Three
We were supposed to leave in August. Sally wanted me to finish the school year at Gaynor, and meanwhile she had so much stuff to do before we’d be ready to go, I hardly ever saw her anymore. Besides the whole business of plane tickets and passports and clothes, and what to take and what to store, and what to do about the apartment, she had to keep on with her teaching and at the same time be looking around for somebody to take over for her. That was a thing, by the way. I don’t know how the singers were, but every one of the piano students went into major shock when she told them she was getting married and leaving the country. I’d never actually thought much about whether my mother was a good teacher or not—she was just Sally, it was what she did. Now, watching these grown people coming absolutely unglued at the idea of not being able to study with her anymore, as though she was the only piano teacher in the whole world, it suddenly made me look at her like someone else, a stranger. Practically everything was making me look at her that way, anyway, those days.
Like watching her with Evan. I haven’t put anything in about Evan so far, and I know I should have, I just kept feeling a little strange about it, even now. He’s about Sally’s age—which was middle forties then—and he’s not big, and he’s not good looking. He’s not bad looking, it’s just that you wouldn’t look at him twice on the street. A longish face, sort of diamond shaped, lumpy where the jaws hinge. He’s got hazelish-gray eyes that go down at the outside corners, and hair more or less the same rainy color, pretty thick except in the front, and it’s always a mess. Nice wide mouth, ugly nose. A horse broke his nose when he was a kid, thrashing its head around or something, and it never got set right. And later it got broken again, but I can’t remember how. Small ears, more like a woman’s ears than a man’s. And he’s thin—not skinny, but definitely bony. Sally couldn’t have picked anybody who looked less like Norris.
He came home with her a couple of days after she told me, and I grabbed an apple and three raisin cookies and headed for my room, the way I was used to doing when he was there. But this time he said, “Don’t vanish just yet, Jenny. I’d like to talk to you for half a minute.”
I already knew he didn’t talk like any English people I’d ever seen on TV. Like he said, “Half a minute,” not “‘Arf a mo’, ducks”—six years, and I haven’t heard anybody say anything like that—but he didn’t exactly talk Masterpiece Theatre English either. It’s a husky voice, deeper than you’d expect to look at him, and at least his mouth moves when he talks. I mostly understand English women now, but the men can drive you crazy.
I didn’t say anything. I just turned and waited. Evan said, “Jenny, this must all be crazy and frightening for you, I’m sorry. You’ve not even had a chance to get used to the idea of your mother and me getting married, and right on top of it you’re having to deal with packing up your whole life and going to a strange place where nothing’s familiar. I’m truly sorry.”
Sally came to stand beside him, and Evan put his arm around her. That made me feel funny—not so much him, but the way she flowed against him like water, which I’d never ever seen her do with anybody. Evan went on, “Look, I can’t tell you everything’s going to work out, that you’ll be instantly, totally happy in England. I can’t promise to be the perfect stepfather for you, or that you won’t hate Tony and Julian on sight. But Sally and I will do our best to make a home for us all, and if you’ll give us the benefit of the doubt, that’ll help a great deal. Do you think you can manage that, Jenny?”
I know, I know, writing it down now it looks like a reasonable, really friendly thing to say to somebody who hadn’t been the least bit friendly to him since the day Sally introduced us. And I know it makes me look totally pathetic to say that I just sort of nodded and mumbled, “I guess,” and made a lightning get-away to my room and Mister Cat and my favorite radio station that I wasn’t going to be able to get in London. But the thing is, I didn’t want him to be reasonable, I wanted him to be cold and mean, or anyway at least stupid, so I wouldn’t have to worry about his feelings, or about liking him better than Norris. He was probably a better person than Norris in a lot of ways, I already knew that. So a lot of people are, so what? It didn’t make any difference to me.
Back then, I didn’t even know what Evan did for a living. I didn’t want to know. Sally told me he was an agricultural biologist, doing stuff for the English government on and off, but I didn’t have any idea what that meant, except that she said he talked to farmers a lot. He’d been in Iowa or Illinois, someplace like that, going to seminars and conventions, and then he’d come on to New York, I don’t remember why, and that’s how he became definitely my mother’s only pickup ever. They met at a concert—I think she wanted me to go with her, but I went over to Marta’s instead—and Sally came floating home that night, late as Mister Cat, bouncing into my room to tell me she’d met this sweet, funny English person, and they’d gotten thrown out of the West End, not for being drunk, but for sitting and laughing for hours without drinking at all. When she went off to bed, I heard her for the longest time, still laughing to herself.
I didn’t think much about it then. I only realized I was in trouble when they started playing music together. Sally spends so much time at the piano every day, working or practicing, that she just about never touches it for fun. She used to, sometimes, with Norris, when he lived with us—I remember they used to do old stuff, Beatles, or rhythm and blues, clowning around together to crack me up. But once they split up, she quit all that, never again—that fast, that flat. And now here was Evan coming over with somebody’s beat-up classical guitar, and the two of them waking me up at night singing English and I guess Irish folk songs. He was all right, nothing much, about like me on piano. But they were having a great time, you could tell. I could tell, lying there listening in the dark.
Of course he was over practically every day after they got engaged. They’d order pizza and sit in the kitchen talking about finding a place in London, because Evan’s old flat wouldn’t be nearly big enough, and about where I’d go to school, and where Sally might teach regularly, instead of freelancing the way she did here. I didn’t talk if I could avoid it, and I really tried not to even listen. I think I felt that if I ignored everything that was going on, maybe none of it would actually happen. Mister Cat is terrific at that. All the same, I still couldn’t help picking up a few things, whether I wanted to or not, and some of them didn’t sound that terrible. London, for instance. London sounded pretty much like NewYork, give or take, with all kinds of crazies wandering around, and all kinds of at least interesting stuff going on everywhere. And I even started to think, well, okay, just maybe I could handle London. If I absolutely had to.
Sally told me Evan had custody of his two boys, the way she did of me—they were staying with his sister while he was over here— so I knew they’d be living with us, and that was about all I knew. He showed us four million Polaroids, of course, a whole suitcase full. One of the boys was just a baby, nine or ten—that was Julian— but the other one, Tony, was a couple of years older than me, and Evan said he was a dancer, been a dancer practically since the day he was born. Wonderful. I love him already.
Evan never spent the night at our place. I knew that was because of me. I also knew that Sally stayed over with him every now and then, but she always came slipping back in at five or six in the morning, shoes in her hand, trying like mad not to wake me. They never even went away together overnight, not one time. The whole business was incredibly stupid—who cared, after all?—but I’m trying really hard to be honest, so I have to say I enjoyed every minute of it. Because I cared, I liked making that much hard for them, it was the only thing I could make hard for them. And I also have to say that my mother never once ran me out of the house, never once even suggested wouldn’t it be nice if I spent the weekend up in Riverdale with my disgusting cousin Barbara. Not that it would have worked, but I’d have tried, if it was me.
So I got used to having Evan around most of
the time. I didn’t talk to him much, but he didn’t seem to care—he just went right on including me in the conversation, whether I said anything or not. What I didn’t want to get used to was the way Sally and he were together, which was just… I can’t find the word, and I don’t know how to say this so I don’t look too childish, too immature. I was thirteen years old, and I didn’t want to see my own mother giggling and whispering in corners, and getting all dazy eyed and heavy mouthed like some girl backed up practically into her boyfriend’s locker. It made me feel weird, off-balance, and I hated it. When I saw them staring at each other, not saying a word, my skin turned cold, and my whole stomach started to tremble. I wouldn’t talk to anybody then; I’d go into my room and be with Mister Cat. They never noticed; they’d gone away with each other while I stood there. Nothing I could do about it.
But Evan went back to England in May, and was gone for more than a month. Sally said he had some kind of a job offer, and besides, he needed to be with his boys for a while. He’d been telling them about her and me on the phone for months—Sally’d even talked to them a couple of times—but he still had a whole lot of explaining waiting for him back home. Meanwhile, she wanted us to spend some time by ourselves, just us girls, getting reacquainted and all set for the big adventure. We were going to see movies about England and read books about England together, and watch every damn Merchant and Ivory video we could find. “It’ll be fun,” she told me. “It’ll be like going into training.”
I said, “Training for what? Life among the limeys?” Sally went absolutely into orbit. I wasn’t ever to say that, it was as bad as calling the French “frogs” or calling Germans “krauts,” or people calling us what they do. It trailed off right there—I told you, Sally has trouble saying the real names of some things. Anyway, for once I actually kept my mouth shut as she kept going on and on. “We’re going to be living there, Jenny. Not visiting, living. We’re going to be limeys ourselves.” I didn’t say anything.
Well, us girls didn’t get to spend all that much quality time together, as it turned out. We did some clothes shopping, which I know women are supposed to love, and I know it’s a big mother-daughter buddy thing, but I’ve hated it all my life, and I always will, I know that, too. Except part of the bonding is having a long, chatty lunch afterward, and that’s all right. And we applied for our passports, which was definitely an adventure, because Sally found my birth certificate but not hers, so we turned the whole apartment totally upside down until it finally showed up in the piano bench, which figures. Then we had to get our pictures taken, and I came out looking like a pink smudge, the way I always do—and then we had to go downtown to the passport office, and that took all day just by itself. But it was exciting, if you didn’t think about what it really meant, which I’m good at. And we did go to an English movie that night, and Sally fell asleep with her head on my shoulder.
But she was mostly frantically busy, the way I’ve said, and when we were home together she didn’t like to go out much, because Evan might call. When she had any free time, she made lists, millions of lists. I’d find them all over the house—stuff to pick up, stuff to get rid of, people to call, people to make sure to say goodbye to, questions about cleaning the apartment, about which way to ship stuff, questions to ask Evan about London schools—even a list just of things she knew about Evan’s boys, Tony and Julian. That’s my main memory of her in that time, sitting at the kitchen table, entirely surrounded by little boxes of Chinese food, leaning on her elbows with one hand in her hair. Making lists.
A couple of her friends practically lived with us, helping her with the packing and cleaning and running errands. Louise Docherty, who’s a composer, and Sally’s best bud, and laughs like a car alarm—anyway, there was Louise, and there was Cleon Ferris, black and gay and shorter than I am, who did lighting for concerts and musicals, and used to baby-sit me all the time. Norris brought me home one night—I was still working on Norris, trying to—and we walked in on the three of them, sitting on the floor, wrapping and taping up one box after another. Norris said, “Well, don’t you look like the Weird Sisters?” and Louise turned and looked at us, Norris and me, and said, “You look like Death and the Maiden.” And went back to wrapping boxes.
I didn’t help pack. I didn’t do a thing Sally didn’t yell at me to do. I got some of my own stuff into boxes—clothes and books and albums and things—but I didn’t close up the boxes, or label them, or anything like that. Like I said, I kept figuring I could maybe make all this craziness not be happening by acting as though none of it was happening. So I mainly hung with Jake and Marta, getting lifted, and watching game shows on TV. My grades went straight to hell that last term, and Sally got on me about it, but you could see she was always thinking about a million other things—she wasn’t even there when she was yelling at me. It was very weird. I actually found myself almost wishing Evan would come back.
Also I got sick a lot that summer. I don’t mean anything big or dramatic, just colds and stomach stuff, and the strep throat I usually get in May every year. Then I’d get into bed and curl around Mister Cat, and find a classic rock station because he can’t stand heavy metal, and I’d mostly sleep for a couple of days. One time Cleon Ferris came in to look at me, and he sat down on the edge of my bed and said, “Jenny. Little sugar.” He always called me that, since I can remember. He said, “Give it up, Jens. Short of terminal mogo on the gogo, there is no way you are not going to England with your mother. The deal’s down, cookie.”
I didn’t even turn around. I said, “I’m not faking it. And it wouldn’t be anybody’s damn business if I was.”
“That’s were,” Cleon said. “If I were. They get on you in England about stuff like that.” He reached over my shoulder and scratched the little soft place under Mister Cat’s jaw. Then he said, “I lived in London for a while. Long ago, in another world. I liked it pretty much, most of the time.” His face was sort of like an acorn, and there was a space between his front teeth, so when he smiled, he looked about seven. He said, “But what I really liked, little sugar, you go to a new place where nobody knows you, and you get to be someone else, anyone you want to be. Even black dwarfs, you’d be amazed. I recommend it.”
I didn’t say anything, just pretended to be falling asleep, and Cleon finally said, “Yeah, well, keep it in mind,” and left. He died a couple of years ago, from bone cancer. I think he had it then, when he was sitting on my bed talking to me.
A couple of weeks before school was out, Mr. Hammell called me into his office and asked me if it was true about us going to England. When I told him yes, his face changed—the lines down his cheeks sort of smoothed out, and his eyes were so sad and puzzled. Although they were mostly like that anyway. “Oh,” he said. “Oh, that’s a pity, Jenny. I was certainly anticipating having you in Advanced next year.”
“Me, too,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
Mr. Hammell stood there in front of me, looking younger every minute. He asked me, “Jenny, are you happy about this? Is this what you want? You’re important to me—to the class. I really want to know.”
I didn’t know what to say. I just nodded finally. Mr. Hammell said, “Well. Well, that’s good, then. That’s good. Good for you, Jenny.”
Then he did a strange thing. He reached out, awkward and slow, and put his hand on my cheek. It felt cold and shaky, like my Grandma Paula’s hand.
Mr. Hammell drew his hand down my cheek. He said, “Jenny, you take care of yourself over there in London. Go see a lot of plays, and remember us, because we’ll be thinking about you. I’ll be thinking about you.” He pushed my hair back a little and his voice got so low I could hardly hear him. “You’re going to be so pretty,” he said. “You remember I told you.”
I don’t know if that counts like sexual harassment; and I’ll never know if Mr. Hammell was really trying to hit on me or what. But I remember what he said, to this day, and I always will, because he was the first person who wasn’t family who ever said
that to me. Whatever was going on in Mr. Hammell’s head about me, it must have been strange, and Meena’s probably right, maybe I should have reported him. But I’m not sorry I didn’t.
Another definitely weird thing that happened was that Mister Cat started staying really close to home, following me from room to room and miaowing every minute, which he never does unless he’s just starving or completely pissed. He wouldn’t let me out of his sight, no matter how much the Siamese Hussy yowled in the street. It was scary, actually, because he’s not like that. I should have known he knew something.
I found out what it was the same day Evan came back. Sally went to the airport to meet him, but I was at a Mets game with Norris. Not that either of us is that crazy about baseball—I just didn’t want to be there for the big reunion scene, and Norris wanted to aggravate Sally about all the family-tradition stuff I’d be pining for in England. And each of us knew what the other was doing, so it was fun in a way, although we didn’t say anything. Anyway, I made sure I didn’t get home until pretty late, but Sally and Evan still weren’t in yet. So I talked on the phone with Marta for a while, and watched some TV, and then I went to bed with Mister Cat tucked about as close under my armpit as he could get. He hadn’t slept like that since he was a kitten.
I must have drifted off myself, because all of a sudden Sally was sitting beside me, asking me if I was awake. I sat up fast and said, “I’m awake, I’m awake, is there a fire?” Because there was a fire once, a bad one, when I was little and we were living on West Eleventh, and Norris was still with us. I dreamed about that fire again just a couple of nights ago.
Sally laughed. She said, “No, baby, no fire, it’s all right. But Evan and I have something we wanted to share with you right away, we couldn’t even wait till morning.”
Evan was standing in the doorway, looking really uncomfortable. He said, “Jenny, it’s a bit of a good-news, bad-news joke. The good news is that I’ve been offered a fine job at home—I’m quite surprised and excited about it. The bad news is that it’s not in London. It’s rather west, I’m afraid, a place called Stourhead Farm, down in Dorset. That is, it used to be a farm, very long ago, and the family who own it now, the Lovells, they want me to get it running properly again for them. And to go on managing it afterward.”
Tamsin Page 3