Picture This (14 page)

Chapter 23

T
his was not about Rocky being afraid she'd be alone forever. This was about the dark horse that staggered through her chest at night when she reached across the bed for her husband. This was about forgetting for even one second that he was dead and having to remember all over again. This was about thinking that Hill could fill the dark space that had hollowed out in her, that she could stuff him in like insulation. If only Bob would come back for one minute, she'd do anything for one minute. What would she ask him?
Is this child yours? And would you mind so very much if I loved again?

She could love this child. Already the stirrings were in the same ballpark as the love for a romantic partner, the same but different. The way a house is a house, yet Rocky's house back in western Massachusetts was different from the creaky little house that she rented from Isaiah, and different again from the house she'd bought in the center of the island that needed reconstructive surgery.

Rocky wasn't blind to the damaged infrastructure with the girl. All kinds of things might have happened to her once her mother's attention went to drugs rather than a toddler. Hearing the story from Natalie felt like a spray of gunfire, but she got the main gist of it, and she understood the usual pathways that parental disintegration takes with kids.

Ideally, babies and toddlers should develop like marsupials: the healthiest development happens if a kid, or a joey, knows that it's always okay to hop back into the maternal pouch. Little ones grow best when they know that someone has their back. If scary bad guys arrive on the scene, if a monster under the bed or a fever of 102 degrees appears, the kid has someone to count on. The parent doesn't have to be perfect; the parent just has to promise to be there.

Natalie didn't have access to the marsupial pouch once her mother got swept along the current of drugs. Small children without protection will find ways to survive that either drive them toward people or drive them away from people; they develop a ramped-up neediness or a fine-tuned distrust. Natalie didn't seem like the kind of person who trusted many people, but here she was, camped out in Rocky's spare bedroom.

Natalie had left for the day—another day of looking for a job or going to the library, that's what she said. Rocky had received no phone calls so far asking for her help as animal control warden.

“Come on, Cooper. Let's do some demolition work.”

Cooper scuttled to a stand. If Rocky was leaving the cottage, so was he. They loaded into the yellow truck, with Cooper filling every inch of the passenger seat, and drove the two miles to the recent acquisition of real estate.

Russell the carpenter wasn't due until ten or so; this was his late day. But there was a wonderful blue Dumpster sitting next to the house, ready to receive the damp curtains, the walls thick with mildew, the faux paneling, the cracked linoleum. The idea of reclaiming the true nature of the house was exhilarating to Rocky, as if the house had called to her. While Rocky waited for Russell to show up, she grabbed a crowbar and began pulling down old Sheetrock in the pantry. The rest of the house had plaster walls, so the pantry had to be a more recent renovation. The curative properties of distraction were a balm to her agitated state. She had recently discovered that she was damn good at demolition; she liked tearing things apart, ripping entire walls off in huge slabs.

Had Hill forgotten her? Rocky didn't want to veer in that direction; truly she had enough to think about with Natalie. She didn't want to be the ex-girlfriend who kept calling, or driving by his house, or stalking him by text or e-mail. Rocky had worked with hundreds of clients who had been dragged through the emotional barbed-wire terrain of brokenheartedness. They wanted answers to the unanswerable questions.
Why did he stop loving me? . . . How does someone simply stop loving someone else? . . . If I could just talk to him, get him to listen, we could fix this. . . . If she could tell me what went wrong, I could change, I know I could.

There were no acceptable answers to any of these questions, and Rocky knew it. But still, something didn't add up about Hill, about the ferocity of his affection, the steady zeal of his attention, the way he had stroked her neck down to her collarbone and the way it had ignited an essential ember in her, sending heat spiraling up her spine. No, that all could have been the lust of new love and she simply hadn't recognized it. Those chemicals last six to nine months and can be mistaken for deep and abiding love. She didn't want to get confused between lusty chemicals and love.

Rocky headed for the second floor with her crowbar. One bedroom was water-damaged beyond repair. The roof had leaked for years. Both Isaiah and Russell had said that trying to bring the plaster back to its pristine past value would result in heartache and a huge expense.

“I can just smash it to bits?” Rocky had asked yesterday.

“That's right,” said Russell. “I'm amazed at the number of women who love demolition work.”

Rocky didn't hesitate. She tossed the crowbar onto the floor, slid a paper mask over her mouth and nose, and secured the front of her hair with two large clips. Isaiah had told her to wear a mask when she was tearing the house apart or she'd coat her lungs with molded plaster and who knew what else. What was in plaster anyhow? She put on safety goggles and picked up Russell's sledgehammer with the six-pound head. She aimed directly at the wall. Once, twice. She kept her knees soft, the way she did with archery. The plaster broke up in webs of chalky granules. The lathes underneath responded to her direct hits. The thin slats popped off with satisfying cracks.

If she got lucky, large hunks of plaster came off, like layers of sunburned skin, revealing the ribs of lathe beneath, rows and rows of horizontal strips that offered little resistance to either the crowbar or the sledgehammer. Working away at it, Rocky thought only of smash, dust, rip, pop, toss it out the window into the Dumpster below. She looked down the stairs once at Cooper, who lay at the bottom with a smear of dust on his black fur. She wished that she had left him home and hoped that he wasn't breathing in too much of the detritus from the house. He would have clearly earned a swim in the ocean after this.

By midmorning she had stripped two walls down to the studs. The white paper mask and the protective eye gear had become unbearably hot. Her sweat had been absorbed by the white powder, forming a sort of goo on her arms and legs. The bedroom was on its way to starting over; Russell would add new wiring, insulation, and clean, uncomplicated drywall. The nearly hopeless house was on its way to being reborn.

Rocky heard the gurgle of Russell's diesel truck. Two doors slammed shut. Good. He had a worker with him today. She needed to consult with him about something, but she couldn't remember what because all she'd been thinking about was Hill and how he might have forgotten her even though it was Rocky who had shoved him out the door in a rage. That didn't mean Hill should forget her.

Russell wore a blue-and-white kerchief around his head, knee-length canvas pants with an impressive amount of shred, and work boots.

“I see you've been busy here this morning,” he said after letting his gaze swivel around the war zone of her labors. He shook his head. “Women and demolition.”

Chapter 24

Melissa

“W
hen we're developing photos in the lab and something shows up that we hadn't seen before, focus on that which was previously unseen,” said Mr. Clarke. Melissa was taking his special photography course that he offered during the summer. He sounded suddenly formal and mysterious, as if the answer to a massive secret would come into focus in the developing trays. Melissa decided to pay attention; it was her new approach, since she was going to be a senior in high school. She would pay attention. She could always forget what a teacher said later, that part was easy. Strands of growing up had braided together for her at the end of the school year, and she felt older.

Was all this leading somewhere final, like a recipe for a cake, and then she'd stay the same ever after? Was everything a destination, like graduation from high school, the beacon of light toward which she was crawling on her bloody knees? Yes, graduation was a destination. Or like the day she would pack up to leave the island for college—now there was a huge destination point in time. Would she get to that destination and then be the same forever? She hadn't asked these questions out loud because she knew what her parents would say.
Oh no, you'll never stop changing. Life is a constant state of evolution.

For two people who got divorced because of irreconcilable differences when Melissa was six years old, her parents consistently gave the same answers to most questions. Melissa didn't want to hear their predictable answer. The idea of change exhausted her, and if she had to think about constantly changing throughout her entire life, a mindless gargoyle might grab her by the throat and choke the life out of her.

The gap between her and Mr. Clarke, the photography teacher, was as wide as the ocean. He was old, older than her mother or her father, but despite that he was teaching her to see, and for that she was grateful. Clearly, he was still a separate species, and for the time being she'd wait to find out if he could be trusted with her most important thoughts. She had tested Rocky, an unlikely adult, and she had proven trustworthy, until now. Why would Rocky take that foster girl in? Couldn't she see?

Something showed up in the photo of Cooper and Natalie. When Natalie had first arrived, Melissa stopped in, returning Cooper from one of their photo shoots in Portland. Melissa had automatically taken a picture, first of Rocky and the girl, and then Natalie with Cooper, the king of the island. That's what her mother called him. Everyone knew him. When she took him on a run, people stopped her to pat him and talk with him.
How are you today, Cooper? Is this girl running you too hard?
And he was the last male dog complete with testicles that she'd ever seen. He wasn't much of a role model for the spay and neuter movement. The other one in the photo was Natalie, the ultimate in helplessness, the foundling who had crept into Rocky's life like a virus, slipping under the skin of their lives.

Melissa had photographed them with her digital camera, not the old Pentax K1000 that Mr. Clarke insisted on for the first part of the course. She downloaded the photos to her computer. Right there, she noticed the look in Cooper's eyes. Not in his eyes really, but in his body. Natalie had her hand on his head, as if she was a natural part of Rocky and the dog, but some part of Cooper was pulling away, the muscles along his scalp or maybe on his neck. Even along his front paws there was a slight tilt away from Natalie. Couldn't anyone else besides Melissa and the camera see this?

Now that Rocky was wrapped up with Natalie, Melissa felt change looming toward her with a large and bottomless pull. Rocky had just bought that old house, and who but Rocky would have picked something so decrepit? The house was two miles from Melissa's house. Once the renovation was finished and Rocky had moved in, Melissa would no longer be able to see her as she bumped along in the yellow truck with Cooper's black head hanging out the passenger window. Melissa had gotten used to Rocky living just down the road from her. Why did Rocky have to change things?

Who cared if Rocky was going to move to another part of the island? Not Melissa. She would not care. It wouldn't change her job of walking Cooper and taking him along with her to Portland when she took photos of other dogs. Rocky had taken the ferry into the building supply place to pick out toilets or something and left Cooper at home. Melissa didn't know how long it would take to remodel the house so that Rocky and Cooper could move in. At least several months, maybe longer if the job wasn't completed by winter.

Melissa's job was to take him for an easy run at a good dog-friendly pace. That was the deal: when Rocky went off-island, which she needed to do several times a week, it was Melissa's job to look after Cooper, take him to the beach, and throw unlimited slimy sticks or tennis balls into the ocean for him.

Cooper was a majestic swimmer, a true dog Olympian. It was Melissa who had discovered that Cooper could shake on command after emerging from the ocean with salt water glistening in his black fur.

“Cooper! Stay. Shake,” she had said one day after being drenched for the third time. To her amazement, he stopped where he was, a good ten feet from her, and agreeably shook the water from his body, starting at his massive shoulders and chest, letting the loose skin roll from side to side, his entire spine vibrating as water shimmered off him in an arc of salty spray.

She tried it again after he returned from retrieving another ball from the ocean. The next time he galloped out of the Atlantic, he held a sodden tennis ball in his soft mouth, delicately balanced on the tips of his formidable fangs.

“Stop. Shake,” said Melissa. Cooper stopped, dropped the ball, and shook again without getting a drop on her.

Melissa had not been able to contain her excitement when she first discovered this. She had charged back to Rocky's house with the dog to show off his new trick. She and Cooper ran down the dirt road, and Melissa picked up speed when she saw Rocky's truck. She called to her as she bounded up the steps of the deck.

“Rocky! You're not going to believe what Cooper can do. This guy is so smart, they should put him in the AP classes. I can't believe it.”

It had been delicious to show Rocky something new about the dog, something only Melissa herself had discovered. When they walked down to the beach with Cooper, Rocky responded with a big openmouthed laugh when she saw Cooper's on-command water shake.

“I never would have thought to ask him,” said Rocky. “I never would have imagined that he understood. Who knows what else this guy knows?”

Melissa had glowed.

Rocky spent hours every day at the weird house doing demolition work. Who cared if Natalie was there some of the time? At first, it was all about Natalie finding a summer job in Portland, and now look what had happened. She was following Rocky around like some wounded animal. Who cared if Rocky believed everything that weird chick said, the oh-so-poor foster kid? The five-star wacko, that's who she was. Melissa still had Cooper. He was waiting for her at the cottage.

She trotted down the familiar gravel driveway, lined on either side by thick tangles of rhododendron and bittersweet. She walked the last bit to cool down. Perfect—Rocky wasn't back yet, so she and Cooper would get in a good beach run. She loved the way Cooper greeted her. She tilted up the planter on the deck to get the key. Nothing. While she considered what this meant, the door opened and there was Natalie, her light hair wispy and jagged, eyes wide, set in determined helplessness.

“Hi. I've already walked Cooper. Rocky doesn't need you anymore. I mean, she doesn't need you to walk Cooper anymore. That's my job now.”

Natalie stood in front of the door, closing it partially so that the dog couldn't get out. Melissa stumbled as she backed off the step, hit by the force field beaming from Natalie. She heard Cooper's claws on the floor. Then he barked, and the hair rose on the back of her skull.

“I don't believe you. Open the door and let him out,” said Melissa. She'd already decided that Cooper was more important than saying the right thing.

Melissa was far smaller than Natalie in weight, and there was an undefined quality about the other girl's body, like she'd never played any sports so she didn't look like a high school girl. But she had done something, and it just might have included fighting. Melissa had never fought with anyone, never hit anyone, and she wasn't sure that she knew how. She was willing to find out. Melissa stepped onto the broad step in front of the door and flexed her fists. Her eyes never wavered from Natalie's face.

“If it's that important to you, go for it. He's just a dog,” said Natalie, stepping aside just enough so that Melissa could open the door, just enough so that they had to breathe in each other's scent, bristling as they came within inches of each other. When Melissa opened the door, Cooper burst out, giving her a high-pitched whine of a greeting, wrapping around and around her thighs and bumping into her. Then he walked a polite twenty feet from the house and let out a long overdue pee.

“Tell Rocky I'll bring Cooper back when she gets home. No, tell her to come to my house to get him.”

Melissa and the dog trotted along the dirt driveway without looking back. Natalie had lied about walking Cooper. That dog hadn't peed in hours.