Step-Ball-Change by Jeanne Ray

Stamp, who kept right on barking.
    “Isn’t George still in law school?”
    “Of course he’s still in law school. He just came down to cover my class for me so I could be here when you got in. To tell you the truth, I thought you’d be coming later.”
    “Minnie, I wish you wouldn’t let George teach.”
    “Teach ballet?”
    “It’s not exactly encouraging him to go in the right direction.”
    “Which direction?”
    Taffy shrugged. “You know I think the world of George. All I’m saying is that it’s pretty clear that he could go either way, and ballet classes never steered any young man toward a normal family life.”
    “Are we talking about George being gay?” I had forgotten that Taffy had a penchant for speaking in code when the subject made her uncomfortable. “George isn’t gay. Besides, this class is for four- and five-year-olds. It isn’t a particularly corrupting level of dance.”
    “I still think it would be safer if he stuck to law school.”
    I wanted to explain that he was sticking to law school, but when I heard a thumping in the front hallway I went to help Kay wrestle in Taffy’s suitcase. It was red leather, the same as the little bag I had carried in, but this one called to mind the kind of steamer trunks one took to Europe in the twenties if one was going to Europe for a year or two. Kay was sweating and her face was flushed, but she still looked calmer than she had when she left.
    “How did you get that thing in the car?” I asked Taffy.
    Kay slumped over the top of the suitcase and took a few deep breaths. “There’s another one.”
    “I wasn’t sure about what I’d need,” Taffy said. “I was up in the middle of the night and I just kept putting more things in.”
    I thought about the way women in movies packed when they were leaving their husbands. They opened up a dresser drawer, scooped up the silky contents without looking at it, dropped it all into a suitcase, and then snapped the suitcase shut and made for the door, the feather-light bag in one hand. Taffy seemed to be operating on that principle, but she had clearly hit every drawer, every closet, in the house.
    “Is Uncle Neddy coming up?” Kay said.
    Taffy and I both looked at her. I remembered then that I hadn’t told Kay about Neddy’s junior executive. Last night wasn’t the time, what with Trey and the ring, and there hadn’t been a chance yet this morning.
    “Neddy—” I said.
    “Neddy left me,” Taffy said. When she said it she turned away from us. I thought she was going to walk outside and collect herself for a minute, but instead she sat down on the floor in the front hallway as if all her packing and driving had suddenly caught up with her and she could not go another step. I was worried that there was drywall dust on the floor. As soon as she sat down, Stamp abandoned his post of growling and came trotting into the hall and climbed into my sister’s lap. He made two full rotations on her soft camel pants, curled into a tight ball, and fell asleep. Then Taffy started to cry, and at the sight of those tears Kay began to cry, because Kay never could stand to see anyone else cry. She sat down on the floor and put her arms around Taffy. Stamp, perhaps exhausted by his long spate of ill temper, did not lift his head. They cried together on the floor, my daughter and my sister, until I was reduced to tears myself and slid down the wall to join them.
    “I didn’t know,” Kay said.
    I was glad that she didn’t know because I think all of this crying made Taffy feel she had come to the right place after all. Taffy took Kay’s hand and squeezed it, receiving the solid bite of the five-and-a-half-carat diamond for her troubles.
    “My God,” Taffy said. “You’re engaged.” She turned to me because I was the one who should have told her. “Why didn’t you tell me Kay was engaged?”
    “It only happened last night.”
    “Kay,” Taffy said, her mascara starting to run, “I’m so happy for