Passages North Literary Journal, 3/02

On the train’s platform, my mother leans close. The crinkles around her eyes darken; I can smell her red lipstick. In a hushed voice, as if telling me a secret, she says, “Your father will be waiting for you as soon as you get off the train. Don’t talk to strangers.”

Your father. After their divorce two months ago, that’s what she calls him instead of Dad. Sometimes her voice shakes. 

She touches my shoulder. “Don’t worry. The conductors will watch out for you.” I nod, scared that if I speak, I’ll cry. Hugging me, she says, “There’s a big girl.”

She rushes off, head down, skirt fluttering. I face the buzzing tracks. I can be strong and take the train alone, for her. I get to see Dad. She doesn’t. 

A couple people also wait for the train; far away, voices soft, they’re like shadows. In my long coat, white stockings, shiny black shoes, I look like it’s a special occasion, and wonder if anyone can tell it’s my twelfth birthday. I doubt it. It doesn’t feel like it. It falls on a Thursday, and Dad works in New York City. Now I’ve got to meet him at Grand Central Station, take the rotten train alone for the first time. Some birthday present. 

Last month, on a Saturday, I waited for Dad in the kitchen at home – he was taking me to the Broadway musical Annie. I peeked through the curtain at the sound of every car. Mom stayed upstairs, but didn’t have to worry. When Dad’s silver Porsche rolled into the driveway, I yelled to her closed bedroom door, “Bye Mom!” — I tried not to sound too excited — and rushed outside.

In the driveway, Dad rubbed our white German shepherd with both hands, up and down her back. He didn’t care about all the dog hair, even though he wore a suit, and his navy pant legs were a bit lighter. She danced around him, tail wagging, tongue flopping around – I had never seen her so excited. She had been missing him too.

 

A faint honk, and I see the train’s gray face, its nose a headlight. It screeches to a halt, smoke rising into the air. “Greenwich!” a voice shouts from the intercom, “Greenwich!” I step into the car. I have taken the train before, but with my mother. Alone, I see it for the first time — the shiny blue seats, windows fogged with dirt, grayish-brown floor. I sit by a window, and the train chugs to a start. I wonder if I should hold my ticket or put it in my purse. Putting it in my purse would be more grown up, but if it somehow fell out, they could make me get off the train, and I wouldn’t know where I was. I hold onto it.

I watch the blur of green through the window’s splattered dirt. At the end of these tracks, miles away, my father waits. Above, telephone lines slide through the sky – when I’m at home, they also ‘take’ me to him. I’ve called him at the office, and at his new house. We arrange ”visits,” a couple of hours that we have to be doing something. Planning everything takes almost as much time as our actual visit. What’s a good day? A good time? What do I want to do? 

It’s a lot of work, suddenly, to see him. He’s no longer behind the door just down the hall, or in that creaky wooden chair at the kitchen table, he’s somewhere out there, sometimes beyond reach: 

“You’ll see your father next weekend,” my mother says.

“Can I take a message?” his secretary asks. 

Once, she asked, “Is it important Jenny? He’s in a meeting.”

Was it important? 

She took my silence as a yes, and put me through, but I didn’t call him at the office again. Now he calls me.

Still, I no longer hear his quick footsteps along the stairs, smell coffee in the morning, kiss his scratchy cheek at night. Every Sunday, Dad watched football or baseball in the upstairs den, a cozy room, with red-flowered wallpaper and a cushy brown couch. He always ate peanuts during the game, and when he wasn’t yelling at the T.V. (Dad liked the worst football team ever), I could hear clinking as he poured a handful from the jar. On the label, a peanut man leaned on a cane, wearing a top hat and bow-tie. Lots of those jars were lined up on the pantry shelf. Now they’re gone. 

Since the divorce, Mom has kept the door to Dad’s den closed. But last week, I tiptoed inside, slowly. The air was stuffy. I half expected to find him in there, as if he had been hiding all along. It was so quiet. I sat on the couch for a while, not sure what to do, facing myself in the gray T.V. screen. 

“Tickets!” the conductor shouts. He wears a navy blue suit with gold buttons, and a hat. He snatches my ticket, clicks holes into it. His face, wrinkled and puffy, doesn’t look up. I wait, but that’s it. He walks on, clicking along the way. The door slams shut. He won’t be looking out for me as Mom said. She lied, probably to make me feel better. After all, it is my birthday. 

Last year, I had a slumber party with a bunch of friends. We snuggled up in sleeping bags, ate chocolate bars and ice cream, played ‘light as a feather,’ watched television all night. This year, I’m stuck here, around a bunch of people I don’t know.

To bring Dad close, I think of him, picture his face. Everything will be okay as long as he’s clear in my head. And when he’s actually in front of me, I pay very close attention to everything about him, try to remember every detail: his thick dark eyebrows, the freckles on his forehead, the patches of hair on his fingers. I notice things I never noticed before, like the mint smell of his shaving lotion, and how he cuts his steak in choppy, impatient strokes. I take all these pieces with me, and put them together when we’re apart, like a jigsaw puzzle, build a picture. It keeps me company.

The train stops every couple of minutes. I look out the window as the sky darkens; we’re clattering farther and farther from home, stopping at towns I hadn’t heard when I was with Mom: Larchmont, New Rochelle, Mount Vernon. My stomach aches. I tell myself I can be strong. All I need to do is get off the train, follow the other people, and Dad will be there.

I try to think about how fun Annie was last time. Dad held my hand as we walked through the crowd in Times Square, everyone bundled up, breath puffy white. All I could see was coats, but above, against the sky, giant signs flashed red and gold and blue. Practically every block, I smelled burnt salt from a pretzel stand. Could I get one for dinner? Dad said no, we were going some place much better. He was right. In the restaurant, waiters in red and white striped vests glided to the tables as if on ice skates, trays of food high above their heads. They even served pitchers of soda.

It got better, with the lit-up faces on stage, the music, the dancing — I could actually feel the tapping feet. But most of all, I loved orphan Annie. I loved her red hair and strong voice. I loved the way she filled the stage. She was the best singer, a really good dancer, had lots of friends, and she didn’t have any parents at all. I have parents — one at a time. So I could be like Annie, strong and funny and smart. I could. 

Afterward, Dad dropped me home. From the front porch, I watched his car’s lights get smaller and smaller, until I couldn’t see them anymore. Then he was a far-off hum. That faded. It was cold, but I couldn’t go inside the house. The only light was from an upstairs window across the street, partly hidden by a shaggy pine tree. Its branches shushed in the breeze.

What would Annie do? She would go inside, happy to have at least one parent. So that’s what I did.

Luckily, no strangers sit near me. The conductors walk past, and although I know there is another person in the car – I hear her cough a couple of times – I don’t see any others. The phony leather creaks as my legs swing with the rocking train. My feet fall asleep. 

I pull out a pack of Bubblecious from my purse, practice blowing bubbles. I make sure the shiny black wallet my mother gave me is still there. She tucked some dollar bills inside, and when she caught me looking at her, said, “Just in case.” 

The train turns dark; I sit up. We’re in the tunnel now, close to Grand Central Station. I had thought that once it was time to get off I would be relieved. I’m not. 

The train squeaks to a stop, and sighs. I can do this. All I need to do is get off the train, follow the other people, all I need to do is get off the train, follow the other… 

My legs pins and needles, I walk out the metal door. Gasoline burns my nose. Everything is gray – the platform, walls, smoke. I move with the crowd, between our silent train and a humming one. Ahead, a huge, arched doorway, filled with golden light. I peer through the bouncing bodies, searching for my father, but don’t see him. Only a group of men lean against a metal railing, elbows pointing out, clothes smeared with grease. I speed up to a faceless man in a brown coat, and pretend he is my father. 

We pass through the doorway, my crowd disappears. The huge space of Grand Central Station hits me – a hundred times bigger than the gym at school. Thousands of people rush around — everywhere, voices and drumming of feet. All strangers.

My mother. I need my mother. I see a glowing blue sign above a doorway that says “TELEPHONE” and run toward it. Inside, a room with brown walls, and two lines of glass booths. I rush into one, it fills with my breathing. What is my phone number? A man. Through the glass. He smirks, lifts a brown bottle. He says something I don’t hear, eyes rolling back in his head. I run.

The noise and moving bodies are my cover. I’m actually happy to see all these people I don’t know. Again, I search the room for my father. Nowhere. So many people, and he’s not one of them. A circle of telephones about twenty feet away. One is empty.

Shaking, I reach up for the phone. After a couple seconds, I remember my phone number. 

A tinny voice says, “Please deposit one dollar and twenty-five cents.” I stare at the grid of silver squares. I only have dollar bills. What am I going to do?

“Are you trying to make a phone call?” 

A black woman with large, gentle eyes watches me. An ‘H’ between her eyebrows, she has that worried look grown-ups get. But worried about me? I don’t know her. Still, the way her round face tips toward me, it feels like I do.

“I don’t have any quarters,” I hear myself say.

“Do you know how to make a collect call?”

I stare at her. I can’t believe she wants to help me. “I don’t think so.”

“That’s okay. I’ll show you.” She slowly takes the phone from my hand. “You dial a zero first.”

Tiny flakes of pink lipstick curl from her chapped lips, and I can see a touch of pink on her cheek. I wonder if she is a Mom. Somewhere above, a loud click. A voice booms, “Jennifer Kerr, please come to the Information Center. Jennifer Kerr, come to the Information Center.”

Did I just hear my name? I look up at the huge, curved ceiling. My name, up there?

She watches me, phone resting on her shoulder. “You Jennifer Kerr?”

I nod.

“Okay. That’s your page.” She hangs up the phone. The crease between her eyebrows is gone. “The information center’s right over there.” My eyes follow her long, curved fingernail to a small building in the center of the room. 

I forget to say thank you, forget all about her. All I think about is getting to this strange little cabin – what is it doing there? What’s inside? Bodies rush in front of me, but I keep my eyes on a window, framing a woman’s chubby face. 

I get close, open my mouth, and suddenly, my father is there. Not even five feet away. He scans the room, thumb tapping his briefcase, tummy curving out from his navy blue suit. I check all those things I have always checked: his bushy eyebrows, the freckles on his head, his round, hairy hands. All there, but it’s like I’m looking at a photograph. He feels far away. My mouth fills with warm, salty water. I can’t move. He’s somehow not real.

He sees me, and comes close. He also has an ‘H’ between his eyebrows.

“Are you all right?” he says.

I swallow, and after a few seconds, find my voice. “Yeah.”

“Okay.” He rests his hand on my shoulder. “Let’s go.” 

I hardly feel my legs as he guides me across the room. I don’t hear the crowd, or notice their movements. I don’t worry about where I look, or don’t look. Dad is here.

The stranger who helped me! I whip around, look toward the telephones. She’s gone.

Just like Dad will be tomorrow. But I won’t think about that. I don’t want to think about anything but tonight. It’s my birthday. We’re going to Times Square, that magical place, with lights and dancing and singing…

“What are we seeing again?” I ask.

“’Barnum.’” He smiles down at me. “It should be fun.”

“Yeah,” I say. But secretly, I wish it was Annie.