“Ward of the court,” Marta said right away. “My cousin Vicky did that. Mother beating on her, her dad was hitting on her, the judge put her in a foster home, and then later she got a place by herself. That’s it, I love it!” Jake was already shaking his head, but Marta slapped her hand on the table and raised her voice, looking over at her brother. “That’s it, Jenny! You get your own place, and I’ll come and live with you, and we don’t tell my damn family where we are.”
“My mom doesn’t beat on me,” I said. “She wouldn’t know how.” That made me feel funny, I remember, thinking about Sally and how she wouldn’t know how to hit anybody. I said, “Anyway, I mostly don’t mind living with her. I just don’t want to live with her in England, that’s all.”
Jake said, “You want to avoid stepfathers. Just on principle.” He was on his second then, and his mother was already lining up Number Three. I said, “Count on it.”
“Ward of the court,” Marta said again. “I’m telling you, Jenny.”
We bussed our trays, and then we went off to our special place, where they keep the trash cans, because Jake had one small joint, about the size of a bobby pin. Marta got giggly, but it didn’t do much for Jake or me. Jake said it was a question of body mass.
After lunch, Marta and I had Introduction to Drama together. Jake got off early because he and his parents went to family counseling on Wednesdays. Usually I liked Introduction to Drama, but lately I’d been having a problem with the teacher, Mr. Hammell. Anyway, I thought it was a problem, but I wasn’t sure then, and I guess I’m still not, all these years later. Mr. Hammell had beautiful one-piece walnut hair, and he had sort of ravines in his cheeks, and half the girls at Gaynor were writing stuff they’d like to do to him on the walls of the john. Some of it was funny, and some of it made me feel strange, not knowing which way to look when Marta showed me. But some of it was really funny.
Anyway, for the last month or so Mr. Hammell had been maybe not exactly coming on to me. Not that I’d have known if he was, because nobody in the world had ever actually come on to me, except Mark Rinzler one time, at a Christmas party. At first it was okay, fun even, and then it just turned gross—no, that’s not the word, it turned stupid and scary, and I made Mark quit, and he never spoke to me again. But Mr. Hammell used to stand right beside me while he was talking, and he’d let his long fingers trail over my desk, and now and then he’d look at me, as though I was the only one in the class who could ever possibly understand what he was saying. Which was not true. And after class, or if we met in the hall, he’d stop me and ask what I thought about Antigone or poor dumb Desdemona, whichever, while I stood there getting redder and redder and sweatier and sweatier. He even gave me his home phone number, in case I ever had any questions about the homework assignment. I didn’t throw it away for a couple of days.
Meena keeps saying I should have complained about sexual harassment. Only Meena’s pretty, and there’s a lot of stuff pretty people don’t know. Pretty people like Stacy Altieri and Vanessa Whitfield and Morgan Baskin, they’d come drifting up to me at my locker and they’d ask, “So. What’s it like with him?” And they’d look at me, the way people do when they’re waiting for some kind of right answer from you, some kind of password. And all I had to do was say it, the word, and there I’d be, I’d be with them. But I didn’t know any password, I never do. So they’d go on looking at me for a while, and then they’d drift off again, back to their cool boyfriends, back to pretty. And I’m standing there, still pink sweaty me, and I’m going to know what’s sexual harassment and what isn’t? Right, Meena.
Anyway. We had Introduction to Drama, and it went okay, except for Stacy Altieri and Kevin Bell making their usual dumb jokes about “TB or not TB.” Mr. Hammell stood right by my desk, the same as always, and I could smell his aftershave, like fresh snow, and see that he had a couple of broken black fingernails on one hand, as though he’d caught them in a door or something. Funny to remember that, when I can’t remember my own damn name half the time.
After class, Mr. Hammell was sort of beckoning to me, trying to catch my eye, but I pretended I didn’t see him and just ducked out of there in time to grab a quick hit with Marta in the girls’ john before I caught the bus to go see Norris. Probably I shouldn’t have done that, because all it did was make me jittery, instead of easy and relaxed, the way I wanted to be. I put my head back and breathed huge deep breaths, in and out, and tried really hard to feel that I already lived at Norris’s apartment and was just going home, like always. It helped a little.
He’d moved into a new place just last month, way over east, right on the corner of Third Avenue. An old building, but cleaned up, with a new awning and the number written out in letters, and a doorman wearing a uniform like one of Sally’s tenors in an opera. When I told him I was here to see my father, Mr. Norris Groves, he looked at me for the longest time,just knowing I was actually some sort of damp, squirrelly groupie with an autograph book in one coat pocket and a gun in the other. Then he went to the switchboard and I guess he called Norris in the apartment, because I heard him talking, and then he came back looking like he’d swallowed his cab whistle. But he told me which floor Norris lived on, and which way to turn when I got off the elevator. And he watched me all the way to the elevator, in case I stole the skinny little carpet or something. I remember, I thought, Boy, when I come to live here, I’m going to do something evil to you every day. It’ll be my hobby.
Meena, when you read this, I already told you I’m no good at all at describing where people live, and telling what color the bedroom was painted and how many bathrooms they had, and what they had hanging on the walls. I hated doing it in Creative Writing class, and there is no way I’m about to do it in my own book. So the only thing I’m going to say about Norris’s apartment is that it was old, but sunny old, not smelly old, with a lot of big windows with curly iron grates on the outside. Not much furniture, no paintings or anything, just some framed opera posters and some pictures of Norris with famous people. I think they were famous, anyway. They were all in costume.
Norris gave me a huge hug when I came in. That’s his specialty, a hug that makes you feel all wrapped up and totally safe—I never knew anybody else who could do it just like that. He held me away from him and looked at me, and grinned, and then he hugged me again and said, “Look what I got!” like a little kid. And he stepped back, and I saw the piano.
Okay. I may not know anything about decor, but I can’t help knowing about pianos. This one was a baby grand—I didn’t see a manufacturer’s name anywhere. It was a dark red-brown, the color I said most black cats really are, and it looked as though it was full of sunlight, just breathing and rippling with it. I never in my life saw a piano like that one.
Norris stood beside me, grinning all over himself. He’s not really handsome, not like Mr. Hammell, but he’s bigger, and he’s got thick, curly gray hair and big features that really stand out—nose, chin, eyes, forehead—which is great if you’re going to be onstage in makeup a lot. I don’t look anything like him either. He said, “Go ahead, kick the tires. Take it for a test run.”
One thing about Sally, she never made me take any kind of piano or voice lessons, even though that’s what she teaches all day. (I can’t sing a note, by the way: Two parents who do it professionally, and it’s all I can manage to stay on pitch. They could probably take the hospital for millions.) But I teach myself stuff sometimes, just for fun, banging it out for myself, stuff like “Mack the Knife” and “Piano Man,” and “When I’m Sixty-four.” I was nervous about playing for Norris, so I made a big thing out of it, sitting down and rubbing my hands and cracking my knuckles, until Norris said, “Enough already, kid, go,” and I finally went into “The Entertainer.”