Korê in New York

What happens when a kid refuses to leave the past behind? What happens when the past won't go away? Read on and don't worry about the emotional damage.

1. Goodbye “Step”

   Dad left us Thursday morning. RoAnn, Minerva, Ivanna, and I all had counseling once a week, and Thursday was our day for that.  Fortunately, the great Ms. Marmlestein, scheduled an evening session for us so that I could work on lighting crew, and Ivanna could spend time at the Douglas’. Lydia Douglas had returned from her sojourn in Vermont due to homesickness and the general “poor quality” of the local public schools which had turned Academic Optional in New York parlance.

   We were doing safety checks and lighting maintenance after school and I got to crawl around on the battens. I managed to slice the heel of my left hand on a wayward, cracked jell. Micah, after much profanity, managed to staunch the bleeding with a weird looking bandage built from the first aid kit. I then got to climb up on the battens again and go to work.

   As a result, I arrived at counseling with a dirty bandage. Someone had given Nervy Worm caryons and paper. She was drawing a pefectly symmetrical eight petal flower with each petal, identically striped. Since there were no turqoise crayons she mixed blue and green together using perfect technique. Something about the way Nervy drew reminded me of my mom, though my mom never drew anything. I thought of the virtues of hard work and executive planning.

   Nervy’s artwork kept her absolutely silent. Ivanna had nothing to say to me. Her Capezio’s as usual adorned her shoulder. She had been dancing at Lydia’s house and on her lunch break. She had a book on ballet open. It was not one of the ones with lots of pictures. Ivanna would read about what interested her.

   RoAnn brought papers to grade. I got out my Global Studies book on Japan and read about Commodore Perry pulling up his boats to Edo and “invading” the “Hermit Kingdom.” The reading took me away from the tomb like yet still close waiting room.

   When Ms. Marmlestein emerged she asked which of us wanted to go first. None of us answered, not even RoAnn. That meant Ivanna went first since she took us in alphabetical order by first name. Ivanna emerged looking spent.

   Then it was my turn. “Are you glad to have your sister back?” Ms. Marmlestein asked me. I was not sure how to answer the question. “I’m fine as long as she treats Nervy well and doesn’t make a lot of scenes.” I wondered if I should tell Ms. Marmlestein that she left out the “step.”  Was that on purpose?

   “Why do you think that would Ivanna make a scene or mistreat Nervy?” asked Ms. Marmlestein. Wasn’t the answer to this perfectly obvious? “I think my…” I stopped. Did I want to leave the “step” out too? “I think that Ivanna would rather be in North Carolina. I don’t think she likes being sent back to New York by a judge.” 

   “Then you can feel some empathy for your sister?”

   “Yes!” I cried out and I added. “I’m sorry I blew it and talked politics with her.”

   “Are you still talking politics with your sister?”

   “We haven’t had time for that yet?”

   Ms. Marmlestein tried a different question: “Kore, how do you think you can help your sister adjust to being back in New York?”

   “Well, I can not gloat around her or rub her face in it, or remind her that she sold her spot with her father for a whole bunch of ECBAS points?”

   “How do you know about that?” asked Ms. Marmelstein.

   “I learned about those things in Realitee. I also know Ivanna. I suspect she got paid a lot of points for telling about RoAnn locking her in the apartment. At least I hope they paid her.”

   “You’re very shrewd.” Ms. Marmletein put her long, old lady fingers together like a church steeple.

   “Do you think Ivanna made a mistake?”

   “I think Ivanna made a lot of mistakes, but it’s not my life.”

   “I mean in Ithaca in court?”

   “I don’t know….I mean yes, but no one can do anything about it now. ECBAS is the way it is, and it’s her choice.”

   “Your sister needs to put her life together back here in New York. Is there any way you can help her do that?”

   “I all ready told you,” I replied. “Just shutting up is half the battle.”

   “What about the other half?”

   I shrugged. “I don’t have much sympathy for ECBAS twirps,” I spat, and then I thought of Kwaata. “I have a friend in Drama Club who dances at a very fancy studio up in Harlem. I’m not sure what it takes to dance there or take classes there.”

   “Probably an audition. Maybe a bribe.”

   I suddenly realized, I was grinning as if I had swallowed excrement and was now ready to laugh at the joke someone had played on me. It is wonderful NOT to feel powerless.

   And by the way Ms. Marmlestein is right. Ivanna is not my “step” sister any more. I am closer to her than I was to Kyril even back in Scranton. You don’t have to agree wtih somebody to sympathize with them or want to help them.

   Friday, I found Kwaata at lunch and got the details about the studio from her. “They only do auditions in the fall,” she told me. I felt my heart sink, but then I remembered all of Ivanna’s points. I didn’t say anything. “Well, maybe we can schedule one for my sister for next fall,” I said which came out all awkward, but explaining that Ivanna was a poor little rich girl was not going to fly here at Brooklyn Tech. I did not want my fellow students even metaphorically spitting at my sister with contempt.

   Friday night I came home to Ivanna teaching Nervy yoga moves. I got dinner readyand reminded everyone that Nervy and I had to go to Lincoln Square in the morning. “What about the trip to Fairway?” I asked.

   “Can’t we make it later?” I asked. “You’re the one who suggested we atetnd services.”

   “We need to practice our songs,” Nervy added.

   “You’re singing at a synagogue?” asked Ivanna.

   “Everybody sings in synagogue,” I replied.

   Then I gave Ivanna the card from the studio that I had coaxed from Kwaata at lunch. Ivanna turned it over in her hands. “You may have pull to arrange an audition there,” I explained.

   “I’ll think about it,” Ivanna told me.

   After supper, Nervy and I practiced hymns. Then Nervy went to sleep and I joined Ivanna and RoAnn in the study. Ivanna read her dance book. RoAnn worked at the computer. I read biology and took a practice Regents. My scores was better than last week, but still not where I wanted it.

   RoAnn rearranged the schedule. I had to take the subway uptown and walk Nervy to Fairway after services. RoAnn had brought the truck for shopping. She sat in the cafe and left us to our own devices. Nervy wanted canned asparagus. I got three cans. She had eaten it at Mom’s and was just remembering it. I also bought spinach for spinach salad with “ranch sauce,” another Nervy request. Apples were at the end of their season.  I bought four mangoes. Nervy loved mangoes and asked for them, but she asked me take out one apple to take with us to Columbia when we were loading the truck for the drive back.

   “Nothing in this house ever changes,” complained Ivanna as we rode back. RoAnn was not playing any CD’s. I noticed the silence and suddenly I felt a weird kind of fear.

   “Did you expect anything to change in two weeks?”

   “Well, you thought I was gone forever.”

   “You weren’t gone,” answered RoAnn. “We talked on the phone every night.”

   “Yeah…but you didn’t sound like you thought I was coming back. You threatened to give my room to Nervy.”

   “Do you think it was fair she should have to sleep in a corner while your room sat empty?”

   Ivanna did not reply. “I want to go to the Zante’s this afternoon,” Ivanna told us all.

   “Fine, I’ll escort you after lunch, and then the rest of us will study at Main Hall. We’ll come back and get you at what time?”

   “I don’t know.”

   “Fine, call and ask discretely if they are  inviting you for dinner?”

   RoAnn glanced at me. “I wish I could just get everyone sandwiches from Kapor’s.”

   “We just went grocery shopping,” I reminded my stepmother.

   “OK, I’ll get sandwiches for just Ivanna and me. You make sandwiches from what you got at the deli and whatever other stuff you eat wtih them. We’ll eat at eight o’clock if Ivanna is not going to eat at her friend’s.”

   For a few seconds, it felt like we were back in September and that the riots and ECBAS had never happened. Ivanna stayed at the Zante’s until well past ten pm. Then after our own dinner, RoAnn, Nervy, and I drove across town to get her in the truck. Again, there were no CD’s playing on the ride across Central Park. RoAnn did not ask what happened at the Zante’s and Ivanna did not tell, but then again, my sister’s social life should have been partly private.

   I did not ask about the CD’s until we were back in the apartment. “Ms. Marmlestein asked me not to play CD’s every time you kids were in the truck. She said we had to learn to talk like a family again.”

   “You’re serious about this,” I asid.

   “So are you,” answered RoAnn. “Ivanna is going to try to arrange some kind of audition at that high powered dance studio on Monday. She didn’t get to do much dancing in North Carolina.”

   “How come?”

   “My exhusband used her as a babysitter.”

   I had nothing to say. Nervy, meanwhile, had gotten out her crayons and was drawing instead of getting ready for bed. What she drew was an apple, an exact copy carefully approximating all the variations in tints. Nervy usually did not draw still lifes. “What’s with the picture?” I asked.

   “Ms. Marmlestein says I should draw new things instead of just abstracts. What you draw changes the way you think.” I did not answer. I wondered if Anthony DiFranco was going to keep his half of the counseling bargain. I wondered what would happen if he did. Then a part me very much wanted Ivanna’s father to act in good faith. Ivanna after all was my sister.

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