Painting Naked (Macmillan New Writing) (32 page)

Outside, I hear the guys pulling ladders off my roof, shouting to each other as they climb into trucks. Going home to wives and girlfriends, watching TV, putting kids to bed. My stomach grumbles, so I heat a can of baked beans, pop two slices of bread in the toaster, and plug in the kettle for tea.

Comfort food.

Sands Point

December 2011

I fall asleep on the couch and wake just before midnight. Something rustles outside. Is it the wind, fumbling around, chasing leaves and twigs across the front porch? I hear a thump. Must be the rope swing I’ve yet to take down. Feeling stiff and disoriented, I wobble into my kitchen and peer out the window, catch glimpses of light coming toward me, down my driveway. A flashlight? Would a burglar carry one of those? Yes, but he wouldn’t wave it about like a kid with a Jack o’Lantern.

Where the hell is my cat? Outside or in? Can’t remember, and I have a fleeting, improbable image of being defended by Zachary, fangs bared, claws extended, in full attack mode. I hesitate, then back away from the window and I’m about to reach for the phone when a face looms out of the dark. I scream. The face stiffens, captured in a cone of light from beneath. Hooded eyes, hairy cheeks. Heart pounding, I’m ready to scream again, when a voice calls my name. I race into the hall and yank open the front door.

“I could kill you for this.”

Tom steps inside on a blast of cold air. “Hey, I’m sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you, but—”

“It’s midnight,” I say, still shaking.

“Ah, but your light’s still on,” Tom says, pulling a scrap of paper from his pocket. “Here’s that article I promised.” He clears his throat, begins to read. “The Bessie Walker Award for New Voices in Children’s Literature is open to unpublished writers in Connecticut. Deadline, December thirty-first.”

“Hey, I appreciate this, but it sounds a bit too fancy for me,” I say. “Archibald’s not exactly
Alice in Wonderland
or
The Hobbit.”

“Be fun to enter, though.” Tom hands me the clipping. “Why not give it a try? The judges include agents and editors in New York.”

What the hell. I’ve got nothing else to do.

On Christmas Eve, the boys and I drive out to Harriet and Bea’s new house on a rise overlooking a pond at the north end of town. The sprawling ranch, with its vaulted ceilings and plaster walls, has antique pine floors, a retro kitchen full of pink and chrome appliances, and a basement rec room with track lighting and wall-to-wall shag carpet.

“Eclectic,” Jordan says, nodding approval. He runs his hand over the burled maple dresser in Harriet’s front hall. “Beautiful wood.”

I turn away to hide my smile. Is this the same boy who grew up living out of laundry baskets because putting clothes in drawers was too much trouble? Harriet catches my eye and winks.

“We have a little work to do here,” she says.

After touring the house, we settle down to exchange presents by the fire. Anna unwraps my gift—a wooden stegosaurus—and begs Alistair to help her assemble it, and as I watch his agile fingers fit the pieces together it’s easy to imagine them chipping at layers of rock and brushing away dirt to reveal the prehistoric treasures underneath.

Bea whispers in my ear. “I found out why you weren’t hired.”

“You’re gonna love this,” Harriet says. She refills my glass with champagne and settles on the couch beside me.

I look at Bea, then at Harriet. “I am?”

“Your old boss, up in Hartford, gave you a bum rap,” Bea says.

“Renee Dodd?”

Bea nods. “The bitch.”

I’m not sure which shocks me the most. Bea’s uncharacteristic language or her revelation about Renee. What could she have said? That I blew off work for two days because I was at the hospital helping a friend cope with her sick child?

“I think we may have a case,” Harriet says.

“A case? What do you mean?” I turn to Bea. “What, exactly, did Renee say about me?”

She hesitates. “That you were unreliable. Dishonest.”

I inhale a mouthful of champagne and choke on the bubbles

Harriet thumps me on the back. “We can sue her company for this,” she says. “And why the hell didn’t you tell us you were fired?”

I shrug. “Didn’t seem important.”

“Well it was.” Harriet shoots me a wolfish grin. “Finally, I get to pay you back for everything you’ve done for me.”

“Pay me back?”

“I owe you,” Harriet says. “Big time.”

“Idiot,” I say. “You don’t owe me a thing.”

“Are you forgetting my skiing accident?” she says. “If it hadn’t been for you, God knows how I’d have managed.”

Three years ago, while test driving a pair of parabolics at Killington, Harriet hit a patch of ice and collided with a rather stout tree. She broke her nose, busted three ribs, and shattered her left ankle. I took care of Anna till she got out of the hospital. Then I took care of them both until Harriet could walk again. Three months, more or less.

“Anyone would’ve done the same,” I say.

“My family didn’t.”

“Yeah, well.”

She leans over and hugs me. “Will you let me handle this case?”

“You’re mad,” I say. “The judge will toss it out the window.”

“He won’t have a chance,” Harriet says, “because I plan to settle out of court.”

“How much?” Bea asks.

Harriet rubs her hands. “I’ll go for sixty and settle for forty. That okay with you, Jill?”

“Forty dollars?”

She laughs. “Forty-thousand, you numbskull.”

Well, after that, I drink far too much champagne and for a few hours I allow myself to think everything’s going to be okay. Forty-thousand dollars? Just because Renee Dodd lied about me? I mean, come on. Is this ridiculous, or what? But, as Harriet reminds me, people sue for much flimsier reasons and sometimes they win. She reckons we have a fighting chance.

After dinner, I sober up and tell Harriet I appreciate her concern, but I’d rather she didn’t tilt at windmills on my behalf. What’s the point? She isn’t going to win. Not against a huge insurance company. She argues, so I tell her I’ll be okay. Really.

Liar.

Harriet has no idea I’m all tapped out. Nobody does, except Lizzie and I swore her to secrecy. I haven’t even told my boys. This is
my
problem. I created it, and it’s up to me to find a way to fix it.

I’ll call a realtor and put the house up for sale next week.

Exclusive listing. By appointment only.

No way is Elaine Burke getting her hands on my cottage.

The day after Christmas, Boxing Day in England, Sophie rings up. She always does, or else I call her. “The boys are about to leave,” I say. “Hang on a minute. I’ll be right back.”

Shoving the phone in my pocket, I step onto the front porch and watch my sons load Alistair’s car with loot—two boxes of pies, a cooler full of leftover turkey, cranberry jelly, and stuffing, the remains of a sweet potato casserole, and the gifts I gave them. Nothing extravagant this year, just underwear and shirts, leather work gloves for Alistair and a set of sheets for Jordan.

He’s wearing mismatched socks and faded blue sweatpants with pockets that stick out like puppies’ ears. I resist the urge to tuck them back in, the same way I no longer move glasses of milk away from his elbow at mealtimes or remind him to brush his teeth.

I settle for hugs instead. Jordan gathers me up and it’s like being embraced by a sheep dog and I’m reminded of the time he was sixteen and playing bass guitar. His group performed at a high school dance and he invited me to come and watch. I slipped in the side door, late, and stood in the shadows, but Jordan spotted me, beckoned me onto the stage and hugged me.

Right there. In front of his peers.

Alistair shoves his brother to one side and squeezes me so hard he puts my ribs at risk. I feel the solid muscles of his arms, the strength that comes from digging up rocks and swimming the butterfly for his college’s swim team. No wonder his shoulders are twice the width of mine. Last year he qualified for the intercollegiate finals and won, but Alistair couldn’t care less about that. Swimming provides him with a scholarship, but that’s all. He’s more interested in fossils than gold medals.

Two parrots fly over. I’ll miss those birds when I move.

My sons climb into Alistair’s old Saab, and I wave till they’re out of sight, bumping down my dirt road the way they did on their bicycles years ago, pretending to be Evel Knievel. Once, I caught them setting up ramps and I watched, horrified, as Alistair roared up the plywood on his bike and leaped over a trash can with Jordan lying inside it. Memories like this make me wish I’d had a brother or a sister.

Sophie.

I pull the phone from my pocket. “Sophie, I’m sorry, but—”

Silence. Have we been cut off? Is Sophie pissed because I put her on hold? I hear a sniff, someone crying.

“Sophie?”

“Jill, it’s Mum. Can you come over?”

Sands Point

December 2011

Between them, Lizzie and Tom haul me through the next twenty-four hours. Tom calls the airline and books my ticket with the one credit card I have left that isn’t maxed out. Then he tells me to go and find my passport and not to worry about the mail. He’ll phone me at Sophie’s if anything looks urgent.

Threatening letters?

Men in black with buzz cuts and bicycle chains?

Lizzie rummages through my closet with the zeal of a bargain hunter in Filene’s Basement. She tosses skirts, pants, and sweaters on the bed, resurrects my black linen dress with the scoop neck and short sleeves.

“That’s for summer,” I say.

She folds it with tissue paper and lays it in my suitcase. “It’s the only black dress you own.”

Please God, I won’t need it, will I?

Lizzie adds my black blazer to the mix. A black and tan paisley shawl, black shoes. “Will you have to wear a hat?” she says.

“Christ, Lizzie! Claudia’s in the ICU, not a fucking funeral home.”

She puts a hand on my arm. “I’m trying to be practical.”

“I don’t give a shit about clothes.” I glare at the phone. “Why don’t they call?”

“Because hospitals don’t allow cell phones and because no news is good news,” Lizzie says. “Now go downstairs and do something useful like polishing your doorknobs. I’ll take care of things up here.”

“What about my other stuff?” I wave toward the bathroom. “Toothbrush, shampoo. Make-up.” Dear God, I’m worried about lipstick and mascara at a time like this?

Lizzie holds up my cosmetics bag. “All taken care of.”

The front door bangs open and I hear Harriet calling out. She’s here with Anna to collect Zachary. I pull my reluctant cat from beneath the couch and try to coax him into his carrier. He arches his back, braces his paws against the frame, and acts like a terrified skydiver about to be pushed from an airplane. I wait for him to relax his grip, then shove him inside. Taking care not to pinch his tail in the lid, I snap it shut and follow Harriet outside. We fill the trunk of her car with Zachary’s litter box and cat food, his dishes and Lizzie’s straw hat, and I wonder what state of mind I’ll be in the next time I see him.

Myocardial infarction.

That’s what Sophie called it. Her tongue tripped on the words, but she finally got them out. Maybe it’s easier than saying heart attack, less threatening because it sounds foreign. Rude, almost, as if the heart merely farted rather than stopped.

“Jill,” Harriet says. “Give me Sophie’s phone and fax numbers in London, and can you access your e-mail from there?”

I look at her, bewildered. “I think so. Why?”

“Because I’ll probably have questions.”

“About my cat?” I heft Zachary’s carrier into the back seat. Already he’s complaining loud enough to be heard in the village.

Harriet bends to buckle Anna in her car seat. “About our case.”

“Forget it,” I say. “It’s a lost cause.”

Straightening, she grasps my shoulders and fixes me with the same penetrating stare she uses to skewer opposing attorneys. “Jill, I’m determined to make this work,” she says, nodding toward my house. “No way am I going to let you lose all this.”

How does she know? I don’t remember complaining, or—

“It doesn’t take a genius to figure out you’re in trouble,” Harriet says. “No business, no job, and don’t think I haven’t noticed you tightening your belt.”

Which all seems so bloody insignificant compared to Claudia.

Heart attack.

Oh, my God.

How can everything turn into something as big and black and bottomless as this in the blink of an eye?

Tom drives me to Boston. “No sense leaving your car in long-term parking,” he says, then listens while I reminisce about Claudia.

Like the time Sophie and I were five and Claudia filled an inflatable dinghy with water for us to play in. We didn’t have bathing suits so we all stripped, even Hugh and Keith, and it was the first time I ever saw a boy’s willy. Trying not to stare, I backed up and sat down hard on the dinghy’s rubber edge and squashed a bee that left its stinger in my bum. It swelled so badly I had to eat supper standing up. Claudia told Edith that the bee had crawled inside my knickers, not that we were frolicking in the Neville’s back garden without our clothes.

Claudia saved me again and again, including the year I turned seventeen and had just gotten my license. Edith gave me her car keys and a shopping list. “No need to dawdle,” she said. “I don’t want you gallivanting around in my car. No stopping at Sophie’s and don’t you dare go anywhere near
that
boy.”

She disapproved of dating, especially going steady, so I had to meet Colin in secret. Sophie always covered for me. This time, I asked Edith if it was okay for me to stop at the library and she allowed as how that was acceptable. After running her errands, I drove to Colin’s and broke down at the end of his driveway. In a panic, I rang Sophie. She borrowed her father’s car and showed up with Claudia who promptly called for a breakdown truck and made the mechanic promise to tell Mrs. Hunter he towed her car from the greengrocer’s shop, not the Carpenter’s house. Then Sophie drove me home and Claudia informed Edith she really ought to pay more attention to her car’s maintenance because poor Jill was stranded in the village with a pound of corned beef and two cabbages, and wasn’t it lucky she and Sophie were available to come and rescue her?