Peter Beagle - Tamsin

To the memory of Simon Beagle,

my father.

I can still hear you singing, Pop,

quietly, to yourself

shaving.

When I was really young, if there was one thing I wanted in the world, it was to be invisible. I used to sit in class and daydream about it, the way the other kids were daydreaming about being a movie star, being a big basketball player. The good part was, if I was invisible, Mister Catmy catMister Cat would always be able to see me, because invisible doesnt mean anything to a cat. As I know better than anyone, but that comes later.

I used to let Sally see me, tooSallys my motherin the daydream. Not all the time, not when I was mad at her, but mostly, because shed have worried. But I really liked it best when it was just me and Mister Cat drifting along, just going wherever we felt like going, and nobody able to tell if my butt was too fat or if my skin had turned to molten lava that morning. And if I got my period in P.E., which I always used to, or if I said something dumb in class, nobodyd even notice. I used to sit there and imagine how great it would be, not ever to be noticed.

Its different now. Im different. Im not that furious little girl daydreaming in class anymore. I dont live on West Eighty-third Street, just off Columbus, in New York CityI live at Stourhead Farm in Dorset, England, with my mother and my stepfather, and Im going to be nineteen in a couple of months. Thats how old my friend Tamsin was when she died, three hundred and thirteen years ago.

And Im writing this book, or whatever it turns out to be, about what happened to all of usTamsin Willoughby and Sally and me, and Evan and the boys, too, and the cats.

It happened six years ago, when Sally and I first got here, but it seems a lot longer, because in a way it happened to someone else. I dont really speak that persons language anymore, and when I think about her, she embarrasses me sometimes, but I dont want to forget her, I dont ever want to pretend she never existed. So before I start forgetting, I have to get down exactly who she was, and exactly how she felt about everything. She was me a lot longer than Ive been me so far.

We have the same name, Jennifer Gluckstein, but she hated that, too, and I dont mind it so much. Not the Glucksteinwhat she hated was the damn stupid, boring Jennifer. My father named me. He used to say that when he was a boy, nobody was called Jennifer except in a few books, and Jennifer Jones. Hed say, But I always thought it was a really beautiful name, and it actually means Guenevere, like in King Arthur, and why should you care if everybody in the world today is named Jennifer, when they arent named Courtney or Ashleigh or Brittany? His name is Nathan Gluckstein, but his stage name is Norris Groves, and everyone calls him that except Sally and me and his mother, my Grandma Paula. Hes an opera singer, a baritone. Not great, I always knew that, but pretty goodsemifamous if you know baritones, which most people dont. Hes always off working somewhere, and hes on a couple of albums, and he gives recitals, too. Hes sung at Carnegie a couple of times. With other people, but still.

Meena saysMeenas my best friend here in EnglandMeena says that if Im really going to write a book, then I have to start at the beginning, go straight through to the end, and not ramble all over everywhere, the way I usually do. But where does anything begin? How far back do you have to go? For all I know, maybe everything starts with me rescuing Mister Cat, when I was eight and he was just a kitten, from a bunch of boys who were going to throw him off the roof of our building to see if hed land on his feet. Maybe it really starts with Sally and Norris getting married, or meeting each other, or getting born. Or maybe I ought to go back three hundred years ago, back to Tamsin and Edric Davies and him.

Well, its my book, so lets say it all starts on the April afternoon when I came home from Gaynor Junior High and found Sally in the kitchen, which was strange right away, because it was a Tuesday. Sallys a vocal coach and piano teacherback in NewYork she worked with people who wanted to sing opera. A couple of her voice students were in the chorus at the Met, and I think there was one doing small parts with City Opera. Shes never had anyone famous, so she always had to teach piano, too, which she didnt like nearly as much. The singers mostly lived downtown, and she went to their homes on different days, but all the piano people came to our place, and they always came on Thursday, the whole gang, one after another; she scheduled it like that on purpose, to get it over with. But Tuesdays Sally never got home until six at the earliest, so it was a little weird seeing her sitting at the kitchen table with her shoes off and one foot up on the step stool. She was eating a carrot, and she looked about eleven years old.

We dont look anything alike, by the way. Shes tall, and shes got this absolutely devastating combination of dark hair and blue eyes, and I dont know if shes actually beautiful, but shes graceful, which I will never be in my life, thats just something I know. In the last couple of years my skins gotten some betterbecause of the English climate, Sally saysand Meenas taught me stuff to do with my hair, and Im actually developing something thats practically a shape. So theres hope for me yet, but thats not like being graceful. It doesnt bother me. I can live with it.

They fired you, I said. All of them, all at once. A detriment to their careers. Were going to be selling T-shirts in Columbus Circle.

Sally gave me that sideways look she never gave anyone else. She said, Jenny. Have you beenyou knowsmoking that stuff? She never would call boom or any drugs by their right names, it was always that stuff, and it used to drive me mad. I said, No, I havent, which happened to be true that afternoon. I said, I was making a joke, for Gods sake. I dont have to be booted to make jokes. Give me a break, all right?

On any other day, wed probably have gotten into a whole big fight over it, a dumb thing like that, and wound up with both of us hiding out in our rooms, too pissed and upset to eat dinner. We used to have a joke about the Gluckstein Dietstay on it for two months and lose twenty pounds and your family. But this time Sally just put her head on one side and smiled at me, and then suddenly her eyes got huge and filled up, and she said, Jenny, Jenny, Evans asked me to marry him.

Well, it wasnt as if I hadnt been practicing for it. I can still close my eyes and see myself, lying in bed every night that whole year, holding Mister Cat and visualizing how shed be when she told me, and how shed expect me to be. Sometimes Id see myself being so sweet and so happy for her, Id never have gotten through it without puking; other times I thought Id probably cry a little, and hug her, and ask if I could still call Norris Daddy, which I havent called him since I was three. And on the bad nights Id plan to say something like, well, thats cool, only it doesnt matter to me one way or the other, because Im off to Los Angeles to be a homeless person. Or a movie director, or a really famous call girl. I varied that one a lot.

But when it actually happened, I just looked at her and said, Oh. I didnt even say it, exactly, it just came outit wasnt a word, it wasnt anything, but it was what came out, after all that imagining. Oh. The story of my life.

Sally was actually shaking. I could tell, because the table had one leg shorter than the others, and it was sort of buzzing against the floor as she sat there. She said, I told him Id have to check it out with you. I could barely hear her.