The Irresistible Henry House (23 page)

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IT SNOWED ON AND OFF throughout February, and every time it did, a period of mourning seemed to descend on the city. People walked the streets rigid with cold and apparent disappointment. Bums and beggars appeared with cups or hands outstretched, then disappeared behind the breath clouds formed by their shouts and questions.

All of this baffled Henry. But in some ways, the snow kept New York simple for him: muffled and plain, its landscape like the ones he’d known. It was only when the snow melted that the hard geometry of the city was revealed: rectangles, squares, and cubes abounded: hard-edged, glassed-in, everything perpendicular. He could stand on any street on any avenue, looking north or south, and, with the exception of wheels, lights, human beings, and occasional trees, find nothing arced or curved, nothing sinuous or soft.

Just a little over a month into their new life together—the life Betty had supposedly wanted so much—Henry found himself on a Tuesday night in April alone in the apartment, not having any idea where she was. He had already gotten used to her coming home very late on the magazine’s weekly closing nights. But this was still early in the week. He did his homework: geometry, history, English. At seven, he watched Walter Cronkite on the evening news. At nine, he opened a can of tuna and mixed it, as Martha had long ago taught him to, with mayonnaise, mustard, salt and pepper, a pinch of sugar, and a dash of vinegar. He toasted four slices of bread, so that he’d be ready to make Betty a sandwich as soon as she walked in. She didn’t.

At ten o’clock, Henry called the
Time
switchboard and asked for the research department.

A tired male voice answered. “No. No, the girls all went home hours ago.”

Restless and somewhat worried, Henry prowled the apartment with special curiosity, as if the search would yield clues to Betty’s whereabouts. In the kitchen, he found two extra bottles of vodka above the stove and a tin of smoked oysters pushed back behind the peas and carrots. On a high bathroom shelf that he’d never explored, Henry saw a bottle of diet pills, a half dozen contradictory hair dyes, an assortment of stomach medicines, and three different hangover remedies. In Betty’s bedroom, he studied his baby photograph in its red mahogany frame, and on a low shelf next to her bed he found current books—
Sex and the Single Girl, Silent Spring, The Feminine Mystique—
as well as stacks of old
Time
magazines, and one large book that he recognized immediately.

He opened it expectantly, and indeed, there on the first page was the same photograph of himself that was in the wood frame. Beneath the picture was an old, wrinkled piece of paper with the words “The Franklin Orphans’ Home” printed on top and the date “June 12, 1946” written below it in a flowing, flowery script. With mixed excitement and trepidation, Henry sat in Betty’s small rocking chair and turned to the next page, which was labeled HENRY HOUSE. The first photograph was of Henry sleeping, and beneath it, in Martha’s unmistakable handwriting, was the caption: “What a dream!” As Henry turned more pages, he found photos of himself at five months, six months, seven and a half months, eight months and three weeks; he saw all the different practice mothers’ handwriting; the little celebrations, the sharp reportorial squabbles over the tiniest of his milestones. He saw a life so acutely observed that it wouldn’t have been clear to anyone if the center of all that attention had been a person or a thing.

WHEN THE KEY TURNED in the lock, Henry was too absorbed to react quickly enough. He slammed the book shut, but he didn’t have time to put it back on the shelf. In the split second before Betty walked in, he let the book drop to the side of the chair.

But it wasn’t Betty. Instead, posing in the doorway was a tall, dark-haired, overweight woman wearing too much makeup and an exhausted expression.

“Hey, kid,” she said.

Henry sat up straighter, then stood.

“Henry Gaines,” he said, sticking out his hand.

“No shit,” she said, and she pulled against his outstretched hand as if inside a dance move. She bumped him toward her and kissed his cheek. He laughed.

“And you are …,” he said, and she smiled.

“Who the hell do you think I am? I’m Ethel. Christ,” she said. “Tell me Betty didn’t tell you about me. I live here, for Christ’s sake.”

“I know that. But she told me you were away on some assignment.”

“Guess what, genius. I’m back. Where is she, anyway?”

Henry shrugged.

“Great,” she said sarcastically. “That’s just great.”

Ethel walked into her bedroom—the room Henry had been using—and Henry followed her.

“What are you, some kind of neat freak?” she asked. “My room’s never looked this good.”

“Sorry.”

She laughed and swept her hair up off the back of her neck, then used her evening bag to fan under her arms.

“God, I’m roasting,” she said. “Are you roasting?”

“It’s warm,” Henry said.

“Warm. It’s a fucking furnace. Close your eyes for a minute. I want to change out of this, and I don’t want to scar you for life. And no peeking.”

Henry closed his eyes, not remotely tempted to peek. “So I guess I’ll be moving out to the couch,” he said.

“Aww, we can share the bed,” Ethel said.

Startled, Henry opened his eyes. She was standing there in a bra and girdle.

“Hey! Shut ’em,” she barked. “Don’t panic. I was only fooling.”

“I knew that,” Henry said.

“Anyway, I spend a lot of nights with my boyfriend.”

“Really?”

“Don’t worry. I’m a big girl,” Ethel said. “Okay. You can open your eyes now.”

She had changed into a white blouse, navy slacks, and a pair of flats.

“Come on,” Ethel said. “Let’s have a snack. Is there any food in here?”

“We went shopping last week,” Henry said, feeling a bit protective.

He followed Ethel into the kitchen, where she swung open the refrigerator door, then looked in, absentmindedly adjusting her bra in back. “Ketchup, mustard, mayo, ancient tomato paste, lemon juice,” she reported. “Some shopping trip.”

“Try the cabinet,” Henry said. “Want some cereal? We do have milk.”

“We do, huh?”

Ethel took out the box of Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes, then exchanged it for Special K.

“You’re a photographer, right?” Henry asked.

Ethel looked at him a bit oddly.

“Didn’t she tell you anything about me?” Ethel asked.

“That you’re a photographer,” he said.

She put down her cereal bowl on the dining room table and steered him by the shoulder back into Betty’s room. She pointed to Betty’s dresser.

“I took that one,” she said, indicating the picture of Henry. “I’m not just any photographer, kid. I’m one of your goddamn mothers.”

THEY STAYED UP TALKING. He asked her all about the practice house, about the other mothers, about Betty, about himself. Ethel was vague and jokey, until finally, Henry said: “You’re not telling me anything!”

“What is it you want to know, pal? How screwed up it was? It was plenty screwed up.”

IT WAS PAST ONE when Betty walked in the front door. She was clearly trying hard to make her movements intentional and sober. Ethel seemed embarrassed for her and trailed Betty into her bedroom.

Henry took the opportunity to reach into Betty’s purse and take a cigarette from her pack.

Then the argument from the next room began, a marvel of ineffective whispering and unconcealed anger. What did Betty think she was doing? Wasn’t this the kid she’d been waiting for all these years? Here she was, falling down drunk. No, Betty said, not falling down.

“Were you with Greg?” Ethel hissed.

Henry couldn’t hear the answer. He didn’t have a match, and he started looking around the living room. There was a lighter on the desk, but it didn’t work. There was an empty book of matches on the side table with the lamp. Finally, Henry found a fresh pack of matches in Betty’s purse, lit his cigarette, and then sat on the side of the bed, listening with mixed emotions as Ethel scolded Betty.

THE DRAWING ON THE BACK of the matchbook was of a baby deer: its eyes were enormous, with eyelashes that swept up like delicate branches. It had dappled skin, a turned-up button nose, and a ripple of fur scaling upward from its nose to the space between its eyes. It looked like Bambi, but the slogan underneath said nothing about Bambi. Instead, it declared:

“DRAW ME!” On the inside over, the message was clear: “If you can draw Winky, you might have a career as a professional artist!”

The instructions said entrants were to make a copy of the drawing—no tracing allowed—and mail it with a stamped, self-addressed return envelope to the Art Instruction Schools. There, a panel of judges made up of professional artists would review the submitted artwork. If they saw promise in the work, they would allow you to participate in a correspondence course. A series of books—each containing twenty-four lessons—would begin arriving within the month. The graduates of the school, the matchbook writing said, included famous illustrators and artists who had gone on to careers in advertising, cartoon making, and the fine arts.

BY THE MIDDLE OF APRIL, the city had warmed to a pleasant, breezy spring. At the playground, chain-link fences kept the children in: Girls with straight bangs and boys with sharp side parts ran from the seesaws, ran to the sandbox; on the weekends, women wore shirtwaist dresses and tourists wore hats, leading their children through Central Park, posing them for snapshots at the zoo or on the Shetland pony.

By day, Henry trudged through his classes, pretending to take notes but more often sketching. At night, after his homework and his housework were done, he would kneel at the coffee table, making sketch after sketch of Winky. The slope of his snout, like a gentle mountain; the dark patch of his nose, not completely filled in; the ragged staircase of fur that scraggled upward toward his ears.

From Betty’s purse, Henry swiped other matchbooks, featuring “the Pirate,” “Tippy the Turtle,” and President Lincoln. On one cover, a steamy brunette in a backless evening gown posed for a man with a sketch pad. Above them were the encouraging words: “You are in demand if you can draw!”

Relentlessly, Henry practiced. Tippy the Turtle wore a turtleneck, which was reasonably funny. The Pirate had a scowl and a mustache, but he also wore an eye patch that made Henry think of Mary Jane. It occurred to him that she had not really been happy with him since he’d started talking again. He did feel chagrin about this, but no pressing concern. In his experience, Mary Jane had always returned to him in her enthusiasm and loyalty, no matter what his actual or perceived crimes had been. But sometimes, almost missing her, he altered the lines of the Pirate and tried to draw Mary Jane instead.

“Dear Mary Jane,” Henry wrote in early May:

I’m sorry I haven’t written you sooner. Things have been very busy here.

But dig the return address! I’ve left the Loony Bin and I’ve moved to New York. I’m living with my mother (my real mother) and going to a regular high school, where I talk like a (fairly) regular person, have no (regular) girlfriends, and—I know you’ll say I deserve this—no real friends, either!

Why don’t you decide not to be angry at me anymore, and come visit me in the Big Bad City this summer?

Weeks went by, and there was no reply. Henry’s drawings took on a larger life. If he was still sketching when he heard Betty’s or Ethel’s key turn in the lock, he would stuff his drawings under the couch, then dive beneath his blanket. Some instinct kept him from wanting to share his hopes. It was easier, and somehow less intimate, to share the laundry, the closet, the soap.

Sometimes Betty stood over him while he pretended to sleep. Martha had done that too, long ago—waiting for him to wake up and talk. Under Betty’s gaze, he would keep his eyes closed, and eventually she would leave, and he would hear her wash off her makeup and jangle her jewelry into her jewelry box, or sometimes make a late, whispered phone call. In the mornings, while she was still sleeping, he swiped cash and loose change from her pockets and purse. Adding it to the leftover grocery money he’d been saving, he would have just enough for the art school entry fee. Taking a deep breath one May morning, he sent his drawings and the money out into the new spring world.

TWO WEEKS LATER, Henry received a letter of congratulations and, a week after that, the first book in the series. It was seventy-two pages long and had a black and green cover with silver lettering that said MODERN ILLUSTRATING INCLUDING CARTOONING and, underneath the title, a promising “Division 1.” Henry opened the book gently, as if he was trying not to disturb its contents.

HOW TO START, it said on the first page, and gave instructions for the kinds of drawings Henry was supposed to create and submit. On one sheet, he had to draw a barrel and a side table; on another, he had to draw a chair and wheels in perspective; others required a horse, a teakettle, a man carrying a basket. There were instructions on what paper to use, what pencil to use, how to fold the drawings, and where to leave space for criticism. The tone of the instructions was steady and slightly scolding. “Remember, you are not to draw the clothed figure of the man in overalls yet.” But Henry found the clarity reassuring, and he raced through his homework that night in order to get to his drawing. He liked the portraits, and he liked perspective. But he liked animation best by far, the license it gave him to copy. He learned that Mickey Mouse was drawn from a series of basic shapes: circles for the ears, the head, the belly, the buttons on his pants; ovals for his eyes, nose, and shoes; triangles for his eyes when they were focused on something; and a heart for the shape of his tongue when he was smiling.

ON HENRY’S SEVENTEENTH BIRTHDAY, Betty brought home a bottle of champagne and drank half a glass for every sip that Henry took. He knew she was unusually upset. He suspected she had something to tell him. It was not until she had finished the bottle, however, and said, “We should probably have eaten something with this, I guess,” that Henry asked her, straight out, what was on her mind.