by Cat Bauer
My words echo off the cold walls of the tunnel. I watch his face. He is a boy in man's clothing, and I am the mother, hollering. His jaw is stiff, like he is trying to hold everything inside, but the tears come spilling out of his eyes and onto the ground, all the fear and the guilt and the shame. As I watch him crumble, I realize: I am stronger than all of them. I, Baby Girl Harley, am stronger than the manufacturers. My dream of a white-knight father dissolves in a puddle of Sean's blue-eyed tears. I feel my anger leak out of me, leaving sadness in its place, like someone has just died.
After a long while, Sean straightens up and gains control. He slaps the tears from his cheeks like he has had it with himself, coughs, blows his nose. Then he looks at me with something new in his eyes, as if he finally recognizes who I am. When he speaks, his voice is quiet. He says simply: “Come on, Harleykins. Let's go to Strawberry Fields.”
When I answer him, my voice is just as quiet. “I think I'd rather go alone.”
When I pop up from underground, I am surprised that the sun is still shining. I feel like I've just been through a war. For the first time, I see kids my own age with backpacks and notebooks. They look chic and rich. School must have gotten out. I wonder if anyone back in Lenape has missed me yet. I doubt it. Sean gave me money for a cab back to Port Authority and said he would call Peppy and Roger. I can't even think about them right now.
I look around and try to get my bearings. I stand in front of a dark castle surrounded by wrought-iron gargoyles. I read the street signs: Seventy-second Street and Central Park West. Can it be … ? Yes. I recognize the building from Mrs. Tuttle's picture book. It's the Dakota, the place where John Lennon lived and died. People are strolling past like it's just an ordinary building. I want to stop them and shake them. Don't you see? This is the Taj Mahal, right in front of your eyes.
Across the street are trees and policemen on horseback and people on skates. That must be Central Park. I take a deep breath. I am on a pilgrimage. I know Strawberry Fields is around here somewhere.
I walk up to this preppy-looking kid with brown glasses waiting to cross the street. “Excuse me. Where's Strawberry Fields?”
The preppy is startled. “Cross over and stay to the left.” He points. “Follow the signs.”
I wait for the light to change and join the mob pouring into the park. Police barricades block the street. Bicyclists and skaters zip down the road, faster than cars. I swear, this city is so wide awake—not hibernating like Lenape.
I realize I am starving. Food. I need food. I see a cart parked on the corner and smell steaming hot dogs. A dark-skinned man stands behind the cart.
“I'll take a hot dog.”
“Mustard?” He opens up a steamer and plops a hot dog into a bun.
“Ketchup, please.” He squirts some ketchup onto the hot dog and hands it to me. I bite into it. Juice spurts out the other end. Mmmmm. If I had my oils, I would paint this taste. I pay him and follow a stream of people pouring down an asphalt pathway and into the park.
The noise of the city is muffled in here. Quiet. Peaceful. Leaves crunch under my feet. The stream of people slows to a trickle. I am in the country in the city. A sign on a pole says Strawberry Fields. I finish my hot dog with two big bites. I come to a fork in the pathway. And then I see it.
There, in the center, flanked by park benches, is a large mosaic circle. Bits of black and white tile form spokes of a wheel. In the center of the wheel is the word IMAGINE. It is my painting come alive.
I step into the center of the mosaic and close my eyes. I almost expect a shaft of light to shoot down from the sky and beam me up to the heavens. I want to kneel. I want to pray. When I open my eyes, they are glistening. People are staring at me, but I don't care. I walk back to a park bench and collapse, gazing at the circle and blinking through my tears. These are good tears, happy tears, tears of relief.
I have done it. I am here.
Flowers are strewn all over the mosaic in memory of John Lennon. A drunken guy throws handfuls of birdseed across the word IMAGINE, then snarls, “Scram!” to the hungry pigeons. A man in a suit reads a newspaper. Sitting next to him is a cat on a leash, eyeing the pigeons and licking his chops. Mothers picnic with their children on the grass. Joggers dodge tourists posing for pictures. Executives bicker on their way home from the office. Now the enormous world passing in front of me seems wondrous, not scary.
A group of East Indian tourists link arms and form a wheel around the Imagine mosaic, an exotic ring-around-the-rosy. Slowly they move, the women's colorful saris fluttering, while one of the men with a video camera captures the whole kaleidoscope on tape.
A guy with long brown hair stands off to the side, dabbing watercolors onto an easel, his back toward me. As I watch him paint, I get a stab of sadness right where my heart used to be. Part of me wants to live here, among the rebels, but another part wants to be safe at home with the sheep. The sun is starting to go down, and the air is turning cool. Bean and Lily have been home from school for a while now. I wonder who is watching them. Maybe Bean called Peppy at work and said, Harley's not here. And Peppy said, Damn that girl! Well, they are Peppy's children, not mine. After all, who is watching me? Myself. I am taking care of myself. Oh, but I don't want to. The thought creeps into my head. Not all the time, not like this. It is too much.
I watch a mother on the lawn kiss her baby on the forehead, and I am so lonely. Maybe Sean called Peppy by now and told her the jig is up. My … parents. Ha. I think I am homesick, but for what? I have been betrayed by the people I should have been able to trust. I am tired of it all. Exhausted. I watch a homeless man asleep on the grass. I wonder if one day he said, Oh, the hell with it, life's too hard, and just gave up. I want to curl up beside him. How easy that would be. Just lie down and go to sleep. Forever. It is a temptation, that thought, like a pillow softly calling me to rest my head. I close my eyes and lean against the back of the bench. I sigh, and there is a little sob at the end of it.
“This is the best part of the park, don't you think?” I sit up, startled. The long-haired guy painting the watercolors is talking to me. I blink. He is wearing little round glasses. He has an English accent. For a moment, I think I have fallen asleep and dreamed up John Lennon, alive, in my painting of Strawberry Fields. I glance around to see if anyone else notices this guy. Everybody seems intent on what they are doing, which is basically nothing. The guy winks at me behind his glasses. I feel my face turn red.
“It's peaceful, isn't it?” he says. “Perfect spot for painting.” I smile at him and nod, but say nothing.
The guy dips his brush onto his palette and shades some grass under a tree. “I noticed you checking me out.” He hums and peers at his painting, adding a little touch of gold. “Do you paint?”
“Yeah.” My voice comes out sharper than I mean it to be. “Well, I used to.” A small boy comes flying across the Imagine mosaic, holding a pinwheel, a little girl chasing behind him.
The John Lennon guy grins at the kids like he's part of the family and pushes his glasses up on his nose. He points to a group of foreign students a little older than me tossing daisies and roses onto the mosaic. “Look at that. The guy still draws a crowd.” He turns back to his painting and frowns. “I can't get this tree right.”
Without thinking, I am on my feet, walking toward the easel. I examine his painting of Strawberry Fields. It is strangely familiar, almost like the oil I painted myself in my bedroom in Lenape. “You know, if you mix a little yellow in with some green and brown …” I stop. I hope he doesn't think I'm being rude.
The guy grins and hands me his paintbrush. “Go ahead.” I hesitate, then take the brush out of his hand. I swirl the watercolors around on the palette. With a couple of strokes, I fix his tree and add a ray of sunlight beaming down on the Imagine mosaic.
The guy examines the painting. “Cool.” I feel the paintbrush light in my hand, so much a part of me it's like another finger. This is what I love, I think. The paint and the brush and
the canvas. I remember what Miss Posey told me a long time ago: Just getting behind an easel helps.
I hand the paintbrush back to the John Lennon guy, the tip facing my palm like I'm handing him a sharp, tiny sword. “Thanks,” I say, and he understands.
The guy winks at me. “Not bad for someone who used to paint.” He turns again to the easel.
As I head toward the path leading from Strawberry Fields, I stop and look back at the John Lennon guy. He waves after me, paintbrush in hand, and calls, “See you around,” and I think, Yes.
When I get off the bus in Lenape, I feel like I've stepped into a greeting card, a quaint suburban scene complete with red caboose. I head up the cracked sidewalk toward the high school, not Willoby Court. It is another world here, full of gabled houses and two cars in each driveway. I wonder if there are as many secrets behind every curtain as there are in the House of Columba. Even though it is dark, I can see lights on up ahead in the gym. Good. This means a door will be open.
I hear a basketball and squeaking sneakers against the hardwood floor as I head toward the side entrance of the school. A whistle blows, and Mr. Anderson, the boys' coach, starts yelling at the team. There is no game tonight; they are only practicing. I push open the heavy door, then close it softly behind me.
As I walk down the hallway, I feel like I'm moving inside a distant memory, even though I was just here this morning. When I get to the art room, I hold my breath, then try the door. It's locked. This is what I was expecting, but I am still disappointed. I jiggle the handle, hoping it will magically open. It does not. I throw my shoulder against the door and turn the knob at the same time. Nothing. I am just about to start kicking the door, find a battering ram, anything, when I feel a hand on my shoulder. I spin around and look into the scraggly face of Mr. Wykoff, the janitor.
“What do you think you're doing?”
I am startled. “I forgot my key.” I am surprised to hear that my voice is calm. “I'm doing the artwork for the drama club play, and I wanted to work for a while.”
Mr. Wykoff glances at his watch. “It's a little late, isn't it?”
I think fast. “I was walking around town and I got the urge. I'll just stay until the boys get done practicing, okay?”
Mr. Wykoff looks at me like this is not okay at all, but he opens the door. “Clean up after yourself. I already did this room.”
I wait until I hear his footsteps shuffle off down the hallway, then I flip on the light and step into the middle of the room. It smells like years of turpentine and oils. The old wooden floor is speckled with paint drops and hardened chunks of plaster. A pile of rags is stacked neatly in the corner. This is my home, I think. Full of smudges and stains. The three portraits of Anastasia stand in the corner, just as I left them a lifetime ago.
I am a surgeon when I put on my smock. I lay out my brushes like scalpels. I turn on the scratchy record player, and the voice of another artist fills the room, singing extra colors. I take a clean rag from the pile in the corner and open my paints. I walk up to the final portrait, pick up my palette, and plunge Granny Harley's sable brush deep into the oil.
Peppy and I are alone on the auditorium stage, except for the stagehands dressed in black, scurrying around adjusting furniture and props. The backstage lights are dim. We stand in front of the first portrait of Anastasia, the princess with a blank face. In my arms I hold a bouquet of roses, an opening-night gift from Sean. I can hear the muffled buzz of the audience on the other side of the heavy curtain, accenting the silence between my mother and me.
“Do you think Dad will come, Mom?”
I am talking about Roger, not Sean, and Peppy understands. Her sigh is tired. We have been through a lot of tears these last three weeks. “I honestly don't know, Harley. It's hard for him.”
Sean is a reality, no longer a dream, and I am holding the roses that prove it. Everything and nothing has changed since my trip to New York. They tell me I am grounded for leaving home and cutting school. I stay at home to make them happy, but you can't ground someone for finding out the truth. Now we live under an unspoken truce. Peppy talked to Ms. Minelli, and I was allowed to finish Anastasia. And Roger has stopped yelling. He sips his drinks silently, as though he's waiting for something—I don't know what.
I try to pick the right words for the question I've been wanting to ask. “I understand why you married him … then … but now …”
Peppy's eyes warn me not to go any further. “You can see the kind of man Sean is. Roger …” She stops, uncertain for a moment. “Your father may be a lot of things, but he was there when we needed him. And he loves me.” She looks at me with her dark brown eyes, and I see the life she has chosen reflected back at me. “It counts for a lot, Harley. You'll see.”
But what about the rest? I want to ask. What about the fights and the secrets and the lies? But it is not the time for this conversation; old wounds are still bleeding in the House of Columba. Instead I turn to my portrait. “So, Mom, what do you think?”
I watch as she looks up at the princess; Peppy's face changes, then changes again. I wonder what she sees on the easel. “You're very good, Harley. At least Sean gave you that.” She is still searching for answers, and I am still trying to forgive.
The buzz on the other side of the curtain is louder now, and I can hear the wooden auditorium chairs squeal and flap as people file in and take their seats. Bud Roman strides from one side of the stage to the other. “Five minutes, people. People, people, five minutes.”
My heart does a little flip. “You'd better go out and sit down, Mom. I'll be there in a minute.”
Peppy reaches out and touches my arm. “Okay.” She turns to leave through the side curtains, then stops. “I'm proud of you, Harley.” I watch her walk into the shadows and disappear.
I move in the darkness now, fumbling to find the slit in the heavy curtains that opens to the wings.
Finally my fingers feel the opening and I slide through. Back here is one naked bulb illuminating a senior guy who sits, holding a copy of the play, ready to prompt the actors if someone forgets a line. He is studying the page, whispering the words over and over to himself.
Next to him, mounted on a large easel, is my pièce de résistance, the oil painting of Anastasia, barely dry. She stands expectantly, as if waiting for the third act, when she will appear onstage. A diamond tiara sparkles on top of her long brown hair. A red robe cascades down her shoulders. I look up at the princess I created. Head tilted, she gazes right back at me. Everything I've been through is there on the canvas, I think. Everything, there in the paint.
The senior guy glances at his watch, one that lights up and has a stopwatch counting down the seconds. “Just a couple of minutes now,” he whispers to me. He sounds nervous.
“Okay.” I try to calm him with my smile. I take one last look at Anastasia in oil. “Break a leg,” I whisper to my painting, but the senior guy thinks I'm talking to him, and whispers, “Break a leg” back to me. I scoot down the steps leading to the corridor under the stage. I dodge my way past the actors, whispering, “Break a leg, break a leg,” to everyone I meet. I race along the corridor until I reach the heavy fire door that leads into the main hallway of the school. I push the door open, careful not to let it slam behind me. There is no one in sight; everyone is already inside. I am practically running down the hallway now, out the front door of the school and into the courtyard.
I enter the auditorium just as the house lights are starting to fade. Up front, Mr. Michaels is conducting a string quartet. I notice Carla and Ronnie sitting in the back. I wave to Carla. I watch her hesitate, then slowly lift her hand and toss a flutter of fingers back to me. Sometimes I am dying to tell Carla the truth, that we really are half sisters, but I get the feeling that there is something inside Carla that doesn't want to know.
I stop in the center of the aisle and search for my seat. Mrs. Tuttle smiles down on me from the first row of the balcony, and I smile up my thanks. I see Evan standing in the t
hird row, motioning to me. Peppy sits next to him. And next to her, in a seat that was empty five minutes ago, is Roger Columba. I slide into my seat just as the house lights go out. Evan grins at me and an entire sentence passes between us, comrades in the trenches.
The string quartet finishes the sonata and falls silent. We sit in the blackness. The audience coughs and fidgets, then grows quiet. I hear Mr. Michaels tap his baton. Softly, the quartet starts to play as the curtain slides open on a dark stage. For a moment, we sit there, staring at nothing. Then, suddenly, dramatically, the stage bursts into light. The music swells. Together the audience breathes, “Ooo!”
Standing there in the center of the stage is my first portrait, the princess with no face. Looking at her over the heads in the audience, she seems almost real, like she could walk right off her pedestal and into the crowd.
“Harley,” I hear Roger whisper. I turn toward his silhouette and brace myself for his review. He leans across Peppy and Evan and says, “Good work.” His breath smells faintly of vodka. It is small, his offering, but it is a start.
I smile sadly into the darkness and give his hand a squeeze. “Thanks,” I whisper back to him.
I turn again toward the stage and gaze at my painting. I have captured Anastasia's hesitancy, I think, but also something else. Even though she is faceless, she stands noble, proud, as if waiting for the chance to prove she is royal, not an impostor. Now the bright beam from the center spotlight swings across the stage and stops, illuminating the base of the portrait. If I squint, I can make out my signature at the bottom: “Harley S. Columba.”