Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic - 3. Be My Baby from Dirty Dancing

As she said this, the door to the kitchen opens and Ivan rushed into the kitchen. He rushed to the drawers.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m looking for a knife to kill myself... what do you think I’m doing? I’m trying to find the bottle opener.”

“You’re looking in the wrong drawer for a start. It’s in the first drawer on the right, on the other side of the room.”

“Thanks Mum. Love ya.”

“I love you too. What’s brought this on?”

“Oh Nothing.”

“You want something don’t you?”

“Maybe... Mum is it alright if have a friend over to study?” Ivan began to look around and adjusted his posture slightly so that he looked really uncomfortable.

“Who is he?”

“He? Did I tell you he was a he? He could have been a she-he or a he-she or she or a... it’s a he. He’s just a friend from school in my Physics class”

“You finished physics last semester. You do Biology now. Do you mean biology?”

“Yes.”

“Okay... I will go to the café tonight or I’ll just stay in the basement as I usually do on lonely nights...”

“Oh Mum... why don’t you make yourself look gorgeous and go to the café and see if you can charm the pants off the guys there?”

“Oh... okay.” She smiled at him and raced out of the room to get ready.

As she crossed into the hall, the house phone rang and Erica ran over to answer it. “Hello, Rosalia Residence. Erica speaking... Oh Tony it’s you... oh you want to meet in the café tonight at 7? Yeah that should be okay... I’ll see if my son wants to go somewhere else so we can have the place to ourselves if we want to... okay speak later honey... bye”. Erica took herself into the living room so she could do her makeup.

From upstairs, Ivan hears the phone ring and screams, “I have it!”

He picked up the house phone and the resonant tones of Brandon’s sensual voice began to ring, “Hello handsome.”

“Brandon, that could have been my mother!” Ivan whispered extremely quietly.

Brandon replied with a serpent like tone, “Sorry, I can’t help it if I find your face so amazing, can I?”

Ivan blushed and said even quieter, “Oh... shut up...”

Brandon started to whistle, “So... do I have permission to stay tonight?”

“Well... about that...” Ivan didn’t quite know what to say to him.

“Oh babe... just tell me...”

“Well... she thinks you are coming over to study... I can try to get rid of her...”

Brandon suddenly became annoyed with Ivan and replied, “Just send her down to the café, that’s where she usually goes.”

“Oh... alright... I’ll call you when I can.. I love you...”

“I love you too, I can't wait to show you what I have in surprise for you” With that, Brandon hung the phone up.

Erica suddenly shouted from downstairs “What are you doing Ivan? Come down here now please.” Ivan gulped to himself and started to make his way down the stairs and saw his mother leaning against the wall and waiting to give him a lecture. He was already well prepared.

“Ivan... you know that I love you...”

Ivan was taken by surprise by this sudden change in attitude. “What do you want, Mother?”

“Would you like to go to your friend’s house tonight instead of him coming here?”

Ivan had a sudden panic rise up from inside him. He thought to himself, “I can’t stay at Brandon’s, his parents don’t know about me... what am I supposed to say... I know”

He vocally expressed, “Er... Mum, I can’t. His parents are holding a cheese and wine evening at their house and he wants to get away from it.”

She laughed. “Oh I see, I’ll go out I guess.”

She walked into the kitchen and grabbed the scrapbook off the table. “Here... can you hide this for me? Somewhere no one will find it and so I cant find it.”

“Okay.”

Erica started to go up the stairs as Ivan began to put the book away. Then Erica raced back into the room. “Before you do... I need to check something.”

She began to search the book rapidly, going through the pages as if she was going to rip them out. Ivan just simply watched in awe. She looked over and over through the pages and she couldn’t find it. She collapsed into a chair.

“Mother? Mother... are you okay?”

“Yes... yes I’m fine, I’m just a little surprised... And worried.”

“I’m sure you’ll be fine... Go and get changed... I’m sure you’ll look stunning.” He smiled largely at her.

As she began to head up the stairs, the thought occurred to her, “That drawing, what if... what if... what if Tony picked it up... my secret would be revealed... oh my God... he did pick it up when I left it... damn...”

As she headed upstairs, Ivan tidied the notebook up and placed it behind the gap in the cupboard in the living room. She wouldn’t look there. He always kept stuff there. It wouldn’t even occur to her.

Erica was getting changed thinking, “I know exactly where he will put it... behind the cupboard in the gap... I’ve seen him store some indecent pictures there... I guess he was keeping them for his girl friends... pictures of men playing chess. Naked chess...”

After storing the scrapbook, Ivan took the downstairs phone and rang Brandon. “Hi Brandon... is anyone around? ... oh good... well if you want to, you can come over in about an hour and we can have a little bit of fun together... if you so wish...”. Ivan could hear Brandon scream with excitement and just before he hung up he could hear the sounds of Brandon falling about the place trying to tidy up.

As Brandon hung up, Erica came down the stairs wearing an elegant number. A blue long satin dress with sequins running along the waist and with several crystals on her upper body, making her look like a gleaming enchantress.

“Wow... Mother you look amazing!”

“Why thank you Ivan”

She made her way over to the other side of the room, picked up her classic camera and placed it in her shoulder bag. “I might need this, you never know what photographs I can make.”

She thought to herself, “I’m going to get a better photo than last time... a more interesting one...”

Ivan smiled at her and realised that she was in mid-thought and smiled bigger and Erica snapped out of it and smiled back at him and as this was done she made her way out of the door thinking of what experiences she was going to have this evening...

**

The clock chimed seven o’clock in the evening and it was noted that the year was once again “1969”. Erica, in her aged state, looked upon her son, her only son, with a look of pure disgust for what he was doing. She turned away and took her stick and began to struggle towards the seating next to the window. She sat down and waited for her son to emerge. She thought, “It was so obvious... those pictures of men playing chess, that boy Brandon he is kissing... it was so obvious... but it couldn’t have been... my son... my beautiful son... he just cannot be...”

She takes another aging photograph out from her handbag. She looked at the photo and her tears start again. For this picture contained the group of them. Ivan, her, Tony, Brandon and Mellissa together by a taxi rank. She looked at the photo and sighed loudly. As she did this, she buried her head in her hands and began to massage her eyebrows lightly...