I wore a light-blue sweater and skirt along with a pair of black buzzin' boots with three-and-a-halfinch heels. I liked feeling tall. I heard some catcalls and whistles from men in passing cars. but I kept my eyes forward. Once you look their way, they think you're showing some interest.
A gust of wind brought tears to my eyes as I quickly whipped around a coiner and headed down Balwin's street. I was practically running now. When I got to his door and pressed the buzzer, he opened it so quickly. I had to wonder if he hadn't been waiting right in the entryway the whole time.
"Looks nasty," he said glancing at the way the wind had picked up some discarded paper and chased it up the gutter.
I took a deep breath and nodded.
He looked nervous and started to talk so quickly, I thought he would run out of breath.
"I should have taken my father up on the car offer. He put a dollar value on my weight, offering to deposit so much for every pound I lost. I was to be weighed every morning before he went to work and he was going to keep this big chart up in his home office. but I never cared if I had my own car or not and he withdrew the offer."
He smiled.
"Maybe eating was just more important. Sorry. I could have picked you up tonight if I had my own car. My father won't let me use his car, and they took my mother's car tonight, which was the car I used to take you home from the Kit-Kat. They went to New York to see a show and have dinner," he said finally pausing for a breath. "Let me take your coat and hang it up for you."
I was shivering. but I gave it to him and he put it in the hallway closet. Whenever I visited anyone who had his or her own house. I understood Mama's constant longing to get us into something better. Odors from whatever other people on your floor were cooking didn't permeate your home. Noise and clatter were practically nonexistent. You had a true sense of privacy.
Balwin's house was a little more than modest. His parents had decorated it well. The furniture looked new and expensive. It was all early American. There were thick area rugs, elegant coffee and side tables, interesting pole and table lamps and real oil paintings on the walls, not prints. A large, teardrop chandelier hung over the rich, cherrywood dining room table.
"You want anything warm to drink? I'll make you some coffee or tea, if you like."
"Tea." I said nodding.
"Milk or sugar or honey?"
"Honey."
"That's good. That's what singers should drink," he said smiling.
I followed him into the kitchen and gazed at the modern appliances and the rich cabinets. When he ran water into a cup and immediately dipped in a tea bag. I gasped.
"You forgot to heat the water," I said.
He laughed.
"No, this faucet gives boiling water
immediately."
"Really?" I took the mug and felt the heat around it.
"C'mon, I'll show you my studio," he said proudly and led me back through the hall to a door. We went down a short flight of stairs to a large room with light oak panelling and wall-to-wall coffeecolored Berber carpet. The piano was off to the left. On the right was a bar and a pool table, a built-in television set to the left of the bar, and a small sitting area consisting of a settee and two oversized chairs, one a full recliner.
Against the wall on shelves were neatly stacked tapes. records and CDs. below them was Balwin's sound system.
"These amplifiers are four hundred watts," he began, beaming with pride. "I've got multitrack recording capability with nonlinear track mixing and editing as well as digital mixing on this sixteen-track, twenty-four bit studio recording workstation."
One look at my face brought a laugh to his.
"Sorry," he said. "I get carried away sometimes and talk the talk."
"I don't know much about these things."
"It's all right. The main thing I'm trying to say is we can produce a CD of your singing if we have to, but whatever we record, it will be very high quality. Just in case they ask for something like that."
"I don't have money for this. Balwin,"
He laughed again.
You don't need any money, Ice. I'm taking care of all that."
"Why?"
He looked flustered for a moment, glanced at his piano, and then smiled and said. "'Because I love music and I love to hear it done well and you do it better than anyone at our school," he explained.
Embarrassed by his explanation, he moved quickly to the piano and scooped up some sheet music.
"Look these over. I sifted through my collection to pick out what I thought you might like to do and what you could do well," he said.
I put the mug of tea down on a small table and went through his suggestions. One brought a quick smile to my face. It was Daddy's favorite. "The Birth of the Blues." He loved Frank Sinatra's rendition. I pulled it out of the stack.
"What about this?" I asked.
He nodded.
"That's the one I would have chosen for you. too," Balwin said. "Let's tinker with it."
He went to the piano and began to play. I didn't need the sheet for it. I had sung it enough times, singing along with Daddy's Sinatra recording.
"Jump in any time you want." Baiwin said.
I did. He played to the end and then nodded.
"Good," he said. "but you're going to do a lot better before we're done."
I laughed at his tone.
"You sound like Mr. Glenn talking to our chorus."
"I'll try to be for you," he replied. "Ready? We'll do it a few times, record it, listen to it and correct whatever we want to correct,"
I smiled at him. The night before he had tried so hard to cheer me up after what had happened to me at the Kit-Kat Club. His first thought was that I was unhappy about not being able to please Shawn Carter. He wanted to la-low how long we had been going together: when I told him it had been my first and only time with Shawn, he looked relieved and surprised.
"I don't hang around with anyone in particular at school," he told me as he turned from the piano. "so I don't know about everyone's social life, but that was the first time I've seen you at the Kit-Kat. Where do you usually go on dates?"
"I don't," I told him.
"I don't understand," he said.
"I haven't gone on many dates."
The more he learned about me, the happier he became. "Why are you smiling?" I finally asked him.
"You're a lot like me," he said. "All this time. I thought you were so quiet and reserved because you were so far ahead of everyone else at the school socially. That's why I wasn't surprised to see you with the army guys."
I looked at him quizzically. Was it just him or did others at my school think that of me?
"I mean." he quickly added, thinking he had somehow put me down. "you definitely could be in an instant, if that's what you wanted."
I laughed to myself. Why did everyone, including and especially Mama think I was so special?
"I'm not trying to be above or ahead of anyone. Balwin," I told him.
He smiled and after a moment softly said. "You don't have to try. Ice."
Was he just trying to make me feel good again? Or was he saying these things because he was as much a loner as I was and I had come to his house? My guess was I was the first, the first girl at least.
Did he ask me because he really, truly believed in my talent or because I was a girl?
Questions, doubts, suspicions.
Why can't you just accept a compliment and leave it at that? I asked myself. What are you afraid of, Ice Goodman?
Being too much like your mother? She would certainly ask the question.
Maybe, deep down inside, you're really afraid of not being enough like her?
Shut up and sing. I told myself. Just sing.
5 A Song of My Own
I thought our first rehearsal went just all right. but Balwin was more enthusiastic. When he referred to me, he used words and expressions like "terrific," "amazing talent," "a prime candidate for any school." Of course. I assum
ed he was just being nice. I knew what it meant to compete in the world of
entertainment. Daddy had told me lots of stories about singers and musicians he had known in his life, people who were talented and yet failed to get anywhere because they didn't have the breaks they needed or the grit to keep trying.
"It's much easier to accept failure and become comfortable with it than it is to keep coming at them. Ice." he said. "You blame it on destiny or fate or luck and just settle into mediocrity. Lots of good people I know lost the fire in their spirits and now smoulder in some dark, small place, drowning their ambitions and dreams in alcohol or drugs."
The way Daddy spoke about it made me wonder what had been his private dream. When he finally revealed that he had once hoped to play the trumpet because his teacher had encouraged him. I was surprised. He had never even hinted at it before. Then he dug down in a dresser drawer to show me his trumpet mouthpiece. His maternal grandmother had bought him the instrument.
"It's all I have of the trumpet I once had," he said. "I blow on it from time to time when I get nostalgic."
"What happened to your trumpet. Daddy?" I asked. His eyes darkened and he shook his head.
"My father made me pawn it. only I pretended to have lost the mouthpiece. He beat me for that," he said.
"Why didn't you Zo back to playing, Daddy?" I asked him.
"I guess I was afraid," he said. "I was afraid I would get so I couldn't live without it and that would make it terrible. Ice."
I had never known my grandfather. He had died when I was only two, but if he was alive now, I wouldn't be able to look at him without hating him. Amazingly, Daddy didn't sound hateful or angry.
"Didn't you hate him?"
"No." He smiled. "He couldn't see how it mattered in my life then and the money was sure handy that month," Daddy said.
Hearing him speak about it made me wonder about all the secrets people buried in their hearts, all the dreams that had been crushed and interred. Those were the real silences, the ones they were afraid to disturb. It frightened me and did the most to make me hesitant when it came to my own singing and dreams of success. Dare I dream?
It was probably why I just shook my head at Balwin and thanked him for his compliments as if I knew he was doing it just to be nice. I could see the confusion and even the anger in his eyes.
"I mean it." he insisted. "You're going to make it. Ice. I love music too much to lie about something like that." he added.
"Okay," I said. "I'm sorry. Thank you."
We scheduled another rehearsal. As if he was afraid talking about it or even referring to it during the school day might put a hex on it or something, he actually avoided me. I quickly realized he was the shy one when it came to being with someone from the opposite sex. Like me, he used his music as both a shield and a way to communicate with others. Without it, he was almost as much a mute as I.
Even at chorus rehearsal, he didn't say anything special to me. When I said I would see him later, he nodded quickly and turned away, afraid someone nearby would notice.
Mama wasn't home for dinner. She had gone to a movie with two of her girlfriends. Daddy had another one of his late nights. I expected to be home before either of them. so I didn't leave a note telling them where I was.
Just as the first time, practically the instant I rang the doorbell. Balwin was there.
"Hi," he said and I stepped in. He looked nervous. jittery. Without another word he started for the doorway to the basement studio.
Just before we reached it. however, a tall, lean man with a patch of gray hair encircling his shiny bald head stepped into the living room doorway. He was holding a neatly folded copy of the New York Times and was dressed in a three-piece pin-striped gray suit and tie.
His lean, long face was as shiny as the top of his head. His skin was so smooth in the reflected hallway light, he looked like he shaved with one of Marna's tweezers. I saw a resemblance in his and Balwin's mouth and eyes and the shape of their ears.
"Who's this?" he asked sternly.
Balwin glanced at me as if he had smuggled me into his home and been caught in the act. I saw a look of abject terror take over his face, his eves shifted guiltily away and down as his shoulders slumped and his head bowed slightly to make him look like a beaten puppy.
"Her name is Ice Goodman." he said almost too softly for even me to hear.
"Ice!"
Balwin raised his head and nodded.
"If you have a friend coming over, why don't you tell your mother or me and why don't you make a proper introduction instead of stealing away to your bunker?"
"I wasn't stealing away. We were..."
"Well?" his father demanded.
Balwin stepped forward, glanced at me and then said. "This is my father. Mr. Noble. Dad, this is Ice Goodman. a girl from school who is in the chorus."
"I see. And you are here to do what?" he asked me.
"She's here for a rehearsal," Balwin said before I could reply. His father glared at him and then turned back to me, his eyes narrowing,
"Rehearsal? Why would you rehearse with only one member of the chorus and why can't you do this sort of thing at your school?" Although he was asking Balwin these questions, he continued to stare at me.
"It's not a chorus rehearsal," Ballwin said.
"Oh?"
He turned to him.
"And what exactly is it then?"
"She's going to audition for a special school and needs to prepare some music. I'm helping her," Balwin explained.
"Is that so?" He looked at me again and then turned to Balwin. "Am I correct in assuming you've completed all your homework?"
"Yes sir." Balwin said.
"What school is holding this audition?" he asked me.
"She's auditioning for the Senetsky School in New York," Balwin replied quickly.
"I was asking her," his father said. "She's a singer, you say. but I have yet to hear her utter a sound."
"I was just--"
His father's glare was enough to snap Balwin's mouth shut. I had never seen such obedience coming from such terror.
"It's the Senetsky School," I repeated.
His father barely looked at me before turning back to Balwin.
"I see. Well, your mother has a bad headache this evening, so don't make your music loud," he ordered.
"Yes sir." Balwin said.
His father snapped the paper in his hands like a whip, turned and disappeared into the living room. I could see Balwin visibly release a trapped breath.
"C'mon," he said and continued to the stairway.
"I don't want to cause any trouble," I said before starting down.
"It's all right," Balwin said looking up at me. "My father doesn't think much of my music, my composing. He likes to recite statistics about how difficult it is to succeed in the creative arts. Everything I have here. I've bought with my own money, and money my mother gave me. Please close the door behind you," he added and continued down the stairs and to the piano.
I looked at the living room doorway and then stepped down and closed the basement door.
"When I sell something for a lot of money, my father will change his tune," Balwin muttered.
It was hard getting myself back into the spirit of singing. Every time I raised my voice. I thought about his father hearing me and becoming enraged. He wasn't half as wide or as powerful looking as my father, but there was something more terrifying about Balwin's father. His name should be Ice, I thought, Those eves looked like they could stab someone with a sharp, hard glare.
"Don't be afraid to get into it," Balwin said after we had run through it twice. "My mother won't be able to hear you and even if she did, she wouldn't complain like he says."
"I don't want to get you into trouble."
"You won't." he insisted. "C'mon. I want to make a CD soon. You'll be able to play it for people.'
We started again and I gave it more energy, which brought a smile back to his face.
&nbs
p; "That's more like it," he said after we finished. He played the recording he had made and we listened and followed the music. "Right there you should give it more authority," he said, using one of Mr. Glenn's instructions for the chorus.
I smiled.
"Don't you agree?"
I nodded and he looked embarrassed. When the recording was finished, he asked if I would like something to drink.
"I can make tea down here. I've got a microwave behind the bar,"
"Okay," I said and watched him do it. As he prepared a cup for himself and me. I walked around the basement, looking at the posters on the wall and some of the photographs in frames.
"Your mother's pretty," I said.
"She's gained a lot of weight since that picture," he told me. "I guess I take after her in that respect. Maybe in most respects," he added.
He put my cup of tea on the bar and I sat on a stool. He remained behind it, sipping from his mug and watching me mix in some honey.
"My father is so precise about everything he does, including eating. He's proud of the fact that he hasn't gained or lost a pound in twenty years. He once tried to starve me to make me lose some weight," Balwin revealed, shame in his face.
"Not really?" I said. He nodded.
"I could only have a glass of apple juice for breakfast and then he had everything I ate for dinner weighed on a small scale. Of course I snuck candy bars and ate: what I wanted at school. He actually searched my room the way someone might search it for drugs and found two Snickers bars and a box of malt balls. I love malt balls. He went into a rage and put a lock on my piano and threatened to sell every piece of equipment if I didn't lose five pounds that month.
"My mother was so upset and cried so much. I had to do it. Finally, he relented and took the lock off the piano. But I regained the weight the following month and he threw his hands up one night and told me he was giving up on me."
He looked away to hide the tears that had come into his eves. When he turned back, he put on a smile quickly.
Ice Page 7
