D, My Name Is Danita

by Norma Fox Mazer

  “He didn’t say definitely. He said it was in the serious considering stage.”

  “You’re too kind. How did you feel when he told you about him and Shirley talking about you? I think that’s horrible! That’s so mean.”

  “That’s the way I felt, horrible.”

  “He’s a brute. A monster from the deep! Did he have a mean, sadistic smile on his face when he told you?”

  “Not exactly. More of a patronizing grin.”

  “Well, you told him something, anyway! Did you really say he was too young to go steady?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “And you said it twice. I’m proud of you.” She pounded the pillow. “My girlfriend is nervy!”

  The next day I went home around noon. I got there just in time to help Mom finish the big Saturday house cleaning. “You want to vacuum upstairs, sweetie?” she said. She was wearing jeans, an old shirt of my father’s, and a red scarf tied around her forehead.

  “Vacuuming is my greatest desire, Mom.” I started toward the stairs, hauling the cleaner after me.

  The phone rang. “Oh, that reminds me,” Mom said, as she picked it up, “you had a call last night from a boy.”

  “A boy!” Had Jon had a change of heart? “Who?”

  “Hello. Merritts’,” Mom said into the phone. She pointed to the message pad on the table, and I peered over her shoulder. “Friday eve.,” she’d scribbled. “D.T. wants to talk to Dani. Call him.”

  Chapter 24

  “Will you help me out, Dani?” D.T. said.

  I pulled the long cord on the phone and walked around the kitchen, looking out the window into the backyard. “I don’t know.”

  “I could do it on my own, but it would be better if you were there.”

  Dad was gathering branches that had blown down from the willow in a rainstorm last week. “You just want to talk to my father?”

  “Our … father,” D.T. said softly.

  I remembered Laredo saying, My girlfriend is nervy! Was I, really? I didn’t think so. If I was really nervy, I’d demand proof from D.T. Show me something official … prove my father is your father …

  “Dani, I just want to sit down with him somewhere and talk, someplace neutral. Neutral territory.”

  “Sounds like war, D.T. Like two enemies coming together.”

  “I just mean somewhere we can talk where everybody will be comfortable. This is going to be a shock to him. Here’s this nineteen-year-old son he doesn’t even know he has.…”

  Dad noticed me looking out the window and did a little pantomime of picking up branches, then wiping sweat off his forehead.

  “With you there, it’ll be easier for everybody,” D.T. was saying.

  “Easier for you …”

  “You think I’m selfish? I’m not being purely selfish. It’ll be easier for him, too. Maybe I should write him a letter, first. Explain everything. What do you think?”

  “If you want to …”

  “But that’s dragging it out again. Isn’t it better if I do this face to face? I’ll never get things right in a letter. He can’t see me in a letter. He won’t know what kind of person I am. That’s why I thought the three of us would be the best thing.”

  I didn’t know what to say. I felt so confused. I tried to imagine D.T. and me in Dad’s office. His old oak desk and the two chairs would be piled high with papers, orders, and samples. Dad’s face would light up when he saw me. He’d clean the mess off the chairs, the way he always did when I came to visit, and he’d ask if I wanted a soft drink. Then he’d notice D.T.

  He’d be surprised to see me with someone so much older. A boy. So maybe he wouldn’t be smiling. I’d say, Dad, I want you to meet D.T. and then I’d say quickly, He says he’s your son … Dad would look from me to D.T., puzzled. But why would I say anything? It was D.T.’s story. He was the one who had to talk.

  “Dani, are you there?” D.T. said.

  “Yes …” I wiped a water spot off the window.

  Part of me really wanted to help D.T. But another part of me kept stubbornly thinking, Where’s the proof?

  Dad was walking down toward the back of the yard now with a load of branches.

  “I can feel that you’re reluctant, Dani. Listen, I can do it myself. I don’t want to pressure you.”

  I was watching Dad, the way he was walking, the way he held his shoulders, one higher and further forward than the other.

  “I’ll figure it out,” D.T. said. “It’s my problem.”

  “Yes,” I said. But I was thinking that at last I knew who D.T.’s odd way of walking reminded me of, at last I knew who the other person was who had that same sideways list.

  Chapter 25

  “What if he doesn’t come?” I said, peering in the window of Cosmo’s. Two aisles of red leather booths, a long counter, and a lot of men in black vests running around serving food and coffee.

  “D.T.’s going to come,” Laredo said. I’d told her everything about him. She’d listened calmly and then commented, “Well that’s great, now you have a brother, too.” As if there were no questions at all. “Why wouldn’t he show up?” she said. “It’s his meeting.”

  “No, I mean my father.”

  “Don’t be paranoid.” She plucked my hand off her arm. “Ugh, you’re sweating like a pig.”

  “Pigs don’t sweat, Laredo. They don’t have a natural cooling system like we do. That’s why they roll around in mud, so they can get cool.”

  “I’m really glad to know that.”

  “I read about pigs when I was ten years old. They aren’t really pigs, you know.” The words rushed out, and I hardly knew what I was saying. Pigs weren’t on my mind. That was frivolous … silly stuff, fun stuff to talk about. D.T.… my brother … my father … that was real stuff.

  “What if something happens at the shop? What if my father can’t come? You know how hard I had to work to persuade him to meet me here in the first place! He kept saying why didn’t I just talk to him at home, the way I usually do.”

  “Dani, whoa! He’ll be here, and if he isn’t, you’ll just set up another meeting. It has to happen, doesn’t it?”

  “I guess so,” I said, uncertainly.

  Laredo patted my arm. “It’s a fairy tale, Dani. Long-lost brother returns to long-lost family.”

  I looked at my watch. “I should go in and get a booth.”

  “Call me later and tell me everything. I have to hear the next installment.”

  “Great. Now my life isn’t a fairy tale, it’s a soap opera.”

  Laredo kissed me on the cheek. “Ta, Dani, don’t be nervous.”

  “Ta, Laredo.” I held up crossed fingers. “Wish me luck.”

  “You mean wish D.T. luck, don’t you?”

  “I guess so.” I stood with my hand on the door. “But me, too.” Why not? It suddenly came over me. I had a brother. A real brother. Laredo was right. It was like a fairy tale.

  Chapter 26

  Dad came toward me, smiling and unwinding his green scarf. He kissed the top of my head and sat down and took off his ski jacket. “So what’s the big secret? What’s the important subject we had to come to Cosmo’s to discuss?”

  “You’ll see.” Was he going to act this way when D.T. got here? As if I were six and silly? “You want to order something?” I pushed the menu toward him.

  “Your treat?”

  “Certainly,” I said.

  Dad raised his hand to catch a waiter’s attention. One of the men in black vests stopped at our booth. “Cup of coffee and an English muffin,” Dad said. He rolled up his shirtsleeves. “You guys keep this place too warm. Turn down your thermostat.”

  The waiter looked at me. “I’ll have a vanilla ice cream—” I began. Then I saw D.T. walking in, and my mouth closed on the word soda. The waiter went away, and D.T. came toward us.

  The first thing I noticed was that his ankles were bare. Next, that his ponytail was gone! He’d cut his hair. And next, that he was wearing a tie. He stopp
ed. “Hi, Dani.”

  Suddenly I didn’t know what to do. Introduce him to Dad? Ask him to sit down? Where? Not next to Dad! Next to me? Somehow, that didn’t seem right, either.

  D.T. pulled his hands out of his pockets, then stuck them in again. “Hello, sir,” he said to Dad.

  “Hello …” Dad looked at me questioningly.

  I wiped my hands on my jeans. “This is D.T. Goodman, Dad. D.T., my father—”

  D.T. slid into the booth next to me. Dad didn’t look just surprised: his eyebrows climbed straight up his forehead.

  “Dad—” I wiped my hands down my jeans again. “What I asked you to come here about is about, uh, D.T.—”

  “Dani,” D.T. interrupted. “It’s okay … let me do this.”

  “Do what?” my father said. “Are you looking for a job at the shop?” D.T. shook his head, but Dad went right on. “I’m always willing to help out young people; but you should probably talk to me at work.” He reached into his pocket for a notebook. “If you want to set up an appointment—”

  “Excuse me, excuse me, it has nothing to do with a job,” D.T. said nervously. He slid the zipper of his cardigan up and down. “Well … this is about you and me. I asked Dani to come here with me because she knows the whole thing. I thought it would make it easier … for everyone.”

  Dad had on what Lizbeth calls his “listening face.”

  D.T. took off his cardigan and pushed it down on the seat between us. As he did, his hand accidentally touched mine. It was ice cold. “Does my name mean anything to you?” he said.

  “I don’t think so,” Dad said.

  “Goodman.” D.T. leaned across the table. “Donna Goodman? Does that—do you remember her?”

  “Donna Goodman?” Dad repeated.

  “Donna Goodman from Menands. Menands High School.”

  “I knew a Donna Goodman in high school,” Dad said. A little color came up into his neck. “What’s this all about?”

  “She sends you her regards.”

  “How do you know her?”

  “She’s my mother.”

  “You’re Donna’s son?”

  “Yes. I’m her son. Donna Goodman’s son.”

  “That’s quite a coincidence, you being friends with my daughter.”

  “We met—” I started, but D.T. interrupted.

  “It isn’t exactly a coincidence.” His forehead was shining where he’d brushed his hair straight back. “I’m from California. Bakersfield. I came east in order to meet you. I just happened to meet Dani first.”

  “Wait a second. Back up,” Dad said. “You came out here to meet me? Why?”

  Just then the waiter came with our order, and we all stopped talking. “You want something?” Dad asked D.T.

  He shook his head. As soon as the waiter left, he said, “Uh, my mother says you two were good friends.”

  Dad picked up his coffee cup, then put it down. “Three thousand miles is a pretty long trip just to meet an old friend of your mother’s. Are you sure you’re not looking for a job?”

  “I’m working; I’m okay on that score.” He pushed the ashtray around in front of him. “Do I look at all familiar to you?”

  Dad studied D.T.’s face. “Well, I do think I see something of Donna around the nose and mouth. As I remember her, anyway. And I think you have her coloring. Maybe her hair, too. It’s been a long time. I’m not sure how well my memory serves me.”

  “Twenty years,” D.T. said. “My mother told me you two were in love.”

  Dad glanced at me. “It was high school. A lot of water under the bridge. I’m flattered she still remembers me.”

  “She’s talked about you a lot.”

  “She was a terrific girl.” Dad glanced at me again.

  D.T. slid the ashtray one way, then the other, like a hockey puck. I could almost feel his tension moving in waves, outward. “I came here, I crossed the country to see you because …” He pulled in a breath. The ashtray squeaked across the table. “I’m your son,” he said.

  I thought I was prepared to hear it—I’d heard it once already—but it shocked me. It was like a hit of ice water to the head. And it shocked Dad, too. I could see that. I could see it by the color that rushed into his face.

  D.T. leaned back and closed his eyes. “There,” he said, almost under his breath. “There. I did it.”

  “I don’t have a son,” Dad said. “What do you want? What is this, a joke, or something else?” His voice seemed hard to me, and I glanced at D.T. He had that hurt look on his face.

  “It’s not a joke, Dad.” I was so tense my voice came out in a squeak.

  “What do you have to do with this, Dani?”

  “D.T. wouldn’t joke about a thing like this. He’s not that kind of person.”

  “I want to know what this is all about. Right now.” Dad’s voice had gone flat. The color kept seeping in and then out of his face.

  “It’s about me meeting my father,” D.T. said. And he told Dad the things he’d told me—his mother’s pregnancy, his grandparents taking her away …

  Dad rolled his sleeves down, as if he were getting ready to leave. “I knew a Donna Goodman in high school, but I don’t know anything about this,” he said. “We broke up. I certainly never knew she was … I never knew anything about this. About you.”

  “I’m not saying you did. My mother told me the same thing.”

  “We were two kids. Donna was the one who wanted to break up. She was getting a lot of pressure from her family. That’s right. That’s the way it happened. One day she was gone.” Dad snapped his fingers. “Just like that. She stopped coming to school. I found out she and her family had left the area.”

  “Did you try to find her, Dad?”

  He didn’t answer me. “Look, as far as I’m concerned,” he said to D.T., “this is just a story.” He pushed aside his cup. “I don’t want to accuse you of anything, but what you’re saying is serious, very serious.”

  “I know. It’s also true.”

  “You can’t just run around making accusations this way and expect people to believe you.”

  “Accusations? Mr. Merritt, I didn’t come here to harass you. I came here to meet you. I had the thought … I guess it was dumb of me … that you’d want to meet me, too. That was my simple plan. Meet my father. Have my father meet me.”

  “That’s a very nice speech, young man.” Dad was half standing. “Very nice, but—”

  “D.T. is my name. It stands for Daniel Thomas. Daniel for you, Thomas for my grandfather.”

  “—I mean to talk to your mother.”

  “She’ll tell you what I just told you.”

  “Maybe she will. Even so—”

  “Dad!” I said.

  “Hush, Dani!” He was so upset he covered my mouth with his hand. Then he stood up. “Let’s go, Dani.”

  D.T. wrote a number on a napkin. “That’s our California phone.” He wrote another number. The ink sank into the soft paper. “And that’s mine at the Y, if you want to get in touch with me.” He pushed the napkin toward Dad and left.

  Chapter 27

  “Want to go for a stroll, Dani? Dani …”

  “Yes, Dad?”

  “No, never mind. Let’s wait a bit … let’s wait until we’re away from the house, then we’ll talk.”

  “We’re away now, Dad. Nobody can hear us.”

  “I thought you might like to know this, Dani. I called Donna Goodman today.”

  “D.T.’s mother.”

  “We talked about her son. I thought that she’d tell me it was all a fantasy of his, that the whole business was a concoction, a story … made up by a boy who wanted—”

  “What, Dad? Wanted what?”

  “I wasn’t sure. When I thought over that hour we spent in Cosmo’s, I realized the boy didn’t have a father. That much was probably true. So I asked myself, What did he want? Maybe a father figure in his life. Maybe some excitement, some lift, some thrill he wasn’t getting out of his ordinary eve
ryday life.”

  “Did D.T. seem like that to you?”

  “You never know about people, Dani. You’re still young, naive. People will surprise you. They’ll show you one thing, then do another. I’ve seen bizarre things happen with people.”

  “D.T. isn’t bizarre, Dad. He’s a normal person.… What did his mother say?”

  “Donna? Pretty much what he did.”

  “Did you … did you like talking to her?”

  “I wouldn’t put it that way. I didn’t like it or dislike it. It was just something I had to do.”

  “What are you going to do now, Dad?”

  “I don’t know, Dani. I feel kind of stunned, I think. I’ve got to let this thing sink in.”

  “But you believe D.T. now, don’t you?”

  “I don’t know.… I just don’t know.”

  “Dad, you know what I just thought of? You didn’t even have to call D.T.’s mother—”

  “Shhh, Dani!”

  “It’s okay, Mom’s upstairs. She can’t hear us.”

  “Shut the door, anyway.”

  “Done. Okay? I just wanted to tell you this. All you had to do to find out if D.T. was telling the truth was look at the way he walks.”

  “The way he walks?”

  “He walks just like you, Dad. Look, watch me, I’ll show you. See? This is the way D.T. walks. One shoulder up, sort of leading with it. And that’s the way you walk, too.”

  “I do?”

  “Dad, don’t you know the way you walk?”

  “I guess I’m finding out there might be a lot of things I don’t know, Dani.”

  “Dani? How are you, Dani? I thought maybe you’d come over to the mall to visit me.”

  “I’ve been busy, D.T. I’m working almost every day after school with Greasepaint on the new production.”

  “You’re painting?”

  “No, no, it’s the drama society. I work backstage. They’re going to put on a musical in December, Pump Boys and Dinettes. It’s really good.”

  “Anything new over your way?”

  “My father talked to your mother.”

  “I know, she told me. She called me the other night.”