Free The Stardust Lounge by Deborah Digges Page B

City.
    I have to lean away from him because the brim of his Stetson keeps grazing my forehead. If I swing to the snare drum beat a little too enthusiastically, Charles looks panicked.So we step deliberately, meet each other's eyes, and smile.
    This Friday night, like so many others, we planned to meet at our usual spot halfway between Columbia and Iowa City—the Bloomfield, Iowa, town square—so that Stephen could spend time with his father, and Charles with me.
    But my Volkswagen threw a rod in Ottumwa, a town short of our destination. After calling a tow truck from a phone booth, calling Columbia regarding our situation, I carried six-year-old Stephen piggyback along the highway, our heads down against the November wind gusting off the fields on either side of us. We made our way toward the only establishment open now, toward the shuddering pink neon rainbow of the Stardust Lounge.
    The boys’ father occupies a table just off the dance floor. When we catch him looking at his watch again we wave. He throws us a resigned smile.
    The evening our car breaks down in Ottumwa, it is the last night of the town's bowling league tournament. Teams are gathering at the Stardust Lounge for a celebration.
    Sure enough, the boys’ young stepmother, Terri, had relayed my message to Charles and his father. They'd waited nearly an hour in Bloomfield, then phoned to discover we were marooned in Ottumwa and came ahead.
    We dance among five or six couples wearing bright satin team shirts of green, gold, and blue, their names sewn on the pockets. The boys are wearing oversized clothes they love from a secondhand store in Iowa City. Stephen's well-worn denim jacket has colorful patchessewn on the front—the Roadrunner, hot cars, and trucks. Though it's November, he wears surfer pants, and his favorite Michael Jackson tennis shoes.
    Charles sports that Stetson, paint-stained jeans, a Hawaiian shirt, and an Iowa Hawkeyes tie, clothes he's not allowed to wear in Columbia, so he wears them to visit me.
    I'm in jeans, boots, and a sweater. Their father is dressed impeccably.
    We're odd among the bowlers in their team shirts and shoes, the waitresses in matching dresses and caps. The three of us appear to be out of uniform, or in the uniform of some tribe not native to these parts.
    Before Charles and his father arrived, our waitress produced for Stephen a battered book of children's Bible stories, and between orders, she sat with Stephen explaining to him how Jesus loved him. Stephen was tolerant. He listened to her and nodded, though he tapped his little foot to the music. Perhaps to get away from her at last, he pulled me out on the dance floor.
    So we're dancing. And when Charles and his father arrive, Charles and I dance, too. Soon Stan will be here to take Charles and me back to Iowa City while Stephen travels with his father to spend the weekend in Missouri.
    My car will stay in Ottumwa until it's fixed.
    We'll drive in opposite directions only to turn around and meet back in Bloomfield on Sunday night.
    In the meantime we're dancing—Charles and I, Stephen and I, and sometimes, if we can convince Charles, all three of us take hands and create a circle, circle counter to the clockwork box step of the couples,the citizens of Ottumwa, my former husband looking at his watch, my future husband, Stan, who's just arrived.
    The night's held back by our lights and the warmth of the cafe. Outside the window the extravagent yellow star atop its pink rainbow flickers and whines against the clatter of dishes and music. It washes our reflection, shows us luminously to one another.
    We're dancing, our circle abutting the story in place, the couples moving against us, making room for us as we dance in and out of the margins. What do we know of our strangeness? So little yet. Exhilarated, feeling the pull of the centrifugal, we tighten our grasp.

Police Reports
    Tuesday, 4:30 P.M.
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Youths who had climbed the fire escape to the roofs of downtown office