Girlhearts

by Norma Fox Mazer

  He started talking about an article he’d read about dark energy. Whatever that is, I thought. Maybe it was what I had—dark energy draining me of the will to do any of the things I used to do.

  “And so they’re saying, theorizing, really, that the dark energy of the universe weighs more than all visible matter and dark matter together. It’s amazing.”

  I nodded. When we were on everyday stuff, I could keep up with him, but when he got going on black holes, exploding stars, protons, and neutrons, I just sort of staggered along behind him, doing my best to follow him into the quarks and wimps world. Or maybe I should say the quarks and wimps universe or megaverse, which was a word I’d learned from James, of course.

  “Maybe all the dead souls are actually what make the dark energy of the universe,” I said.

  “Nice try,” he said. He had such a smile! “But dark energy was here billions of years before humans.”

  That was when the bell rang. We walked across the field toward the building. “James, you’re going to be famous someday,” I said. “That’s my prediction, and then you won’t even talk to me anymore.”

  “I’ll always talk to you.”

  “Even when you get the Nobel Prize?”

  “Even then. I won’t forget the little people in my life.”

  “Oh, thank you, I’m grateful already.”

  We went up the steps and through the door. “See you later,” he said. The back of his hand grazed my cheek. He bounded away, and I watched him go, wishing he’d come back, wanting to feel his hand on my cheek again and be in the warmth of his smile.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  “Kiddo, pay attention, and you’ll learn something,” Billy said.

  Saturday morning and, miracle of miracles, I was standing at Billy’s elbow, by invitation, watching him mix pancake batter in a yellow bowl.

  “Did your mom teach you how to make pancakes from scratch?” he asked.

  “No, we always had the stuff from a box.”

  Billy made a disapproving sound with his tongue. “It’s part of your basic culinary education.”

  I pushed up the sleeves of my sweatshirt. “Lots of Sundays, Mom had to work. She didn’t have time for stuff like this.”

  Outside, it was raining, the sixth day of straight rain, but inside, it was hot. The radiators were clanging, and heat was pouring into the apartment. Billy was wearing boxers and sneakers, and I was thinking about changing into cutoffs and a sleeveless top.

  “These pancakes are going to be the best you ever had, way superior to what comes out of a box.” He broke another egg, dropping the yolk into one bowl, the white into another. “Remember, you gotta whip the egg whites separately.”

  I tried to look really interested, so he’d know that I appreciated his doing this with me. I’d been reading, actually rereading Jane Eyre, a book Mrs. Hilbert had given me, when Billy called to ask if I wanted to learn to make pancakes the “right” way.

  Not really had been my instant reaction, but then I thought better of it and put down my book. Now I was glad that I had. This was the best time I’d had with Billy since I’d moved in. Also, it was kind of nostalgic for me. I used to really love cooking. I thought I wanted to be a chef, and I’d even picked out the place where I’d study, the New England Culinary Institute in Vermont.

  Billy sprinkled cinnamon into the dry mix. “Not too much, not too little.”

  “Right.”

  He turned on the heat under the pan. “You want the pan good and hot, but you have to watch it. Not so hot the pancakes come out hard.”

  “Right.”

  “Billy, look at you,” Cynthia said, coming into the kitchen. She was holding Darren under one arm in the sack of potatoes position.

  “Look at me, what? Hey, big guy,” he said, tipping his head over to speak to Darren.

  “You’re in your boxers, and—”

  Billy poured a spoonful of batter onto the pan. It hissed, and bubbles popped. “Perfect! You see that, Sarabeth?”

  “—Sarabeth is right here,” Cynthia finished.

  “Yes, she is,” Billy agreed. “Learning the secrets of the master chef. You up for pancakes?”

  Darren bounced in his mother’s arms and yelled something that sounded vaguely like “I sure am!”

  “Sarabeth isn’t a little girl anymore.” Cynthia put Darren into his chair and locked in the tray. “She’s a teenager. You don’t go half-dressed in your underwear around a teenage girl.”

  “Afraid she’s gonna get aroused by my hairy legs?” He poured another spoonful of batter onto the pan.

  “I don’t mind his boxers, Cynthia,” I said.

  “Keep out of this, Sarabeth; this is between me and Billy.”

  “Aw, Cynthia, give it a rest,” Billy said. “These are shorts I’m wearing. I could go outside this way. That’s all these are, shorts.”

  “Underwear,” Cynthia said. She sat down and started feeding Darren from a little jar of applesauce.

  “I’m not going to be corrupted,” I said. I got a glass of juice and sat on the high stool in the corner.

  “I told you, be quiet, Sarabeth.” She gave me the tag end of the glare she’d fixed on Billy. “Billy, just go put on some clothes, okay?”

  “No. I’m not going to do that.”

  “Don’t fight me on this.”

  “Damn, Cynthia! I do my job all week and then I come home for the weekend, and right away you’re after me, saying I’m not trying with her.” He pointed the spatula at me. “Telling me I ought to be more like a father, be friendlier, do something with her, so okay, I’m doing it! I’m teaching her to make pancakes, and then you come in, and now it’s I’m wearing boxers—”

  “Billy—” Cynthia said.

  “Well, big deal! This is my home. Or it was. I thought it was. Not very big, not much room, and a lot less room since we got ourselves a boarder. Well, okay, that’s the way it is, but at least I’m going to be comfortable when I’m here. And I’m comfortable this way. I’m not changing into pants and a belt and a tie. And that’s my last word on this nonsense.”

  “I didn’t say a tie,” Cynthia said. “And don’t give me that ‘last word’ stuff. If we’re having an argument, let’s have it.”

  “You might as well have said tie.” Now he was pointing the spatula at Cynthia. “You’re just about strangling me with all your ideas about everything. You want to strangle me, don’t you?”

  “Yeah, Billy, I do,” she said. “I could do it, right now, with extreme pleasure.”

  “Well, go ahead! Just try. Here!” He grabbed a dish towel and threw it at her. “Maybe that’ll work. Here!” He threw another dish towel. Then he grabbed the frying pan by the handle and banged it on the stove hard and loud.

  Darren was wailing. Cynthia scooped him out of his chair and held him close to her chest. “Billy,” she cried. “What are you doing? I’m just asking you to wear some clothes; I’m not asking you to leap off a cliff.”

  “If I want to wear my damn boxers in my own damn kitchen, I’m going to damn well do it!”

  “What’s wrong with you? Stop it! You’re scaring the baby.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with me that some space and privacy won’t fix,” Billy yelled, and now he was glaring, but not at Cynthia. At me. “Get her out of here! Give her to someone else. Give me back my home. Let her be someone else’s problem.”

  “Billy!” Cynthia said again.

  I slid off the stool and went into the other room, out the door, into the hall, and down the stairs.

  Outside, the rain was coming down steadily, and the wind blew hard, picking up papers and flattening them against the buildings. I turned left, in the opposite direction from the way that I went every morning to get the bus. I didn’t know where I was going. I wasn’t going anywhere. I was just going. I was wet in a moment, and I hunched over, as if I could protect myself from the weather.

  TWENTY-SIX

  Darren was standing in his crib, shaking the bar
s. “Sarabeee!” he greeted me.

  “Hello, baby.”

  It was as warm and dry today as yesterday had been cold and wet. The noon sun slanted in through the bedroom window, laying a square of harsh color on the floor.

  March: lion and lamb, like Billy. Yesterday morning, he had started as the lamb and turned into the lion. Since then, we had hardly spoken. I had stayed in bed this morning until he went out for the newspaper. While he ate his breakfast, I read, trying to get lost in the story and forget his waving the spatula and yelling, “Get her out of here! Give her to someone else.”

  All through the night, those words had been in my head. I hadn’t slept a lot. My mind raced, thinking how Billy and Cynthia had had their life all set, their little apartment, their baby, their work, and then they got stuck with me. And no matter what Cynthia said about their loving me to pieces, it was the pieces part I felt most, not the love part.

  I kept looking for a plan, seeking a way out of the trap I was in.

  “Sarabeee!” Darren screamed. His face was red and sweaty. “Out! Out! Me walk!” He shook the bars as if he was in a cage. If I climbed in with him, we could both shake the bars, two prisoners together.

  I reached in and lifted him out of the crib. “Yeah! Good!” he cried, patting my face with his heavy little paw.

  Cynthia and Billy had gone for a ride. Maybe they would talk about me and make their own plan. Cynthia had asked me to baby-sit Darren, and when they left, she gave me a significant look, as if to say, See, I trust you.

  I changed Darren and carried him down the stairs. When we were outside, I turned right and walked toward the corner of Court Boulevard, as if I had a destination. As if the Plan was in place. Darren was big for his age, heavy and active. He wriggled and jumped in my arms, didn’t hold still for a moment. He drooled on my face and pulled my hair. “He’s a pistol,” Cynthia said whenever she talked about him.

  I walked briskly for about twenty minutes; then my arms began to ache, and I slowed down. “Sassabeee,” Darren snorted in my ear.

  “Yeah, do you think you could take it easy?” I kept shifting his weight. “Give me a break, will you?”

  “Walk!” he said in my ear. “Down! Walk!”

  “Okay. Good idea.”

  Now we walked, holding hands. He was pretty steady on his feet, but slow and meandering. He didn’t know what a straight line meant. He was like a dog: He had to stop and investigate every crack in the sidewalk, every fire hydrant, every scrap of filthy paper on the pavement.

  The breeze was cool on my face. I didn’t know where I was going, but I was moving. That was what counted. That made sense. It was important. I was going somewhere. Somewhere else. Someplace that wasn’t the apartment. Someplace with no Billy.

  That last thought transfixed me. All my weariness dropped away. My mind was extraordinarily clear. The Plan snapped into place, and it was very simple and very easy. I was going away with Darren. That was the Plan. Just the two of us. We would go away together and make a little family of our own. How? Easy. I’d get on a bus and let my instincts guide me. My instincts would tell me when to stop. “Do it your own way,” that woman had said to me weeks ago, and now I knew that this was what she had meant.

  This was my own way. Wherever I stopped would be a good place, and Darren and I would be happy together. I’d take care of him, good care, the best care. Lately, Cynthia had been letting me do more for him, and I knew how to do everything he needed, how to change his diapers, make his food, sing him to sleep.

  We’d stay together, never leave each other. It would be Darren, me, and Tobias. Tobias! I couldn’t leave him behind. I’d have to go to Leo’s place and get him. I hurried, holding Darren’s hand. I turned a corner. I was on a street of stores. I picked Darren up and walked faster. People were out in clusters, and they parted for me. It was a beautiful day, the sun, the little breeze, the puffy clouds. Everything was good. I had a plan. I kept telling myself I had a plan.

  “Oooh, a baby,” a woman said, smiling at us. Did she think Darren was my baby? That was a good sign. An omen!

  A girl wearing jeans and high heels was sitting on the sidewalk, her back against a building, holding a handwritten sign: LADY DOWN ON HER LUCK. Another omen! That was me, Girl Down on Her Luck. The girl was beautiful, with long blond hair. A prom queen—type girl. She had a paper cup for money next to her. If I’d had dollar bills, I would have given them all to her, but I didn’t want to insult her with change.

  I hurried past. Darren chewed on his fist and giggled in my ear. He patted my face and made goofy sounds. His face was fat and cute. A few drops of rain fell. “Raining, wet,” he said. He looked pleased with himself.

  “Sun shower,” I said. That was good. I was teaching him.

  Two women approached, both smoking cigars and wearing tiger-striped coats. Their coats bothered me. I walked purposefully, clutching Darren. I was doing something, going somewhere. I had the Plan. I turned another corner. A man was ahead of me, wearing a black overcoat, talking on a cell phone. I passed him, then another man on a cell phone, also wearing a black overcoat. Maybe they were twins. Or maybe the same man.

  Maybe I was dreaming all this. That would explain so much! It would explain why everything was so bizarre. Women smoking cigars. Prom queens begging. Even my carrying Darren was bizarre. He was so heavy. I heaved him up again.

  A thin-faced man with wild hair put out his hand to me. “Hello! You look like a kind person. Can I ask you something without seeming rude?” He spoke fast, urgently. “I’m not a drug addict; I’m a stage designer, I’m locked out of my apartment. All my stuff is on the street. I’m locked out of my life. Can you give me a quarter to call my mother?”

  I gave him a quarter, but he followed me down the street. “Can you give me another quarter, kind person? Just a quarter. I need a cup of coffee. That’s a cute baby. A quarter, that’s all.”

  I walked faster. Horns blared. A screech of tires. I was in the middle of a road, clutching Darren. Cars passed on both sides, their hot breath on my legs. “Get out of the road, you idiot,” a man yelled. “You wanna get killed, you and the kid?”

  I plunged forward. I was on the sidewalk again. I held Darren tightly, shaking. I was crying, but without tears, just sounds.

  I found my way back to the apartment. It wasn’t that far. I had gone in a wide circle. I changed Darren’s diaper, washed his face, and gave him a bottle of juice. I put him in his crib and sang him a song. Then I washed my own hands and face, drank three glasses of water, and lay down on the couch.

  I slept without waking for ten hours. When I woke up, I was sane again. But I still needed a plan, only this time, a real one.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  “Sarabeth,” Patty said into the dark, “are you sleeping?”

  “I’m awake, Patty.” I turned to lie on my side, facing her bed. Our beds were separated by a night table. It was near midnight, her house was quiet, and outside, the street was quiet, too, much quieter than where Cynthia and Billy lived.

  “Did you hear me talking to you?” she said.

  “No.”

  “Maybe you were sleeping.”

  “I said I wasn’t!” Anger flashed through me. A zing of heat in my stomach. Senseless anger. Pointless. It came at me like that now, and I was never prepared for it.

  “I asked you a question and you didn’t answer,” Patty said. “I was sure you were sleeping.”

  “Maybe I … zoned out.” I kept my voice neutral, flat. The heat in my belly flattened out, too.

  “Where did you go?” She gave a little laugh. “What zone were you in?”

  “I was just drifting. Thinking, I guess.”

  “About what?”

  “Nothing, really.” Just the usual stuff stomping around in my mind. Thoughts and feelings like restless, heavy boots. Thoughts about Mom, the future, where I should live, what I should do. Sometimes the boots got lighter and James thoughts sneaked in.

  “You were thinking abo
ut something,” Patty said. “You can tell me.” She leaned over the divide between the beds and caught at my arm. “Sarabeth … I’m worried about you. I want to help you, but you don’t let me. You don’t let any of us. I want to make a difference for you. You’re my friend, and I love you. I want to balance out a little what you did for me.”

  “I didn’t do anything for you, Patty.”

  “You did, and I haven’t forgotten. You helped me when I needed help, you and your mom. She was so great—”

  “Don’t talk about her,” I said.

  “Okay, I won’t! Not now, anyway. Sarabeth, I know you’re proud and independent, but everyone has needs; it’s nothing to be ashamed of. All of us want to help you—Jennifer, Asa, Grant—it’s not just me. All our hearts are with you and we’re all worried about you. You know what Grant said the other day? I thought it was wise. She said everything has a meaning, but you just might not know it now. She said if you could only believe that, it might help you.”

  “I’m fine,” I said.

  “Sarabeth, are you listening to me? Did you hear what I said? Do you even hear yourself?”

  “Yes, sure.”

  “No. You don’t hear yourself. You don’t hear anyone anymore. You don’t let anyone in anymore. You’re all closed up; you’re like a room with no doors and no windows. Please let me in. Please let me help you.”

  I knew her outburst was from the heart, and it touched me. I wasn’t cold and unfeeling. I wasn’t heartless and numb. Not completely. Not yet. I heard her words; I didn’t close them out.

  But yet, I didn’t answer. I let silence grow between us. I didn’t speak. I lay there and said nothing.

  And Patty, still leaning over from her bed, her hand still on my arm, waited. I could hear her breathing, I could hear her waiting. Waiting for me to speak, to break myself open, to show her there was a window in me and that she wasn’t closed out.

  I knew this was what she wanted and, in a way, I wanted to give it to her. But I didn’t do it. My thoughts wandered. I let my mind drift away, and when I broke the silence, it was to speak about something else.