Astrid Sees All

by Natalie Standiford

  After about an hour Dad weakened, so we went home to let him rest. As I was leaving his bedside, Dad said, “ ‘Son of a gun, I thought that ball was out of here.’ ”

  I finished the quip. “ ‘Why don’t I just shut up?’ ”

  * * *

  He died a few days later. We had a funeral. Lots of people came. At the cemetery, a strange feeling overwhelmed me, like an allergic reaction: my throat closed, my vision bleached out, my lungs failed to draw air, my brain’s circuits stopped firing. My immune system was fighting off an infection of grief.

  For a whole day I couldn’t remember that Dad was dead. It was as if accepting his death would kill me, too. I lost my mind; I can admit it. If you don’t go at least a little crazy when your favorite person dies, something is wrong with you.

  But my reaction scared Mom. She wanted me to go to the hospital and stay there for a long time.

  I couldn’t do that. I had to get back to New York. I had reasons. A week after the funeral I started packing my things.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” Mom took the clothes out of my suitcase and put them back in my dresser. “You can’t leave now.”

  “Why not?”

  She pressed my folded nightgown to her chest. “You’re not strong enough.”

  I was an adult, twenty-two years old, capable of taking care of myself. I’d already proven that by living on my own for five months in New York. I didn’t need her to watch me.

  “You mean you’re not strong enough.”

  “Don’t pull that trick, Phoebe. Making your problems about me.”

  “I’m perfectly fine and there’s no reason for me to stay here. I’ve got things to do in New York.”

  It was practically the middle of December, and I was desperate to get back in time for New Year’s Eve. I needed money—a lot of money. It wasn’t just the high cost of living in New York, though that was a struggle. Things had gone sour with Ivan, and he’d given me a thousand dollars when I was in a jam. I had not been in a position to turn down the money, but I hated owing Ivan anything. I carried the debt in my body—a heaviness in the pit of my belly, as if I’d swallowed a paperweight. I couldn’t get rid of that heavy feeling.

  That was why I had to go back. I had a two-part plan: First, earn a thousand dollars. Second, burst into Ivan’s office and throw the money in his face. Then maybe I’d feel light again.

  I was broke—beyond broke—but I had a miraculous job waiting for me: telling fortunes at a party at Plutonium, a downtown nightclub. The downtown nightclub. Three hundred bucks for one night’s work. All I needed was a few more gigs like that and voilà, a thousand dollars. Downtown New York was full of buried treasure, and I was going on a hunt.

  Mom rubbed her tired eyes. “Don’t run away like this. Your father just died. You’re fragile. You need time.”

  “I’m not running away. I’m returning to my real life.”

  She closed my suitcase and put it back in the closet. “I’m sorry, Phoebe. But after what happened at the funeral… You’re staying here.”

  I could have yelled and kicked and screamed, but I knew that wouldn’t sway her. The problem was, without her help I couldn’t really go back. When Dad had gotten sick, I’d left my job at Bellow Books without giving notice. It didn’t pay enough to live on anyway. I was three months behind on my rent, and Robin was threatening to kick me out if I didn’t pay up immediately. I had nothing to pay her with, unless I asked my mother for a loan, which she’d never give me now. The fact that I needed her help paying the rent only strengthened her case.

  “I’ll stay until Christmas,” I conceded, irrationally hoping that I’d find a huge chunk of cash in my stocking.

  “I want to keep an eye on you for a few months at least. Till you’re stronger. New York isn’t going anywhere.”

  A few months! No.

  New York by New Year’s Eve. I refused to let this chance slip away. My life—by which I meant the life I wanted, a life I considered worth living—depended on it.

  * * *

  The house was full of sympathy flowers, ugly pastel arrangements that gradually withered and browned. No one had the heart or energy to throw them away, so I amused myself by slowly picking them apart, one by one, petal by petal, carpeting the floor with their crisp remains. In my room, I practiced telling fortunes using my special divination method: movie ticket stubs. I’d saved the ticket stubs from every movie I’d ever seen, keeping them in a shoebox decorated with stars and moons and mystical eyes. Throughout my childhood, whenever I had a question—Does Darryl Morgan like me? Is Winnie talking about me behind my back? Will I get into Yale? Have I met the person I will marry yet?—I asked the box. I shook it, reached inside, and picked out a ticket stub. The name of the movie on the stub gave me my answer.

  Some answers required interpretation, of course. When I asked if Darryl Morgan (the object of a torturous, unrequited high school crush) liked me, I pulled All the President’s Men. Darryl was friends with Lisa Buñuel, the student-body president. I decided that meant yes.

  In blue moods, I asked the box questions like, “What is the purpose of my life?” I’d ask the same question over and over, pulling out stubs and tossing them back until I got an answer that made sense. Ode to Billy Joe. Car Wash. The Aristocats. I suppose if you tried hard enough—if you squinted—you could come up with a philosophy of life from those titles, but I never managed it. Still, I believed in the magic shoebox. It was my personal I Ching, my tea leaves, my tarot deck.

  “Does Ivan think about me?” I asked the box.

  Zelig.

  Maybe if I rephrased the question. “Did he ever care about me?”

  Stardust Memories. Two Woody Allens in a row.

  I occupied myself this way, mutilating flowers and telling imaginary fortunes, for two miserable weeks. Christmas came and no cash appeared in my stocking, only a candy cane, barrettes, and lip gloss. Just when I’d been ready to leave one cage, I’d landed in another.

  But there was one more package under the tree, a mysterious square box wrapped in brown paper, addressed to me.

  “What’s this?”

  “It came in the mail yesterday,” Mom said. “I forgot to give it to you, so I put it under the tree.”

  I opened the box. Inside, nestled in tissue paper, was a blue silk turban. The card said, I saw this and thought: Phoebe needs this turban. For your fortune-teller costume. See you on New Year’s Eve. Love, C.

  I put on the turban and checked my reflection in the mirror. With all my hair covered, my pale face had a disembodied, ghostly quality. I looked strange and mysterious. Unfamiliar. I liked it.

  I pulled the phone into my room and called Carmen to thank her. I half expected her not to be home—she so rarely was—but Sarita answered and put her on.

  “Hey,” she said. “When are you getting your ass back up here?”

  “If my mother has her way, never.”

  “Is she keeping you chained to your bed? She can’t hold you prisoner. And what about Plutonium? Partying with famous people on New Year’s Eve! You can’t miss that. It’s once in a lifetime.”

  “I’ve got no place to live. Robin has already rented my room to some girl from Connecticut.” She’d called a few days earlier to let me know that she was going to pile my stuff on the sidewalk if I didn’t come pick it up soon.

  “I always said that Robin was a bitch.”

  “Yeah. Anyway…” I waited for Carmen to invite me to stay with her and Sarita. They didn’t have much space, but I could sleep on the couch.

  She was quiet.

  “Thanks for the turban! That’s why I called.”

  “Do you like it?”

  “I love it. I’m wearing it right now.”

  “Good. It was worth it then.”

  “What was worth it?”

  “All the trouble I’m in.”

  “What trouble?”

  She was quiet again.

  “Carmen?”


  “I stole the turban. From Bertha.”

  “You stole it?” I pulled the turban off as if it might burst into flames on my head.

  “She has a closet full of them. I didn’t think she’d miss it.”

  “But… she did miss it?”

  “She fired me.”

  “I thought that was impossible.” Bertha adored Betsy Dietz. Carmen had always assumed that Bertha wouldn’t want to upset Betsy by firing her daughter, even if her daughter’s attitude was on the slack side.

  “Apparently it’s possible.”

  “Shit. Well, you hated that job anyway.”

  “It gets worse. Bertha told Mom that she’d fired me. For stealing! It sounds so harsh. And of course Mom squealed to Dad. I tried to explain I was only borrowing the turban for a friend, but they won’t listen to me. Dad says he can’t trust me anymore.” She sighed. “So now they’re saying I have to go back to the Humph in January, first thing.”

  “What?” She’d told me a little about her stint in the Humphrey-Worth Center, a psychiatric hospital in Westchester County. She’d pleaded with her parents to send her to Silver Hill instead because Edie Sedgwick had done time there in 1962, but they were in no mood to indulge her whims.

  “I know. I’m not even using! I have nothing to rehab myself for. It’s ridiculous. But Dad doesn’t believe me. Everybody’s overreacting.”

  Whenever Carmen did anything wrong, made any slight miscalculation or lapse in judgment, her parents accused her of falling back under Atti’s spell and shooting up again. She was seeing Atti, secretly, behind their backs, of course. And lying about it, saying she was with me. But she wasn’t using heroin anymore.

  “Carmen. I love the turban but it wasn’t worth it.”

  “Don’t say that. It’s for the party!”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I was thinking,” she said. “I need to get out of here. And you need to get out of there….”

  “Wherever you go, I want to go with you.”

  “We could hide out in the East Village, at Atti’s. We’ll just leave it all behind. No one will find us there unless we want to be found. It’s the Land of the Lost.”

  Lost. I wanted to get lost.

  “Are you in?”

  “I’m in.”

  We planned it together. I’d sneak out late that night and catch the train to New York. Carmen would meet me at Penn Station and take me downtown to Atti’s. We’d go to Plutonium on New Year’s Eve; I’d tell fortunes and get the money I’d been promised. We were sure our Fates awaited us at the party, ready to change the course of our lives.

  “The train gets in at five a.m.,” I said.

  “I’ll be there.”

  * * *

  Late that night, after Mom and Laurel had gone to bed, I scribbled a note: I’m sorry, but I had to go back to New York. Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine. PROMISE. I’ll call you soon. Love, Phoebe.

  I slipped out of the house with one suitcase, my box of movie ticket stubs, the turban, and the baseball bat signed by Phil Rizzuto that Dad left me in his will. Then I hurried through the night to catch the train to New York. This time, I was going underground, with Carmen as my guide.

  2 AN APARTMENT

  We arrived at Astor Place by subway, two fugitives, and walked through the cold to Atti’s. It was dawn. Colored Christmas lights blinked quietly in tenement windows while the neighborhood slept it off. In the southwest corner of Tompkins Square Park a rooster perched on the head of a statue, silhouetted against the whitening sky. I had been up all night on the train from Baltimore.

  Atti lived on Seventh and C. His apartment door stood open, but he wasn’t home. We crashed on the mattress, still bundled in our coats and hats, and slept until three in the afternoon, when Carmen rolled over and wrapped her arms around my waist, murmuring, “Atti…”

  “It’s me.” I brushed her hair out of her face and she hugged me tighter, then nipped my ear with her teeth. She sat up and looked around. Still no Atti.

  I tried to see Atti’s apartment as charmingly bohemian, but it was difficult. One room, no heat, no hot water, electricity siphoned from the light fixture in the hall. Two gated windows overlooking a trash-strewn vacant lot and beyond that, the neon beacon of a liquor store sign. He’d furnished it with junk he’d found on the curb: a stained and sheetless mattress piled with blankets; a child’s wooden table and chair; a plastic lamp shaped like a pair of lips; a paint-by-numbers picture of a huge-eyed girl in capri pants putting a record on a turntable. A combat boot with a hole in the sole lay next to a pair of worn blue Keds. Candy wrappers, beer bottles, and fast food containers littered the floor, everything coated with a film of grime except the two guitars, one acoustic and one electric, propped in a corner against a beat-up Marshall amp.

  “Zowie, it stinks in here.” Carmen lifted the window in spite of the cold. An open can of pineapple chunks rotted on the sill. She touched the radiator and shivered. “Let’s get out of here.”

  We headed to Avenue A, snatching up a copy of the East Village Underground on the way. Flyers clung to walls and lampposts on every block, advertising bands and stoop sales and guitar lessons and the fact that a girl named Susannah Byers, who gazed at us from her high school yearbook picture with feathered hair like Farrah Fawcett’s, was missing.

  Inside Odessa it was so warm the front window dripped with steam. We settled in a booth and ordered coffee and pierogies and eggs; then we opened the paper and scanned the classifieds, circling promising jobs and apartments. By the time we returned to Atti’s it was dark out and he was home. He greeted me with a hug and kissed Carmen on her forehead, each cheek, her chin, and then her mouth, a sign of the cross. Then he shut the window and slid his bony body under the pile of blankets. He was so thin I thought of a character from one of my favorite children’s books: Flat Stanley, who was flattened like a sheet of cookie dough by a falling bulletin board. Flat Stanley could slide under locked doors and visit faraway friends by being folded up and mailed in an envelope. He could pretend to be a painting on a museum wall. He was two-dimensional.

  “Atti, what happened to the heat?” Carmen asked.

  He shrugged. “I don’t know, the water went off? It’s okay. My downstairs neighbor has an electric heater. He lets me crash on his floor.” Carmen crossed her arms and waited to hear more. “His name is Dean. He’s got a hot plate too. He gives me hot soup.”

  “In exchange for what?”

  “Carmen, stop it. Do you want to stay here or don’t you?”

  The door opened and a young man poked his head into the room. “Hey Atti—you got company? I thought I heard voices.”

  “You must be Dean,” Carmen said.

  “In the flesharooni.” Dean sat on Atti’s floor, scratching dirt off his knee through a hole in his pants.

  “Atti, does he have to be here?”

  “What’s wrong with him? Dean’s cool.”

  To show us how cool he was, Dean stretched his mouth wide with his fingers and said, “Eeeeeeeeeeeeeee.”

  “You got anything to eat?” Atti asked.

  “No,” Dean said. “But I’m itchin’ for some yardbird.”

  “What’s yardbird?” I asked.

  “Chickenarooni.”

  “Dean thinks he’s Jack Kerouac,” Atti said.

  “Naw, man. Charlie Parker. He lived around the corner from here, you know.”

  “Everybody knows that,” Carmen said.

  “I didn’t,” I said.

  Dean went out to the Dominican place on the corner and brought back Styrofoam containers of chicken and rice and plantains and a six of Bud. We ate the chickenarooni and drank the beerarooni sitting on the floorarooni, listening to Berlin on Atti’s boom boxarooni.

  “Whaddya say, Atti? Hit the park? Find the Oz-Man?”

  “Yeah.”

  “He’s got that great stuff, what’s it called,” Dean said. “Pomegranate Seed? Blows your hair off your scalp. Girls coming with?”


  It was almost midnight, and freezing out. “We’re going to sleep,” Carmen said.

  “Be back soon.” Atti kissed Carmen. The guys went out to score, leaving me and Carmen to huddle together on the bed, listening to bottles and car windows shatter outside, angry and lovesick drunks bellowing in the street, and mice skittering in the walls. I’m free, I thought happily. I’m with Carmen and I’m free.

  The apartment was a meat locker, but we didn’t go to Dean’s place with the heater. “I don’t trust him,” Carmen said. “That phony beatnik talk, the way he smiles wide with his mouth while his eyes shift around. I feel safer here.”

  “The door doesn’t lock.” I played with the flimsy hook-and-eye latch that barely kept Atti’s door closed. “Not in any meaningful way.”

  “If someone really wants to come in, a lock won’t keep them out.” She curled up and pulled the covers to her chin. “They won’t be back.” Not before morning, she meant. We had the place to ourselves and could sleep in peace, or try to, until they stumbled home and collapsed.

  * * *

  In the morning, I woke from a fitful sleep, cold, dirty, and unrefreshed. There was no sign of Atti.

  “He’s a vampire,” Carmen said. “You’ll see him at night.” She sat up and rubbed her eyes. “I’m sorry about this place, Phoebe. I haven’t been here in a while. I didn’t realize how bad things had gotten.” She kicked the Underground with the toe of her sock. “Do you want to stay here?”

  “Well… do you?”

  She shook her head. “We’ll get some breakfast and then go chase down these apartment leads.”

  I followed her downstairs. She opened Dean’s door without knocking. He was asleep in his bed, and Atti was passed out in the dry bathtub, wearing his jeans and no shirt. His skin was gray and drops of blood seeped out of one nostril. “Is he okay?” I asked.

  Carmen called his name and rubbed his bony sternum with her knuckles.

  “Ow.” He stirred, opened his eyes, grunted, and curled into a fetal position.