Gypsy Magic (The Little Matchmakers) (21 page)

Kevin, looking much happier now that he could think of it as
their
boat not just Daddy’s nodded. “But I don’t have a pencil, just crayons, so our boats are going to have to look funny.”

“No, Kevin, our boats won’t have to look funny,” said Lance, giving Gypsy a questioning glance. She nodded, to tell him he had the right attitude, and he went on. “We can just draw the boat, pretending the lines are there. Like this.” Again he took the crayon and working swiftly, economically, and expertly, he recreated a much better representation of the boat. “Now you try it.”

Kevin, concentrating hard, tongue sticking out, did try, but less than halfway through his attempt, Lance, frustration oozing out of every pore of it in his body, snatched the crayon and finished it for him. “You have to visualize the box, Kevin. Look where you went wrong… The curve is much wider here than it is on the other side and that’s what gives your deck a lopsided look.”

Kevin tried again and again with the same result until at last, white faced and shaking, he pushed the papers away and said, his voice quivering, “I’m tired, Daddy. I don’t want to draw anymore. Can I just read my comics?”

Gritting his teeth, Lance crumpled the last page and threw it in the fire. “Go ahead,” he snarled. “Do what you want.”

So ends a dream, thought Gypsy tiredly. Only I was so sure that here at last, was the key for which I had been searching. Why oh why can’t he just have a little more patience, a little more understanding? What’s lacking in the man that he can’t see what he’s doing? Can’t he understand the way he comes across? If he had given Kevin the crayon at the very outset and coached each step of the way and let it be Kevin’s drawing, everything would’ve been all right. But oh no, not Lance. First, show the kid a perfect example and then get mad when he can’t come up to the same standard. What in the world did she ever think she saw in the man?

She was still seething inwardly when later, after Kevin had been bedded down and was sleeping, she voiced these same sentiments to Lance. “If you had two grains of sense to rub together, Lance Saunders, you’d be able to see for yourself, what you’re doing. You know he has talent, and if you’re not very, very careful, you’re going to choke it right out of him. If you get mad at him, make drawing into a chore at which he must excel to earn your approval, you’ll destroy every bit of pleasure he gets from it.”

“So what am I supposed to do? Let him make stupid mistakes that I’m able to correct with just one word or two, or even easier, a stroke of the pencil?”

“Yes!” she cried impatiently. “Let him make mistakes. They’re
his
mistakes. It’s his right to make them, and to grow by making them. Didn’t you? Don’t you still? Didn’t you have to learn? Or did you, as a tiny infant, simply pick up a pencil and a piece of paper and instead of chewing on them, begin drawing perfect pictures every time? Oh!” She gritted her teeth. “You make me sick.”

“You think you feel sick? How do you think I feel? What I’d like to know is why wasn’t I told about his ability? What’s the matter with schools today they can’t recognize talent when they see it and tell the parents so proper training can be started? If I had known what an eye he had, he’d have been getting art lessons long ago.”

“Kevin is six years old, Lance, only recently out of kindergarten! He’s probably much too young for formal art lessons. Anyway, what makes you so sure his teacher doesn’t know? Have you ever even discussed your work with his teacher, and suggested maybe she should watch out for potential talent?”

“Why… Why, no.” Lance frowned, though he sounded surprised. “I don’t even think I know his teacher’s name.” He gave his head a hard shake. “But Lorraine’s gone to all the parent-teacher interviews—one for each term, and if she’d been told Kevin had an ability like this, she’d have let me know. That stupid teacher probably wouldn’t perspective in drawing if it bit her.”

“Don’t report cards have spaces for comments?” She was pretty sure she remembered that on hers, but of course, things had likely changed since she graduated high school.

“He’s in kindergarten. They don’t get graded on anything. A good thing, too. Black skies, indeed,” he scoffed. “She never sent any of his pictures home.”

“Are you sure of that?”

“Of course I am. If he had, I’d have seen them.”

Oh, how Gypsy longed to confront him with the truth, to tell him that everything Kevin brought home ended up in the garbage, certified “junk”, not worthy of adult attention. But she knew from past experience he believed no wrong of Lorraine. “How do you know she never sends any home?” Gypsy had to content herself with asking. “Have you ever asked?”

“If anything good ever come home with him, of course Lorraine would’ve showed it to me.”

“Assuming she recognized it as good,” Gypsy murmured while thinking that it was more probable, from the little she had learned about Auntie Lorraine that the better a picture of Kevin’s, the less likely it was to be shown to Lance.

“Why wouldn’t she?” Lance glared. “You did, and you’re less familiar with kids than she is.”

“I suppose,” Gypsy said noncommittally, “you must rely on her very heavily.”

“Of course I do. She looks after my home and my son, and does both very well indeed. And that’s why I know if the teacher had ever sent anything good home, she would have showed it to me.”

“It’ll be really hard on your she ever decides to leave—get married or something.” Gypsy sounded thoughtful.

“Lord, yes!” Lance was emphatic. “My only alternative would be to hire a stranger and that would be rough on Kevin.”

“He, um, mentioned one day that he has a grandmother,” she said.

“What? I didn’t know he remembered her.” He snorted. “My former mother-in-law. She’ll never get her hand on Kevin. Never. No, I’ll just have to hope Lorraine stays content with what she has.”

“You could always marry her yourself,” Gypsy suggested sneakily, trying to find out if there was such a chance. It hurt to think of it, but think of it she must.

He shot her a quizzical glance, almost a pained one, she thought, and said, “I’m surprised you, of all people, suggesting that. After all, would you accept second best?”

Gypsy’s breath hissed in over her teeth with the stab of pain his words produced. “No,” she whispered, hurt beyond measure that he would remind her so cruelly that to him, she, as well as Lorraine, would be second best. “I only mentioned it as a possible alternative to having a stranger for Kevin, should she ever decide to leave you. You’re the one who thinks she’s indispensable.”

“She is. She runs my household perfectly, beautifully, lets me get on with my work and never bothers me with trivialities.”

“Your son being one, I assume?” Gypsy asked bitterly, still sore about that “second-best” business.

“Of course not! Gypsy, you know that’s not true! I am interested in what he does.”

“Is
she
?”

“Why are you so down on someone you’ve never even met? You don’t know her, don’t know anything about her. How could you? Until tonight, I’ve hardly mentioned her to you. Lorraine is very competent. That’s why I can’t understand why I haven’t been told about Kevin’s ability unless the teacher was at fault. If only I had known.” He shook his head sadly.

“You know now,” Gypsy reminded him tartly. “What are you going to do about it?”

“Get drawing lessons for him, I guess.” He took in her skeptical look. “When he’s a little older.”

“Not help him, encourage him, yourself, now, to set up a background of knowledge?”

“You saw hopeless that was!” His gray-green eyes were bleak.

“I still think it’s worth a try,” she insisted. She thumped a fist on the table. A plate rattled and the lid of the teapot jumped. “If you’d only give yourself a chance.” Her eyes shone with the zealous intent to make him listen.

“Will he give me a chance?” Lance leaned his elbows on the table, put his fists against his forehead and spoke quietly, with desperation. “I want to have that chance to help him learn, Gypsy. I know it’s not fair to ask it of you, the way things are, but… I have to, for Kevin’s sake. Will you help me to help him? Will you let me spend all my time with the two of you for our last week or so here and will you help me keep the atmosphere light while I try to reach him? I know spending time with me might not be what you want, but Gypsy,” he raised his head and looked at her steadily. “I won’t touch you. That’s a promise.”

Lance noticed that her face and gone pale and strained, with the scar an angry red line bisecting her cheek lengthwise, before she swung her hair down and averted her eyes.

It’s useless, useless! Gypsy thought. Trying to convince him I wasn’t fool enough to fall in love with him is futile, so why did I spend so much time and energy trying? He knows! And it makes him as sad as it does me that he cannot return my feelings.

“All right, Lance,” she said quietly, lifting her head and smiling sadly. “I’ll help.”

~ * ~

For the next three days the trio wandered the paths and trails of the island, Kevin drawing trees and rocks and flowers, leaves, clumps of grass and far-reaching points of land. Some were good, others less than mediocre and there were times when Lance’s fingers itched and burned with the need to grab the charcoal from his son’s sweaty little fingers and show him instead of just telling him. But Gypsy with her insight… instinct, Lance came to believe, always managed to catch him in time and with a look, a word, or a gesture, draw him back, leaving Kevin to do his own drawings in his own way. All she permitted Lance to do was advise, suggest and instruct, never to touch, never to scold, and always, always to praise something well done and criticize poor work constructively.
Never forget he’s only six!
That became the unspoken mantra Lance forced himself to live by.

Gypsy called for frequent breaks, during which she ran and raced, chasing Kevin, playing tag with him, literally forcing Lance to join in by smacking his arm and shouting, “Tag! You’re it! Run, Kevin! Don’t let him catch you!”

Kevin, not much to Lance’s surprise, was very good at dodging and ducking and, being small, was notoriously hard to catch. Gypsy, not so much, and try though he did, Lance couldn’t prevent himself tagging her whenever he got a chance. Her skin, soft and supple, begged to be stroked. Her hair, loose and flying when she ran with it streaming out behind her, often left him as breathless as the running did. Kevin’s happy shrieks of victory when he managed to tag one of the adults filled Lance’s heart with a joy he hadn’t felt for a long time.

He’d never seen anything like Kevin’s enthusiasm for searching out seagull and crow feathers and with his longer reach, was able to score a real eagle feather from way down on a ledge. He presented it to his son, earning himself a gap-toothed smile of delight. Between drawing sessions, they cracked open more clams and fed the gulls, and laughed when crows began dropping in, and squabbles between black birds and white took place. Lance made swift sketches of the birds in flight, seagulls being chased away from the feast, crows hopping and dancing then taking wing when they suddenly became outnumbered by their larger foe. Kevin just laughed.

Gypsy told stories and encouraged Lance to participate by asking questions to which he knew she knew the answers, so that he would tell her, and so be talking to his son, as well. On the third day, sensing a break was much needed, she called a halt.

“No more drawing today,” she decreed. “I don’t know about the two of you, but I’m sick to death of the site of charcoal and pastels and papers.” She did know about the other two. Lance was becoming frustrated. Kevin was bored. A new diversion had to be sought before the whole plan blew up in their faces. Kevin’s work had improved dramatically, as had his relationship with his father, but both still had a long way to go.

Though he could now manage curves—having studied the feathers in his collection and copied their arcs—Kevin much prefer drawing boxes, houses and streets, just as he preferred to play with Gypsy most of the time. Just now, Lance had wanted Kevin to try to draw a bird, and the outcome had been as close to disaster as he cared to come.

“Kevin tells me you have fishing gear,” Gypsy said. “And so, oh great provider, I want a salmon for dinner or at the very least a lingcod.” She sat down and pulled up the legs of her baggy jeans and lay-back. “I’m going to get another layer of tan on my legs.”

Lance scoffed at the idea of catching a fish but the sight of her lying there, jeans rolled high on her thighs, shirt off to reveal the skimpy bikini top, was too disturbing. Holding out a hand to Kevin who surprisingly, took it, he said, “we seem to have been delegated the job of providing dinner. Let’s see what we can do about it.”

It took nearly three hours of disappointments, of having the line blown back when he cast it out into the surf, of having unproductive nibbles from some unknown source, and three hours of complaints from Lance before they had any luck.

“I don’t believe there are any salmon here,” he said plaintively to Gypsy who ignored him.

“There must be something wrong with the lure,” was his next complaint. “What I need is live bait. I saw some fish in the creek and if…”

“
No!
” Kevin shrieked.

Gypsy leapt to her feet shouting “Don’t you
dare!
”

“What did I do? What did I say?” Lance stared at each of them in turn.

“Those are our fish,” Gypsy said.

“We feed them,” Kevin piped up. “Worms. Their names are Harry and Gertie.

Lance continued to stare at the two of them. “The worms have names?”

Kevin giggled. “No the
fish
have names. They used to be Jake and John but Gypsy said one of them needed to be a girl and she named it Gertie.”

“Gertie…” Lance shook his head.

“It was the fishiest name I could think of,” Gypsy said in her own defense.

Lance snorted. “I’m surprised you didn’t call it Wanda.”

“That,” she said, “would have been far too trite for me.”

Kevin, looking bewildered, said, “Who’s Wanda?”

“A fish in a long-ago movie, so old I’m surprised Gypsy’s even heard of it,” Lance said.