Loose Screws (31 page)

“I've got camp.”

“Oh, right. What time you have to be there?”

“Nine.”

I nod, we continue making the bed. Except Alyssa gets bored and wanders over to poke inside the closet. She spots some of the canvases, pulls one out before I realize what she's doing.

“Wow. Who painted this?”

I look over, wiping sweat off my forehead. It's one I somehow missed during my own explorations, an early one of my father. He's bent over his desk grading papers, the stark light from the desk lamp sharply delineating his strong, carved features. “I did. About a million years ago.” I walk over, hold it up to the light from the floor lamp, which isn't wonderful. But good enough to see I was a lot better then than I give myself credit for. I've never been a realistic painter—more van Gogh than Rembrandt—but I caught something in that painting I hadn't even realized
at the time: my father's essence. His calm strength, his gentleness, even, somehow, his sense of humor.

And I think of the times he took me to Tom's on 112th Street and Broadway, all by myself, to get one of their incredible chocolate shakes. Or how he'd read the same book over and over to me without ever complaining or trying to skip pages, how he always made time to listen to whatever I had to say, no matter how silly.

How could I have ever thought myself neglected?

“It's my father.” I gently stand it up on the edge of the futon, back away from it. “He died when I was thirteen.”

“You painted this when you were like, my age?”

“No, later. From memory.”

“How do you do that? I mean, without something to look at?”

“I don't know. I never did. I just…feel whatever I'm painting, somehow. And it just comes out of my fingertips onto the canvas.”

I fully expected her to say that was creepy or weird or something, but all she says is, “How come you don't paint anymore?”

“Just got interested in other things, I guess.”

She looks up at me, her eyes bright. “Could you paint one of me? For my dad? His birthday's in November.”

My heart knots inside my chest. “Oh, gee…it's been so long…”

“Pleeeease? I really think he'd like it. An' I can pay for the paints and stuff out of my allowance—”

Laughing, I slip my arm around her shoulders, hug her to me. “You don't have to pay me, for heaven's sake,” I say, realizing what I've just agreed to.

“But I want to. It would be a—what do you call it? A commission?”

I look at this beautiful, bright, giving child, and something, a process, begins to bloom inside me, as the tangible, human Alyssa takes on another, more visceral form in my brain.

I would love to paint her.

I
have
to paint her.

I have to paint, period.

The revelation slams into me, taking my breath, infusing me with newfound energy.

“Ginger! Are you okay? Why are you crying?”

I wasn't even aware that I was. I shake my head, laughing. “One day, I'll explain it to you. But right now, let's see if I've got a blank canvas to start sketching on.”

 

I've got the portrait—a full figure, dressed in jeans and a midriff-skimming top—nearly sketched in by the time Shelby and Mark arrive to pick up the kids.

“We've got a taxi waiting,” Mark whispers, gently picking up Corey, tucking the limp form against his chest like a sack of potatoes. Shelby goes to get Hayley, but I stop her, picking her up myself instead.

“You're pregnant, remember?” I say in a hushed voice.

She hesitates long enough for Mark to leave the room, then turns to me, very toothy. “I just want you to know I'm okay.”

Brow lift time. “Meaning?”

“Meaning I realized I needed to get over myself. That maybe, yes, this baby is a curveball, but maybe it's also a blessing.” A shrug. “Apparently this is what I'm supposed to be doing now. I can always go back to work later.”

The woman is lying through her orthodontically enhanced teeth. But what can I say?

“Oh, and I felt the baby move for the first time today!”

Feeling…weird, I tell her to grab Geoff's leash, figuring I might as well drain him at the same time I see her downstairs. When we get to the first floor, I say, “So…you're really cool with this?”

“Well, of course, I am sweetie.”

Only she's not looking at me. She's looking at Mark, who's putting the kids in the taxi, that staunch little jaw of hers poked out to kingdom come.

I watch their taxi pull away, totally incapable of deciding how I feel about what just happened.

“People are very strange creatures,” I tell Geoff as we walk inside. My voice reverberates in the vast, marbled lobby, which manages to stay cool no matter what the temperature is outside.

When we get into the elevator Geoff slouches on one hip in the corner, panting, demanding sympathy for his rough life.

“My heart bleeds,” I say.

He slurps his tongue back inside his mouth and gives me an offended look.

I'm still trying to get the last lock undone to the apartment when I hear my phone faintly bleating on the other side of the door. Who on earth is calling me at this hour?

I fall inside, lunge for the phone on the hall table.

“Hey, you just get in?” Nick says.

I will my heart to stop pounding so loudly. “I was out with the dog—”

“So how'd it go?”

This is getting downright surreal.

“How'd what go?”

“Paula told me you had a date with whathisname tonight.”

I tiptoe past bedrooms where everyone is now sleeping and go to the kitchen. I need a Häagen-Dazs bar. Now.

“And this is your business how?”

“I'm nosy.”

I viciously rip the paper off the bar. “Then it went fine,” I mumble around that first, glorious bite. “Satisfied?”

“You don't sound exactly happy about it.”

“What I'm not happy about is having one man bug me about my date with another one.”

“This is not bugging, trust me. You have no idea what I'm like when I put the screws into someone.”

I roll my eyes, take another bite of the ice cream bar.
Dulce de leche.
Yum.

“Anyway,” Nick says, “I bet you'd give one of your girlfriends all the juicy details, wouldn't you?”

I swallow, then lower my voice. “Yeah, well, I'm not sleeping with them.”

“Glad to hear it…waitaminnit—sleep
ing?
”

“Whatever—
Jesus,
you're confusing me. Are you always this irritating, or are you just having a bad day?”

“What can I say? I get a kick out of yanking your chain.”

“So I noticed.”

“Is it as good for you as it is for me?”

“Screw you.”

“Is that a promise?”

“God, you are being
so
junior high tonight.”

He chuckles, then says, totally throwing me off balance, “I found Rocky a good home.”

“What?” I lean against the counter, plucking the jagged pieces of chocolate off the rapidly softening ice cream and cramming them into my mouth before they fall into Geoff's. “You did? Where?”

“What are you eating?”

“Eyesch cream.”

“What flavor?”

“
Dulce de leche.
Wan' some?”

“I only eat flavors I can pronounce. Anyway, one of the guys at the precinct, his brother has a small farm upstate, said he needs a new cock since his old one died a couple weeks ago.”

No way am I touching that one.

“So…I'm off on Saturday. Wanna drive up with me and see the bird's new home for yourself?”

Surrealer and surrealer.

I suck the last of the ice cream from the stick, then say, “Gee, I don't know. I think I might have to work.”

Silence.

“Well, okay, just thought I'd ask. But I'm leavin' here around ten, since it takes a good two hours to get up there. So if you change your mind…”

I can feel the pull, right through the phone. But it's a pull toward…what? A game of hormonal Ping-Pong? The odds of my surviving an entire day with Nick Wojowodski with my sanity intact are slim to none.

“Nick…I'm seeing Greg again Friday night.”

Silence. Then, “Got it. Look, Paula says hi, okay?”

He hangs up before I get a chance to say anything else.

Shit, shit, shit.

I
t rained most of Tuesday and Wednesday, leaving behind clean streets, collective improved humor and a promise of fall. As much as I detest New York summers, I adore the falls—gold and crimson leaves vibrating against a clear blue sky, the first inclination to go Christmas shopping, the first opportunity to finally wear that sweater I couldn't resist buying the instant it showed up at Bloomie's in July. I know, I know, September's still weeks away, so I'm rushing things, but at least being able to see the end of this crazy summer, that my life is finally beginning to settle down—somewhat—is making me almost giddy with relief.

Of course, there's still my mother and her little “situation,” both the logistics involved and the fact that we won't know if everything's okay until her amnio next month. And I find myself thinking about Nick a lot, even though I'm so busy at work, I barely have time to pee, let alone think much about anything unrelated to fabric swatches and furniture vendors. Still, I keep feeling as though I should call him, or something, even though I have no idea what I would say once I did that. We didn't
really have anything going—and I'm sure he'd be the first person to admit that—but…

And I've been ruminating about this far too long, apparently, since my cell's ringing has just jolted me out of a stupor I've apparently been in for—hmm—a good twenty minutes.

It's Greg, calling from work. Like me, he's probably sitting at his desk with a half-eaten sandwich in front of him, in imminent danger of being crushed under a mound of paperwork. He was recently handed a plum case involving defending some huge company, something about anti-trust violations, I can't really explain it, but I can tell it's got his adrenaline really pumping. We've talked twice a day since Monday, pleasant enough conversations that always end with his alluding to how much he's looking forward to Friday—tomorrow—night.

And I am, too, I suppose. He's promised to take me to this new place in the West 80s that's been getting rave reviews. I know the spot. By which I mean, I know the chunk of real estate which this hotsy-totsy restaurant occupies, since I've eaten at no less than six different permutations of same over the past ten years.

“Hi,” I say brightly, flipping through yet another Scalamandre fabric swatch book in the pursuit of exactly the right shade of velvet for Annabelle Souter's
Moulin Rouge
-inspired dining room chairs. “What's up?”

“That's what I'd like to know.”

I stop flipping. “Greg? Is something wrong?”

“Just tell me one thing…how long have you been communicating with my brother?”

The swatch book flaps closed. “Your brother? Why would I be talking to your brother?”

“You tell me.”

“Greg, I'm sorry, but I have no earthly idea what you're talking about.”

“Okay, since you seem to need a memory jog, try this on for size. I bumped into Bill downtown, we decided to have lunch since we haven't seen each other in a while—”

“You had lunch with your brother?”

“I don't hate Bill, Ginger. I just don't understand why he delights in tormenting our father. But that's not the point. The point is, we both got calls on our cells during lunch, both put our phones down on the table, then apparently picked up each other's instead of our own. A fact I didn't notice until I checked my call listings and saw your mother's apartment number listed…from this morning.”

“But…I haven't even called you today…”

“Exactly.”

A blinding flash sears through my brain.

“Oh, dear, God…”

“So. You admit you're calling my brother?”

I take a second before I reply. Damn. I am so not good at this. “I swear to you, I haven't seen or talked to your brother since the day we went out to get my clothes from the Scarsdale house. But even if I had, I don't appreciate the jealous act. I can, and do, talk to other men occasionally. And will continue to do so. And third…”

Uh-oh.

“And third…? I mean, come on, Ginger—if
you
didn't call Bill this morning, who the hell did?”

“Look, I'm breaking up,” I say, scraping my fingernails across the phone. “I'll talk to you later.”

Right after I talk to my mother.

 

“How long?” I say.

I've closed the door to my office, turned on some music to further muffle the conversation, should somebody have nothing better to do than to listen in to my private conversations. Yes, this should wait until I get home, but I know that Greg is sitting and stewing, which means the sooner this gets sorted out, the better.

My mother's already admitted to both making the call and to her affair with Greg's brother. After a moment she says, “Since we went up to get your things.”

“Is he…?”

“Yes,” she says on a long, weary-sounding sigh. “Now do you understand why I didn't want to tell you yet?”

I shut my eyes, trying to come to grips with the revelation that my mother is pregnant by a man only three
years older than I am. After the first shudder subsides, I say, “Does Bill know yet?”

“I told him a couple of days ago.”

“And…?”

“And…we haven't decided what we want to do. What
to
do. I mean, he's actually kind of excited about the baby, but…” Another sigh. “We're not in love, Ginger. I'd never marry him, and that has nothing to do with our ages. Or even because of his family—”

“Never mind that Bill's family was enough to put you off accepting Bill's brother as a potential son-in-law.”

“Another issue entirely. And now we're talking about Bill and me. Who I like a lot. In small doses. If I'm with him for longer than a couple hours, I want to smack him upside the head. I mean, he's incredible in the sack, and he's funny, and good to me, but he can be such a child at times. Oh, God…this was just supposed to be a
fling,
Ginger. I—both of us—had fully expected this to run its course and we'd part amicably and that would be that. The last thing either of us expected was to be figuring out joint custody arrangements.”

“So, you do plan on splitting the responsibility for raising the baby?”

“I don't know. I suppose. Please, Ginger—could we just get through the amnio first?”

I hear the apprehension in her voice, take a moment to collect myself. Then I say, “What I don't get is how you expected to keep this a secret.”

“I don't suppose I did.”

“Good. Because I've got to tell Greg. Today. Before he blows a gasket.”

“I really wish you wouldn't.”

“I'm sure you don't. But things are only going to get worse the longer this is kept under wraps. Whatever comes of whatever this is, it's worthless unless it's built on a foundation of trust and honesty.”

“Oh, right. Which means, I suppose, you're going to fill Greg in about your little thing with Nick?”

She would bring that up.

“Probably,” I say. “At some point. But it's not the same thing.”

“No, it isn't. And what exactly do you think is going to happen when Greg finds out his brother got your mother pregnant? You think the Munsons are going to embrace this child with open arms, accept you into their family now?”

Okay, I can see where this could be a problem. “I don't expect them to be exactly thrilled with the news, no. But they've always been very good to me. No, really,” I say when she snorts. “Here's a news flash, Nedra—the Munsons don't eat their young. And it's only fair that we get the truth out in the open as soon as possible, for everyone's sake. You're carrying their son's baby, for crying out loud. Their first
grandchild.
Phyllis isn't going to be able to resist getting involved.”

“Oh, now there's something to look forward to,” Nedra says dryly.

“Look, I know these people. They're perfectly reasonable human beings. They're bound to come 'round eventually.”

Her pause is too long, too…significant. “Then I think you're being very naive.”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

Another pause, then, “Doesn't it strike you even a tiny bit odd how Greg's trying so hard to win you back?”

“Not really, considering how badly he screwed up.”

“See, that's why I didn't want to say anything, because you've already made up your mind what you're going to do, what you're going to think—”

“Dammit, Nedra, how many times do I have to tell everybody, I haven't made up my mind about
anything!
I know you don't believe that, but it's true. And it's not exactly insignificant that the man paid all the wedding expenses and then some. He's apologized, he's tried to explain as best he can why he bolted—what else do you expect him to do?”

“And you've never once asked yourself why?”

My eyes burn. “Well, Ma, this might be a long shot,
but maybe it's because the man
loves
me! Or is that too impossible a concept to wrap your brain around?”

After two or three beats have passed, she says, very quietly, “And has he ever told you that?”

Before I can think of what to say, I hear a soft click in my ear.

It takes me another several seconds before I realize that, for the first time since I can remember, I called my mother by something other than her first name.

 

Of course, for all my blustering at my mother, once I get Greg on the phone, somehow the words “Your brother got my mother pregnant” don't exactly come trippingly off my tongue. And even worse, I lie. I open my mouth, and out comes, “They're working on some cause together, apparently, that's why she called him.”

I am such a toad.

But then, he
hasn't
said he loves me, has he? I don't mean now, I mean…ever. And how did that happen, that I accepted a marriage proposal from a man who never told me he loved me?

Won't happen a second time, I can tell you that.

 

By the time Greg arrives at the apartment to pick me up, I've decided to sound him out on a few things, even if I haven't exactly outlined the whens and hows yet. My mother's condition is high on the list, obviously, although I think I'll leave the “by whom” part for later. Then my painting. And somewhere in there, I'm thinking I might come right out and ask him exactly what his feelings are. Which might not be fair, really, since I don't really know what mine are, either. But still. He is, after all, the pursuer, while I'm just the pursuee. I'm allowed to be ambivalent.

The thirty-block taxi ride won't really be long enough to hit all the topics, but I figure I can at least make some serious inroads.

“Hey,” he says after he's given the driver the address, “what's with your hands?”

Okay, I guess the painting's just gone to the top of the agenda. After my mother assured me the oil paint smell
wouldn't bother her queasy stomach, I'd started on Alyssa's portrait a couple nights before. It's not ideal, not being able to paint in real daylight, but you play the hand that's dealt you. Anyway, my pretty fingernails are history, polish and all, and no matter how much I scrub my hands with turpentine, I can't get all the paint off my skin.

“I used to paint, when I was younger. I thought I'd take it up again.”

“You're not thinking of giving up your career, are you?”

I tell myself it's only my own paranoia making me hear that hint of condescension in his voice.

I look over, smile. “Oh, no. Just a hobby. It relaxes me.”

“Well, that's good, isn't it?”

That he didn't say anything about wanting to see any of my work isn't lost on me.

I fold my mottled hands tightly in my lap, staring at the purple-and-red swirling designs in my long crepe skirt. Although it's still pretty warm, the breeze coming through the open window is strong enough to raise goose bumps along my arms, right through my knit tunic.

“Greg, there's something I have to tell you.”

Greg looks over, smiling benignly until he sees my expression, at which point the smile vanishes. “What?”

Okay, folks, batten down the hatches.

“My mother is pregnant.”

He starts to laugh, then stops. “Christ, you're serious.”

“Oh, yeah.”

“But she's…isn't she too old?”

“Apparently not.”

After a moment of tense silence he says, “Is this one of those artificial insemination things?”

I shake my head.

“Oh. Well. Um, is she planning on marrying the father?”

“According to her, no. It's…complicated.”

“Tell me he's not married.”

“No, it's not that. But the thing is, I'm telling you this,
now, because you need to know I'm going to be there for her. To help, if she needs it.”

He looks vaguely horrified. “You mean, as in living with her?”

“I don't know. Maybe. If that's what she needs. My grandmother's probably going to move back to Brooklyn, so I'm all my mother's got.”

That begets, understandably, a moment of silence. Then he says, “She's a grown woman, Ginger. Plenty of single women live with their kids on their own.”

“And maybe my mother will decide she can, too. I'm just saying, this is something I have to be prepared for. That's all.”

After a moment he says quietly, “I can't believe you'd let yourself be coerced into doing something like this. Ever since I've known you, you've always been about making your own choices—”

“Hey.” I reach over, lay my hand on his arm. “This
is
my choice. Nobody's coercing me into doing anything I don't want to do.”

He covers my hand with his, then sighs. “Sorry. I'm just…concerned for you, that's all.”