“Do you
have
to go out, Mom?”
It was Friday night and the Fallons were running late.
“I could do without the ballet,” Jenny said, thinking with regret about Richard’s gallery opening. “But the tickets are non-refundable. And they weren’t cheap.”
“Will you be home late?”
“Not much before midnight, I expect. Your dad likes to mingle.”
“Okay, then.”
Kim thought of switching off all the lights after they left and pretending she was out. She could tell Tracy her family’s plans had changed and they’d all gone out together. But if she knew Tracy, she and her boyfriends were already parked down the street, watching for Kim’s parents to leave. Besides, she was a lousy liar. Tracy would see right through her.
Jack came down the stairs and Kim turned to look at him, a blush rising to her cheeks. He looked...beautiful. She could think of no plainer word.
As he walked past her, heading for the vestibule closet, Kim grabbed his hand, her words coming in an eager stampede.
“Dad, can we go bowling tomorrow? Just you and I? You said we could someday, remember?” It was a promise Jack had made when Kim was seven. “We could go to Hopewell Lanes. It’s just on the other side of Bank Street. They rent shoes and everything.”
Jack tugged his hand away. Kim had been clutching it. “I’m sorry, kid,” he said, slipping into his coat. “I’ve made other plans.”
Kim looked at her feet. “That’s okay. Maybe some other time.”
“Sure,” Jack said. “Some other time.” To Jenny he said, “I’ll get the car.”
Heartsick, Jenny kissed Kim goodbye, promised to take her bowling tomorrow if she still wanted to go, then hurried outside. Jack was honking the horn.
Less than a minute later the doorbell rang. Kim hesitated a moment, then opened the door, thinking,
To hell with it
.
Tracy stood on the stoop with a boy on either arm. The same boys Kim had met at school on Monday, sporting the same shiny leathers, the same stoned grins.
“Ready to party?” Tracy said.
“Sure,” Kim said. “Why not.”
* * *
Richard stood on the lawn fronting the gallery, in the shadow of a massive red maple. He was grateful for the night air. It was stifling inside. Smoky and hot. Too many people. Too many back-thumping, glad-handing people trying to ingratiate themselves to the ‘great artist’. That was a price of fame Richard hadn’t counted on. Everyone wanted a piece of him.
He leaned against the tree, admiring the building’s facade. It was a small, Georgian-style mansion, a landmark on Sussex Drive for more than a century, with a magnificent cliff-view of the Ottawa River a hundred feet below. Richard had blue-printed the interior renovations himself, preserving the classic architecture of the upper levels—which would serve as his living quarters until the house in Carp was ready—while eliminating most of the downstairs partitions, creating one huge gallery space. This he’d kept simple, sparing the hardwood floors and various sunken levels, but sacrificing the paneled walls for the plain, egg-shell surfaces that best complimented his work. The effect was perfect, the recessed spots lending just the right amount of warmth to his canvasses.
But for now Richard stood outside of it all, a spectator at his own gala affair. It all seemed faintly unreal. In his younger days, the connection between his talent and this kind of wealth had never occurred to him. But that same talent had made him a very rich man. He guessed he’d never get used to it...and maybe that was good.
A car rolled into the parking area.
Come on
, Richard thought,
let it be her
. But it was a couple of older women he didn’t recognize. Friends of his mother’s, he supposed. He checked his watch: 8:15 P.M. The invitations were for seven, but maybe she’d gotten held up. Her husband was a doctor, that could explain it. Or maybe she was into being fashionably late.
Or maybe she’s just not coming.
But he wasn’t ready to accept that possibility. Not just yet.
A car slowed at the entrance, then drove off.
Richard went back inside.
* * *
Jenny turned in her seat to scan the Arts Center crowd. Ottawa was a government town, but there was money here. She could see it in the tailored suits, the one-of-a-kind gowns, the Florida tans that never went away. She could see it in the aloof faces. She spotted Paul Daw a few rows back, with a girl she didn’t recognize, but couldn’t get his attention.
As the lights dimmed and Jenny turned to face the stage, she felt a stab of pain in her tummy. Startled, she squeezed Jack’s hand.
“What is it?” Jack whispered. A rail-thin man in tights had just come twirling onto the stage.
Jenny had been holding her breath, but now she released it. The pain was gone. Before coming to the ballet they’d dined at a Lebanese restaurant on Elgin Street and Jenny guessed she’d eaten something that disagreed with her. No need to get hysterical.
“I’m fine,” she said. “Just felt like holding hands in the dark.”
Jack eyed her skeptically for a beat, then smiled. “Keep your eye on these guys,” he said. “They all wear two pairs of socks. One on their tricky little feet, the other in their fleece lined jocks.”
Jenny giggled and someone behind them made a shushing noise. Grinning like adolescents, the Fallon’s settled back in their seats.
As she watched the performance, Jenny wondered how Kim was making out...and felt a twinge of regret over Richard’s opening. In a different time, perhaps a happier time, she would have been right there beside him, proudly holding his arm.
* * *
“Fuckin’-A stereo, man.”
Their names were Charlie Haid—the tall one, who at the moment had his gloms all over Jack’s expensive stereo equipment—and Robin “Jeep” Elfman, the short, powerfully built drummer for the punk band Slap Hammer.
As soon as Kim let them in Tracy made a beeline for the kitchen— “Kimeroo, got any Fritos? I’ve got, like, the serious munchies,”—and Jeep wandered off in search of a bathroom.
“You better not touch that stereo,” Kim said now, irritated by the smallness of her voice.
“Why not?” Charlie said. “Does the sucker bite?” He roared laughter at his own wit and returned his attention to the stereo. “Check this out. Got any Ramones?”
Kim had no CDs of her own. The truth was, she didn’t much care for music of any kind. She liked some of her mother’s old stuff—Stevie Wonder, the Beatles, the fifties tunes on the jukebox—but had never understood the compulsion of her classmates to idolize rock musicians. She had an Alanis Morissette poster on her wall, and one of Aerosmith, but only because her mother had bought them for her.
“Got any?” Charlie said. “Ramones? Daft Punk? Vandals?”
Tracy appeared now, one hand buried in a bag of Dill Pickle chips. She said, “Dial in CHUM FM, leatherhead, and break out some of that hash.”
Charlie said, “Good call, Trace,” and started scanning the FM waves.
Now Jeep was back, trying to unsnag a knot of T-shirt from his half-zippered fly. “Hey, Trace,” he said, shuffling toward her. “Think you can work this loose with your teeth?”
Tracy made a puking noise. “I wouldn’t touch that ugly little thing if you paid me.”
“How do you know it’s ugly?” Jeep said, offended.
“My dog told me,” Tracy said and Charlie laughed. She said, “Why don’t you ask Kim to help you? I bet she’s never even seen an ugly one before.”
Kim’s face turned poppy red. Jeep eyeballed her a moment, as if weighing the possibility, then his T-shirt pulled free and he zipped up his fly. Jenny’s cat picked that moment to stroll through the living room and Jeep bounded after her.
Kim went cold inside.
Tracy said, “Charlie and me are going upstairs to check out the master bedroom.” It was metal hour on CHUM and the Scorpions were belting out “Another Piece of Meat.”
Kim said, “No, Tracy, please. I don’t think you should go into my parents’ bedr—”
There was an uproar in the kitchen now: claws skidding on terra cotta, a muffled shriek of pain.
Tracy chuckled. “Better go rescue your cat,” she said. “Is she spayed?” Then she led Charlie upstairs, her pert fanny straining against acid-wash jeans.
“Here kitty,” Jeep crooned. Kim turned and saw him on his hands and knees under the dining room table. Just out of reach, Peach huddled with her ears back and her tail swishing back and forth.
“Hey,” Kim shouted over the blaring stereo, resigning herself to the situation. “Let’s go sit in the living room.” She was defying her father, might as well make the best of it.
Jeep got to his feet, one hand adjusting his balls. He grinned. “Okay, baby.”
* * *
“Where is Mr. Kale?” the stout woman said. “I
must
have a word with him.”
The woman was Emily Kraft, an art collector of national renown. At the moment she stood before the largest canvas in the gallery, trying to get her escort’s attention. Said escort was a dapper fellow by the name of Bradley Sessions, a gaunt man bearing an uncanny resemblance to the late Andy Warhol. Bradley was currently engaged in stuffing his face. He stood by the punch bowl, chomping biscuits heaped with Beluga caviar. When he heard Emily’s voice he snapped to attention, setting off in search of the evening’s host. He netted the artist from a circle of admirers and led him to Ms. Kraft.
Richard greeted her politely—he knew her by name but had never met her in person—and inquired as to how he might be of service.
“This painting,” Emily said. “It’s not for sale?”
Richard glanced at the tastefully petite, fluorescent red NFS sticker on the brass title plate and sighed. Couldn’t rich people read?
“I’m afraid not, Ms. Kraft. It’s from my private collection. I only displayed it tonight because I expected someone...special to attend.”
“The girl in the painting?”
“Yes. The girl in the painting.”
“Well. Be that as it may. I
must
have this piece.”
“I’m sorry, Ms. Kraft, it’s not for sale.”
“I’ll pay a hundred thousand.”
Richard shook his head. He wouldn’t let it go for a million.
“What then? Name your price.”
“I’m sorry,” Richard said, his disappointment shading to annoyance at this spoiled, overbearing woman, “but the painting is not for sale. Now if you’ll excuse me.”
“Well,” Emily huffed. She glared in mute anger at the canvas as the artist walked away. It was entitled,
Girl on a Swing
.
* * *
The pain came again after the first intermission, but this time it was sharp and unabating. Jenny moaned and hunched forward in her seat, drawing stares from the ballet-goers around her.
Leaning over her, Jack said, “What is it, Jen? Is it the baby?”
Jenny said, “I don’t know,” feeling an absurd pang of jealousy for her unborn child. Jack’s concern was only for it. “Do you mind if we leave?”
Someone in the row behind shushed them, a plump, lawyerly looking fellow in a black suit. Jack leaned over the seat back and hissed into the man’s shocked face: “Shush me again, motherfucker, you’ll be shitting your own teeth.” He turned back to Jenny and helped her up. “Come on. Let’s get you to the hospital.”
They brushed past glares of annoyance, stumbling over feet, jostling knees. Then they were in the aisle and Jenny knew what the problem was. It wasn’t her baby, it was that desert Jack made her try, that doughy green stuff with the unpronounceable name and a flavor like day-old spitballs,
that
was what the problem was. And if she didn’t get a move on, she was going to puke it up all over the wine colored carpet.
“Oh, God, Jack, hurry. I’m gonna be sick. Hurrrrr
eeee
...”
Jack whisked her along the aisle, almost carried her, and Jenny cursed her luck in getting seats so close to the front. Now the place seemed a mile long, there was no
way
she was going to make it...
Then they broke through the Opera doors into the lobby and Jenny was bolting for the ladies’ room. She straight-armed the door, banged into the nearest cubicle—
And up it all came.
Jesus.
She kept her eyes closed, trying not to look in the bowl, but she couldn’t find the flusher, and when she opened her eyes to find it, there the stuff was, floating and bubbling in the bowl. Jenny thought,
Camelpuke
, and the thought induced a fresh wave of convulsions.
A hand touched her shoulder. It was Jack.
She wiped her mouth with toilet paper and tried to smile. “You can’t be in here. It’s the ladies’ room.”
“Are you okay? Can you make it to the car?”
Jenny stood, testing her legs. The cubicle walls swapped places a few times, then everything settled. She felt better. In fact, she felt good. She stabbed the flusher with her foot, looking away as the last of her dinner (
camelpuke oh shit don’t think about camelpuke
) swirled its way into the sewers.
She said, “Yeah, I can make it,” and tossed her ruined hairdo out of her face, resisting the impulse to apologize for her sickness. “Still love me?”
“I want Craig Walsh to have a look at you.”
She followed him out of the stall, glad the restroom was abandoned. “I don’t think we need to bother,” she said, surprising herself. Maybe Craig was right. Her baby was fine and she knew it. “It was just a bad burger.”
“I don’t want to take any chances,” Jack said. “I’ll call him from the lobby, have him meet us in the ER.”
* * *
As Jenny expected, Craig agreed with her diagnosis, sending her on her way with his usual reassurances and a painful shot of Gravol in her backside. Jenny considered the injection overkill, knowing that inside of an hour she’d be a zombie from the drug. But she submitted to it in the hope that, if whatever was left of her supper got angry again, she’d be able to keep it down. The single thing she hated doing most in the world was throwing up. She’d actually dozed off when Jack pulled the car to an abrupt stop in front of the house.
Jenny opened her eyes and saw a strange automobile parked in the driveway. It was a Duster—her kid brother owned one in his teens—and her first thought was that its owner must’ve stopped at the wrong address. Then fear seized her: visions of rape, her child overpowered by drug-crazed maniacs.