Painting Naked (Macmillan New Writing) (29 page)

“That was taken twenty-five years ago in Hawaii,” Tom says, reaching for the picture. “Six months before Peggy died.”

“Your wife?”

He nods. “Ovarian cancer.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“Me too,” Tom says, wiping the glass with his cuff. “I still miss her.” He hands me the picture and picks up our mugs. “More cocoa, or would you prefer wine?”

“Wine would be great.”

“Red or white?”

“White.”

Twenty-five years. That’s a helluva long time to miss someone. I turn the frame over and the photo slips out. I’m sliding it into place when I notice writing on the back.

Hawaii, 1983: Carrie, 5; Tom, 34; Peggy, 42.

Forty-two?

Oh, Jeez.

Shame surges up my neck and floods my cheeks like a hot flash. I return the photo to its frame, glance in the mirror, and see Tom’s reflection. He’s leaning against the door, a glass in each hand, looking at me.

“There’s something I need to know,” he says.

I grip the mantel. “What?”

“Why do you dislike me so much?”

His wife was eight years older than him.

“I think I’d better go home.”

He walks up behind me. “Do you have a generator?”

“No, but—”

“Then why not stay here?”

“Because of my cat,” I say, groping for inspiration. “He’ll freeze.”

“If you go home, you’ll freeze as well.” He’s so close I can feel his breath on the back of my neck. “I’ll go and fetch him. He can share a bed with Elsa.”

“And me?”

“You can sleep on the couch,” Tom says. “Where it’s warm.”

“What about you?” I turn slowly to face him.

He hands me a glass. “I’ll be upstairs, with a paraffin heater.”

“How many bedrooms do you have?” My question shoots out of nowhere.

“Eight. No, wait a minute. Nine, I think. I’ve never had a house this large before.” Tom shoots me a puzzled look. “Why do you ask?”

“Because I designed the sales brochure.”

“For Elaine Burke?”

“She insisted it had ten bedrooms.”

“That sounds just like her,” Tom says, placing his wine on the coffee table. “Is your house locked?”

I shake my head.

“Then I’ll be right back,” he says, and returns ten minutes later with my bad-tempered cat wrapped in a quilt.

Sands Point

November 2011

Tom’s voice wakes me at seven the next morning. “You couldn’t fax or email me because the lines were down. Where are you?” There’s a pause and I struggle to sit up. Is he talking to me? No, he’s on the phone, leaning against his desk. “The Philippines?” Tom says. “What the hell are you doing there?”

I toss my quilt to one side. Zachary, who despises other cats, is curled up with Elsa in the basket. They’re washing one another’s faces. Go figure. My teeth are scummy and my back is killing me. I’m too old to be camping out on other people’s couches.

Tom covers the mouthpiece. “Jill, I’m sorry, but this is going to take a while. Can you make it home by yourself?” Into the phone, he says, “No, of course I’m listening.”

“I can probably stagger that far.” I glance out the window. No more freezing rain. Just a plaintive sun that looks about as washed out as I feel. “I’ll wash your clothes and return them later,” I tell Tom, but he’s bending over his keyboard and doesn’t hear me.

Should I go out the way I came in? Better not. I’ll never find the switch to open the garage doors. I gather up my quilt and my cat, who doesn’t seem anxious to leave, retrieve my clothes from the bathroom, and head in the general direction of Tom’s front door. Beside it, hanging on the wall, is a scruffy old moose head. Two dogs' leashes and Molly’s red baseball hat dangle from its solitary antler.

So that’s what happened to Lizzie’s white elephant.

According to Dave, my Volvo’s a lost cause. Time to shoot it and buy another, he says, offering me a nice little used car with low mileage, new tires, and an air conditioner that works.

“How much?”

“Nine thousand, Jill. It’s a bargain.”

Yeah right, and now all I need is a miracle. Somebody to wave a magic wand and take all my troubles away.

My fairy godmother awaits in my mailbox, but instead of a crown and pink tulle, she wears neon yellow paper festooned with black stripes and she promises to solve my financial dilemma with a low-interest loan.

No questions asked.

Am I brave enough—no, make that desperate enough—to take the plunge? What choice do I have? Short of selling my house and starting over, I’ve run out of options. I need wheels to get to work; I need a job to pay for the wheels.

Case closed.

So I call the toll-free number and yes, they’d be delighted to help. How much do I want? Ten thousand? No problem, just sign on the dotted line. I don’t even have to give them my first-born child.

I’m scared to death about this, but it’s only for six months. A short-term loan. After that, I’ll refinance everything with the bank because Iris has told me I’ll be qualified by then, as long as I have a job. Okay, today is Wednesday. With luck, I can pull it all together by next Monday. Buy another car, get it registered—damn, the
DMV
is closed Monday, Tuesday then—and start work on Wednesday.

One more week. That’s all I need.

It’s like asking for a stay of execution.

“Tomorrow,” the production manager says. “We’re expecting you tomorrow.”

I suggest a compromise. “How about noon on Tuesday?”

“No good. We need someone right now,” he says, and hangs up without giving me a chance to explain.

This is great, just great. Now I have no job and way more debt than I had yesterday. Maybe I’ll ask Dave to shoot me as well as my car.

Tom drives me uptown to rescue my portfolio from the Volvo before it’s disemboweled and chopped up for spare parts, and he looks the other way while I shed a couple of tears in Dave’s back lot to mark the end of an era.

Another loss.

My clunky old Volvo, the first car I bought with money I earned myself, is finally dead. I close the door, pat the hood, and after we stop to pick up bread and milk, Tom takes me home.

He glances at my portfolio. “I’d love to see your work.”

“Now?”

“Sure, if you have time.”

I’ve got all the time in the world, so I lead him into my office and show him the layouts I’ve done for Elaine, the rejected designs for this year’s festival, Archibald and my naked garden gnomes.

“This is great stuff,” Tom says, flipping through my sketch book. “I love your parrots.” He looks at me. “You must be swamped with work.”

He obviously has no idea I’m the local pariah.

“Business is a bit slow right now,” I say. “I was on my way back from an interview when the car broke down.”

“Did you get the job?”

I tell him about the sweatshop.

“Sounds as if your work would be wasted in a place like that,” Tom says. “Look, I don’t want to interfere, but I know an outfit that pays well for talent like yours.”

“Around here?”

“Boston.”

“Rather a long commute.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Tom says. “They’ll let you work at home.” He pulls out his wallet, thumbs through a stack of business cards, and hands one to me. “Give them a call.”

“Wow, thanks,” I say.

“Feel free to mention my name. It might help.” Tom grins. “Then again, it might not.” He nods toward the picture of Colin and me. “You still seeing that guy?”

I hesitate. “No, not any more.”

Tom looks at me, then at the photo. “Good luck with the job hunt,” he says, turning to leave. “Those people in Boston work hard for their clients.”

The Volvo’s successor is a gray, nondescript little thing with the soul of a shoebox. Dave has pronounced it safe and reliable; I consider it a blemish on wheels, but I mustn’t complain because it gets me to Boston for my interview with the agency Tom recommended. They give me a couple of freelance illustration jobs with a promise of more to follow. Nothing spectacular, but enough to keep the creditors off my back.

I call Tom to thank him.

My pleasure, he says. Any time.

Lizzie has a hard time believing Tom and I are now friends. Some days, so do I. It feels odd to walk by his house and have him wave at me and for me to wave back instead of turning the other way. I’ve learned my lesson, I tell Lizzie over coffee and bagels in her kitchen. I’m never going to jump to conclusions again. Hmmm, she says, not believing that one either, then suggests we invite Tom and his family for Thanksgiving which is something I’ve been doing my best to ignore.

My sons won’t be here.

Jordan’s going home with Bridget to meet her family and Alistair’s been invited to go heli-skiing in British Columbia. All expenses paid. I told him I’d disown him if he refused, then patted myself on the back for having cut the apron strings so well that neither of my sons feels guilty over not spending the holiday with me.

“So, you’ll ask them?” Lizzie says.

“Huh?”

“The Graingers,” Lizzie says. “Invite them for Thanksgiving. I don’t have their number. It’s unlisted.”

I spot the dog about a mile from the beach and recognize it immediately—a black Lab—which means Carrie and Molly are back from Vermont. I stop the car and get out.

“Here boy,” I call, and the Lab limps toward me, dragging a front paw. It doesn’t even hesitate before lumbering into the back seat where it parks its heavy wet nose on my shoulder and refuses to budge till I pull into Tom’s driveway.

“Thanks for Hemingway,” Tom says, opening the car door. Molly peers at me from behind his legs.

“Who?”

“The dog.” Tom bends to examine its paw.

“Oh, no problem.”

“When you get to know him better,” Tom says, straightening, “you’ll be allowed to call him Ernest.” The other Lab squeezes between him and Molly. “And this one is Austen.”

“As in Texas?”

“No, as in Jane.” Tom grins at me. “Would you like coffee? I just made a fresh pot.”

“No, thanks,” I say, having tanked up at Lizzie’s, “but if you guys aren’t busy for Thanksgiving, you’re invited to the McKennas. Lizzie has a couple of grandchildren Molly’s age.”

“Then we can’t possibly say no to that,” Tom says. “Tell her we’ll be there. What time, and what can we bring?”

“I’ll have to let you know,” I say, and go home with an odd feeling of pleasure.

I know before I’m fully awake this is going to be a tough day. For one thing, it’s bloody pouring which means I’ll be fussing with mops and buckets and wondering if my roof will last another winter; for another, it’s Thanksgiving and I’m not sure I want to get up and face the crowd, mostly couples, at Lizzie’s.

Couples.

I’m beginning to hate that word, and hate myself for hating it.

Richard and I were never a couple. We never connected with each other the way I figured a married couple ought to connect, like the people next door to Richard and me whose house overflowed with love and laughter. They had five kids, barely enough money, and two elderly cars, one of which was always in the shop. Compared to us, they were practically paupers, but a whole lot happier. Or so it seemed at the time. Maybe they were miserable, but hiding it, the way I did. Back then, I didn’t know what real love was like, and if you don’t know what something is like, then you can’t miss it when it’s not there.

So now I know, and I miss it like hell.

I miss knowing someone special is thinking about me the same way I’m thinking about him. I miss the touch of his hands on my breasts, my belly, the tantalizing ache between my legs. Will it ever come back?

I turn over and my bed gives a solitary sigh as if to exaggerate the aloneness I feel, the uncoupling of a couple I thought would last for ever. This time last year, Colin was living inside my heart, curled up like a luscious little secret that kept me warm while I laughed and celebrated the holiday with my sons and my friends. I remember smiling a lot, drinking a bit more, and e-mailing Colin when everyone else had gone to bed, telling him about an American Thanksgiving and the welcome return of my vagabond cat.

Lizzie asked me if I’d do it all over again, fall in love with Colin knowing what I know now, and I said yes, I would, because I’m trying to convince myself it’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.

Or some such rot.

An hour later, I’m in the kitchen making pies and determined to play hooky from self-pity and the stress of bills I can’t pay. If the agency in Boston doesn’t come up with another project next week, I’ll be scouring the help-wanted ads again and hoping I don’t have to settle for cashier at Wal-Mart or selling trinkets at Target to holiday shoppers.

Another leak erupts through the ceiling so I add another bucket to the brigade in my bedroom and drop more towels on the floor. If this keeps up, I’ll have no choice but to have the roof fixed before winter.

By the time I arrive at Lizzie’s, my neighbors and the McKennas are getting acquainted over drinks and hors d’oeuvres in the living room. Molly and Tyler crawl across the floor, taking turns with the remote-controlled bulldozer I bought him last Christmas. The bestest ever, he told me.

Lizzie hands me something pink and frothy in a glass.

“Where’s Harriet?” I dump my pies on the kitchen counter. “Isn’t she coming?”

“Anna’s got the flu, but Bea’s stopping by to pick up food. I insisted.”

After another round of cocktails, Fergus dons a chef’s hat and apron to carve the turkey. His new mustache, long and droopy, reminds me of Dutch and I wonder what he’s doing for the holiday. Is he alone? Probably not. More than likely he’s curled around a blonde and a bottle of expensive champagne. I help Lizzie ferry food from the kitchen while Tom and Joel round up the kids. They want to sit together, so Paige and Carrie form an alliance of young mothers at one end of the table while their offspring make a mess at the other, leaving Tom, Joel, and me to cope with the consequences of sitting near children armed with gravy and mashed potatoes.