My Own Voice

by Uvi Poznansky

  My Own Voice

  Still Life with Memories

  Volume I

  A Novel

  Uvi Poznansky

  My Own Voice©2015 Uvi Poznansky

  All rights Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

  This novel can be read as a standalone novel, as well as a part of Still Life with Memories, a series describing events in the life of a unique family from multiple points of view.

  Published by Uviart

  P.O. Box 3233 Santa Monica CA 90408

  Website: uviart.com Blog: uviart.blogspot.com

  Email: uvi@uviart.com

  First Edition 2015

  Printed in the United States of America

  The characters in this book are fictional. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Book design, cover design and cover image by

  Uvi Poznansky

  For my husband

  Contents

  Apart from Love

  It Is Not Too Late

  A Promise, Aborted

  Keeper of Secrets

  In My Defense

  The Family We Are

  Go Back To Your Mama

  My Own Voice

  Above All, Survival

  The Heartbeat

  The Naked Bulb

  She Deserves Better

  The Long Wait

  Around Me Around Him

  Not The End

  Play. Stop. Eject

  About the Story

  About the Author

  A Note to the Reader

  Bonus Excerpt: The Music of Us

  Bonus Excerpt: Rise to Power

  Bonus Excerpt: Twisted

  Bonus Excerpt: A Favorite Son

  Books by Uviart

  My Own Voice

  The White Piano

  The Music of Us

  Apart from Love

  The David Chronicles

  Rise to Power

  A Peek at Bathsheba

  The Edge of Revolt

  A Favorite Son

  Twisted

  Home

  Children’s Books by Uviart

  Jess and Wiggle

  Now I Am Paper

  Apart from Love

  Chapter 1

  Later, when I wake up, it takes me a while to grasp where I am, and even longer to figure out that I’ve lost time, that time has passed. The last thing I remember is like, making breakfast for him—and now, somehow, it’s late afternoon.

  I’m lying here on my side, with the bedside lamp shedding a dim light behind me. I can tell that his side of the bed is empty. Why am I here? How did I get here? Why am I so dazed, so confused? And where’s Lenny?

  I gaze across the ceiling and along the walls, trying to pick out every shade, every hint. And there, opposite the bed I spot my wedding dress which—now I recall—I’ve hung on the coat rack, right there in the corner.

  The corner of the bedroom is the only place here which I reckon is truly mine. Strange, no? I still feel that way, despite having slept here with him, on and off, for like, the past ten years. I keep telling myself that I must claim this space, claim it as mine, right away. And maybe I will one day, when the baby’s born.

  I try to picture a crib here, next to me, and at once everything looks so much brighter. I hope the baby can soon feel something of what’s in my heart—but not the confusion.

  Staring at that corner I know one thing, and I know it real clear, at once: this lovely dress, made of heavy satin and trimmed with lace and beading and what not, which I’ve dyed, the morning after the wedding, orange at the top and purple at the bottom, so it can still be used in the future—like, at dances and parties and stuff—this dress isn’t gonna to fit me no more.

  Up to now I’ve pictured it in my head, shining awful brilliant, just like a rainbow, and swirling all around me; and with every step, billowing between my legs, and like, making me adorable, so adorable in Lenny’s eyes—but now that I touch my belly and feel the beginning, the very beginning of change, right here around my waist, what’s the point of all that.

  On the floor, under the hem of the dress, I can see two pairs of shoes: one is my new, white satin shoes, which Lenny’s bought for me, like, two weeks ago, just for the wedding.

  When he wants to, he can be real kind. He knows so well how to spoil a woman. He gave me a ring with a pink sapphire. I bet you it’s real! Also, a gold chain with a locket, which at the last minute—like, just before saying, I do—I decided not to wear. I wanted to look classy, and worried that it’s gonna be a bit much.

  And the other pair? Now, that’s my very first pair of high heel shoes. They’re worn out, but still kinda bright, and chipped only a little. To this day I’m totally crazy about the color: hot pink!

  Ten years ago I spotted them up there, in a store window, and for a whole month I stared at them every day, on my way home from school, and my heart sank, knowing I didn’t have no money to buy them. I liked how the side of the strap was like, spruced up with a plastic rose, which has since fallen off. Awful cute, it was!

  Then I found a job at this ice cream place, down there at the Santa Monica pier. I got my first week’s pay, and was so happy, so thrilled to rush in and buy them, because they wasn’t only pink—but glossy too, and because now I was just like an adult. Ma took one look at them and slapped me, which made me figure that now, I was gonna have no choice but to apply plenty of makeup, so that this side of my face, which was flaming red, won’t stand out all that much.

  Then she slapped me again, this time on the other side, which turned out to be just as stinging—but at least, it solved the problem for me, ‘cause now I found myself, like, pretty even; you know, balanced on both sides.

  Ma said I looked like a bitch in them shoes—but I didn’t care, really I didn’t, because it was my sixteenth birthday and it was my own damn money, for me to do as I please, and because I had to fight her, like, tooth and nail to keep the little I had, so that she won’t take it from me, for my sake of course; and because most of all, I thought them shoes made me look just fine.

  Now I can see one pink shoe standing lopsided, held up somehow in-between them white shoes; and the other pink one lying there, turned over, like some openmouthed baby whale, trying to rise for a breath from a sea of dust.

  Me, I still remember the first time I wore them, which was also the first time I met Lenny.

  He was standing out there, on the other side of the pier. The lights on the Ferris Wheel had just started to come on. They was gleaming there, directly behind him.

  Somehow I could spot his outline in the distance, in-between the swirly letters, which I couldn’t read, because from the inside, which was where I was standing, left was right, right was left, flipped into looking kinda foreign, which can really confuse you. But I knew them letters spelled the name of the place. They looked cool, too, like they’re gonna drip and totally melt, floating up there on the pane of glass between us.

  It was a hot summer evening, and the place was awful packed. I paced back and forth behind the counter, serving the customers, dishing out fresh smiles, scooping Dutch chocolate here and vanilla there, and trying to get a beat going, trying to sway my hips and at the same time, steady my step over my new, hot pink high heels, which isn’t near as easy as you might think—at least, not on the first try.

  After a while I noted that he started pacing just like me, back and forth, and with the same beat, too. I liked the bounce of his step. Right away I thought he was gonna make a fabulous dance
partner. And I knew, really I did, it was gonna to be a wild night.

  You won’t believe how wild it turned out to be—but in a different way than you might expect, like, an entirely different way. He was so handsome, too, with that slicked-back hair, just like them stars in the old movies!

  And like, there was something about his walk, about the way he carried himself, that reminded me of Johnny, mom’s previous boyfriend, the one who confessed to her that he couldn’t get no respect from his wife.

  Just like him, Lenny seemed to be in his early forties, and like, he was talking to himself from time to time. I bet he was rehearsing some excuse. Which made me bust out laughing, laughing so hard that my hat—that ice cream uniform hat, made of hard white paper folded in half—nearly flew off my pony tail. I mean, if you find yourself in such a bind, having to come up with one new story after another for the old wife, you might as well just get rid of her, and get yourself a new girl.

  The minute our eyes met, I knew what to do: so I stopped in the middle of what I was doing, which was dusting off the glass shield over the ice cream buckets, and stacking up waffle cones here and sugar cones there. From the counter I grabbed a bunch of paper tissues, and bent all the way down, like, to pick something from the floor. Then with a swift, discrete shove, I stuffed the tissues into one side of my bra, then the other, ‘cause I truly believe in having them two scoops—if you know what I mean—roundly and firmly in place.

  Having a small chest is no good: men seem to like girls with boobs that bulge out. It seems to make an awful lot of difference, especially at first sight, which you can always tell by them customers, drooling.

  I straightened up real fast, and it didn’t take no time for him to come in. I was still serving another customer, some obnoxious woman with, like, three chins. She couldn’t make up her mind if she wanted hot fudge on top or just candy sprinkles, and what kind, what flavor would you say goes well with pistachio nut, and how about them slivered almonds, because they do seem to be such a healthy choice, now really, don’t they.

  He came in and stood in line, real patient, right behind her. So now I noted his eyes, which was brown, and his high forehead and the crease, the faint crease right there, in the middle of it, which reminded me all of a sudden of my pa, who left us for good when I was only five, and I never saw him again—but still, from time to time, I think about him and I miss him so.

  I could feel Lenny—whose name I didn’t know yet—like, staring at me. It made me hot all over. For a minute there, I could swear he was gonna to ask me how old I was—but he didn’t.

  And so, to avoid blushing, I turned to him and I said, boldly, “It’s a crime?”

  And he said, “What?”

  And I said, “To be sixteen. It’s a crime, you think?”

  And he said, “Back in the days when I was young and handsome, that was no crime.”

  And I countered with, “Handsome you still are!”

  He had no comeback for that, and me, I didn’t have nothing with which I could follow it up. So I asked, “So? What kind of cone for you?” but that woman cut in, ‘cause I was still holding her three-scoops tower of pistachio nut on a sugar cone. And she started to cry out, and like, demand some attention here, because hey, she was first in line and how about whipped cream? Or some of that shredded coconut?

  So I smiled at her, in my most cool and polite manner, and squeezed out a big dollop of whipped cream, which was awesome, ‘cause it calmed her down right away.

  And I scattered some of them coconut flakes all over—quite a heap—and went even further, adding a cherry on top. At last, I raised the thing to my lips, because at this point, it was starting to drip already.

  Then, winking at him, I passed my tongue over the top, and all around the ice cream at the rim of the cone, filling my whole mouth and, just to look sexy, also licking the tips of my fingers. Then I came around the counter, swaying my hips real pretty, and steadying myself over the wobbly high heels. I came right up to him, and before he could guess what kind of trouble I had cooked up in my head, I kissed him—so sweet and so long—on his lips, to the shouts and outcries of the offended customer.

  The manager was like, outraged, not only because of this incident—but also because pink shoes wasn’t allowed, no way no how, only black uniform shoes. She grabbed my ice cream hat, that thing made out of white paper, and pulled it right off my head, and threw it to the floor, smashing and crashing it. I was fired right there, on the spot.

  He came out right away after me. I bet he figured it was his fault, ‘cause it was over him that I’ve lost my job.

  So he said, “Hi. My name is Lenny.”

  “Anita,” I said, licking my lips, because they was still kinda sticky and tasted sweet, and because I think I look hot when my mouth has a shine.

  It was getting awful dark already. And he said, like, “So, where do you live?”

  And me, I figured that tonight, it would be good to hang out at home, ‘cause ma was gonna be working late again.

  We lived in the same one-bedroom place ever since I was five, when pa had paid the first month rent—but then he forgot, somehow, all about sending the second. Sometimes, things may fly right out of your mind. I totally get that.

  Because of Santa Monica’s rent control, the place was kinda cheap. Still, ma said that paying it was hard for her, ‘cause without a high school diploma—which she never got, on account of never going to no high school—without that, no one wants you, and there is no way nowhere to get a decent, well-paying job.

  For the last couple of years she worked as a cleaning lady by day and an unarmed security officer by night, both at the same place, a local clinic. Tonight, I figured, would be her night shift. So when Lenny asked, “Would you like me to take you home?” I said, “Yes, take me.”

  “But,” he said, “no more kissing, I mean it now. I do not want any trouble, and you are too young, you know, much too young for a man my age.”

  He had a fine way of talking, like no one else I knew. He talked, like, with such a clear cut enunciation. I’m awful proud of this word. It was from Lenny that I learned it. Enunciation. For my part, I could teach him a thing or two about trouble.

  So later, while sticking the key in the door, I turned to him and said, “Trouble, that’s my middle name,” which was a line I used sometimes, ‘cause it sounded so clever.

  “No, really?” he said.

  To which I replied by asking, “What, you think it’s a crime? Like, kissing me, I mean?” And he said, “It’s just... I do not want to start something which can lead nowhere, really.”

  What could I say to that, except, “There’s no one home. Stay a minute. Is that a crime, too?”

  I handed him an old record, something slow from the sixties, which years ago used to bring tears to ma’s eyes, because—in spite of looking so tough—she still had a soft spot somewhere in her, even if most of the time you can’t find it. She used to play it often—but now not so much no more.

  So I thought he might like it. Lenny put it on the record player, so in a second the mood was better, even though the thing squeaked from time to time.

  He turned to me the minute I untied my pony tail, and told me I reminded him of a girl he used to know, and would I like to dance.

  I stepped out of my shoes and into his arms, and before he could say anything I slipped out of my dress, too. I thought I looked, like, a little too slender in my panties, so I told him to close his eyes—but at this point, because of being so aroused, and trying so hard not to show it, I forgot all about them tissues at each side of my bra, which now and again, made a slight swoosh.

  Later I wondered if he wondered about that.

  I rose to the tips of my toes, feeling the touch of his shirt and the pleat of his pants, right against my bare skin. And I placed my hands on his shoulders, and felt his hands on my hips.

  And so he held me there, a long, long time in the dark. And me, I got to touch his lips, and that crease up there
, on his forehead, and we swayed back and forth: I clinging to him, he—to that one girl, the girl he used to know.

  Then he moved away abruptly, saying that he was too old for me, and anyway, what was he doing, he had a child, a boy just a year older than me. So I took a step closer, like, to close the gap again. And feeling lost, like a stray kitten out in the cold, I said, “Just hold me, Lenny. Just hold me tight. I need you so bad.”

  And the minute I said it, I knew he needed to hear these words, needed to know that he was really needed.

  After a while I whispered, like, “Just say something to me. Anything.” And I thought, Any other word apart from love, ‘cause that word is diluted, and no one knows what it really means, anyway. Then he kissed me—even without the ice cream—and said my name, like, he tasted it in his mouth, and rolled it on his tongue, which made me awful happy. And we started our dance again:

  I came as he backed away, and then in reverse, I backed away as he came, and we came and went, went and came this way for a long while until, all of a sudden, the front door opened and there was ma, standing there with a new boyfriend this time, a guy whose name I didn’t even know.

  She opened her fist—I could hear the bong of the keychain as it dropped to the floor—and before she could slap me, I ran as fast and as far as my legs could take me, right out the door.

  Then, yelling Bitch at the top of her voice, ma picked up my dress, which had been left there, in the middle of the floor, and threw it. She threw it flying down the staircase after me—but for some reason, them pink shoes stayed behind.

  They stayed until the next day, when Lenny went there for me, to get some of my stuff. Perhaps he figured he was in charge of me now, and so he paid for a motel room, and went on paying it, ‘cause it was on his account that I lost my job and the roof over my head, both on the same night.

  Who’s there? What was that, just now?

  I can feel, like, a slight breath behind me. I can hear the click of the knob, on the bedside lamp up there, over my shoulder. It’s made the light stronger, and the shadows—sharper. I need to know who it is—but at this point, I don’t barely feel like turning around.