"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.
2 The Makeover
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 th
is 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."