The Fancy Dancer

wasn’t.
    The Shoups lived on Daly Avenue, one of the “nice” streets in town. I had to park down the street from their handsome brick house, because the other council members were already parked in front. As I walked up the flagstone walk, I could look through the tall windows in the masses of Virginia creeper and see the council already sitting around the living room.
    “Oh, Father, we’d almost given you up,” Mrs.
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    Shoup told me at the door. She was never diplomatic about telling me I was late.
    Laura Shoup was a big busty woman who always wore brocade suits in the evening, no matter what kind of an affair she was going to, and patent leather pumps no matter what time of the year it was. She wore a lot of good-quality jangling costume jewelry, and as far as she was concerned, rouge and powder had never gone out of style. Her broad high-colored mask of a face was brought to life violently by her restless, burning black eyes.
    I sat down and listened. Vidal’s voice was still in " my ears, and his face was still drifting in front of my eyes. Sometimes I found myself losing track of the discussion.
    The council members were arranged around the plush living room like living pieces of the bric-a-brac that Mrs. Shoup loved. Mrs. Shoup had a Victorian’s taste earned out in new things. She had that same love of drapes loaded with ball fringe, but hers were lilac chiffon. The pink velvet sofa and armchairs looked as if they were lost somewhere between the Gay Nineties and Danish modem. The room was cluttered with little tables, and the tables were cluttered with china collectables—mostly Chinese ladies and dogs. On the mantel stood a shiny brass 365-day clock that insurance man Dick Shoup had been presented by the Elks as last year’s “Businessman of the Year” in Cottonwood. Mrs. Shoup’s two yappy white toy poodles rushed around the room like more live china.
    The council members sat bogged down in the pink armchairs. They reflected the age spread within the parish, and in the town itself. They were either very young, or they were middle-aged-to-old, with nothing in between. At my insistence, we had included two Catholic high school seniors, Jamie Ogilvie and Sissy Wood, who had made (as far as I was concerned) a big contribution. I was literally the only member in the twenty-to-thirty-five age group. We had had one fine couple in that age group, the Murchisons. But they had gotten so involved with trying to start a flying service at the Cottonwood airport (he was a pilot) that they’d had to drop out.
    ‘Well,” said Mrs. Shoup crisply, “now that Father’s finally here, we can start.”
    She nodded at the council president, Mrs. Ida Shaw, with the air of a famous conductor ordering the symphony to get ready.
    Mrs. Shaw was exactly the opposite of Mrs. Shoup. She was the salt of the earth of my parish ladies, and if Father Vance, the Bishop of Helena and the Pope would have allowed it, I would have made her a deacon. She was spiritual, hard-working, no-nonsense, kind. She was head of the local Bicentennial Committee and the Cottonwood Historical Society, and had once confided to me that she’d like to run for mayor someday. She was a handsome widow in her mid-forties with warm brown eyes, a fondness for sweater outfits, a single strand of real pearls, and warm brown hair that uncharitable people suspected came from a Clairol bottle. When the council had elected Mrs. Shaw to be its president, Mrs. Shoup had said out loud that the forces of liberalism would have to be carefully countered.
    “Well, the first thing on the agenda is the Bicentennial, of course,” said Mrs. Shaw in her soft voice. “And our progress on same. Father, last week we discussed if the St. Mary’s Home would be open in time for the Bicentennial. Do you have any more information this week?”
    “Well, Beaupre told me the other day that die shipment of two-inch lead pipe finally came in,” I said. “With a little bit of luck, the plumbing can be in and we can open in August.”
    “One of your first patients is going to be my mother,” said Mrs. Pufescu. “She’s gotten to be impossible. I just can’t look after her at home anymore.”
    “You’ll be lucky to get her in,” I said. "We’ve got quite a waiting list.”
    “Please, no out-of-order discussions,” said Mrs. Shaw. “We’ve got a lot of ground to cover tonight. Father, what about the float for the parade?”
    More than a year ago, when the town