The Tell

by Hester Kaplan

  Mike Levi, who had taught at Spruance until he went into the lucrative college prep and tutoring business that Owen worked for several nights a week, arrived with his wife, Faye. He shook off the rain like a wet dog. Walter Brazil, a man Owen was friendly with from the pool at the Y, arrived looking uncomfortable out of the water and his Speedo. A few teachers from Spruance—including Mrs. Tevas with her librarian’s gravitas—showed up. The gallery was filled with friends they hadn’t seen in months, and the party was celebratory in spite of the weather. Owen replenished the ice, set out more cups, and emptied another bag of pretzels.

  A man in a drenched army jacket shuffled his way around the edges of the gallery. His head was pushed forward, but he wasn’t adept at going unnoticed. He pulled at the snaky coils of his dirty beard. The room contracted in his presence. Talk slowed, the hum lowered, shoulders rose. You didn’t have to see menace to know it had joined the party. It brought its own weather system. As Owen watched, Mira left a circle of friends and walked over to the man whose fists rested like grenades in his jacket. Owen wanted to call her back, but he didn’t. His mouth was dry, and the base of his skull ached with holding himself in control. Finally, the man skittered away from Mira and, on his way out, bumped into Lusk, the boy mayor, who had just arrived and was pushing the rain through his hair.

  Lusk smiled diplomatically, as always. Mira hooked her arm through the mayor’s as she led him into the room. Though he was a few years older than Mira, the two of them had played doctor and naked patient when they were kids and their parents were drinking cocktails together downstairs. Lusk likely thought of this every time he saw Mira. She did—Owen could see it in her pinking cheeks now. It was funny to him how this old game would always connect the two of them, and how decades later, it could still spark some jealousy in him. Owen knew that his understanding of Mira’s past, her lovers, the shape of her life before he met her, would always be slightly off.

  Mira had only a few minutes with Lusk to make her pitch for city support. He could make things happen—this was Providence after all, and nothing got done by going through the obvious or correct channels—but he gave her a look of no promise tonight. The city was broke, the state and the country worse. Mira’s frustration was a resolute horizon that appeared across her forehead. Lusk scratched his neck. A young girl pressed between them and pulled Lusk over to her drawing. He gave the room a dazzling smile, arm around the kid, then made a dash for the door and his waiting aide who already held out an opened umbrella. For a moment, Mira froze, watching Lusk—and maybe Brindle’s future—skitter away into the rain. Owen checked the bid sheets; he wasn’t happy to see how few entries there were. If Mira knew this already, she wasn’t going to show it. Owen entered his own bid for each of the kids’ pieces; he didn’t want any one of them to go home dejected, unwanted.

  The noise in the room fell and the humidity seemed to drop as Wilton appeared at the gallery entrance in a voluminous white shirt and pants. He’d wafted in like some cloud the storm had whipped up, and people turned to look at him, their faces lifted to the meteorological wonder. It was true about actors and politicians, Wilton and Lusk: they had a shine unlike anyone else, and you couldn’t fake that magnetism, that radiance. They made entrances where other people simply came in. But Owen considered how the man in the army jacket had changed the room’s weather, too, for a minute. Wilton waved at Owen to help him with something outside. He had a cab idling in front, with platters of food in the backseat and trunk. There were shrimp, fussy sandwiches speared with toothpicks made to look like paint brushes, strawberries dipped in chocolate, blueberry tarts, wedges of cheese to take the place of the wilting pretzels. Joy came out to help and smiled shyly when Wilton said something to her, his mouth close to her ear.

  “This is amazing,” Mira said, looking at the bounty spread across the table. The room began to surge toward it. Any minute, the frenzy would begin. “You didn’t have to do this, Wilton.”

  “Feed the people, and they shall give,” he said, and found an empty spot of wall to pose himself against, slightly damp white against white. “Isn’t that what they say?”

  When Mira went to stand next to him, black against white, something shifted. To Owen, it was as though the light had become thinner, or his eyesight worse. The affinity between Wilton and Mira was not about sex or romance, he knew, but something much less ephemeral, something both imperceptible and obvious. Their young friendship had the oldest roots. But why and how it had happened like this he didn’t know. He stood back, afraid in a way to get closer and learn what kept others out. Soon, a semicircle had formed in front of them. Many people recognized Wilton. Wet shoes were suddenly easier to stand around in because of Wilton’s charm, his bounding talk about Brindle, his wheedling for donations and bids. Ellie Cotton watched with regal distance and distaste, but she watched anyway, a lowering chin a sign of her thaw. For all those who said television was a black hole that spit out shit and trivia, who claimed there was nothing worthwhile on, who spoke with condescension about those who did watch, there were always more people who recognized Wilton. Watching television had become a private sin; they’d been secret viewers—Edward had once caught Owen in front of the television slack-jawed—but they gave up their secret now. Wilton caused a spike of laughter; looking over his admirer’s heads, he winked at Owen, then Joy, who blushed.

  When the last people left an hour later, Owen went out to lock the front door. The rain had stopped and the city was washed and gleaming. The man in the army jacket leaned against the chain-link fence across the street, more beaten than menacing now, his face unevenly shadowed and wet. He gave Owen the finger. Without the crowd, the gallery looked exhausted, the artwork curling in the humidity. Wilton and Joy swept the hundreds of shrimp tails and strawberry stems into the garbage, while Joy used one hand to press the front of her dress to her chest. Her face was a fiery red from Wilton’s predatory attention. Owen didn’t know anything about the man’s sex life—if he had one at all—but he knew he should not devour this soft, sweet girl like a marshmallow. One swallow and it’s done. Joy looked up to catch Owen watching her, and the colors of Wilton’s flattery drained from her face. Owen had snooped on her desires, spied on her romantic fantasies, and caught her admiring herself in Wilton’s reflection. She crouched to pick up the balled napkins from the floor, but her dress made the movement awkward and she had to catch herself from falling forward. Owen knew he’d humiliated her in a way neither of them was ever going to forget. In a few minutes, she gathered up her things and left Brindle, but not before Wilton insisted on kissing her cheek.

  Mira, who’d noticed none of this, slumped on a chair. “I’m so beat. I don’t even want to deal with the bid sheets now. Tomorrow I face the truth after a cup of coffee. But not tonight.”

  Owen turned away; he already knew the night’s failure. He was the highest bidder on everything. He felt stupid now for having put his name down. What was the point of that?

  “I just want to see one thing, one bid I’m curious about,” Wilton said. He studied the bid sheet for Cory’s giant, hideous pot. “It looks like I’m the high bidder on this, thank you very much.”

  “Let me see that.” Mira held out her hand and studied the paper for too long. “No, Wilton. Absolutely not. No fucking way. Forget it.”

  “What do you mean ‘no’?” Wilton said.

  “I mean no, as in no, you can’t do this.”

  “I most certainly can,” Wilton said. “I am the highest bidder, aren’t I? Then it’s mine. There are rules about these things, Mira, fixing the bidding, fraud, and so on. Don’t make me turn you in.” He laughed. “You’ll take a personal check?”

  Mira handed Owen the sheet. Wilton had bid $35,000 for the pot.

  “You’re kidding, right?” Owen asked. Wilton shook his head.

  “I’m completely serious,” Mira said. “I’m not going to accept your money. If you want to make a small donation, I won’t say no. But this is too much. It’s n
ot right.”

  “Who’s to say what’s right?” Wilton asked. “I’ve done nothing except take dumb money and make it smart. I want to do something meaningful in my life, something for other people for a change. I’ve led a very selfish existence. Let me do this. At least so I won’t feel like such a slug.”

  He bent to scoop up his expensive piece of pottery. At first he struggled with the thing and mumbled that maybe he’d had too much wine to stand straight so quickly. Mira begged him to be careful, and for a few steps, he was steady, the tip of his tongue on his upper lip. But then his legs folded jointlessly, he slipped and skated and whooped and righted himself. The room held its breath. Police sirens wailed down Point Street, and when Wilton looked up to see the throbbing colors pass over the glass, he took a step forward and slipped on a strawberry. The pot rose in the air. He lunged forward at an inhuman angle and his knees hit the floor with a sickening crack. His arms were outstretched as though he were catching a baby thrown out of a burning building. The pot landed in his hands with a slap. His acrobatic dive was astounding. He hadn’t ever been about to let the thing smash; this was all an act. Wilton put the pot down and fussily adjusted his shirt and pants, now dirty at the knees, as though nothing had happened and no one was watching. But he had to know they were fixed on him. He was Bruno again, with that slightly melancholy, elastic face. He was comedy meeting tragedy, or just barely dodging it, and he was as surprised as anyone by what felled and befell him. It was like being in love. Humor showed no reverence for the guileless or the good-hearted. His expression suggested that everything that could be made fun of—himself included—was also true and real.

  “Shit,” Owen mumbled and turned away. He wanted to kick something for how he’d been played, for how he’d held his breath and counted his heartbeats.

  “Not so funny, Wilton,” Mira said, but she was laughing now, her hands on her knees. “Really, don’t do that again.”

  “Do what? If you could do one thing for me,” Wilton said, turning to Owen. “You can drive this back to the house because I’m going to walk. I could use the exercise; you taught me that the other day. I have to get in shape. Just make sure my pot wears a seat belt. I don’t want anything to happen to my beautiful new baby.”

  Just before Wilton left, Owen saw him out in the foyer with his hands on his knees, working to catch his breath and ease some obvious pain when he thought no one was watching. His spine had an ancient, brittle arc to it, and it occurred to Owen that maybe the near-disaster had not been such a distant possibility at all. If he’d hurt himself, that meant he’d lost his touch, and the man was too proud to admit that. Mira stood looking at a shelf of small ceramic objects. Her head was angled with dissatisfaction as she flapped Wilton’s check against her thigh.

  “That little clay dog,” she said to Owen. “The one that doesn’t look like a dog at all? It’s gone. Someone stole it. Why the hell would someone do that?”

  Owen suspected the guy in the army jacket, but he didn’t say anything, and instead led Mira up to the roof so they could look at the night. He always stayed back from the two-foot-high edge while Mira always stood against it to look down. His stomach flipped. He couldn’t bear to watch her bend forward with her heels lifting slightly.

  “I wish Wilton hadn’t given me this,” she said, letting the check wave in the breeze. She could easily let it go. “I’m locked in now, O. I can’t be done. Not with this.”

  “Locked in? If you feel that way, then give it back.”

  “Is that what you think I should do?” She slipped off her shoes and walked through the puddles. “Tell me. Tell me what I should do, O, because I have no idea.”

  “What do you want to do?”

  “I’m lost. I don’t think I’ve ever been so lost. And yet here’s the answer.” Mira waved the check again and held her dress up above her knees, as though the water were deeper than an inch. She rarely got dressed up, and he was struck by how elegant and beautiful she could be without trying. “It’s enough money for a good while, so how can I not take it?” She let her dress fall. “Really, how can I not?”

  Owen was afraid of the gift’s unspoken obligation to Wilton, what the man might expect in return. “You could give it back and sell the Nadelmans instead.” They were a pair of white marble busts in the living room with eerie lensless eyes. Wilton had mentioned them one night.

  “The Nadelmans?” She gave him the kind of skeptical look that was part curiosity and part suspicion. “I can’t do that. Anyway, there’s no art market these days. It’s tanked like everything else.” It was a while before she said anything more, and then not to Owen, but to the city before them. “Do you want to know why I can’t sell them?”

  “Yes, I would love to know. I’ve always wanted to understand.”

  “Because I’m still waiting for my parents to come home. They went out for awhile, but they’ll be back. And if I start getting rid of their things, what does that mean? That they’re not coming back.”

  Her confession stunned him. “They’re not coming back, Mira.”

  He put his arms around her, close enough to the edge to make him light-headed. But it was as if she dissolved against him, so that when the wind died down, he was holding only some notion of his wife.

  4

  As he backed the car out of the driveway, a narrow black shape, motionless as an assassin, appeared in Owen’s rearview mirror. He jammed the brakes and pebbles flung themselves against the underside of the car. His whiplashed heart banged against his ribs. Wilton was inches from the bumper.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Owen demanded. Adrenaline’s watery rush left him parched and furious. “You scared the shit out of me. Do you know I almost hit you?”

  Wilton came around to the driver’s side. He half tamped down a grin. “Never. Would I let that happen? On the day before I finally get to see my daughter? Would that make any sense?” He studied Owen. “Ah, you’re angry. I’ve never seen this before in you. And look at how you’re sweating.”

  “That’s because it’s ninety-five fucking degrees out here.” Owen hated being played like this, and he had the urge to step on the gas so that Wilton would be flung backward. He took a deep breath instead. “What’s up? I’m sort of busy.”

  “I can see that. Have you ever seen what surprise looks like? This is you.” Wilton stretched his mouth wide with the hooks of his index fingers and made his eyes bulge. His hair was a static cloud the sun peeked through. “Somewhere between ecstasy and agony.”

  “That’s really great. Thanks a lot. What are you doing out here anyway?”

  “Waiting for my daughter.”

  “I thought she wasn’t coming until tomorrow,” Owen said.

  “That doesn’t mean I wasn’t waiting.”

  Since the day he’d arrived, Wilton had been waiting—for his daughter, Anya, his packages (UPS had just delivered another Styrofoam box of steaks for the dinner tomorrow), for the start of his life here. Now he was like a kid before his own party, trying to fill up the anticipatory minutes by squirming into every one of them. Mira had offered their house as neutral territory and themselves as buffers for tomorrow’s reunion of father and child. She offered everything to Wilton these days, post fundraiser, the donation check cashed. His money’s grease was impossible to wash off her hands.

  Wilton pointed at the bent arm from the first floor’s leaking toilet sitting on the passenger seat. “I see you’re fixing something. May I come with you? I know how nothing works. You can show me.”

  Wilton’s eagerness could be hard to deflect, and Owen told him to get in. At Home Depot, Wilton acted like a man who’d never been out of the secured desert compound. He gawked at the aisles of bathtubs and sliding doors, followed the sedating twirl of a hundred ceiling fans, ran his hands over the rug samples, tile samples, aluminum siding, lightbulbs, giant sponges. For a few minutes, he watched Owen match parts for the bent arm, and then he disappeared. But in his peach-colored polo shirt and long
white shorts he was not hard to spot at the front of the store, where patio furniture, umbrellas, grills, and tiki torches were set out awaiting imaginary guests. Awaiting Wilton, who reclined in a chair that offered a matching rest for his feet. His arms were linked behind his head as though he were poolside, waiting for his iced tea.

  “Look at those birds,” he said, and pointed to the rafters. “They love it here.”

  Owen gazed up. “What makes you think they love it?”

  “Would they be singing if they didn’t?” Wilton wasn’t about to give up his optimism or get up from his bird watcher’s seat, and he patted the chair next to him for Owen to sit down. Owen was uneasy with how people stared at them, and he scratched his chin, bristly from not shaving. His shirt had holes. The school year was over and the days had a different rhythm. He tutored a few nights a week in air-conditioned houses.

  “The birds must come down and eat when no one’s around,” Wilton said.

  It was an attractive scenario, but the truth was, Owen told him, that the birds either made it out, taking a kamikaze dive for the sliding glass doors, or they died. Owen had once found the stiff, weightless body of a finch in a box of rheostats.