Bells of Avalon Read Free

alluring Vasillisa was brought to stand in for her bad dancing after all. The prudent Pratt repaired the mess, cutting most of her dancing scenes from the script. They wrapped three weeks early.  It was a smooth sequence of events that she would forever accredit to Danny, whether he deserved it or not.  
    But there would still be parties on Nestle Avenue.  On those nights there was nothing to stop him from stepping his nimble feet up the staircase and floating past the banister’s railings.  From there it was only seven paces (maybe nine—again, the counting would come later) to the sanctuary of her bedroom.  But she hadn’t known then there’d be no cause to worry. Her father wouldn’t live to give another party.  He died on Nestle Avenue, slumped over in his office chair and holding his pocket watch, still ticking where his heart no longer could. The latest nanny (this one’s name not mattering either) found him while Katie sat in math lessons across from Danny and the Kittredge brothers. The last kids on the lot.
    After class, Mrs. Sloan stood next to two men in sensible shoes and suits while they told her that her father had died. One of them wrote something down on a pad of paper while Mrs. Sloane asked her in a soft voice if she had understood what was said.  Katie told her that she had, which was true enough.  Someone took her hand and she flinched. She saw that it was Danny’s mother. She heard whispers and thought they were discussing what was to be done with her.  Danny’s mother spoke with the rolling rhythms of an accent she barely understood...but would soon know well.  
    “Please, if she’s no family here—allow her with us. My Daniel she knows since they were small. Just for tonight if there is no one else.”
    They looked down at her.  The taller of the two men knelt until her face was in line with his. He looked at her with tired eyes and, for one of the few times since she was seven years-old, she heard her real name said aloud by another. It sounded strange. She looked over to Danny, afraid to see some variation of the wicked face from before.  But there was nothing.  He stared at the floor, his newly-shined shoes swinging beneath him. He held tightly to her tattered book of crossword puzzles beneath one arm.
     

Chapter Two
    New York City, New York
    1966
    They came between the ages of eighteen and twenty-six.  Mid-western dollies out to make it in the big city. So many hopes, so many dreams sprung from the taxi-dancer films from a generation before. That was all old news. Nickle-dancing in the halls didn’t exist anymore. If a girl wanted to dance these days, she had to get in line with the hundreds of others fresh out of the American Ballet School—or the Brooklyn girls taught to tap eight ways from Sunday.  Most were lucky to hostess in satin step-ins, sling drinks, or pass out cigarettes in a joint like this one. Still they came: well-shaped versions of the same girl—again and again. Max wondered if they knew how similar they were to the girls who’d come before. Even how similar they looked standing next to one another at the bar, picking at their panti-legs and chattering.
    The glasses over the low-curving bar were wiped down to a spotless shine. The tables were spaced and covered with cream-colored linens. Every other day the staff put out black or white, depending on what the man delivered back from the laundry. The cream-colored linens were reserved for Saturday. Max wasn’t certain when that tradition had started. He supposed it had evolved out of necessity or happenstance, as most things did. Regardless, he liked the fact that they marked the days of the passing week. He needed to be reminded. Lately it felt as though all his days ran together.
    But something about tonight was different. He couldn’t quite pin down the feeling. What was different about tonight wasn’t obvious. Not obvious like the difference between black and cream-colored linens. It was odd