The Art Student's War (61 page)

Rita asked for a mint julep and Bianca for a glass of milk and Stevie, who didn’t usually like to drink, ordered a Manhattan. Grant paused (unsure whether anyone would be drinking tonight, he’d already downed a big Scotch at home), then ordered a Manhattan. Bianca nodded and smiled.

She noticed that Stevie’s suit, which was a couple of years old, was tight across the shoulders. He’d bulked up, lifting weights. Grant’s suit, which had a black plaid pattern subtly woven through its charcoal gray, fit perfectly. Bianca had selected it for him, at Hughes and Hatcher. She selected his entire wardrobe, with the exception of his athletic wear—admittedly, a large exception.

She wondered how long Rita would wait to reveal the evening’s mystery.
Not long, it turned out. Rita could hardly contain her news. The moment the drinks arrived, face glowing with excitement, she said, “First of all, we want to wish you a very, very happy birthday, Grant.”

“Well, that’s so kind,” Grant said. “But no need, no need.”

“No need,” Bianca echoed.

“Second of all, we want to congratulate Stevie. He has a new job.”

“You have a new job, Stevie!” Bianca cried, and reached across the table to lay her hand on his. He didn’t respond—like the rest of the Paradisos, he was no “toucher”—but he let it remain.

“What sort of job? When do you start?” Grant said.

Again, Stevie looked embarrassed. Like Papa, he never wanted to be “fussed over.” But he did not shrink away. He stared his sister straight in the eye and said, “Yes, I have a new job.” Then he turned to Grant and said, “I’ve already started.”

“Stevie’s already been at it a week!” Rita cried. “I woulda said something, but Stevie kept telling me keep my trap shut. I kept telling him, I’d be keener to listen if you used nicer language.” Rita laughed brightly.

“That’s right,” Bianca said. “Stevie talks like a thug half the time.”

“See?” Rita tap-tap-tapped Stevie on the arm. “Your sister’s saying just what I say about what you say.”

“But who are you working for?” Grant asked.

“I’m working for a trucking company.”

“That sounds wonderful,” Bianca said, even as her heart wobbled, as it always did when serious alterations came to Stevie’s life. Behind his bravado, he was so vulnerable.

“What’s the name of the company?” Grant said.

“Turk’s Trucks. The owner, he’s a Turk. From Turkey,” Stevie said.

“Oh I’ve met him!” Bianca cried, instantly feeling much better.

“You’ve met him?” Stevie seemed taken aback—crestfallen, somehow.

“Just the one time,” Bianca said. “With Aunt Grace. We met by chance. At Sanders. He’s a friend of Uncle Dennis.”

“That’s right.”

Actually, Bianca had met him twice, both occasions distant but still vivid. The first encounter had been while lunching with Aunt Grace. Up had stepped the voluble little man with a gold tie and a big gold watch who called Uncle Dennis a great man and adduced as proof his plump daughter, whose name, whatever it was, meant angel in Turkish. The man insisted that Uncle Dennis had saved the girl’s life.

And the two of them, father and daughter, had materialized on that teary day when Uncle Dennis and Aunt Grace’s earthly belongings had been carted away, bound for Cleveland, in a big truck emblazoned with the words “Turk’s Trucks.” Father and daughter had waved at it, mournfully.

“What will you be doing?” Grant asked.

“Quite a few things,” Stevie replied. “I can repair lots of what goes wrong on trucks. But also there’s seeing it’s loaded properly, and checking the schedules, and the routes. Lots of things. Making people get along. It’s more complicated than it looks,” Stevie went on proudly.

“Stevie’ll be a sort of foreman,” Rita supplied.

“Yeah, it looks like I’m going to be a sort of foreman. Eventually.”

“And the pay’s so good.”

“Better. Better than what I was making at Ford.”

“That’s just so wonderful, Stevie,” Bianca said, and felt herself issuing a sort of prayer of thanksgiving, though channeled not toward God but toward that plump, pop-eyed man down in Cleveland who watched over them all.

Yes, and wasn’t it ironic that she’d felt so guilty after her long walk with Uncle Dennis some weeks ago? He’d been so noble, delaying all mention of Grace’s cancer so as not to mar the family celebration. And on a night when he was already so burdened, what had Bianca done but drop upon his shoulders her fears about Stevie, who tonight was sitting in Tupelo’s Country House in a suit, looking handsome, playing host? It was all so evident what had happened … Uncle Dennis had listened that night, and asked her many questions, then changed the subject, as though nothing more were to be done. And the next day he’d driven off to pay a visit to the one man who just might hold the solution. Unexpectedly, quick as a blush, Bianca’s eyes welled with tears, and, though they did not spill, Rita spotted them anyway, and in surprise, in delight, she cried, “Bay!” and Bianca, abashed, murmured, “I’m just thrilled for you,” and Stevie, who didn’t often come up with quips, made everything all right: “We’re gonna cut you off at one glass of milk.” Gaiety swept the table.

A waitress approached and Stevie, with an authority inspiring to behold, ordered drinks without consulting anyone. “Another mint julep for my wife,” he said. “And the boys will have another Manhattan.”

Grant looked to Bianca, who nodded at him. “I’m just fine,” she told the waitress. Most of her milk was not yet drunk. The truth was, she didn’t much like drinking milk.

“And how is Aunt Grace?” Rita asked.

“Hard to say. I got a letter yesterday. She sounded cheerful. Under the circumstances.”

Grace had started her radiation treatments.

Bianca went on, “I keep thinking I must go see her. To help out? She was such a help to me once, when I was sick.”

But there were huge obstacles to her going. Who would take care of the boys? And she was pregnant. And—in many ways the thorniest problem—Grant was unnerved by the proposal. He was stiffening now. Cleveland had been her destination on that merciless morning when she left a note on the kitchen table.

As an alternative, he kept suggesting they all four drive down … But how restful would it be for Grace to have the boys underfoot? Furthermore, Grace truly didn’t seem to want visitors—not until she was feeling better. There was no solution, really, other than to feel guilty, and scared—which Bianca did, mostly at night. During the daytime, the whole question of Aunt Grace was surprisingly little on her mind.

When the waitress returned with drinks, they were ready to order. Bianca asked for the baked whitefish and Rita the stuffed pork chop. Stevie ordered the T-bone and, though Bianca winced at the price, Grant did the same.

Again, as soon grew apparent, Grant’s instincts were sound. This was Stevie’s night, and he was exulting in its lavishness. It
pleased
him that Grant had ordered the T-bone. When had Bianca last seen Stevie, when had she
ever
seen Stevie, talk so freely? He was effusive about trucking, not just Turk’s Trucks but, as he put it, the “whole future of the transportation industry.”

Stevie discussed the new Interstate Highway System and everyone was cheered to see him so outgoing. He spoke, they nodded and nodded. Trains were outmoded. It’s like Nature, they can’t adapt fast enough. Did any of them know how many pounds of cargo a good-sized semitrailer can carry? Sixty thousand, easy. And as the roads improve? And the engines improve? Eighty. A hundred thousand pounds …

Of course Stevie might conceivably have felt the same way about cars, about his former employer, the Ford Motor Company. But he never had. His job at Ford had never engaged his imagination the way, after only a week, Turk’s Trucks had done. It was just lovely: he’d become a part, a real and living part, of something auspicious and vast and challenging.

Bianca had a sudden feeling, disorienting but not unwelcome, that
Stevie was evolving into somebody she didn’t intimately know. Who was this man in the brown suit who spouted opinions on any topic under the sun—Mayor Cobo, the proper way to teach shop classes, or the bright future of California, which he alone among them had visited? Tonight she was seeing the emergence of somebody who had long yearned to get out—somebody she hadn’t realized was there.

Once the food arrived, which everyone agreed was delicious (though Stevie, establishing himself as unintimidated by such extravagant prices, noted that his steak was “a little tough”), the subject of Grant’s golfing arose.

“You’ve never tried it, you might like it,” Grant said, and Stevie said, “I wouldn’t mind. Trying it out. At least once. You know, I wouldn’t mind.”

And why couldn’t they all share a world in which Stevie golfed on weekends, and went regularly to Tigers games—did something other than work all the time? Why couldn’t a world emerge in which Stevie was recognized as precisely the sort of person Bianca knew he was at bottom: a competent, conscientious man whose virtues were suitably rewarded? Why couldn’t the world relent and begin to be fair to Stevie?

It was a sign of his newfound confidence and openness that he introduced over dessert—they all ordered dessert—a subject rarely talked about.

“The first time she”—Rita—“brings up the idea of celebrating Grant’s birthday at a restaurant, I say, Uh-uh. I say, No dice. I’m thinking, We don’t have such a good family history of restaurant birthdays. You remember, Bea.”

“Of course I remember.”

Stevie, Rita, Grant—they all turned to her. Everyone knew the story, but even so they awaited some comment, interpretation, illumination.

“Aunt Grace’s fortieth birthday,” Bianca said. “At Chuck’s Chop House on McNichols, now defunct. You could say that’s the night when all hell broke loose in the family. Excuse my language, but that really is the word for it.”

“She”—meaning Mamma—“just went crazy.”

“Mamma just sort of went off her head,” Bianca concurred, while softening the phrase a little. “And things have never really recovered. I’m convinced Uncle Dennis and Aunt Grace wouldn’t have moved if that night had never happened. I know this sounds—I don’t know. Melodramatic? Simplistic? But I’m convinced.”

“She went off her head,” Stevie pointed out.

“These things are complicated,” Grant said, and nodded sagaciously—but of course there were no complications in his own family. Just ask him. Any significance to the fact that the nearer of his two sisters had moved to Flagstaff, Arizona, and the other all the way to Thailand? None at all. Sometimes Grant’s refusal to confront such issues exasperated Bianca, but even if you faced them head-on, who could uncover the real underpinnings of any family? Who could isolate its truth? She was seeing tonight a Stevie who wasn’t quite any Stevie she knew. And at the close of this inspiriting evening, as they awaited the check, something peculiar and deeply humbling revealed itself.

“I’ll never forget that night at Chuck’s Chop House,” Stevie said. “Suddenly, everybody is marched out of the restaurant, while Dad and Uncle Dennis square up the bill. We’re all standing under an awning, and then Mom walks out alone into the falling snow.”

“Snow?” Bianca said.

“Snow. It was snowing,” Stevie said.

“Stevie, it wasn’t snowing. It was raining. It was Grace’s birthday. We were celebrating Grace’s birthday. This was July.”

Stevie sat still, very pensive behind his glasses. Then he picked up a drinking straw, breathed through it, held his index finger over the bottom so he could no longer breathe, and released his finger and inhaled again. “You gotta be right,” he concluded, finally. “July. Musta been. So it
had
to be rain.”

“It was. It was raining.”

“Funny,” Stevie said. “But I see it so vivid. I would’ve sworn. I can
see
the snowflakes. Mom walking out into the snow.” Stevie looked very young and vulnerable, suddenly.

“Well, why should you remember? You were just a little kid. You were what—thirteen?”

Stevie ran his index finger around the base of the straw. “Maybe the drink is playing with my head? But it’s so funny. Because I see it so vivid: snowflakes. Mom walking off into the swirling snow.”

Rain turns to snow … And if that evening’s eyewitnesses were susceptible to such tricks of memory, what hope was there of arriving together at anything like the truth?

CHAPTER XXXII

At the end of it, putting on her pajamas that night, Bianca said to Grant,
“Quite
some day, don’t you think?” It had been a good day, a day of stubborn little problems posed and solved, with one stunning and marvelous revelation …

The day had begun in earnest when Matt, whom she thought of as the less observant of the two boys, said to her, “Mom, you have a fat tummy.” “Go call your brother,” she said to him.

She led the two boys into the den and broke the news that everyone else had known for weeks and weeks. “You know what, boys? You’re going to have a little sister or a little brother.”

“You’re going to have a baby,” Chip said, face lighting with pride in his quickness.

“That’s right. Daddy and I thought it would be a good idea for you to have a little sister or little brother.”

“Which one will it be?” Matt said.

“That’s what we don’t know. Whether it will be a boy or a girl.”

“Who does know?”

“Nobody knows. Or God, I guess.”

“If it’s a boy, what will you name it?” Chip said.

“We’re not sure.”

“Will you name it Matt?” Matt said.

“No. Matt is your name.”

He nodded, relieved. Chip nodded. Everyone who saw them marveled at how closely they resembled their father, but if you were attentive to small visual details—and Bianca liked to think herself
very
attentive—the similarities were preternatural. Both boys had Grant’s exact nod in these moments when great solemnity mixed with perplexity: an outthrusting of the chin while the eyes narrowed into quizzical slits.

How ridiculous she’d been in not telling the boys! She’d thought she would spare herself endless questions. But they weren’t going to ask many questions now, or any time before the baby was born. There were
a few more issues to clear up (What if the baby was twins? Where would the baby sleep?), but already they were a little overwhelmed; they’d had enough. She had brought them the most momentous news they’d ever heard—an announcement that would transform their lives forever—and they nodded and narrowed their eyes and when she asked if they were glad they replied “Yeah” and “Uh-huh.” Five minutes from now, they’d be playing Ping-Pong or scampering around the backyard, and any thought of their new little sister would have flown right out of their heads.