Object of Desire (45 page)

“I would
love
to do that,” I told Penelope Sue. “I can come by and take the photos and then see what I can do with them digitally.”

“Perfect. I'd like you to come next Wednesday afternoon. At three.”

I wasn't about to haggle over the time. “Certainly,” I said.

“Good. We'll see you then.”

“Since this is a commission, I'll have to come up with a fee….”

She made a sound of impatience. I was certain she was rolling her eyes. “I don't care what the fee is. Just give me an invoice when it's done, and I'll pay you.”

“Okay,” I said.

“See you Wednesday.”

“Yes, Wednesday.”

She hung up without saying good-bye.

I slid open the door and let out a whoop. “Guess who that was, Frank! Penelope Sue! She doesn't want to buy any of my work. She wants to commission
a whole series
! We are
in,
Frank! Everyone will want to commission me now. This is going to be the most money I've ever made!”

I dropped my suitcase onto the floor and headed into the kitchen, pulling open the refrigerator to pour myself a tall glass of lemonade. It was a hot day, and I'd worked up a sweat helping Kelly haul down that mattress.

“So wait until I tell you about my visit to the old homestead,” I said, wiping my mouth after my first swig of lemonade. “What a trip it was. It was eye-opening, Frank. I feel like I've been sleepwalking these last couple of months. Everything now seems so clear.”

I looked over at Frank in the living room. He was still in his chair, his head back. He hadn't changed position or said a word about any of my news.

“Frank?”

I set down the lemonade and headed out of the kitchen.

“Frank, are you asleep?”

His eyes were closed; his mouth was slightly open. His phone was in his lap. One arm hung limply over the side of the chair.

“Frank!”

Suddenly I knew. My hand flew out to touch his forehead. It was cold.

“No!” I screamed.

He didn't appear to be breathing.

I gripped his hand, tried to feel for a pulse, but my own hands were shaking so much, it was impossible.

“Frank!” I shouted, shaking him. “Frank! For God's sake, answer me!”

I turned and bolted back into the kitchen, frantically looking for my phone. It was nowhere to be seen. I had just spoken with Penelope. Where the fuck was it? I was just about to run back and grab Frank's phone off his lap when I whipped open the refrigerator door and saw my phone inside, next to the jug of lemonade. A crazy thought at a crazy time:
I'm getting forgetful. I'm getting old.
I grabbed the phone and pressed 911.

“Please!” I shouted at the operator. “You've got to get here! My partner—my husband—he's not responding! I think maybe he's had a heart attack!”

I gave the address. The operator assured me help was on the way. In the meantime, she asked me if I knew CPR. “No,” I said pitifully.

“Tell me what his condition is now, sir,” the operator was saying.

I hurried back into the living room to stand over him. “He's just lying there,” I said, looking down at him. “He won't open his eyes.”

What she said next I couldn't hear. Suddenly Frank's face filled up every corner of my consciousness. I had called him last night. And he hadn't answered. And he hadn't called me back.
Had he been like this all the time?
Had my phone rung in his lap as he lay there, unable to answer? Had he been in this condition all night, and all morning? Had he taken his last breath as I'd hurried one last time to see Kelly? Or had it been earlier, when I'd faced Chipper Paguni in his driveway?

“No, please God, no!”

I fell to my knees, holding Frank's hand to my mouth. My phone went sliding across the black-and-white tiled floor. Any advice the 911 operator might be trying to give me was worthless now. I just pressed my face to Frank's hand, calling to him.

“You have always been first, Frank! Always!” I was sobbing. “How could I ever have thought anything else?”

A cavalcade of memories tumbled out of my brain. A hike down a steep cliff at Big Sur. Holding Frank's hand in the clinic as we awaited our results. The reflection of the setting sun in his eyes as he slipped a titanium band onto my finger on a beach in Vancouver. A run with Pixie along the sand. Getting into his old Duster that dark night on Mulholland Drive. The crowd applauding as he walked up to accept a plaque as Teacher of the Year. The look on his face when I'd presented him with the print of his “green daisy.” The way he had called me, plainly and simply, an artist. And the words he had said not so long ago, when he'd told me that when he looked at the mountains, he, too, saw Becky.

“No one,” I whimpered, kissing his hand, “no one but you, Frank. No one ever but you.”

Too late. It was all too late. My sleep walking had gone on too long. This was my punishment. But of course. Why should I have thought that it would all end happily for me?

This was only right. This was what I deserved.

But then…

His pinkie moved.

Or had I imagined it?

Maybe I had moved it myself…

No.

It moved again.

“Frank!” I screamed, standing up just as the paramedics were at the door. I ran to let them in. “He's alive! You've got to save him!”

I retreated into a corner, my hands at my mouth, as they began their work on him.

“You've got to save him!” I cried again. “You've got to! Please! He's my entire life! Don't let him die!”

I
t was my thirteenth birthday, the day before starting eighth grade, and my last year at St. John's. Already I was freaking myself out about what I might face this time next year as I headed off to high school, but Mom just smiled and told me to stop worrying. “You have a whole
year
to get ready for that, Danny,” she said. “Just enjoy this last year at St. John's. Just be a kid. After that, you grow up so fast.”

We were in the backyard. Dad was barbecuing some hamburgers and hot dogs, and Nana and Aunt Patsy were husking corn on the cob. Between two trees dangled a string of cardboard letters that spelled out
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
, which later Mom planned to move inside for the party tonight with my friends Katie and Desmond and Joanne and the Theresas. On the picnic table she'd placed my birthday cake—my favorite, of course, yellow Duncan Hines with chocolate frosting—and she was busy spelling out my name across the top with M&M's. Becky stood off to the side, near the rusted old swing set, doing her best to ignore all of us. She was painting at her easel, intent on capturing some scene or another. We knew better than to interrupt Becky when she was painting.

“Danny off the pickle boat,” Nana chirped. “Tomorrow you're coming to my house, and I'm making you my homemade macaroni and cheese.”

“I love your mac and cheese,” I told her.

“Well, today you've got to settle for burgers and dogs,” Dad said, flipping them onto a platter. “Dig in.”

“I've made
two
cakes,” Mom told me. “One for the family and one for your friends for later.”

“Thanks, Mom!”

“Becky!” she called. “Come have a hot dog and a piece of Danny's birthday cake.”

Even from across the yard, I could see my sister heave a sigh of annoyance. She didn't reply, just went on painting.

Mom made a face. “She's angry because I didn't allow that Paguni boy from across the street to join us.”

“Aren't they dating?” Aunt Patsy asked.

Mom shrugged. “I suppose. But she's far too young to be getting serious with anyone.”

Dad was lining up the corn on the grill now. “Peggy, would you bring out the butter?”

Nana hopped to her feet. “I'll get it! You eat, Peggy.” She hurried off into the house.

I settled down at the picnic table and took a bite of my burger. I loved the way Dad grilled them, really burned and crispy. Mom sat opposite me. Aunt Patsy stayed where she was, since it was hard for her to get up and down after the operation. But at least she was better now. The doctors said she was cancer free.

Nana came back out of the house. “What did I go inside for?”

“The
butter,
Ma,” Dad said. “That's okay. Go sit down. I'll get it.”

Aunt Patsy looked sadly over at Mom. “She's been getting so forgetful,” she whispered.

Nana came and sat down next to me, giving me a big, wet kiss on the cheek.

“Becky!” Mom shouted over her shoulder. “Come eat! It's your brother's birthday, for crying out loud!”

“I am in the middle of
painting!
” Becky shouted back in a voice that imparted her conviction that we could never possibly understand what she went through as an artist. The muse, she had told me once, didn't always sing at opportune times. Certainly, a hot dog or a hamburger was not going to distract her from her art.

Dad came out with the butter and slobbered it over the grilled corn. I loved grilled corn. It tasted like popcorn, only better. Sweeter. Moister. Soon my lips and cheeks and chin were covered with butter and salt and kernels. Mom laughed, reaching across the picnic table with a paper napkin.

“Oh, Danny,” she said. “You do enjoy yourself, don't you?”

They were clearing away the plates when Becky finally wandered over and sat down beside me.

“Maybe there's nothing left now, Miss Georgia O'Keeffe,” Mom said to her.

“I see
plenty
of food left,” Becky replied in that superior teenage-girl voice of hers. She tossed her long brown hair back over her shoulder with a sigh as Mom fixed her a plate. She looked at me. “Gross,” she said. She meant my butter-covered face. Mom hadn't gotten it all.

“How are you
not
supposed to make a mess eating corn on the cob?” I asked.

“Normal people seem to manage fine,” she said, sitting down next to me.

Mom set Becky's plate in front of her. With a plastic knife, my sister began cutting her corn away from the cob.

“That's no fun!” I declared. “It doesn't taste as good that way!”

“Of course, it tastes as good,” Becky said, shoveling some into her mouth.

Nana and Mom were walking around, picking up dirty paper plates and cups. Aunt Patsy struggled to her feet and began placing the candles in my birthday cake.

“Do we have to
sing?
” Becky asked, rolling her eyes.

“Yes, of course, we have to sing,” Mom told her. “It is your brother's birthday! We sing on birthdays, Miss Smarty-pants!”

Becky just sighed.

Dad lit the candles with his lighter. There were thirteen of them, stuck in between the M&M's that spelled out my name. As everyone—minus Becky—launched into a heartfelt chorus of “Happy Birthday,” I couldn't quite believe I was now a teenager. Thirteen felt so old, so mature.

“And many morrrrrrre,” Nana trilled at the end.

Mom was kissing my cheek hard, with a lot of exaggerated noise. “Happy birthday, honey!” she cooed.

“Happy birthday, Danny,” Aunt Patsy said, smiling over at me.

“Happy birthday, son,” Dad said, dropping a hand onto my shoulder.

I turned to look at Becky.

“Happy birthday,” she said, without a lot of enthusiasm.

Mom passed a piece of cake to each of us. The adults ate theirs standing up, except for Aunt Patsy, who sat in her own folding chair. Becky and I were alone at the picnic table.

“So now that you're a teenager,” my sister said in between forkfuls of cake, “you should start thinking about what you want to do with your life.”

“What do you mean, with my life?”

“You know. Like what are you going to be?”

I was puzzled. “You mean like when I grow up?”

“Exactly, Professor.”

I hadn't really thought about it. When I was a little kid, I'd liked the dogs and cats in the neighborhood, and I'd said I wanted to be a veterinarian. Then, for a while, like in second grade, I'd thought being a fireman might be cool. But Mom had me promise not to be a fireman, because, she said, she'd worry too much about me. For a while I'd thought about being an astronaut, but I thought that was just Desmond talking; I'd never really been all that keen about getting stuck inside a space capsule and shot out into orbit. After that, nothing else had ever come to me.

“You'll be in high school next year,” Becky said, “and by the time you're a sophomore, which is what I am now, you should really make a decision.”

“How come?”

“Because that's when you start thinking about colleges.”

“Are you going away to college?” I asked her.

“Of course, I am. Do you think I want to stay in East Hartford all my life?”

“Why not?”

She made a face. “You are so pathetic, Danny. You really want to live in this crummy town for the rest of your life?”

“I like this town,” I said.

She scrunched up her face even more.

“I guess I'll be a business guy or something,” I told her. “Maybe a real estate agent like Dad. I'll build a big house in that cornfield behind us, and I'll put in an inground pool so you and Mom and Dad and Katie and all my friends can come over and use it.”

Becky laughed. “
That's
your dream?
That's
what you want to be? How pathetic. You think I'll still be around to come in your pool? Well, think again, Danny.”

“Why? Where are you going?”

“I don't know yet. But I'm going somewhere.” She leaned in close to me. “I'm going to be an artist. And being an artist means you have to be willing to do things differently than everybody else. Chipper understands that.”

“Is he going to be an artist, too?”

“No. Well, maybe. If he can get away from his father, who only wants him to play football.” Becky shuddered; then she smiled, exhibiting a row of perfectly white teeth unmarred by any butter or corn kernels. “You watch. Whatever Chipper does, he's going to be
very
successful. We'll live in a big penthouse somewhere, like in Manhattan or Boston.”

“Cool,” I said.

Nana was behind us, collecting our empty plates.

“Beckadee, Beckadoo,” she said in her singsongy voice.

“You know what, Nana?” Becky asked. “Danny says he wants to build a house in that cornfield over there so he can live next to Mom and Dad all his life.”

“That's a nice thought,” Nana said.

Becky laughed. “I think it's foolish.”

Nana smiled as her hand patted my head. “The man who is a fool none of the time is a fool all of the time,” she said, one of her sayings.

I, of course, had no idea what she meant.

Later, I wandered off into the cornfield. Most of the stalks were broken now, their fruit harvested, their leaves turning brown. I could envision a very nice house rising up from this field, a house where I could live, where I could be an adult. I'd have a room just for my comic books, arranged and catalogued on shelves, and another that housed a giant television and pillows strewn all over the floor. I imagined the house and the pool and the parties I'd have, with Mom and Dad and Nana and Aunt Patsy and all my friends being there. Maybe I'd even have a son by then. Imagining my future like that made all those worries about high school seem very far away, indeed. I didn't need to be afraid, I told myself.

Everything was going to turn out just fine.