Nobody's Family is Going to Change (15 page)

“I don't know, dear,” said Mrs. Sheridan.

“Oh, Mama, think of it!” Willie's eyes shone.

“Is this summer stock, the one Dipsey was talking about?”

“No, Mama! This is another one that Dipsey's in. He says he'll take care of me. This one's on Broadway!”

“Broadway?” Mrs. Sheridan looked excited. “You mean that you got a part in a musical on Broadway?”

“Yeah!” Willie did a somersault on his bed. He jumped up and started dancing. “This what I do, Mama, look here!” He danced for her while she watched, her eyes softening.

“Stop that! I'll cut your feet off!” yelled Emma from the other room.

Willie did every step for her, with lots of “And then Dipsey does this,” and “Then the music goes like this, so I do this,” until he finished the whole thing.

“Why, Willie, I think that's wonderful!” Mrs. Sheridan had her hands clasped together.

She looks as happy as I feel, thought Willie.

“You know, son, your grandfather always wanted to be in a musical, but he never was. I bet if he's looking down from heaven now, he's doing a soft shoe—” Mrs. Sheridan seemed to catch herself. “I don't know what's going to happen. I don't know what your father will say.”

“Dipsey said he'll take care of me, Mama, and he said I should tell you that.”

“Yes, I'm sure he will. If only there were some way—is this going to interfere with school?”

“Naw, 'cause the man, the director, Mr. Green, he says school's almost out, and that if I have to come to rehearsals, that they can make some arrangements or something like that. Dipsey asked him.”

“If your father didn't have to know until—”

“Yeah, Mama, don't tell him!”

“I don't know, son. That's not right, you know. But it seems, oh, it seems such an opportunity. I think that even he, if he knew that it was Broadway—”

“Mama, please, please, Mama, please don't tell him, please.”

“I'll have to think about this, dear, I really will. This is very serious. I want to do the right thing.” Mrs. Sheridan was clearly rattled. “I'll have to talk to Dipsey in the morning and get the details.”

“Please, Mama,” said Willie, looking small.

“I'll see, dear,” said Mrs. Sheridan with a worried look on her face. She opened the door and started out. “Wash your hands and face for dinner, dear.” She closed the door.

“Yes'm.” Willie flung himself on the bed. Oh, boy, how I hate it when they say “I'll see,” he thought, then let his mind go back to that dark theater, to that big stage, to the first moment that Dipsey saw it was him, Willie, dancing next to him.

Willie was grinning so much at dinner he could hardly eat. Emma kept giving him her district-attorney look.

Mrs. Sheridan was nervous as a cat. She spilled water twice and, in an effort to look neither at Willie nor at Mr. Sheridan, stared relentlessly at Emma.

“You have a good day, Willie?” asked Mr. Sheridan jovially.

“I sure did!” crowed Willie. His eyes sparkled. For once, he began to eat what was in front of him without bothering to push it around.

“You play catch with the guys after school?” asked Mr. Sheridan. Mrs. Sheridan knocked over the saltcellar.

Emma wondered anew what image her father had of his son. Willie had never been known to play ball with anyone. Willie didn't even have any friends to play ball with.

“Not exactly,” said Willie, grinning again at his mother.

Mr. Sheridan looked to Mrs. Sheridan for an explanation. Mrs. Sheridan said, “Martha, I think you should pass the peas again.”

“What peas?” asked Martha. “You wanted peas tonight? All I made was beans.”

“I meant the beans,” said Mrs. Sheridan. “How silly of me! Isn't it funny how you say one thing and mean another?”

Everyone was looking at her. “I knew perfectly well those were beans and I said peas.” She smiled helplessly.

“Happens to everybody,” said Mr. Sheridan magnanimously. “Just yesterday, I was in court and I got up to ask the judge for a continuance and I asked for a contempt of court!”

Emma started shaking silently, so hard that the table shook.

Her father smiled at her. “You know what that means?”

Emma nodded, still laughing.

“The judge—it was old Judge Barlow and he's got a pretty good sense of humor—he says, quick as you please, ‘If you really want me to cite you for contempt, Counselor, I'll be only too happy.'”

Mr. Sheridan was shaking now too, and Emma noticed that no noise came out of him either when he laughed. “I had barely heard myself, but when he said that, I heard what I had said and you should have seen me stumbling around getting myself out of that one.” He shook even harder.

Mrs. Sheridan was laughing too. Willie was smiling. Emma considered Willie. What was he so happy about? He could only be happy about one thing, because only one thing made him happy. Something must have happened with the dance lessons or with Dipsey. What would that have to do with that long, black car? This was driving her crazy. She'd get him, after dinner, and twist his arm off until he told her.

“Willie and I are going off after dinner for a little while,” said Mrs. Sheridan, looking her husband dead in the eye. “It's a new idea I have of each of us spending a little time alone with the kids. I thought I'd take Willie to see a movie, and you and Emma can do something together. Isn't that nice?” Her voice rose shrilly.

Mr. Sheridan looked as though he'd been asked to a cocktail party at the morgue.

“Sure,” he said weakly. “I have a little work I brought home, but after that.” He gave his wife a steely glare.

“Maybe Emma could help you. She's very good at—” Mrs. Sheridan seemed terrified to continue, because Mr.
Sheridan had her eyes in a vise, daring her to say more. “. . . helping,” she finished lamely.

“I think I can manage without her,” said Mr. Sheridan.

“I have homework,” said Emma shortly, wondering that she felt she had to get her father off the hook. She imagined herself picking up the phone and calling Cathy, saying “Emergency” quickly into the receiver and hanging up, rushing to the warehouse, getting a committee together, and coming back to confront her father, because for once he would be alone in the house.

“What movie are you going to?” asked Mr. Sheridan.

“Uh, we haven't picked one yet,” said Mrs. Sheridan. “Willie, get the paper and we'll see what's playing.”

Willie jumped off his chair with alacrity. Mr. Sheridan continued to stare at Mrs. Sheridan. She refused to look at him and busied herself with her plate, which wasn't easy, as there was nothing on it.

Probably, thought Emma, no one would show up but Ketchum. If my father gets one look at Ketchum, he will bust his sides laughing.

“There's an old Fred Astaire movie on the West Side!” said Willie, coming back with the paper folded to the movie section.

“Typical,” said Emma, in spite of herself.

“Isn't there anything else?” asked Mr. Sheridan. “Perhaps,” he said with false cheeriness, “you could make it another night.”

He hopes that night never comes, thought Emma. He
hopes he's never stuck here in the house with me. Well, he'll never see me. I'll go to my room and he'll never know I'm here.

“Look at the ones on Eighty-sixth, dear.” Mrs. Sheridan took the paper from Willie. “I don't want to go all the way to the West Side.”

“I'm not sure about this, anyway. It'll be awfully late when you come home. Eighty-sixth is no place to be late at night without a man.” Mr. Sheridan heaved his shoulders forward.

Even with a man. Emma thought of all the murders on Eighty-sixth they'd read about. What good would a man do? Unless he had a gun. Did her father have a gun?

“Do you have a gun?” she asked.

“Of course not.” Mr. Sheridan seemed furious. “I don't believe in guns. That's one reason this country is in the terrible shape it's in, too damned many guns.” He seemed about to explode with anger.

“Just asking,” said Emma. What a terrific family, she thought. Here's the mother, all gaga to take one kid to the movies, not even asking the other kid if she might like to go. Here's the father, furious that he has to stay at home and might have to talk to his daughter five seconds. Just great. We could go on television. Instead of the Loud Family, we could be the Quiet Family, with nobody talking to anybody from one year to the next. How many families are like this?

She got up from the table, folded her napkin, and said, “So much for the American Family.” She clumped out of the room.

“What's the matter, Piggy?” Willie called after her.

“Don't call your sister that.” Emma, stopped in the hall, her hands balled into fists, heard Mrs. Sheridan's mild comment. Just wait, Emma said to herself. Just you wait until I get my hands on you, you little bugger. You'll never dance again as long as you live, because you won't have anything to dance
with!

When Mrs. Sheridan and Willie were in the elevator going down, Mrs. Sheridan said, “We're going to see Dipsey.”

“Oh, no, Mama, we can't. He's working tonight. I heard the director tell him. He has to be back at the theater tonight. He has to rehearse from eight to ten!”

“Perfect. We'll see him before that.” Mrs. Sheridan pulled on her gloves. “You must understand, Willie, I cannot go around lying to your father like this. It'll be just one lie piled on top of another, and I can't do that. I am not a liar.”

The door opened. Willie danced along next to her as she walked out of the lobby. The doorman hailed a cab and they got into it.

Mrs. Sheridan gave Dipsey's address, then turned to Willie to explain. “I called Dipsey before dinner. He said he had a rehearsal but that he'd wait for us at the apartment. This won't take long, what I have to tell him.”

“What do you have to tell him?” Willie was frantic. “Are you going to tell him that I can't do it?”

“Not necessarily. I'm going to tell him that he is going to have to speak to your father.” Mrs. Sheridan was beating her hand against the seat in a mindless, agitated way as she looked out the window.

“But, Mom! Why don't
you
talk to Dad? Dad will do anything you want, and he won't listen to Dipsey. He'll just yell a lot.”

“Your father will not ‘yell.' Now I don't want to hear any more about this.”

Willie sat in silence. His heart hurt. He felt as though his body were made of lead. He slumped down in the seat and stared at the seat ahead of him. There was an advertisement for a musical. His chest felt as though something hateful were sitting on it.

They pulled up in front of the apartment house. Mrs. Sheridan said nothing as they went in, rode in the elevator, and went toward Dipsey's door. At the door she said, “Willie, I want you to let me do the talking. We all know how you feel about this.” She rang the bell.

“Hi, Ginny.” Dipsey gave his sister a nervous smile. “Ho, Willie. Come in. What's up?”

“As if you didn't know,” said Mrs. Sheridan.

Dipsey closed the door behind them. “Wait a minute, Sis. Did Willie tell you that I didn't take him to that audition? It wasn't me that led him by the hand and up on that stage!”

Mrs. Sheridan sat down and kept looking at Dipsey as if she could chop his head off.

“Tell her, Willie!”

“I went myself, Mom. I went myself up on the stage and started doing it.”

“He just started right in. I didn't even know he was in the theater. You can't blame me for what he does, now can you?”

“I'm not blaming anybody. Dipsey, don't you understand? This is a child. His father doesn't want him to dance, and now he's got a job in a show. What is his father going to think?”

“Did you tell him?”

“No. I haven't told him, but somebody's got to tell him, and frankly, since you're in this with Willie—I know, I know, you didn't take him there—you're still in it, because you've encouraged him and he followed you to the theater and he did an audition with you. Not me, Dipsey,
you.
For all those reasons, I think you should tell him.”