Today Will Be Different (6 page)

A parking space gaped across the street from the restaurant. What if this was my only karmic blessing of the day? I almost hated to waste it.

“This is going to be a grown-up lunch, you understand that,” I said, sticking the parking receipt on the inside of the window.

“Will it be inappropriate?” Timby asked, climbing out of the car hugging the gift basket.

“We’re going to talk about what we’re going to talk about, and you’ll have to sit there. To nip it in the bud, in terms of can-we-go-nows, the answer is no.”

“What if there’s an earthquake?”

“What did I say?”

“Can I listen to the radio on your phone?”

“No. But I do have those books on tape.”

“It’s all Laura Ingalls Wilder.”

“You’ve been ruined by
Literally Not Even,
” I said.

“What’s
Literally Not Even
?”

“That horrible show you’re always watching.”

“It’s called
I Know, Right?
”

“Then
I Know, Right?
has totally ruined you,” I said.

“God, Mom,” Timby said. “You’ve never even seen it.”

“Don’t listen to anything,” I said. “Just sit there.”

“Fine,” Timby said bitterly. “Laura Ingalls Wilder.”

While we waited to cross the street, a homeless guy passed by. White with dreads, a beard, and red everything: skin, eyes, peeling hands, tops of his bare feet. His face, his whole body, searched for something, anything.

“Come here.” I pulled Timby in.

“Is he mentally ill?”

“I just want to hold you close.” I gave Timby a squeeze. He relaxed in my embrace. “I’m wild about you, you know that, right?”

“I know.” He smiled up at me.

“You don’t have to be wild about me too. Just try to like me a little more than you do now.”

We entered Mamnoon with its ebony walls, industrial ceiling, fabulous bursts of geometric mosaic, and whimsical, but not too whimsical, chandeliers. I don’t care where you live, but here in Seattle, our restaurants are better than your restaurants.

“Hmmm,” I said. “Who are we looking for?”

“Spencer Martell,” Timby said.

“I know that,” I snapped.

Deep in the restaurant, a man stood and waved. Thirties, skinny, he wore a yellow gingham shirt, a brown belt, and black jeans.

“There he is,” I said, waving back. “I know him…”

“From where?” Timby asked.

Fifteen steps away, he looked familiar. Eight steps away, and I almost remembered… And there we were.

“Spencer!”

“Eleanor,” he said, with deep affection.

“You!”

Timby shot me a look:
Who is it?
I shot him one back:
Don’t ask me.

“Is this your son?” Spencer asked.

“You’ve met?” I said, not sure.

“We brought you a basket,” Timby said.

“If I’d known you were coming,” Spencer said to Timby, hands on bent knees, “I’d have brought you something too.”

Timby did the math quicker than Bobby Fischer and spotted a leather case on the table. He grabbed it and snapped it open.

On a bed of satin rested an orange Montblanc pen, the kind I used to use, the kind they stopped making forever ago.

“The rollerball,” Spencer said to me. “If I remember correctly.”

“I can’t believe you found one.” The weight of it, the unlikeliness of its clownish color, the double-click of the top coming off and on in my hand. “On eBay I can only find midnight blue—”

“And teal,” Spencer jumped in. “And forest green and yellow.”

“But orange,” I said. “This is precious cargo.”

“I want to see!” Timby grabbed the pen.

“How wonderful and unexpected.” I looked Spencer in the eye. “Thank you.”

“How do you know my mom?” Timby, my wingman.

Before he could open his mouth, Gah!

Spencer Martell!

From
Looper Wash
!

It had been over ten years since he’d shambled out of the office.

“I worked with your mom a long time ago.” The warmth in his voice belied the ugly memory that was reloading in my brain with alarming speed.

When Spencer walked into the bullpen that first day, he looked the part: Moleskine notebook, Blackwing pencils, vintage glasses. He dropped the names of the right artists: Robert Williams, Alex Grey, Tara McPherson, Adrian Tomine.

However…

He was so nervous and eager to ingratiate himself that his presence was excruciating. He’d arrive each Monday having scoured Brooklyn swap meets for items we animators might add to our various collections. I mentioned once that I liked caramel brownies and the next day he brought in a tray, homemade…

How could I have even hired him? Oh, that’s right! I didn’t hire him! We got him for free, through the network’s minority hiring program. Then it turned out he was just a quarter Mexican and that he’d gamed the system to get the job! Oh, and he couldn’t even draw! He kept badgering me with questions about every tiny gesture and expression.
I
wasn’t there to help
him
.
He
was there to help
me
. I needed people to shut up, churn out drawings, and stick to the model sheet.

Spencer quickly realized he was in over his head; his flop sweat made him radioactive. When his eight-week option was up, his spirit was so broken that he’d already packed his boxes. He sat in his empty office waiting to get fired. I gutlessly made someone else do it. But Spencer didn’t come out for an hour. The only sign he was alive was sobbing through the door. I went in. I gave him some career advice. It came out wrong.

I waved over the first person dressed in black. “We need to order.”

“We do?” Timby said.

I turned to Spencer. “And just so you know—”

“You don’t share,” he said. “I remember.”

“Can I get two things?” Timby asked.

“One.”

We ordered. And there we were, me, Timby and my quarter-Mexican, nattily attired Ghost of Christmas Past mooning at me from across the table. Someone had to say something.

“Spencer Martell!”

“I can’t believe you answered my e-mail,” he said. “I’d always assumed you’d rather forget me.”

“Of course not,” I said with an insouciant wave that knocked my water into the dipping oil.

Timby was starting to look concerned.

Spencer mopped up the water with his napkin and moved his phone to the dry side.

It gave me an idea.

“Timby,” I said. “Go wash your hands.”

“But—”

“Fish poop,” I said. “Or you’re not eating French fries, and they have the best French fries.”

Timby burned me with a stare and left.

“Spencer.” I leaned across the table. “If I dial a number from your cell phone, will you try to make a doctor’s appointment?”

“Uh—” The poor guy looked poleaxed.

I’d already grabbed his phone and dialed Joe’s office. “I don’t want them to know it’s me. Just ask when the next available appointment is.” I held Spencer’s phone to his ear.

I could hear Luz answer. I motioned wildly for Spencer to start talking.

“Yes—hello—” he stammered. “I’d like to make an appointment.”

Luz explained something on the other end.

“Ask when he’s coming back,” I whispered.

“When’s he coming back?” Spencer said weakly.

“Monday,” said Luz.

That’s all I needed to know. I snatched the phone from Spencer, hung it up, and placed it on the table.

He looked down at it, then up at me, uncertain if the last minute had actually happened.

“Dr. Wallace…” Spencer said. “Isn’t that your husband? Joe? Are you divorced?”

“Pshaw. We’re happily married.”

Timby slid back in beside a thoroughly charmed or slightly disgusted Spencer, it was hard to tell which.

I’m kidding! He was disgusted.

“Spencer,” I said. “Tell us about you.”

“Well, that’s a three-hour tour!” he said, reassuming his happy-to-be-here persona.

“The abridged version will do,” I said.

“When I left
Looper Wash
…”

I had to heave my breath up and out. “I was trying to be helpful.”

“What did you do?” Timby asked.

“It’s not important,” I said.

“The difficult people are our most valuable teachers,” Spencer said.

“What did she do to you?” Timby was dying.

“Don’t you have music to listen to?” I said.

“I’m good.”

Spencer pulled out a stylish messenger bag and opened it for Timby. “I have some picture books you can look at,” he said, placing a few on the bench between them.

Timby ignored the offer and raised his eyebrows as if to say,
You may proceed.

“When I got hired at
Looper Wash,
” Spencer said, “it was the happiest day of my life. I thought I’d arrived. I moved out of my parents’ apartment in Queens. I bought a Vespa. I spent all my money on gifts for the other animators.”

“Which I, for one, really appreciated. That signed Stephen Sondheim
Playbill
is still one of my most treasured possessions.” I held my hand to my face to block even a peripheral view of Timby.

“Then I got fired. The shame of it. There I was, living in the East Village in an apartment I couldn’t afford. I couldn’t face my parents. For the first time in my life I wasn’t sharing a bedroom with five brothers and sisters, and I could finally act on the fact that… I…” He looked at Timby, unsure. “Didn’t like girls.”

“He knows all about it.” I flipped my head toward Timby. “I let him watch the Tonys.”

“Oh. Well, the first guy I fell in love with was a drug addict, the hard stuff. Quicker than you might imagine, I ended up broke and with nowhere to live. But no matter how low I sank, I knew I was an artist. Despite what you said, I knew I was more than a careerist.”

I’d called him that. I was hoping he’d forgotten.

“What’s a careerist?” asked Timby.

“I had to look it up too,” Spencer said. “It’s someone who only thinks about getting ahead in his or her career.”

“That’s not bad,” Timby said, disappointed.

Spencer put his hand to his heart. “Even now, when I think back on
Looper Wash,
the pangs of humiliation can make me drop the glass in my hand. I was so naive, such an embarrassment to myself.”

“Not at all,” I said. “It just wasn’t the right fit.”

“You had nowhere to live,” Timby prompted helpfully.

“I’d lost all belief in myself,” Spencer said. “But something deep within kept me going. A feeling of hope. And that hope was a pulsing, radiant green.”

“Green hope!” I cried.

“It was the tip of a crocus breaking through in the winter. It was the shag carpet in the basement of a ranch house. It was the lace on my sister’s
quinceañera
dress. Stop me if you’ve already heard this.”

“Me?” I coughed, completely baffled as to how I could have.

“If I captured those greens,” Spencer said, “it would release the artist who’d been taken hostage by the careerist.” He unbuttoned his shirt cuffs, held together by silk French knots. He rolled up his sleeves and brandished his inner arms. On each, a tattoo from wrist to elbow: green paint-sample strips.

“Whoa,” said Timby.

“That’s quite a commitment,” I said, then noticed his watch: vintage Cartier.

“I refused to let my failure at
Looper Wash
define me,” Spencer said. “I spent my last dollar on a painting at a thrift shop just for the canvas, painted it green, and while the paint was still wet, cried onto it.”

“Oy,” I said.

“Mom! You’re mean.”

Spencer removed the napkin from his lap, folded it, and placed it on the table. He stood up and walked over to me. Were my arms shielding my face? Maybe. But instead of striking me, Spencer hugged me. It took breathing exercises from childbirth class to survive his bewildering, tuberose-scented act of compassion.

Timby, traumatized, gave me a look:
What’s he doing?

I gave him one back:
No idea.

Spencer returned to his seat. Timby handed him his napkin. There was no choice now but to respect the dude.

“You’re right,” Spencer said. “It was sentimental and muddled. But it was the first true thing I’d ever done. That painting is here in Seattle. I’d love to show it to you.”

“I want to see it!” Timby said.

“Read a book.”

“Listen to me!” Spencer smacked his forehead. “I promised I’d make it short. So I came out, became a junkie, got these tattoos, cleaned up, and, well, you know about the past twelve years.”

“I do?”

“Yale School of Art, group show at White Columns, Jack Wolgin Prize, Venice Biennale, blah-blah-blah.”

My eyes closed; my face scrunched; my head shook a thousand tiny times. “Huh?”

“I thought you knew about me,” Spencer said. To Timby: “Your mom—”

But Timby had become absorbed in one of Spencer’s books.

Spencer turned back to me. “That’s why I crave you, Eleanor. You have a way of frying my motherboard when I need it the most.”

“It’s not intentional!” I said. “I promise.”

“The contemporary art world is so insular. We think our sky-high prices make us the center of the universe when of course only about eight people are paying attention. And they’re just gallery owners and art consultants.” Spencer joined his hands and lowered his chest in a slight bow. “I honor you.”

“That’s you?” I said, still gaga. “Yale, Venice?”

“I’m having a solo show at the Seattle Art Museum,” he said. “They asked me to do some stuff at the sculpture park too. There are banners all over town. Of course I just presumed you saw my name flapping in the breeze everywhere you went. But here you are again, holding up the mirror.”

This toadying wannabe, this sweaty ass-kisser, this fraudulent quasi-minority, now he was
somebody?
Now he was the shit? He’d turned everything topsy-turvy and instead of rubbing my face in it, instead of serving revenge cold, he was nothing but hugs and two-hundred-dollar pens and pervy gratitude and—

“Mom?” It was Timby.

He held up what he’d been reading, from Spencer’s bag, a fancy magazine or catalog… It took me a second to even recognize it.