Downtown

by Norma Fox Mazer

  After about six months of being Pete Greenwood, it began to seem almost like my real name. Sometimes I even wrote it on my school papers without first reminding myself, You’re Pete Greenwood. I had taken to writing very carefully, very slowly, to give myself time to remember. But even after I began writing “Pete Greenwood” automatically on top of my school papers, I never got over my fear that someone would know or guess the truth about me.

  I worried the most about Drew, because we were together so much. It was Drew who decided we were going to be friends. Every morning, wearing a Yankee tee-shirt and tossing a baseball, he waited for me on the corner of Brighton and Western avenues near the school. He must have worn something else at times—a jacket, a sweater—but what I remember is that Yankee tee-shirt and his blue baseball cap. Even then, when we were only eight years old, he was built like a tree. He was solid. And even then, despite my nearly constant underground anxiety, I knew that I would always know where I stood with Drew. There were no surprises, no shadows, nothing hiding behind his rosy-faced friendliness but friendliness. Knowing that Drew would be there on that corner made it a lot easier for me to get out of bed every morning in this strange new world, without my parents and without my own name.

  “Got you!” Drew said now, grabbing me in a bear hug. I managed to hook a foot behind his ankle and we both went down, but with Drew on top.

  “Say uncle, Pete.”

  “Like hell.”

  “Uncle, Pete!”

  I pounded him. He grabbed my hands and held them easily in his two big paws. My helplessness brought something sour into my throat. I thrashed around. “Get the hell off me, Gregoretti.”

  He didn’t move, grinned wider, sat there big and superior. I love you, Drew, the girls said, but never had one said it to me. I stopped struggling and just lay there and felt depressed about everything. Girls … and what I knew about me and my parents that no one else knew … and how it set me apart … made me different from everyone else. Secretly different.

  On some level, I was always pretending, always playing a role. See me be Pete-the-normal-average-American-boy. My differentness wasn’t something I could point to or talk about. It wasn’t like the comedian I’d seen on TV, a woman who had cerebral palsy and made you laugh about things you always thought you had to be so secret and sober about. One of her routines was, “Hi, I’m Jill, I have cerebral palsy. What’s your problem?”

  Hi, I’m Pete-Pax, I have parents hiding from the law. What’s your problem?

  “Hey, bozo, say uncle.”

  “Forget it.”

  “Stubborn little runt, aren’t you?”

  I forced a grin as big as his. It was unworthy of me to be depressed. Hal and Laura were the special people. Heroes, doing the deeds that would save humanity. In a flash I saw them bestriding the world like the ancient gods and heroes, my mother an Amazon, my father a Colossus. Next to them, all others were puny. I forced the smile to be proud … my mouth stretched … Hal … Laura … you’re mine, my parents … someday everyone will know.…

  My forehead broke out in a sweat. Everyone will know. Just thinking it was like a door opening. The other thoughts came sweeping in through that open door. Those people … shouldn’t have been there … bodies … why did they … bodies … and two people … No. No! No. Push it away, don’t think it, don’t let it be there in your head.

  I closed my eyes, blanked out. Nothing there. No thoughts, no bad thoughts, nothing … nothing.

  “Hey, you playing dead?” Drew lightly slapped me on the face.

  I kept my eyes closed.

  Nothing … nothing … nothing … my mind all dark and empty, blank …

  The bell rang. “Saved by the bell,” Drew said, getting up. “Next time, Pete, you say uncle twice to make up for it.”

  I stood up, stretched, yawned and yawned and yawned. I was suddenly exhausted. It was an effort for me to lope along with Drew toward school, an effort to say in as casual a voice as his, “You could have sat on me till Christmas and I wouldn’t have said it.”

  From the Manila Envelope

  Couple, Eight-Year-Old Son Missing

  Following information given them by unnamed sources, FBI agents tonight searched the apartment of Harold (Hal) and Laura Connors, who are wanted for questioning in the Femmer Laboratory bombing. The couple, who has been active in a movement known as Air, Water, Earth (AWE), have not been seen for over a week. The FBI has refused to release any information on the missing couple and their child.

  When questioned, neighbors described the couple as “lovely people,” “so gentle,” “devoted to their little boy.” One neighbor in their modest apartment building, Mrs. Rita Ritzo, cried as she talked about the family. “I’m all alone. I lost my husband last year. I baby-sat for the boy now and then, and they were wonderful to me. One Sunday they took me along when they had a picnic. I can’t believe what they’re saying on the TV and in the newspapers.”

  Five

  Ordinarily, if I don’t have anything else to do after school, I go to Gene’s office. There’s always work there for me—sweeping floors or stuffing envelopes or making a run to the post office for stamps. Whatever, I do it. But the day before my birthday, I just didn’t feel like the office. Still no letter from my parents. Okay, that’s cool. Probably Gene would give me a check—that is, if he remembered the big day. I decided not to expect anything, then I couldn’t be disappointed. Very sensible, but I was a little depressed, anyway.

  Looking for some conversation, I stopped in to see Martha in her corner store. For once she was busy. She does charcoal and pastel portraits for ten dollars a shot. People think she must be rolling in dough at that rate, but what they don’t understand is how few people are willing to part with a tenner for a portrait of little Janie or Johnny.

  She was at work on a charcoal of a little girl with big chipmunk teeth. This kid couldn’t keep all of her still for more than two seconds. Her mother kept saying, “Let the lady draw your picture! Danielle! Don’t wriggle!”

  Danielle twitched, fidgeted, sighed, tapped her feet, and twiddled her fingers. “Hey, Danielle,” I said, “watch this.” I flapped my hands in my ears and crossed my eyes. Danielle looked bored.

  “Good try,” Martha said.

  Christmas is Martha’s big season. The rest of the year she does what she calls “eking.” Gene calls her apartment a little hole in the wall, but Martha always has it filled with big bunches of dried grasses and lots of her own watercolors of barns and streams in autumn, so actually you don’t pay much attention to how dark and small it is. And to listen to her talk about shopping in secondhand stores, you’d think it was a rare privilege for her not to be able to afford new things. “Old clothes have cachet,” she says. “They’ve been broken in, softened, they’re not hard and garish like so many new things.”

  Sometimes I feel guilty because Martha has so little money, while I don’t have any money worries at all (thank you, Uncle Gene), but I don’t see what I can do about making things any different for her. Well, actually that ties right into one of my fantasies, too.

  This one starts with me as the rising young lawyer who defends a case (brilliantly, for something important like free speech), up to the Supreme Court. My eloquence makes me famous, brings me tons of clients. I get rich and have more money than I know what to do with. I tell Martha I won’t allow her to waste her talents for another moment on ten-dollar charcoal sketches of squirmy brats. She’s going to have a real studio, with northern light, all the expensive oils she wants, canvases, models, the whole works. And what do I want in return? Nothing! Just the satisfaction of knowing I’ve helped her. But Martha is so impressed by my noble unselfishness, she falls in love with me and begs me to make love to her. Which I do, after only a little hesitation. (Tough luck, Uncle Gene.)

  When I left Martha, it had started to rain, a kind of warm spring rain. I stopped in the Nut Shoppe to buy a bag of hot peanuts. A girl was sitting on a high stool behind the counter
at the back of the store. I say that so casually, but seeing her I thought—Oh!

  Her hair was pulled back clean from a high shining forehead with a tortoiseshell band. She had a little round chin and tiny gold birds pinned into her ears. She was reading a book and wore a blue and white checked smock with the sleeves rolled up to the elbow. That smock was all wrong. The smock was Peasant. The girl was Princess. She was beautiful, but it was something else that drew me to her. Something about her, something different—I didn’t know what. Not the princess thing. No, quite the contrary—princesses scared me, and in one way, so did she. Yet the moment I saw her, something changed for me. I had to know her.

  She looked up, a brief cool glance, clicked her tongue as if I were an annoyance instead of a customer, put a marker in her book, closed it, and slid off the stool. All very deliberate. No hurry. The aliens had captured her, dropped her into this mundane peanut-selling shop and wouldn’t let her leave. But she knew (and now I knew) she was of royal blood.

  “May I help you?” she said.

  “Peanuts … I mean, a pound—hot—please, thank you.” I all but bent from the waist. I paid for the peanuts and walked over to Gene’s office, thinking about the girl and going ohhh, ohhh, ohhh to myself.

  As soon as I walked in, Janice Silk, my uncle’s receptionist, crooked her finger at me. Silky’s worked for Gene as long as I can remember. Once, on some anniversary or other, Gene said she was just like a member of the family, but it’s not true. Silky has her own family, two sons and two daughters, Gene and I have each other, and none of us ever get together outside the office.

  “Am I glad to see you,” Silky said, glancing at the couple in the waiting room. “The lab needs a good cleaning. Your uncle was wondering where you were. He’s in room two with a patient.”

  The door to room two was open. “Now look at the center of this ruler I’m holding across my nose,” Gene was saying to the man in the chair. He flashed a light into the man’s eyes. “Fine, fine, very good.” Gene always sounds tremendously encouraging as he puts his patients through the routine refractions, as if they’re passing a difficult test. I waved to him, made sweeping motions, and pointed toward the lab.

  I got out the cleaning stuff and then just stood there daydreaming. Stop thinking about the Peanut Princess. Discipline the mind. Concentrate on important things, like sweeping. Okay, I’m not thinking about her anymore. (Then why am I thinking about her?)

  I leaned on the broom. I had to see her again. The only question was, when? I could act cool (SIR SKINNY LEGS DECIDES TO MAKE PEANUT PRINCESS WAIT FOR HER SECOND ELECTRIFYING GLIMPSE OF HIS INCREDIBLE PRESENCE) and not go there for several days. Good move, but what if, in the meantime, she met another guy, quit the job, or moved away? Obviously, I should act fast. Go back tomorrow. However, in order not to be totally obvious about my interest in her, this time I’d buy pistachios. And while she was weighing and bagging them, I’d impress the hell out of her. (How was I going to do that? The same way I’d knocked her socks off today with my wit and charm? Uhhh, a pound of peanuts … uhhh, hot … uhhh, thank you. What would I do for an encore—show her my legs?)

  I pushed the broom around the floor. Why so humble? The Princess and the Peasant! Pete, that is disgusting. Listen up: The Princess is not your type (since when did I have a type?), she wears too much makeup (now I’m an expert on makeup?), and has serious character defects—aloof, cold. (Was I sure about that? What if she was just shy?) She was pretty—I’d give her that. (Generous of me. She was actually gorgeous and probably had truckloads of guys following her every step.)

  I swept up the dust and dropped it into the wastebasket. How to make her notice me? How not to be just another one of the drooling mob panting after her?

  “Everything okay, Pete?” Gene said, passing by. Typically, he had a mild, worried expression, something like a bighorn sheep, an expression that at certain times could vastly irritate me.

  “Everything’s terrific, Uncle G,” I called after him. I pinched my nose and honked, “My dear Miss Nut Shoppe, I have admired you from afar, but now the time has come to speak out.”

  All through supper I thought about the girl. All evening when I was supposedly studying I thought about her, and lots and lots when I was in bed. First thing in the morning I thought about her and all day in school. Was the Peanut Princess really that four-star special? Or was I doing a number on myself so I wouldn’t have to think how today was my birthday and how I hadn’t heard from Laura and Hal?

  Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me, happy birthday, Pete Pax, happy birthday to me. Okay, I was feeling sorry for myself. Poor little neglected birthday boy. I actually felt too sorry for me to even want to go see the Peanut Princess. What for? So she could snub me? I felt so sorry for me that instead of running the couple of miles downtown from school, which always made me feel more athletic than I am, I ate my way home. I stopped in every little grocery and fast-food place I passed. I had:

  1. A Giant Benny Burger.

  2. Two cones of McDonald’s French fries.

  3. Three fat House of Pancakes’ blueberry pancakes.

  4. A triple-dip black and white soft ice cream coated with chocolate and sprinkles (fifty cents extra).

  5. A large bag of corn chips, a large bag of potato chips, two coconut candy bars, and three soft drinks.

  Happy birthday to me.

  Six

  Martha rapped on my door. “Pete, we’re going to have supper.”

  “I’m not hungry.” I was lying on my bed, me and my birthday bellyache.

  “Up, boy. Gene’s been working for hours on one of his famous gourmet productions.”

  I waved her away.

  “What can I do to change your mind?”

  “Nothing,” I said.

  She left, but a few minutes later she was back again holding a huge white frosted cake. “Surprise! You are surprised, aren’t you? I told Gene you didn’t realize what was going on. We’re having a little party for you. This is my contribution.”

  “You baked it?”

  “Did you ever hear of me baking anything? This is an On the Rise Bakery special. I told them seventeen candles. One for each year and one to grow on. That’s the way we always did it back home.” She slapped my hand away from the frosting. “Come on, comb your hair, tuck in your shirt, and come down. And don’t forget I only bought this cake, but Gene’s been working on this dinner for hours.”

  The dining room table was set with Gene’s best stuff. It looked like something out of a magazine. There were even flowers in the middle.

  Gene came in from the kitchen carrying the soup tureen in two hands. He was wearing his long blue linen chef’s apron. Too bad I wasn’t hungry. Besides the bouillabaisse, there was asparagus, which I’m a fiend for, especially the way Gene cooks it, bright green and crisp. He has a special asparagus pot and, for serving, a special oval, pale green asparagus plate.

  “The bouillabaisse is wonderful,” Martha said. “You’ve outdone yourself, Gene.” She kicked me under the table.

  “For fish soup, not half-bad, Uncle G.”

  “High praise. Is that all you’re going to eat?”

  “Actually, like I told Martha, I’m not all that hungry. I had a little something on the way home.”

  “What sort of little something?”

  I didn’t want to give Gene a heart attack, so I said, “An ice cream cone.”

  “That doesn’t sound like so much.”

  “Triple-dip.”

  “Too bad you didn’t save your appetite. Didn’t you figure out I’d be making you a dinner? I do it every year.”

  “I forgot,” I said. “Anyway,” I added as a diversion, “I thought I was getting a sore throat.”

  Gene put down the pepper mill. “What does ice cream have to do with a sore throat?”

  “Uncle G! It’s a well-known cure for sore throats.”

  Besides the soup and asparagus, there was hot garlicky French bread and a cheese board wit
h Brie and Camembert, all things I really like, but I couldn’t stuff in another anything. I did drink a glass of wine, though.

  The cake was last. “Make a wish, Pete,” Martha said.

  “I’m getting kind of big for that.”

  “Oh, you’re never too old to wish,” Martha said. “I do it every year.”

  “Okay.” I wished and blew out the candles.

  “What’d you wish for?” Gene asked.

  “It’s going to come true because he blew them all out, but he can’t tell,” Martha said, “or he’ll jinx it.” She pushed back her chair. “Cut me a big slice, Pete, I’m really into celebrating your birthday.” She went into the kitchen.

  I cut the cake, thinking that for eight years I’d always had the same wish—for my parents to return. But Martha was wrong, my wish wasn’t going to come true. Why this year and not last year? Why not next year? Or the year after?

  Martha came back with her arms full of packages. “Happy birthday, Pete, from Gene and me.”

  “Wow,” I said like a little kid. “Where’d you hide all this stuff?”

  “Us to know and you to wonder.”

  “In Martha’s apartment,” Gene said.

  “Gene! You gave it away.” She grabbed his shoulders and shook him.

  I started opening the packages. From Gene, socks, tee-shirts, underwear, and a Norwegian ski sweater. “I know it’s not the season,” he said, “but it’ll keep till next winter.” There were also two tens folded into a brand-new wallet. And from Martha, a historical atlas, which I’d been wanting, and a Honey in the Rock poster.

  I kept saying, “Thank you, thank you.”