Babyface

by Norma Fox Mazer

  Out the window, she watched a double line of yellow taxis, all going the same way and all blowing their horns furiously. In Ridgewood, if they saw a taxi once a year, it was an event. Someone had left a gray couch out on the sidewalk. A man came around the corner. He was wearing dark pants, a heavy jacket, a hat pulled over his face. What was the matter with him? Why was he dressed like that in the middle of the summer?

  All at once, Toni was frantic to smell fresh air. There were two windows, both locked, one barred on the outside. She tugged at the unbarred window, but she couldn’t get it open. Her eyes blurred. She leaned her forehead against the glass. “I don’t want to be here!” she whispered. “I don’t want to be in here!” But where could she go? Out? What would she do out alone on the streets of New York? She didn’t know anyone. She didn’t know her way around. She hated this filthy, noisy, ugly city! She should have stayed home. She’d wanted to, but her mother had said no, absolutely not.

  “I wouldn’t have a moment’s peace,” her mother had said. “At least, with you at Martine’s, I’ll know you’re being looked after.” What a joke! Martine wouldn’t be back until the end of the day. Toni was going to be alone all day, every day. What had her mother been afraid of in their own home? Nothing would have happened to her there. Here was where it was dangerous—this city, the streets, the people! They just weren’t like they were in Ridgewood. People here were bizarre.

  As if to prove her point, at that moment Toni saw a strange sight out the window. A woman wearing baggy shorts and a colored T-shirt sat down on the couch, took a can of soda out of a paper bag, and sat there, drinking it and reading a newspaper, as if she were in her own living room. She sat there for at least ten minutes. Before she left, she carefully plumped up all the pillows.

  August 28

  Dear Julie,

  Writing this on my first day in Newyorkcity. How I wish it was my last. I’ve been looking out the window of Martine’s apartment for hours. Watching what goes on in the street is sort of like living TV, only you never get the end of the story. For instance, someone put a couch out on the street right across from Martine’s building. Around noon a man and a woman got out of a station wagon, walked up to the couch, and started looking it over. They were both wearing white trousers, white shirts, and sunglasses. They looked elegant. The woman tested the springs. The man picked up a pillow and sniffed it. Who were they, couch inspectors?

  The woman tried pushing the couch toward the car. The man just watched. She put her hands on her hips and said something. He shook his head. She made a fist. He made a face. Finally he got on the other end of the couch and helped her move it into the back of the station wagon. They tied it down. Then they both got in the car and drove away. End of story? I want to know what happened next! Where are they going with the couch? Are they still fighting over it? Will he ever sit on it? Sorry, you can’t tune in tomorrow to find out!

  Love, Toni

  P.S. If you think you’re living in a small place, you should see this. One step takes you from the couch to the chair, that’s the living room. Another step to the table by the window, that’s the dining room. A dive lands you on the futon. Voilà! Le bedroom. P.P.S. I’m really eager for a letter from you. Please write and tell me everything!

  “What did you do today?” Martine said when she returned at the end of the day.

  “Not much.”

  “Did you go out?”

  “No.”

  “You didn’t go out? You stayed in all day? Well, I can’t take you out now, Toni, I’m too tired.”

  Take her out? It sounded as if she were a dog Martine had to put on a leash. “I didn’t ask you to do anything,” Toni said.

  “And if you did, I wouldn’t,” Martine said, giving herself the last word.

  CHAPTER

  THIRTEEN

  Toni paced up and down the room. Somewhere in the building she heard a dog barking in a high, irritated voice. Poor thing! He’d been barking all morning. She knew what he was saying, because she was thinking the same thing. Let me out! I’m alone! I’m a prisoner!

  She paced. Twenty steps from one end of the room to the other. She felt as if there were a clock ticking in her, ticking off the seconds, the minutes, the slow half hours, the impossibly long hours. Tick tick tick tick tick ticktickticktick …

  She found three Devil Dogs in the freezer and devoured them. She wasn’t hungry, just bored. Eating was something to do. Maybe she’d be so bored she’d finally gain weight. For about the twentieth time she looked at the clock. If she were home now, she’d be taking Paws’s cat cookies from the cupboard. His after-breakfast treat. Would Mrs. Abish remember to feed him every day? Would she remember to pet him and talk to him? He could waste away from lack of affection. Tick tick tick tick tickticktick … Right about now, if she were home, she’d be getting ready to go down the street and collect Arnold. They’d go to the park and she’d answer his questions and follow him around.…

  It would be hours before Martine returned. Hours before Toni would hear another human voice. She turned on the radio and the TV, put a record on the stereo and a cassette in the tape player. When everything was going full blast, she screamed at the top of her lungs.

  She sat on the table eating potato chips. One of her father’s favorite snacks. Would he return from Hertha Center slimmed down and eating rabbit food, things like celery and cucumbers? How were they retraining him? When he reached for a hot dog, did they slap his hand? Uh-uh-uh! Naughty, naughty! From now on, instead of coffee and a doughnut in the morning, would he be programmed to drink carrot juice?

  She paced again. Up and down. She heard the dog barking again. His poor little hoarse voice! She listened intently. His message had changed. Toni! Toni! Toni! Go out! Go out! Go Out!

  “I want to, but how can I?” she yelled. She went to the door. Three locks! At home they could go away for the day, and if they forgot to lock up, they wouldn’t even worry. What if she went out and got mugged? Or lost? Or run over by one of the crazy drivers?

  Go out! Go out! Go out!

  She combed her hair and changed her shirt. She took the ring of keys off the bureau and tossed them from hand to hand. Well. Why not? She could always come right back. She unlocked the door. The hall was quiet. Only the prisoner dog yipped and yipped. “I wish I could take you out with me,” Toni said. She went quickly down the hall and pressed the button for the elevator.

  Outside, the heat fell on her, came around her like heavy arms. She was glad she was wearing only flip-flops, shorts, and a tiny shrink top. At the corner she looked back at Martine’s building. Onward? Well … okay. She crossed a wide street on the WALK sign, hurrying as the sign flickered a red DON’T WALK and the cars snorted and inched forward impatiently. The sidewalk was chalky with heat and dust. Bits of paper lifted, fluttered, settled again in a brief gust of hot wind. She stared at a shoe in the gutter, a scarf. Who had they belonged to? Was someone walking around right now with one shoe?

  She couldn’t get used to how dirty the streets were. The wire baskets at the corners overflowed. But gradually she forgot that. It was the people she saw, people of every kind, every variety. A woman in a long red-and-gold African dress balanced a full shopping bag on her head. A group of men wearing orange hard hats sat in the shade of a building, eating their lunches. “Hi, honey,” one of them said. Was he being friendly, or …? Before Toni could make up her mind, three boys swaggering toward her sent her hurrying to the side of the street. As they passed her, they broke into a song. A moment later, a man with a baby strapped to his chest danced in the middle of the sidewalk.

  Toni walked on, looking into the windows of little stores, stopping to buy ice cream, then a magazine, later licorice. Her back was damp from the heat. The noise rose around her. Dear Julie, What’s my impression of New York? Noise, people, dirt, heat, people, noise, people, people, people!

  Back in Martine’s building, she took the elevator up to the fourth floor and walked down the hall. She stopped i
n front of a door but felt unsure if it was the right one. Was it 4L? Or 4N? Three locks, that was right. She went down to 4N. Three locks here, too. Every door had three locks! She looked up and down the hall, holding the keys.

  Then the door at 4L opened. “Toni?” Martine said, stepping out. She had a glass in her hand. “What are you doing down there?”

  Toni dropped the keys in her pocket and walked toward her sister.

  “I thought I heard someone out here,” Martine said. “Where’ve you been?”

  “Out for a walk,” Toni said. She held up her magazine.

  “Out for a walk,” Martine repeated, smiling faintly. She raised her glass to Toni. “You’re becoming a regular New Yorker.”

  CHAPTER

  FOURTEEN

  August 30

  Dear Julie,

  This is my third day here. Martine has gone off to work. Even though being alone is not my favorite thing, it’s better than being with her. Last night we almost had a fight after my parents called.

  Martine answered the phone and talked to Dad for a few minutes. “Yes.… No.… Yes.… No” was what I heard of her side of the conversation. She sure doesn’t put herself out to make talk, at least not for Dad. Anyway, she gave me the phone and Dad yelled, “Is that my Babyface?”

  It was so great to hear his voice, Julie. He said the Hertha Center had him regimented. “You eat what they put in front of you and nothing else. You exercise when they tell you, even when you don’t want to. And no bad habits. We even go to bed on schedule. This place reminds me of an Army camp with a wellness twist.”

  Then Mom got on and said, “Your father likes to complain, sweetie, but this is the best thing in the world for him.” Julie, I got so homesick hearing Mom’s voice, I almost lost it. I started saying, “Mom! Mom! Mom!” My sister looked over at me and gestured that she wanted to talk to Mom, so I handed her the phone. I said, “Let me talk to Mom again when you’re done.” Then I went to the bathroom, and when I came out, Martine was brushing her hair and the phone was hung up.

  I said, “Martine, I told you I wanted to talk to Mom again!” It didn’t bother her one bit. She just said, “Oh, yeah. There was a meeting or something. They said to say good-bye to Babyface.” Then she gave me this weird, wrinkled-nose look, like she smelled something bad, and said, “Do they always call you that?”

  I said, “No, not always.”

  She said, “Doesn’t it bother you? Doesn’t it bother you at all for them to call you Babyface? Doesn’t it seem inappropriate to you for someone who’s fourteen?” And she started talking about when she was fourteen, how mature she was, and blah blah blah blah.

  I didn’t want to hear it! I didn’t want to hear how wonderful and mature she’d been at my age. I said, “Martine, what’s so terrible about Mom and Dad having a nickname for me? They love me, that’s why call me that.”

  Well, Julie, I definitely said the wrong thing! Martine practically spit out her next words. “And since they never had an adorable nickname for me, I suppose they didn’t love me?”

  I tried to explain that that wasn’t what I meant. I said, “I’m the youngest, Martine, I guess that’s why they do it.” Julie, I made things worse!

  Martine said, “What’s so special about being the youngest?” Then she picked up her book and started reading, and when I tried to talk to her, she said, “I really don’t feel like talking anymore.” Boom! That was it. The queen doesn’t want to talk, we don’t talk! She brushed me off like I was a speck of dirt.

  I went into her awful little dark kitchen just to get away from her. I drank a glass of ice water, then stood there, feeling the cold reaching my sinuses. I couldn’t understand how my sister could be so rude, cold, and unloving. No, I did understand. She doesn’t like me. She doesn’t love me. I felt it from the first day. Julie, do you know how awful it is to be with someone who doesn’t love you or even like you?

  I was breathing hard. And listening. And waiting. What was I waiting for? For Martine to call me? To get me out of myself? To baby me? I knew it was totally absurd. I knew if I spent the rest of the night leaning against the sink and feeling like crud, it wouldn’t bother Martine in the least. Oh, Julie, how I wished you were here! I know you, you would have helped me. You would have gone right up to Martine and said, “Listen, Martine, what’s your problem? You don’t like Toni? That’s simply crazy! She’s a wonderful person! Get real, Martine!” Well, Julie, just thinking that cheered me up enough to get me through the rest of the evening! Guess I’ll sign off now and go out and mail this letter.

  Love, Toni

  August 31

  Dear Julie,

  This morning over breakfast, my sister and I had two conversations. First I asked if I was going to meet her boyfriend, Alex. She said he was away on vacation. “He went to Maine,” she said. “I was supposed to go with him.”

  I said, “Why didn’t you?” She gave me a long look and a small smile. “I’m sure you know, Toni.” I said, “Because of me coming here?” No answer. I said, “I messed up your vacation.” No answer.

  In our second conversation she said, “Where are you going today?” I said, “Maybe to a movie.” And she said, “Fine. See you later.”

  When she comes home later, we’ll have more fascinating conversation. She’ll say, “How was your day? Did you go out? Where’d you go?” I’ll say, “Fine. Yes. To the movies.”

  She’ll say, “Any problems?” I’ll say, “No.” She’ll say, “Did you eat a good lunch?” I’ll say, “Yes.” She’ll say “How about tonight, do you want to eat Greek? Japanese? Chinese? Or Ethiopian?” I’ll say, “What do you think?” And she’ll talk about each “cuisine.” (Her word). She’ll actually get happy-looking. We have our best conversations about food.

  Love always, Toni

  P.S. I went into a bakery today to buy a corn muffin, and the guy behind the counter looked like L.R.’s double! I’m not kidding. He was even wearing a black T-shirt.

  August 31

  Dear Toni,

  Yesterday I got your letter about the couch inspectors. Cute. Toni, doesn’t it seem unbelievable that school is going to start in four days and neither one of us is going to be there? We have always started school together. I still don’t really believe it’s not going to happen this year.

  My mother caught me taking a cigarette from her purse and she went bananas. “You’re too young to smoke! I won’t have my kids smoking, it’s a rotten habit.” Can you imagine, telling me to stop, when she’s smoking worse then ever? But she had an answer to that, too. “I’m grown-up!” Oh, really? Tell me about it. That’s what I wanted to say to her, but I bit my tongue. She was crying. First she yells, then she cries. First she makes me mad, then she makes me sorry for her.

  Love, Julie

  September 1

  Dear Julie,

  Today I was walking through a park when I heard the most beautiful sound, something like rippling, ringing, chiming bells. The musician, a black man, was playing on what looked like two enormous silver bowls. Steel drums! It was the first time I ever saw them. He worked with mallets, rippling and tapping them over the inside of the bowls.

  People slowed down to listen as they passed. Some stood around for a minute or two, then put down money and went on. I couldn’t move. It was like being enchanted.

  All the time the musician was playing, his face had this kind of enraptured look. I didn’t think he even noticed me, but when he took a break, he asked if I wanted to try the drums! Yes! He showed me how to play melodies with a single mallet and chords with both mallets. He told me the steel drum was the national instrument of Trinidad. He said, “The heart must be clear for the music.” I was so interested, I forgot about being nervous. I played the drums, Julie. I played them in public, and afterward I felt so wonderful.

  Love, Toni

  P.S. Alex, my sister’s boyfriend, called last night. She took the phone into the bathroom for privacy, but I could still hear her talking. It seems they were dis
cussing when he was coming back. I heard Martine saying, “I can’t wait … yes, she’s leaving on the sixth!” Julie, I can understand why Martine will be glad to have her apartment to herself again, but did she have to sound so enthusiastic about my leaving? So very, very, very glad?

  September 2

  Dear Julie,

  I’ve just spent the longest weekend of my life—with my sister. We did things together—we shopped, we did laundry, we ate, we saw a movie—and yet we’re just as far apart as ever. I know she’s marking time until I leave. Three more days. I can get through them, can’t I, Julie?

  Love, Toni

  P.S. I had my ears pierced Saturday. I’ve been wearing gold studs ever since. Martine hasn’t even noticed.

  CHAPTER

  FIFTEEN

  “Martine,” Toni said, “I want to ask you something.”

  Martine lifted her eyes slowly from the magazine she was reading. “What?”

  “Why do you dislike me?” Toni had been pretending to read for the past hour but had been brooding all the while.

  Martine’s eyebrows went up. Amusement? Disbelief? “Where do you get that idea?”

  “From everything you do and everything you say.”

  “Everything I say?” Martine repeated. “I don’t recall ever saying any such thing about you.”

  “I don’t mean in so many words. I mean … attitude. Remember when you said I kept you from going on vacation with Alex?”

  “I did not say that.”

  “You implied it. That’s what you meant.”

  “Oh, now, wait a minute, I don’t agree with that, but even if I did, what has that got to do with my liking or not liking you?”

  “Martine, I know it’s been a rotten week for you. I’m here. You can’t do anything without having to think about me. I had to come because of Daddy, but that doesn’t mean you like it. Or me.”