TAXI GIRL
Chapter Eleven
Tania, Dan and Sarah stood in silence under the City Theater marquee.
“Sarah’s a dancer; she’s got a big audition tomorrow,” interjected Dan. “We’ve known each other—”
Tania pointed to the theater door.
“I’ve got to go back inside,” she said. “Bye; nice to meet you, Sadie.” Tania entered the lobby, made a beeline for the ladies’ room and splashed cold water on her face.
Is this what I’ve become? . . . a lonely old bag . . . eating dinner in a greasy spoon. . . slurping pea soup at a table for one . . . going home to a studio apartment . . . masturbating to a sex scene in a dime novel.
She looked at herself in the mirror above the sink.
“C’mon,” she said aloud. “You’re not that bad.”
Tania left the theater and walked down Lincoln Avenue. She turned onto Sedgwick and spotted a U-Haul truck in front of Billy Miller’s three-flat. She backtracked to Lincoln and cut over to the alley behind the buildings on the east side of Sedgwick. When she got to the rear of Billy’s building, she spotted a Sony TC-353 Stereo Tapecorder with external speakers, owner’s manual and accessories next to a dumpster. A full reel was loaded onto the supply spindle.
Holy shit! This thing looks brand new; must be a piece of mass-produced crap from his inventory.
Tania dragged the unit to the front of her building and up the stairs to her apartment. Following the instructions in the manual, she plugged in the power cord, threaded the supply tape under the head cover and wrapped it around the hub of the take-up reel. She turned on the deck and set the function selector to PLAY. Billy Miller’s voice came on.
“Presenting the pride of Baltimore, Celine Miller, chanteuse extraordinaire.”
“Land of the silver birch, home of the beaver,
Where still the mighty moose wanders at will.
Blue lake and rocky shore, I will return once more.
Boom di-di eye di, boom di-di eye di, boom di-di eye di boom,” sang Celine.
There was silence.
“I can’t remember the rest.”
“That’s okay; you did great,” responded Miller.
Tania rewound the tape onto the supply reel. She hurried downstairs with it, but the U-Haul was gone.
Tania came back to her apartment, put the reel on the deck and played the song again. She stopped the tape, connected the microphone and recorded herself singing.
“My heart is sick for you here in the lowlands.
I will return to you hills of the north.
Blue lake and rocky shore, I will return once more.
Boom di-di eye di, boom di-di eye di, boom di-di eye di boom.”
Wait till I tell Dan I got us a Sony reel-to-reel . . . with speakers! She reached for her phone. I can’t call him . . . he’s probably having sex with Sadie.
Tania ran a bath.
After Dan and Sarah had lunch in the Lincoln Park Hotel coffee shop, they went up to his room.
“Thanks for letting me stay here.”
“It’s the least I can do. Shit, I’ve known you since I was seven.”
“Is that when you first came to Big Lake?”
“Yeah,” said Dan. “What time did you leave Saint Germain?”
“Four, but I got up at two.”
She yawned.
“Do you wanna take a nap?” asked Dan.
“I’d love to.”
“I’ll be back in a couple of hours.”
Tania wet her hair and pin-curled it flat against her scalp with bobby pins. She applied a mud masque to her face, added two cups of dry oatmeal to her bath water and got in the tub.
Time for a new me.
She closed her eyes and envisioned Dan’s room at the Lincoln Park Hotel. The window was wide open, and sheer curtains fluttered in the breeze. Sarah was asleep on the white sheets of Dan’s bed; she wore a floral crown, pink flowy gown and pointe shoes. Sarah awoke, stretched out her arms then rubbed her eyes. Dan came out of the bathroom wearing a donkey head. Sarah took small steps on her tiptoes over to him, kissed his muzzle, took the crown from her head and put it on his ear. Tania opened her eyes.
Enough of that shit. She manufactured a big yawn and cracked the clay on her face. When she got up from the tub, rolled oats clung to her body. There was a knock at the front door.
“Tania, it’s Dan. Are you there?”
How did he get in the building?
“I need to tell you something,” he said.
Tania wrapped a towel around herself and opened the door a crack.
“I figured out how we can make it look like Daphne’s parachuting to Earth from the swirling vortex.”
“Great. Where’s Sadie?”
“Her name’s Sarah, and she’s at my place taking a nap.”
“All tuckered out, I suppose.”
“Yeah, she’s been up since two. Can I come in?”
Tania opened the door.
“Why is there oatmeal stuck to your shoulders?”
“I’m creating a new me.”
“What’s wrong with the old one?”
“It’s seen better days.” She went into the bathroom.
Dan spotted the tape deck.
“Where’d you get this?”
Tania washed off the mud masque.
“It was next to a dumpster behind Billy Miller’s apartment building.”
Tania’s face was red. She turned on the shower and rinsed off the oatmeal. Then she dried off, wrapped the towel around her torso and took out the bobby pins. Big, bouncy curls fell from her crown, and her face glowed. Dan glimpsed her going from the bathroom to the dressing room.
“You look great,” he said.
Tania ran her right hand up and down her left arm.
“My skin’s really soft; feel it.”
Dan ran his hand up and down Tania’s arm. Their eyes met. He moved his hand to her breast.
“What about Sarah?”
“I’ve known her since I was seven; my family used to vacation at her parents’ resort. She’s a friend who needed a place to stay for the night.”
He pulled down the towel Tania was wearing; it dropped to the floor.
“I’ve waited a long time for this,” he said. Then he howled,“Oo-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo!” He picked up Tania and tossed her on the bed.
An hour later, Dan got up, switched on the deck, rewound the tape and set the function lever to PLAY. Celine’s voice, then Tania’s, came on. After Tania finished singing, he stopped the tape, depressed the RECORD levers, turned the function dial to PLAY and sang into the microphone.
“High on a rocky ledge, I’ll build my wigwam,
Close to the water’s edge, silent and still.
Blue lake and rocky shore, I will return once more.
Boom di-di eye di, boom di-di eye di, boom di-di eye di boom.”
He stopped the recording. “I told Sarah I’d be back in a couple of hours; can I stay here tonight?” He pointed to the bed. “We could do that again.”
“I’d like that,” said Tania.
Dan knocked on the door, then let himself into his room at the Lincoln Park Hotel. Sarah was standing on one leg with her other ankle resting on the bathroom sink. She bent forward over her extended leg.
“Your mother called,” she said. “I thought it might be you, so I answered the phone.”
“What did she want?”
“She invited us to your father’s birthday dinner on Monday. I told her I was only here until tomorrow. She started crying and said she hadn’t heard from you in a couple of months. Is that true?”
“Yeah, it’s probably been that long.”
“Are you gonna call her?”
“Right now?”
“Yeah, I told her you’d call her as soon as you got back.”
Dan picked up his phone receiver and gave the hotel operator his parents’ number. His mother answered.
“Daniel, is that you?”
“Yes, Mother.”
“Did Sarah tell you why I called?”
“Yes, she did.”
“Will you come? You know his birthday’s tomorrow, but we have to celebrate it on Monday.”
“Yes, I know.”
“Well, will you come?”
“Can I bring someone?”
“Sarah said she’s going back to Saint Germain tomorrow.”
“I wanna bring someone else.”
“I don’t care who you bring as long as you come.”
“Okay, I’ll see you Monday around six.”
After Dan hung up the phone, he and Sarah went down to the hotel coffee shop. Sarah ordered.
“I’ll have the breast of chicken Nottingham.”
“Soup or salad?” asked the waitress.
“What’s the soup?” she asked.
“Three bean.”
“Absolutely not,” said Sarah. “I’ll have the salad. What vegetable comes with the chicken?”
“Green beans.”
“That’s fine.”
Dan ordered a cheeseburger with fries; the waitress left.
Sarah leaned across the table and whispered, “It would be very bad if I had gas at the audition.”
Dan thought for a moment.
“Yes, it would.”
“Once in class, I bent forward for a port de bras, and one came out.”
“One what came out?”
“You know,” said Sarah.
“I know what?”
“You know what came out.”
“What?”
“A fart. There, you made me say it,” said Sarah. “You haven’t changed a bit.”
“Yes, I have.”
Dan arrived at Tania’s around 8 p.m.
“I brought my toothbrush.”
“How about clean underwear?”
“I didn’t think of that. I’ll just turn what I have on inside out. Speaking of underwear, why don’t I take off mine, and you take off yours?”
He cocked his head in the direction of Tania’s bed.
“And we do that again.”
Tania and Dan woke up early Sunday morning. Dan pointed to a footlocker in Tania’s living room underneath the windows across from her bed.
“Would you do me a favor and stand on that trunk?”
“I’m not wearing any clothes.”
“That’s okay; it’s Sunday. Nobody’s up at this hour, and anybody who is would enjoy the view as much as I do.”
She got on the trunk. He made a rectangular frame with his fingers.
“Now face the kitchen and jump off.”
Tania complied.
“That’ll work,” said Dan. “If we stand Daphne on a chair, hold the camera in the right spot and have her jump into the frame, it’ll look like she’s parachuting to Earth from the vortex.”
“I see what you’re saying,” said Tania. “She can land in front of a sign that says HOTEL CAIRO and then take a cab to the pyramids.” Tania filled a tea kettle with water from her kitchen faucet.
Dan called out to her.
“Can you take off work early tomorrow so we can make the 5:03 train to Highland Park and have dinner with my parents?”
“What?”
“It’s my father’s birthday. Actually, today is his birthday, but we can’t celebrate it today.”
“Why not?”
“He goes to jail on the weekends.”
