Orphea Proud (20 page)

But I didn’t want to go by myself. I wanted Ray to go with me.

“What would I do in the big city?” he said stubbornly.

“See the sights. We could go to an art museum. You could even be part of the show.”

“Doing what?”

“Painting.”

“I don’t paint in front of people.”

“You paint in front of me all the time.”

“That’s different.”

“Come on, Ray. I need you. I might be afraid up there all by myself.”

“Will we get paid? I’m thinking of saving my money up for a real horse.”

“Icky and Marilyn already gave me two hundred dollars. I can give you some of that. Maybe we can even sell some of your paintings.”

He smiled. “I’ll go.”

But we still had to talk Lola into it.

“How are you going to get there?”

“We can take the bus. I’ll pay for Ray’s ticket.”

“I’d have to talk to the club owners.”

“We can call them.”

“Ray’s only fourteen.”

“For Pete’s sake, Mama!” Ray snapped. “You don’t expect me to spend the rest of my life in a root cellar, do you?”

“Of course not, sweet pea.” She turned to me with a worried expression. “How long will you be gone?”

“Just for the summer.”

“You won’t let anything happen to my boy in the big city?”

“I’ll take care of him,” I promised.

“We’ll take care of each other,” said Ray.

I called Icky and Marilyn. The next week Lola drove Ray and me into town and we got on a bus.

The trip only took took seven hours. I slept most of the way but Ray was wired. He had to get off at every rest stop to try some new brand of cupcake or soda. And he wouldn’t stop staring.

“People are going to think you’re loony,” I warned. But a lady with a baby across the aisle from us seemed to like him. When the baby wouldn’t stop fussing, the lady gave him to Ray to hold. The baby was cooing in no time, though he did pull Ray’s hair.

When we got off the bus in Manhattan, I think we both needed a shower. The air conditioner on the bus had stopped working. Marilyn was there to meet us and we went on a subway. The crowds and the noise might have made Ray feel a bit timid. I kind of had to hold his hand. But by the time we’d been in New York for a week, Ray was galloping down Queens Boulevard.

Putting the show together with Icky and Marilyn was the most exciting thing that’s ever happened to me. It was Marilyn who helped me string all my writing
together. Icky concentrated on the set and the lights and buying materials for Ray.

Except for the fact that I kept forgetting what I was supposed to say, the rehearsals seemed to go okay. Then one day Marilyn yelled at me.

“Stop turning around!”

Just like in the root cellar, I’d been watching Ray.

“I’m just making sure he isn’t painting too many horses,” I explained.

“Can I paint at least one horse?” Ray whined.

“Maybe one.”

Marilyn chuckled. “We’ll call the show ‘Not a Rodeo’ just to remind him.”

“Keep your eyes on the audience, Orphea,” Icky directed from the booth. “We’ll make it a rule that you can’t turn around.”

Opening night came. The crowd was much smaller than today, yet I was so nervous. But as I started to tell the story, I got a warm feeling inside. People were listening.

Next week Lola and the straw man are driving up! They’re staying with us a couple of days in Icky and Marilyn’s loft.

I wish Aunt Minnie and Aunt Cleo could come see us. But they’re keeping it together at home.

“When you have a store, you can’t go out of town,” said Aunt Minnie.

“Confining,” said Aunt Cleo. “But we love it.”

So that’s our show. Me running my mouth a mile a minute, and Ray painting a canvas that only you see. Even when it’s over, I don’t turn around. Things are going so well, I don’t want to jinx them. There’s magic in the air here. I think the magic comes from the audience. You never know who’ll show up. Last week after the show, Lissa’s sister, Annie, came up to me outside. It was a shock. We both cried. She’s living out in Brooklyn. I’m going to try to see her before we go back to Proud Road.

Now I have a fantasy that Lissa will walk into the club one day; that she didn’t die. She’ll pass the club and see my show being advertised, and come that same evening just like Annie did; sit right down and watch the show and go absolutely nuts about Ray’s painting. She’ll hug me and the next day we’ll take Ray to a big museum. Only a fantasy … I saw the urn with her ashes.

But if this were a fairy tale or a myth, she might materialize out of Ray’s canvas and be standing behind me … a girl with thick black hair and gray eyes.

You know the myth about the guy named Orpheus? The one Nadine named me for? He was a great poet and singer. The love of his life gets bitten by some sort of snake and she dies. But Orpheus goes after her, straight to the underworld. He almost gets to bring her home. But the deal is that he can’t turn around. Just as they’re about to step back on earth, Orpheus gets nervous and takes a peek. The love of his life disappears, lost to him forever.

If Lissa were behind me right now, I wouldn’t turn around for a million bucks. I would keep my promise not to look back. She would step out of Ray’s painting and follow me offstage and out of Club Nirvana. Even though my arms would throb with the urge to give her a hug, I’d resist. Just knowing that she was a step behind me would be enough. I’d feel her breath on my neck and take in the fragrance of peanut butter, lemons, and patchouli.

The truth is I’m the one who comes alive, when I step onto the stage to tell you I’ve been loved. I feel you listening. I feel them, too—the ones who loved me—somewhere deep inside. Breathing, if only for a little while.

Commended by
Publishers Weekly
for her “compassionate rendering of contemporary families,” Sharon Dennis Wyeth is the author of
The World of Daughter McGuire
and
A Piece of Heaven
, a New York Public Library Book for the Teen Age. Her picture book
Something Beautiful
and her historical novel
Freedom’s Wings
are both NCSS-CBC Notable Children’s Trade Books in the Field of Social Studies.
Once on This River
, set in the African American community of colonial New York, has been among the New York Public Library’s 100 Titles for Reading and Sharing. Another picture book,
Always My Dad
, is a
Reading Rainbow
Selection. Sharon Dennis Wyeth graduated cum laude from Harvard University and is a former faculty member of the New School for Social Research. She has been a keynote speaker at the annual conference of the International Reading Association and a recent guest of the National Library in Iceland.

Sharon Dennis Wyeth lives with her family in Upper Montclair, New Jersey.