I thought our first rehearsal went just all right, but Balwin was more enthusiastic. When he referred to me, he used words and expressions like “terrific,” “amazing talent,” “a prime candidate for any school.” Of course, I assumed he was just being nice. I knew what it meant to compete in the world of entertainment. Daddy had told me lots of stories about singers and musicians he had known in his life, people who were talented and yet failed to get anywhere because they didn’t have the breaks they needed or the grit to keep trying.
“It’s much easier to accept failure and become comfortable with it than it is to keep coming at them, Ice,” he said. “You blame it on destiny or fate or luck and just settle into mediocrity. Lots of good people I know lost the fire in their spirits and now smoulder in some dark, small place, drowning their ambitions and dreams in alcohol or drugs.”
The way Daddy spoke about it made me wonder what had been his private dream. When he finally revealed that he had once hoped to play the trumpet because his teacher had encouraged him, I was surprised. He had never even hinted at it before. Then he dug down in a dresser drawer to show me his trumpet mouthpiece. His maternal grandmother had bought him the instrument.
“It’s all I have of the trumpet I once had,” he said. “I blow on it from time to time when I get nostalgic.”
“What happened to your trumpet, Daddy?” I asked.
His eyes darkened and he shook his head.
“My father made me pawn it, only I pretended to have lost the mouthpiece. He beat me for that,” he said.
“Why didn’t you go back to playing, Daddy?” I asked him.
“I guess I was afraid,” he said. “I was afraid I would get so I couldn’t live without it and that would make it terrible, Ice.”
I had never known my grandfather. He had died when I was only two, but if he was alive now, I wouldn’t be able to look at him without hating him. Amazingly, Daddy didn’t sound hateful or angry.
“Didn’t you hate him?”
“No.” He smiled. “He couldn’t see how it mattered in my life then and the money was sure handy that month,” Daddy said.
Hearing him speak about it made me wonder about all the secrets people buried in their hearts, all the dreams that had been crushed and interred. Those were the real silences, the ones they were afraid to disturb. It frightened me and did the most to make me hesitant when it came to my own singing and dreams of success. Dare I dream?
It was probably why I just shook my head at Balwin and thanked him for his compliments as if I knew he was doing it just to be nice. I could see the confusion and even the anger in his eyes.
“I mean it,” he insisted. “You’re going to make it, Ice. I love music too much to lie about something like that,” he added.
“Okay,” I said. “I’m sorry. Thank you.”
We scheduled another rehearsal. As if he was afraid talking about it or even referring to it during the school day might put a hex on it or something, he actually avoided me. I quickly realized he was the shy one when it came to being with someone from the opposite sex. Like me, he used his music as both a shield and a way to communicate with others. Without it, he was almost as much a mute as I.
Even at chorus rehearsal, he didn’t say anything special to me. When I said I would see him later, he nodded quickly and turned away, afraid someone nearby would notice.
Mama wasn’t home for dinner. She had gone to a movie with two of her girlfriends. Daddy had another one of his late nights. I expected to be home before either of them, so I didn’t leave a note telling them where I was.
Just as the first time, practically the instant I rang the doorbell, Balwin was there.
“Hi,” he said and I stepped in. He looked nervous, jittery. Without another word he started for the doorway to the basement studio.
Just before we reached it, however, a tall, lean man with a patch of gray hair encircling his shiny bald head stepped into the living room doorway. He was holding a neatly folded copy of the New York Times and was dressed in a three-piece pin-striped gray suit and tie.
His lean, long face was as shiny as the top of his head. His skin was so smooth in the reflected hallway light, he looked like he shaved with one of Mama’s tweezers. I saw a resemblance in his and Balwin’s mouth and eyes and the shape of their ears.
“Who’s this?” he asked sternly.
Balwin glanced at me as if he had smuggled me into his home and been caught in the act. I saw a look of abject terror take over his face, his eyes shifted guiltily away and down as his shoulders slumped and his head bowed slightly to make him look like a beaten puppy.
“Her name is Ice Goodman,” he said almost too softly for even me to hear.
“Ice!”
Balwin raised his head and nodded.
“If you have a friend coming over, why don’t you tell your mother or me and why don’t you make a proper introduction instead of stealing away to your bunker?”
“I wasn’t stealing away. We were…”
“Well?” his father demanded.
Balwin stepped forward, glanced at me and then said, “This is my father, Mr. Noble. Dad, this is Ice Goodman, a girl from school who is in the chorus.”
“I see. And you are here to do what?” he asked me.
“She’s here for a rehearsal,” Balwin said before I could reply.
His father glared at him and then turned back to me, his eyes narrowing.
“Rehearsal? Why would you rehearse with only one member of the chorus and why can’t you do this sort of thing at your school?”
Although he was asking Balwin these questions, he continued to stare at me.
“It’s not a chorus rehearsal,” Balwin said.
“Oh?”
He turned to him.
“And what exactly is it then?”
“She’s going to audition for a special school and needs to prepare some music. I’m helping her,” Balwin explained.
“Is that so?” He looked at me again and then turned to Balwin. “Am I correct in assuming you’ve completed all your homework?”
“Yes sir,” Balwin said.
“What school is holding this audition?” he asked me.
“She’s auditioning for the Senetsky School in New York,” Balwin replied quickly.
“I was asking her,” his father said. “She’s a singer, you say, but I have yet to hear her utter a sound.”
“I was just—”
His father’s glare was enough to snap Balwin’s mouth shut. I had never seen such obedience coming from such terror.
“It’s the Senetsky School,” I repeated.
His father barely looked at me before turning back to Balwin.
“I see. Well, your mother has a bad headache this evening, so don’t make your music loud,” he ordered.
“Yes sir,” Balwin said.
His father snapped the paper in his hands like a whip, turned and disappeared into the living room. I could see Balwin visibly release a trapped breath.
“C’mon,” he said and continued to the stairway.
“I don’t want to cause any trouble,” I said before starting down.
“It’s all right,” Balwin said looking up at me. “My father doesn’t think much of my music, my composing. He likes to recite statistics about how difficult it is to succeed in the creative arts. Everything I have here, I’ve bought with my own money, and money my mother gave me. Please close the door behind you,” he added and continued down the stairs and to the piano.
I looked at the living room doorway and then stepped down and closed the basement door.
“When I sell something for a lot of money, my father will change his tune,” Balwin muttered.
It was hard getting myself back into the spirit of singing. Every time I raised my voice, I thought about his father hearing me and becoming enraged. He wasn’t half as wide or as powerful looking as my father, but there was something more terrifying about Balwin’s father. His name should be Ice, I thought. Those eyes looked like they could stab someone with a sharp, hard glare.
“Don’t be afraid to get into it,” Balwin said after we had run through it twice. “My mother won’t be able to hear you and even if she did, she wouldn’t complain like he says.”
“I don’t want to get you into trouble.”
“You won’t,” he insisted. “C’mon. I want to make a CD soon. You’ll be able to play it for people.”
We started again and I gave it more energy, which brought a smile back to his face.
“That’s more like it,” he said after we finished. He played the recording he had made and we listened and followed the music. “Right there you should give it more authority,” he said, using one of Mr. Glenn’s instructions for the chorus.
I smiled.
“Don’t you agree?”
I nodded and he looked embarrassed. When the recording was finished, he asked if I would like something to drink.
“I can make tea down here. I’ve got a microwave behind the bar.”
“Okay,” I said and watched him do it. As he prepared a cup for himself and me, I walked around the basement, looking at the posters on the wall and some of the photographs in frames.
“Your mother’s pretty,” I said.
“She’s gained a lot of weight since that picture,” he told me. “I guess I take after her in that respect. Maybe in most respects,” he added.
He put my cup of tea on the bar and I sat on a stool. He remained behind it, sipping from his mug and watching me mix in some honey.
“My father is so precise about everything he does, including eating. He’s proud of the fact that he hasn’t gained or lost a pound in twenty years. He once tried to starve me to make me lose some weight,” Balwin revealed, shame in his face.
“Not really?” I said.
He nodded.
“I could only have a glass of apple juice for breakfast and then he had everything I ate for dinner weighed on a small scale. Of course I snuck candy bars and ate what I wanted at school. He actually searched my room the way someone might search it for drugs and found two Snickers bars and a box of malt balls. I love malt balls. He went into a rage and put a lock on my piano and threatened to sell every piece of equipment if I didn’t lose five pounds that month.
“My mother was so upset and cried so much, I had to do it. Finally, he relented and took the lock off the piano. But I regained the weight the following month and he threw his hands up one night and told me he was giving up on me.”
He looked away to hide the tears that had come into his eyes. When he turned back, he put on a smile quickly.
“It’s all right. We’ve got a sort of fragile truce in the house now. At least he’s happy about my grades. I guess he loves me. He’s just one of those people who have a hard time revealing it. He thinks it’s weak to show too much emotion. He came from a very poor family background and made a success of himself. He says no mature adult can blame failure on anyone but himself. There’s always a way to get around an obstacle or solve a problem if you really, truly want to do it.
“I guess he’s right.”
He sipped some more tea and then shook his head.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to blab like that.”
“It’s okay,” I said and smiled.
“You’re cool, Ice. Sounds funny to say that, I know, but I can’t imagine you blabbing. I bet you would have been great in silent movies.”
I laughed.
“No, really. You say more with your face, with your eyes, than most of the girls do talking all day. I like that. The fact is,” he said looking down, “I’ve written a song about you. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Me?”
He nodded.
“It’s not that great.”
“Where is it?”
“In here,” he said pointing to his temple. “I haven’t written it down yet. I’m still playing around with it.”
“I want to hear it,” I said.
He took a deep breath and looked almost as terrified as he had upstairs in front of his father.
“Please,” I begged.
“If it sounds terrible, promise you’ll tell me the truth, okay?”
I nodded.
He walked around the bar and went to his piano. I followed and stood by it, waiting. He glanced at me, looked up and then began his introduction. He sang:
There is music in the silence of her smile.
There’s a melody in her eyes.
She glides unheard through the clamor that’s around her,
but it’s in the harmony of her that beauty lies.
Listen to the patter in my heart; listen to the drums within my soul,
see how she can make the chorus sing and see how she can make the symphony start.
Play, play this song of you.
Play for the old and play it for the new.
Play at the break of day and play in the twilight hour.
Play away the sadness and the sorrow.
Walk before the saddest eyes you see.
Walk and bring the music back to me.
He stopped and stared down at the piano keys.
“That’s all I have so far.”
He looked up.
It had been a long time, a very long time since anyone or anything had brought tears to my eyes, tears I couldn’t hold back, tears with a mind of their own that surged forward and out, streaking down my cheeks; glorious tears, unashamed, proud to reveal that my heart was bursting and I had been moved.
“Well?” he asked.
I walked around the piano and answered him by kissing his cheek. He was so surprised, his eyes nearly popped. I had to laugh and flick away the tears from my cheeks.
“Thank you. It was beautiful,” I said.
He beamed.
“It’s not finished, like I said. I’ll work on it every day. I’ll have it perfect. I’ll—”
“How long is this rehearsal, as you call it, to go on?” we heard and looked at the stairway where his father stood midway down.
How long had he been there? Had he seen and heard Balwin singing the song to me? Did he see me kiss him?
“We’re just finishing up, sir,” Balwin said.
“Good.”
He turned and stomped back up and out, closing the door.
“Sorry,” Balwin said. “He gets that way sometimes.”
What’s he afraid of? I wondered, looking after him.
“I’ve got to get home anyway. My father is coming home late and I have to get his supper. My mother’s out with friends,” I said.
“Okay. We’ll meet again tomorrow night, if you want.”
Balwin saw my eyes go to the upstairs doorway.
“It’ll be okay,” he added.
I nodded and started up the stairs. I was so quiet. Balwin’s father didn’t seem to mind silence. There was no sound of television, no music, just the heavy ticking of the grandfather clock in the hallway.
“Good night,” I told him at the door. “Thanks.”
I stepped out quickly. The wind greeted me with a slap in the face and cold fingers in and under my unzipped jacket. I quickly did it up and hoisted my shoulders for the walk home. Just before I reached the corner, I heard a car slow down and turned to see two young men looking out at me, one with a ski cap and the driver with a cowboy hat. The one with the ski cap wore sunglasses even though it was night. I recognized them as former students at my school. I was surprised they knew me.
“How about a ride, Ice baby?” he asked. “It’s warm enough in here to melt you.”
“Real warm,” the driver shouted.
I kept walking, but they continued to follow.
“What’s a pretty girl like you doing out here alone anyway?” the one with the sunglasses continued. “You and your boyfriend have a fight?”
I walked a little faster, my heart thumping and echoing in my ears like a pipe being tapped with a wrench in my building. Suddenly, just as I was about to turn the corner, they pulled ahead of me and the door swung open. The one with the sunglasses stepped out and made a sweeping bow and gesture toward the car.
“Your chariot awaits, m’lady.”
I stopped, terrified.
“Ice!” I heard and turned to see Balwin running to catch up with me. He stopped, gasping for breath. “Sorry. I had to do something first,” he said looking toward the car and the man with the sunglasses.
“Who’s this? Balwin Noble? Can’t be your boyfriend. He’d crush you,” the man with the sunglasses said and laughed. His friend laughed, too.
“Forget it,” the driver called to him.
“You missed out, honey,” he told me and got into the car. We watched them drive off.
“I was watching out the front window and saw them slow down,” Balwin said. “I’ll walk you home.”
I started to shake my head.
“I should have offered to anyway. My father gets me all wound up in knots sometimes. Sorry,” he said and started. “C’mon,” he urged.
We walked on together, Balwin with his hands deep in his pockets.
“I’m going to go on a diet tomorrow,” he said. “Really.”
I smiled to myself and we walked on, Balwin doing all the talking, me doing all the listening, but feeling good, feeling warm and protected.
We said good night in front of the apartment building and I thanked him.
“I’ll ask my father for the car tomorrow. When he hears I’m going on a diet, he’ll be nicer to me.”
“Okay,” I said. “But don’t make any trouble on my account.”
Balwin smiled.
“Can’t think of a better reason for it,” he said, leaned forward to give me a quick peck on the cheek and then turned and hurried away as if he had truly stolen a kiss.
Daddy got home earlier than I had expected. He was already in the kitchen, sitting at the table, eating what he had warmed for himself. My look of surprise appeared to him to be a look of guilt and worry, I guess.
His eyebrows lifted and he peered suspiciously at me. “Where were you, Ice? You didn’t go and meet that Shawn again, did you? Your Mama didn’t go and make another one of her special arrangements, I hope.”
I shook my head.
“So, where were you?”
“Rehearsing,” I said and entered the kitchen. “Sorry I wasn’t home to fix your dinner, Daddy.”
“That’s no bother. What do you mean, rehearsing? Rehearsing for what?”
I shrugged.
“C’mon, out with it,” he said.
“I know I’m just wasting my time,” I said.
“Ice, what is this? What are you talking about?” he asked slowly.
I lifted my gaze from the floor and looked at him.
“My audition piece for the New York school,” I said quickly.
“Really?” He sat back nodding. “That’s good, Ice. That’s good. Where were you rehearsing?”
I told him about Balwin and how he was helping me.
“Very nice of him. I’m glad about this.” He turned to me quickly. “And don’t go saying you’re wasting your time. I don’t want to hear that defeatist stuff from you, hear?”
“But it will be too much money, won’t it, Daddy?”
“You just let me worry about that when the time comes to worry about it, honey.” He nodded. “We’ll manage it somehow. I’m not going to let you miss such an opportunity, no sir, no ma’am.”
I smiled to myself and started to clean the pot and the stove while he finished eating.
“Your mother say where she was going tonight?”
“Movies.”
“Movies, huh? If she went to all the movies she says she went to, she’d be seeing stars and I don’t mean the movie stars,” he quipped.
He was trying to be funny, but I could see the concern in his face. It put a cold shiver in me.
“Can’t make that woman happy anymore,” he muttered, mostly to himself.
I saw how quickly his elated mood turned sour and dark. He stopped eating, stared blankly ahead for a moment and then rose and went into the living room to play one of his Billie Holiday albums while he waited for Mama to come home. After I finished in the kitchen, I went in to sit with him.
“You look tired, honey,” he told me nearly an hour later. “Go on to bed. I’m all right by myself. Go on. Get some rest,” he ordered. “You got school tomorrow.”
I rose, kissed him on the cheek and went to bed. I couldn’t fall asleep. I kept hoping I’d hear Mama’s footsteps in the corridor and then the front door opening, but an hour passed and then another and, still, she wasn’t home. This was going to be a very bad night, I told myself. My stomach churned like a car without fuel, grinding and dying repeatedly. I tossed and turned and tried desperately to think of something else, to sing myself to sleep, anything. Nothing worked.
When the front door finally opened, it was close to three in the morning. Mama didn’t just come in, either. It sounded like she fell in.
I sat up to listen and heard her muffled laugh. She was very drunk.
“What are you doing on the floor, Lena?” I heard Daddy ask her.
She laughed and then she told him the heel broke on her shoe. I could hear her struggle to her feet, still giggling to herself.
“Where were you all this time, Lena?”
“Out,” she said. “Having a good time. Ever hear of such a thing? Know what that is anymore? I doubt it,” she told him.
“Where were you?” he repeated.
“I said out,” she snapped back at him.
I heard him step forward and then I heard her short scream.
I rose from bed and opened my door just enough to see the two of them.
Daddy had his hands on her upper arms and he was holding her up like a rag doll, her feet a good foot off the ground. He shook her once.
“Where were you, Lena?” he demanded.
“Put me down, damn you! Put me down.”
“Where were you?”
“I’m not one of your suspects, Cameron. Put me down.”
“I’ll put you down,” he threatened, “like they put down dogs if you don’t tell me where you were.”
“I was with Louella and Dedra. We went to eat and then we went to a movie and then we went to Frank and Bob’s just like we always do.”
Daddy lowered her slowly.
“I’m tired of you coming home drunk,” he said.
“People drink because they’re unhappy,” she spit back at him.
“Why are you so unhappy? If you got yourself a job, maybe or…”
“Oh, a job. What kind of a job could I get, huh? You want me working in some department store or at a fast-food place?”
Her face crumpled as she started to sob.
“I wasted myself. I should be on a magazine cover or doing advertisements. I should be somebody instead of…of what I am,” she moaned. “But do you care?” she asked, pulling herself up and tightening her lips. “No. You and your music and your stupid work hours.”
“I’m doing my best for us and…”
“Best,” she muttered. “You don’t care about what’s happening here. We got a daughter who’s like some deaf-and-dumb person, who should be making me proud, and I blame that all on you, you!”
“She’s a beautiful girl, a talented girl. She’s going to make us proud, Lena.”
“Right. I go and work on her and get her a date and it all falls apart.”
“You know that wasn’t her fault.”
“I know. It was mine,” she screamed at him. “Who else would you blame?”
“Nobody’s blaming anybody, Lena.”
“Leave me alone,” she said. “I’m sick. I’m not feeling good.”
“Why should you after what you did to yourself?”
“You did it to me,” she accused.
“Me?”
“You made me pregnant when I was young and beautiful and had a chance, Cameron. And then you promised to do things for me, but look at what you’ve done…nothing. Nothing but tie a lead weight around my neck.
“I’m drowning!” she screamed at him. Then she seized her stomach, doubled over and hurried to the bathroom.
He stood there looking after her, his face as broken and sad as I had ever seen it. He felt my eyes and turned to my doorway.
We looked at each other.
Was I the weight Mama said was around her neck? Did he hate for me to have heard such a thing?
The pain in his eyes was too great for me to take.
I closed the door softly and returned to bed, to the darkness and to the pursuit of fugitive sleep.