Art on Fire (40 page)

She half wished she could bring Isabella with her, set her up in the cottage behind Charlotte's house. Perhaps she'd be preventing a second suicide.

Vivian watched as Francesca stepped behind the house to smoke a cigarette.

Alfonse was silent. He pulled the keys from the ignition and lifted his left hand from the steering wheel, shifted it toward the door handle, everything slow like syrup.

“I feel like she just got here,” he said as he unfolded from the car.

“She did,” replied Isabella. “And now she's leaving.”

“She'll be back,” said Vivian.

“Duh! No, she won't,” Isabella cried out.

“Isabella, what did I tell you about that word?”

“Sorry.”

“That can't be true! Why is that?” asked Alfonse, at once devastated.

“Look at us! Then look at her!” Isabella said. She climbed out of the car and stormed into the house. “Would you come back if you were her?”

“Are we so terrible?” Alfonse looked down at his inexpensive overcoat, his black Oxfords. He knew there was truth in what Isabella said but couldn't bear the idea of it, that there was something inherently flawed—even bizarre—in him, and that Francesca had seen it—maybe not then, when she'd run away, but now, having returned as an adult. Hadn't he intended better things for himself? A better marriage?
Happier children? More fulfilling work? How had he allowed himself to become so misguided and disconsolate? When had all notions of improving slid into the mist?

Against the kitchen wall, a giant hefty bag was filled with paper plates and plastic utensils. Ashtrays had been emptied; vast quantities of liquor, purchased for the week-long observance, were hidden up high so as not to tempt Isabella and risk another embarrassing episode. The kitchen counters were laden with tinfoil-covered Pyrex dishes, warm and heavy with kugels, brisket, pickled tongue.

When will these Jews catch up with the times
? thought Vivian, surveying the mess.
Maybe if they ate some fruit and vegetables instead of so much beef and fat, they wouldn't all die of heart attacks
, as her father had and, most likely, her mother as well. Thank goodness the neighbor had brought something healthy—though a little too unusual for a Jewish Shiva, Vivian thought—some sort of Moroccan salad made of wheat and tomatoes and parsley.

Finally, Vivian sent off the last of the mahjong ladies, submitting to their thick, lipstick kisses. The neighbor left, too.

She brought the trash outside and glanced back at her house from the vantage point of the freestanding garage. At last, her home seemed blissfully motionless. The yellow lamps in the living room were lit. Everything looked warm and normal. She returned to the kitchen and glanced around approvingly. Joycie Newman was rinsing the last of the dishes.

“I don't know what I would have done without you, Joycie,” she pretended to rest her head on Joycie's shoulder. “I would have been cleaning for days.”

“Oy vay,” said Joycie, feeling Jewish. She finished rinsing the dishes, turned off the faucet, and entered the living room, drying her hands on a dishtowel. She pulled a fold-up chair over to the couch and sat down near Francesca. Their knees bumped. “Thank God they're all gone,” she said, exempting herself. “Is it strange to be back here?”

Francesca shrugged. “Yeah, sure.”

“It's so provincial, isn't it? So small-town,” Joycie rolled her eyes. “I often wish I'd left New Haven for a bigger city. New York, say, or Chicago.”

“Well, compared to Provincetown, this might as well be New York or Chicago.”

Joycie laughed and squeezed Francesca's knee.

Francesca glanced at Joycie's manicured hand resting on her knee. It remained there for several moments until Francesca feigned an itch and uncrossed her legs, then shifted her body out of Joycie's reach.

She remembered her brief conversation with LeeAnn Frank outside, over a cigarette. LeeAnn rolled her own cigarettes, carried a blue plastic pouch stuffed with moist gold tobacco. She'd made a cigarette for Francesca just like that, standing there, fingers frozen, had licked it from both sides into a perfect cylinder.

Alfonse retrieved Joycie's snazzy nubuck coat from the front hall closet. He helped her on with it, patted the puffy shoulders. “Warm,” he said cheerfully. She promised to return first thing the following morning.

Vivian closed the door behind Joycie and mock-barricaded it with her body. Half drunk, she weaved through the living room and collapsed into the armchair. She extended her legs and clutched a heavy, glass ashtray with her stockinged toes, dragged it in this manner along the surface of the coffee table until it was close enough that she could reach it with her fingers. “This was your grandmother's ashtray,” she nodded sadly at the ugly piece, as if it were Evelyn herself flattened on the table. “She loved this ashtray. And she loved you, Francesca. Remember that.”

“What about me?” asked Isabella.

“Of course she loved you. But everything isn't about you, Bella.” Vivian lit a cigarette, exhaled luxuriously, and tossed her head back, molded her neck into the soft back of the chair, and stared at the water-stained ceiling.

The headlights on Joycie's Lexus smoothed across the living room wall. Vivian sat up and looked first at Alfonse, then Francesca, then Isabella. “I don't think Grandma would mind if I said . . .” she hesitated, “that I feel happy. Because everyone is here.” Her face twisted up with
an expression that made everyone uncomfortable—it was so anguished and involuntary—and her eyes filled with shiny tears. “You know,” she said, “I think your grandmother only pretended to hate me.”

“Of course she did,” Alfonse put his hands on her shoulders from behind.

“Maybe that's what she did with me too,” said Isabella.

“I'm sure it is!” Alfonse exclaimed. “Your grandmother was a funny lady. She didn't like to show her feelings. Like your mother. And your sister.” He groaned and stretched his body as high as he could manage, striving to tap the light fixture as he did each night on his way upstairs—a quick way to chase the kinks from his back. He was pleased with himself for his astute observation, particularly where Francesca was concerned. “I'm going to tinker with that furnace a while. See if I can get it to stop making that sound,” he said with authority.

“What sound?” asked Isabella.

“That terrible, high-pitched sound.” Vivian made a face, as if she were being subjected to it at that very moment.

“What high-pitched sound?” Isabella persisted.

“I heard something,” offered Francesca. “But it was more of a knocking. Then again, I sleep next to a train track, so . . .” She shrugged.

“A train track?” Alfonse asked. “Where is it?”

“Right outside my cabin. Ten yards away,” Francesca boasted.

“Oh boy,” he sighed. “She's had a wild life, your sister.” He looked at Isabella and raised his eyebrows. Then he left the room. The door to the basement squeaked open. This, too, he wanted to fix, the squeak, but it would have to wait. He took his old metal toolbox down from a shelf he'd built into the back of the stairs, and descended into the basement.

Vivian stood up, suddenly exuberant. “I'm going to make cookies! Who wants to help me make cookies?”

Isabella raised her hand.

“Francesca?” Vivian asked. “How 'bout making some cookies with your old Mom?”

“I'd love to,” said Francesca, picking out the green M&Ms from a mixed assortment and dropping them one at a time into her mouth.
“But I'm going to visit the neighbor. She's going to play the piano for me. She plays Chopin, and I love Chopin.” She shrugged casually, slid her pack of cigarettes into her jacket pocket, and kissed Vivian, then Isabella on the cheek. Vivian wondered whether she'd even recognize Chopin. Could she discern him from Bach or Beethoven, or even Liberace for that matter?

“I hope she's not going to cook for you,” said Isabella. “She's a terrible cook. I should know. She's cooked for me.”

“Don't fib, Bella,” Vivian scolded briskly, trying not to get upset. She wanted Francesca to stay home.
She should stay home. She should be with her family
. But she restrained herself. She would do nothing to upset the fragile ambiance of family that had settled over the house.

Francesca hurried to the door. “Save some cookies for me,” she called behind her and was gone, through the darkened bushes.

“I've never heard her play Chopin,” Isabella whispered. “I think it's a ruse.”

Vivian moved to the living room window and watched Francesca cross the lawn into darkness, then re-emerge under the lamp of the neighbor's porch. There was something about her youngest daughter. It had always been there. She'd just never considered that it might be an asset. She couldn't put her finger on its exact nature, only that it was quiet and appealing. Life would be different now, she thought. No more weekly visits to the Jewish Home. No more having to remind her mother who she was, tolerate Evelyn's caustic complaints and abuse. An era ended. She was so tired, as if she'd taken a pill.

The door to LeeAnn's house opened and Francesca vanished inside. Now Vivian could see only slices of warm light escaping around the drawn shades. She returned to the kitchen and washed her hands, put an orange apron on over her funeral clothes. She tugged at the torn black rag safety-pinned to her collar. She liked wearing it; it made her feel she was sad.

“How come I don't get to wear one of those?” asked Isabella, opening the bag of chocolate chips.

“Only the children of the deceased.” Vivian climbed onto a chair to pull a mixing bowl down from the top shelf. She held the cabinet door to steady herself.

“Careful,” Isabella winced, imagining Vivian falling and breaking her hip or worse . . . Her grandmother had made death suddenly frightening. No longer some abstract concept, an easy escape. She was still certain she wanted it for herself, but she knew she didn't want it for her mother. Ever.

Alfonse gave up on the oil burner, and Vivian said she'd call “the guy” in the morning. Alfonse wanted to be “the guy,” but he was exhausted. He climbed the stairs and splayed out on the bed, then let out a deep, reassured sigh.

Isabella inhaled the warm, sweet smell of melting chocolate. Even though the light in the neighbor's house had gone out, she didn't care. She kissed her mother goodnight. “Love you, Mommy,” she said.

“Love you, pumpkin,” said Vivian, her mouth sweet from batter she'd licked off the rubber spatula. The cookies were cooling on the hot stovetop. She left a light on in the kitchen and scribbled on the back of a condolence card: Francesca—Eat these. Mom, with a messy row of x's and o's, then followed Isabella up the stairs.