Painting Naked (Macmillan New Writing) (10 page)

I lean over and hug her. “I didn’t know you cared.”

“Neither did I,” Lizzie says, “till I thought he was gone forever.”

“So, where was he?”

My cat, looking surprisingly well fed, slinks out of the kitchen. “Somehow,” Lizzie says, fanning herself with a napkin, “I don’t think he’s going to tell us.”

“Poor Zachary. He doesn’t know it yet, but if I ever go away again, I’m going to leave him in a kennel.” I smile at Lizzie. “I’m sorry he was such a problem.”

“Speaking of problems,” Lizzie says, “What did you do about Colin’s fax?”

“I wrote back.”

“Has he replied?”

“Yes, and Roddy Slade sent me a photo.”

“Can I see it?”

“Follow me.” I grab a doughnut and limp into my office. The enlargement I made of Colin and me on Sophie’s couch is pinned to my cork board.

“He’s quite the dish,” Lizzie says. “But I feel sorry for him.”

“Why?”

“Having you land in his lap must’ve been a dreadful shock.”

Sands Point

October 2010

Colin’s next letter is another jolt from the past. Do I remember the school dance he’d been too shy to invite me to attend?

How could I forget? Sophie went with Keith, complaining it was worse than dating her own brother, while I stayed home obsessing over possible reasons for Colin’s failure to speak up. It had to be because of my legs. They were too fat. Hugh and Keith used to call me porky-stalks.

I tell Lizzie about this two days later when we’re out walking the beach—slowly, because I’m still limping—and get gales of laughter instead of sympathy. “It’s not funny. I hated my legs.”

“Well, except for that bum ankle, there’s nothing wrong with them now,” Lizzie says, bending to pick up an oyster shell. “How’s Claudia? Heard anything new?”

“Mild angina. The doctor’s put her on a low-salt diet and told her to avoid stress.”

“Then she’ll have to give up on those squirrels,” Lizzie says. “Poor Sophie. I bet she’s worried to death.”

“About the squirrels?”

Lizzie lobs the shell at me. “Idiot.”

“Claudia’s painting them.”

“How does she get them to stand still?”

“Come back to my office and I’ll show you.”

I pull Claudia’s watercolors from the battered brown envelope that arrived yesterday. Squirrels, wearing sunglasses and shorts, build a sandcastle under the watchful eye of a lifeguard; others in blue uniforms line up outside a school behind a teacher wearing a mortarboard and carrying a book.

“She ought to do this professionally,” Lizzie says.

I show Lizzie the calendar. “She does.”

“Did you tell her about your parrots?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I’m not in the same league as Claudia.”

“Rubbish,” Lizzie says, pointing at the sketch of my opera-singing bird tacked to the cork board. “You should do something with this.”

“Like what?”

“A picture book for kids.”

“Lizzie, get a grip. It’s a specialized market. Very competitive.”

“That’s what you said about writing for magazines.”

“So?”

“You broke into it, didn’t you?” Lizzie says. “Even when you insisted you couldn’t.”

“Lizzie, there’s a huge difference between writing an article for Paws and Claws Quarterly and”—I grope for a name—“a book for Random House.”

After she leaves, I take another look at my tuxedo-clad parrot, beak open, wings extended, belting out arias from
Turandot
,
Carmen
or perhaps
Rigoletto
and think, why not? His name could be Caruso. No, that’s trite. Pavarotti? Even worse. How about Barnaby? No, because that’s too close to that purple dinosaur Lizzie’s grandchildren love.

Aria
. Aria. What goes with aria?

Aristotle? Archimedes? Archibald?

Archibald’s Aria
.

Perfect.

My lawyer calls at noon on Friday. “Jill, I need a huge favor.”

That’s a switch. It’s usually me calling on her for help, like the time a former neighbor falsely accused my boys of breaking into her house, and when Richard got into financial trouble and tried to prove my cottage really belonged to him. Harriet soon sorted those problems out, and we became close friends. “What’s up?” I say.

“Family funeral,” says Harriet Shapiro. “Can you take care of Anna for a couple of days?”

“No problem.”

“You’re a goddess. My nanny’s back in Holland visiting her folks. Couldn’t be worse timing.”

“Who died?”

“Uncle Willard.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. When are you leaving?”

“First thing in the morning. I’ll drop Anna on my way to the airport.” Harriet hangs up and I’m left feeling warm and fuzzy at the prospect of having her daughter all to myself for two days.

I was there when she was born. Pink and squirmy and covered in green scum and the most amazing sight I’d ever seen. When my boys arrived I was so upset, no, make that angry, over Richard’s absence that I shut my eyes and missed the actual moment of birth. A neighbor drove me to the hospital for Jordan. With Alistair, I arrived via ambulance. Richard didn’t see either of his sons until they were several hours old.

Harriet and I giggled through eight weeks of Lamaze class and I’m sure the other couples thought we were partners. She lay on pillows and puffed while I counted and tried to keep a straight face. Our last night there I saw one of the other mothers-to-be glance at Harriet and mutter something to her husband about turkey-baster babies.

Twelve years ago, Harriet and her mother were in Bermuda on vacation when Harriet came out of the closet. Her mother promptly went to the hotel desk and demanded a separate bedroom. “What did she think I was going to do?” Harriet grumbled when she got back. “Jump her bones in the middle of the night?”

Harriet’s a single-mother-by-choice. She chose Anna’s father, carefully, from a sperm bank. Perfect health, genius-level IQ, and, according to the nurse at the clinic, an abundance of self-confidence. “Maybe he jerked off in a Mensa mug,” Harriet said, the day I accompanied her to the insemination.

“Thanks for pitching in,” Harriet says, when she delivers Anna at seven the next morning. “I’d take her with me but I don’t trust my family to behave themselves.” She sighs. “Poor Uncle Willard. He’s the only one who ever stuck up for me. If it were anyone else, I wouldn’t be flying to Des Moines this weekend.”

Still in my bathrobe and barely awake, I yawn and give her a hug. Anna pushes by us, arms full of toys, and heads for the couch where Zachary’s curled up on a pillow. Harriet hands me Anna’s knapsack, bulging with books and clothes. A Cinderella toothbrush peeks from a side pocket. Yellow socks, edged with lace, erupt from an open flap.

“When are you coming back?” I pick up the socks and stuff them in my pocket.

“Sunday night. Late.”

“Will you be in court the next day?” Harriet’s specialty is employment law and for some reason, her busiest day is always Monday.

She nods.

“Let me keep her till then. I’ll take her to school, fetch her afterward, and bring her back here. You can come get her when you’re through.” I pause. “My name’s on the list of approved picker-uppers, isn’t it?”

Harriet runs a hand through her unruly red hair. “Yes, and are you sure? I mean, don’t you have to work?”

“Go,” I say, pushing her out the door. “Or you’ll miss your flight. Anna and I will see you for supper on Monday.”

Harriet leaves and I turn to look at her daughter, cross-legged on the couch, introducing Zachary to her family of stuffed cats. Not quite seven, Anna’s a perfect miniature of her mother—elfin face, velvety brown eyes, and freckles scattered across her cheeks like sprinkles on a peaches-and-cream doughnut.

We dress Zachary in doll clothes and put him to bed in Lizzie’s straw hat topped by a canopy we make from chopsticks and cheesecloth. My cat worships Anna. He’d never let me do that to him. We stir gelatin into dishwashing liquid and blow bubbles on the front porch, cut snowflakes from paper towels, and mix up a batch of play dough. I print black-and-white outlines of Archibald for Anna to color in while I work. She gives him purple and green feathers, an orange beak, and red eyes with yellow polka dots.

That night, over fish sticks and baked beans with Oreos on the side, Anna begs for a story. So I invent tales about Claudia’s squirrels and draw cartoons with bubble dialogue the way I used to with Jordan and Alistair to comfort them after Richard would bawl us out for no reason at all.

I bathe her sweet little body and shampoo her corkscrew curls until I’m intoxicated with the very essence of her. I dry her with soft towels and we frost my bathroom with baby powder. I help her into Little Mermaid pajamas and rock her and tell her more stories until she falls asleep. Tomorrow, we’ll fly kites. We’ll explore the beach and collect shells and bits of sea glass, and I’ll teach her the Latin names for horseshoe crabs, moon snails, and barnacles. Just like I did for my boys and would have done for the little girl I lost.

She’d have been twenty-eight by now.

The doctor said it was a fluke. That an eight-month fetus is normally too well-protected to be compromised by a blow to the mother. It was my fault. I shouldn’t have climbed on that ladderback chair. I shouldn’t have bothered to wipe dust from the top of the bookshelf. But Richard had complained about my sloppy housekeeping and I knew better than to argue.

My foot slipped. The chair tilted toward me. Its back slammed against my huge belly and I folded over it like a piece of limp pasta. I went into shock and delivered a still-born, six-pound baby girl fourteen hours later. I was, mercifully, unconscious at the time.

The Sunday before Thanksgiving, I drive Lizzie to the airport. She’s flying to San Francisco for a meeting, then spending the holiday with her son, Adam, at his airbase in the California desert. I show her Colin’s latest fax. Another list of old memories that ends with: “I’m full of eagerness to come and see you, but I have to face up to the fact that I will be accompanied.”

“He’s giving you mixed messages,” Lizzie says.

“I invited them both.”

“That was in September. His letters have moved the goalposts since then. It doesn’t sound as if wants to bring Shelby.”

I pull up behind an airport shuttle bus. “I wonder what she’s like.”

“Let’s hope you never get to find out,” Lizzie says, and I drive home with my feelings in a muddle to find a message from Colin.

“Jilly, it’s me. I need to hear your voice, but—”

I want to climb into the answering machine.

“—my timing’s off, as usual. One day we’ll get together and you can show me that beach of yours.”

Cursing myself for not being here, I shove a can of cat food in the opener, but Zachary doesn’t come skidding into the kitchen. Maybe he’s still outside. I read Colin’s fax again. Is he looking for diversion or meandering down memory lane? What about this phone call? What the hell is he trying to tell me? I stare at the phone and the noise of it not ringing gets on my nerves, so I go outside and look for my cat.

By ten o’clock he’s still not home. The rain I drove through coming back from the airport has turned into a deluge. No way would Zachary stay outside in this. Unless he’s in trouble. I grab a flashlight and open the door. It’s worse than slamming head-on into a waterfall. I struggle to the end of my driveway and I call my cat.

Nothing.

The flashlight’s battery conks out.

I’m drenched. I’m shivering. I’ll try again tomorrow.

At noon on Monday, I give up trying to work. Zachary still isn’t back and I’m way beyond worry. I go looking for him again and run into the mailman slotting letters into my box out by the main road.

“You haven’t seen my cat, have you?” I ask.

“Not since Friday.” Bill stuffs a newspaper into the box next to mine. “Why?”

“He ran off yesterday,” I say, “and I know it’s stupid to worry, but he’s a purebred. Somebody might have pinched him.”

“Around here? Come on, Jill. Tourist season’s over. Besides, everyone knows Zachary.”

I walk up and down East Bay Road, looking under hedges and in front gardens and asking everyone I meet if they’ve seen a tawny-colored cat with yellow eyes. An Abyssinian, I tell them. One woman thought she saw a cat in her backyard, taking a nap on a pile of leaves, but then it woke up and she saw its tail, and realized it was a fox.

Foxes?

Do they eat cats?

Ramping up my search, I plough through beach grass and bamboo but find only a pair of frightened rabbits, a startled partridge, and one of the scrawny feral cats that live wild in the salt marsh.

On my way back home, I glance at the house next door. Two black Labrador retrievers are parked on the front steps. Zachary’s going to love that, I mutter, before it dawns on me that my cat isn’t available to voice his opinion, one way or the other.

I bite my lip, but the tears come anyway.

Thanksgiving turns into a chore. I lean against the counter, peeling onions and crying while making stuffing for the turkey. I scrub potatoes and scrape carrots. I bake pies. Then I empty Zachary’s litter box and wash his dishes and store everything in the shed. I shove the straw hat into the back of my closet.

I phone Harriet.

“He’ll come back,” she says. “He did before.”

“But if he doesn’t, what do we tell Anna?”

“The truth.”

“She’ll be devastated.” I wipe my eyes. “Maybe you’d better not come for Thanksgiving. It’ll be like a morgue without Zachary.”

“All the more reason for us to be with you,” Harriet says. “And I’ll bring extra wine.” She pauses. “Can I also bring an extra guest?”

“Someone special?”

“Yes.”

“Wonderful,” I say, and I mean it. Harriet hasn’t been part of a couple since before Anna was born.

Lizzie calls from California. “Stop worrying. He’ll return when he’s ready.”