She didn’t go to class, but stood outside, waiting to see Ivan. She forgot to get the dry cleaning, including an important business suit Angela needed for work the next day. She forgot that she was supposed to pick up Molly’s prescription after school. Instead, she waited until Angela and Molly were out of the house, and then she called Ivan to come over and as soon as he stepped in the house, they were taking each other’s clothes off, they were heading for her room.
“Where have you been?” Angela screamed at Suzanne when she came back to the house at four in the morning, Suzanne’s mouth all swollen from kissing Ivan, her clothes rumpled from taking them off and putting them on again. “What is wrong with you?” Angela shouted when she came home to find the house looking like a cyclone had swept through it, no groceries in the cupboards, no dinner made, because this time, it was Molly who forgot. “What is going on here?” Angela shouted. But Suzanne knew that the answer wasn’t what, but who, and that there was nothing she or anyone could do about it. “The school called me about you,” Angela accused her. She was angry that she had to take time off work to go talk to Suzanne’s principal because Suzanne had skipped so many classes. She was even more furious when she had to go to Woolworth’s to talk the manager out of pressing charges because Suzanne had shoplifted ten dollars’ worth of gold-tone earrings because she had been thinking about Ivan so hard, about how lucky she was, that she had walked past the register, the money fisted in her hand, and no matter how Suzanne had explained it to the store, they hadn’t believed her for a minute. “Why can’t you be good like your sister?” Angela raved.
Their fights got worse and worse. It wasn’t about her taking care of Molly anymore, who was nearly thirteen now and certainly able to take care of herself. Suzanne knew it wasn’t even about her taking care of the house, which Molly was starting to do anyway. It was about all those people looking down on Angela again, thinking she wasn’t handling things well. It was about Angela having to cancel important dates with Lars because she had to stay at home and make sure Suzanne was going to be there, too. And it made Angela furious.
“Shoplifting!” She struck Suzanne on the shoulder. “Skipping school!” She whacked at her again, hitting Suzanne’s arm. “Do you think I kill myself so you can screw up?”
“All you care about is you!” Suzanne shouted. Angela lifted a hand to strike her again and, cowering, Suzanne grabbed her mother’s wrist. “Don’t hit me!” she cried and Angela struck her again.
Suzanne whipped around, bumping right into Molly, pasted by the doorway, acting as if she were drowning in misery and trying to pull Suzanne down with her. Suzanne couldn’t look at her. Molly was smart enough to get all As in school, let her be smart enough to figure her own way out of the house. Suzanne headed for the door. She wasn’t going to be pulled down. Not anymore. She had had enough. “Suzanne, don’t go,” Molly cried.
“Yes, go,” Angela said, her voice steely. “And when you’re eighteen, you go for good. Because I’ve had it.” She looked at her raised hand as if she was just noticing it, and then lowered it.
Suzanne turned and walked out the door, slamming it behind her. She walked all the way to the Giant Eagle and the pay phone, where she called Ivan, weeping so hard she could hardly catch her breath. “Oh, man,” Ivan said.
“I can’t go back there!” Suzanne sobbed. “I can’t take it another minute!”
Ivan was so quiet for a moment she was terrified he might have hung up. But then he sighed. “Don’t you worry, I have a plan,” Ivan told her, and two days later, she and Ivan left for California and their future together, and neither one of them, especially Suzanne, looked back even once.
They rented a tiny studio outside of La Jolla, where she had grown up. The beach was just a block away, but Suzanne never got there. She had to work every day, even weekends, as a cashier at the local suprette, just to pay the rent and buy groceries, just so Ivan could practice with the new band he had put together, Pneumonia.
And then it felt like she had a second job. She tried so hard to cook meals for Ivan on just about no money, to decorate the apartment with curtains from Woolworth’s. She washed and ironed his clothes and picked fresh flowers from the window box on the bottom floor when no one was looking and put them in a glass on the table. It wasn’t like the way it had been with Angela, when she was forced to clean and cook. She wanted to do this. She wanted Ivan to see what a good wife she’d make. She wanted him to marry her.
She couldn’t wait for him to get home. She fussed in the kitchen, stir-frying canned crabmeat and packaged noodles. She had even set the table with a lively paper cloth that she had gotten with her discount at the suprette, but when Ivan walked in, he didn’t look at the bright blue cloth or the dishes. Suzanne thought the apartment smelled wonderful and spicy, but he just rolled his eyes. “A lot of work for something that’s done in ten minutes,” he told her. He went right to his guitar and plunked down on the sofa and started playing that stupid Joni Mitchell song she hated. “We don’t need no piece of paper from the city hall—” he sang, looking at her meaningfully, making her wince. And when she set out the meal, he picked at it, and the first time the phone rang, he jumped up and was on the phone talking to a band member for so long that by the time he came back, his dinner was too cold to finish, and only Suzanne seemed to care.
She tried. She’d point out happily married couples, the way they held hands on the street, the way they looked at each other. “So? You need to be married for that?” Ivan shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
“It’s—it’s the next step. The next level.” Suzanne hated herself for how desperate she sounded.
“Look. You’re my forever,” Ivan told her. “But marriage. Oh, man, that’s the kiss of death for love. I ought to know. I lived with my parents long enough.”
But Suzanne couldn’t stop wanting marriage. It was something real. Something permanent. It told the world something good about you, that someone loved you enough to let everyone know it. And what else did she have? The rare times she called home, Molly seemed guarded to her, or too needy, like she expected Suzanne to come rescue her, when Suzanne was doing all she could to rescue herself. And Angela was impossible—even Angela’s invitation to her ridiculous marriage to Lars was offered with the hope that Suzanne could start to behave. Behave. Like she was twelve years old or something.
Suzanne waited until she couldn’t wait anymore. She went out and spent half the food money on a bare black minidress and fresh flowers. She lit scented candles all over the apartment. She put on some low, jazzy music she knew Ivan liked. She tucked one of the flowers behind one ear, and when he walked in the apartment, startled, she got down on her knees, smiling up at him as playfully as she could. “My, my, my,” he said. “What have we here?” He bent to kiss her. He reached for the ties at the back of her dress, but she took his hand, stopping him. She stroked his fingers and took a deep breath. “Marry me,” she said.
She didn’t know what she was thinking. Maybe that he’d laugh. Maybe that he’d tease her. Maybe that he’d actually say yes. But Ivan stiffened. He grabbed her shoulders and jerked her to her feet. His mouth got mean. “Don’t push it. You hear me?”
She stepped back from him, reeling. She could still feel his fingers on her skin.
“I love you and I’m never getting married. That’s all you have to know. Those two things. And this. I don’t change my mind.” He walked through the candlelit apartment, knocking over one of the candles, and grabbed his guitar and went into the other room. She picked up the candle and sat on the couch, unable to move. She could hear him playing, one song, and then two, and then he came out, acting as if everything was back to normal. As if nothing important had happened. “Let’s have some lights around here,” he said more cheerfully, and flicked on the switch.
“Come on, Suzanne, I want to play you something I just wrote.” She sat down on the couch beside him while he sang, but she couldn’t concentrate. She couldn’t hear a singl
e note. All she could think about was the future. She told herself that maybe he’d feel differently when life wasn’t such a struggle, when he made it big and things weren’t so rushed. Ivan stopped playing and put one hand on her leg. He looked at her. “What a pretty tune,” she said.
He leaned forward and kissed her tenderly.
One Friday, Pneumonia was playing a small club called the Ozone Parade for the midnight show. Suzanne was curled up on the sofa with a hot water bottle on her belly for her period cramps and didn’t want to go. “Baby, you have to go,” Ivan said. “I need you to be there! You know if I don’t see you there, I can’t play right. I have to sing to you.”
Suzanne burrowed deeper into the couch.
“Come on. You’re my inspiration! I can’t do this without you!” He sat down on the couch with her and tickled her under the chin. “Suz-anne,” he sang. “Pretty little Suz-anne!”
She got up. She smiled weakly. “That’s my love,” Ivan said happily.
She’d take a few aspirin. Have a drink. She’d get through the evening.
Eleven-thirty and the Ozone Parade was packed and dark. The noise, never mind the bodies, could knock you right down. Suzanne had been to the Ozone Parade a few times before and each time she vowed it was her last. She didn’t know what it was, what had changed for her. She used to love going to the clubs in high school. She loved everything about it. The pulsing noise, the damp heat of all the bodies, the blare of the music, and the haze of smoke. The way you’d stay out all night and then go get french fries at the all-night diners at four in the morning. Now, all of it just made her think how tired she was going to be going to work in the morning. She used to love bands, too. Musicians. It seemed so exciting back in New Jersey. But she didn’t love the other guys in Pneumonia. They drank too much and didn’t talk about anything except music and when they came to the apartment, they made a big mess, using the floor as an ashtray, treating Suzanne like she was their slave, like all she was good for was bringing out iced tea or more beer or looking good. All of them seemed to have a different girlfriend every week. “Why else go into rock and roll?” Stan, the bass player, leered. He twanged a chord. “Sex and drugs and rock and roll!” It made Suzanne feel creepy, and she always looked at Ivan to see if he was laughing. She always felt relieved when he wasn’t.
A cramp shot through Suzanne. She rubbed her stomach. Ivan leaned over and kissed her. “I’m going backstage. Stand where I can see you, honey.”
He left her. Whose bright idea was it not to have tables or chairs or even standing room? What was so great about this dingy space? The walls were gray cement block, the floor scuffed linoleum. There wasn’t room to dance, let alone to stand. There wasn’t air. She wanted silence, the couch, her hot water bottle, and two more Midol. She pressed against the wall. Already, she was sweating. The music they had piped in was so loud, her ears were starting to ring.
A woman in a black apron snarled something at Suzanne and then disappeared. Everyone was moving around, drinking beers, shouting at one another. A woman in a short, tight red dress stepped hard on Suzanne’s instep, making her yelp. A guy in jeans and a T-shirt that said FUCKING A tapped his cigarette ash on Suzanne’s forearm. How was she going to last?
Pneumonia didn’t come on until quarter to one, and by that time Suzanne was ready to scream. It had taken her half an hour just to get to the ladies’ room, where two girls were snorting coke in the one free stall and wouldn’t get out, even when Suzanne begged them. “I have my period!” she said, and the girls laughed. “Tough break,” said one. A woman finally came out of the other stall and Suzanne fled into it. The toilet paper was gone. There was pee all over the seat and on the floor. The door didn’t work and she had to hold it shut with one free hand. She peed and changed her tampon and when she went to wash her hands there were four blond hairs spread across the sink. She pushed her way out again.
Kids swarmed toward the stage, jostling Suzanne, who swore. “Hey! Where’s Tod?” screamed the boy next to Suzanne. Suzanne looked at him. The band Ivan had put together used to be called Tod, after its lead singer, who left to go to school back east. “Tod!” the boy screamed. “Where’s fucking Tod?”
Pneumonia played three songs, and then four, and all around her, the crowd got noisier and noisier. Ivan locked eyes with Suzanne. He sang to her. “You suck!” screamed a voice by her ear, making her flinch back, and then a beer can whizzed by, hitting Ivan on the thigh. He looked stunned. His voice faltered. He looked away from Suzanne. He kept playing.
“Man, know what Pneumonia’s singer needs?” a boy breathed against Suzanne’s ear. She tried to move away.
“A dose of antibiotics to wipe him out!” He laughed, chortling. He put one hand on Suzanne’s shoulder in a too-chummy way, and she jerked away from him.
She suddenly felt sick. Ivan sounded good to her, the way he had always sounded good to her. In New Jersey, everyone had treated him with a kind of reverence. But this wasn’t New Jersey.
Pneumonia played for a half hour and then abruptly stopped, jangling a final chord, punching their fists up toward the ceiling. The crowd shouted and stamped their feet. Suzanne tried to move, but everything seemed a tight tangle of legs and arms and by the time she managed to push her way backstage, she was exhausted. Her T-shirt was pasted to her back with sweat. Her cramps had dulled, but she felt sticky and wet and uncomfortable. “Excuse me,” she said, and the girl in front of her glared at her. Suzanne was too tired for this. Too crampy. “Move,” Suzanne ordered in a new hard voice and the girl stepped aside. Suzanne pushed her way into the back room and as soon as she did she knew something had happened.
The other band members of Pneumonia were whooping and giving each other high fives. A guy she didn’t know, who seemed older than everybody else, in a black T-shirt and jeans and silver glasses, was clapping the drummer on the back. Ivan was by himself in a corner, angrily packing up his guitar, while the bass player was intently talking to him. “Hey, man, what do you want me to do? What would you do? I said I was sorry—”
Ivan snapped the guitar case shut. “Fuck you. Fuck all of you.”
Suzanne looked from Ivan to the bass player, who gave her a helpless look, who lifted up his hands.
Suzanne looked at Ivan. He didn’t say a word to her, but stormed out the back room. Suzanne knew Ivan enough to wait until he was ready to speak. She followed him through the club, struggling to keep up. She walked with him onto the street, and as soon as they were outside, he began to walk faster and faster. Finally, she grabbed his arm. “Ivan! What’s wrong?”
He stopped. She threw her arms about him. “You were great!” she cried. “You were so fabulous!” He stepped back from her, glaring, furious.
“Who was that guy? What was going on back there?” she asked.
“Oh, that guy? That slimy little toad? You noticed him? A & R guy. Just happened to be in the club. Heard we were great,” Ivan said bitterly. “Only one little problem. He wants all the band except for me.
“What? How can that be?”
“Says he sees a real future for them, that they could go far. Just not with me.”
Suzanne tried desperately to think of something to say. “But it’s your band.”
“Right, Suzanne. Good thinking.”
“You’re too good for them anyway,” she blurted.
He glared at her. “What? Why’d you say it like that?”
“Like what?”
“Like you don’t really think so.”
“I do think so! You’re really good!”
“Good,” he said flatly. “Just not great. That’s what you think, right? That’s what everyone thinks.”
“I didn’t say that!” she pleaded, but he glared at her and then she saw the hopeless flicker in his eyes. She tried to grab his arm, but he wrenched it away.
After that, it was as if something had changed and she was powerless to do anything about it. He practiced more and more, but it seemed to make him angrier
and angrier. He’d throw the guitar down and storm out. She’d wake at three in the morning to find him strumming it in the living room, looking so fierce and determined and sad that she’d go sit beside him and listen, even though she was exhausted. She rested her head against his back. “You want to talk?” she said, but he kept playing and she grew more and more silent. She didn’t care whether he could play the comb, let alone the guitar. It didn’t change the way she felt about him.
Money began to get tighter and tighter and they had to move three times in one year. Each place was cheaper—and worse than the next. They had roaches and mice and once Suzanne saw a rat running down into one of the burners, which scared her so much she couldn’t go near the stove for a week. The walls were so paper thin she could hear it when the next-door neighbor sneezed. Worse, Ivan had to get a job, working as a mechanic at a local shop.
She tried to come up with solutions, and everything she said to Ivan sounded dumb. “Maybe I can work two jobs,” she said. “Get something at night. Maybe I can go back to school. I’ve been thinking maybe I’d like to do something with hair.”
“Hair? Oh, that sounds exciting.”
“I do the other girls’ hair at work. People seem to think I have a talent.”
He looked at her as if she had two heads. “For hair,” he said. He shook his head. “How are you going to go to school? On what money, Suzanne?”
“Well, can’t you work more hours, too?”
Ivan looked at her as if she had struck him. “Sure, Suzanne, what a good idea. Then I won’t be able to practice at all.”
She bit her lip. “All you need is one break.”
Coming Back to Me Page 18