Ice (3 page)

They did go out on weekends occasionally, but Mama was never happy about the places Daddy took her. The people there were either too old or too calm or out of touch with what was really happening.
"You're not out in the world like I am," she would tell him. "You just don't know."
Daddy didn't argue. He drew his music around him like a curtain of steel and sat contented, as contented as someone soaking in a warm bath. I listened, sang, learned about tempo and beat, phrasing and rhythm while Mama pouted or went into her bedroom to turn on the television set very loud. Those nights, we drove silence out the window.
Finally. Mama really decided to do something about me, to take control of my destiny, just as she had threatened. She was back to that idea that some girls just needed a little push. Well, she was going to give me more than a little push. She was going to give me a firm shove.
She returned one afternoon, stepped into my bedroom while I was sprawled on my bed doing my math homework, and made an astonishing
announcement.
"Thank your lucky stars. girl. I got you a date with a handsome young man."
"What?" I asked, turning.
"I got you a date for Saturday night. We got to go out and buy you something decent to wear and then I have to help you get yourself together, fix your hair, do your makeup. When you go out with someone, you represent me, too," she declared. "'People gonna say that's Lena Goodman's daughter and by the time I'm finished fixing you up, people gonna say. 'I would have known anywhere that was Lena's girl, a girl that pretty has to be her daughter.'"
"What do you mean, a date?" I asked, my heart thudding like a fist on stone.
"I know you kids don't like to think of it as a date. Somehow the word became old-fashioned. You just what--'hang out with someone' nowadays?" She smirked and shook her head. "Well, to me a date's a date. The man picks you up, takes you somewhere nice, and pays for everything. That's still a date in my book."
"What man?" I asked, sitting up.
"Louella Carter's younger brother Shawn. He's gonna be home from boot camp on leave this weekend, and we arranged for you two to be together Saturday night. He's a very good-looking boy and a boy in the army is gonna be well mannered. too. I spoke with him on the phone myself and he was all, 'Yes ma'am' and 'No ma'am' and 'Thank you. ma'am."
"I'm not going out with someone I never met. Mama." I protested.
"Of course you are. Didn't you ever hear of something called blind dates? You either got your nose in your schoolbooks or your father's old record albums, but you must've heard of that."
"I don't like blind dates," I said.
"You've never been on one! You've never been on any date, blind or otherwise, so how can you say you don't like it. Ice?"
"I just know I don't," I said.
"Well, this time you're gonna make an effort to like something I do for you. I didn't just go looking for a date for you, you know. I screened a lot of young men first. Louella's a girlfriend of mine and her brother's got to be a good boy who won't take advantage of an innocent girl such as yourself. I'm not saying he won't want to kiss you and such, but you know when to stop.
^-
She thought a moment.
"Don't you?" she asked. "I mean, you learned all about that stuff in school. right?"
I nodded.
"Good. Then it's all set."
"Nothing's set," I said.
She glared at me a moment and then she stepped farther into my room, her eyes heating over, her jaw tightening, her hands folding into small fists pressed firmly into her thighs as she hovered over me.
"I said it's set. You're going to get all dressed up and have a good time whether you like it or not, and you're going to make me proud and give me something to brag about when I'm with my
girlfriends, hear? This is one Saturday night you're not going to be shut up in your roam singing to yourself or out there with your father and me listening to his antique records."
"But--"
"No buts, Ice. I want you to make a good effort toward having a good time. Do it for me if not for yourself." she added in a softer tone, practically begging, g. Her face looked pained with the effort.
I stared at her a moment and then looked down, "Well?"
"Okay. Mama," I said.
"Good. Good. You're going to be thanking me afterward,'" she predicted. "You should be grateful that you have a mother who knows how to dress up and look good. too. Other girls depend on their friends or something they see in a magazine and usually look pretty stupid. I'm right here, at your side, giving you the knowledge I have from real experience.
"First thing we at to do is get your hair cut right."
"What? No. Mama, I don't want to cut my hair," I moaned,
"Of course you do. You don't know it right now, maybe, but once you're in the shop and my personal beautician Dawn starts working on your mop, you'll be very happy about it." she practically ordered. "You can't just keep your hair brushed down all the time. It looks drab."
She reached out and touched my hair
"And it doesn't have the body and silky satin feel it should. Men like to touch nice hair and see a woman whose face is framed right. You're not taking advantage of your good qualities. Ice. I've been after you for months to do something about this... this mess, well now we have a reason to do it and we will.
"After that, well go look for a dress. Maybe we'll take advantage of some of those discounts your father gets, discounts we don't use enough. You'll need some new shoes. too."
"I don't want to cut my hair. Mama."'
"I already made your beauty parlor
appointment. It's tomorrow at nine."
"Tomorrow at nine? But be in school. Mama."
"Not tomorrow, you won't."'
"But--"
"You don't ever miss a day. Ice. You can miss one and don't tell me
you can't. I see some of the girls in your class hanging around here during the school day, pretending to be sick or something and having a good old time of it. No one comes around to check on them either. At least you have a good reason not to go."
"Getting your hair done is not a good reason to cut school. Mama."
"It is to me, especially when you don't ever go and get it done, and especially when you have an important occasion coming up," she insisted.
"Important occasion." I mumbled under my breath.
"Yes." she said wagging her head. "it is an important occasion. It's like what they call those debutante balls or something, a coming-out."
I started to smile and her face turned hard and cold. "Are you laughing at me. Ice?"
"No, Mama."
"Don't you go showing your stuck-up face to me."
"I'm not being stuck-up. But Mama, this is not anything like a debutante ball."
"It is to me and it should and will be to you. Now that's it. You can thank me later." she added and left me stunned and anxious about what she had don't.
It was almost like the old days when parents arranged the marriages their children would have. If any of my classmates found out what she had dont. I would really be the object of ridicule. I thought. Knowing Mama's girlfriends. it wasn't hard to believe the gossip would fly.
"Ice's mother has to find her a date. She can't get one on her own." they would say. They'd tease me and ask if my mother could find them a date. too.
I've got to find a way to get myself out of this. I thought. I could go to Daddy, but if I went to him, it could become a big blowup between them and they had been having quite of few of those lately. The last thing I wanted to do was be the cause of another. Maybe I could pretend to be sick. I thought.
No, she wouldn't go for that. She's so excited about this, she'd send me out with a temperature of a hundred and five and a face covered in measles.
Maybe Louella's brother wouldn't show up. Maybe he would change his mind. Maybe he wouldn't like being made to go out with a high- school girl on a blind date. Maybe...
Maybe you might just have a good time, another voice inside me said. Maybe you'll like him.
Just maybe, your mother might be right. Don't try to tell yourself you never dreamt of having a nice time with a really nice young man.
Yes, your mother might be right.
I'd soon know. I thought and settled back into the inevitability of what was to come like someone floating on a raft toward Niagara Falls.

From the way Mama talked and behaved, anyone would have thought I really was being prepared for a debutante ball. She couldn't wait to tell my daddy when he came home from work that evening, a little after ten. When he worked the later shift, he would have a sandwich for dinner, but that was never enough for a man his size. so Mama would prepare leftovers for him if she was home when he returned. If she wasn't. I would come out of my room as soon as he was home and warm up his dinner.

"Ice has a date Saturday night." I heard her tell him at the table.
We had a small, separate dining room and a four-chair yellow Formica breakfast table in the kitchen. She served the late dinner in the kitchen, ostensibly because she didn't want to mess up a clean dining room just for a leftover dinner. It made no sense to me because she would have to clean up the kitchen again anyway.
Despite her complaints, our apartment was a good size for the rent we paid and Daddy was always pointing out that the building was rent-controlled and we wouldn't get as much for our money if we did what Mama wanted and looked for another place to live. He tried to make it nicer to please her. He had friends who laid carpet and put up wallpaper and got some very good deals at the mall. No matter what he did though, the place was still "a dump" to Mama.
"Date? What kind of date?" Daddy asked. I could hear the concern in his voice, which took me by surprise. He rarely asked me anything about my friends or any boys at school. He never pushed me to go to dances or asked me why I wasn't going out on weekends.
"A nice date," Mama said. "I arranged it myself," she boasted.
"You arranged it? What do you mean? How?"
"I arranged for Louella Carter's brother Shawn to take her out. He's an army boy on leave from boot camp."
"Army boy? What kind of an arrangement is that? What are you saying, she never met him?"
"Now you tell me. Cameron Goodman, how is she going to meet anyone shut up in this place listening to music with you on weekends and such. huh? You think there's some sort of billboard out there with her face on it. announcing Ice Goodman's here, come and ask her out?"
"This doesn't sound good to me," Daddy said, his voice lining with alarm,
"Oh no? And why is that. Cameron? Huh? Why? Because I made it all happen?"
"It just doesn't sound like it will be good. Army boys are a different breed," he warned. "Don't forget I was an MP. I know what being shut up with other men does to them, especially a boy just released from boot camp."
"Well, this time it will be good," she insisted. "Louella's a very nice girlfriend and I'm sure her brother's a nice young man. Besides, what have you been doing to help that child be a normal girl, huh? Nothing. You're content just keeping her home listening to music. How she ever going to meet anyone and get married that way?"
"She's only seventeen and still in high school. Lena. It's not exactly a crisis."
"How old was I when you married me? Huh? Well?"
"It was different" Daddy said almost under his breath. "You were different."
"What's that supposed to mean? You think she's better than us?"
"No. That's not what I'm saying," he said, but he didn't say it firmly enough for her.
"Blowing that child's ego up to make her think she's the Virgin Mary or something, raving about her singing all the time. Na one's ever going to be good enough for her. Maybe that's what you want. Cameron Goodman. Maybe you want to keep her at your side all your days. Her hair will grow gray alongside yours listening to music. It's unnatural, that's what it is."
"Stop it. Lena."
"She's going on a date. She's going to be a normal girl who talks. And she's going to make me proud. Come aboard or swim to shore.
Cameron, but don't you dare say one word against it. hear? I'm warning you."
Daddy was quiet. He wasn't happy, but he retreated as he usually did. His lack of enthusiasm and his warnings, however, put even more steam into Mama. Now she had to prove she was right. She couldn't wait to get me up and out to the beauty parlor the next morning. She made such a production out of it, I was truly embarrassed when we arrived.
"Here she is!" she cried as soon as we stepped through the doorway.
All the women in chairs turned to look and every one of the beauticians stopped work. Dawn, a dirty blond no taller than my old grade-school teacher. Mrs. Waite, emerged from the rear of the shop and looked me over as if I was someone just brought to civilization.
"She's got potential," she declared. "I see what you were saying, Lena,"
Mama swelled with pride.
"But we've got some work here," Dawn added cautiously as she circled me. Everyone else was still looking at me.
"Pretty girl," the woman in the first chair said.
"Tall, like a model," the man working on her commented.
Dawn fingered my hair. "You're really dry, girl," she said. "And doing a lot of shedding."
"I knew it." Mama said. "She just hasn't looked after herself right. I've been hounding her, but you know young people today. You can't tell them anything."
Dawn didn't respond. She kept circling me, which made me even more nervous.
"We have to shampoo and condition plenty," she said. "Add moisture."
"Exactly." Mama said nodding.
"What have you been using on your hair, hand soap?" Dawn asked me. Everyone laughed, even Mama.
I looked down, debating whether I would just turn and run out or stay.
"Well, let's get you in the chair and get started," Dawn said. "We'll make it right,"
"Go on. Ice," Marna coached.
Reluctantly. I walked across the shop, past the other chairs and women and got into the chair reserved for me. Dawn came around and started to prepare the sink for my shampoo.
"You use a blow-dryer too much," she began. "especially with your dry hair. Why don't you give your hair a break and put it in cornrows?"
"No," I said sharply.
One of the women who was having it done turned to look my way.
"It's not for me," I added and gave Mama a look that told her
I
would get up and leave if they didn't listen.
"Just suggesting," Dawn said. "What do you say, we do a press and cut. Lena? I'd bring it to here," she said pinching my hair at my chin. Mama nodded. Dawn looked at my face and smiled. "You've really never been to a beauty shop before, huh?"
"Not because of me," Mama said.
"This is going to look great." Dawn told me. "I'm going to insert a full head of weave, apply styling mousse and set your hair with a flat iron, curling the front down and the back up. You'll see. Great." she said.
Mama stepped back, nodded at Dawn and they began.
I
closed my eyes like someone about to go into an operating room and tried to shut out all the talk and laughter by listening to Daddy's music replay in my head.
When it was finally over. Dawn turned me around and stood behind me as proud as any artist. I gazed at myself in the mirror, amazed at the difference in my appearance. Not only did I appear older and more sophisticated. but Mama was right: I did have most of her good facial features, maybe even better because of my stronger mouth and bigger eves and more prominent cheekbones-- features I had inherited from Daddy.
"Well?" Dawn said. "You haven't said a word all the time I've been working. What do you have to say now?"
"She loves it. Don't you, Ice?" Mama asked, her eyes pressuring me to respond positively.
I nodded.
"Yes. I think I do," I admitted.
Mama let out a trapped breath, and she and Dawn laughed. Mama really looked pleased and that made her face even softer and younger. Anger always aged her instantly, like a dark hand waved mai'cally in front of her.
"Now we'll do her eyebrows and I'll get her straight on her makeup," she told Dawn. "We're off to get her a nice dress."
"Are you going to a prom or something?" Dawn asked me. I looked at Mama.
"No, she's going on her first real date."
"First? You're kidding me. Lena Goodman."
"I wish I was," Mama said. "We've got a lot of time to make up." Dawn raised her eyebrows, looked at me and nodded.
"I bet." she said. "And I bet she will," she added.
Everyone but me laughed.
"Okay," Dawn said. "I gave you the best cut I could. Remember, before you go to sleep every night, prepare your hair for its own beauty rest. Apply a small amount of the moisturizer your Mama just bought for you, and to stop hair breakage, don't wear no hair band. We have satin sleep caps. Lena. Maybe you oughta get one for her."
"Yes," Mama said. "Absolutely."
Mama was on a tear now, spirited by our success at the beauty parlor. We took a cab to the Gallery at Market East and to Drawbridge's
Department Store where Daddy had a twenty-percent discount, When I saw the price of the clothes. I didn't think it mattered if he had a discount or not, but cost didn't matter to Mama. She wouldn't let a little thing like breaking our budget for a couple of months stand in her way.
"I don't want you wearing those granny clothes young -girls parade around in these days. Most of them look like sacks from thrift shops. And those clodhoppers they wear... I swear it's like girls are ashamed to show what they got anymore, or else they don't have it and don't have anything to show."
I tried to explain styles and trends to Mama, but she wouldn't hear of it.
"What makes you look good is in style and what doesn't is out of style in my book," she said.
We wandered through the teen fashions unsuccessfully. Mama didn't like anything. I thought she would give up on Drawbridge's, but she decided to go into the adult section, and she stopped in front of a manikin wearing what was called a princess cut blouse and skirt. It was a black and silver polyester jacquard material with a floral pattern on the blouse and a modest leaf pattern on the skirt. Because of the curve-enhancing princess shape in front and back. Mama thought it was sexy and stylish.
When I stepped out of the fitting room. Mama and people around her looked impressed. Other customers paused to look at us. too. I was
embarrassed by the attention.
"What a perfect fit and what a beautiful figure your daughter has. Mrs. Goodman. She could model for us," the saleswoman said, "She looks like she's in her early twenties."
"Her father will have to sit at the door with a shotgun, you buy her that dress," a woman just passing said to Mama.
Mama was bursting with pride, her eyes electric, her shoulders hoisted,
"That's the latest fashion, you say?" she asked the saleswoman.
"Yes ma'am. It just came in yesterday, matter of fact."
"We'll take it," Mama decided.
It was an expensive outfit because of its designer. but Mama was determined.
"Your father can pick up some overtime," she told me when I showed her the tag.
"I don't need anything this expensive, Mama."
'Of course you do," she said. "The better you look Saturday night, the nicer you'll be treated. He's not going to take you to any Denny's in this," she said laughing, "That's for sure."
"Maybe he can't afford to do anything else. Mama," I said. After all. I didn't know anything about him and Mama really didn't know much either.
"That doesn't matter," Mama said. "When a woman impresses a man, he doesn't think of budgets and bank accounts and what he can and can't afford. He just thinks about one thing: impressing her. I know men. honey. And before long now, you're going to know them too, know just what to expect.
"Your education is starting a little later than mine did, but you have the benefit of me." she decided. nodding. "'Truth is. I wish I had me when I was younger. I didn't have an easy time of it. My mother thought sex was such a dirty word, she had me and my sister and brother thinking we had been born through some sort of pollination, you know, like flowers? It got sprinkled on her stomach and we got created."
I smirked at her attempt at a joke, but she laughed,
"I'm not being funny. All she knew was the birds and the bees and that's what bees do; don't they spread the pollen? Bet you didn't think I knew so much about science. huh?
"I got a lot of surprises up my sleeve. Ice." Suddenly, I was afraid she was telling the truth,