Sammy Keyes and the Art of Deception (9 page)

Anyway, we spent so much time at the Faire that it was pretty late by the time Marissa and I got back to where
she'd locked her bike near the Senior Highrise. And since I didn't think it was too hot of an idea for us both to go back up the fire escape, I asked how she wanted to work getting her stuff back.

“Can you bring the costume and my other clothes to school on Monday?”

“Yeah, but how are you going to ride your bike in that dress?”

“Watch me,” she said, swinging her leg over.

Now, she was trying to sound cheerful, but I could tell that she was feeling pretty bummed. So I said, “I'm sorry you didn't meet up with Danny.”

She shrugged. “No big deal.”

“Liar.”

She shook her head and said, “I was being an idiot, huh?”

Now, what I was thinking was, No kidding! but what I
said
was, “You were just excited.”

She scowled at me. “You have no idea how lucky you are.”

I knew where she was going with this, so I said, “Don't even start with that again, okay?”

“Guys like Casey don't come around every day, you know.”

“I
said
—”

“I know, I know.” She crammed big folds of the skirt under her legs. “And no, I won't tell anyone about …,” she leans over and whispers, “the kiss!”

Before I can punch her, she laughs, “Hee-hee!” and pedals off with a wave.

I watched her until she was out of sight, then headed for home. And when I slipped through the apartment door, the first thing I noticed was a great big bouquet of flowers on the coffee table, and a great big frown on my grams' face.

“Wow!” I whispered, because I don't think our apartment had ever seen fresh flowers before.

Grams was on the couch with her arms crossed, just staring at them. “They refuse to take them back.”

“Uh-oh,” I said, sitting beside her. “I take it they're from Hudson?”

“What a ridiculous waste of money!”

“Is that why you're mad? Because he spent a lot of money?”

“Yes!” She crossed her arms tighter. “No! I'm mad because he thinks he can bribe me into
not
feeling mad.”

I put my arm around her. “Grams, you're being kinda stubborn, don't you think?”

“No! No, I am not!” She looked at me, her eyes all big and flashing. “I didn't
want
to meet him for lunch, but I did. I didn't
want
to hear him out, but again, I did. Do you call that being stubborn?”

“Noooo.”

“But just when I was starting to think he was truly remorseful, he calls here and informs me that he's managed to get you an interview at two o'clock tomorrow with the queen herself.”

“Who?”

“Diane Reijden!”

“He … he did?”

“He says you need it for some art paper.” Her eyes come zooming in on me. “Is that true?”

“Well, yeah …”

“But does it have to be an interview with a famous artist? No teacher could possibly assign that, right?”

“She's not famous, is she?”

“According to Hudson she is! Or will be, soon enough.” “Well, whatever. It just has to be an artist. Miss Kuzkowski didn't say what, you know,
caliber.
”

She throws her head back. “Ha! Just as I suspected.”

“But Grams, interviewing a good artist is way better than interviewing a rotten one. I actually tried that at the Renaissance Faire today and got a whole lot of nowhere. Hudson's just doing me a favor.”

Her nostrils flare and she says, “You, child, don't understand men.” She crosses her arms again and mutters, “He almost had me convinced that he was impressed with her art, not her, and then he goes and stirs the stew with a rat tail!”

“A rat tail? Grams, that's gross!”

“Don't you see? He contacted her
after
he sweet-talked me, and then had the nerve to send me flowers.” She kind of burrows into herself, scrunching into a little ball of arms and shoulders. “My original impression of Hudson Graham was right—the man's an insufferable flirt.”

I sat beside her for a few minutes, just thinking. And finally I said real quiet-like, “Are you upset because you like Hudson more than you want to admit? Or is it because Diane Reijden's a … you know … younger woman?”

Grams looks at me for a minute. Then she takes off her glasses, holds them up to the light, and huffs and buffs them until I swear she's going to polish right through the lenses. Finally she pops them back on her nose and says, “Are you implying I might be sensitive about this because …”

Her voice just trails off, so I look her square in the eye and nod. “Because of Gramps.” She looks down, so I touch her arm and say, “Grams, I know about the Biker Babe.”

Her mouth scrunches up, down, then all around. Then she straightens her skirt and says, “This has nothing to do with that.”

“But Grams—”

“Your grandfather was going through a midlife crisis. It's very typical for a man that age to … to … to develop a wandering eye. But Hudson Graham is well beyond midlife! Besides, Diane Reijden is not really a ‘younger woman.' She's fifty if she's a day!”

“But still, you're sixty—”

“Don't remind me! It's not something I want to hear right now, okay?” And with that she got up and said, “You can fix your own supper, can't you? I need to go lie down,” and shut herself in her room.

So after sitting by myself for a few minutes, I got up and yeah, I fixed myself supper—about ten bowls of cereal with buckets of sugar and milk.

But the more I shoveled, the more I couldn't stop thinking about Grams and the story I'd overheard about my grandfather leaving her for a bimbo at the Harley
Davidson shop. All Mom or Grams had ever actually
told
me was that he'd died in a motorcycle accident shortly before I was born, but after I caught whiff of the Biker Babe—or the “Harley Hussy,” as Grams once called her—well, things like why Grams didn't have any pictures of my grandfather around and why she never really had much to
say
about him started making sense.

So I sat there, stuffing myself full of oats and corn and other nutritious grains, thinking. And when I was finally full, I cleaned everything up and headed for the couch. And even though I did read a little and watch some TV with my cat Dorito, after a while I just shut out the light.

And as I lay there on the couch, wrapped in my afghan and the sweet smell of fresh cut flowers, I couldn't help wondering. About my grandfather. About my father. About my mother and my grandmother and what they had been like at my age. What had junior high been like for them? When and where had they fallen in love? At school? At work?

At a Renaissance Faire?

And it's funny—I had always thought of them as being old. Or, at least,
adults.
But they'd been kids once, too. And I could tell from the hurt in Grams' eyes that she'd felt all this before.

Maybe many times.

And that seemed so strange.

So … impossible.

But as I drifted off to sleep, the one thought that kept cycling through my head wasn't actually about my grandparents or parents. It was about Hudson. And the more I
thought about it, the more I could just see him—his boots kicked up, the wind in his hair.

Hudson Graham, right at home on a Harley.

I had dreams about ants. Little red ones with yellow antennae, tiptoeing up my finger. Up my hand. Up my arm. Tickling, tickling, tickling. Then they'd rear back and duke it out with those wild antennae, jump off my arm, and start all over again.

Up my finger.

Up my hand.

Up my arm.

Tickle, tickle, tickle.

“Who are you shouting at?” It was Grams, shaking me awake.

“What? What?” I sat up and whipped around, looking for ants.

Grams was holding her heart. “You scared the daylights out of me!”

“I'm sorry,” I told her, still looking for ants.

“It didn't even sound like you! You had an English accent!”

“I
did
?”

“Distinctly English.”

“Well … what was I saying?”

“Something like, Unhand me! and, Thou shalst pay!” She holds her temples with her hands and says, “And there was something about ‘Sir Hiss-a-lot'?”

I rubbed my arm, hoping she wouldn't notice how red my cheeks must have been turning.

“What were you dreaming about? Was it something about the Faire?”

I shook my head, happy to be able to tell her the truth. “I was dreaming about ants.”

“Ants?”

“Angry little red ones with yellow antennae.”

“Oh.” She studied me a minute. “Were they
talking
ants?”

“I don't think so.”

“Were they wearing British uniforms or something?”

“Grams! They were just little red ants.”

“But with yellow antennae.”

“Yeah.”

She sighed and said, “Well, I can make hide nor hair of that one.” She stroked my head. “Did you want to try to get some more sleep?”

I looked at the clock. “It's eight already?”

“But it's Sunday. I can read a little longer if you want to rest.”

“Nah,” I said, swinging my legs off the couch. I eyed the flowers, then looked at her. “How are you, anyway?”

“Fine,” she said real primly.

“Well, I have some information that I didn't get the chance to tell you yesterday.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. I ran into Jojo at the Faire yesterday.”

“And … ?”

“And I found out that Diane Reijden isn't going to have the police investigate who tried to steal her paintings.”

All of a sudden Grams is sitting right beside me, grabbing my forearms. “She
said
that?”

“Jojo said she wants to put it all behind her.”

Grams let go and raised an eyebrow. “Is she an artist or a politician?”

“Huh?”

“Never mind,” she says, rubbing her hands together. “Just tell me this—why
wouldn't
she have them investigate?”

“I know. It does seem kinda strange.”

“So … ?” she says, turning to look at me.

“So … what?” I ask, staring right back at her.

Her face zooms closer. Her eyes burn brighter. And out of her mouth come words I never in a million years thought I'd hear.

“I think you and I should prove it.”

“
Prove
it? Grams, I've been trying to stay
out
of it! I thought you'd be all proud of me for that. And now you want to go and
prove
it?” I shake my head. “Besides, I don't even think it was her.”

She just looks at me. Level stare. Pursed lips. Hands folded calmly in her lap. “Well, I do.”

I take a deep breath and try again. “Look. Even if she did hire some guy to make it look like her art was worth stealing, so what? She's just got, you know, creative publicity strategies.”

“What she's
got
is a coy, deceptive, cunning mind.”

“Oh, come on! You barely even met her. Besides, she seemed like a perfectly nice lady to me.”

“A perfectly nice lady wouldn't scare a room full of people out of their wits just to pull off a publicity stunt.”

“Exactly!”

We stared at each other for a minute, then she said, “Well, obviously what we need is some more information.”

“Grams, I don't see why—” I stopped short. Her eyes were twinkling. Her lips were curving up.

My grams had come up with a plan.

“What are you thinking?” I asked her.

She took a deep breath, squared her shoulders, and said, “I'm coming with you.”

“Coming … with me?” I followed her into the kitchen. “Where am I going?”

“You've forgotten already? To interview Ms. Reijden, of course!”

“Oh.” I watched her move around the kitchen. Bending for a pan, twirling around to click on the stove with one hand as she flicked the water on with the other. Then she practically did a pirouette as she pulled the milk out of the refrigerator, snagged a wooden spoon from the utensil jar, and tapped the refrigerator door closed with her foot. It was like a tightly choreographed dance. And for the first time in my life, I realized that my grams—my sixty-something guardian with the gray hair and oversized glasses—wasn't stodgy or stiff.

She was agile.

Smooth.

Graceful.

“What are you staring at, child?”

“I … Nothing. I just never saw you do that before.”

“Make oatmeal?” She laughed. “You've seen me do this nearly every day for over a year!”

I got down the bowls. The sugar. The walnuts. I set the table and poured us some juice. And the whole time I tried to act normal, but I had my eye on Grams, and the truth is, I was feeling very, very strange.

By one o'clock, Hudson had called three times. The first time it was, “Make a list of questions, Sammy. If you're
going to interview someone, you can't shoot from the hip. It's disrespectful.”

The second time it was, “Would you like to borrow my tape recorder? You don't want to misquote her, you know.”

“Hudson!” I told him. “It's for a junior-high art class. Not
The Washington Post
!”

The
third
time it was, “How's it coming with those questions?”

“Fine, Hudson. I've got plenty.”

“Let's hear them.”