The Cure for Dreaming(42)
“Why did my father tell him that?”
“I just said, to brag.” He leaned back with a broad smile and spread his arms across the upper ridge of his side of the booth. “So, you say you’re not Percy’s girl anymore?”
“No, I’m not.”
“Are you a lesbian?”
“A what?”
“Are you in love with women, not men?”
“No, I—”
“Why don’t you come home with me right now”—he slid his shoe across the floorboards and wedged it between my feet—“and I’ll thrust the masculinity straight out of you myself. I’ll break you like the wild filly you are.”
Without even thinking, I raised my right foot and stomped John’s toes with my heel.
“Ouch! Christ!”
I tried to stand up with some semblance of dignity, but I banged my knee on the table, which sent my water spilling into the cretin’s lap.
He jumped up. “Hey! You little—”
“All is well.”
“Oh, God, not that again.”
“All is well.” I grabbed my hat and pushed my way through a crowd of other young men piling into the restaurant with hunger shining in their eyes and growling in their bellies. Clouds of tobacco smoke and spiced colognes blew in my face, telling me, You don’t belong here . . .
“Hey, watch where you’re going, girlie,” cried one of the men, grabbing my elbow and smiling as if I were part of a bawdy joke.
I shoved his scratchy tweed arm aside and made my way past all the plaid coats and derby hats and waxed mustaches, out into the sweet fresh air.
A MIDDLE-AGED COUPLE WITH ACROBATIC TOY POODLES opened Henry’s show, and their yippy little dogs and gaudy sequined costumes sucked every breath of enchantment from the Metropolitan Theater. I could now see that the stage floor was streaked in sawdust and filthy trails of footprints, and the pipe organ appeared shorter and duller than the tower of copper and beauty from Genevieve’s ethereal rendition of “Danse Macabre.” Cheap was the first word that came to mind when I sat in the sparse audience that Saturday afternoon. Cheap. Gaudy. Disappointing. It wasn’t even the hypnosis showing me the way the theater truly was. All it took to sour my belief in magic was a lack of Halloween glamour and that disgusting encounter with Sunken-Eyed John.
The poodle couple took their bows to overly generous applause, and after they pranced off to the wings, the organist with the pumpkin-colored hair swaggered across the stage without any special introduction or fanfare. She plunked down on the bench in front of the pipe organ and embarked upon a slow and lumbering rendition of “Sleep, Little Rosebud”—not even “Danse Macabre.”
I couldn’t stand sitting there, subjected to her ruckus, and I couldn’t bear the thought of Henry’s appearance in the show looking fake and lusterless—not when I required him to possess the power to set my world right. I got to my feet and fled to the lobby, where I asked a gray-whiskered gentleman in the box office for a piece of paper and a pen.
At the counter next to the ticket window, while the organ music plodded along in the background, I scribbled down my frustrations on an ivory sheet of theater letterhead.
Dear Henry,
I am writing down my thoughts for you, because yelling at you will only make me say that “All is well,” and I am tired of that damnable phrase spouting from my lips. I am not sure if I can last three more days. That meaningless sentence you have forced me to say is turning me weak and putting me in danger.
I just came across that ogre of a boy, John, from Sadie’s party, and he got uncomfortably flirtatious with me—but all I could say was “All is well.” Someone else left unwanted bite marks on my neck last night (please do not ask why or mention this indiscretion to anyone), and I am sure you can guess which three words shot from my mouth when I tried to shout, “Stop!” I may be able to tolerate my strange visions until Tuesday evening, but I fear I will be allowing myself to become the victim of something even more heinous if my shouts of anger and distress continue to be silenced.
I know you love your sister dearly and fear for her health. I believe your story about her tumor to be true and not a ruse to keep me from complaining about this “cure” of yours. Yet you must imagine what her world would be like if she could never complain about her discomfort or cry out to protect herself. You would never wish such a dangerous fate upon her, would you? If not, then please take pity on me and allow me to stop saying that all is well.
Let me speak my anger again—please! I swear upon my grandparents’ graves I will hide from my father my ability to say what I mean. You must change me today. Do not leave me like this.
All is NOT well.
I waited with my letter on the cement steps leading up to the theater’s side entrance, ten yards down from the streetcar tracks. The gray clouds continued to do nothing more than hang over the city, teasing of rain but refusing to spit a single drop. I stretched out my legs on the stairs and enjoyed a small sip of sunlight that managed to steal across the sidewalk. My bicycle rested against the rails beside me—my horse awaiting the getaway.
One of the city’s electric-powered streetcars whirred to a stop down the way, its brakes squeaking in the damp air, the wheels clenching against the tracks. Only its rounded front end was visible from where I sat, but I assumed departing theatergoers were climbing aboard around the bend.