by Donna Ball
“How do you do that?”
She glanced up at him. “Do what?”
He jerked his head toward the pasture fence, where the deer was now plucking leaves off a scrubby vine. “You’re drawing him under the apple tree. He ain’t there anymore. But your picture looks just like he did when he was.”
“Oh.” It occurred to Lindsay that all of the sketches she had seen in Noah’s book had been of still objects—even the border collie, which had been drawn in profile on the hill overlooking the meadow. He drew what he saw, as most beginning artists did. His question showed insight and ambition, and she felt a smile of excitement start deep inside her—which she did not dare show, of course.
“When you’re drawing something that you can’t pose,” she explained without looking up from the careful shading she was working on around the deer’s eye, “something that you know is going to change or move, like an animal or a sunset or something like that, you make markers for positioning as quickly as you can. For the deer, I drew circles to indicate where his head was in relationship to his neck and where his eyes were on his head and where his hooves were and how long his body was before he moved. That way I made sure I had the proportions right. For everything else, you just kind of . . .” She shrugged. “Hold a picture of it in your head.”
He grunted. “Where’d you learn that?”
She replied very casually, and without looking up, “Art school.”
“You went to art school?”
Was that respect or skepticism she heard in his voice? She dared not turn around to find out. Instead, she picked up a stylus and carefully flicked several layers of charcoal from a point where iris met pupil on the deer’s eye, revealing a white spark of light underneath. “I did,” she replied.
“What’s that thing?”
She held the instrument up for him to examine, but he did not take it. “It’s called a stylus. You can use it to make marks or indentations in the paper for texture, or to remove color like I just did. See how that little spark of white makes his eyes look alive? Sometimes what you take away is more important than what you put in.” And when he gave nothing but a grunt in reply, she added, “Something else I learned in art school.”
He scooped up a handful of slivered wood kindling and tossed it into the wheelbarrow. “So how come I never seen you drawing before?”
She almost gave him the easy answer about how busy she was, how hard it was to keep up an old house like this, how few hours there were in the day, and how, after all, her studio wasn’t even ready to move into yet. Instead she put down her pencil and turned to look at him, squinting a little in the sun.
“I guess I was scared,” she said. And though he didn’t stop his work, he moved a little more slowly and made less clatter tossing the kindling into the wheelbarrow. There was about his shoulders an attitude of acute listening. “You see, all my life I’ve dreamed of being a working artist. One of the reasons we bought this house was so that I would have a place for a studio, and I could work at my art full-time. But . . . I don’t know, maybe this is something only an old person can understand, but sometimes you’re better off dreaming about something than actually doing it. What if no one wants to buy my paintings? What if nobody even wants to take art lessons from me? What if I’m not good enough?”
She shrugged, trying not to show the embarrassment she was beginning to feel. “It’s a lot easier not to try, than to try and fail, you know?”
He looked at her for a moment, eyes narrowed, and she thought that he did know, very well. He said, “This is the last load on your wood. You got my pay?”
“In the house.” She stood up, packing away the pencils and sketch pad, and he turned to push the wheelbarrow toward the shed. Then she had an idea.
“Hey,” she said.
He looked back.
“I’ve got a deal for you,” she said. “You finish raking the flower beds for me, and you can have this pencil set. I’ll throw in the sketch pad, too. It’s almost new.”
He looked from her to the two items in her hand, his eyes narrowed—though she couldn’t tell whether the expression was from avarice or contempt.
“Forty-six pencils,” she told him, “all colors. And a sharpener.”
He said, “Anybody ever make any money from drawing?”
“Some do,” she told him, and had to admit, honestly, “most don’t.”
He turned back to the wheelbarrow. “Then what’s the point?”
She shrugged and put the pencil box and sketch pad on her chair. “Suit yourself. I’ll get your money.”
But when she returned, he was raking the flower beds, and the pencil box and sketch pad—including her drawing of the deer—were gone.
“Mommmm . . .”
Cici could practically see Lori’s long distance eye roll. She closed her own eyes and drew in a silent calming breath in response.
“You really just don’t get how different college is today,” Lori went on. “I mean, it’s not like you only get one chance at it. So I bombed out on a few courses. I’ll take better ones next semester.”
Cici’s hand tightened around the paper in her hand. “Lori, this letter is from the Dean of Students, who is very concerned about how seriously you’re taking your academic obligations. I’m not sure how many more semesters there will be for you.”
“Oh, that,” Lori replied airily. “They send those out to everybody. It’s a form letter.”
Cici’s voice was tight. “I assume your father got one of these form letters, too?”
“I guess.”
“And what did he have to say about it?”
“Oh, you know Dad. He’s cool.”
“Lori, you can’t just—”
“Anyway, Mom, it’s really no big deal, because I switched my major and none of those stupid courses matter anyway.”
Cici blinked. “Switched your major? To what?” “Anthropology.”
“You switched from business to anthropology?” She tried not to sound incredulous. “How do you even do that?”
“I’m going to Italy in the spring,” she went on excitedly, “for six months! Jeff says I might even be able to go on a dig, if he can work it out with the archaeology prof who’s—”
“Jeff ? Who’s Jeff?”
“The Culture of Man,” she responded happily. “That’s the name of his book. Also the name of the course.”
“That he’s teaching in Italy,” Cici supplied, keeping her tone very carefully even. “In the spring.”
“Right.”
Cici started to say something, changed her mind, took another tack, changed her mind. Finally all she could say was, “We’ll talk about this at Christmas, okay? In the meantime—”
“Oh,” said Lori. “About Christmas . . .”
“You are coming home?” Now it was almost impossible to keep the distress out of her voice.
“It’s not that I don’t want to see you,” Lori said, and, to her credit, she sounded as though she meant it. “And your house, and Aunt Bridge and Aunt Lindsay, and I know we’ve always had Christmas together and I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but that’s just it, you see? We always have Christmas together, and Dad was—well, he was counting on me spending this Christmas with him.”
Cici said, “You spend every weekend with him. You can have lunch with him whenever you want. I see you twice a year!”
“Now, Mom, you know that’s not true. Besides, he’s gone to so much trouble, arranging the trip to Aspen—”
“Aspen?”
“At Christmas. He’s got this great condo there, and he’s going to teach me how to ski, and we’ve got invitations to all the A-list parties. Say!” she exclaimed suddenly. “I’ve got it! Why don’t you come, too? No kidding, Mom, this condo is huge, and there’s plenty of room. That way I’d get to spend the holidays with both of you!”
And not miss a single A-list party, Cici thought, but didn’t say. She couldn’t quite keep the sarcasm out of her voice, however, as
she replied, “I’m sure your dad would love that. Isn’t he bringing his girlfriend?”
Lori hesitated. “Oh,” she said, slightly subdued. “I guess that wouldn’t work.”
“No, I guess it wouldn’t.”
“I’m sorry, Mom. I really will miss you. But you understand, don’t you? If he hadn’t gone to so much trouble . . .”
Cici swallowed hard. “Yeah, sweetie. I understand.”
“And don’t be mad at me about school, okay? I promise to buckle down next semester.”
“I love you, baby.”
“Love you, too, Mom.”
Cici punched out another set of numbers while she pushed back her bangs with her other hand, leaving a swipe of soot across her forehead. She had been cleaning out the fireplace when the mail arrived. Outside her window a tame deer munched on bright red sassafras leaves while a wild border collie raced around and around the sheep meadow in endless circles for no apparent reason. A squirrel hung upside down from the bird feeder, and Bridget, with her hair tied up in a yellow paisley scarf, rushed outside to chase it with a broom. And on the other side of the continent, in the land of palm trees and movie stars, a man who smelled of expensive cologne and silk sheets answered the telephone with a brusque, “Yeah, this is Richard.”
She didn’t even bother to pretend to be calm. “I have to get a letter from the freakin’ university to find out my daughter is flunking out of college?”
“Who is this? Cici? How did you get this number?”
“I gave birth to your child. That entitles me to your cell phone number.”
“Listen, babe, this isn’t a very good time—”
“Don’t you ‘babe’ me! What in the hell are you doing out there? Did anyone ever explain to you that the word parent is also a verb?”
“Okay, sweets, I’m about to lose you. Coming up on a tunnel here—”
“There are no tunnels in Los Angeles!” she screamed. Lindsay came in through the front door, and gave her a look of undisguised concern. Cici turned away, lowering her voice. “I swear to God, Richard, if you hang up on me—”
“Okay, okay, let’s just do this. I’ve got lunch at Spago in ten minutes and Mel Gibson waiting in my office.”
“Jesus!” Cici blew out an explosive breath and turned around again. Lindsay, sorting through the mail that remained on the entry table, raised both eyebrows in question. Cici fanned her face with her hand and tried to sound—and, for Lindsay’s sake, to look—calm. “That kind of talk might impress a twenty-year-old but it does nothing for me. Did you even know she had two incompletes and one failing grade last semester? Doesn’t it bother you that you just paid for half a year of exactly zero course credits?”
Lindsay patted her arm sympathetically as she left the room, and Richard replied, “Oh, come off it, Cici. Like Lori is the first kid to ever have a little trouble with school.”
“She was an honor student when she lived with me. Did you know she changed her major?”
“Again?” But before Cici could even question that, he said, “Last I heard, that was not grounds for expulsion from UCLA. In fact, some people actually encourage young people to explore their options in college. Some people even think that’s what college is for.”
“I happen to think college is for getting an education!”
“Remind me again why we’re not still married?”
“Did you know she’s in love with one of her professors?”
He chuckled. “Not exactly the kind of thing a girl tells her dad, sweetheart. Although from what I can tell, Lori’s in love with a new guy every week.”
Cici felt a stab in her heart because she did not know this, and because Richard didn’t even care, and because even though she knew perfectly well that this was all a part of being young, she didn’t want her baby to grow up without her.
She said, “And you’re letting her go to Italy with this guy in the spring?”
That piece of information apparently gave him pause. Obviously, he had not bothered to make the connection between the professor, the change of major, and the trip to Italy. And that was exactly the problem.
Then he said, “Come on, Cici, by spring she won’t even remember this guy’s name. Could you lighten up just one time?”
There were a dozen things she would have liked to have said in response to that; no, a hundred. It was with the greatest possible effort that she let it go. She said instead, “I want Lori to come home for Christmas.”
“So tell her.”
“I did. She said you had made other plans.”
“What can I tell you, babe? Sounds like she’s made her choice.”
“You call that a choice? Aspen, celebrities, skiing, A-list parties? She spends her entire life without a father, and all of a sudden there you are, offering her the world. What’s she supposed to do? For crying out loud, Richard, it’s the damn sports car all over again!”
When Lori got her driver’s license, Cici had promised to match dollar-for-dollar the money Lori had saved from her after-school job toward the purchase of a car. On her sixteenth birthday they had gone shopping for a used Honda, only to arrive home to find a brand-new sports car sitting in the driveway. Happy Birthday from Dad. Worse, Cici had had to be the one to tell Lori she could not keep the car. Lori had eventually forgiven her, but Cici had never forgiven Richard for once again making her the bad guy, and forcing her to ruin her daughter’s sixteenth birthday.
Richard sighed into the phone, managing to sound both impatient and sympathetic at the same time. “I don’t know what you expect me to do. I can’t make Lori want to spend Christmas with you.”
“No, but you can give her a better choice. Cancel the Aspen thing.”
He laughed.
“I’m not kidding, Richard. I need to see Lori, to talk to her. She needs to be with me, in the real world. You’ve got her so turned around and upside down out there she doesn’t even know who she is anymore.”
“She knows enough to realize she’ll have a lot more fun in Aspen with me than in the middle of nowhere with you. Sorry, babe. She’s made up her mind.”
Cici was quiet for a moment. “All right, you leave me no choice. Lori invited me to spend the holidays with her at your condo in Aspen. I’ll be there on the twenty-second.”
Now it was his turn for silence. “Not funny, babe.”
“Oh, and if you’re worried I might cramp your style—you know, all the hot-tub parties, the clubbing, the après-ski with Heather or Tiffany or Brittany—don’t give it another thought. I promise you to dedicate every waking moment to doing nothing but cramping your style. After all, what kind of man would invite his daughter on a Christmas ski vacation and expect to have anything but family time? Lucky for you, I’m going to make sure it’s all family, all the time, for you this Christmas.”
His voice was cold. “You wouldn’t dare.”
Her voice was colder. “You were married to me for four years, Richard. You want to rethink that?”
Silence. Then, quietly, “You had her for twenty Christmases, Cici. All I’m asking is one.”
Almost, she felt a stab of remorse. But this was their only child they were talking about, and her future was at stake. “Not this one,” she said firmly. “Call off Aspen. And not one word to her about this conversation.”
“You are a cast-iron bitch, you know that?”
“Thank you. I’m glad to know I’ve still got it.”
She hung up the phone, and was surprised to see her hands were shaking. But she had done the right thing. She was almost certain of it.
“I’m out of practice being mean,” Cici sighed, and held out her glass as she took her place in the rocking chair. “It’s not as much fun as it used to be.”
“The first of the merlot,” Lindsay announced, filling each of their glasses. “And I don’t see what’s mean about looking out for your daughter’s best interests. That’s your job.”
“I don’t like the person I turn into when I’m dealing
with Richard.”
“It’s probably a good thing you divorced him then, huh?” said Bridget.
“If Richard had any balls at all, he’d drag that Professor Jeff out behind the science building and beat the shit out of him.” Lindsay sat down in her rocker and stretched out her legs.
“I don’t think you’re allowed to do that in California,” Bridget pointed out.
“I’m not sure blackmail is the best way to deal with a dispute over child-raising approaches,” Cici said unhappily.
“Darling, your child is already raised,” Lindsay said. “I think that’s the problem.”
And Cici agreed, “I think so, too.”
They were silent for a while, rocking.
“Umm, I love merlot in the autumn,” Bridget murmured, tasting it. She was bundled up in a thick chenille sweater, a mohair scarf, and a wool throw against the chill of the dying day, but none of them was willing to miss the last few rays of the brilliant sunset.
“To everything there is a season,” agreed Cici. “Chardonnay in the summer, merlot in the autumn, cabernet in the winter.”
“Hot chocolate before you know it.” Lindsay shivered elaborately and buttoned the top button of her fleece jacket as she sank into her rocker. “Boy, the temperature sure drops once the sun goes behind the mountains, doesn’t it?”
“We won’t be able to do this much longer,” Bridget agreed regretfully. And then she brightened. “But we’ve got plenty of fireplaces. And there’s nothing better than sitting by a fireplace with a good book in the winter, is there?”
“How cold is it supposed to get tonight anyway?” There was a worried note in Lindsay’s tone. “Do you think Noah will be warm enough?”
“He has a fireplace, too,” Cici reminded her.
“We should have sent him more blankets,” Bridget said.
“If we do that, aren’t we encouraging him to stay?”
“Well, we can’t let him freeze!”
“Kids,” Cici said and sighed again. “Whoever knows what’s right?”
“I should have brought it up this afternoon,” Lindsay said unhappily. “I really blew my chance. There he was, talking to me, practically opening up to me . . . I should have found a way to talk to him about school, about his home situation, about what he was going to do with winter coming . . . I let him slip through my fingers.”