Live Vicariously Through Me

By Brenda K Stone

Before there was sexy rock chick Em’rald there was homeless waif Emily Jane Darlington. Before there was devilishly handsome and brooding heavy metal guitar shredder Nikk Saffire there was battered kid Niko Saffros. And before there was glam hair metal quartet the New York Gems, Cartier rings, and megastardom there was loss, rejection, and the wild fantasies of two unwanted children.
Emily and Niko meet in a Bronx women’s shelter when they’re four and five years old. Sustained by the strength of their determined mothers, they endure growing up in a stolen car, murder, and drug addiction. Along their long, dark road Emily and Niko secure the skills that will eventually take them to the top of the rock and roll heap. When Emily is discovered in Central Park by a rich photographer who becomes their benefactor, the world as they know it is changed forever. But the heavy metal highway isn’t paved in gold, and even their longstanding love isn’t guaranteed in the decadent world of 80s rock.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brenda K Stone
• Release date: Jan 30, 2018
• ISBN: 9781370276981

Brenda K Stone

Brenda K. Stone is the pen name for Barb Lee, a native of Western Massachusetts who loves to write, travel the world, hike the world, and go to rock concerts. When not engaging in these particular adventures or the several other activities she enjoys that leave her no time for rest, you can find her “doing research” with her nose in a rock and roll biography and her black bunny Gert not far away, probably sleeping.

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Live Vicariously Through Me

Copyright © 2017 by JenAl RockLit Publishing

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever including Internet usage, without written permission of the author.

This is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, or events used in this book are the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people, alive or deceased, events or locales is completely coincidental.

Ebook formatting by Maureen Cutajar

www.gopublished.com

Print: ISBN-13: 978-1979446921 | ISBN-10: 197944692X

EBook ISBN: 978-1-5323-5927-9

CONTENTS

HOW YA LIKE ME NOW

I GOT YOU, BABE

DRIVE MY CAR

THOSE WERE THE DAYS

HIGH HOPES

WELCOME TO MY NIGHTMARE

I GET AROUND

WHILE YOU SEE A CHANCE

RIGHT BACK WHERE WE STARTED FROM

HOT CHILD IN THE CITY

HOLD YOUR HEAD UP

BABY, WHAT A BIG SURPRISE

COME AND GET YOUR LOVE

GIRLS ON FILM

LOVE HURTS

GOOD-BYE YELLOW BRICK ROAD

BACK IN THE NEW YORK GROOVE

RUNNIN’ WITH THE DEVIL

I BELIEVE IN MIRACLES

IT’S A LONG WAY TO THE TOP

THE NIGHT THE LIGHTS WENT OUT IN GEORGIA

WHERE DID OUR LOVE GO?

LONELY BOY

CAN’T STAND LOSING YOU

LOVE IS THE DRUG

ENDLESS HIGHWAY

CAN’T FIGHT FATE

ALL I WANT TO BE IS BY YOUR SIDE

SEE WHAT LOVE CAN DO

DEDICATION

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

CONTACT INFORMATION

ALSO BY BRENDA K. STONE

COMING SOON!

HOW YA LIKE ME NOW

If there’s one question I get asked all the time it’s, Em’rald, how did you get such an incredible life?

Then there’s the true burning inquiry that bolder fans will ask me and reporters always start off with: What made you marry Nikk Saffire when you had Sweet Sammy Gunn waiting for you at the altar?

The answers to these questions are so closely intertwined that they’re basically the same story. It’s a saga I’ve hidden for years, but is coming to light in small bits and pieces. Rather than let the untruths that come from interfering people digging into my past be the only thing out there, I’ve thought long and hard about my options, and have come to the conclusion it’s best to tell my own story—complete with all its un-pretty facts.

I live vicariously through you, young women say to me when they meet me backstage, after I’ve torn it up in front of twenty-five thousand sweat-soaked fanatics in the man’s world of heavy metal. I have to smile. Because sometimes I live vicariously through me, too. Those days when I just can’t quite shake the feeling of being Homeless Emily Jane Darlington, the girl I used to be, Em’rald, the Goddess of Heavy Metal, is just a mask I force on. She’s only real to me sometimes. But that’s what keeps me sane.

I’ve been to heaven, and I’ve lived through hell. I prefer it somewhere in between, because heaven doesn’t stick around, and there’s only so long you can be in hell before you have to force yourself to bounce back and clear out. True heaven only comes to me in the form of Niko Saffros, better known as Nikk Saffire, who knows everything I know, and has seen everything I’ve seen. Hell doesn’t come anymore because of Nikk Saffire. I guess the burning question has been answered that easily, for some. But there’s so much more to tell.

I may have skipped part of high school and all of college to be a fashion model, but I’m smart enough to know that my meteoric rise from living in a car in the South Bronx to becoming the female jewel of heavy metal has everything to do with the charm of wanting to be me. The world loves a good Cinderella story. Mine is one of the greats, especially if it didn’t happen to you. The verdict is still out on whether I’ll get my fairy tale ending, but the odds are looking pretty good from my vantage point.

If that’s what the world thrives on, that’s what the world can have. Give the people what they want. I offer up the Ballad of Emily Jane on a platinum record, one of the many we have hanging on the walls of our estate in upstate New York, far away from the South Bronx. At my urging, live how I’ve lived. Feel my joy, my pain, and everything in between. Experience what l’ve been through. Ascend into my heaven, and descend into my hell. Roll my rock and rock my roll. Survive this. Walk a mile in my spike-heeled emerald-spangled shoes, and never complain about blisters, because no one gives a shit.

Suck it up. Take a deep breath. And live vicariously through me.

I GOT YOU, BABE

From the moment I could make baby talk I called my mother Mumsy. She called me Darling most of the time, a play on her family name, Darlington. I was given her last name because even then it must have been pretty clear my father wasn’t going to be around, and Mumsy had a dream of moving to the south and living on a pretty farm with horses and cows and green rolling hills. She thought Darlington sounded a lot more southern than Burns, my father’s surname.

Doug Burns was the bastard’s name. An appropriate moniker, because every time I hear it my soul burns.

Mumsy and Niko would scold me for that. But the first and only memory I have of him is when he kicked us out of the shithole apartment we were all living in a few blocks from Yankee Stadium when I was five years old, when he’d had enough of family life.

I was supposed to be asleep. I wish I had been. There are days when I can still hear Mumsy pleading with him.

Honey, please don’t make us go. We’ll figure things out. What can I do to make things better for us?

Doug Burns was a maintenance man at Yankee Stadium, and told everyone who asked, and some who didn’t, that he worked for the boys in pinstripes as if he was the budding first baseman. What Mumsy wanted with him is still beyond my realm of thinking. But he was good-looking.

I don’t wanna work things out, and there’s nothin’ that’ll make things better for us. I told you from the beginning I didn’t want no wife and kid.

The conversation got more heated. Then things started flying and falling off the wall. Finally, Mumsy came into my room and turned on the small light by my bed. I was already smart enough to know how to look like I was pretending to sleep when I really wasn’t. I’d heard the same thing so many times. So much begging and pleading. So many doors slammed, and my father being gone for days while Mumsy tried to hold everything together with no money and little food. I was practiced at the art of deception, like in the Stones’ song. And believe me, I already knew that you can’t always get what you want, even at the tender age of five.

So many things touch me about Mumsy’s strength. The memory of her turning on the delicate pink bedside lamp, rather than the bare overhead bulb, speaks volumes to me even today about how much she loved me and cared about my comfort, even when our world was about to cave in. Her tender, warm smile sneaking through her own hurt, and the soft words intending to ease the pain of the truth are embedded in my thoughts.

It’s snowing outside. Want to go walking in the winter wonderland? Mumsy asked, as if it was perfectly natural to pull me out of bed at ten o’clock at night in the middle of December, a week and a half before Christmas.

Can’t we go tomorrow, Mumsy? I whispered.

It might not be snowing tomorrow, silly. Let’s go now. Mumsy turned gracefully, as if she was dancing with Fred Astaire, her secret love, (Shhhh…don’t tell Daddy! she’d say with a conspiratorial wink), and went to my closet while I rubbed my eyes with my fists and crawled out of bed.

Mumsy didn’t seem to be in a big hurry to go walking in the snow. She was surveying items of my clothing before she placed them in a soft bag that closed with a zipper. As a child I didn’t understand why she would be taking so much time, but now I can speculate about her behavior, and conclude she was hoping that if we hung around for long enough maybe Doug Burns would change his mind and let us stay. Just the opposite happened.

He kicked the door to my room from out in the living room and bellowed, Get out of my life, and take that kid with you!

Mumsy hesitated before she launched into action mode. She grabbed my coat and boots, and knelt down to pull them on me. They were the only ones I owned, and they were old and stained with dirt, ice cream, even some blood from when I had fallen off the slide at St. Mary’s Park and wounded my nose and palm.

Did I do something to make Daddy mad at us? I asked, starting to whine because I wanted to stay in my warm bed, even if Daddy was kicking doors.

Mumsy froze and grabbed my chin. I don’t ever want you to say that again, do you understand? You didn’t do anything to make your daddy mad at us. It was one of the few times Mumsy was really firm with me. Because she was usually so gentle, I didn’t forget times like that. But I also didn’t believe Daddy’s sour mood wasn’t somehow my fault, especially when we walked out into the living room and he set a mean-eyed gaze on me.

Get that kid and her plastic doll face out of my sight.

A plastic doll face? Is that what I had? I stared at my reflection in a long mirror with a scarred wooden frame that hung in the stark living room that Mumsy had tried to make look nice with fake flowers and homemade hooked rugs. Perhaps I did look like a plastic doll with my severe cheekbones and sharp, prominent chin. Mumsy had always said my face was like the perfect Valentine’s heart, but maybe it was Daddy who was right. I turned away from the girl in the mirror and wished I didn’t look like me.

She’s beautiful, everyone says so, and someday you’ll figure it out, Mumsy countered.

And Daddy slugged her. Let her have it, just like that. Mumsy spit out a string of blood as she choked out a scream. I squeezed her hand with both of mine and started to howl from seeing my mother bleed at the hands of a man that was supposed to love us, but obviously didn’t.

That was when I decided that Mumsy would find a man she deserved, someone kind and loving and caring, someone who would love me as his own daughter. One day in the future I would find the same kind of man.

Only one of those wishes would come to pass. I could have never dreamed big enough back then to believe that this person would come into my life within a few days of being homeless.

Mumsy and I became more than just mother and daughter that night. We became comrades. We became sisters in arms. We walked the mean streets of the South Bronx catching snowflakes on our tongues and marveling at the Christmas lights in the windows of the highrise projects. Street people shook cups of pennies at us, imagining that we were better off than they were. Gang members with baseball bats and brass knuckles turned to wonder about a woman and her child out after dark giggling in the war zone. I shiver now at the thought of what could have happened to us out there like that, yet I remember feeling safer than I had in the apartment.

Let’s make up our own song, Mumsy suggested. Then she sang, I got Darling, and Darling’s got Mumsy, and that’s all we need, and she had a sweet, pretty voice.

Mumsy liked to sing in the church choir when Doug Burns allowed her to enter the tiny place of worship across the street from our apartment. That wasn’t often, because he didn’t believe in God, and didn’t want Mumsy to either. From what she would later tell me, he didn’t want her to believe in anything that would make her smarter or better than him. But she fooled him anyway.

We added some gestures to our song, and decided who would sing what part. Her part was I got Darling and mine was and Darling’s got Mumsy then we both sang, and that’s all we need. We would stick our fingers in each other’s bellies and laugh like the Pillsbury Dough Boy as we sang. We were doing just that, huddled up in the protection of a doorway of a closed-up Greek bakery, when a police car pulled up at the curb and a big officer got out of the passenger side.

Ma’am, it’s not safe for you to be out here after dark, especially with a little one, he said, and he was very kind. I wondered how a perfect stranger could sound so concerned about us when the only father I’d ever known had tossed us out of the only home we’d ever had.

The officer shined the ray of a flashlight on us and he said, Aren’t you just the prettiest little thing.

Mumsy was right. A lot of people said that about me. Why did my daddy say something so different? Maybe the officer could be my daddy instead.

We don’t have anywhere to go. My husband made us leave tonight, and doesn’t want us to come back, Mumsy told the officer.

Was he drinking, ma’am? the officer asked, professional but caring, too.

Well, maybe. Mumsy shrugged.

I would see empty beer bottles in the sink sometimes, maybe a few on the coffee table. It wasn’t excessive, but you might say it was steady.

Is it something he’s going to be over tomorrow when he sobers up? came the officer’s next question. Then he took the light off me and onto Mumsy and saw the fat lip she was hiding, her mouth half covered by her jacket. Did he hit you, ma’am?

Yes. Mumsy’s answer went no further.

Do you want to press charges?

No. Once again, a one-word reply.

Where are you staying tonight?

Mumsy had run out of words and just shrugged. Reality was hitting. We had nowhere to go. And it was cold.

There’s a women’s shelter on 170th. We’ll drop you off and make sure you get a bed for the night.

Mumsy, I wanna go home, I whined, clinging to her. Or, I wanna stay here with you. I had visions of a big room full of unshaven men shaking cups full of pennies.

The officer took Mumsy’s elbow and helped her off the ground. Then he picked me up and carried me to the cruiser, which was toasty warm inside, but full of blinking lights that worried me. A lady cop was in the driver’s seat. I held tight to the big officer when he tried to put me in the rear of the car with Mumsy. My own father had never carried me in his arms. That short walk from the doorway of the bakery to the police car gave me a taste of something I would crave and cherish my whole life—the loving arms of a man around me, protecting me, saving me.

I had to let go. But the only way I would was with the guarantee that I would be transferred to the next set of protective arms: Mumsy’s.

I had Mumsy and Mumsy had Darling. And it’s a damn good thing we only needed each other. Because that’s all we had.

We were met at the door of the 170th Street shelter by a moon-faced lady with black hair pulled back from her shiny scrubbed face. Even at five years old I knew we had met a gem of a person. She was older, like a grandmother figure, something I’d never had, because Mumsy’s parents had died when she was young. And Daddy’s? Well, maybe the devil himself was his father, because I never remembered parents being mentioned. The woman’s name was Sadie, and we were to learn during the course of the morning that she was a retired schoolteacher that volunteered her whole life away to take care of the women and children that walked through the door of the shelter.

Come in, Rosalie, Sadie said to my mother, putting a soft arm around her shoulder, leading her toward a small room near the foyer that had a dim light burning in it. And what’s your name, little sweet one? Sadie asked what must have only been my shadow.

Emily Jane Darlington, I recited politely, the way Mumsy had taught me to do, but only if the asker was nice, and only, only, only if the asker was female.

Well that’s a pretty name and, oh my. We were in the room now and Sadie was seeing me for the first time under the light. She was staring. Rosalie, your daughter is…she’s… Sadie was grasping for words, so I thought I should help her.

Like a plastic doll? I asked.

Sadie looked at Mumsy then back at me. Like a living doll, she decided.

A living doll. Now maybe that was something that I could live with.

A small steel-framed cot was in the room. All of my beds are full tonight, but you can use this one for now, Sadie told Mumsy. First, we should take care of some business. Emily Jane can go to sleep.

Mumsy had brought a pair of pajamas for me with feet attached to the bottoms. They were fuzzy and warm, and the office was cozy from a space heater glowing from the corner. Still, I got goose bumps as Mumsy’s raw, shivering hands pulled the pajamas on me.

As tired as I was, I wasn’t able to sleep, and anyway, I wanted to listen to what the adults were saying. With my eyes closed, of course.

Through their conversation I heard that Sadie had once been a battered woman, but had put her life back together and gotten an education. Her two children were grown and successful. They had left the Bronx and made good lives for themselves. Sadie lived in the room we were in, and I was sleeping in her bed. She was dedicated to helping the women that came to the shelter to find their way in life. Though I didn’t understand all that she was revealing at the time, Mumsy would talk about Sadie for years, and I would come to grasp just how pivotal a role she played in our lives. After Mumsy, she was the next truly amazing woman I would know. And lose too soon.

But where will you sleep? Mumsy asked.

Don’t worry about me, Rosalie. I can sleep in this chair now. I’ve done it many times. Sadie tapped the arms of the rickety wooden chair that was bearing her significant weight.

I discovered some things about Mumsy in the course of that discussion too, like the fact that she and Daddy really weren’t married, which was why it was so easy to get rid of us. She also admitted to being an expert at hiding bruises and scars so no one would know to what extent she was a victim of domestic abuse. After these solemn confessions, the rest of the hour they spent speaking was to do things like fill out an information sheet and take inventory of the meager possessions we brought with us. Once that was done, Mumsy slipped silently into the small bed with me. I woke up a few times and saw Sadie resting almost comfortably in her chair.

I didn’t want to leave that room the next day. But we had to. Sadie discovered another new charge sleeping on the steps when she opened the front door to check the temperature.

Sadie showed us where we could clean up before breakfast, a room with four shower stalls and cheap plastic curtains for privacy.

Bring your belongings in the stall with you, Sadie warned, handing Mumsy a clear bag. That’s so you can keep things as dry as possible while you’re in there. Better a little wet than stolen.

A handful of other women were in the shower room, one with a girl who was a few years older than me whom I assumed was her daughter. They all eyed us and whispered amongst themselves, looking at our clothes that must have looked a lot better than the things they were wearing. Perhaps we looked like royalty in our somewhat new fashions, while they were clearly dressed in ill-fitting donated items. I saw a lot of ankles and bellies in that shelter due to pants that were too short and shirts that didn’t fit correctly.

We heard some muffled laughter after we went into the stall. Mumsy realized when we’d already gotten undressed that she had forgotten to get towels for us out of a cabinet outside the showers.

Sticking her head out from behind our curtain, she asked, Could we please have a few towels? I forgot—

Before she could even finish, two towels came flying over the top of the shower and down into the water, followed by more laughter from outside. Because they landed close to where I was standing I was able to pluck them out of the water before they got too wet. Mumsy looked crestfallen by the behavior of the women. I cared about that a lot more than not having a decent towel to dry off with.

I don’t like this place, Mumsy, I whispered, knowing even then that letting the women hear me talk in such a way would not be a good thing.

We won’t be here for long. I promise, she whispered back.

After a surprisingly refreshing cleansing, our next challenge was breakfast. For the first time, we saw most of the people we would be living with. Volunteers in new clothes and sparkling jewelry served us scrambled eggs, toast without enough butter, and shiny-skinned sausages. I’ve not been able to put a sausage or any food resembling one between my lips after eating them nearly everyday at the 170th Street Shelter. But then I didn’t have a choice. The equation was: eat what was presented to you, or starve. Not so different than either bringing your clothes into the shower stall with you and struggling to keep them dry, or having them stolen. The choices were pretty obvious if survival was your wish. There was never any question about the desire to survive with Mumsy and me, though we saw plenty of women at the shelter that were giving up.

I tried not to look at anyone while we were eating breakfast. As my feet swung off the picnic table bench that was rough and would sometimes warrant slivers, I knew people were staring at me. Most of the looks could be called glares. But clear on the other side of the room I caught the fascinated gaze of a boy close to my age. Even in the dim light of the windowless room I could see piercing blue eyes peeking out through a fringe of dark bangs that needed trimming. He didn’t turn his eyes away when I noticed him, but instead looked surprised that I would suddenly be looking back. It was me that turned away when he offered a friendly wave.

Mumsy, there’s a boy over there looking at me. Maybe he knows me from school. He didn’t look like anyone I knew, but the school I had attended for first grade was so large it was impossible to remember everyone.

Better not to make friends here, darling. It’ll be too hard to tell if someone really likes us or if they just want something we have, Mumsy said. And anyway, we have each other, right? She kissed the side of my head and put a protective arm around me as she ate with the other hand. Our bag was pressed between her feet under the table. That was the way things would be for too long.

I tried not to look at the boy again, but already he was like forbidden fruit. I couldn’t help but peek at him a few more times to see if he continued to take note of me. I wasn’t disappointed once.

After breakfast, Sadie showed Mumsy and me a bed in the big room that contained at least seventy-five of them. While it was clean and had large windows that the winter sun was pouring through, it was decidedly industrial with every bed basically looking the same. The room was drafty with its high ceilings and the bed linens didn’t look exceedingly warm. Surely body heat went a long way at the 170th Street shelter.

The woman in the bed next to us had a radio, a small wooden boxy thing with a tinny sound.

How nice to have some music on, Mumsy commented.

The woman had her nose buried in a thin romance novel with a bright, glossy cover depicting a scene the polar opposite of the one surrounding us. She lowered it, raked my mother up and down with her eyes, and spit, I’m not playing it for you. Then, she deliberately reached over and shut the radio off and went back to her reading.

Mumsy smiled at me and pulled a coloring book and crayons out of my bag. It was full of ladies with fancy clothes on for me to color how I pleased. She had also grabbed a new book of paper dolls she had bought for me before Daddy had kicked us out. I loved paper dolls, and could play with them for hours. One of my fascinations was celebrities and the clothes they wore, so the paper dolls were right up my alley. I had a giant box full of them at home. Mumsy and I even fashioned clothes for them, drew the tabs to keep them on, and cut them out. I wondered if I would ever see that box again, and guessed I wouldn’t. I’d have nightmares about my Daddy destroying it. The dreams were probably accurate.

Mumsy and I started to punch out the new paper dolls on our bed. We were making up names and stories of their lives while we did it. The woman with the radio kept shooting daggers at us. Finally, she spoke again.

How can I read with you over there talking about those damn pieces of paper like they’re real?

My eyes immediately lifted and searched out a place for us to work without disturbing her. On the other side of the room and several beds down, I discovered the boy from breakfast staring at me. He waved again and this time I snuck a wave back. Regardless of how long we were going to be here, I needed a friend. Maybe this boy would be the person to help me get through the limited days that Mumsy said we would be here.

Mumsy didn’t acknowledge the grouchy woman, but swept up the paper dolls and took my hand to lead me back into the dining area. On one side of the room a few women were reading newspapers and magazines from a cluttered bookcase that was about to collapse. Two other women were playing a board game from a table that had a few boxes of games on it. On a picnic table, we spread out my dolls and their clothes, and had fun without bothering anyone.

After we had been playing for an hour or more, who should walk into the room but the boy who couldn’t keep his eyes off me. He was with his mother, whom I noticed for the first time. She was an attractive woman with short, curly dark hair and a slim figure. I could see a definite resemblance between them. The boy’s mother sifted through the magazines on the shelf then sat down across from us.

Hello, I’m Delia, and this is my son, Niko, she said, the first friendly voice of a fellow prisoner.

Now that the boy was so close I couldn’t even lift my head to meet his eyes, but strained to see him through my own hair. He pressed his head against his mother’s shoulder and flashed one eye at us.

Niko. I’d never heard that name before.

Mumsy nodded with courtesy and shared our names with Delia.

I’m not having much luck finding someone to talk to here. Everyone is guarded, Delia said carefully.

It may be wise to be guarded, Mumsy said, nodding, with a small smile on her lips in Delia’s direction.

Delia nodded. I understand that. But it would still be nice to have someone to talk to. We’re all in the same situation. Maybe we could help each other. Delia pulled her squirming son close to her and said, Niko, say hello. But Niko just couldn’t muster it and hid his face.

He’s a handsome boy, Mumsy said.

And your girl is lovely, Delia said, which made me start my own squirming.

Mumsy and Delia continued to make small talk, and before long they were sharing their stories as to what brought us all to the shelter.

You were kicked out. Us just the opposite. My husband is obsessed with me, and I had to escape while he was out drinking with his friends. If he ever finds me… Delia lifted one of the sleeves on the drab gray sweatshirt she was wearing and showed Mumsy a series of cigarette burns, cuts and bruises. Mumsy’s eyes traveled over them. Then her hand went up to her swollen lip, which by some bit of luck was the only sign she had of Daddy hitting her. She had cleaned up well. Delia also lifted the bangs on Niko’s forehead to show a big bump that was yellow and blue, as if it was healing.

Not the child… Mumsy said.

Both of us. Delia lowered her eyes. I had to protect him.

Doug never wanted either of us, Mumsy admitted.

There must be real men out in the world somewhere. And I’m going to make certain I raise one, Delia mused with determination in her voice, kissing the top of Niko’s head.

Mumsy squeezed me even tighter. We’ll find some for ourselves one day if we’re really lucky.

Delia was so sad that Mumsy reached across the table to tap her hand. Delia just nodded.

We met them there over the next two days. Mumsy and Delia talked and talked, but not just about serious things. They also poured over magazines on the old bookshelf, like Good Housekeeping and Woman’s Day, and talked about cooking, favorite recipes, and other housewife concerns. I didn’t realize the irony of the conversations, but they certainly did.

It seems funny to be talking about things like this in a homeless shelter, Delia said, looking embarrassed.

We’re not always going to be here. And we have to keep the faith, Mumsy reminded her.

You’re a very positive person, Rosalie. I’m glad we met. Niko and I need someone like you in our lives. We’ve always been surrounded by so much negativity, and things certainly aren’t any different here. Delia peered around the dining area. Sometimes women would be sleeping at the picnic tables, or would stay in bed all day in the giant community bedroom.

We’re alive and we’re healthy, and we have dreams and goals. So we have more than most of the women here, and most of the people in the South Bronx. We have to make the most of what we’ve managed to hold onto, Mumsy recited stoically.

The two women continued to grow closer. I saw Mumsy begin to let down her guard with Delia, for there was never any reason to believe it wasn’t safe, and there never would be.

As for Niko and I, we had little success with breaking the silence and shyness between us. He may have even been a little jealous, because Delia started to make paper doll clothes with Mumsy and me. We even managed to find a box with cardboard separators in it, and fashioned a house for my dolls by cutting out pictures of splendid and sunshiny rooms in the women’s magazines that Mumsy and Delia devoured. I knew he felt left out, but I didn’t know how to include him. We seemed to be doing girl business. But he lit up when we built a garage and I let him park the old plastic hot rod that he pushed around the dining room in it. He cut some pictures out of Good Housekeeping, like one that depicted a happy family standing in front of a new Chevrolet, and also a couch for the garage. He even cut out a guitar and taped it to the couch.

Someday Mommy is going to buy me a guitar, he said with shining eyes. It was one of the first and only things he would say to me for days.

Soon a woman with a boy near his age came, and Niko was taken away from me temporarily. His mother was not invited into the friendly fold with Mumsy and Delia, for she soon proved herself untrustworthy by stealing food from the pantry. But Niko had someone to play with besides a boring blond girl. Nevertheless, I would still see him frequently watching me, almost as if he was making sure I was safe and happy. He had a protective way about him even then.

Mumsy and I continued to build a temporary life in the woman’s shelter, and everything was as calm as could be expected.

Then, my new little world caved in.

One morning after Mumsy and I had our shower, I reached under our bed for my paper doll house, which also held all my dolls and their clothes. I couldn’t feel it where I knew I had put it and started to panic. It was always in the same place.

Shh…it probably moved a little during the night. Let’s lift up the covers, Mumsy said in a soft voice.

She got down on her knees on the cold concrete floor and looked under the bed. I could tell by the look on her face that she wasn’t having any more luck than me. I started to cry. Niko was on his bed across the room, playing with a new toy pick-up truck Sadie had brought him from home and taking in everything that was happening. The radio was playing on the table between our bed and the one of the woman who owned it. The moment was very tense.

Would you shut that kid up? Whining over a bunch of stupid paper. Teach her some manners, will ya? the mean woman said.

Those paper dolls were here when we left for the shower room. You saw who took them. Mumsy’s voice was flat. Even though she didn’t get any in return, it was the first time she had spoken to the rude woman with anything other than respect. That’s how Mumsy was. Usually. But now she was mad.

The other kids are bound to get jealous the way you go on and on about those things, the woman shot back.

Niko tossed his pick-up truck aside and bolted out of the room like he was launched from a cannon.

I sobbed silently on the bed so the woman would not complain about the noise. A song I’d never heard came on the radio, Sonny and Cher’s I Got You, Babe.

In an effort to cheer me up, Mumsy sang to me and decided, I know what! This could be our new song. I giggled a little between my tears as she tickled me, tweaked my nose, and sang the sweet