Close Your Eyes

by Amanda Eyre Ward

  Victoria licked her lips. “Um,” she said, “how about off-peak. Definitely off-peak, for sure.”

  “Off-peak, definitely,” Sylvia said. They had no idea what peak was all about—they had never left the city unaccompanied.

  “Track nine,” said the man, taking Victoria’s cash and handing them tickets.

  “That was a close call,” said Victoria as they walked across the giant lobby.

  “Don’t talk so loud,” said Sylvia.

  “Right, right,” said Victoria. She scratched her head. “My hair is hot.”

  Sylvia laughed, and Victoria grabbed her hand and squeezed it. They walked down the stairs to the lower level and made their way to track nine. The steel-toned light in the train car was made even darker by their sunglasses; Sylvia smelled oil and sweat. She tripped and fell, and Victoria helped her up. They slid into an empty seat. Sylvia’s hands were red and a bit skinned. She was upset, close to crying.

  “Maybe this isn’t—” she began, but Victoria was rummaging in her supply kit. She drew out a tube of first-aid ointment, and as the train pulled from the station, she began applying it to Sylvia’s scrapes. Sylvia kept her sunglasses on so nobody could see her tears.

  It already felt like summer in Holt. As they stood on the platform with a bunch of babysitters and maids, Sylvia said, “I’ve got to take the hat off,” and Victoria nodded.

  “Taxi,” she said, pointing at two cabs idling in the parking lot. She walked purposefully, and Sylvia hesitated. She knew in her heart of hearts that this was not a mystery. Her blood father lived with his real wife and family and wanted nothing to do with Sylvia. Seeing his house wouldn’t change anything. Most likely, it would make things worse. But there was no stopping this mission. Once Victoria decided on something, that was that.

  “Come on!” said Victoria, who had already climbed into the taxi and confidently given the driver the address.

  The driver nodded and began to drive. They whizzed along under a railroad bridge and past some shops and then some big houses and then some really big houses. Victoria rolled down the window, and Sylvia could smell salt water.

  “Nice town,” said Victoria. “You could live here.”

  “Right,” Sylvia said sarcastically.

  Still, she couldn’t help but wonder: what would it be like to leave the East Village, her grimy street? To wake up every day and smell the ocean, instead of the urine-stench of East Eleventh? To know where her mother would be every night—at home, safe. Sylvia wished this for her mother and for herself—some safety, some affection, a street that smelled like grass and the sea. Sylvia hadn’t shut off her gaping desires yet; she hadn’t given up, and hope was as painful as a knife.

  They turned onto Ocean Avenue. The houses were neat, lovely, with shutters next to the windows and bright green lawns.

  “Here we are, girls,” said the driver.

  “Just hold on a sec,” said Victoria. She pulled out the Nikon, and the driver slowed in front of number twelve.

  “Don’t go in the driveway,” Sylvia said. She was ice-cold, despite the high temperatures, despite the sun.

  “Whatever you like,” said the driver.

  Victoria began to snap, taking picture after picture. The house was white, with a picket fence surrounding it. “I’m getting out,” Sylvia said.

  “Don’t get out,” said Victoria, but for once, Sylvia defied her. She pulled the wool hat on and pressed the sunglasses to her face. She opened the car door and walked to the edge of the fence. The front door was black, with a brass knob in the middle. There was a mailbox on a metal pole, and feeling calm, as if she were dreaming, Sylvia opened it. There was a bill from the phone company inside, and a copy of The Economist. Sylvia looked at the name, and it was her father’s name, and this was his house.

  The yard was perfect. Sylvia went down the driveway and peeked into the back. There was so much grass, you could play soccer on that grass, or just lie in it and look at the sky. There was an oak tree in the corner that would be perfect—if somebody had a father to build one, who loved her enough to build one—for a tree house.

  As they drove back to the station, Sylvia looked out the back window. Before they turned the corner off Ocean Avenue and onto Purchase Place, Sylvia thought, I wish I lived in a house like that.

  And then she said it aloud.

  “Maybe there’s a way,” said Victoria.

  Sometimes Sylvia loved Victoria’s bullheadedness—the way she saw the world in black and white, the sense she held that anything was possible. But in this case, it made her furious. “There’s no way, Victoria,” she said bitterly. “Don’t be stupid.”

  “There’s always a way,” said Victoria.

  Sylvia snorted, staring out the taxi window. But a seed had been planted in her, and hope took root.

  7

  In Grade VIII, Sylvia met a boy in her building, Robert, and they began dating. Sylvia was crazy about her new boyfriend, but Victoria seemed skeptical, making comments about Sylvia’s “thug” and her “ghetto boy.” One night when Pauline was out, Victoria came over to watch Girls Just Want to Have Fun on the VHS player she’d given Sylvia for her birthday. As they ate ice cream after the movie was over, Victoria said, “You should break into Robert’s apartment while he’s sleeping.”

  “What?” said Sylvia, crossing her Tretorn sneakers and holding her spoon midair. “Why would I do that?”

  “To watch him,” said Victoria.

  “That’s just bizarre.”

  “Do you dare me to do it?” asked Victoria, finishing the Chunky Monkey and tossing the container into the trash.

  “And get you arrested by his dad, the cop?” said Sylvia, hoping to laugh it off.

  “Dare me,” said Victoria. “I’ll even get something to prove I was there.”

  “No,” said Sylvia.

  Victoria’s eyes blazed. She didn’t like it when Sylvia resisted her, but a dare was one thing, and breaking and entering was another. Besides, Sylvia thought she was in love with Robert. She was considering third base, having thoroughly enjoyed exploring first and second during the afternoons she spent entwined with Robert on Pauline’s couch, watching soap operas and Donahue.

  “Vee, you’re being kind of a weirdo.”

  “Word,” said Victoria, rolling her eyes. She got up and slung her bag over one shoulder. She had cut her hair to shoulder length and tied neon-colored netting in it to look like Madonna.

  “Do you want to sleep over?”

  “In the closet?” said Victoria dismissively, though they’d slept there countless times together.

  “Bye,” said Sylvia. Victoria let herself out and clomped down the stairs. Sylvia watched part of St. Elmo’s Fire by herself and, humming the theme song, brushed her teeth. She wanted to call Robert but did not, afraid she’d wake his parents. She lay in bed thinking of him. He played football for P.S. 94. He wanted to be a guitarist, like Slash. His hair was brown, and his eyes were blue. He made fun of Sylvia for being a bookworm. Sylvia fell asleep wondering if she’d marry Robert and what she and her bridesmaids would wear.

  At school the next day, Victoria passed Sylvia a note: He’s even cute when he sleeps. Sylvia stared at the paper. She was filled with both fury and fear. She did not write back and wouldn’t meet Victoria’s gaze.

  After class, Sylvia cornered Victoria next to her locker. “You went into his apartment?” she yelled. “Jeez, Vee! That’s messed up!”

  “I just climbed in from the fire escape and watched him sleep for a while,” said Victoria. “No biggie.”

  Sylvia glared at her friend. She had the urge to strike her, to smack the self-assurance from Victoria’s face. She wanted to wound Victoria, make her feel as small as Sylvia herself felt.

  “These were under his bed,” said Victoria, rummaging in her knapsack. She pulled out a blue pair of boxer shorts and handed them to Sylvia.

  Sylvia raised her hand. How long had Victoria sat on the shag carpet, smelling the priva
te smells of Robert’s sheets, his socks, his sleeping breath?

  “Oh, you’re going to hit me?” said Victoria.

  “If you go near Robert again, I’ll kill you,” said Sylvia in a low and serious voice.

  “Yeah, right,” said Victoria, and her dismissive laughter boiled in Sylvia’s gut like poison. “You’re so funny, Sylvie,” said Victoria.

  8

  Pauline died of cancer when Sylvia was seventeen. Sylvia could still smell the apartment: beef broth and soap. She held her mother’s hand until the end. It was warm for a long time, and then it grew cold and Sylvia let go.

  She took a bath with her mother’s Jean Naté bubbles. It felt like something had been torn down—the wall between Sylvia and death. Words ran through her head: You are next in line. After her bath, Sylvia went back into the living room. The sun was still hours away, and most of the apartment windows surrounding her were dark. The nurse would arrive at seven A.M.

  She knew it was time to call the nursing service and have Pauline taken to the funeral home. Once Sylvia dialed, everything would run smoothly. But she went back to Pauline and took her hand again. “Bye, Mom,” Sylvia said.

  After the doctor had signed the papers and Pauline’s body had been carried away, Sylvia closed the door to the building and was alone in the lobby. The few neighbors who had been roused by the ambulance had gone back inside their apartments. Sylvia glanced at the row of mailboxes as she walked toward the stairwell, then stopped. There was a postcard pinned to their mailbox, an outgoing missive. It had three stamps and was addressed in Pauline’s wobbly script. Pauline must have given the card to a visitor and asked him or her to mail it, thought Sylvia.

  She pulled the faded card and stared at it. It pictured a dining room in a restaurant called Gene’s: wicker chairs, tables covered with white cloths. GENE’S FRENCH-ITALIAN FOOD, a swirling font said. DISTINCTION. LUNCHEON, DINNER, COCKTAILS. Pauline had written nothing except a name and an address in Holt, New York. Sylvia stared at the name: her father’s name.

  Then she put the card back where it had been.

  Sylvia dressed carefully for the funeral a week later. She wore a Fendi gray skirt and matching jacket. She’d been around the Brights long enough to know the power of wealth. Before leaving the apartment, she looked coldly at herself in the mirror. Her skin was unblemished, her makeup light. She pinned her blond hair back with combs, fastened her mother’s gold buttons on her ears, looped a matching necklace around her neck. If her father did come to the funeral, she wanted him to be proud of her, to think she was beautiful. She wanted him to feel sorry for what he had lost.

  During the funeral service, Sylvia saw a portly man in an expensive wool coat move quietly into the church. His expression was polite. He looked sad and honest. But in his deep-set eyes and high forehead, Sylvia saw a resemblance to her own face. He had her nose, too, a bit wide. She wanted to run to him, to hold him, to punch him.

  While the priest droned on, the man kept his gaze on the prayer book. Pauline’s old colleagues from Tiffany lined up to peer into the open casket (Pauline’s vain request), but the man remained in his pew. When the service concluded, Sylvia saw him preparing to leave. He checked his watch, gathered his coat from beside him. Sylvia knew she didn’t have much time. Darting past well-wishers, she walked straight toward him. He looked up with a distant but pleasant expression.

  Sylvia reached the man. She was blinking back tears already. His hair was trimmed neatly around his ears, which were Sylvia’s ears, the lobe attached and fleshy. “Hello?” he said.

  “I know who you are,” Sylvia said. She smiled up at him, and what had she expected? An embrace after all this time? Did she think he would adopt her, take care of her? In a way, in a small part of her heart, she did.

  His eyes darted upward, the only evidence of his deception. And then, without missing a beat, he met Sylvia’s hopeful gaze. “Who am I?” he asked.

  “You’re my father,” she said. “I’m Sylvia.”

  The corners of his mouth lifted, and he looked for all the world like a good man. But he said, “No, Sylvia. No. I can’t be your father.” He cupped her shoulder and turned to go. “I am very sorry about your mother,” he said. And then, before walking away and letting strangers take his place, he kissed her on the cheek.

  Sylvia’s shoulders fell forward, but she wouldn’t rush after the man, wouldn’t ask for help or love, like Pauline. She tried to make a mask of her face. She had to turn around, to go back to the scraps of her life.

  In a corner of the church, she saw Victoria and her mother. Mae stood with her arms crossed, her black hair neatly curling at the padded shoulders of her suit.

  Victoria was watching Sylvia’s father, staring daggers at his back. She was fiercely loyal, like a pit bull. Mae was looking at Sylvia. She lifted her chin and walked over briskly.

  “Come on,” she said, reaching out to Sylvia. “You’re done with all of this, sweetheart. Come with me. You’re a Bright girl now.”

  A few weeks later, Victoria took Sylvia to the party on the beach.

  9

  The Cleveland Greyhound station was located on Chester Avenue, which sounded quaint but was not. From a grimy booth (why—really, why, did people feel compelled to stick their used chewing gum on pay phones?), Sylvia decided to call her own cell and check for messages. If she dialed the number and hit the pound key and her password, she could hear the messages without making the phone ring on the kitchen counter. What was Ray doing now, she wondered—had he gone to the club to look for her? Most likely, he was fixing a drink, settling into his La-Z-Boy recliner and flipping through the channels, resting his drink on top of his large belly. It was disgusting—revolting! A stomach big enough to rest a cocktail on!

  As she dialed, Sylvia watched a throng of people smoking. They were confined to a glass-walled smokers’ area but seemed genial enough, lighting each other’s cigarettes and smiling. Sylvia smoked sometimes after a few glasses of wine. But that was over, too: the smoking and the wine both, for a while. There was a woman with a baby in the smokers’ area. The woman held the baby with her free arm. It was wearing a blue outfit, so perhaps it was a boy. If Sylvia had a girl, she’d let the girl wear blue, too, whatever she wanted. But the child would have to eat healthily. And not too much TV, for sure. Books, lots of books. Sylvia smiled at the thought of a plump child in her lap, pointing to pictures of animals in a book.

  As promised, Victoria had called back, full of apologies and empty promises (“a girls’ weekend” probably wasn’t what she needed, Sylvia thought). Sylvia’s boss had checked in, wondering if she had swine flu.

  Sylvia erased both messages. She decided she was hungry for a midnight snack. There was a Bob’s Big Boy adjacent to the station, with a plaque reading PLEASE SEAT YOURSELF. When a sleepy waitress with lots of mascara came over, Sylvia said, “I’ll have the Brawny Lad burger with onion rings. And just some lemonade. No, you know, make it the Super Big Boy. I’m really hungry, because I’m with child.”

  “Are you, now?” said the woman.

  “Yes,” said Sylvia. “Is that how you say it? ‘With child’?”

  “I don’t think so,” said the waitress. “But I don’t know, I guess you can say it however you want.”

  “You’re the first person I’ve told,” said Sylvia.

  “Okay,” said the waitress.

  “I don’t know if it’s a boy or a girl,” said Sylvia.

  “I’d say boy,” said the waitress.

  “Really? How can you tell?”

  “I’m just guessing,” said the waitress.

  “A boy,” said Sylvia. Wonder ran like water from her scalp to her toes. “A boy,” she said, more quietly.

  “I’m going to give you a slice of pie on the house,” said the waitress. “As long as nobody sees me take it.”

  “Thank you,” said Sylvia. “That’s really nice of you.”

  “I can just say I dropped it on the floor and threw it out,” said
the waitress. “It’s no big deal.”

  “I appreciate it,” said Sylvia.

  “There’s this thing you can do with a wedding ring on a string,” said the waitress. “It’ll tell you boy or girl for sure. But I guess neither one of us has a ring at the moment.”

  “Right,” said Sylvia. “That’s true.”

  “I was married once,” said the waitress. “But anyway.”

  Sylvia couldn’t think of anything to say to that, so she looked down at her place mat.

  “I’ll put your order in,” said the waitress.

  “Thanks,” said Sylvia. She looked out at the rain and thought about a boy. Charles, she thought. Benjamin. Scott. Jennings. She had never been so happy in her life.

  When she was so full she could barely speak, Sylvia went back to the station and boarded the next bus, for the last leg of the journey. Thankfully, there was a row she could claim for herself, and she stretched out, yawning.

  She daydreamed about her mother. Pauline would come home from work at Tiffany and put on her bathrobe. If Sylvia rubbed her feet, Pauline would stay still and talk to Sylvia. In the overheated bus, seven hours from Manhattan, Sylvia remembered her mother’s favorite story. “I was so young, so full of hope,” Pauline would begin.

  Pauline bought the green dress during her lunch hour, eating her ham and cheese sandwich as she walked back to work. She had stored the sandwich in her handbag; the slice of American cheese and the butter were soft. After she finished, she shook the waxed paper and folded it, slipping it into her bag to use the next day. Then Pauline thought about Izaan Mahdian and what she had to tell him, and she threw away the waxed paper, letting it fall to the sidewalk, thinking that perhaps she’d never have to pack a sandwich again.

  Some of the girls were standing outside as Pauline approached the store, and red-haired Carole said, “Well, la-di-da! Who’s shopping at Saks?”

  “Special occasion,” Pauline said, giving them what she hoped was a mysterious smile and slipping into the building. All afternoon, as girls like her (or not like her—girls like she wanted to be, girls who’d never been to Brooklyn or Queens, never even been south of the Empire State Building) chose engagement rings, and men like Izaan bought cuff links and gold watches, she allowed herself to dream of being on the other side of the glass counter.