My Mother Was Never A Kid (Victoria Martin Trilogy)

by Francine Pascal

  I look across the man at Cici and we both smile. We won! We outfoxed the dragon. Nice one. I slump back in my seat feeling very up and ready to enjoy the movie. But something begins to nag at me about the man sitting between us. I think they call it peripheral vision when you see something out of the corner of your eye that you don’t even know you’re seeing. Well, most of the time you don’t notice unless something about it strikes you funny like the fact that the guy is all huddled up in a raincoat when it’s as sunny as can be outside and it absolutely isn’t raining in the theater. Now, I’m no dope, so I know all about men with raincoats, but I’ve got my fingers crossed. He could be the exception, you know.

  Naturally I can’t concentrate on the movie anymore. All I’m doing is waiting for the inevitable. It happens. Or maybe it doesn’t happen. That’s always the trouble with these things. I could swear something touched my knee. Of course it could have been the edge of his coat brushing against me or it could have been his leg when he changed position or it could have been something someone dropped from the balcony or it could have been his goddamn grungy hand. Nothing I can do but sit and wait and see if it happens again.

  It happens again! This time there’s no mistake. It’s his hand. It skims across my knee. Now, it could be accidental or it could be on goddamn purpose. I’m beginning to perspire something awful. I even feel nauseous. I look behind me and sure enough, the matron’s face is still framed in the window of the door. I don’t even dare glance in Cici’s direction because I have to look past the creep. I’ll give him one more chance.

  Big mistake. This time it doesn’t just brush against me. It stays there. There’s a hand on my knee! I’m frozen to the spot. Nothing moves on the outside, but inside my head it’s all tearing around frantically. There’s a hand on my knee! Gross! My eyes are staring so hard I think they’re going to pop. Oh, God! I’m trapped between the dragon in the back and this disgusting goon. I want to slam his hand off me and scream, “Get away from me, you filthy old man!” I want to kick him with all my might right in the shin. I want to run out of this horrible theater. I want to go home!

  “Get away from me, you filthy old man!” My God, did I say that? No … it’s Cici and she’s yelling at the top of her lungs, and everybody is turning to look, and now she winds up and gives him a bone-breaker kick right in the shin, and he jumps a mile and grabs his leg and lets out a long Ooooooh …”

  Believe it or not, I haven’t moved a hair. Now Cici pushes past him and grabs my hand.

  “Come on. This stinks.” And turning to the man who’s still rubbing his leg, she says good and loud, “You disgusting pervert.”

  She really has guts.

  Cici isn’t finished yet. She pulls me out into the aisle, turns to the man, and shaking her finger just like my mother would do, really chews him out.

  “You’ve got some nerve. I ought to call the police.” Naturally nobody in our section is watching the movie anymore, but the rest of the audience is in a fury, whistling, stamping, and shouting for quiet. The old guy has slumped so far down into his seat that he’s nothing but a pile of raincoat. Everyone around is grumbling at him and making hostile remarks. Finally he’s so shamed that he leaps up and races out, knocking into the matron charging straight for us. There’s no place to hide and the only place to run is the emergency exit. The matron or the movie?

  We both make the same decision at the same second and shoot right out the door and into the back alley. Well, there goes thirty-four cents down the drain.

  “I guess that wasn’t such a good idea,” Cici says, and she looks really upset. “Sorry you wasted all that money.” Sometimes I can’t tell whether she’s serious or what. Just in case she’s not kidding, I tell her it’s okay, I’ll catch them at home.

  “Where?” She says it like I’m nuts.

  “TV,” I say. In the back of my mind, I’m not sure she’ll even know what I’m talking about. But it doesn’t make any difference because Cici is already halfway into another conversation and I can tell from the sparks that she’s got a new plan. And it’s going to be a beaut.

  “I still got the other half of our tickets. Maybe I can talk to the guy at the door. I’ve got the perfect story. All I say is …”

  Oh, no. I can’t believe her. I’d rather go back to the manager at Woolworth’s than mess with that matron. Cici really freaks me out, but I love her. I never had a friend who was nuttier or more exciting. She sure is different, except she’s not. It’s that weird familiarity thing again. Like right now she’s gabbing on about her newest scheme and I’m not even listening. I’m just watching her expressions and the way she moves her hands and all, and thinking how she reminds me of someone I know. It’s on the edge of my brain, but I can’t grab it. And it’s going to drive me loony.

  “… and if it doesn’t work? So tough. It’s worth the try. What do you think? Wanna try?”

  I’m so involved in trying to figure out who she looks like that I miss half her plan, but that’s okay because the part I did catch was all about some dreaded tropical disease and the life-saving medicine we supposedly left on the seat in the theater, and all I have to do is pretend I’m a blind nun.

  “Sounds like a great idea, Cici.” I try not to choke too loud. “But I’m really kind of beat and besides I’m getting tired of dragging this suitcase around. Would you mind if we passed it up for now?”

  “Sure thing. Why don’t we dump your things at my house and I’ll save the stubs for tomorrow?”

  Maybe I’ll feel more like a blind nun tomorrow.

  Seven

  We start walking down the alley toward the street. Of course I have no idea where she lives so I just follow along« When we hit the end of the alley we turn right and we’re on the main street again. This time we walk slowly and I get a chance to look around. First store I see is a National Shoe store. I study the window slowly and carefully. Last week I bought a pair of espadrilles in the one around my neighborhood for $14. This store obviously doesn’t carry espadrilles, but they do have a whole lot of really gross shoes with little wedgies for prices all the way up to $2.99. That’s right, two dollars and ninety-nine cents. For shoes. Not slippers—regular shoes. It’s getting harder and harder to keep my cool.

  We walk past other stores and it’s the same story. All the prices are ridiculously low and the clothes are weird and the people are strange-looking and I’m running out of excuses.

  I have to admit that I don’t feel as freaked as I did at first. Maybe that’s because I’m getting used to it or maybe it’s Cici. She couldn’t possibly be a part of anything that would hurt me. I just know it. I trust her. Absolutely. Besides, I’ve got at least two inches and ten pounds on her so she better not try anything funny. Okay, that’s settled. Now all I have to do is get my head together and examine this whole thing calmly and rationally. Later I can get hysterical.

  Right now I’ve got to be objective.

  If this kind of thing happened to a character in a book I would say it’s got to be science fiction, but since it’s really happening to me, it’s more like science nonfiction. That’s a good start, isn’t it? And another thing. I’m pretty sure that I’m not on another planet or anything far out like that. I mean everything is only slightly different … like an old movie.

  I know it’s not like the twenties because I just saw The Great Gatsby and nobody was dressed like this, and besides the cars and the clothes and everything look more like the ones in the beginning of that Barbra Streisand movie, The Way We Were. I think that was supposed to take place in the forties. Okay, so just say this is the forties. The forties! I must be out of my head, whacko. I mean, how come? How can I be in the forties, and if I am, what am I doing here and how am I ever going to get home and back to my family in the seventies?

  Cool it, Victoria.

  This kind of calm rational thinking can really make a person crazy. Still, I can’t beat around the bush anymore. I’ve got to say it. So here goes.

  I think
some horrendously screwy thing has happened to me and I got zapped back in time. I know this sounds really far out, but just suppose somehow I fell into a time fault. You know like those faults they have in the earth in California. Well maybe there’s something like that in time and somehow I got sucked into one and zoomed back thirty years. My science teacher is always saying that nothing is ever wasted in nature, so maybe all those used-up years are still around somewhere, sort of stored way down deep in the center of time. I suppose I better level with you. I got a 32 on my last science exam. But just say I’m right. Then that’s okay. I mean I’m lucky because I could have fallen much farther, like thousands or even millions of years, and then there would have been dinosaurs or an ice age or something really gross like that.

  Okay, so great, I only fell thirty years. Still, how am I going to get home? Or will I have to stay here always? Which is awful because except for Cici I’m absolutely alone here. In fact it’s even worse than that because I’ve got this outrageous secret and I can’t even tell her. Just picture if I did. She’d probably think I was nuts or a liar or just trying to be cute and then she’d stop liking me and I couldn’t bear that. I definitely can’t let her know.

  Another thing that’s even scarier. I know you can fall down into something, but I’m not that lousy in science not to know that you can’t fall up. In other words, I could be stuck here for the rest of my life.

  And if that’s true, and it looks like it may be, I’m never going to see my mother and father again. Even Nina. I’ll never have to look at that grungy face again. I can feel the tears coming already. Count to ten, jerk, think of your big toe, fine, now think of your little toes, whatever you do, don’t cry! Think happy. Hey, no science term paper! No use. Here they come … ten, nine, eight, big toe, little toe …

  “Hey, what’s the matter?” Cici’s voice is very concerned.

  I can’t tell her the whole truth, but since she’s my only friend, I have to tell her something. “I don’t know,” I say. “I just feel upset. Maybe it’s because I had this really bad fight with my mother before I left and then when she wasn’t there to meet me … Oh, I don’t know, it’s so depressing to fight with your mother, especially if you’re not going to see her …”

  “It’s better that way.”

  “Huh?”

  “Sure. Gives her time to cool down. Mothers aren’t so great, but they don’t usually hold grudges. I know mine doesn’t. That may be the best thing about her. Actually, she’s probably a great mother—you know, cooking, cleaning, not letting you sit in a wet bathing suit and all that, but she’s really tough—strict and very serious about being a mother.”

  “Mine too. I mean serious about being a mother. That’s really our big problem. She can’t understand me at all because it’s like she was never a kid. Like she was born a mother.”

  “I know exactly what you mean. She probably drove her Barbie dolls crazy too. I’ve promised myself that when I have kids I’m really going to understand them because I’ll remember what it was like for me.”

  I tell Cici that that’s just the way I feel, and we congratulate ourselves on what sensational mothers we’re going to make. And you know what? I’m beginning to feel better. Cici seems to have that effect on me. It’s her kooky way of looking at things. She sort of tilts everything.

  “I live right up this hill and in half a block.” Cici interrupts my daydreams and points up a very steep hill.

  I’ve been so involved in trying to get it all together that I didn’t even realize we weren’t on the main drag anymore. Now we’re in sort of a residential area with mostly old wooden houses. Not really like suburbia, more like the city but with private homes, one jammed in right next to the other with little squiggly cement walks like you draw when you’re a little kid. Everything looks very neat and clean. In fact, since that funny little Kilroy picture in the subway, I haven’t seen one speck of graffiti anywhere.

  We pass one of those old-fashioned candy stores and I tell Cici maybe I should try to phone my mother again.

  “Sure,” she says, “go on. I’ll wait out here.”

  “I’ll only be a sec,” I say, and shoot inside, practically falling over the newspaper stand. A paper called PM slides down to the floor. Now’s my chance. I bend down to pick it up and zero right in on the date. I’ve got to know if I’m … oh, wow! It says May 19, 1944. 1944! I can’t believe it! I’m always wrong. How come I have to be right this time?

  “You want that paper, young lady?” says the fat man behind the counter. My brain is in a terrible turmoil. What’s happening? How did it happen? 1944? Somebody—anybody—help! But all I can say to the man is, “No … uh, thank you. That’s all right. I just wanted to use the phone.”

  “Right behind you.” He points to a wall phone next to the candy counter. And I think, Grandma, you were never righter. Talk about the wrong time and the wrong place! It’s even silly to call, I tell myself, but so what, I’ve got nothing to lose. Have I? Probably there’ll be no answer anyway. Still, this whole thing is so nutty maybe there’s something else I didn’t think of, like just suppose it isn’t 1944 all over. I mean, maybe it’s only here in Queens. That’s no crazier than anything else that’s happened, is it? Besides, the fat man is looking at me like I’m a loony so I’d better use the phone before he starts asking questions.

  I count to thirteen, which is my lucky number, and start dialing. One ring … two rings … three rings … my God, someone’s answering!

  “What number are you dialing, please?”

  Typical. It’s the operator. I’m so nutty. I dialed wrong. I tell her, “Sorry,” hang up and dial again. This time I’m very careful.

  “What number are you dialing, please?”

  Again. I must really be some kind of jerk, but I swear I dialed it perfectly. I tell the operator the number.

  “One moment, please.”

  My luck, it’s probably out of order. No wonder no one answered all this time. I should have thought of that. I’ll bet they’ve been going out of their heads worrying about why I didn’t call. Oh, boy.

  “I am sorry, madam. There is no such number.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “I am sorry, madam. We show no such number.”

  “Hey, wait, I forgot to say that’s Manhattan, not Queens.”

  “Madam, our listings cover all five boroughs.”

  “Well, you have to be looking it up wrong because that’s my own number and we’ve had it for as long as I can remember, so you see there has to be some mistake. Please look it up again.”

  “Madam, if you give me your party’s name, I will check the number.”

  “This is silly, I mean, I know the number’s right.”

  “Very well, madam.”

  “No, wait, please. The name’s Martin. Philip Martin.”

  “One moment, please.”

  This has got to be the wildest thing. That’s absolutely my number. I mean a person doesn’t forget the number they’ve had practically all their lives.

  “I’m sorry, Madam, we have no listing for Philip Martin.”

  “You’ve got to. I mean …” Obviously I’m beginning to lose my cool, so I take a deep breath and very calmly ask her to check 81 Central Park West for that name. Of course, no matter how silly she is, she’s got to find our name at that address. Unless …

  “Madam, we have no 81 Central Park West.”

  Help!

  “Now, look, operator. You just have to look it up again.”

  “I’m sorry, madam.”

  “Will you stop calling me madam. I’m not even fourteen yet.”

  “Is there another spelling?”

  “Of my own name? Do you think I’m a moron or something?”

  “I’m sorry, madam.”

  “I told you, I’m not a … oh, forget it.”

  And I crash the phone down hard. Remind me to change my lucky number. Thirteen stinks. For a change my eyes are all watery. You probably think I cry a lo
t, but I can’t help it this time. I’ve got this really lost empty feeling, and worse than that, I feel there’s no hope anymore. I mean, it’s all true. This is definitely the forties and I have no home and no family and I’m going to be stuck here forever. That’s plenty hard to take.

  Eight

  “Hey, is anything wrong?” I didn’t even notice Cici come into the store and now she’s standing there staring at me. I do a few silly things like blowing my nose and scratching my eyes so she won’t see that I’ve been crying. I’m sure I don’t fool her one bit.

  “They’re not home.” I have to tell her something.

  “It’s still early—don’t worry. You can try again when we get to my house. C’mon, let’s go. We’re almost there.”

  And we go outside and start walking up the hill.

  “Cici! Hey, Cici!”

  About fifty feet behind us two girls about our age are shouting to Cici.

  “Hey, wait up!” they call, running up to us.

  We stop to wait for them, and Cici tells me that they’re friends from her class.

  “What’s buzzin’, cousin?” the taller one says when they reach us. Then they both just stop and stare at me.

  Cici takes over the introductions. “This is my friend Victoria and she’s staying over at my house, maybe for the weekend.” That’s the first I’ve heard of any weekend. My own feeling is that I must get ahold of my mother and get back home. I mean deep, deep down I know this is all crazy and that she’s waiting for me somewhere. But I don’t say anything.

  “Victoria, this is Betty,” she says, nodding to a skinny girl with short stringy hair that almost looks dirty, “and this is Joyce.” Joyce is cute but kind of stuck-up looking.

  I’m sort of surprised that Cici’s friends are so gross. I’ll have to ask her about them later.

  In the most outrageous naa-naa voice, Joyce, Miss Snot, who is really too much, tells Cici that she and Betty have been studying practically non-stop since last night.