Traveling Light (40 page)

She dragged up the subway steps to Union Turnpike in Queens. Feeling the rain saturating the top of her scalp and tickling, she gave up trying to cover her head. Across the street stood Mr. Sanchez, jiggling the key in the lock of his store. “Mr. Sanchez,” she called, and darted through traffic, hurrying toward him. “Mr. Sanchez.”

“Paula.” He waved and motioned to follow him into the shop. She stepped inside. The store was empty. No cages, no aquariums, no checkout counter or cash register. It felt so sad, so unnaturally quiet, devoid of chirping, frantic movement and the squeak of hamster wheels.

“Mom said you’re closing the store.”

“Yes, it’s time,” he said on a sigh. “Way too much for me. I heard you’re out in Minnesota now working with birds.” His eyes lit up as he said it.

She nodded and looked around at the faded posters of exotic birds and fish still on the walls. It was too hard to explain what she didn’t understand herself, so she just smiled.

“I’m happy for you, Paula; you take care,” he said. “I’m going to live with Mercedes; you remember my daughter—”

“Of course I do; we were in school together.”

“She’s back in San Juan. Back to Puerto Rico where the sun always feels so good.”

“Yeah, especially on such a raw, cold day like this,” she said though she could tell he was sad.

“She’s married, I have three grandkids.”

“Well, you take care, Mr. Sanchez; say ‘hi’ to Mercedes for me,” she said. Paula moved to hug him. “Bye, Mr. Sanchez.” She closed her eyes and leaned over, surrounding the man’s bony body with her arms. “Thanks for everything,” she whispered, and squeezed just a bit longer before releasing him. She then walked out, choked up, knowing she’d never see him again.

Standing outside the storefront for a few moments, she looked into the empty windows that were usually teeming with cages of busy hamsters, parakeets and cockatiels. It was more than she could handle. Paula turned and hurried the two blocks toward Eleni’s apartment.

As soon as she opened the door she noticed a pile of Eleni’s mail on the kitchen table, probably from Stavraikis. Her phone was ringing. She hoped it was Roger, but it was her mother.

“Are you there?”

“Yeah, just walked in, Ma. Saw Mr. Sanchez. He’s moving to live with Mercedes in San Juan.”

“He told me. That husband of yours call?”

“Comedy I don’t need, Ma.”

“How does the apartment look?”

Paula scanned the place and glanced at Theo’s painting above the sofa. Her mother’s one plant was drooping.

“The same,” Paula said as she walked over to feel the soil. “Stavraikis put the mail on the table but forgot to water your plant.”

“Did you see him?”

“No.” She eyed the schefflera plant; a few faded leaves had dropped onto the counter. “I’ll water it.” She stepped over to the sink and filled a glass.

“Good. But don’t let it sit in water, Paula,” Eleni barked orders.

“I won’t.”

“Water it and wait for the soil to drain and then dump it out, you hear?”

“Yes, Mom, I will take care of it; I’m not a total idiot.”

“You’re not an idiot at all,” Eleni said. “Call me when you hear from that Roger.”

“How’s Fotis and everyone else?”

“They’re all fine. I think he misses you; he hasn’t touched food since you left, nothing. I even made
tiropetes.
Rick says he knows you’re gone.”

“Yeah, probably so.” She sighed deeply and began to study the painting over the sofa.

“I’m looking at Theo’s painting, Mom.”

“Beautiful, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, it is. Can’t believe I’ve never really looked at it before.”

“Well, you probably had no reason to,” Eleni said. “Turn on the TV; relax until you hear from that husband of yours.”

“Okay, Mom.”

Theo’s painting was smallish, no more than a foot high, no more than two across. It was housed in a bright gold-washed wooden frame. The sea was aquamarine and greenish blue, like Lake Superior. The horizon pinkish as it is when the sun is in play. Paula knelt on the couch and touched the wall on either side, leaning closer. Bold brushstrokes blended into shades of mauve, blue and yellow oil paint to create the seascape. Each brush swirled in arcs, the handwriting of Theo’s soul. Each an individual fingerprint filled with emotion. Arcs frothed in an upswing like whitecaps in a rough sea. It was breathlessly beautiful. Paula sighed deeply and looked down at the signature floating in the right corner of the sea. “T. Fanourakis.”

So that was her real name, like Theo’s nephew. Paula Fanourakis. She’d lived her whole life as Makaikis, the name of a man she’d shared nothing with, not affection and now not even blood. She wondered if Theo’d chosen her first name. She stared at the rough sea, at the swirling clouds in the sky, as stormy as she felt. No one in either Vassili’s or Eleni’s family had been named Paula. Maybe Vassili had been pissed off at Eleni’s violation of the protocol of naming Greek children after ancestors. It was almost always strictly observed and when it was not that was considered a grave insult.

Walking into her old bedroom, she gathered a quilt from the foot of her bed and carried it into the living room. Switching on the TV, she cuddled into the couch pillows and looked up at the painting. She began to doze with CNN droning on in the background.

She dreamed the brushstrokes had become moving fingers like underwater sea grass, undulating with the waves, the tides; the whole painting was alive. She reached to touch the fingers and they were warm, not cold like the sea. Then she saw Fotis running with Sam. It woke her. She was infused with a joy, a peacefulness like the glow of the sun on the rocks in Theo’s painting. She held on to that for several minutes, relaxing into it as she peacefully drifted back to sleep, clutching one of Eleni’s pillows.

*   *   *

Hours later her phone rang from the coffee table. It was Roger.

“Hi,” she answered.

“My God, I’m such a dumbshit!” he exclaimed.

“Uhhh … yeah.”

“Don’t be so quick to agree,” he said.

She yawned and looked at her watch in the TV light; it was almost seven. The apartment was chilly, but she was warm under the quilt.

“Jesus, I completely forgot that they’d updated the door hardware, including the locks.”

“Yes, they did,” she said, pulling up the covers to bunch around her chin to trap the warmth.

“Where are you?”

“I’m home at Eleni’s.”

“Would you go catch a train?” Roger asked. “I’m home.”

She yawned again and then fell back into the pillow. “Would you come pick me up?” she countered.

“Pick you up?”

“Yeah, you know, as in go get your car and come and get me.”

“It’s all the way over on Lexington.”

“So what? I’m all the way over in Queens.”

He sighed as if it had been a long day and he wasn’t up for this.

“Tell you what,” she said, hurt, annoyed, yet relieved at the same time. “Why don’t I just see you tomorrow?” she suggested. “I’m tired, didn’t sleep at all last night. Sounds like you’re tired, too. Just leave me a key under one of the planters and I’ll let myself in tomorrow.” She’d expected him to take the offer but was disappointed by the speed with which he jumped at it.

“Sounds good.” Disappointed but not stricken enough to hustle his ass over to Lexington, fire up the car and drive out to Queens. “I guess what’s one more day after five weeks,” he offered, chuckling in a way she couldn’t interpret.

She could have been wrong, but he also sounded relieved.

“Exactly,” she played along. “What’s one more day?”

“Jerk,” she whispered after she ended the call. What a strange exchange. She got up and turned up the thermostat. The refrigerator was empty, but the cabinets were full. Her mother always stocked them like she was prepared to live through another world war. Paula stood on her toes, sorting through the varieties of Progresso and then selected the New England clam chowder. Opening it, she turned the can over, and the whole thing plopped out in one dollop into the pan.

Her phone rang again. Roger changing his mind? It was her mother.

“So what happened?” Eleni asked.

Paula was almost too disgusted with Roger to even explain.

CHAPTER 18

Paula slept peacefully on the couch under Theo’s painting and woke the next morning feeling rested.

Earlier Roger had called to ask how she’d slept and to say he was leaving for work around 7:00 am. Typically, Paula would have trouble prying him out before 10:00. He’d promised to leave his phone on so she could call the instant she entered the “new” brownstone. Their plan was to meet there late afternoon; her stomach tightened, dreading everything except coffee.

Just before eight she left to catch the subway back to the City. In the hall outside Eleni’s door she bumped into Stavraikis, who’d stepped out to retrieve his newspaper.

The elderly man startled at seeing her. “Paula,” he shouted so loud she jumped. “Eleni’s back?” The man’s face lit up. He held his hand up to his ear, cuing her that he was hard of hearing, though she already knew.

“No,” Paula shouted back. “She’s staying on for a while longer.”

“Ti?” His voice got louder as he cupped his hand to his large hairy ear and leaned closer, inviting her to shout louder.

“She’s staying on a bit longer,” she shouted, feeling bad for being so loud so early.

“Oh.” He quickly wilted. “She must be very happy to stay longer.” He nodded as loneliness settled back on him. Paula nodded and waved as she left.

*   *   *

Standing on 25th Street in front of the brownstone. Paula closed her eyes for a moment and touched the gate for assurance. There was a gap under one of the planters indicating that Roger had left a key. She squatted and slipped it out—gold and shiny like a new piece of jewelry.

The key slid in effortlessly; the lock unlatched, unlike the old one, which required a hefty amount of elbow grease. As she depressed the handle, the door swung open with no opposition.

Paula peered into the foyer in shock. It was someone else’s house. She expected a person to come rushing downstairs to see who’d let themselves in.

It smelled of potpourri, fresh paint, new fabric and clean wool, smells of another person’s home. A burgundy-colored Persian rug lay in the foyer entrance and she stepped around it, taking off her sandals, though she wasn’t entirely convinced her feet were much cleaner.

“Hello?” she called, still not convinced someone else didn’t live there.

Opposite the staircase was a porcelain vase with cut flowers set on a Federal-style wooden hall table, above it a gilded mirror. Next to it stood a blue and white porcelain umbrella stand. She lifted one of the umbrellas, looking at it. It looked purely ornamental; she was about to test it but then stopped—bad luck to open umbrellas in a house.

A small crystal chandelier worthy of a grand old house had replaced the naked lightbulb fixture that had been there since the first day she’d moved in. The ceilings were so high they required a ladder to change the bulb, often taking Roger months to dig one out. She’d always shied away from calling someone in for fear of them filing a report with the City Health Department.

The walls were warm, creamy beige and glowing with morning light, the woodwork and moldings fresh, white enamel. Walking down the narrow hall, she turned into what she’d always believed should be a dining room. A long ornate wooden table filled the space; she recognized the carving on each corner from his parents’ table that had long been buried. “Katya,” she said Roger’s mother’s name. Her fingertips traced the grooves of the vines. Seating for eight and underneath was another large burgundy-colored Persian rug that was room sized, leaving only the edges of a wood floor visible. Perhaps these were the carpets she’d seen folded in tall stacks. She bent down to feel the pile of the wool. “All this time,” she said. So this was what they looked like; she studied the swirling design after having wondered for so many years.

“Holy shit,” she said. Even stranger to hear her voice echo off the empty corners of the room. What had happened to the mountains of cardboard boxes and piles of couches? Paula’s mouth hung open, circling the room, feeling like she’d been abducted by an issue of
Architectural Digest.
The room looked so large and formal. She couldn’t imagine sitting down for a meal here, but maybe Roger could; maybe he’d grown up that way.

Long, sheer creamy drapes were illuminated by the window light, pooling in graceful puddles on the floor. The wood floors throughout looked as though they ’d been replaced; the old ones had been scratched and badly stained with mold. Along one side of the room was a long, narrow hutch with a display of graceful old plates with burgundy patterns she’d didn’t recognize. Against the far wall was a matching walnut sideboard, a silver soup terrine and assorted objets d’art. Maybe these were what had clanked about in boxes every time she’d move or bump them.

Paula walked back into the hallway and down to the living room on the left. It reflected the same colors. A grand ornate marble fireplace stood against the outside wall. She’d never seen the fireplace before, but it looked at least a century old. And to think she’d sat only a few feet away from it, buried, and never known it was there. Now the fireplace mantel was the living room showpiece.

A large ornate Venetian mirror set atop the fireplace mantel, reflecting light and offsetting the simple, modern furnishings. Rising up onto her toes, Paula looked at herself. She looked shoddy and out of place, her hair frizzy.

Paula covered her mouth with her hands as she looked toward the back of the building. A wall had been removed. Brownstones typically were long and narrow, broken up into smaller rooms that often served no purpose in modern life. You could see right through to the back windows of the house; how on earth could Roger have allowed this without having a nervous breakdown?

She walked back into what looked like a gourmet restaurant kitchen. White marble counters and backsplashes, stainless appliances, washtubs, vegetable sprayers and spigots, plus an eat-in space built into the back of the brownstone. A table and chairs were framed by a bay window with a window seat—all reflected the same color theme—safe, but stunning. Sunlight streamed in. The house had shed a hundred years; it brought tears to her eyes, though not for her sake. It’s what she’d always wanted for the house. Just like her barred owl and eagle, the house too was rehabilitated, resurrected back to life.