Night Owls

by Jenn Bennett

  Huh? Maybe I’d heard that wrong.

  “You . . .”

  “The first-place scholarship was ten thousand dollars. I’d like to offer you the same to purchase the painting.”

  I didn’t know what to say. I think I might’ve gasped—or maybe that was Mom. I glanced up at Jack to see if he’d put his father up to this, but he was just as flabbergasted.

  “Um . . .” I cleared my throat. “Can I ask why?” Was he so ashamed of Jillian that he’d do anything to make sure no one ever laid eyes on the painting again?

  He inhaled deeply and took his time answering, head down, brows knit, hands in pockets, as if it were a struggle to come up with the right words. Almost laughable, really. The man who’d given a hundred and one speeches in front of TV cameras and stadiums filled with people was now tongue-tied?

  When he finally lifted his head, his face was calmer. Something unguarded and honest softened his eyes. “Because,” he said softly as he looked at Jack, “it made me realize I don’t see my daughter as much as I should.”

  Oh . . .

  I scratched the side of my neck. “I don’t know what to say.”

  “Say yes, and I’ll write you a check for it right now.”

  He was totally serious. I looked at him, and then at his wife, who was definitely brushing back tears (and trying to smile at the same time). Next to her, Mom crossed her arms and gave me a cautionary look. I imagined that the penny-scraping side of her, who wanted me to walk away with something to help my future, was at war with the proud side of her, who’d refused child support from Dad. Standing behind her, my brother had fewer moral hiccups; Heath was mouthing Say yes and waving me in as if I were a plane descending toward a runway and there was a pot of gold at the end.

  Then I glanced at Jack, and he was just looking at me the way he always did. like I was the only person in the room who mattered. Like he trusted me to make the right choice on my own and would stand behind any decision I made.

  So I made one.

  “I’ll give you the painting for free if you promise not to send Jack away to Massachusetts, and if all of you agree to let Jack and me see each other.”

  Total silence. Tick-tock, tick-tock . . .

  Between us, the back of Jack’s hand rubbed against mine. I slipped my fingers into his and felt a little stronger in my proverbial backbone when he squeezed my hand.

  “I’m fine with it,” Mom said. “As long as you’re honest about where you’re going and”—she skewered Jack with a warning look—“no one gets arrested. But you have to keep your grades up, Bex, and there’ll be a curfew on school nights. No sneaking around after midnight.”

  I could’ve kissed her. All hail Katherine the Great.

  But she was only half the battle.

  I held my breath and looked to the Vincents.

  Any earlier vulnerability Jack’s dad had shown was now gone, and he was back to being cool and unflappable. He flexed his jaw and started to speak, but his wife silenced him with a small noise in the back of her throat. She then smiled at Mom and said, “Life is better when my son isn’t moping around the house. So I believe I speak for both my husband and myself when I say that your suggestions are more than sensible, Ms. Adams.”

  “If we agree to this, there will be additional stipulations for you, Jack,” his dad said. “You’re not off the hook for the vandalism.”

  “Understood,” Jack said.

  The mayor sighed and stuck out his hand to me, the tiniest of smiles tugging at his serious mouth. “I guess that means you and I have a deal.”

  THE MAYOR LEFT WITH HIS POSSE WHILE MOM AND Mrs. Vincent got friendly and headed back inside the gallery together to collect my painting. I got so caught up in all the hoopla, I didn’t notice that Heath and Noah had gone missing. I spotted them down the hall. Heath was talking to Dad. Noah was talking to Suzi.

  “Is this the first time your brother’s seen your father since the divorce?” Jack asked, watching them with me.

  “Yeah. And no one’s yelling. I can’t believe it. Why am I the one who went nuts and Heath is taking it all in stride? He’s the emotional one, not me.”

  Jack shuffled me out of the way of a group of rowdy students barreling down the hall. “It probably helps that Heath isn’t being bamboozled into meeting your father under false pretenses like you were.”

  “I don’t think that’s a real word.”

  “Bamboozled? Of course it is. Never question my authority when it comes to vocabulary, Bex. By the way, thanks for saving me from purgatory in Massachusetts. And for saving us.”

  “I think it was more Jillian’s influence than mine. You should go see her tonight and tell her all about it. And—hey! I can go with you.” I turned around to face him, giddy with the realization.

  “A week until school starts, so we’ve still got a little midnight oil to burn before the curfew kicks in,” he said, waggling his brows as he wrapped his arms around me.

  “Curfew,” I said with a snort. “We’ll see about that.”

  “Nuh-uh. Don’t even start. I’m not risking Nurse Katherine’s wrath again, not when I just got you back. By the way, I never got a chance to tell you earlier, but it’s nice to see you wearing the necklace. Do you like it?”

  “I love it. I’ll never take it off. Well, apart from X-rays.”

  “Always practical. I’m glad you love it. It loves you right back.”

  “Does it?”

  “Never doubt it. And when we’re alone, I’d like to show you how much.”

  “That sounds a little filthy.”

  “It’s a lot filthy,” he assured me with a coy smile. His eyes darted over my head. “Put a hold on that filth. Looks like your father wants to talk with you.”

  Dad was waving me over to him and Heath. It looked suspiciously like a trap, but considering all the crap I’d been through that night, my father was the least of my worries. “Don’t move,” I told Jack. “I’ll be right back.”

  I warily approached them, checking Heath’s face for signs of trauma. He just lifted his brows as if to say, Yeah, I can’t believe this is happening, either.

  Dad herded us both to the side and spoke to us privately. “I’m sorry you didn’t win, Beatrix,” he told me. “It was a remarkably intelligent and emotional piece of work.”

  That sounded like something VP Van Asch would say, but I refrained from pointing this out. “Thanks.”

  “Heath was just telling me about applying to his vet tech program, and I wanted you both to know that your mother and I have been talking a little this week—”

  “Hello, Twilight Zone,” Heath mumbled.

  “—and we came to a new compromise about financial matters. I’ve been building a little nest egg for the two of you, so I suggested, and she agreed, that I will cover your college costs. If you can secure scholarships or grants, that’s wonderful. If not, anywhere you want to go is on me.”

  Heath and I stared at him, then at each other.

  “What’s the catch?” I asked.

  “No catch,” he said, stuffing his hands into his sport coat pockets. “Just try to pick somewhere within the state to help with the cost. And you might keep your mother’s feelings in mind and look at schools in the Bay Area. Beatrix, she told me you’re interested in taking both art and medical classes. Stanford’s the natural choice for medicine, but if you want both, maybe you’ll consider Berkeley.”

  “Berkeley.”

  He shrugged his shoulders. “I’m partial, of course, but it would certainly look great on your curriculum vitae when you’re considering future graduate schools or grants. But it’s up to you.”

  “I still feel like there’s a catch,” Heath said. “Mom really agreed to this?”

  Dad nodded. “I’m as surprised as you are. And there’s really no catch. I’d love to have lunch with you now and then, of course. Suzi and I have a pool, so if you ever wanted to come over and stay with us—”

  “A pool?” Heath said.
r />   I rolled my eyes at my brother. “You don’t even know how to swim.”

  “Okay, okay,” Dad said, pulling his hands out of his pockets to hold them up in surrender. “Let’s take it one step at a time. Talk to your mother; and, Heath, discuss it with Noah. Just keep me in the loop and let me know what you decide.”

  At the mention of his name, Noah perked up, and he and Suzi approached us. While Heath was saying something to the two of them, Dad pulled me aside and reached inside his jacket. “I had this repaired,” he said, offering me the artist’s mannequin. “It might not survive another fall, so I hope you won’t throw it at me again.”

  “Thanks,” I said as I accepted it. “This doesn’t mean we’re bosom buddies, though. And the college thing is honorable, but I’m not sure if I’ve forgiven you quite yet. Money doesn’t instantly erase every bad thing.”

  “Just as long as the door is open between us.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Maybe it is.”

  32

  December, four months later

  JACK AND I STOOD BACKSTAGE BEHIND THE CURTAIN, watching his father speak in front of a packed auditorium at the university hospital. The mayor probably made a dozen fund-raising speeches every year for a dozen different causes, but this was the first one that was personal. He wanted to combine city money and private contributions to fund a new outreach program for homeless people with psychiatric needs. It would add another wing to the psychiatric hospital and additional staff to diagnose, counsel, and distribute medicine to people who other wise couldn’t afford it.

  People like Panhandler Will.

  “Make sure you get a shot of your mom,” I whispered to Jack. He was filming bits and pieces of the speech to show to Jillian later, and their mom was sitting in the front row with Katherine the Great. They saw a fair amount of each other, Mom and Mrs. Vincent. The entire Adams clan, including Noah, even spent Thanksgiving at the Vincents’ house, which was surprisingly cool and fun, if not a little weird.

  It was also weird to hear Jack’s father talking about Jillian in public. But he was. He’d done an exclusive television interview with a local news program a few weeks earlier and told the story of the stabbing and Jillian’s suicide attempt. And the world didn’t fall apart. In fact, public reaction was overwhelmingly positive. People liked it when politicians were human and honest. Imagine that.

  “God, they’re chatty,” Jack whispered as he filmed our mothers with their heads bent toward each other.

  “They’re probably talking about the fact that I won’t get accepted to SFAI.”

  “Probably,” he said with a grin.

  I elbowed him. “Laugh it up, fun boy. If I don’t, you’ll be in a long-distance relationship after I end up at one of my safety schools across the state.”

  “Don’t tease me, Bex. I can’t take it.”

  We’d both applied to the San Francisco Art Institute. The school has a rolling admissions calendar, which means they make decisions as they receive each application, instead of having one massive deadline, and Jack had gotten his acceptance letter the day before.

  “You applied almost a week after me,” Jack reassured me. “Who would turn down your portfolio? It’s amazing. Besides, your SAT scores are better, and your dad wrote your recommendation.”

  Things weren’t perfect between Dad and me, but once a month he came into the city and we’d meet for lunch or have dinner—last month at Noah and Heath’s place (which was sort of awkward, but sort of okay, too). And it was true that he’d written my recommendation letter.

  “But he’s my dad,” I protested.

  “But he didn’t mention that. Besides, you have different last names. Stop worrying. You’ll get in.”

  SFAI was the oldest art school west of the Mississippi River. Diego Rivera painted a mural for the institute, and Ansel Adams started the photography department. It’s a great school. A school for serious artists, and god knew if I was anything, I was very serious.

  The school had a reputation for encouraging students to do their own thing, so for me, that meant I could take the occasional premed anatomy class at another school in the city when I was ready. And for Jack, it meant he could attend the college where the graffiti-inspired Mission School art movement had begun. It also meant he could continue to be close to Jillian. And that was more important than ever, because she was coming home the following week.

  Pretty amazing.

  Jack was over the moon about it. She’d continue to go to therapy and see Dr. Kapoor several times a week, and the Vincents had hired a full-time nurse to live in the house and make sure she stuck to her routines. The new living arrangement might work, or it might be a disaster. But there was no way of knowing until they tried. And Jillian was finally ready to take that step, which was awesome. To get her acclimated to life on the outside, she’d been allowed a computer for a couple of months and had been using social media. She loved it. (A little too much: The orderlies had to stop her from staying up all night chatting.)

  When the mayor’s speech ended, he left the stage to thunderous applause. Jack and I were clapping, too. It was sort of exciting. His aides were walking him back to the press for follow-up questions, but he spotted us and made a detour.

  “What did you think?” he asked us.

  “Nice,” Jack said, sticking out his fist for a bump.

  The mayor bumped back and smiled. “Is that for Jillie?”

  “Yep,” Jack confirmed, holding up his phone. “Say hi.”

  “Love you, baby. Can’t wait for you to come home next week,” his father said to the screen. His chief of staff was calling him and motioning to his watch. “I’ve got to go. See you at dinner tonight, Beatrix?”

  “With bells on,” I replied.

  He smiled and trotted back to his staff, disappearing down a hallway.

  “Okey-dokey,” Jack said, stopping the video recording. “We’d better clear out before this dog-and-pony show clogs up the exit.”

  We headed out of the auditorium and made our way toward his car, which was parked in a rare curbside space just down the hill. He’d joked that finding the premium space was “Buddha’s blessing.” I told him that he was going to hell for using his enlightened philosophical leader’s name in vain, and that it was totally the cloisonné ladybug pin I’d worn every day since the art contest. He didn’t believe in hell, but he did believe in Lucy the Ladybug, which was what I’d named the pin.

  “My parents will be stuck here for a good half hour, maybe an hour,” Jack said, sliding me a seductive look. “We can stop off at the guesthouse on our way out for some quickie afternoon delight.”

  “Gee, when you put it that way . . .”

  We were headed to our last day of volunteer work—or, as Jack called it, our prison sentence. Every weekend since school had started up, we spent a couple of hours painting over graffiti tags on a block near the Zen Center. This was the “additional stipulation” that the mayor had mentioned after the art show. Punishment for Jack’s vandalism. The SFPD, who sponsored the volunteer clean-up program, thought we were just doing it out the goodness of our hearts. No way was Mayor Vincent opening himself up to the scandal of his kid being the notorious Golden Apple street artist, so we did it on the down-low. It wasn’t so bad. We painted over mailboxes, walls, windows, and sidewalks. Before we covered them up, Jack secretly snapped pictures of anything that was more than just a basic one-color tag and uploaded the images to a local graffiti online photo album. For posterity’s sake.

  “What do you say?” Jack pulled out his car keys and swung the key ring around his index finger. “I’ll let you drive. Fast car and fast love. It’s the perfect combination.”

  “Said no girl, ever. You sure you trust me to drive after last time?”

  I nearly killed all three of us—me, Jack, and Ghost—when he was teaching me to parallel park. In my defense, it was a busy street and the guy behind us was making me supernervous with all the angry honking. Afterward, Jack had to do his
seated zazen meditation to calm down.

  “Beatrix Adams,” he said. “You know I trust you with everything. The anatomical representation of my heart, my life . . . even my car.”

  “You must really love me,” I said, matching my steps with his.

  I knew he did, of course. We try not to say it casually too much, because we want it to mean something. Not just a throwaway phrase like “How’s it going” or “See you later.” But when I’m in his arms, when we’re alone, he whispers “I love you,” and those three words never stop amazing me. Never.

  Without breaking our synchronized stride, he slid an arm around my shoulders and lowered his head to murmur near my ear. “Would you like me to remind you how much?”

  Flutter-flutter. “I actually think I might.”

  “Yeah?” A slow, dazzling smile lifted his cheeks, and then he came to a sudden halt on the sidewalk. “Oh! We need to stop by the house anyway. You can see our paintings hanging together, live in person.”

  After the art show, Mrs. Vincent replaced her chair painting in the foyer of their house with my painting of Jillian. I got a little choked up when she showed me. I think it made the mayor sentimental, too, because he left the room awfully fast, and Mrs. Vincent says that’s what he does when he gets emotional.

  But my painting now had a partner. I’d seen a photo of it before the mayor’s speech this afternoon, but I hadn’t seen the real thing yet.

  Before Jack admitted to his parents that he was the person behind all the Golden Apple graffiti, Jillian had given him one last word puzzle to decode. He’d never been able to execute the piece out in the city, obviously. When Jack found out Jillian had agreed to leave the hospital and move back in the house, he painted the tenth and final word for her as a “welcome home” gift.

  BEGIN, FLY, BELONG, JUMP, TRUST, BLOOM, CELEBRATE, ENDURE, RISE . . .

  And now LOVE.

  The word was spray-painted onto a canvas, not a wall, and it was the smallest piece he’d ever done. But it was by far his best work. Jillian would adore it. I sure did.