My Mother Was Never A Kid (Victoria Martin Trilogy)

by Francine Pascal

  Seventeen

  “What happened? The bomb! Did they drop the bombs?”

  “It’s all right, girlie.” A gentle voice with a big pink sweaty face is leaning over me. “Just take it easy, nobody dropped any bombs, just a short stop.”

  Ooooh, suddenly my head pounds with pain and I put my hand up to rub it and there’s this gigantic bump right between my eyebrows. Wow, is that sore.

  “What happened?” I ask again, and the pink face pulls back and now I recognize it. It’s that old train conductor, the one who was so nice to me on the trip from Philadelphia, the first one with the big crinkly smile. And that’s just what his face does now as he tells me about how the train made a short stop just at the mouth of the tunnel into New York and I must have fallen forward and banged my head against the seat in front. He says that I look okay to him except for that big red mountain growing out of the center of my forehead. Lucky me, I was the only one on the whole train who got hurt.

  “Be a good idea, honey, if you tell your mother to take you to the doctor when you get home,” says the lady in the next seat.

  I look at her to say that I will, and it’s that same old lady with the crazy red lipstick that matches her scarf and shoes, the one I thought got off the train ages ago. The train! What am I doing on the train? Where’s Cici? The house? The air raid …

  “The air raid!” I shout. “What about the air raid?” I can’t quite get my head together.

  “Ain’t no air raid, girlie, you must have been dreaming,” the conductor says, and looks at the old lady, who shakes her head in agreement.

  “Take it easy, honey, everything’s all right, you just got yourself a little confused from being bumped on the head. Now, you just sit back and try and relax some.” And she pats me gently on the arm and there’s a little jerk forward and the train begins to move again.

  “She’ll be okay now,” the old lady says to the conductor, and he winks at me and starts to move on up the aisle.

  I sit back quietly in my seat like the lady says, and try to relax. But I can’t because my mind’s crazy like a bowl of spaghetti, all messy tangles and slippery loose ends. So I end up not thinking, just blinking my eyes like I’m some kind of slide projector and waiting for the picture to change. But it doesn’t. I keep getting the same shot of me on the train heading for New York, just like way back in the beginning, which must mean that it’s like the conductor says, I was unconscious. Of course, that makes the explanation very simple. While I was knocked out I dreamed the whole thing—Cici, my grandparents, the test, the weekend, and because I’m so brilliant, 1944 and World War II. Uh-uh … no way! Listen, I’m not saying I’m a dummy, but I couldn’t do it. I mean, I could never put together anything as real as that. How could I? Outside of the movies, I swear I don’t know a thing about the forties. So how could I do it, I mean, with the clothes and the people and the war and … unless it was all wrong. Suppose it didn’t look at all the way I pictured it, then I guess it could have been a dream. But it seemed so real and it took so long and so many things happened and …

  The loudspeaker announces Penn Station, New York, and people all around me start gathering up their belongings. The lady next to me smiles over the top of a lapful of shopping bags, and I remember shoving my suitcase on the shelf over the seat so I say excuse me and slide past her to get it. While I’m reaching for it, I look around at the people. Most of them are standing. And you know what? They’re people, I mean grown-ups—all those kids and babies are gone. And their clothes—well, they’re regular—you know, some jeans, some dresses, no hats—regular. I still can’t believe it. It seemed so real, so absolutely true. It zonks me to think it was only a dream.

  Hey! What am I thinking? This is great. I’m home! All that time, back there in the forties, all I wanted was to get home and see my family, and now I’m here and I can.

  Maybe. All I have to do is take one look at the information booth. If my mother’s there, then I’ll know I’m really home.

  I really want her to be there … badly.

  It’s always slow getting off trains and up crowded staircases, but this time it’s taking forever. But so far, everything’s right, I mean the station looks the way it always does.

  The main floor is jammed. I put my head down and burrow into the crowd and with a lot of “excuse me”s push and shove my way through. I’m so afraid to look up because if she’s not there …

  I’m practically on top of the information booth, so I sneak my head up a little just to peek. She’s there! Fantastic! And she even brought Nina. Excellent!

  “Hey, Mom! Mommy!” And I go charging for her and practically leap into her arms. At first she’s stiff, like I really stunned her, which I probably did, because I can’t remember the last time I gave her such a greeting. Then she starts to hug me too, and this is ridiculous, but we both stand there hugging and kissing each other like we’ve been away for years. Boy, am I glad to see her. Even Nina. This is a terrible embarrassment, but I have to tell you that somewhere in all this loving and stuff I get so carried away that I even kiss Nina. I may never live that down.

  Now my mother pulls back a little and, wouldn’t you know, the first thing she sees is the bump.

  “My God! What happened?” And she starts examining and fussing and throwing a million questions at me. So I explain about the short stop and she’s all concerned and she doesn’t even ask me about anything else, just grabs me and we go whizzing out of the station. Once in the car, she makes me sit back and not say anything. Naturally we drive directly to the doctor, who isn’t exactly out of his mind with joy to do business on a Sunday, but he says it’s not a concussion and I’m probably going to live. The way my mother takes me home and puts me to bed you’d think she didn’t believe him. Nobody’s allowed to bug me in any way. And it’s lovely just to creep into my very own bed. I didn’t realize how tired I was, but practically the minute I hit the pillow, I’m asleep. And best of all, no dreams.

  I open my eyes slowly … slowly, barely peeking out from under the squint. It feels like my own room, but so far I can’t see anything much. I take it very slowly because I’m not up to any more surprises. I open a tiny bit more and then I see it—beautiful gray gauzy nothing. Hooray! I’m home! I told you I’ve got this corner room in a court that only gets sun at two o’clock in the afternoon, and even then it’s used. I mean, it’s reflected off a window in the next apartment house and only about four inches of it slices into my room. Anyway, right now it looks like five o’clock on a rainy afternoon in February, so I must be home.

  My ecstatic joy lasts about four seconds and then all the awfuls come flooding back—the school problem, the meeting with the principal, the dope hassle down in Philadelphia. Looking from the most optimistic angle, my situation is horrendously gross and getting worse. Maybe I should pretend I’m in a coma. That could happen easily from a bump on the head. Nah, it’s hopeless, I could never pull it off. One look at Nina or someone like that and I’d surely start to laugh. Besides comas are bad news, I mean, you can’t even scratch yourself. On the other hand, amnesia is perfect. You can do anything you want and nobody can blame you for anything. It’s like starting all over again with no black marks against you. It’d take me ten years to accumulate all those minus points, and by then I’d be almost twenty-four and out from under. I mean, what do you say to a twenty-four-year-old who smokes dope or makes a little noise in the movies?

  “Victoria!” Like they say in the confession magazines, it’s the voice of truth. Actually, it’s only my mother.

  “Victoria!” It’s coming closer. You know what? I swear it sounds a smidgen like Cici, but, of course, it was my dream so I probably gave her my mother’s voice.

  “Victoria!” I’m beginning to get vibes of slight concern in her voice. She turns on the light. “What’s the matter?” Heavy concern, working into big worry, bordering on panic. “Victoria!” She rushes to my bed.

  “Yeah.” I can’t do it. I’m too chicken
for amnesia.

  “Are you deaf?” All that deep beautiful concern is immediately replaced by plenty of angry impatience. “What are you waiting for? Don’t you know we have an appointment with the principal at nine? Aren’t things bad enough? Do you want to be late on top of everything?”

  She rattles off eight more questions on the same order. All of which I answer by oozing slowly out of bed and reaching for my clothes. I’m not too chicken to rub my bump a little, even though, my luck, there’s no trace of it left. If it were a pimple, it’d be there for a week. The little rub works good enough anyway. In fact, too good—now she’s starting to help me dress. All almost-fourteen-year-olds just love to be dressed by their mothers. I never win.

  Breakfast is strange, not terrible, just different. It’s just my mother and me. My father’s already left for the office and Nina’s gone to school. My mother doesn’t even make me eat breakfast, and she doesn’t say a word when I don’t take milk or anything. The four-block walk to school is weird too. Total silence. Nothing. Not even some helpful hints about how I should behave with the principal or threats about what’s in store for me if he doesn’t take me back. She doesn’t even hassle me about the dope business at Liz’s party. Not one blessed thing. I’m beginning to feel very creepy. I mean, I was nervous before, but now … it may be more serious than I thought. I’ve got this bad feeling about my mother. A terrible feeling. Like she’s given up on me.

  Eighteen

  By the time we get to the school, classes have started and the halls are deserted. Everybody’s where they’re supposed to be, except me. I’m the strange one and I don’t like the feeling. I wish I hadn’t done all those silly things. I wish I had been more like everyone else. Even the dope thing, if I hadn’t always landed into all the other trouble, nobody would have thought to blame me for that. Maybe it’s like Cici said; I’m getting too old for this kind of stuff. Sure I know I’ll never be a goody-goody like Margie Sloan, but it may be time to cool things a bit. I mean a couple of fun nutty things once in a while is okay, but three times a week was too much. I can see that now. Naturally it’s too late. To tell you the truth, if I could get out of this whole thing right now, I’d be so perfect I’d make Margie Sloan look like a junkie.

  Miss Olerfield, the principal’s secretary, looks out of her head with joy to see me bringing my mother. She knows it means trouble and she’s hated me since the gum-on-the-seat incident from the fourth grade. I can’t understand people like that who hold a grudge forever.

  “Mrs. Martin,” she says, “Mr. Davis is waiting for you.” And then to me, “I think we can manage a little tiny greeting now, can’t we, Victoria?”

  “Sorry, Miss Olerfield, I was watching the roach climbing into your purse.”

  Demented squeals, leaps, and lunges as she flings the entire contents of her bag all over the desk and floor. I want to stop to help her pick it up, but my mother grabs me by the arm and leads me into Mr. Davis’s office before I can even offer. From the way she grips my arm, maybe she hasn’t given up on me completely.

  Mr. Davis gets up from behind his super-neat absolutely empty desk (nobody’s ever figured out exactly what a principal does except maybe aggravate kids and their parents) to greet us. He’s a real winner, tall and skinny and twelve months pregnant. At least that’s what his belly looks like. He’s always dressed in dusty brown suits, even when they’re blue. He’s musty, dull, and tacky. I’m crazy about him.

  “Mrs. Martin?” He puts out his hand to my mother. “I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure.”

  “Mr. Davis?” my mother says, then suddenly stops dead.

  And so does he.

  “Ted … Ted Davis?” My mother looks stunned.

  Ted Davis! I don’t believe it! Like in my dream. It can’t be.

  “Cici? Are you Cici Lyons?” His eyes are practically popping. “Don’t tell me you’re Cici Lyons. I don’t believe it.”

  Lucky they’re not looking at me because I’m totally astounded.

  I mean, it was only a dream.

  It can’t have happened. It was only from the bump on my head.

  But Cici and Ted? How did I know? I couldn’t have unless—unless I was there.

  “My, my, what a lot of years.” Mr. Davis is shaking his head in disbelief.

  “Thirty years? No, more, my goodness,” says my mother. “All that time. But I swear, you look almost the same. You do.”

  Of course she’s lying, I’d never have recognized him. Then he gives her some line about how she looks the same too, and then they go into a whole long thing about what this one is doing and how that one got divorced three times and that one ran for Congress and someone else moved to Alaska and on and on and I don’t recognize any of the names yet.

  “I can still see Pop Stiller’s malt shop.”

  I know that name. I’m sure I do. I think my mother mentioned it when she told me about how Ted offered her the test the first time. I know she said she was in some malt shop and I could swear it was Pop somebody’s. I think I’m going bananas because maybe I really was there.

  “It’s been gone for years. They tore down the whole block and built a huge apartment house.”

  Who cares about that? Get to the test thing.

  “What about the school?”

  “Gone too.”

  The test. What about the test!

  “I have some pretty grim memories of that place,” says my mother.

  I know one for sure.

  “Don’t we all.”

  If they don’t get to that damn test, I’m going to ask them myself. I swear I don’t care, I have to know.

  “You know, Ted, I’ve never forgiven you for that thing you pulled with me.”

  Suddenly I’m afraid. Up till now I was dying to know, but now Fm afraid. But it’s too late to stop them now.

  “I know that was awful and I felt terrible afterward, but …”

  “I could have killed you.”

  “I never should have run off and left you like that …”

  Ooooh …” That was me. I didn’t mean to, but it just slipped out. They both look at me.

  A pinprick of silence, then Mr. Davis goes on. “… at the party.”

  Party? What’s he talking about? He wasn’t even at that party.

  “At the party?” My mother’s shaking her head and looking straight at me. “Oh, yes,” she suddenly says. “The party. Deserting me at that miserable party to come home all by myself at midnight. My parents were furious.”

  He didn’t leave her at any party. What are they talking about? Don’t they remember? He ran off … when we all fell trying to get back into the house … the police, the test … the whole thing.

  “I should have taken you home. I’m really sorry.”

  They’re lying. They don’t want me to know. They were going to say it, then they noticed me and they changed the whole story. The party business is baloney. I know it … I know it … I know it….

  “Victoria, please, dear, don’t cry … it’s all right.”

  My mother is holding me and I can’t stop sobbing and shaking. Now they’re both fussing over me. I wish I could control myself but I can’t….

  “It’s all right…. Everything’s going to be okay.” She’s still hugging me, and even though it feels good, I can’t seem to stop sobbing. “Victoria’s not herself today. She had a slight accident on the train coming from Philadelphia yesterday. Just a bump on the head, but I think it upset her.”

  It’s not that. It’s just such a huge letdown. I absolutely convinced myself that it was all only a dream, and then this stuff happens with my mother and Mr. Davis and I start going mad all over again. I guess it’s because I wanted so hard for it to be true—I mean, about how it was with my mother and me back then. We were so close and it felt so good and now it’s all gone and she’s just my mother again and we’re right back where we started … a million miles apart.

  “Poor child.” Mr. Davis puts his head out the door and
asks Miss Olerfield to get me a glass of water. While we’re waiting for the water, Mr. Davis, never one to miss a chance to kick someone when they’re down, starts right in on me. He pulls out my records and begins reading off all my crimes. What seems like four days later, he’s still reading. Lucky they don’t have firing squads in schools. A lot of the things I can’t remember. On the other hand, a lot I can and some of them are beginning to strike me funny, which can be very dangerous. All I need now is to be struck by the laughing bit.

  “As you can see this presents an impossible situation,” Mr. Davis tells my mother. “We’re simply not equipped to deal with these kinds of disruptions and still give the other four hundred students the education they deserve. We must eliminate the incorrigibles.”

  At least I didn’t think they had firing squads.

  “And I’m afraid your daughter qualifies as an incorrigible. We have tried to deal with her time and again, but don’t seem to get through to her. She is a constant troublemaker. Not only does she create problems for herself, but she leads the other children astray. We cannot have that kind of influence in our school.”

  Okay, so maybe I am a troublemaker, sort of, but still I don’t think I influence anybody else except maybe jerks like Tina Osborne—and practically anybody could influence her.

  “One minute, Ted.” Up till now my mother’s just been listening. “I agree we’re dealing with a difficult situation here, but you must admit most of the incidents are more childish than dangerous. When you talk about leading other students astray, you make it sound almost evil. My daughter’s actions are certainly foolish, but hardly immoral.”

  “A foolish child often becomes an immoral adult.”