“Cash,” the driver said.
After all that, I finally had arrived in front of Aunt Theo’s building and I had just taken out Mom and Dad’s credit card, which they said to use only on special occasions or in emergencies. I figured that if this didn’t count as an emergency, what did?
“I thought you could pay with a card,” I said. I was certain that you could pay with a card. It was true that until tonight I’d never taken a taxi by myself, but I’d seen Clover pay for them with cards before and also I had checked to make sure that there was a credit card machine inside the car tonight before it started moving.
“Cash,” the driver repeated.
“But I thought—”
I don’t like to argue with grownups, or with anybody, really. But I didn’t have enough cash on me to pay for the ride. FYI, the cost of taking a taxi from West Harlem to the Village? Outrageous! I can’t even bear to tell you exactly how much it was.
“Cash, miss. The machine—it’s not working. Broken,” he enunciated.
I wasn’t sure, quite frankly, if he was telling the truth about the credit card machine not working or not, but even if he wasn’t, what could I do about it? It was his taxi and I was just the passenger.
“But I don’t have cash!” I exclaimed, and was embarrassed that my voice when I said this sounded on the brink of tears. All of a sudden I felt very young and very alone and very unprotected, and I think he knew it too. I wished that I hadn’t let on, but I couldn’t help it.
“You girls today, you never carry cash,” the driver was grumbling, and then I thought of something. It was so late, Clover must be at home. I could ask Oscar to buzz the apartment and she could come down and get me.
“I’ll get somebody to pay it,” I said.
“Who?” he said, sounding suspicious. Of me—and I’m only a fourteen-year-old girl!
“My chaperone,” I said importantly, and got out of the cab.
“Your what?” I heard him asking after me.
Thank God Oscar was there at the front desk, looking as suave as ever, though when he saw me coming in at this hour he did say, “Good evening, Miss Franny, and what are you doing out all by yourself at this hour?”
“Oscar, please buzz Clover. There’s a cab outside”—I pointed—“and the driver’s waiting for me to pay the fare and I don’t have enough cash on me and—”
“Now, now,” said Oscar smoothly, and buzzed Clover. It took a few buzzes to wake her up, but eventually she came downstairs, carrying cash, as instructed. She had on her crepe de chine robe and her cheeks were pink.
“Franny, dear!” Clover cradled me close to her; she smelled good, of lavender soap from her bath, I thought. “Where’s Valentine?”
“Oh, she’s—” I hesitated.
“Franny,” said Clover, suddenly chaperone-like.
I gave up protecting her.
“She’s with Julian.”
“Never mind that now,” said Clover, and went outside to pay the cab fare. After the wild evening I’d had, I felt safe and rested inside the lobby with Oscar. When we got upstairs, Clover boiled me a cup of hot milk—something Aunt Theo used to make her when she was a child, she said—and put me to bed, smoothing my hair and saying: “Don’t worry, Franny. It’s been a long evening for you. Just go to sleep and I’ll wait up for Valentine.” Sometimes you don’t want to be all glamorous, I realized. Sometimes you just want to be safe.
True to her word, Val stayed out all night. But then right around dawn she finally came home, waking me up. I rubbed the sleep from my eyes. Beautiful, creamy pale yellow August light was pouring through our curtains.
“Franny.”
“Clover is up. She’s been waiting for you to come home.”
“Oh, Clover! Clover, Clover, Clover. She’s on another floor, dummy.”
It was then that I noticed that Val was still fully dressed. I looked over at the alarm clock on my bedside table. It was nearly five in the morning. My sister’s long white dress was soiled with grass stains. But the grass stains were a soft green and almost beautiful, as if the dress had been gently touched with tie-dye.
I studied Valentine, standing there in the pale yellow light. I thought of a painting, of all the paintings at Aunt Theo’s, all the nudes, and how the painters always painted them against a single color, just like Val against the yellow. There was something different about her this morning …