by DMP
“They’re different people. And I love them differently,” Nell-mom says, and I can tell she’s trying not to cry. “What you don’t see is how much I love you, Ruby. You refuse to see—”
“Then you’re doing this for me—”
“For you and me.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Fine. Right. Then don’t.” Nell-mom’s eyes go cold and flat, and she’s about to turn away when Mrs. Tania waltzes over, all cheery and chirrupy. She says she wants to see where Chaz lives and suddenly Nell-mom perks up and says that’s a good idea, I can see my new room and all. A few minutes later, we’re on the subway and then on Charles Street, and Chaz is leading us into my room.
It’s much bigger than my bedroom at home, and Ray says he’ll take the small one. “Is that because you won’t be around?” I ask, but he ignores me.
Nell-mom says even though all the rooms are white right now, we can do mine in black if I want. The kitchen has a tile floor, and the rugs are thick like they are at Les and Bo’s. But since Chaz doesn’t know how to decorate like they do, it’s boring except for the pictures, which come from the gallery. But I don’t care what color they paint my room. I’m going to hate it no matter what they do.
On the way back to Sophie’s, we stop for pizza and as soon as we get there I go to her room and sit on the bed, leaning back against the wall. Sophie follows me and sits down on the rug. Neither one of us wants to say much because we both know what’s going on. I’m not going to pretend I’m having a great birthday when it’s the worst one I’ve ever had.
Ray comes to the door to see if I want to talk, but I don’t say anything. He says he’s going out to meet Jo-Jo and we can talk later, but I don’t answer and pretty soon, he goes away. Mrs. Tania, Chaz, and Nell-mom are yakking in the living room and after a while, I hear their glasses clinking, so I guess they’re pouring wine.
“Want to play something?” Sophie says. She likes card games and normally I’d say yes, but I’m not in the mood.
“No, thanks.”
“Wanna go out?”
“I don’t know. Where could we go?”
“There’s got to be a reading somewhere. Don’t you think?”
“Sophie!” I shoot up from the bed like a rocket.
“Yeah?”
Today’s the day—or night, really. “There’s a reading at Chumley’s—”
“Huh?” Now Sophie is up, too.
“It won’t start until nine or ten—”
“We can’t get in there! We need a parent or something—”
“No, we don’t.”
“Ruby, I’m telling you. They don’t let kids in there.”
I lie back down again. Mrs. Tania might go for it, but there’s no way Nell-mom would take me in a million trillion years. But if we get to Sophie’s mom first, we might have a chance.
“Ask your mother,” I say to Sophie.
“You think?”
“Just ask her without talking to my mom and see what she says.”
Sophie leaves the room and I lie on the bed, looking up at the chips and spots on her painted ceiling. She’s taped a picture up there of Lucille Ball, who is Sophie’s favorite actress. I think Sophie could be like Lucy when she gets older— even funnier. She comes back in the room and I look up at her.
“They won’t take us.”
“Why not?”
“They’re tired—”
“Oh, right.” Adults are always tired except when they want to go somewhere.
“They said we did a lot today.”
“They did a lot, you mean.”
“And they’ll take us to a reading another time.”
“Yeah, great,” I say, sitting up so I can see Sophie, who is perched on a floor cushion in a yoga position with her eyes closed.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“Meditating.”
“What for?”
“I need to get to a better space in my head,” she says. “Right now I’m just angry. I’m in the here and now, and I need to get out of it.”
“Listen, Sophie—”
“Shhh!” Her hands are down by her sides and her legs are crossed, one over the other. The laughter in the other room rises and then flattens like a note in the wrong key. I stare at Sophie’s closed eyes behind her glasses and think of Manuela. What would she do if she was me?
They’ll stop drinking eventually and have to go to sleep, and when they do I’m out of here. I pull Sophie’s curtain back and look out the window. She’s on the fourth floor but luckily she has a fire escape. I open the window and Sophie looks up.
“Hey!”
“I thought you were meditating.”
“You can’t go out there.”
“Why not?”
“They’ll hear you.”
“They have to knock off sometime. Right?”
“Well . . . eventually.”
“Right. That’s what I mean.”
“Oh,” Sophie says.
“I promise I’ll get us in. You up for it?”
“I guess so.”
“Come on, Soph. It’s an adventure.”
“Okay,” she says, looking up at me. “Sure.”
There’s nothing left at this point but to let the adults get tired. We play three games of War, and Sophie wins all of them. Then she yawns and says we should take a nap.
“How do we wake up in time?” I ask, wishing for once I knew a Beat with an alarm clock.
Sophie yawns again. “It’s going to be hours.”
“Okay, look,” I say. “You go to sleep for a while and I’ll hang out by myself here. Then I’ll wake you up and we’ll go, okay?”
“Okay,” she says, and we trade places so she’s on the bed and I’m on the floor cushion. I look around for something to read but all Sophie has are fan magazines about actresses and a book about traveling in Paris. Then I see a dictionary. I wanted to look something up before all this happened, but what was it?
Kine and Ti-Pousse. Those were the words Maybe-Gregory used in his poem. I try Ti-Pousse first, but there’s nothing in this dictionary. I flip back to K and see kine. Archaic term for cows. Really? I try to remember where the poem was going. Wasn’t he talking about balconies and D. W. Griffith? How did cows fit in with that? I guess you could make anything fit if you were good enough. I’m going to have to find that poem, but I don’t think it’s published yet.
I close the dictionary and scan the bookshelves again. I should know better than to look for a book of poems in Sophie’s room. Besides the Paris book, there are just magazines. Most of them are gossip stories about stars like Marilyn Monroe, but there is a magazine that’s all about Natalie Wood. I read that one cover to cover and then look through the pictures in the other magazines.
Solange is scratching at the door so I let her in. She jumps on my lap and curls up just like she did at home, which makes me feel better. I scratch her behind the ears until she has a really good purr going and lean back against the wall, looking at Sophie’s stuff. There’s a picture on Sophie’s dresser of her mom doing a stand-up routine, and she looks just like Sophie.
I hear Nell-mom talking to Mrs. Tania while she gets a beer out of the fridge. I’m trying not to be angry at her, but the harder I try the angrier I get. I know in her mind she’s doing the right thing, but I can’t help feeling she could have tried harder to stay with Gary Daddy-o. And he could have tried harder, too. Maybe they should have fought more, like the couple I saw getting out of the Checker cab. Maybe then Gary Daddy-o would have listened to Nell-mom and they’d still be together. Then again, maybe not.
I look over at Sophie but she’s put her glasses on the night table and her head is deep in the pillow so I know she’s out cold. She never knew her father so I’m guessing she doesn’t miss him. Of course,
she might, but we never talk about it. When we were little, Gary Daddy-o used to give me piggyback rides around the apartment and if Sophie was there, he’d give her one, too. Maybe she wanted a daddy but just figured it would never happen.
I open the book about Paris because I’m starting to get angry again. They have cafés every other block it seems, restaurants, theaters, movies, and galleries. Sophie says she wants to move there when she turns eighteen and I might just go with her. I’d have to learn French but it looks like we’re going to have to go to school anyway and I might as well learn something useful. Maybe we could go when we’re fifteen, which is only three years from now. How old do you have to be before social workers leave you alone? Is Ray getting old enough to go on the road with Gary Daddy-o? If that happens, what will I do?
Solange curls her tail around her legs and hooks her paw over both of her eyes. If I do go to Paris, I’ll have to figure out a way to take her with me. But for now it looks like I’m stuck here with school, Chaz, and sometime “visits” to Gary Daddy-o. Three years seems like a hundred, at least.
20
Real Beats
I WAKE UP shivering, with my face in the cushion and Solange asleep on my hair. I jump up and run to the bathroom, but there’s no clock in there. Nell-mom and Mrs. Tania are asleep in the bedroom, and Chaz is long gone. I stand in the doorway, staring at Nell-mom. Her hair is spread out behind her, and her hand is under her cheek. I think of how she couldn’t put her hands under the covers when she lived in a foster home and have to stop myself from getting teary. Part of me wants to walk over and lie down next to her, just to see if she’ll open her eyes. I want to tell her I know she loves me, but she’s making a big mistake breaking up with Gary Daddy-o. But if I do that, we’ll just go around and around forever. We’ll never get anywhere.
I tiptoe into the kitchen, where the floor is so cold it hurts my feet. There’s a clock but I can’t see it so I open the refrigerator, hoping the light will help. Once the door’s open I can see the time.
Ten thirty. I’ve got to get out of here.
I try waking Sophie but she’s dead to the world. One of her sweaters is hanging over a chair and I pull it on, slip on shoes, and open the window. The street looks busy but it’s pretty dark on the fire escape. I climb outside and pull the window down, leaving it open a little so I can get back inside. Sophie turns over in bed and pulls the covers around her, so I know she’s still asleep.
I have to jump a few feet to get to the ground but luckily no one sees me. It’s windier than it was when we got home so I button the sweater and start walking. There are people here and there on the sidewalk but it’s not crowded; I’m thinking they’re mostly inside somewhere. I’ve gone about two blocks when it starts to rain.
It’s light rain at first, little drops glancing off my nose and forehead. I start walking faster and by the time I pass the leotard store on West Tenth the sky is opening up and it’s starting to pour. I try pulling the sweater over my head but that doesn’t work so I give up and start running. And then it really starts coming down, long needles of water as hard as nails. Lightning, too. I duck under an awning to think. Should I wait a few minutes? Go back? I don’t want to, but I’m not really sure I should keep going. The guy who invited me—whoever he was—won’t remember asking me. And I’m not really in the mood for poetry right now. I never thought I’d say that but it’s true. So much happened and so much of it turned out bad. What difference would it make if I got to Chumley’s anyway? I would still be losing Gary Daddy-o most of the time. I’d still be stuck with Chaz.
Suddenly the wind picks up and I’m getting pelted with rain, spitting ice-cold water at my ankles and into my shoes. There’s no one on the street and I can’t tell what time it is. I know it must be getting late, because most of the lights have gone off in the stores. How many minutes are left in my birthday? I don’t want to spend those minutes here. But I don’t want to go home, either. Birthdays are supposed to be adventures and this should have been one of the best.
I really wish Manuela was here. And then, thinking of her, I realize what she’d say. Don’t let go of it, Ruby. Don’t let go.
I pull my sweater up around my neck and start walking. By the time I reach Chumley’s, I’m a sopping mess. Bang! I hit the door with the knocker as hard as I can but no one answers. Bang! I hit it again.
“Might have to call for them, kiddo.”
I spin around to see Yogi, standing under an awning next door. He’s totally dry and might as well be standing on a beach somewhere. I turn around again and call out, “Hey!”
Finally someone opens the panel on top of the door and says, “Yeah?” I can see an eye looking down at me.
“I’m here for the reading,” I say.
“Yeah?”
“Gregory Corso invited me.”
“Did he?”
“I think so,” I say.
“Think so?” he repeats.
“Well, yeah—”
“Who is it?” a woman’s voice calls.
A man in black jeans and a T-shirt opens the door. He’s at least three shades better looking than anyone I’ve ever seen.
“When?” the man says.
“When what?”
“When did I invite you here?”
“Are you Gregory Corso?”
He squints at me, and I can tell he’s starting to think I made the whole thing up. “Yeah, but I don’t remember—”
“No,” I say. “It wasn’t you.”
“Okay.”
“But someone did,” I say, “and I know that sounds dumb—”
“Hey, look at her,” the woman says. “She’s drenched.”
Gregory opens the door wider, and the woman motions for me to come inside. I have a lot of questions but my teeth are chattering, so all I can manage is to nod my head at Yogi and say, “Can he come, too?”
“Yogi?” the woman asks, peering into the dark behind me.
“Hey.” Yogi waves from underneath the awning. “I’m a little hungry—”
He shouldn’t be, since guys who meditate aren’t supposed to get hungry—or at least not so they admit it.
“Enter,” the woman says, and Yogi follows me inside.
There’s a big velvet curtain, and Gregory holds it open for us. As I get closer, I decide that whoever I met the night of Les and Bo’s party must have thought I was an idiot. But if Gregory Corso is standing in front of me, who was that guy with the notebook?
“Honey,” the woman says. “You wanna move?”
“Sorry,” I say, and walk past Corso to the stairs. It’s dark and hazy and smells like beer and cigarettes in here, but it feels really good to be out of the rain. We head upstairs and I try not to look over my shoulder at all the pictures of writers everywhere. When we get to the landing, the woman says that I’m freezing and need somebody’s jacket. Someone passes a jacket to her and she hands it to me. It’s black leather, lined with creases and grit.
“There you go,” she says. My heart is pounding so hard I have to ball up my fists to keep from shaking. I can’t believe I’m here and Corso let me in. Maybe that other guy’s in here somewhere, too. Who knows?
“I—thanks.” I take off my sweater and put the jacket on.
“How’d you find us?” the woman asks.
“Everybody knows where Chumley’s is.”
“Oh, yeah?” she says. “What’s your name?”
“Ruby.”
“Welcome, Ruby.”
My heart is pounding even harder but I manage to smile. “Thanks.”
“Uh, guys?” Yogi calls out.
“I know,” the woman says. She gets him a cup full of pretzels and a glass of beer. He sits down in the corner.
“So, Ruby,” the woman says, holding out her hand to me. “I’m Diane.”
“Hi.” I pull my hand out of
the jacket pocket and she takes it.
“You okay?”
“Yeah.”
“Your hand is ice-cold.”
She introduces me to everyone: a guy they call Charles with a face like sandpaper, a woman with glasses named Elise, a man who goes by the initial T, another guy named Peter, and someone else named John. A few candles are burning, but it’s pretty dark in here and it takes me awhile to realize someone else is in the room. But no one is talking to him.
He’s lying on a couch in the back, and the couch is turned around so it’s facing away from us. All I can see is a pair of long legs in blue jeans dangling off the end of the couch, and now and again, smoke from the end of a cigarette. I can’t see his face, and his boots look old and worn. For some reason that gives me goose pimples. Could it be who I think it is?
I want to go over there, but if I do and I’m wrong, I’ll feel really stupid. I jam my hands into the pockets of the jacket instead and look around the room. I’m thinking the reading should start but no one is saying much and all I hear is Yogi crunching pretzels. After a while I look at Diane.
“Am I too late? Did you finish already?”
Charles and Peter burst out laughing. “Are you kidding?” Diane says. “We haven’t even started yet.”
She pulls out a chair and asks if I want something.
“Um, coffee?” I’ve never had it but I think my choices are that and beer, and I’m not going to ask for water.
“Sure. You want cream and sugar?”
“Uh, no,” I say. “I’ll take it black.”
Elise pours a cup and sets it down in front of me. I take a sip and put it down. No wonder people put cream and sugar in this stuff—it tastes like hot wax. I try to swallow without gritting my teeth so they at least think I’ve had it before.
“So, Ruby, you like readings?” Diane asks.
“I tried to get into The Scene a couple weeks ago—”
The guy on the couch stirs. For a few seconds, nobody says anything. Then Elise turns to me.
“You like to write?”
“Uh, sometimes.”
“Did you bring something today?” Diane asks. Is she kidding? How could she be asking me to read for them? She must be having fun with me.