Chapter 4: The Ballroom

Basil the waiter brought us rum caramel cheesecake as desert and we sat, for a time, and finished our champagne with Ellen looking around the dining room at the 17th and 18th century paintings on the wall.

That's when the maitre d' came to our table and informed us that another table was waiting for us in the ballroom and the orchestra was to start momentarily.

"That sounds like fun," Ellen said excitedly. "Take me there, Danny."

I stood and collected my sister from her chair and then escorted her through the arched doors into the hotel's grand ballroom.

It was grand too. It featured high ceilings with crystal chandeliers and oil paintings on the walls. Bistro tables surrounding a shiny hardwood dance floor and a raised area where a fifty-piece orchestra was just tuning up.

The tables were filling with people in formalwear but a member of the hotel's staff led us to a table near the far end of the floor.

"Isn't this nice?" Ellen said as I assisted her to her seat. "I'd love to dance. I haven't been dancing in so long."

"Well," I said, "I could go sit somewhere else and someone will come and ask you to dance pretty soon. You look so beautiful tonight, Ellie. You won't have to wait long."

"What are you, crazy?" she said as she grabbed the sleeve of my dinner jacket and pulled me down into the seat beside her. "I'm not dancing with anybody but you tonight, Danny Murtry."

"Me? You want to dance with me?"

"Of course, silly. Why wouldn't I?"

"Jeez, Ellie. Do you remember your sixteenth birthday party when Mom put on music and you were all dressed in that frilly, white satin dress?"

"With the lace? Yes, I remember."

"You looked so beautiful that night and you danced with every boy there. Including Eddie."

"Eddie Buchanan?" Ellen laughed. "God, I hadn't thought of him in years. What was it you called him? Albert something?"

"Alfred E. Neuman."

"Yes," Ellen laughed, her blue eyes reflecting her memories as she smiled with her thoughts of that long ago night when she was sweet sixteen. "I remember it like it was yesterday," she said.

"I wanted to dance with you so bad that night, Ellie. But I couldn't because I was your brother and how would that have looked in front of all your friends?"

Ellen touched my hand as the band started to play SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY and she leaned to me and said, "Tonight I'm all yours, Danny."

What did she mean by that? I wondered as I looked square into her beautiful, serious face.

"Would you like something to drink?" A waitress in a white pantsuit uniform asked us.

"Oh Danny, get us some more of those martinis," Ellen said as she stood, "and I'm going to the girls' room to freshen up for you."

As I watched Ellen cross the large room toward the door marked LADIES, I described the martinis to the waitress who left to get them.

Alone, I wondered again what Ellen had meant by what she said. I wasn't sure I was up for an evening of being jostled around on a dance floor. And I didn't know how I was going to handle dancing with Ellen. Odd, it suddenly struck me, of all the things I ever did with my sister (and I'd done more than most brothers), I had never simply danced with her before.

When Ellen came back, she looked far lovelier than she had before (if that were even possible) and that enticing cologne was more evident as she sat down.

The waitress returned with our martinis and we sipped them as the orchestra played IN THE MOOD and TAKE THE A-TRAIN. But when CHATANOOGA CHOO CHOO started to play, Ellen jumped up, took both my hands in hers and said, "Come on, Danny! You're dancing with me!" and she pulled me up and then pushed me out onto the shiny, wood floor.

Ellen seemed to have a boundless energy out on that dance floor, doing a kind of bouncing hop to CHOO CHOO plus three more songs as I just tried hard to keep up with her and she laughed and grinned at my lead-footed ineptitude the whole time.

Then we sat out a slow number while Ellen fanned herself with her hand and sipped her drink. The exercise had brought out a glow of perspiration to her pretty face and a few of her freckles were now showing on the bridge of her nose and making her look unbelievably sexy to me.

"Whew," she said and then downed the last of her martini. "It's getting hot in here, huh? Get me another one of these, okay?"

"Are you sure?"

"Sure, I'm sure," she said in a slight slur. "I'm having fun. I need this. I want to have a good time."

"Okay," I said, snapping for the waitress' attention. "But don't blame me if anything happens to you."

"Oh, you'll take care of me, won't you, big brother?"

"I'm trying," I said, just as the orchestra finished DREAM and the waitress appeared to take our drink order.

Now a young, attractive, blonde woman, in a red evening gown, took the bandstand microphone and introduced herself as Karen, telling us that we might have seen her on TV commercials or singing the national anthem at Red Wings games. The band started to play an old Pointer Sisters' song called AUTOMATIC and the blonde started to competently sing the vocal as Ellen got her second wind and pulled me out on the floor again. We danced as she hopped around to FAME, Hall and Oats' MANEATER and DEVIL WITH THE BLUE DRESS before Ellen allowed me to sit one out and we drank our third martinis.