"But he's her real father!" I protested.
"And a man with a prison record," Jimmy reminded me, "who doesn't have any money or a real job or a wife to help raise a child. Of course, he still hopes that someday . . ."
"Someday we'll find her, Jimmy. And we'll bring the family together again," I said with clear and sharp determination.
Jimmy smiled and nodded. "Sure we will, Dawn."
It wasn't until after our food came that we broke loose with talk about ourselves. Jimmy described his training, his friends and some of the things he had seen and done. I told him about school, about Madame Steichen, more about Trisha and described the other students in our apartment house, especially poor Arthur Garwood. After a while it seemed I was doing all the talking and Jimmy was listening, eyes wide.
"This is certainly a lot different for you than any of the other places we've been," he concluded. "But I'm glad you're with people who see how talented you are."
Then he broke the bad news: how he was really in New York because he was going to be shipped out to Europe tomorrow afternoon.
"Europe! Oh Jimmy, when will I see you again?"
"It won't be as long as you think, Dawn, and I'll write often. Don't look so worried," he said, smiling, "there's no war on. All soldiers go on a tour of duty someplace. This way I get to see some of the world and Uncle Sam pays my way.
"We don't have much time together, Dawn," he added with a serious look in his eyes, "let's not spend one moment of it unhappy, okay?"
How wise he sounded. Time and tragedy had changed him. I realized that Jimmy had really been on his own most of the time since that morning the police had come to our apartment in Richmond and declared that our father was a kidnapper. Jimmy had no choice but to grow up.
I swallowed back my tears and forced a smile. "Let's go for a walk," I said, "so I can show you my school."
Jimmy took out his wallet and paid the enormous dinner bill without blinking an eye and we left. He was surprised at how well I knew my way around the city, explained how Trisha and I often took the buses and the subways now to go to the museums and see shows.
"You're growing up fast, Dawn," Jimmy said but looked sad about it. "And becoming so sophisticated I probably won’t recognize you when I come back and you probably won't want much to do with me."
"Oh Jimmy, don't ever say that!" I cried, stopping on the sidewalk. "I'll never think I'm better than you. That's a horrible thing to say."
"All right, all right," he said, laughing. "I'm sorry." "You mustn't even think such a thing about me. I would just as soon quit this school."
"Don't you dare, Dawn. You're going to become a star. I just know you will," he said firmly. Then he reached out and took my hand so that we walked holding hands all the rest of the way.
After I showed him the school and the small park nearby, he told me about his hotel.
"It's nothing fancy, but I got a nice view of the city because I'm twenty-eight floors up."
"Why don't you take me to see it," I said. "I've never been in a New York City hotel."
"You really want to see it?" he asked. He looked unsure of himself, undecided, and for a minute I thought he was going to say something. Then his face changed.
A second later, he had hailed a cab and we were on our way to his hotel.
Although I knew it wasn't as fancy as the Plaza or the Waldorf, it was nice. His room was small, but he was right about the view. It was breathtaking to look out over the buildings and streets and see the ocean in the distance. Jimmy stood beside me and held my hand and we gazed quietly. Then I lowered my head to his shoulder and closed my eyes, trying to swallow around the lump in my throat. I couldn't keep the tears in.
"I'm sorry, Jimmy," I said, "but I can't stop remembering things. I can't stop thinking about little Fern, about holding her and feeding her and watching her crawl and laugh; and I can't stop thinking about Momma when she was healthy and pretty."
"I know," he said, petting my hair and then kissing the top of my head.
"And I can't stop thinking about you and me back at the hotel in Cutler's Cove," I said.
"I don't stop thinking about it either," he confessed. I pulled my head back from his shoulder and looked at him. His dark eyes gazed down into mine. "Dawn," he whispered, "if you feel like crying, go ahead. I'll understand. Cry enough for me too."
He looked so sad when he said that. I couldn't cry. I reached up instead and touched his cheek. Slowly, as if we were crossing all the time and distance that had come between us, our lips moved toward each other's and we kissed softly. I turned toward him and our kiss grew more passionate. When he pulled back, I saw tears shining in the corners of his eyes.
"I still can't help the confusion that torments me inside," he said. "I think about you, dream about you, want you, and then I see you in my mind's eye growing up as my sister and it feels so wrong to think of you any other way."
"I know," I said. "But I'm not your sister."
"I don't know what to do," he confessed. "It's like there's a wall between us, a wall forbidding us to touch."
"Leap over that wall then," I said, surprised at how aggressive I was.
I took his hand into mind and drew it up and over my breast. I pressed his palm there and held it. He kissed me again and then we moved quietly to the bed. First, we just sat there, stroking each other tenderly. Then he moved closer so his head was on my forehead. His warm breath was on my face. I moved so my head tilted backward and my neck arched. I didn't feel quite real when his warm lips kissed the hollow of my throat and stayed there. My breath caught. For a long, long moment, I waited for him to move away. I felt the tingling turning into wave after wave of warmth moving down my body from the place where his lips touched me, down to the very tips of my toes.
I moaned and fell back against the pillow. He leaned over me, his arms at my sides and smiled.
"You're so pretty. I can't help loving you. There will never be anyone for me but you, and even if it takes me years and years to get past that wall, do it," he pledged.
"Oh Jimmy, get over that wall now," I begged, not even believing my own words. It was as if there was someone else within me saying these things. He grew serious, his eyes darker, smaller.
Then he sat back and stripped off his army jacket and unbuttoned his shirt. I watched him, unmoving. When he began to lower his pants, I lifted my sweater over my head and unzipped my skirt. He pulled back the cover on the bed and I slipped under it, just wearing my bra and panties. We embraced and kissed. His fingers found the clip on my bra and undid it. After he removed it with my help, he pressed his face to my breasts and kissed me.
"How beautiful you are," he said with a low sigh. "I remember when you were younger. You were so shy about your body, always wanting to wear loose sweaters so I couldn't see. And if we should accidentally touch . . ."
His memories sent me reeling back to our years as brother and sister. The wall he described between us came between us again as I recalled those times when we did touch each other intimately by accident and then felt dirty and ashamed because of it. It was so hard to drive away those images and feelings.
When he pressed his manliness against me now, I shuddered both because of the excitement and because of the guilt. But why should I feel this guilt? I demanded of myself. Jimmy is not my brother; he's not!
Jimmy sensed the tightening in my body and his kisses came to a halt. He pulled himself back and looked at me.
"We're going too fast, Dawn," he said. "This is going to hurt our love for each other, not cement it. I want you, more than I want anything else, but I don't want to do anything to drive you away from me.
"Let's just lie here together, and hold each other," he said with a wisdom far greater than mine.
He put his arm around my shoulders and brought me closer to him so my head rested on his chest. For a long time, we just lay there silently, holding each other. Our pounding hearts slowed and a wonderful peace came over us. Through the window
we watched the sun go down over the city. Soon the thousands and thousands of lights that made the New York skyline so exciting glittered.
He closed his eyes and I closed mine and we fell asleep in each other's arms.
When my eyes snapped open, I was confused for a moment. Jimmy was still asleep. I turned softly so as not to wake him and put on the small lamp on the night stand to look at the clock. Thunderstruck, I felt my head swim. Could that be right?
"Oh Jimmy," I cried, sitting up.
"Huh?" His eyes fluttered open.
I threw off the blanket and rushed to get my clothes on.
"It's two o'clock in the morning. Agnes will be furious. We're supposed to be in by twelve at the latest on weekends and ten on weekdays."
"Oh, wow. I don't know what happened," he said, sitting up and putting on his pants.
We rushed out and down to the hotel lobby. It was so late there was no one behind the desk. It took us quite a while to finally find a cab and it was nearly three in the morning when we arrived at Agnes's house.
"Should I come in with you and explain?" Jimmy asked.
"Explain what? How we fell asleep together in bed in your hotel room?"
"I'm sorry," Jimmy said again. "The last thing I wanted to do is get you in trouble at your school."
"I'll think of something. Call me tomorrow morning. Oh, it is the morning," I said. "Don't you dare leave for Europe without seeing me one more time, Jimmy. Promise," I demanded.
"I promise," he said. "I'll come over around eleven."
I kissed him and hopped out of the taxi cab. Naturally, the front door was locked so I had to press the buzzer. Jimmy sat staring up from the cab. I waved him on and he instructed the cab driver to take him back to the hotel. A few minutes later Agnes opened the doors. She was in her robe with her hair down. Without her pounds of makeup, she looked ghostly pale and years older.
"Do you know what time it is?" she demanded before letting me enter.
"I'm sorry, Agnes. We just lost track of time and by the time we looked . . ."
"I didn't call the police, but I had to call your grandmother," she said. "I don't have to tell you how upset she was. I didn't know this boy you were seeing was a juvenile delinquent who had been arrested at the hotel."
"That's not true," I cried. "She's lying about Jimmy, just as she lied about everything else in the letter she wrote you."
"Well, if anyone's doing any lying, I think it's you, my dear," she said, pulling herself up into a stern posture. She was into a role, I thought. There wasn't much sense in arguing. "You have deceived me and after I have trusted you, too. How do you think this reflects on me and my standing with the school. Your grandmother was going to lodge a complaint with the administration, but I promised her this would never happen again and that you would never see this boy again.
"Also," she said, folding her arms under her breasts and stiffening into a statue, "you are restricted to this dorm for six months. You are to be in by six o'clock, even on weekends, and can go out only if you have something to do at the school and only after I confirm it. Is that clear?"
That's unfair, I thought, but swallowed back my resentment and nodded. I didn't care about going out anymore anyway. Jimmy was off to Europe tomorrow. "Very well then," Agnes said, stepping back to let me pass. "March yourself right up to your room and be very quiet about it so you don't disturb the others. I'm very disappointed in you, Dawn," she called as I went by her. I hurried up the stairs. The moment I slipped into our room, Trisha sat up.
"Where were you?" she asked. "Agnes is furious."
"I know." I sat on her bed and started to cry. "I'm restricted for six months. Grandmother Cutler has seen to that."
"But where were you?"
I told her how we had gone to Jimmy's hotel room and fallen asleep in each other's arms.
"Wow," she said.
"Nothing happened, Trisha. It wasn't like that," I said, but I saw the skepticism in her eyes. "You've got to help me tomorrow," I said, remembering Jimmy would come by in the morning. "I've got to see him before he goes off to Europe."
We planned how she would wait outside and then come to get me when he arrived. Jimmy and I would visit with each other in the park. It would be there where we would say our goodbyes. And then I would return to the apartment house and bury myself in my school work and my music, trying to forget the time and the distance that kept us apart.
I went to sleep dreaming about the day he would return and we would go off together to live our own lives, free of Grandmother Cutler and hateful people. I would earn a wonderful living for us through my singing and music.
Was I still a child to have such hope?
5
FAMILY AFFAIRS
After we said our painful goodbyes and Jimmy left for Europe, I tried to lose myself in my work. It wasn't long before I hated time and absolutely despised the calendar that seemed to gloat and remind me continually of just how long it took for weeks and months to pass. I didn't think I would mind my punishment as much as I did, but it was especially painful to be restricted to the apartment house when Trisha and some of our other friends were free to go to movies and dances, restaurants and department stores.
One Saturday night shortly after Jimmy left and Arthur Garwood had heard about what had happened and how I was punished, he came knocking on my bedroom door. I thought it was Agnes, perhaps coming to tell me I was permitted to use the sitting room and didn't have to lock myself up in my bedroom. I was prepared to sulk and not utter a single word to her. I didn't even say, "Come in." After a moment though, I heard Arthur call my name so I went to the door. He stood there with a box under his arm.
"What is it, Arthur?" I asked. He looked like he would stand there forever.
"I thought you might want to play checkers."
"Checkers?"
He tapped the box.
"Oh."
"You don't have to," he added quickly, his face already registering disappointment, his eyes glum, his mouth drooped. He started to turn away.
"Oh, no. I'd like to," I said, not sure whether I was doing it for him or for me. He brightened immediately and we set the checkerboard up on my desk.
I was positive he was letting me win most of the time because I saw moves he should have easily made, but avoided because it would mean the game would end much faster.
"I'm working hard on your poem," he told me. "Even though I want it to be something special, it won't be much longer now."
"I'm looking forward to it, Arthur. Have you spoken with your parents about your playing the oboe?"
"A dozen dines since you and I talked about it," he replied, "and always with the same result. Wait and see. Just practice. They don't want to hear anything but what they want to hear," he said. "You know I'm supposed to play a large solo part during Performance Weekend this year."
Once a year in the spring, the seniors at Bernhardt put on an exhibition of their talents during what was known as Performance Weekend. Their parents and families arrived and there were two nights of variety. Real New York critics were invited as well as producers and directors and many often attended.
"I'm sure you'll do better than you expect, Arthur," I said.
"I'll be dreadful and you know it," he said firmly. "I'm dreadful now and I've been at it forever; there's no reason to expect any changes. I told my parents and begged them to ask that I be excused from the weekend, but they were outraged that I would even suggest such a thing."
"What do your teachers say?"
"I told you," he reminded me, "they're intimidated by my parents. They aren't going to prevent me from performing. I'll be a laughingstock. Anyone who has any sense of music will see immediately just how inferior I am." He sighed and bowed his head into his cradling hands. Then he glanced upward, tears shining in his eyes. "Everyone will laugh at me."
He stared at me with those wet, beady eyes a moment.
"Dawn," he said softly, "you know music; it's in your blood and you'
ve heard me play. I know. I've seen you walk past the music suite while I was practicing and you've heard me here. I don't know anyone who is as honest and as thoughtful as you are," he added with such sincerity it made me blush. "Please don't lie to me. What do you really and truly think of my oboe playing?"
I took a deep breath. It was usually easier to lie to people than to tell the truth about them, even though they knew you were lying. My sister Clara Sue was like that. She knew she was overweight and selfish and when I told her the truth about herself, she hated me even more for it. Many people lived in illusion and fantasy and didn't want anyone to disturb their world of comfortable lies.
I thought about Madame Steichen and how she was so dedicated and devoted to her music that she would never pretend anyone was good if he or she wasn't. Her honesty was what made her stand above so many others even though that honesty often made her seem very cruel.
And here was Arthur Garwood, who wanted to hear the truth about himself, who was depending on me to tell it to him. If anything, he needed an ally in his battle to face reality.
"You're right, Arthur," I admitted. "You don't play exceptionally well. I could never see you as a professional musician, no matter how much influence your parents have.
"But it's all right to do things to please them for a while," I added quickly. "Surely in time they will realize it too, if they are as good as everyone says they are and . . ."
"No!" he snapped, pounding the checkerboard so hard with the palm of his hand he made all the checkers dance out of their squares. "They are blind when it comes to me. If I fail, they fail, and they can't stand failure."
"But you can do other worthwhile things. Maybe you will be a great writer. Maybe you . . ."
"They won't listen!" His eyes filled with tears. He shook his head and looked down. When he took a deep breath, his narrow shoulders rose and then fell so sharply I thought he would fold up like a suit of clothes that slipped off a hanger. Neither of us said anything for a moment. I was afraid of how he might explode with frustration and anger. One moment he was docile and so soft spoken, he was barely audible; and the next moment he was screaming, his small eyes stretching open, his face red, his thin, wiry body contorted.