Peter S. Beagle - Tamsin

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TAMSIN

by Peter S. Beagle

First published by Roc, an imprint of New American Library, a division of

Penguin Putnam Inc.

To the memory of Simon Beagle,

my father.

I can still hear you singing, Pop,

quietly, to yourself

shaving.

One

When I was really young, if there was one thing I wanted in the world,

it was to be invisible. I used to sit in class and daydream about it, the way

the other kids were daydreaming about being a movie star, being a big

basketball player. The good part was, if I was invisible, Mister Cat--my

cat--Mister Cat would always be able to see me, because invisible doesn't mean

anything to a cat. As I know better than anyone, but that comes later.

I used to let Sally see me, too--Sally's my mother--in the daydream. Not

_all_ the time, not when I was mad at her, but mostly, because she'd have

worried. But I really liked it best when it was just me and Mister Cat

drifting along, just going wherever we felt like going, and nobody able to

tell if my butt was too fat or if my skin had turned to molten lava that

morning. And if I got my period in P.E., which I always used to, or if I said

something dumb in class, nobody'd even notice. I used to sit there and imagine

how great it would be, not ever to be noticed.

It's different now. I'm different. I'm not that furious little girl

daydreaming in class anymore. I don't live on West Eighty-third Street, just

off Columbus, in New York City--I live at Stourhead Farm in Dorset, England,

with my mother and my stepfather, and I'm going to be nineteen in a couple of

months. That's how old my friend Tamsin was when she died, three hundred and

thirteen years ago.

And I'm writing this book, or whatever it turns out to be, about what

happened to all of us--Tamsin Willoughby and Sally and me, and Evan and the

boys, too, and the cats.

It happened six years ago, when Sally and I first got here, but it seems

a lot longer, because in a way it happened to someone else. I don't really

speak that person's language anymore, and when I think about her, she

embarrasses me sometimes, but I don't want to forget her, I don't ever want to

pretend she never existed. So before I start forgetting, I have to get down

exactly who she was, and exactly how she felt about everything. She was me a

lot longer than I've been me so far.

We have the same name, Jennifer Gluckstein, but she hated that, too, and

I don't mind it so much. Not the Gluckstein--what she hated was the damn

stupid, boring Jennifer. My father named me. He used to say that when he was a

boy, nobody was called Jennifer except in a few books, and Jennifer Jones.

He'd say, "But _I_ always thought it was a really beautiful name, and it

actually means Guenevere, like in King Arthur, and why should you care if

everybody in the world today is named Jennifer, when they aren't named

Courtney or Ashleigh or Brittany?" _His_ name is Nathan Gluckstein, but his

stage name is Norris Groves, and everyone calls him that except Sally and me

and his mother, my Grandma Paula. He's an opera singer, a baritone. Not great,

I always knew that, but pretty good--semifamous if you know baritones, which

most people don't. He's always off working somewhere, and he's on a couple of

albums, and he gives recitals, too. He's sung at Carnegie a couple of times.

With other people, but still.

Meena says--Meena's my best friend here in England--Meena says that if

I'm really going to write a book, then I have to start at the beginning, go

straight through to the end, and not ramble all over everywhere, the way I

usually do. But where does anything begin? How far back do you have to go? For

all I know, maybe everything starts with me rescuing Mister Cat, when I was

eight and he was just a kitten, from a bunch of boys who were going to throw

him off the roof of our building to see if he'd land on his feet. Maybe it

really starts with Sally and Norris getting married, or meeting each other, or

getting _born_. Or maybe I ought to go back three hundred years ago, back to

Tamsin and Edric Davies . . . and _him_.

Well, it's my book, so let's say it all starts on the April afternoon

when I came home from Gaynor Junior High and found Sally in the kitchen, which

was strange right away, because it was a Tuesday. Sally's a vocal coach and

piano teacher--back in NewYork she worked with people who wanted to sing

opera. A couple of her voice students were in the chorus at the Met, and I

think there was one doing small parts with City Opera. She's never had anyone

famous, so she always had to teach piano, too, which she didn't like nearly as

much. The singers mostly lived downtown, and she went to their homes on

different days, but all the piano people came to our place, and they always

came on Thursday, the whole gang, one after another; she scheduled it like

that on purpose, to get it over with. But _Tuesdays_ Sally never got home

until six at the earliest, so it was a little weird seeing her sitting at the

kitchen table with her shoes off and one foot up on the step stool. She was

eating a carrot, and she looked about eleven years old.

We don't look anything alike, by the way. She's tall, and she's got this

absolutely devastating combination of dark hair and blue eyes, and I don't

know if she's actually _beautiful_, but she's _graceful_, which I will never

be in my life, that's just something I know. In the last couple of years my

skin's gotten some better--because of the English climate, Sally says--and

Meena's taught me stuff to do with my hair, and I'm actually developing

something that's practically a shape. So there's hope for me yet, but that's

not like being graceful. It doesn't bother me. I can live with it.

"They fired you," I said. "All of them, all at once. A detriment to

their careers. We're going to be selling T-shirts in Columbus Circle."

Sally gave me that sideways look she never gave anyone else. She said,

"Jenny. Have you been--you know--smoking that stuff?" She never would call

boom or any drugs by their right names, it was always _that stuff_, and it

used to drive me mad. I said, "No, I haven't," which happened to be true that

afternoon. I said, "I was making a _joke_, for God's sake. I don't have to be

booted to make jokes. Give me a break, all right?"

On any other day, we'd probably have gotten into a whole big fight over

it, a dumb thing like that, and wound up with both of us hiding out in our

rooms, too pissed and upset to eat dinner. We used to have a joke about the

Gluckstein Diet--stay on it for two months and lose twenty pounds and your

family. But this time Sally just put her head on one side and smiled at me,

and then suddenly her eyes got huge and filled up, and she said, "Jenny,

Jenny, Evan's asked me to marry him."

Well, it wasn't as if I hadn't been practicing for it. I can still close

my eyes and see myself, lying in bed every night that whole year, holding

Mister Cat and visualizing how she'd be when she told me, and how she'd expect

_me_ to be. Sometimes I'd see myself being so _sweet_ and so happy for her,

I'd never have gotten through it without puking; other times I thought I'd

probably cry a little, and hug her, and ask if I could still call Norris

"Daddy," which I haven't called him since I was three. And on the bad nights

I'd plan to say something like, well, that's cool, only it doesn't matter to

me one way or the other, because I'm off to Los Angeles to be a homeless

person. Or a movie director, or a really famous call girl. I varied that one a

lot. But when it actually happened, I just looked at her and said, "Oh." I

didn't even _say_ it, exactly, it just came out--it wasn't a word, it wasn't

anything, but it was what came out, after all that imagining. "Oh." The story

of my life.

Sally was actually shaking. I could tell, because the table had one leg

shorter than the others, and it was sort of buzzing against the floor as she

sat there. She said, "I told him I'd have to check it out with you." I could

barely hear her.

"It's okay," I said. "It's fine." Sally got up and came around the table

and she hugged me, and now I couldn't tell which one of us was trembling. She

whispered into my hair, "Jenny, he's a good, good man--he _is_, baby, you'd

know it if you ever just _talked_ to him for five minutes. He's kind, and he's

funny, and I feel like _myself_ when I'm with him. I've never felt that way

with anybody, never, I never have." Then she grinned at me, looking like a

little kid again, and said, "Well, present company excepted, natch." Which was

a nice thing to say, but silly, too, because she knew better. We got on well

enough most days, but not the way she was talking about. I only felt really

like myself with Mister Cat, back then. Back before Tamsin.

Anyway, Sally kept hugging me and going on about Evan, and I just kept

standing there, waiting to feel something besides numb. My breath was sort of

hardening in my chest, like the asthma attacks I used to get when I was

little. But I wasn't wheezing or anything--it was more like things inside me

pushing up all close together, huddling together. When I did finally manage to

speak, it sounded like somebody else, somebody far away, nobody I knew. I

said, "Are you going to have to go to England? With him?"

The way Sally looked at me was like that moment in a cartoon where the

fox or the coyote runs straight off the cliff and doesn't know it right away,

but just keeps on running in the air. She said slowly, like a question, "Well,

honey, sure, of course we are," and then her eyes got all wet again, so now of

course _she_ couldn't talk for a bit. I gave her my wad of Kleenex, because to

this day she absolutely _never_ has one--I don't know how she manages. She

blew her nose and grabbed hold of my shoulders and shook me a little. "Baby,"

she said. "Baby, did you think I was just going to walk off and leave you?

Don't you know I wouldn't go anywhere without you, not for Evan McHugh, not

for anybody? Don't you know that?" Her voice sounded weird, too, like a

cartoon voice.

"Why can't he just move _here?_" I mumbled it, the way I still do when I

can't not say something, but I don't really want people to hear me, especially

the one I'm saying it to. Meena says I've practically quit doing that, but I

know I haven't.

"Honey, that's where his work is," Sally said. God, I remember it used

to drive me wild that she'd never talk about Evan's _job_, it always had to be

his _work_. "I can do what I do anywhere, but Evan's got to be in England, in

London. Besides, the boys are there, Tony and Julian, they're in _school_--"

"Well, I'm in school, too," I said. "In case you didn't notice." Mister

Cat jumped down from the top of the refrigerator and stalked across the table

to me with his legs all stiff, doing his Frankenstein-cat number. I hadn't

seen him on the refrigerator, but Mister Cat's always _there_ or _gone_, he's

never anywhere in between. That's how I wanted to be, that's what I mean about

being invisible. Most black cats are really a kind of red-brown underneath, if

you see them in the right light, but Mister Cat's black right through, even

though he's half-Siamese. "Black to the bone," my friend Marta Velez used to

say. He stood up and put his paws around my neck, and I could feel him purring

without a sound, the way he always does. He smelled like warm toast--dark,

dark toast, when you get it outjust right, just before it burns.

"You could take him with you," Sally said, really quickly, as though I

didn't know it. "He'd have to wait out quarantine, but that's just a month, I

think." She looked at me sideways again. She said, "You know, I had this crazy

idea you might actually be glad to start a whole different life somewhere

else--another country, new school, new people, new friends, new ways of doing

things. I mean, let's face it, it's not as though you've been having such a

great time this last year or two--"

And I just lost it right there, I have to write it exactly like that, I

just went up in smoke. I didn't know it was going to happen until I heard that

faraway voice screaming at her, "Yeah, well, maybe I don't have the greatest

life in the world right now, but I'm _used_ to it, you ever think about that?

And I know I've only got a couple of friends, and they're even weirder than I

am, but I know them, and I don't want to start everything all over in some

shitty, snobby place where it rains all the damn time and they make you wear

uniforms." Sally was trying to interrupt, and Mister Cat was looking at me and

flicking his tail, the way he still does when I'm not being cool like him. I

just kept going, "It's fine, it's okay, I'll move in with Marta, or Norris or

somebody, I'll call Norris right now." And I grabbed up the phone, and the

receiver slipped right out of my hands, they were so shaky and sweaty. It just

made me crazier. I told her, "Don't worry about me. You go to England, that's

fine, have a nice life. Say hello to the _boys_, okay?"

And I banged the phone back down, and then I _did_ head for my room, and

the door was already slamming while she was still yelling something about

finally getting me away from my damn druggy friends. Mister Cat ran in right

after me--someday he's going to get _nailed_, I keep telling him--and jumped

up on the bed, and we just lay there for I don't know how long, hours. The

Gluckstein Diet.

I guess I must have cried a little bit, but not very much. I'm really

not a big crier. Mainly I lay there with Mister Cat on my chest and started

reviewing my options. That's something Norris used to say all the time--how

when you're in a bad place and confused and not sure which way to turn, the

best thing is to get yourself quiet and think really coldly about your

options, your choices, even if they're all shitty, until you can figure out

which one's the _least_ shiny of the bunch. Of course, when Norris talks about

options, he mostly means a better contract, or a bigger dressing room, or a

first-class ticket instead of flying business class. Whoever thought artists

were a lot of dreamy twits with no clue about money never met my father.

_My_ options narrowed down in a hurry. Marta would have been great, but

I knew she didn't even have enough room for herself, with five other kids in

the family. Unlike Sally, who's an only child, and Norris, who's got the one

sister way up in Riverdale, Aunt Marcelia. _She's_ got a daughter, too, my

cousin Barbara, and we were always supposed to be lifelong buddies, but the

first time we met, when we were maybe two years old, we tried to beat each

other to death with our toy fire engines, and it's been downhill from there. I

_still_ can't believe we're cousins. Somebody's lying.

So in about a minute and a half it was Norris or nobody. Something I

should put in here is that I like my father. Sally always says, "That's

because you weren't married to him," but what's funny is that I know Norris a

lot better than she ever did. As much time as she's spent with show people,

she's never understood, they're _real_, they're just not real all the _time_.

Norris really likes having a daughter, he likes telling people about me, or

calling me up--the way he still does now, when he's singing in London--and

saying, "Hey, kid, it's your old man, you want to come down to the wicked city

and hang out?" Only he'd be a lot happier if I were electric or electronic,

something with a cord he could plug in or a remote he could turn on and off.

It's just Norris, that's how he is with everybody. Maybe he'd have been

different with me if we lived together, I don't know. He left when I was

eight.I must have fallen asleep for a while, because suddenly it was dark and

Mister Cat's girlfriend, the Siamese Hussy, had started calling from across

the street. Mister Cat yawned and stretched and was over at the window, giving

me that look: _It's my job, what can I tell you?_ I opened the window and he

vanished, nothing left but his warm-toast smell on my blouse. There were a

couple of dogs barking, but it didn't worry me. Mister Cat never has to bother

about dogs, not in New York, not in Dorset. It's the way he looks at them,

it's magic. If I knew how to look at people like that, I'd be fine.

I was thinking Sally might come in--she does sometimes after we've had a

fight. But she was on the phone in her bedroom. I couldn't make out any words,

but I knew she'd be talking to Evan half the night, same as practically every

night, buzzing and giggling and cooing just like all the damn Tiffanys and

Courtneys in the halls, in all the stairwells, with their Jasons and their

Joshuas and their Seans. So I flopped back in bed, and started thinking hard

about what I'd say to Norris tomorrow, to keep my mind off what Sally and Evan

were probably saying about me right now. And I suddenly thought how Norris

used to sing me a bedtime song, a long, long time ago. The way we did, he'd

sing one line and I'd have to sing the same line right after him, and each

time faster, until the two of us were just cracking up, falling all over each

other, yelling this gibberish, until Sally'd have to come in to see what was

going on. I was still trying to remember how the song actually went when I

fell asleep.

Two

Mister Cat wasn't back when I got up. Sally was already up and dressed

and running, because Wednesdays she had to be at the Brooklyn Academy of Music

by eight to teach a class in accompaniment, and after that she had four voice

students and a part-time job playing rehearsal piano for some friend's dance

company. We slid around each other in the kitchen, nobody saying much, until

Sally asked me if I wanted to meet her and Evan for a late dinner downtown. I

said thanks, but I thought I'd go over to see Norris after school, and we'd

probably be eating out ourselves. I don't _think_ I was nasty about it, just

casual.

Sally was casual, too. She said, "Maybe you ought to call him tomorrow.

He just got in from Chicago last night, so he's likely to be pretty beat

today." She and Norris don't see each other much, but they talk on the phone a

lot, partly because of me, partly because in the music world everybody knows

everybody anyway, and everybody's going to have to work with everybody sooner

or later. They get along all right.

"I just have some stuff I want to ask him," I said. "Like could I keep

on going to the same school if I was living with him? Just stuff." Okay, I was

being deliberately nasty, I know, I can't lie in my own book. And yes, I still

do things like that, only not so much now, not since Tamsin. I honestly don't

think I do it so much anymore.

Sally turned and faced me. She drew in her breath to say something, and

then she caught it and said something really else, you could tell. She said,

"If you change your mind about dinner, we'll be at the Cuban place on Houston,

Casa Pepe. Probably around eight-thirty."

"Well, we might float by," I said. "You never know." Sally just nodded,

and reminded me to lock up, which she _always_ did and I _always_ did, and

then she took off. I hung around as long as I could, hoping Mister Cat would

show up before I had to catch the bus, but he didn't. So I finally had to

close the window, which I always hated, because then he'd have to be out all

day. Mister Cat didn't mind. Mister Cat's too cool to mind.

I wanted to call Norris early, because you have to give him time to get

used to new things, like seeing me when it wasn't his idea. And I wanted to

line up dinner, because if there's one thing my dad can do it's eat out. So

during homeroom break, I ran across the street to a laundromat and got him on

their pay phone. He said, "Jennifer, how nice," in that deep, slow,

just-waking-up voice that probably drives women crazy. He is the only person

in the world who calls me Jennifer--never once Jenny, even when I wouldn't

answer to Jennifer, not for months. Norris is incredible at getting people to

be the way he wants, wearing them down just by being the way he is. It works

with everybody except Sally, as far as I know.

"I was hoping I could come over after school," I said. I still hate the

way I get when I talk to my father. As well as I know him, as much as I keep

thinking I've changed, and if he called right this minute, while I'm writing,

I'd sound like a _fan_, for God's sake-- even my _voice_ would get sweaty.

Norris must have been expecting me, though, because he hardly hesitated at all

before he said, "Absolutely. I've been wild for you to see the new place.

There's even a guest room for weird daughters, if you know any."

"I'll check around," I said. "See you about four. Somebody wants the

phone, I have to go." There wasn't anybody waiting, but I didn't want Norris

to pick up my anxiety vibes. He's really, really quick about that--he knows

when you want something, almost before you know. But I remember I felt hopeful

all the same, because of the guest room. Because of him mentioning the guest

room. At lunch I sat with Jake Walkowitz and Marta, like always, since third

grade. You couldn't miss our table--Jake's tall and freckled and white as a

boiled egg, and unless he's changed a whole lot in six years he probably still

looks like he goes maybe eighty-five pounds. Marta's tiny, and she's very

dark, and she's got something genetic with one shoulder, or maybe it's her

back, I never was sure, so she walks just a little lopsided. Then you add in

me, looking like a fire hydrant with acne, and you figure out why the three of

us always ate lunch together. But we liked each other. Not that it matters

much when you're stuck with each other like that, but we did.

I don't make friends easily. I never did, and I don't now, but it

doesn't matter anywhere near the way it mattered in junior high school. New

York City or Dorset, when you're thirteen, you're not even yourself, you're a

reflection of your friends, there's nothing to you but your friends. That's

one of the things most people forget--what it was like being _out_ there every

day, thirteen. I guess you have to, the same way women forget how much it

hurts to have a baby. I used to swear I'd never forget thirteen, but you do.

You have to.

Anyway, when I told about Sally and Evan, Jake shook his head so his

huge mop of curly red hair flew around everywhere. He said, "Oh boy, oh boy,

Evan McDork." I felt a little guilty when he said it, because I knew that far

back that Evan wasn't any kind of a dork, even if he _was_ wrecking my entire

life. But that's what I called him then, so that's whatJake and Marta called

him, too. Jake said, "So your mom'll be Mrs. McDork, and you'll have to

beJenny McDork. We won't even recognize the name when you write to us."

"And you'll have two instant brothers," Marta put in. "Lucky you." She

and Jake kept looking two tables down, where one of _her_ brothers--I think it

was Paco--was glaring at Jake as though he was about to start ripping Marta's

clothes off. Marta's got four older brothers, and every time you turned your

head, in school or anywhere, there'd be some sabertooth Velez keeping a mean

eye on her. I don't know how she stood it. They never used to be like that,

not until we started junior high.

"I'm not changing my name, I'll tell you _that_ much," I said. "And I'm

not going to England either." I told them how I was going to see Norris right

after school and get him to let me move in with him. Jake sneaked another look

at Paco and scooted right away from Marta until he was hanging on to the bench

with about half his skinny butt. He asked me, "Suppose it doesn't work out

with your father? I mean, let's just consider the possibility."

"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 itjust 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."

I had to stop. I got maybe ten or twelve bars into the piece, and I just

had to quit. The sound was so beautiful I was just about to get sick, or have

hysterics, or I don't know, wet myself--_something_ was going to happen,

anyway, that's for sure. Some people get that way when they see flowers or

sunsets, or read poems, whatever. I don't, I never have, but that damn piano.

I stopped playing, and I looked up at Norris, and I couldn't talk. He laid his

arm around my shoulders. He said, "Yeah, me, too. I _know_ I don't deserve it,

I'm embarrassed every time I use it just to sing scales, but I keep telling

myself it's a present for what I'm _going_ to do. You have to believe that

stuff, Jennifer, in our business."

Norris always talks to me as though I were a real musician, the way he

is, and the way Sally is. Sometimes I like it, sometimes I really don't,

because it's not true and he knows it. He wanted me to play some more, but I

got up from the piano and went over to him. I said, "Sally's getting married."

"I know," Norris said. "Nice guy, too, Evan what's-his-name. You like

him all right, don't you?"

I shrugged and nodded, that mumbly nod I do. Norris was watching me

really closely. "She says you're a bit antsy about the move to London."

Sometimes I really wish I had the kind of parents who got divorced and

never ever spoke to each other again to the day they died. "I'm not _antsy_

about it," I said. "I'm just not going."

Norris laughed. "What are you talking about? Babe, listen, you'll love

London. I'm crazy about it, I'd sing there for nothing--hell, I practically

do. Jennifer, you will adore England, you'll have the time of your life. I

promise you." He was holding my shoulders, smiling down at me with those

confident eyes that really do flash all the way to the balcony when he's being

Rigoletto or Iago. Show people feel things, like I said--theyjust can't help

knowing a good scene when they see one. Like Mister Cat, it's their job.

If I was ever going to do it, now was it. I took a deep breath, and I

said, "I was wondering if I could maybe stay with you." Norris didn't drop his

teeth, or anything like that. He stroked my hair and looked straight into my

eyes, and sort of chanted, "JenniferJenniferJenniferJennifer." It's an old

joke--he used to tell me that that was my real name, that he only called me

Jennifer for short. That was long ago, when I was little, when the name hadn't

yet started to bug me so much.

"I could take care of things," I said. "I could do the shopping, the

laundry, keep things clean, forward your mail. Water the plants." I don't know

why I threw _that_ in, because he never _has_ any plants. "You wouldn't have

to pay a housekeeper. Or a secretary." It doesn't look right on the page,

because it all came out in one frantic _whoosh_, but that's about what I said.

Norris said, "Jennifer. Honey. Come and sit down." And I knew it was all

out the window right there. He pulled me over to the sofa and sat next to me,

never taking his eyes from mine. He said, "Honey, it wouldn't work. We

couldn't do that to Sally--you know she'd be devastated, and so would I, and

so would you. Believe me."

"I'd get over it," I said. "So would Sally. New husband, new country,

two new kids--she wouldn't have _time_ to be devastated about _anybody_.

Norris, I could go visit her once in a while, that'd be fine, I'd love it. But

I can't live there, Norris, I just can't, why can't I stay with you in the

guest room?" I'm writing it all down, just the way it was, as fast as I can,

so maybe I won't be too ashamed. But I might just cut it out later on.

Norris ran a hand through his own hair and then squeezed his hands

together. He said, "Jennifer, I don't know how to say this. I'm not in a very

good place right now for having anybody living with me. It's not just you,

it's anybody. I'm coming off a bad relationship--you remember Mandy?--and I

guess I need some privacy, time to be by myself, time to think through a lot

of stuff--"

I interrupted him. "I'd be in school most of the time, you wouldn't even

know I was _there_." I wasn't going to beg anymore, I wasn't going to say

another word, but it came out anyway. Norris didn't hear me. He went right on.

"Besides, going to England would be the best thing in the world for you. Trust

me on this one, kid. I know how incredibly dumb this sounds, but someday you

really will thank me. Really."

Well, that was pretty much it, there's no point in writing anything else

about it. Norris said it was my turn to choose a restaurant, so just out of

spite I picked a Russian place, way down in the Village and so fancy it looked

like a crack house from outside. Before we went, Norris asked me, very shy and

sweet, if I'd mind if somebodyjoined us for dinner, because if I _would_ mind,

that'd be fine. Her name was Suzanne, and I think she did something on the

public radio. Actually, she was nice. My father's women mostly are. She paid

more attention to me during dinner than she did to Norris, asking all kinds of

questions about school and my friends, and what kind of music I liked, and she

pretty much listened to the answers. Afterward they took me home in a cab.

Both of them got out and hugged me good-bye, and Norris told me he'd give me

all kinds of addresses in London, and they both waved back to me as the cab

drove away.

Three

We were supposed to leave in August. Sally wanted me to finish the

school year at Gaynor, and meanwhile she had so much stuff to do before we'd

be ready to go, I hardly ever _saw_ her anymore. Besides the whole business of

plane tickets and passports and clothes, and what to take and what to store,

and what to do about the apartment, she had to keep on with her teaching and

at the same time be looking around for somebody to take over for her. _That_

was a thing, by the way. I don't know how the singers were, but every one of

the piano students went into major shock when she told them she was getting

married and leaving the country. I'd never actually thought much about whether

my mother was a good teacher or not--she was just Sally, it was what she did.

Now, watching these grown people coming absolutely unglued at the idea of not

being able to study with her anymore, as though she was the only piano teacher

in the whole world, it suddenly made me look at her like someone else, a

stranger. Practically _everything_ was making me look at her that way, anyway,

those days.

Like watching her with Evan. I haven't put anything in about Evan so

far, and I know I should have, I just kept feeling a little strange about it,

even now. He's about Sally's age--which was middle forties then--and he's not

big, and he's not good looking. He's not _bad looking_, it's just that you

wouldn't look at him twice on the street. A longish face, sort of diamond

shaped, lumpy where the jaws hinge. He's got hazelish-gray eyes that go down

at the outside corners, and hair more or less the same rainy color, pretty

thick except in the front, and it's always a mess. Nice wide mouth, _ugly_

nose. A horse broke his nose when he was a kid, thrashing its head around or

something, and it never got set right. And later it got broken again, but I

can't remember how. Small ears, more like a woman's ears than a man's. And

he's thin--not _skinny_, but definitely bony. Sally couldn't have picked

anybody who looked less like Norris.

He came home with her a couple of days after she told me, and I grabbed

an apple and three raisin cookies and headed for my room, the way I was used

to doing when he was there. But this time he said, "Don't vanish just yet,

Jenny. I'd like to talk to you for half a minute."

I already knew he didn't talk like any English people I'd ever seen on

TV. Like he said, "Half a minute," not "'Arf a mo', ducks"--six years, and I

haven't heard _anybody_ say anything like that--but he didn't exactly talk

_Masterpiece Theatre_ English either. It's a husky voice, deeper than you'd

expect to look at him, and at least his mouth moves when he talks. I mostly

understand English women now, but the men can drive you crazy.

I didn't say anything. I just turned and waited. Evan said, "Jenny, this

must all be crazy and frightening for you, I'm sorry. You've not even had a

chance to get used to the idea of your mother and me getting married, and

right on top of it you're having to deal with packing up your whole life and

going to a strange place where nothing's familiar. I'm truly sorry."

Sally came to stand beside him, and Evan put his arm around her. That

made me feel funny--not so much _him_, but the way she flowed against him like

water, which I'd never ever seen her do with anybody. Evan went on, "Look, I

can't tell you everything's going to work out, that you'll be instantly,

totally happy in England. I can't promise to be the perfect stepfather for

you, or that you won't hate Tony and Julian on sight. But Sally and I will do

our best to make a home for us all, and if you'll give us the benefit of the

doubt, that'll help a great deal. Do you think you can manage that, Jenny?"

I know, I know, writing it down now it looks like a reasonable, really

_friendly_ thing to say to somebody who hadn't been the least bit friendly to

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TAMSINbyPeterS.BeagleCopyrightPeterS.Beagle,1999.Allrightsreserved.FirstpublishedbyRoc,animprintofNewAmericanLibrary,adivisionofPenguinPutnamInc.TothememoryofSimonBeagle,myfather.Icanstillhearyousinging,Pop,quietly,toyourselfshaving.OneWhenIwasreallyyoung,iftherewasonethingIwantedintheworld,itwastob...

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