But she had been very restless lately, putting books aside on tables and chairs all over the apartment, half read and with their spines bent, as if she couldn’t concentrate any more. She laughed too hard and too easily about things that weren’t really funny, like the exploded eggs or a wrong number on the telephone. And a few times she had come into Toby’s bed late at night, shivering, her hands and feet icy cold, explaining that she knew Toby was lonely and needed company.
3
THE SELWYNS LIVED IN a stucco and wood-frame house in Queens, and when Toby and Anne walked into it for the first time, something was baking and a radio was playing. It was the kind of music their mother called elevator music, a simple tune with lots of violins and piano trills. She liked early jazz herself, and classical music, especially Bach and Mozart, and had taught Toby to appreciate them, too.
The Selwyns had two canaries and they were chirping along with the music when the girls arrived. Toby remembered her mother saying that no living creature should be kept in a cage, and she knew she’d never get used to this place. Of course, she probably wouldn’t have to.
She hoped no one was going to ask her to call them Aunt or Uncle Somebody. She wouldn’t; they weren’t her relatives.
Toby walked stiffly behind Anne into the living room, where Mr. Selwyn rose from a chair and greeted them. She had come to the door wearing an apron and touching a straggly bun. With her eyeglasses sliding down her nose, she looked like someone’s grandmother in a picture book. The last thing they needed was another grandmother.
And he was skinny and tall, a bony man with large, coarse features. He had a pipe in the corner of his mouth and its smoke curled up around his head like a halo. Her own father’s photographed face came swiftly into Toby’s head, his vague but handsome youthfulness a shocking contrast to Mr. Selwyn. She knew she was being unfair, but she wanted to be, wanted to hate everyone and everything here, as if that hatred would deny their existence.
The Selwyns tried. She gave them reluctant credit for that. Mrs. Selwyn shook their hands, smiled, and said hello. No unsolicited hugs and kisses. Silently, Toby willed her not to say another word, and she didn’t. Nothing about this being their new home or their home away from home. Toby felt grateful, thinking she couldn’t bear anything false or even encouraging at that moment.
Mr. Selwyn only said their names, and then he smiled, too, transforming his homely face the way a jack-o’-lantern is lit from inside by a candle. Then the three adults went into the kitchen to drink coffee and talk, leaving the girls by themselves.
Toby looked to Anne, hoping for an outbreak of rebellion, the perversity that made her say people and places smelled bad even when they didn’t. But Anne looked almost happy to be there. She sniffed the fragrance of the baking cake and smiled at Toby, who didn’t smile back. And then Anne dropped with a sigh into the deep cushions of the sofa—to Toby, the final betrayal. She would probably never sit down in this room herself. She walked around in that same rigid posture, her arms close to her sides, looking at things, as if she were in a museum. There were bookshelves built into one wall, but except for a few copies of The Reader’s Digest, there were no books or magazines. Only little vases and china figurines, those “dust collectors” their mother despised; and on the top shelf, a row of bowling trophies awarded to James H. Selwyn for leading his team to victory. On every trophy the same gilded little man was poised, bent at the knees, with one arm swung back, holding a gilded ball.
Maybe I’ll call him Mr. Selwyn, Toby decided, if I have to call him anything at all.
Anne wept and clung to Miss Vernon when she tried to leave, as if the social worker were a close friend or a relative. Miss Vernon kept promising to come back and see them often, as she peeled Anne’s arms from her neck, from her waist, and finally from her legs. “That’s a good girl,” she said, over and over again.
“Stop it, Anne. Will you stop it?” Toby said. “I’m here.” But she too felt deserted and awkward in this new place with these people she didn’t know. Somehow Miss Vernon, who was almost as much of a stranger, had become the last link to their old life, to the apartment in Brooklyn, and even to their mother.
“My cake’s ready. Would you like some?” Mrs. Selwyn asked, and Anne, still snuffling, followed her to the kitchen like a baby duck in its mother’s wake.
Toby decided to see what the kitchen looked like.
There were six chairs around a yellow Formica table made more yellow by a flood of sunlight. Anne was already sitting there, and Mrs. Selwyn served her a generous slice of cake and a glass of milk. The cake was chocolate, Anne’s favorite, and she ate it, hiccuping between bites, sighing, and wiping final tears from her face with the back of her free hand.
“How about you, Toby?” Mrs. Selwyn asked.
Toby shrugged, surprised by her real hunger, and unwilling to admit it. But she ate, too, feeling the sweet taste of the chocolate mix with the bitterness of her feelings.
Mrs. Selwyn sat down and took a thin sliver of cake for herself. “I shouldn’t even have this much,” she confessed. “It will show up on my hips by tomorrow. Cake loves me as much as I love cake.”
Anne giggled, and Toby glowered at her.
Later Mrs. Selwyn showed them their rooms. “Jim and I thought you’d like to be near each other.”
“I want to sleep with Toby,” Anne said immediately, and she picked up a rag doll that was lying on her new bed and clutched it to her chest.
They had shared a bedroom in their old apartment; but when Toby was taken to the room that was to be hers, she knew she wanted to be alone in it. She was prepared to say something about her former bedroom being bigger or nicer, something to let Mrs. Selwyn know she wasn’t about to settle in. But she felt a strange connection here that she hadn’t felt with the rest of the house. The room was simple and uncluttered. There was a plain white cotton cover on the maple bed. The ceiling slanted and only the wallpaper was bright with color, red and blue and pink flowers tied into cheerful bouquets. This seemed like a private and special place to her, somewhere she could think things through.
“I’m going to sleep here, too,” Anne said, in her bossiest voice.
“Don’t be a little baby,” Toby told her. “I’ll be right next door like she said. You can visit whenever you want to.” She could see Anne’s eyes getting pink and watery and her thumb moving up into sucking position.
“That’s right,” Mrs. Selwyn said, winking at Toby over Anne’s head. “Each room is the right size for one person.” She put her hand on Anne’s shoulder. “A boy named Dennis had your room once. Do you want to hear about him?”
Anne, who loved stories about real people, left with Mrs. Selwyn, who closed the door behind them.
As soon as she was alone, Toby opened all the drawers of the painted chest, and the door of the closet, which was like a tiny, narrow room itself. The empty drawers were lined with clean white paper, and in the closet a few wire hangers dangled together in one corner.
She unpacked some of her things and put them away, telling herself she’d be packing them again so soon it almost didn’t pay to do it.
On the night table next to the bed, someone had carved her name and a date into the wood. Kids did that to desks in school all the time, but Toby had never seen it in anyone’s home before. CONSTANCE, it said. MAY 5.
Another girl had stayed here and left. Maybe it was just last year. Had her mother been ill, too, and then gotten well? Or was she one of those who had to stay until she grew up? Toby couldn’t imagine a grown girl inscribing her name that way. The letters looked big and clumsy, the way Anne wrote them.
There were two books on a shelf over the bed. Toby was disappointed to see that one was a math textbook. It was for the fifth-grade student, and answers to the problems were marked in all the margins. But the other book was Jane Eyre! Toby didn’t recognize it at first because it was a different edition from her mother’s—larger print, and it had a blue cover instead of green. But it was th
e same story, all right. She opened the first page and rediscovered Jane, unhappy in a house where she didn’t belong, with a family that didn’t really want her. For Toby, it was like finding an old friend. She had always liked the book, but she thought she would like it even more now that she too was somewhere she didn’t want to be. The Selwyns didn’t seem to be like Jane’s cruel relatives, but that didn’t matter.
Toby sat on the edge of the bed and turned the pages quickly, looking for favorite passages, finding the one where Jane comes to the orphanage at Lowood, and then the one where she first arrives at Thornfield, and the thrilling moment when Mr. Rochester comes galloping up on his horse. As she read to herself, Toby found she was able to evoke her mother’s voice reading aloud. Oh, she had read so well and so dramatically, taking all the roles, and changing back and forth without any effort. Somehow she had made herself seem large and masculine and brooding for Mr. Rochester, and then small and pale again for Jane. Toby remembered how she had done the first Mrs. Rochester, as seen by Jane on what was supposed to be her wedding day. Toby’s mother had been wonderful. She had rumpled her hair with her fingers and distorted her own smooth pretty face into an ugly and tormented one. She had cackled and roared so convincingly that Anne hid under the covers in her bed and had to be coaxed out again.
Toby lay back against the pillow, thinking she should take her shoes off, but she let her feet dangle over the side of the bed instead, because she was going to get up in a few minutes anyway. She just wanted to read a little more.
And then someone was hammering and she opened her eyes and tried to think where she was. The book was lying across her chest, the pages moving slightly with her breath. Mother, she thought, with a deep pang of loneliness, and slowly she remembered everything. The noise, that hammering, was someone knocking on the door, she realized, maybe Anne, and she jumped up to answer it. But it was only him, Mr. Selwyn.
“Did you fall asleep, Toby? That’s good. Supper is ready.” His voice was gravelly and deep, but when he smiled at her, his face had the same radiance it had earlier that afternoon.
Anne was in the kitchen already, and she was wearing one of Mrs. Selwyn’s aprons doubled around her waist. She was setting the table. “You sit here, Toby,” she said, and Toby was both relieved to see that Anne wasn’t cranky about not sharing a bedroom, and disappointed that she’d made such an easy adjustment.
Mrs. Selwyn was stirring something at the stove. “I guess Anne is in charge of the seating arrangements,” she said. “Are you settled in, Toby?” she asked.
Never, Toby said to herself. I’ll never settle in here. She nodded, lowering her eyes. She wasn’t going to make a big fuss—there’d be no point to it—but she wasn’t going to become one of those children who stayed, either. That was the important thing. That, and not showing anybody how bad she felt. She had to get information, find out where her mother was and what had really happened to her. She had to make plans. In the meantime, she would cooperate, like a prisoner of war who would never go over to the enemy, no matter how friendly they seemed.
4
April 28, 1977
Dear Mother,
As you probably know, we are staying with these people named Selwyn. We are living in a regular house for the time being. The address here is 105-17 63rd Dr., Rego Park, N.Y. 10181.
The husband and wife are kind of old with gray hair. They are pretty nice to Anne, even when she is fresh. We are going to new schools where we don’t know anybody. I miss you so much. Mr. Selwyn told me where you are and your address, and we are not so far away. He showed me on a map. Do you feel better? I hope so. I am fine.
At night we do our homework and then watch television. There are hardly any books except Reader’s Digest. Yesterday I read an article called I Am Joe’s Liver. It was disgusting.
They don’t have any children of their own and Miss Vernon says they don’t do it for the money from the state like some people, but because they want to. They try to get brothers and sisters so they won’t be separated. I have my own room here (not as nice as home) and so does Anne. She does not suck her thumb too much except at night and when she has to go to school, when she also gets sick to her stomach.
A girl named Constance once had my room. Mrs. Selwyn said she ran away from her real home five times before she came to live with them. Her father was an alcoholic and she has seven sisters and brothers. Someone left Jane Eyre in the room and I am reading it and thinking of you. I wish you were all better. I wish we were in our old neighborhood this minute walking on the Promenade and looking at the boats. Sometimes I think I will run away like Constance or join the circus like the other Toby. Don’t worry. I’m only fooling. Will you write to me? I gave you the address in the beginning.
Love love love from
your Toby
P.S. I didn’t get it yet.
5
TOBY LOOKED IN THE mailbox every day, but there was never a letter from her mother. She wondered if there was something wrong with the mail in Queens. Did they give them paper and pens in that hospital?
The school she was going to was all right, but the work was a little different. They were ahead of her old class in math, which was confusing, and behind in social studies, which was boring. The worst part, though, was being a new girl in the middle of the term. Toby kept reminding herself that it was spring and soon it would all be over. But in the meantime she was on the edge of everything, and she remembered with longing how easy and good it was to be with her own friends. Rita must have a new best friend by now, Toby thought.
She watched the girls in school as they moved and whispered and laughed together. She watched one girl in particular, a tall, thin redhead named Susan Schwamm, who was in a few of Toby’s classes. She seemed to be the center of a magic circle that only the privileged could join.
And then the circle opened to let Toby enter. It was Susan who said something to her first, something about a homework assignment in English. They met in the schoolyard later and walked together, talking about other things, until Susan broke away and joined a group of girls waiting for her. “See you tomorrow, Toby,” she said.
A few days later she invited Toby to her house after school. As Susan searched for her key, the Schwamms’ housekeeper, Mrs. Ames, opened the door. She was accompanied by Max, Susan’s old dachshund, who wagged and wiggled with pleasure. Susan’s parents were both home and they greeted Toby in a friendly but casual way. She was grateful that they weren’t like the parents of some kids she knew in Brooklyn, who would ask a million questions about your family, about what they did for a living and what kind of house you had. Susan’s father was tall and redheaded, too. Mrs. Schwamm reminded Toby of her own mother. She was small and dark-haired and she dressed in a similar way: jeans and a T-shirt and carved African beads.
Susan invited Toby again and again. Sometimes other girls came, too, but most of the time it was just the two of them and Max, who followed them everywhere. The Schwamms lived in a very modern and expensive-looking house. Toby was surprised to find a place like that not far from the Selwyns’, where most of the houses were small and close together and looked exactly alike. This one was set far back from the road and had a perfect green lawn and beautiful old shade trees.
Susan’s room was like something in a magazine. The wallpaper matched the curtains and the bedspread, and there were large, soft pillows everywhere, even on the floor. Toby imagined that a Turkish harem room might look like this. There were two regular-sized beds, even though Susan was an only child and slept there by herself. “It’s for sleep-overs,” she explained. “You’ll see.” At sleep-overs in Brooklyn, Toby and her friends had carried their own sleeping bags and pillows.
When Susan asked questions, Toby explained cautiously that she and her sister were just “staying” with the Selwyns until her mother got well. Toby wished that Susan were more like her mother and father and would mind her own business. But she didn’t. Without being asked, she told Toby that her fathe
r was a doctor, a heart specialist, and that her mother wrote medical research articles that were published in professional journals.
Now she wanted to know more about the Selwyns. “Are they your aunt and uncle?”
“Not exactly.” Toby hesitated. “They’re sort of like...friends of the family,” she said, hoping Susan wouldn’t ask anything else.
But she did. “Does your mother have cancer?”
“Oh, no, nothing like that!” Toby said, but was reluctant to name her mother’s trouble. She knew all of the ugly words for it and she couldn’t risk the possibility of hearing Susan say them. Loony, wacky, bats, cuckoo, nuts. That’s what some people called an old woman in their building in Brooklyn because she talked to herself and never combed her hair or changed her dress. Miss Vernon tried to sound matter-of-fact, but she looked uneasy and avoided Toby’s gaze when she spoke about her mother’s illness, making Toby think there was something especially unpleasant about it. Something that couldn’t even be mentioned.
“Well, what does she have?” Susan persisted.
Toby felt her face grow hot as she said, “It’s—it’s in her...liver. I don’t remember the name. But she’s getting better.” To distract Susan, she leaned down and scratched Max’s belly. He rolled over obligingly and sighed.
And finally Susan lost interest. She stopped asking questions and played some records for Toby instead. They liked the same performers: Stevie Wonder, Elton John, and especially Linda Ronstadt.
Susan had a guitar and she gave Toby lessons, teaching her easy chords and strums at first. Susan wrote her own songs. The melodies were pretty good, catchy and original, but Toby thought the words were awful. Everything had to rhyme, even if it didn’t make any sense.
Toby Lived Here Page 2