Baby Be-Bop by Francesca Lia Block Read Free Book Online Page B

might have been the first one to touch her all those years.”
    “Then what happened?”
    “I gave birth to the most beautiful little girl! The most perfect little girl. She had tiny naturally turned-out feet and fluttering pink hands like wings and she dancedeverywhere. From the moment she came out of me she was dancing.”
    Dirk saw the phantom parlor again, although this time the walls were freshly painted white; the floral friezes along the ceiling were pale pink and blue. Lace curtains like bridal veils hung at the open windows. He thought he heard the piano music again.
    “I painted the inside of the house and kept the windows open all day,” Gazelle said. “I sewed large floral tapestry cloth pillows, pink, blue and gold, and stuffed them with dried lavender and rose petals. I re-covered the brown sofa in jade-green velvet. I made a chiffon canopy over the bed and lit long tapers so that through the draperies the house looked full of stars. I built fires in the fireplace that my aunt never used, and the house smelled of cedar smoke. I read poetry aloud—Shelley and Keats. ‘The silver lamp—the ravishment—the wonder. The darkness—loneliness—the fearful thunder,’ only it was a golden lamp and there was no more darkness.
    “My daughter, who loved to draw, made a picture of a lovely face and put it on the mannequin under a big hat covered with birds’ nests full of pale blue eggs.
    “ ‘Now you won’t be afraid of her anymore,’ she said, child-wise.
    “No longer prisoners, we went out into the city that had been forbidden to me for so long. We walked up anddown the hills until our legs ached, then rode the trolley car to feel rushes of salty, misty air. We had picnics and fed the swans on the lake under the flowering terra-cotta arches, drank tea and ate pastries in rooms with cupids and rosebuds painted on the walls, strolled through the park, green-dazzled, fragrance-drunk, gasped at treasures gleaming gold in the half-lit glass cases of the museum. Then we’d return with spices, fruits and vegetables from Chinatown, seafood and baguettes from the wharf.
    “The piano music began again—coming through the walls every evening—and I watched my child dance. It was almost as if I were dancing myself. She danced among the spools of thread, the ribbons and laces, the silk flowers.
    “After a while I took her for ballet lessons from Madame Joy. I brought her to the studio four times a week. She was the littlest in class but the very best; everyone thought so. I made her a garland of silk blossoms and some tiny pink net wings. She always played sprites or pixies in the dance recitals. I sat and watched her with such pride.
    “Sometimes, though, she wouldn’t stick to the choreography. She couldn’t help it, she’d just start doing her own dances. Madame Joy hated that.
    “ ‘What are you doing, idiot-child!’ she screamed.
    “She took her cane and hooked it around my baby’swaist; she hit it against her backside. I was mortified when I found bruises on her.
    “'I don’t want you going back there,’ I said. ‘You can dance at home.’
    “But I knew she missed performing. I sat and watched her for hours, shining a light on her, but it wasn’t the same.
    “One day when we were walking down the street she started to jump up and down, tugging my fingers and pointing. Two little boys in spangled blue costumes were taking turns balancing on each other’s shoulders in front of a crowd. She let go of my hand and before I could stop her she had jumped into the act, climbing up the tree of the boys to pose on top like a Christmas angel. They made her spin like a music box ballerina. The crowd cheered. I was so proud. After that Fifi joined the act.”
    “Fifi!” Dirk said.
    “Yes. Your grandmother.”
    “I didn’t know all this about her childhood,” Dirk said. “Or about you.” He was embarrassed that he hadn’t even heard Gazelle’s name before.
    “That’s because you never