feet know the way,” her mother had said when she’d nearly panicked before a feis years before. “Let them guide you.”
Kate matched Aileen step for step in two-four time, dancing the “Downfall of Paris,” one of the old jigs she probably thought Kate wouldn’t know, but Kate’s teacher had been from Ireland. She knew them all.
“Draw!” Richie called.
They danced again. And again. And again. “The Planxy Drury,” “The Blackthorn Stick” in six-eight time, “Yougal Harbour” in four-four. Kate couldn’t feel her legs anymore. They moved with a will of their own, like those of the girl in The Red Shoes.
Neither woman would stop dancing, constantly challenging the other with flourishes. No one could say exactly how long the duel lasted. What a spectacle it was: their legs flashing, heels stomping. The bar would bear the marks of that night for years to come. The cheering rose and fell in waves.
Kate remembered her mother applauding at the first feis she won, how she put the trophy on the mantel where everyone could see. The cup shone there on the day of her mother’s going-away party. Lu had worn wings, like an angel, white and feathered. She wouldn’t want to miss a party in her honor. “I want to celebrate with you while I’m alive, not after I’m dead,” she said. And they’d danced long into the night—everyone from the theater, the college, the co-op, her book group—dancing her to heaven. Lu was too weak to join in, but she sat in the red velvet chair by the fire, clapping her hands, flames in her eyes.
Kate found the cup, later, still shining—her mother must have polished it before she went into the hospital for the last time. It almost felt as if Lu were with her, in that lone Irish village, cheering with the crowd, willing her to win, holding that gleaming cup aloft, a reminder of what she could achieve.
Aileen felt victory slipping away. She’d thought about scratching. Despite her bravado, her hips weren’t what they used to be. Nothing was what it used to be. And yet when she saw that the girl planned to take the stage, she knew she couldn’t back down. The prize had always gone to a Gaelic speaker. To her several years running. It would again.
“That’s a girl!” Richie cheered. She’d dated him in school before the business with Rourke—who wasn’t there that night, because he had to work. He worked hard, did his duty, supporting the family, supporting her. Richie never married. He still had his freedom. He asked her to meet him once, not directly but in a roundabout way, or at least that was what she thought, and she’d almost gone to him, last year, but she’d sat in the chair by the fire and watched the minutes tick by, the opportunity slipping away. They’d never talked about it. They’d let it go. And it was all right, because she’d made her life with Rourke, loved Rourke, yes, though it frightened her, the thought of the children going and the two of them alone together for the first time in years, ever, really, because the first baby had come so soon, as they often did.
She had