Accelerated (9 page)

“Beginning of January. Latest.”

“But … that’s …”

“Is this a problem?” Camille eyed him coolly.

“No. No, of course not.” He shook her hand, bestowed what he hoped was a grateful—but not groveling—smile, and hurried out the door before she could change her mind.

He took the steps two at a time. When he emerged from the gallery, walking wasn’t fast enough and he started to run. It was happening. He’d gotten a real show. This could be the beginning of everything. A new life, new work, some real money. It could mean recognition as an artist. A life apart from Ellie.

His face muscles felt strange. He realized he was sporting an all-out, shit-eating grin and there was nothing he could do about it. He’d gotten exactly what he’d always wanted. He stopped running to contemplate it.

“Yesss,” he shouted. It exploded from deep inside him, a booming celebration of the moment. He unclenched his fist and stopped pumping the air when an older black lady cut a wide berth around him, keeping him in her peripheral vision.

A man walking toward him caught his eye and squinted in recognition. As he got closer, he realized it was Walt Renard.

“You okay?”

“Yeah,” he said, the shit-eating grin persisting. “I’m good. Very good.”

Now Walt was smiling, too. “You look like the cat who swallowed the canary. Spit it out.”

“I just got some good news.” He tried to make it sound like no big deal, like this wasn’t the most important thing that had ever happened to him.

“Don’t leave me hanging,” Walt said. “Come on. Spill it.”

He opened his mouth to tell Walt, which would make it real. “I just came from Burdot.”

“The Burdot Gallery. It’s one of the best in the city. I’ve known Camille for years.”

“Camille … she just gave me a show, in February, with Martin Vols and Tina Crowe.” He loved the way it sounded coming out of his mouth.

“Whoa! That
is
good news. Fantastic news!” Walt slapped his back. “Congratulations.”

“Thanks,” he said, suddenly selfconscious about sharing this deeply personal news with someone he hardly knew. “So do you work around here?”

“Not too far.” Walt swiveled to reveal the nylon gym bag on his shoulder. “I’ve got a regular game twice a week at Chelsea Piers.” He sized up Sean. “You play ball?”

“Basketball? Not for a while, but yeah, a little.” He’d played intramural basketball. At art school. Nicole had always been the jock in the family.

“You should play with us.” Walt’s eyes lit up. “It’s not a killer game, but you’ll get a workout.”

Basketball could be fun. “Why not? Let me know next time you play.”

“Sure thing. Got a card?”

Sean dug a business card from his wallet and wished it didn’t say
Buzz Weekly
on it.

“I’ll email you.” Walt looked at his watch. “I better run or they’ll start without me.”

“Have a good game.”

“I will,” he said. “And Sean, congratulations on Burdot. That is phenomenal news. Phenomenal.”

Walt jogged toward Chelsea Piers and Sean hauled ass to Thirty-eigth and Tenth, where he doubled over and gasped for breath. Taxis, commuter busses, and limos raced past him toward the Lincoln Tunnel. The wind kicked up off the Hudson and he tightened his jacket against it.

Reality began to set in. How the hell was he going to pull off seventeen new pieces by January while keeping his job and entertaining Toby over Christmas break? His mind, now cold and clear from the wind, turned the impossible math problem over and over like a giant Rubik’s cube. No matter how he twisted it, he couldn’t make it work out. There simply weren’t enough hours in the day to get it all done.

He fought to stave off the panic. He’d figure it out. He’d have to. This opportunity was not going to get lost in the insanity that had become his day-to-day. This show was going to happen. Period. He checked his watch.

He was supposed to be making an apple pie with Toby. The apple pie that Ellie should have been making. Sean was responsible for it all now—taking care of Toby, earning a living, making the fucking apple pie.

Worst of all, he’d finally gotten the show he’d been waiting for and there was no one to tell. No one who knew how desperately he’d wanted it. Except Ellie. He should call Ellie just to prove he’d done it. That he was good enough. But he knew he wouldn’t call her.

He’d pick up Toby from Nicole’s house, tell him the news, then they’d figure out how to cook an apple pie.

H
IS APARTMENT HADN’T FELT SO WARM SINCE BEFORE
E
LLIE LEFT.
Way before she left, when she was still the real Ellie with a job and a staff to boss around and meetings to run and endless energy that kept their family humming along happily.

Now, a young Mick Jagger belted “Ruby Tuesday” while he and Toby air-guitared around the living room, jumping on furniture, squeezing their eyes shut in musical ecstasy and thrashing invisible instruments. When they were sweaty and tired, they collapsed on the couch, breathing heavily.

“Dad, you should have been a rock star,” Toby said, without irony. “You’ve got some good moves.”

“You too. What was that hip thing you were doing? Kinda racy for eight, don’t you think?”

“Da-ad!” Toby said and hit him with a pillow.

“So did you think about what you want to do during Christmas break? Should I see if there’s some kind of art camp you can go to or something?”

“I can be your assistant.”

“Boring. Trust me. We’ll find something good for you.”

“Zack is going to Vail with his mom. Why don’t we ski, Dad?”

Where to begin? Skis, lifts, resorts, gear? Next to polo and scuba diving, it was probably the most expensive sport ever created. “Cold,” he said. “Too cold.”

“Dylan is going to South Africa. It’s not cold there.”

“South Africa?” Sean tried to imagine a life where he could jet his family to Africa for a getaway. “Wow.”

“Maybe we can go someplace during spring break. I don’t care where. Just anywhere would be good.”

If everything went according to plan, he could have some cash by March. He could take Toby to Miami or Puerto Rico and they could have a family vacation. Just the two of them. “It’s a deal.”

They shook on it.

“Dad, you realize we still haven’t done the pie,” Toby said. “I think we better get on it.”

Toby pulled a cookbook off the coffee table. “I did a little research. It doesn’t sound too hard.” He opened to a dog-eared page. “It says here the secret to a perfect pie crust is lard.”

“No, Toby,” he said, walking to the freezer and removing a pie crust he’d picked up on the way home. “The secret to a perfect pie crust is the frozen food section.”

“Isn’t that cheating?”

“Only if you tell Grandma.”

Toby nodded seriously. “Deal.” Then he started jumping up and down. “Come on, let’s get this puppy started!”

Sean wished it could be just the two of them tomorrow, sitting at their little, round kitchen table, watching football, hanging out. But Maureen had called on Monday. She called periodically for Toby, to ask about his schoolwork and to find out what size he wore now.

“Sean,” she’d said, with an exuberance she usually saved for company, “You
are
coming on Thursday.” It was a statement.

“Oh, I thought. I mean, since Ellie—”

“It’s a family tradition,” she said.

Sean was no longer clear on the definition of family. But it was the only Thanksgiving tradition Toby had ever known. He loved the holiday. “Thanks Maureen.”

“We’ll expect you at three-thirty. I hope you’ll bring Nicole and Kat as well.” She hung up and that had been that.

Ellie’s parents were not warm, and they weren’t particularly doting. But they did love Toby. He wouldn’t be the one to deprive Toby of the only set of grandparents he had. It wasn’t simply because they were paying for Bradley, either. Sean wanted his son to have some sense of an extended family, some continuity. His own parents had died before Toby was born—his mom from a two-pack‐a-day habit and his dad a couple of years later from “who knows,” as the doctor had told him. Thanksgiving at his house as a child had been loud and messy and fun. Maureen and Dick were none of those things.

It turned out that the only tricky thing about frozen piecrust was that it didn’t stay together when you stretched it over the apples. As Toby was trying to patch the deadly fault lines with water and extra dough, the phone rang.

Sean picked it up with a sticky hand. “Benning Bakery, piecrusts are us.”

“Sean?”

“Ellie.” He felt like a ball of raw dough had lodged in his trachea.

Toby looked up. His eyes got wide and he started yelling, “Hi Mommy! Hi!”

“I’m not talking about the medication anymore, so if that’s why you’re calling—”

“It’s not why I’m calling.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I’m fine.” Her voice sounded far away. “Well, Happy Thanksgiving, I guess.”

“Can I talk, can I talk?” Toby was grabbing at the phone.

“I’ll put Toby on,” he said to the disembodied voice filtering through fiber optic cables from God knows where. He handed the phone to Toby.

“Hi Mommy!” Toby’s face lit up when he heard her voice. “Where are you? We’re baking a pie.” Toby listened for a while. Sean could hear Ellie’s voice telling him how much she loved him. “I love you, too. Are you coming home soon?”

The look of disappointment on Toby’s face was almost unbearable. “Okay,” he said, and handed him the phone. “She wants to talk to you.”

He braced himself and put the receiver to his ear.

“I have a favor to ask.”

“You’ve got to be kidding.” He walked toward the bedroom, gesturing for Toby to wait a minute. He shut the door behind him. “What?”

He waited. She was there, but she wasn’t there, this person he was supposed to know inside and out.

“What’s Toby doing for break?” she finally asked.

“Art camp.”

“Which one?”

“There are a few I’m thinking of.”

“You haven’t signed him up yet? And aren’t they something like a thousand bucks?”

“You seem awfully interested in Toby’s schedule for someone who dropped the ball on everything three months ago.”

“You must hate me.”

He did. He hated her. But hearing her voice was confusing. Maybe he didn’t hate her quite as much as he’d hoped. Why the hell was she calling?

“I’d hate me, too,” she said.

“I got a show.” It was out before he knew it. He wished he could take it back.

“Oh my God,” she screamed. “You got a show! Where is it? When?”

“Burdot. In February.”

She paused. “Well, then maybe this won’t be such a favor after all.”

“P
LEASE DAD?
P
LEASE, PLEASE?
” T
OBY’S EYES WERE RED
. H
IS
pillow was wet. His mouth was a horrible quivering line. “I want to see Mommy.”

Sean should have told her to call back after Toby went to bed. But there was no way he could have known she wanted Toby to stay with her for the entire two weeks of Christmas break. He had to admit she sounded more sane than she had in years. But the request itself was insane. Could she have really thought he’d say yes?

Toby’s chin was shaking and he couldn’t catch his breath. “Please Dad,” Toby sobbed.

He shook his head. “Tobe, it’s not going to happen. Maybe she can come down and see you for a day or two. But you can’t go stay with her.”

Toby was taking deep breaths, trying to stop crying. It looked painful. Sean wished there was some way to make him see it was for his own good—without telling him his mother had had some sort of breakdown.

“Dad,” he said, focusing hard on not crying. “It’s what I want for Christmas. It can be instead of
all
my presents.”

It was impressive, and horrible, to realize that Toby had become so adept at torturing him. Though his stomach was one big knot, he managed a sad smile and reached over to mess up Toby’s hair. But Toby rolled toward the wall and out of reach, twisting the knife slowly. His son hated him at the moment. He could feel it radiating from him. Parents were supposed to let their children’s hatred roll off them the way water wicks off Under Armour. He was just no good at wicking.

“It’ll be okay,” he said, as much for his sake as for Toby’s. “I love you.”

He shut the door behind him and sprawled on the living room couch where he let himself sink into the spongy cushions and replay the bizarre conversation with Ellie. Over the past few weeks she’d let them believe she was on some far-flung adventure.

“There’s no way I’m going to put him on an airplane to God knows where,” he’d started.

That was when she dropped the bomb that she was only a few hours away on Long Island.

“It just felt right,” she said, describing the place she’d found. “My pulse slowed down, my shoulders relaxed. I could think again. I knew I was home.”

She’d said
home
. “So you’re staying?”

“For now.”

S
EAN SKIMMED THE SURFACE OF SLEEP
,
REPLAYING
E
LLIE
’
S CHORUS
of “It’s not fair” until the morning light pulled him out of it. He rolled over and squinted in the bright living room, wishing, like he did whenever he woke up on the couch, that they’d gotten around to installing window shades. Now, without Ellie to orchestrate it, there was no way it would ever happen.