Don't Let Me Go

by Catherine Ryan Hyde

“I find you a little…threatening.”

  “Ah, geez,” Lafferty said. “Which brings me back to my question. Are you a homosexual?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Is it really that you didn’t hear the question?”

  “No, not really. It’s more that I’m having trouble believing it.”

  “Look. I got a right to ask, in this case. Because you’re going to be looking after that little girl. Right? And everybody knows homosexuals are more likely to be child-molesters. Otherwise it would just be your business. But that’s why I have to ask. Because everybody knows that.”

  The room spun slightly around Billy’s head. He reminded himself to breathe, quickly, before he passed out.

  “Um. No. Not really. Everybody doesn’t know that. Because it’s nowhere even close to the truth.”

  “Are you kidding me? Then who do you figure is molesting all those little boys?”

  “Um. A bunch of married guys about your age.”

  “What are you suggesting?”

  “Just that you’re wrong. About pretty much everything.”

  “I notice you still haven’t answered my question.”

  “Let’s just say, for the sake of the argument,” Billy said, still openly trembling, “that you were right about everything. You’re not. But just for a second, let’s imagine a world where you were. Have you met Grace?”

  “Of course I’ve met her.”

  “Is she…a boy child? Or a girl child?”

  “Oh,” Lafferty said. “Yeah, OK.”

  Billy heard the first few of Lafferty’s footsteps as he headed down the hall, and then one word muttered under Lafferty’s breath. The word was, “Fruitcake.”

  Billy went back to bed, in spite of his knowledge that the chance for more napping had long ago evaded him.

  • • •

  He lay awake for all but maybe forty-five minutes of that night. And, within that forty-five minutes, he felt himself surrounded, swallowed, by the beating of wings. Longer, whiter, more passionate than usual. A cacophony of wings.

  • • •

  “Who brought you home from school?” he asked Grace.

  He sat perched on the very edge of his sofa, watching her look around his apartment. Watching her peer at all of his photos again, as if she hadn’t just examined them the previous day.

  He couldn’t focus away from his lack of sleep. It left his nerves raw, and feeling as though they’d been recently sandpapered.

  “Felipe did,” she said. “That way Yolanda wouldn’t have to take off from work. Because they don’t pay Yolanda when she takes off from work. She can take off. But then she just loses the money.”

  “And Yolanda is…”

  “My mom’s sponsor.”

  “Sponsor? What kind of sponsor? What does she sponsor her to do?”

  “In the program. You know. Like an AA sponsor, except Yolanda is NA.”

  “Oh, good Lord, that explains a lot,” Billy said, wishing after the fact he hadn’t said it out loud.

  “What does it explain?”

  “Forget I mentioned it. Oh — that’s me in an Equity waiver production of The Iceman Cometh.”

  “I understood the photo better before you told me that.”

  “So how did Jake Lafferty find out I was going to be taking care of you?”

  “Oh, that’s easy. Rayleen had to go talk to him. Because Felipe didn’t want to come pick me up at school, because he figured Mr. Lafferty would give him a hard time about it. So Rayleen had to go talk to Mr. Lafferty, and I had to go, because otherwise I would have been alone with just my mom, who was asleep, and then if the county came to check on me, that would be bad. So I went along. And, wow, he was really mad. But Rayleen didn’t act like she was one bit scared of him. She just told him Felipe was gonna pick me up from school, and he better just stay out of it. He didn’t like it much, but he just sort of said, ‘Why should I care? Do whatever you want.’ But then he wanted to know where I’d be after Felipe went to work, which seemed weird to me, because, a minute before that, he’d just said he didn’t care. I told him a lot about you.”

  “Oh. OK. That explains a lot.”

  “You say that a bunch, did you know that? What does it explain?”

  “It explains why he came down here and asked personal questions.”

  “What kind of personal questions?”

  “Well…how can I tell you…if they’re personal?”

  “Right,” Grace said. “Duh. Sorry.”

  “What did you tell him about me?”

  “That you used to be a dancer and an actor and a singer…”

  That explains a lot, Billy thought, but he kept it to himself.

  “…and that your name was Billy Shine, but that your first name used to be Rodney or Dennis or something…”

  “Donald. Actually.”

  “Oh, Right. Donald. Sorry. And I told him your last name used to be Fleinsteen, but you changed it to Shine, because Fleinsteen wasn’t a dancer’s name.”

  “Feldman,” Billy said, suddenly even more tired.

  “Oh. Feldman. Where did I get Fleinsteen?”

  “I wouldn’t venture to guess.”

  “There you go talking weird again. I guess I told him wrong. What’s this one? Is this you dancing?”

  She held up a framed photo that had been sitting on the end table near the couch. It was indeed a photo of Billy dancing.

  “Yes. In fact, it’s me dancing on Broadway.”

  “What’s Broadway?”

  “It’s a street. In New York.”

  “It doesn’t look like a street. It looks like you’re dancing inside.”

  “Right. In a theater. On Broadway.”

  “Oh. Is that good?”

  “That’s about as good as it gets.”

  “Too bad you don’t do this any more. I mean, since you loved it so much.”

  “Well, look at it this way, Grace. If I were still dancing, I’d be on Broadway right now, and then who would look after you?”

  “True. But that’s another thing I was thinking we could talk about, because if you were still a dancer—”

  “Maybe we should play the quiet game,” Billy interjected.

  “What’s the quiet game?”

  “You know. The one where we try to see who can go the longest without talking.”

  “Ugh,” Grace said, putting the Broadway photo back in the right place, but at the wrong angle. “Sounds really boring.”

  “I’m just so tired, though,” Billy said, leaning over and fixing the angle of the Broadway photo. “I didn’t sleep last night. I’m just not sure how much more energy I have for talking.”

  Grace appeared suddenly in front of him, bouncing up and down on her toes, her hands on his knees.

  “Will you teach me to dance?”

  “That takes energy, too.”

  “Please, Billy? Please, please, please? Please, please, please? Pleeeeease?”

  Billy sighed deeply. Wearily.

  “OK,” he said. “I guess it takes less energy than listening to that.”

  Grace

  The next day, Felipe came and got Grace at school, but he didn’t take her home. Instead, he walked her down to Rayleen’s hair and nail salon, on the boulevard. It wasn’t called that, and she didn’t own it or anything, but that was where she worked.

  “Why there?” she asked Felipe while they were walking together.

  “I don’t know,” Felipe said. “She just said to bring you down there. She said she told you about it.”

  “Oh,” Grace said. “Maybe. Maybe she said something and I forgot.”

  “Do you mind going down there?”

  “I don’t think so. Not really. I was just looking forward to going to Billy’s, because he’s teaching me to dance. He’s teaching me this dance called the time step. He says it’s the first, most basic thing I gotta learn. Except I don’t know why they call it the time step, because it’s not a step. It’s a whole dance. I
t’s like, tons of steps. I have trouble keeping track of them all. But I only had one lesson so far. It’s tap. Do you know what that is? Tap?”

  “Sure,” Felipe said. “I’ve seen tap dancing.”

  “I have to wear these special shoes, that are tap shoes. And I don’t have tap shoes, of course. I mean, why would I have tap shoes? So Billy let me wear this really special pair of his, from when he was young. They’re really special because they were his very first pair. From when he was about my age. But, you know what? They’re still too big for me. Even when Billy was my age, his feet were bigger than mine. I guess because he’s a boy. Anyway, I had to put on three pairs of socks, and then they fit me. I can’t take them home, though, because they’re too special, but I can wear them at his house. And I have to dance in the kitchen, because you can’t tap dance on a rug. Anyway, I was just sort of looking forward to getting my second lesson, but I guess I can do that tomorrow. You’re not listening to me, are you, Felipe?”

  “Oh, sorry,” Felipe said. “Yeah. Mostly. I was mostly listening.”

  “Were you thinking about the thing you’re sad about?” Grace asked, because he looked sad.

  “A little bit. I guess I was, a little bit.”

  “Do you want to tell me? Sometimes that helps.”

  “Maybe not today,” Felipe said. “Maybe someday, but maybe not today. It might be hard for you to understand, anyway, because it’s grown-up stuff. You know. Man — woman stuff.”

  “Oh,” Grace said. “Yeah. That stuff is hard to understand.”

  They walked in silence for a block or so, and then Grace asked, “Felipe? Do you speak Spanish?”

  “Oh, yeah. I speak Spanish better than I speak English.”

  “I think your English is good.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Will you teach me to speak Spanish?”

  “Well,” Felipe said, scratching his head. “I guess so. I guess I could teach you a little bit. Here’s a good thing to know how to say. ‘Como se dice en Español…?’ That means, ‘How do you say in Spanish…?’ And then you could just point to the thing you wanted to know how to say. Or tell me the word in English. And then we could add a word every day.”

  “Como se dice in Español,” Grace said. “Why is there an English word in there?”

  “There isn’t.”

  “In.”

  “En,” Felipe said. “E-N.”

  “Oh. Como se dice en Español.”

  “Very good.”

  “But you have to tell me how to say something. Today. That’s not enough for today, just learning the question. I think I should have an answer for today, too.”

  “OK. What do you want to know how to say?”

  “Tap dancing. Teach me how to say tap dancing, OK?”

  “You have to ask it right, though.”

  “Oh. Right. Sorry. Como se dice en Español…tap dancing?”

  “Baile zapateado.”

  “Whoa. That sounds hard.”

  “Maybe we should do an easier one today.”

  An old man walked by with a bulldog on a leash, so Grace said, “Como se dice en Español…dog?”

  “Perro.”

  “Perro,” Grace said.

  “Good.”

  “Felipe? Do you like me?”

  “Sure, I like you.”

  “What do you like about me?”

  “Lots of things.”

  “Name one.”

  “Well. You asked me to teach you a little Spanish. Nobody ever asks me that. Everybody just figures Spanish-speaking people should learn English. It never occurs to anybody to learn a few words of Spanish. That shows a lot of respect for me. You know. And for my language. That you asked.”

  “I liked my Spanish lesson,” she said. “I guess if I had to miss my tap dance lesson, it’s good that at least I got a Spanish lesson. I wonder why Rayleen wants me to come down to her salon.”

  “I think she wants to do something with your hair,” Felipe said.

  “Oh. My hair. Right,” Grace said. “That explains a lot.”

  • • •

  “Good Lord in heaven,” this lady named Bella said, holding up the back of Grace’s hair.

  Bella was a big, heavy African lady. Not African-American, like Rayleen, but really African-African, from Nigeria (this is what Rayleen told Grace), with that nice accent that people have sometimes when they’re from Africa. And dreadlocks. She wore her hair in dreadlocks.

  She was one of the hair-stylist people at Rayleen’s salon, and friends with Rayleen, who stood close by, shaking her head and clucking her tongue.

  Grace could see them both in the mirror.

  “Can you brush it out?” Rayleen asked.

  “Oh, honey, that would hurt like the devil. And she would lose a lot. I think we should cut it.”

  Grace watched Rayleen in the mirror. Watched Rayleen furrow her brow.

  “I’m not sure what her mother would think about that.”

  “What do you care what her mother thinks? Where is her mother when this decision needs to be made? Something needs doing, and somebody needs to decide to do it, so let that somebody be you.”

  The more Bella talked, the more Grace liked her accent. Even though she wasn’t sure she liked what Bella was saying about her mom. Still, it would be nice to get a haircut, instead of having all those knots pulled out, which was vicious. Grace hated that more than anything. So it would be nice to just have them decide. Right here and now.

  “I’ll end up being the one who has to hear it from her, though,” Rayleen said.

  She was thin, and pretty, Rayleen. Grace looked at her as though she’d never seen her before, because it was different, seeing her in the mirror and all, and because of the way Bella was standing right beside her. Not that Bella wasn’t pretty. Grace thought she was. But she wasn’t thin. And she wasn’t as pretty as Rayleen.

  Grace felt Bella’s long fingernails raking lightly through her hair — at least the part that could still be raked through — and along her scalp, and it felt good, like a massage.

  “You sure she’ll even get up from her bed long enough that you’ll have to hear about it? Have you even gotten her to call the county yet?”

  “She says she did,” Rayleen said, like she wasn’t very sure.

  “She did!” Grace piped up. “I know she did, because I was right there.”

  “Oh. Good. Did she say what she was supposed to say?”

  “Yeah. That you were my babysitter and all. Yeah.”

  Rayleen furrowed her brow even more deeply. “Was she…did she seem…pretty…awake?”

  “Medium,” Grace said.

  Rayleen and Bella looked at each other’s eyes in the mirror, and Bella rolled hers a little bit, so Grace could see the whites of them.

  “I guess we just keep our fingers crossed,” Rayleen said.

  And Bella said, “So, let’s focus, girls. What about the hair?”

  “I think we should let Grace decide. It’s her hair. Grace?”

  “Hmm,” Grace said. “I think probably we should cut it. Because I hate that thing where somebody brushes out my hair when it’s knotty. It pulls. But…I don’t know. Will it look OK?”

  “Will it look OK?” Bella howled. “Oh, my goodness! Little girl! You don’t know who you’re talking to! If I cut it, it will look superb!”

  “I don’t know what superb means,” Grace said.

  “Like good,” Rayleen said, “only better.”

  “Oh. OK, then.”

  So Bella put one of those drapes around Grace, and snapped it tightly at her neck, and Grace made a mostly pretend noise like being strangled.

  “You don’t want to get the hair down there under your collar, though,” Bella said. “That’ll itch like crazy.”

  “Right, I hate that,” Grace said. “I hate that worse than anything.”

  “We should teach her how to brush her own hair,” Rayleen said.

  “I know how to brush my hair,” G
race said, a little too loudly.

  She was distracted, looking at the image in the mirror of a woman customer in the chair behind hers, because the woman held a little tan Chihuahua dog on her lap.

  “Perro,” Grace said, but nobody was paying much attention.

  “Then why didn’t you?”

  “We only have one brush, and it’s up on top of the dresser in my mom’s bedroom, and I can’t reach it. When I was a little kid, I tried pulling out the drawers and using them like steps, so I could climb up there. Not to get the brush. To get something else, but I don’t remember what the something else was any more. I forget now. It was so important at the time that I climbed up there, but now I don’t even remember. Isn’t that funny? Anyway, the whole thing fell down on top of me, and I was screaming and crying, and my mom had to run get one of the neighbors to help get it off me. That was before we lived here. That was back when we lived right off Alvarado Street. Anyway, I wasn’t about to try that again.”

  “I can’t really wash it properly until I get these knots out,” Bella said, as though she hadn’t even been listening. She pulled out a long, sleek, pointy pair of scissors and held them, paused, over Grace’s head.

  Bye-bye hair, Grace thought. But it was better than all that brushing and pulling.

  “I’m surprised no one noticed at her school,” Rayleen said. “Wouldn’t you think her teacher would notice that nobody brushed her hair for weeks?”

  “Maybe she did,” Bella said, still holding the scissors paused. “After all, you still don’t know who called the county.”

  “Hmm,” Rayleen said. “Right. I hadn’t thought of that.”

  • • •

  Walking home with Rayleen, Grace couldn’t stop looking at her fingernails. She held them out in front of her, both hands at once, and admired them. It made her trip over a crack in the sidewalk twice. Well. Three times.

  “You might want to look where you’re going.”

  “But they’re so beautiful!”

  After the haircut (which looked funny, in a way, probably just because it was something Grace wasn’t used to, but also kind of stylish and nice at the same time), Rayleen had given Grace nails. They were the kind you paste on, and they were a really pretty shade of pink, and they had sparkles and other little charm things pasted on. Like, one little paste-on charm was on her middle finger, and it was silver, and shaped like a tiny flying horse. She couldn’t stop looking at the flying horse.