The Boy Who Could Draw Tomorrow (3 page)

"Hurray for Sam!" Peggy chorused in reply—suddenly remembering the bottle of champagne she'd stuck in the fridge weeks ago, hoping for just this occasion.

She produced the bottle. Hal put Sam down. He got out a towel and popped the cork while Peggy got glasses—three of them, the ones they saved for guests.

"Champagne for the old scout here?" Hal said, frowning comically.

Peggy smiled gloriously. "A little won't hurt."

"To Sam, the St. Martin's man!" Hal toasted.

"To you, son," Peggy said as the three of them lifted their fragile glasses.

***

They went to bed early that night, exhausted from the shower of good news, but not too tired to make love. And for a moment Peggy even thought about leaving her diaphragm in the night table. After all, why not
two
little Coopers, another child as blessed and beautiful as Sam? But then she decided against it. It made more sense to wait until things settled back into place again and they had proved their ability to keep up with all these new expenses they were taking on.

Near dawn, feeling absolutely reborn, Peggy's eyes came open as if fingers had pushed back the lids—but within instants she staggered from the bed, overcome with a thunderous headache and a curious feeling of dread. She went to the bathroom, splashed water on her face and took two Tylenol. It was when she sat down to urinate that she saw they must have gone to bed with the light still on in the hall. She wiped herself got up to investigate, automatically reaching to flush the toilet but then thinking, no, better not to chance rousing Hal.

She padded into the hall.

But it wasn't the light in the hall that was shining. It was in Sam's room; the light was coming from in there.

Noiselessly she pushed open the partially closed door.

She saw her son sitting under the architect's lamp that was fastened to the corner of his worktable. He was in his undershorts, and his golden head was bowed over his Jumbo pad, where the Pilot Razor Point pen that he favored was dancing in small, deft motions over the page.

"Can't you sleep, honey?" Peggy softly called from the doorway.

The boy shook his golden head. "Too hot."

"But you switched off your fan, sweetie."

"Too noisy," Sam said, not turning to look at his mother until Peggy had moved into the room to brush his hair away and touched the back of her hand to his forehead.

"You feel sick, baby? Too much excitement? I never should have let you have that champagne."

"I'm fine, Mom, honest. I just wanted to draw, is all."

"Let's see," Peggy said, leaning down to examine what he was working on. Her vision was still gauzy from sleep and she had to blink her eyes to focus them. "I'll get you some ice water in a minute," she said tonelessly as she lifted the pad from the worktable to get a closer look.

She saw a classroom, three rows of boys seen from the rear as they sat at their old-fashioned desks. Facing them, looking out at the children and at Peggy, too, there stood a woman of striking height, her eyes circled with heavy-rimmed glasses. There was no expression on the woman's face. In fact, the most noticeable thing about her was the colorless look with which she regarded the children who sat before her—that and the sharply upturned nose that flared pig-like from under the ponderous spectacles.

"You've drawn her with a chignon," Peggy said, holding the pad under the light. "A chignon with a pencil sticking through it. Do you know what a chignon is?"

Sam shook his head and took back the pad.

"It's when a lady does her hair like that—pulled back in a bun."

"Oh, sure," Sam said. "Thanks, Mom."

"No trouble at all," Peggy said, smiling. 
"Whenever you want the scoop on coiffures, you just check with your old mom, okay?"

But Sam was too busy with his picture again to answer.

Peggy stood over him, uncertain about what to say next.

"I see you've got school on your mind. You're not worried or anything, are you baby? Sam honey? Everything's okay, isn't it?"

The boy looked up from his pad, his face softened to unspeakable loveliness now that his head had moved out of the harsh, direct light. Peggy could see that his freckles were almost invisible now, as if they magically vanished in the nighttime hours.

"I'm fine, Mom. Everything's fine."

His words were reassuring, but she felt a vague chill rush through her even so. She hugged her arms to her chest, and then, not smiling now, she knelt to hold her son to her breast.

He squirmed slightly in her arms, and Peggy realized with a catch in her throat how quickly he was growing up. Giving him a last squeeze, she got to her feet to get him the water she'd promised. It was when Peggy was in the kitchen yanking the ice tray free from the freezer compartment that she remembered what Miss Goldenson looked like.

Wasn't she a distinctly short woman? And her 
nose, it was nothing you'd ever notice. At least it was nothing like that.

Back in Sam's room, Peggy took up the pad again while Sam gulped his water. She studied the woman's face, searching for a trace of something human, some warmth. But it was incredibly void of feeling, and for some crazy reason that's what made you want to turn away as if you'd been stared down. But now that Peggy looked again, she saw something else—at the end of a row one of the boys in the picture lay crumpled over his desk. That hadn't been there when she'd first looked—or had it?

"You add this, sweetie?" Peggy asked, pointing to the slumped-over boy.

"Don't you like it, Mom?" he put down his glass and took a look.

Peggy tilted the pad for Sam to see what she was pointing at. "What's wrong with him?" she said, trying to keep her voice cheerful.

"Gosh, I don't know," came her son's sleepy answer and the yawn that gathered Peggy's attention into a different direction. She kissed him and turned off the light—and then she put him back to bed.

There was so much to do! First and foremost was actually taking possession of the apartment, with all the stomach-churning anxiety this particular financial transaction inevitably engenders in even the calmest of souls. With as good grace as possible, Hal and Peggy endured the whole agonizing business—the clearing of the title, the closing, the half-dozen certified checks that had to be in their hands when they sat down with the seller and the realtor and the bank loan officer and the building manager and the lawyers that represented everyone there.

Once the apartment was actually theirs, Peggy would have been more than happy to spend the afternoon drinking champagne in some wonderful, high-toned East Side haunt, but Hal began to obsess almost immediately about interior decoration, furnishings, remodeling—he was especially adamant about redoing the kitchen. They would have to spend the rest of the day looking at fabrics and furnishings—there was no time to waste.

With unusual intensity he described how he fantasized the finished kitchen: it would be agleam with built-in bright white appliances, maybe handmade Mexican tiles for the floor, patterned French tiles for the counters, good solid brass hinges for the wood cabinets, once they'd had the cruddy paint torched off and the surfaces relacquered in high-gloss white. And the window—the kitchen window Peggy herself had always said she wanted so badly—well, it would be shuttered in quartered oak. When she protested that he was talking about a fortune's worth of renovation, he brushed her objections roughly aside. He'd find the money—take out some sort of home improvement loan, get another line of credit somewhere. She wasn't to worry about that; he'd take care of it.

And as for furniture, someone in his office had an "in" with one of the best interior decorating firms in the city. To Peggy's astonishment, Hal informed her that he'd already made arrangements for one of their staff to look over the apartment, order drapes and carpeting, and at least enough furniture to make the place habitable by 
the time they were ready to move in. That's what he and Peggy would be seeing to this afternoon.

***

Against her better judgment, Peggy forced herself to keep her almost panic-stricken reservations about this economic profligacy to herself. Certainly Hal must know what he was doing. Maybe they'd given him the promise of a big bonus at work, and he was just saving the news for her as a delicious surprise. Or maybe his company gave out low-interest loans. Whatever, there was an adamant and eager quality to Hal's planning that she simply didn't have the nerve to challenge.

Wherever the money was going to come from, it was a mountain of work to get done. But, on the lucky side, St. Martin's didn't start until very late in September. If they hurried, if they really knocked themselves out, maybe they could do it all and still have time for a little holiday before Sam had to be back for school.

It was arranging the actual moving that almost broke their backs. How to do it? It was going to be hell packing up their four crammed rooms. It was a rental, only a block from University Medical Center, so noisy at night from the ambulances screaming to the emergency entrance that it was months after they'd moved in before either of them could sleep a straight eight hours. And it was worse for Sam. But small as the apartment was, it 
was jammed solid. Hal looked it over and said it was incredible what a little family could collect in such a short period of time, all the clever ways you could find for storing things you then forgot you had, and then they took a deep breath and started pulling it down from the tops of closets and out from under beds and tables draped to cover what was underneath. It was like opening a floodgate.

So Hal hired a moving company and told the estimator to figure in the added costs of handling the packing and unpacking, too. It was shameless, this abandon, spending left-and-right as if they were rich people, when in truth they were already stretched to the limit of their resources. Sure, raises had come along with their promotions, big raises, but how far could the money go with bigger taxes, too? Still, there were certain things that just had to be done—and, besides, it was mad to think they could pull up in front of their new building, roll up their sleeves, and start unloading a Ryder truck. Peggy was so relieved to turn over the hideous donkey work of packing to someone else that she barely bothered to protest this latest stunning extravagance.

So the men from Beverly came and the men from Beverly left—and though it was painless enough, it cost a mint and left Hal and Peggy feeling slightly decadent. But there was something 
else that left them feeling odd. One of the men, the one who introduced himself as the driver, looked strangely familiar. The more Hal and Peggy caught sight of the man as he shambled in and out of their rooms, the more they were convinced they'd seen him before—but not for the life of them could they remember where or when.

"That guy," Hal said as they watched the van lumber away from the curb, "don't we know him from someplace?"

"Beats me," Peggy said.

But, like Hal, she had the same nagging, uneasy impression that she'd seen that face before.

***

The thing to do was to cut corners on their vacation. On this, Peggy absolutely put her foot down. Instead of the Vineyard or the Cape or some lake up in Maine, she convinced him to fly to Florida and stay with her dad. Sam hadn't seen Val in almost three years—so it made perfect sense to make the trip and meanwhile to save on a hotel and having to eat out.

Hal booked economy seats on Eastern. All the way out to LaGuardia they kept congratulating themselves on a job well done, so much accomplished so fast—new apartment, new kitchen, new jobs, new school—all ready and waiting for them when the week in Florida was up.

"All right," Hal said, holding up his hand like a traffic cop, "I'm making an announcement and I want this family's strict attention." He grinned to show he was playing, really, but Peggy and Sam snapped straight up in their seats like soldiers awaiting orders. "I'm serious now," Hal insisted, a little too loudly.

"We are listening, oh captain," Peggy crooned, and then, whispering, added, "and so is the driver."

"Yeah, well," Hal said, lowering his hand sheepishly, "it's this. The way I see it, our lives have been too hectic for a little too long to be healthy. So I say that for the next seven days I want everyone to cool out. Do you read me?"

"Read you loud and clear," Peggy said, barking her answer in military fashion while Sam, clowning, caved over in his seat, as if going limp was what his father wanted.

"Don't do that!" Peggy cried, abruptly snatching at his shirt and almost tearing it. She didn't know why, but it had alarmed her, the way he'd suddenly fallen over like that. And although she did her best to compose herself, for the rest of the ride she was silent while Sam and Hal chattered away. She was suddenly filled with a feeling of dread, and no matter how she told herself to snap out of it, she could not. It wasn't at all like her to be moody and jumpy. Her nature was exactly the opposite of that. It must be all the excitement, she decided. Yes, that was it—her nerves were frazzled from all the energy she'd been putting out since the promotions had come through and their lives had gone rushing in so many new directions.

She sat back in her seat, gently smiling just like her old self again. A week in Pensacola was what she needed, seven low-key days, a good solid rest.

But even as Peggy scolded herself and tried to turn her mood around, the weight of something shadowy pressed ominously against her heart.

***

While Hal and the driver struggled to get the luggage out, Peggy took Sam's hand and together they ran to check in at the ticket counter.

"Hulluva family," the driver muttered as Hal fished in his pockets for the fare. "You're a lucky guy. Me, I wish I had a tenth as good."

Hal nodded absently, but when he looked up to pay the man, he was stunned by the ruined, mournful eyes, one of them sliding slightly off-track as the cabbie returned Hal's glance.

Once the plane was airborne, Hal loosened his seatbelt and leaned over to kiss Peggy and Sam, who was already busily at work on his Jumbo pad and just as industriously working on the wad of grape-flavored Bubblicious Peggy had treated him to on takeoff.

"How you doing, old scout?"

"Loose as a goose," said Sam.

Hal ruffled his son's hair and then touched Peggy's knee with his fingertips.

"Don't wake me when the lunch wagon comes, hear?"

She patted his hand and smiled. He loved to see Peggy smile. It etched little tucks into her cheeks, trim brackets that set off the liquid contours of her lips. He smiled back, and then he fitted the stereo headphones to his ears. He switched channels until he found one that was playing a tape of old standards. Pushing back his seat as far as it would go, he yawned extravagantly, and presently fell into a deep, untroubled sleep.

Peggy would have liked to doze off, too. But that would be unfair to Sam. Besides, she'd have to see to his lunch and to the bathroom when he needed to go. Actually, she wasn't sure if she could sleep on a plane if she tried. Funny, how airplanes put her a little on edge. After all, her dad was a pilot. Hadn't she been around aircraft for as long as she could remember? But maybe that was the reason. Maybe it was like the old thing about the shoemaker's sons never having shoes. No, that wasn't the right saying. Well, it was something like that—the preacher's child, the doctor's child, something about things being upside down.

Her jaw fell open in a yawn. She couldn't help herself. She wished they'd hurry with the food. 
How could she have forgotten to bring a book? She thought about checking the magazines in back, but all the good ones were bound to be gone by now. Besides, she'd have to climb over Hal to get into the aisle, and she didn't want to risk waking him yet. Time enough when Sam couldn't hold it anymore.

She turned to look out the window and fixed her eyes on the horizon. But that only made her groggier.

"Hungry, baby?"

Sam didn't look up from his pad. He shook his head and showed his gum as if to say that was all anyone could reasonably want in his mouth.

She pulled down the tray in front of his seat.

"Here, rest your pad on this. It'll be easier."

"Thanks, Mom. That's great."

"Want to play a game? I'll play you Geography if you like."

"Later, Mom, okay? After I finish this."

She leaned over a little to see what he was working on. The head-on portrait of a man from the belt up filled the sheet of drawing paper, a leathery man that Peggy instantly recognized as her father.

"That's Granddad," she said, thrilled. "Why, Sam, honey, that's amazing, the likeness. And you haven't seen Val in years."

"You like it?"

"It's wonderful, baby. But why did you stick that patch over his eye? You think Granddad's a pirate?"

"I don't know," Sam said as he drew a pair of pilot's wings across the shirt pocket. "He flies airplanes, doesn't he?"

"Not for a long time, sweetie—he's retired now."

"Retired?"

She was about to explain the meaning of the word when the feeling that she was going to sneeze sent her hand reflexively reaching for her purse. But it wasn't next to her in her seat. She felt behind her. It wasn't there either—nor could she see it by her feet on the floor. She looked at her lap as if it were possible to miss its presence there, some trick the eye had played.

"My God!" she cried, tugging at her lip. "I don't believe it!"

She felt Sam pulling at her arm, and when she looked, she saw his alarm as he swept the hair from his eyes.

"It's all right, baby," she said, cupping his cheek. "It's just that I think I lost my purse. Oh lord, your daddy's going to have a fit."

She undid her seatbelt and pushed gently at Hal's arm. "Hal, honey, get up, dear," she pleaded. "Honey, I can't find my handbag."

***

One of the stewardesses helped them look through the plane. But it was no use. Peggy kept having to say that she hadn't been anywhere except her seat, and the stewardess kept saying it wouldn't hurt to look around, just to make sure. Peggy didn't know which was worse—feeling so foolish or being so exasperated with everyone who kept giving her advice she didn't need.

All right, it wasn't such a terrible disaster, really. Hal had their traveling money—so, at worst, it just meant losing a few dollars and the hassle of having to get her credit cards replaced. And, oh yes, her driver's license, not that she needed it all that much.

"Either you left it at the airport or in the cab," Hal said. "Unless you walked out of the apartment without it."

"No," Peggy said. "I distinctly remember. I had it with me—because I remember getting my sunglasses out just before we got in the cab."

"So, okay. When we touch down, we'll have Eastern check LaGuardia and I'll call the Hack Bureau. That's the best we can do—and if it's no soap, then we'll just have to start phoning the credit card companies and report the loss." He smiled and put his hand to her shoulder. "Details, honey, mere details. Just relax."