The Art of Adapting (20 page)

“You can't have these, but you can use them. The canvas you can have. But you can't paint in here. It's too messy. I mean, your room is messy already, but the paints are messier. Your mom would get mad if you got paint on the carpet. She says I can only paint in the garage. So you should only paint in the garage, too. You can sketch on the canvas in here, but you have to paint in the garage.”

“Wow, thanks,” Byron said.

“And you need to be able to drive,” Matt said. He rubbed his face and looked around the room. “You can take the driving test once you're sixteen. You'll be sixteen in two weeks.”

“I don't have enough hours yet,” Byron said. “Nobody around here has time to take me out to practice.” He sounded like a whiny kid, which he was.

“Okay,” Matt said. “I'll get a car. Maybe a red pickup truck. And I'll take you.”

“You will?” Byron was confused. How had they gone from art to driving, and why was his uncle suddenly talking to him?

“Yeah. I can't drive. They haven't given my license back. But they will. Soon. And I'll need a car. And you need to drive. So for now you can drive, and I can show you the tadpoles. And then later I can drive.”

“Oh. Great,” Byron said. He had no idea what tadpoles had to do with any of it, but getting his hours and getting his license sounded good. If he had his license and a truck he could borrow, maybe he could even ask Betsy out on a proper date. If she'd ever agree to that. Maybe he could take her to a park or down to the water to sketch her against a pretty backdrop. She'd probably like that.

Matt left and Byron looked through the toolbox. Matt was right, the oil paint tubes gave off a stinky oily smell. The whole box reeked of it. He checked out the various brush sizes, imagining
the fine or broad strokes he could make with each one. He picked up the canvas and felt the smooth texture, the tautness, the promise of something. He drummed his fingers against it and got a nice hollow sound. He got a pencil, took his time sharpening it to a fine point, and started sketching on it.

Lana was out front attempting to trim the hedges with the unwieldy hedge clippers, missing her unaffordable gardener desperately, when a police car pulled up behind her. She knew without looking that it was Nick, and that she looked like a hot mess in her dirt-streaked jeans and the Hawaiian shirt that she'd inherited from Graham years ago.

“I think what you really need there is a machete,” he said. “Take out your aggressions and trim the hedges at the same time.”

She laughed. What was the point of always wishing she looked better? She'd succumbed to daily vanity rituals to keep Graham's attention, and he'd still left.

“Not a bad idea,” she said. She dropped the clippers on the lawn and headed toward the car.

“We still friends?” he asked. He swung the passenger-side door open and Lana took a seat.

“We are,” she said. “Old friends.” She'd never sat in a police car before. It was terribly busy in there with a radio, a computer, a shotgun, papers, food, water, coffee.

“Welcome to my office,” he said. He started to clear some papers from the floorboard to give Lana more legroom, but she waved him off. She wasn't planning to stay long. They sat in
silence for a moment before he cleared his throat. “So is Matt okay?”

“He's fine,” she said. Matt was sitting in the front window watching them. “I'm sorry I wasn't more grateful for your help that day.”

“You're a protective big sister. You always were. It's a good thing. Matt needs that. I get caught up in everything needing to be on the up-and-up. It worked in the Marines. It works on the job. It works against me in personal relationships.” His radio bleated something incomprehensible and Nick turned it up to listen, then back down again. “What I'm really saying is, I'm sorry, too. I shouldn't have yelled at him, or you.”

“Forgiven,” Lana said. She looked him over. He was so handsome, so steadfast, so proper, so contained. But he wasn't the man for her and never had been. When they'd dated, his self-possession made her crave silliness and mess. He still had that effect on her. She thought she wanted a reliable, orderly life. But now she realized that wouldn't be enough. “You remind me of who I used to be,” she said.

“I'm sorry, and you're welcome,” he said. They both laughed.

Just then Matt banged on the front window, startling them both. Lana was out of the car and headed for him before she had time to think. Matt pointed wildly behind her, shouting something she couldn't make out. It looked like he was saying “dog.” She turned to see a petite blond woman running down the street with a reddish dog on a leash. The dog was beautiful: trim and graceful, narrow-waisted and leggy as a dancer. Its color was like polished mahogany. Matt opened the front door and came out on the steps.

“Hungarian Vizsla,” Matt said, pointing, nearly dancing with excitement. “Or Magyar yellow dog. They've been around since the 1300s. They were nearly extinct after World War II. There were only about a dozen Vizslas left in Hungary then. They used them to bring the breed back. Vizslas were the hundred and fifteenth breed added to the American Kennel Club.”

“It's a beautiful dog,” Lana said.

“You scared me there, Matt.” Nick laughed. He was out of his car in full-alert mode, arm flexed, hand near his gun. He relaxed his arm and sighed. “So you want a dog?”

“No,” Matt said quickly. “Not a dog. A Vizsla, yes, but an ordinary, slobbery, ugly dog, no.”

“I see,” Lana said, laughing as the tension dissipated.

“You do? You see? Can we get a Vizsla?” His enthusiasm nearly did her in. Matt wasn't good at subtlety, so Lana had to pull out the sledgehammer.

“No, I don't think getting a dog would be a good idea.”

“Not a dog,” Matt insisted. “A Hungarian Vizsla.” He pointed down the street at the place where his dream dog had been.

“Even so, I'm afraid the answer is no. A dog is a lot of responsibility and we're still adjusting to—”

Matt stormed back inside the house, slamming the door behind him, hard enough to rattle the big front window. Lana sighed, turned to Nick, and held up her hands.

“I can't win.”

“You care too much,” Nick said, climbing back into his car. “And I mean that as a compliment. Don't let this situation with Graham change that. This whole thing is just a process you have to go through right now. It's not who you are.”

Lana leaned in the passenger side of the car. “You know you have a knack for showing up just when I need you, and saying precisely what I need to hear?”

He laughed. “That's the exact opposite of what my ex-wife says about me.” He smiled and waved and went on his way. Lana headed inside and found the red light on the answering machine blinking. She hit play, hoping for an old friend's voice over that of a telemarketer.

“Hello?” Gloria's voice rang out. “Mattie, pick up the phone, okay? It's Mom. I called your cell but you didn't answer. I'm sure Lana won't mind if you use her phone.” There was a beat of silence before Gloria sighed dramatically and hung up. Lana checked on Matt, who was ensconced in his room, sulking.

“Mom called. She'd like to talk to you,” Lana said through a
crack in the door. Matt was curled into a ball on his bed, facing the wall, his spine a knotted arc of tension.

“I'm too busy,” he said. “I need to do this right now.”

“Should I tell her you're resting?” Lana said. “That you'll call her back later?” As usual, she felt responsible for the mess around her, for Matt's disappointment, Gloria's need to check in with Matt, and Matt's refusal to cooperate, but she didn't want to be a part of any of it. And none of it really was her fault. But it still fell to her to fix.

“Tell her I don't like talking on the phone,” Matt said. Which, of course, Gloria already knew. So then why did Lana always have to remind her?

“I can't make him talk on the phone,” Lana said, again, to her fussing mother.

“But I haven't spoken to him in a month. I need to hear his voice, to know he's okay.”

It had been three months since Gloria had spoken to Matt, but Lana knew better than to correct her mother. It was just as well, really. Lana didn't want Gloria to find out about the Spike incident. Becca understood what had happened, had commended Lana on how well she'd handled it. Gloria wouldn't be so understanding. Not that she was in any position to judge Lana when it came to caring for Matt.

“He's fine, Mom,” Lana said.

“Just because he's fine by your standards doesn't mean he's fine by mine.”

Lana paced from the living room to the kitchen and back again. Being on the phone with Gloria always made her restless, like her muscles were surging with leftover teen angst. Gloria was the nervous-energy type, anxious and silence-evading, terminally busy. Lana made herself sit down and relax. She wanted to be nothing like her mother. “He's eating, he's not drinking, he's sleeping better. He's keeping busy with his interests. His newest one is rabies. Did you know marsupials are rabies-resistant?”

“Why in the world is he worried about rabies?”

“He's Matt, you know? He's not worried, he's just interested. And he was talking to Byron about Hemingway and Steinbeck.”

“So he's not drinking but he's obsessing about alcoholics and fatal diseases? And you think that means he's fine?”

Lana peeked into Matt's room, through the door still ajar just a crack. He was at his computer, typing away. Happily immersed back into his own little world. It seemed better to leave him there.

“I'll do my best to get him to call you later,” Lana said. “Maybe if you could try the video chat again. Then he wouldn't feel like he was talking on the phone.”

“I told you it doesn't work from my computer. I don't know why and I don't have time to figure it out. That little camera you sent me is worthless. The directions make no sense. I hope you didn't spend a lot on it. Just have him call me. A mother has a right to talk to her children.”

Lana hung up before she lost her composure. Gloria had had Matt's whole childhood to get to know him, but she'd been too busy rushing from one commitment to another to bother. So why cash in on her mother status now? Except to compete with Lana.

To clear her head, Lana headed to Home Depot to see about getting a tool to make hedge-trimming less of a chore. She wondered if they had machetes. She wandered aimlessly, let some burly orange-aproned man talk her into a new pair of shears. She made her way toward the register, and there was Mitch, holding hands with a lean young beauty: long-legged, light-haired, and angular-faced. Lana ducked behind a display of patio furniture to spy unseen. Mitch said something and the girl laughed and tossed her hair in response. Lana wasn't sure, but the girl looked an awful lot like the one from the café, the musician who'd reminded Mitch of his ex. Or possibly it was the ex, and they just looked that much alike: long thin hair, long thin body. So that explained why Lana hadn't heard from him since their dinner together. Just like Graham, he preferred the younger, flirty type. Not that Lana knew if Graham's girlfriend was either younger or flirtier, but Lana had decided that she must be. It made her easier to loathe.

Back home with the shiny new shears, Lana had lost any desire for hedge shaping. She tried again to get Matt to talk to Gloria, with her phone on speaker and her parents on separate handsets in
their retirement villa in Florida. He gave a curt hello, then mimed a headache or overstimulation by covering his temples and ears before ducking out of the room. After that her parents took turns lamenting the sad turn of events with Graham, their prized son-in-law and unpaid accountant.

“Is there any hope?” Gloria asked. “Is he really gone?”

“It's not up to me,” Lana said. But she really wanted to ask why her mother was still rooting for the type of man who left his family.

“What will we do,” Gloria asked, “when tax time rolls around? Do we have to pay him now?”

“It's just tragic, is what it is,” Jack chimed in. “You two had such promise. And now . . . I don't even know if he'd finished rebalancing our portfolio.”

“I'm very sorry for your loss,” Lana snapped. “I guess I should've begged him to stay on your behalf.” They sputtered and fussed like cranky toddlers, never once acknowledging that she'd lost a hell of a lot more than they had. She changed the subject back to Matt, instantly regretting it. Her parents had discouraged her from taking him in. Promised her nothing but trouble with him around her kids. It was like they were just waiting to be proven right. Stephen had been the perfect son. Even more idolized after his death. There wasn't room for Matt to move up in the rankings.

“You know Matt will have one of his episodes, and then what'll you do?” Gloria said.

Lana sighed. “Those were brought on by stressful situations that could've been avoided. This is his home. His safe place. If you understood a little more about Asperger's—”

“Don't you start with that again,” Gloria said. She never used the term
Asperger's
. Lana wasn't sure if she was in denial or if she thought it was more loving to refuse to label Matt. Her reasons didn't matter. Trying to get them to care about Matt, to love him as unconditionally as they worshiped Stephen, was futile. And as her parents aged they just became more stuck in their ways. Being angry at them wasn't going to change them. But Lana wasn't sure what to do with the anger. She had a lifetime of it stored up.

When Lana had a class to cover at Las Juntas a few days later she ran into Mitch, like clockwork, in the teacher's lounge. She was tempted to ask about the girl, but there was no reason. Mitch owed her nothing. That, and he was offering her a cup of coffee, good stuff, from the café down the street.