TAXI GIRL
Chapter Seven
Tania took her hands away from her face. Everyone watching the audition was immobilized. She looked at them looking at her; her tears continued to flow. Tania left the stage, picked up her stuff and hurried into the lobby. She raced home, smoked one joint and then another.
An hour later, Tania exited her apartment building; it was raining. She walked to Billy Miller’s, entered the vestibule and rang his doorbell. No one answered. She stood under the eaves of the building and waited in the rain for an hour and twenty-six minutes. Then a cab pulled up to the curb, and Billy got out.
“How could you do that to me?” yelled Tania.
He came up the front stairs.
“Why didn’t you wait inside?”
“I didn’t want to.”
He grabbed her arm; she pushed him away.
“Everything was going fine until you butted in and opened your big mouth.”
“I’m the director, for chrissake. It’s my job to butt in.”
She kicked Billy in the shins.
“Fuck you.”
“Hey, knock it off.”
“You knock it off; you made me stink.”
“You didn’t stink; you got the part.”
At 7:30 p.m. on Friday of that same week, Tania took a cab to Astor and Banks. She was wearing a black leotard and tights under a 1950s shimmery, chocolate-colored taffeta circle skirt and a cream-colored, cropped cashmere sweater with a deep V-neck framed by a brown mink collar. She approached the doorman in front of an apartment building.
“I’m here to see Esther Harris; my name’s Tania Wildman.”
“She’s in apartment 10A,” he said and directed Tania to an elevator inside.
Tania knocked on the door of the Harris apartment; Esther answered. She was wearing a Halston gold metallic jumpsuit with a wide waist tie.
“You look perfect, Tania!” said Esther. “I used to have a sweater just like that; my son loved it!”
Maybe it’s yours.
Esther brought Tania into a living room full of people.
“Marty, there’s someone here to see you,” called out Esther. Esther’s son turned toward his mother; Tania started singing.
“Down by the old (not the new but the old)
mill stream (not the river but the stream)
where I first (not the second but the first)
met you (not me but you).”
Esther wiped tears from her cheeks with the tip of her waist tie. Marty came over and put his arm around her. Everyone in the room joined in the song and then sang happy birthday. Tania was invited to stay for cake, but she declined. Esther walked her to the door and handed her one hundred and fifty dollars in cash.
“I couldn’t have given my son a better present.”
The doorman hailed Tania a taxi, and she headed home to go over her lines for The Bear’s first rehearsal on Monday.
When Tania walked into her apartment, the phone was ringing. It was Billy Miller.
“I need to talk to you,” he said. “Let’s get coffee.”
They met in front of Tania’s building and walked over to Sonny’s.
“Then everyone started singing ‘Down by the Old Mill Stream,’” said Tania.
Tania and Billy entered the diner and were greeted by a blast of fluorescent light. They sat down on two green vinyl stools at the counter. Billy ordered black coffee.
“I told the board I want you to play the widow,” he said.
“Yeah, what did they say?”
“The members who saw your audition thought you were good, really good, but the board wants a star; they want to impress their friends.”
“What did you say?”
The counterman set down a mug of coffee in front of Billy.
“I said I thought you were perfect for the part. I said I could pull a really great performance out of you.”
“Well, that takes care of that.”
“No, it doesn’t. It’s not my show; it’s the board’s show. Remember, I told you that, and they want a star . . . or someone who says she’s a star.” He shook his head.
“They don’t want a taxi driver no matter how good she is or how right she is for the part.”
Tania got up.
“Who do they want?”
“They want my wife.”
“Your wife? Your wife’s a star?”
“She showed up at the opening of my first show here and told everybody she’d been in Three Sisters on Broadway.”
“Had she?”
“She replaced the nanny when the actress got food poisoning; it was one performance, but the board members don’t know that.”
“THIS IS BULLSHIT,” shouted Tania. She bolted out of Sonny’s and didn’t stop running until she closed her apartment door.
Tania sat down in her upholstered chair. She rolled a joint and lit it. Her doorbell rang; she didn’t answer. She finished the joint. She stared into space for forty-seven minutes and then got into bed without brushing her teeth. Her phone rang; she didn’t answer it.
Early Saturday morning, Tania’s doorbell rang; she stayed in bed. Then she got up, showered, brushed her teeth and got dressed. She folded a scarf into a triangle, laid it on her head, crossed the ends under her chin and tied them around the scarf at the back of her neck. She put on her coat, added a pair of sunglasses, walked down the back stairs of her building into the alley and headed over to John and Larry’s on Wells Street.
Larry buzzed Tania into his building and opened his front door. Tania came up the stairs.
“John, come quick. Jackie O is here.”
“How fabulous,” said John. “Let me take a Polaroid.” He got his SX-70 and snapped a picture. He pulled the photo out of the camera.
The trio waited for the image to appear. When it did, Tania commented.
“I look pretty good for someone who feels like shit.” She took off her scarf and sunglasses. Larry rolled a joint. John put the SX-70 away, and Tania lay down on their sofa. They passed the joint around; Tania relayed her tale of woe.
“You know what I always say,” said John. “There’s no such thing as rejection; you’re just being steered in another direction.”
“Really?” queried Tania.
“Really,” said John.
They smoked another joint, and Tania bought a lid from the boys.
Tania headed down the stairs and onto Wells Street. The owner of the head shop below John and Larry’s apartment was sweeping the sidewalk in front of his store. Tania crossed his path; he opened his mouth to speak. She pointed her index finger at him.
“You’re an asshole,” she said and walked on.
Tania came up the alley behind her apartment building and turned into the gangway between her building and the next. Billy Miller was coming out of her vestibule; she backed into the gangway.
“Goddammit, where is she?” muttered Miller.
He headed north and crossed Wisconsin. Tania peeked out from the gangway. A taxi pulled up across the street from Billy’s three-flat. The driver honked his horn. Billy turned away from the front door of his building. A woman and a young girl got out of the cab.
“We’re here, William,” called out the woman. “Can you pay the man?”
The driver unloaded two suitcases from the trunk of the taxi. Miller crossed the street, pulled cash out of his pocket and paid him. The cabbie drove away. The young girl rushed up to Billy and hugged him.
“I’m so happy to see you!” she said.
“You don’t look very happy to see us,” said the woman.
“You’re happy to see us, aren’t you, Daddy?”
Billy picked up the two suitcases.
“Of course I am, Celine.”
The three of them crossed the street to Billy’s building; Tania inched forward onto the sidewalk. The trio climbed the stairs to the front door. Tania followed them with her eyes and tripped on a gap in the pavement. She fell headfirst to the ground. Her bottom teeth jammed into her uppers as her chin hit the pavement, and her sunglasses flew off her face.
Holy shit!
She got up; blood dripped onto her shoe.
Tania went up to her apartment and looked in the bathroom mirror.
I have a second mouth where my chin used to be.
She grabbed a hand towel and pressed it against the lower part of her face. She walked down the back stairs, took the alley to Lincoln Avenue and then cut over to the emergency room at St. Augustine’s Hospital. She approached the reception desk and took away the towel.
“Can you fix this?” asked Tania.
“I think so,” said the receptionist. “You probably won’t even have a scar.”
Tania left the emergency room three hours later with six stitches on the tip of her chin. She walked to Sedgwick.
I’m not takin’ the fuckin’ alley.
She went down the west side of the street and looked over at Billy’s apartment.
There’s no such thing as rejection; I’m just being steered in another direction.
She crossed to the east side of Sedgwick and caught sight of Billy Miller walking into the vestibule of her apartment building. She ducked into the park next door and squatted behind some bushes. She heard whimpering and sniffling. She searched for the source. It was Celine. She was sitting on a park bench; Tania went over to her.
“What’s wrong?”
“I ran away from home, but I don’t have anywhere to go. What’s that black string on your chin?”
“I fell down and had to get stitches. They come out in a week. I probably won‘t even have a scar.”
“Do you have ten dollars?”
“Do I have ten dollars?”
“Yeah, to pay me to stop crying.”
“I’m not giving you ten dollars, and you’ve already stopped crying.”
“Do you live around here?” asked the girl.
“Yeah.”
“Can I stay with you?”
“No, you need to go home. Does your mother know you ran away?”
“No, she drank too much wine at lunch and fell asleep on her salad. After that, Dad set up a Laurel and Hardy movie for me on his projector; he even had music and sound effects. Then he left to take care of some business; that’s when I ran away.”
“You don’t like Laurel and Hardy?”
“I love them; they’re so funny. That’s what my dad and I watch when I stay with him. We make popcorn and watch Laurel and Hardy in our bathrobes.”
“Well, he’s probably gonna be home soon, and he’s gonna freak out if you’re not there.”
“How do you know? Do you know my dad?”
Tania paused.
“Yes, I do know your dad. I know him from City Theater. I saw your picture in his office.”
“Are you an understudy?”
Billy Miller passed in front of the park
“Look, there’s your dad.”
Tania pulled a bill from her wallet.
“I’ll pay you ten dollars to catch him.”
Celine grabbed the ten and took off. Tania watched her tackle Billy as he climbed the stairs to his front door.
I’d cry, but I’m not supposed to get the stitches wet.
