The Art Student's War

by Brad Leithauser

  Yes, Mr. Ives believed that children must make their own way—that was one plausible interpretation. Another was that he loved having his hands on the purse strings while they yearningly looked on. It galled him that Nancy, the missionary’s wife, wasn’t angling for any early slice of an inheritance. And it pleased him, though he railed endlessly, that Kate was always “trying to stick up the old man.” To Grant’s credit, he honestly didn’t look for any financial boon from his father. Still, there was the knowledge that eventually it would be there—and in abundance.

  “But I have some money of my own. Which I can spend as I please. I don’t need his say-so.”

  “Not if it’s yours …”

  “For Grant’s thirtieth birthday, I want to buy him a car.”

  “A car? Oh, Mrs. Ives.”

  “A car of his choosing. You can help him pick it out, dear.”

  “Oh, Mrs. Ives.”

  “Mr. Ives will not be pleased. But I’m going to do it anyway.”

  It was a wonderful, prodigal, astounding gift, and Grant would naturally be overjoyed. Bianca, too, felt joy—though tempered immediately by something else, a gradually clarifying sense of frustration. Oh, never in a million years would she convince Grant of what had secretly inspired the gift. In all his warmhearted gratitude, Grant would never perceive that cold hostility—Mrs. Ives’s decades-long resentment of her husband—was the chief motivation.

  Bianca had the house to herself by eight the next morning. Grant was off early to work and the twins had flown outdoors, equipped with two glass jars into whose tin lids she’d poked holes with an awl. One of their friends had seen a frog in a ditch near Hampton School.

  It made sense, in retrospect, that Ronny hadn’t called yesterday, when everyone was apt to be home. What didn’t make sense was his failure to call this morning. What was he thinking?

  Another night’s sleep had left her feeling less desperate but more resentful. Didn’t Ronny feel the need to talk? Hadn’t they always understood each other so well? It pained her to think he wasn’t trusting in their shared ability to sort things out.

  Imagining his call, Bianca saw herself breezily laughing off the entire afternoon: “I guess I did have too much wine.” Or saw herself speaking with a noble veracity that reproached his craven evasiveness: “I have the very deepest feelings for you, Ronny, and I want to thank you for a day I’ll never forget.” She read the Free Press and waited for his call, tidied the kitchen and waited for his call, took a bath rather than a shower so she would not miss his call. But Ronny did not call.

  The twins came home late in the morning and each wolfed down two tuna sandwiches with sweet pickle relish and three glasses of milk. Then they were off again—they loved these summer days. Bianca realized that she’d forgotten to have breakfast and was actually ravenous. She made herself a tuna sandwich and, after only a slight pause, poured herself a glass of her father’s wine—something she would normally never have done. Not on a weekday, not when eating by herself. “I’m sinking fast,” she said aloud. It was all excessively histrionic—the wine, the talking to herself. But hardly so by another light: she was feeling anxious, she was intensely confused. Tomorrow morning, at ten o’clock, she would see Dr. Stimpson, who would inform her that she was pregnant.

  As she poured a second glass of wine, she spoke to herself once more: “I’m not one of those wives,” she declared, and then she said, “I’m going to call him.” The wine would strengthen her resolve. But she didn’t call. Instead, having finished the tuna, she made herself a grape-jelly-and-cream-cheese sandwich, something she rarely ate these days. When she’d finished the sandwich, and the wine, she telephoned Ronny.

  Ronny wasn’t home. He was doing nothing, nothing to reach her. She poured herself a half glass of wine. It would serve him right, when he finally thought to call, if he got no answer. She would track down the boys and take them off to a park. It was a beautiful day. Or she would get a sitter, who would be here when the boys returned, and she would visit Maggie, or Priscilla. But she did nothing of the sort. Instead, she telephoned Ronny.

  Again, no answer.

  By the time Grant got home from work, her mood was poisonous. He seemed in quite a foul mood himself, scowling when informed of dinner’s delay. He always came home famished. He poured himself a stiff whiskey. She poured herself a glass of wine. The two of them parked themselves at the kitchen table.

  Grant quickly got onto one of his most tiresome hobbyhorses: the need to economize. Usually, he was very good about money. He accepted, gratefully, their happy state. Their married life had begun comfortably, with a tidy inheritance from his little-mourned grandmother Ives, who had conveniently died a week after his college graduation. They had a lovely home. They had two cars. (They would have a third soon—though Grant didn’t know about his mother’s spectacular plans.) They had money in the bank.

  But Grant occasionally got into an aggressive, faintly panicky state about money and absurd economies would be suggested—they were going to start using oleo instead of butter, and why did the boys need haircuts quite so often?

  On such occasions, Bianca had learned the wisest course was complaisance. Grocery shopping a week later, Grant would look blank when she proposed buying oleo.

  Usually, his suggestions were harmless, but tonight, as he was peering hungrily into the refrigerator, his inspiration took a painful, awful turn. Why did they have a milkman? They no longer needed a milkman. It was silly to have milk delivered when they had two cars. And the boys would enjoy hauling the bottles. It was good exercise.

  No milk delivery? But what about Mr. Bootmaker, their milkman, big-black-shoed ever-smiling Roy Bootmaker? Bianca was very fond of Mr. Bootmaker, whose elderly little father always rode in the truck.

  “Well, it’s one thing to be fond of people. It’s another to throw away money.”

  “But he’s a friend. I like Mr. Bootmaker.”

  “I like plenty of people. Doesn’t mean I have to line their pockets.” Grant was spoiling for a fight.

  “He cheers me up in the mornings. He’s always got a smile.”

  “How much do we spend a month with Bootmaker?”

  “I don’t know, offhand.”

  “What’s our yearly bill with Bootmaker?”

  This was one of Grant’s most lawyerly, irksome tricks of argumentation: once he heard you admit ignorance to something, he would go on asking you the same question in variant forms.

  For a moment, a burning rage welled within Bianca’s chest, and it appeared the two of them were about to have one of their rare, terrible, blasting arguments, right here in the kitchen before dinner. Fear prickled her skin all over (though Grant’s temper was slow to kindle, when finally ignited his whole big body would shake with rage), as well as a giddy kind of righteous excitement. She wouldn’t be bullied. Uh-uh. And then, precipitately, her rage collapsed. What had she done all day but sit over glasses of wine waiting for a call from an old boyfriend, whom she’d kissed many, many times while parked in his green MG? A sense of shamed unworthiness leaked from her very bones. “We’ll cancel the milkman,” Bianca murmured. “And now I’ve got to make dinner.”

  It pleased her to see Grant immediately so flummoxed. She did this to him fairly often: effectively won an argument—won it from a moral standpoint—by abruptly, graciously conceding defeat. “It’s the logical thing to do,” Grant insisted, but his softening features were already admitting uncertainty.

  “I’m sure you’re right,” Bianca said sweetly.

  After dinner, knowing she couldn’t confront Mr. Bootmaker face-to-face—it would be disastrous if she started to cry—she wrote him a note, explaining her changed situation and thanking him for his cheerful services. She showed the note to Grant, ostensibly seeking his approval but actually looking to heighten his confusion and remorse. “Oh it’s a fine thing, lass,” he said. He was wanting to make peace. He was making preliminary amorous overtures. “Thank you,” she replied coolly.


  She would leave the note in the milk chute. As an afterthought, although the milkman generally wasn’t somebody you tipped, she wrote a P.S. explaining that she wanted him to have a very early Christmas gift, and slipped a ten-dollar bill into an envelope, on which she, warming to the task, wrote out his full name with an artful script—Mister Roy Bootmaker—and then drew a little holly wreath. The P.S. wasn’t something she showed Grant. Yet even as she was sketching the wreath, embellishing it with little Christmas bells that called out for a bright red pencil, which she would supply, in her heart of hearts Bianca knew this wasn’t the end of the matter.

  The next day, she found out what she already knew: she was pregnant. The news was almost anticlimactic.

  Of course the news changed everything. She was going to have a baby next year, in the middle of May. The baby would come with the spring. She would have to buy new clothes soon. Fashions had changed since she last needed maternity clothes; her tastes had changed. And she would have to decide who was going to be told when. She was going to have a baby, and this time around, the child would bear some resemblance to its mother. This time around, she would have a girl …

  The fight, or near-fight, of the night before belonged to a buried past. Maybe the two of them had been more anxious than they realized, awaiting the official news? But such explanations, too, belonged to a buried past. Had she really sat around all yesterday, soaking up wine like some slatternly housewife and waiting in vain for Ronny to call and waiting, too, to squabble with Grant? How did any of this connect with the quickened, wholesome world she now inhabited?

  The following day, Wednesday afternoon, she didn’t at first recognize the little man who shuffled hesitantly up her front walk. It was Mr. Bootmaker Senior.

  She didn’t know him, partly because she never saw him anywhere except behind the wheel of his truck (he did the driving, while his son lugged the deliveries), and partly because he was so much shorter than she’d imagined, and partly because he’d removed his checkered cap. And put on a suit and tie.

  “Oh no,” Bianca groaned, but she wore a smile on opening the door. “Mr. Bootmaker. Very nice to see you.”

  “Mrs. Ives.” He bowed his bare head. She hadn’t realized he was mostly bald, and that his face was so lined.

  “You’ve come because I’ve canceled service.”

  “Indeed, ma’am.” The little man looked just miserable, standing out on her front porch. “Roy has no idea I’m here.”

  “Please, you must come in.” She would have to be courteous, of course. But whatever else, she must stand firm. She’d made such a point of deferring to Grant, who so rarely put his foot down. She would respect Grant’s judgment …

  More hesitantly still, Mr. Bootmaker stepped inside with his hands extended, as though parting veils. He’d been driving up to this house for years, but evidently this was the first time he’d stepped inside. He posted himself beside the mantel.

  “Please, you must sit down.”

  “I never mind standing,” Mr. Bootmaker said. Given how diminutive he was, it was odd that his son was so big-boned. In his sweet, beaming way, Roy had more than once complained to Bianca about the burden of finding shoes that fit. He wore a size 12½ EEE.

  “Let me get you something, Mr. Bootmaker. A cup of coffee? A bottle of beer?”

  “Don’t need a thing myself, ma’am. I’ll just be a moment of your time. I apologize for disturbing you.”

  “You’re not disturbing me. I’m glad to see you.”

  Bianca wasn’t certain whether she ought to remain standing, given Mr. Bootmaker’s refusal of a seat. She sat down on the couch and said, “I’ve been feeling very bad about this. But we have two cars, you see.”

  The little man looked down at his hands, which he had linked and knotted at his waist, and said, “Mrs. Ives, I don’t know whether you’re aware. My boy’s health?” He looked up from his hands and stared her straight in the eye. “Roy has epilepsy. He’s an epileptic.”

  “Oh my, oh no, I didn’t know. I’m so sorry,” Bianca said. “He’s never mentioned it.”

  “He wouldn’t, would he? Roy? Nor would he be quick about forgiving me if he knew I’d come tonight. Not our Roy. Oh no. He thinks I’m playing pinochle. But I thought the word might have got round the neighborhood. Some weeks back, he had a little seizure in Mrs. Dahle’s kitchen up the street. Do you know Mrs. Dahle?”

  “Hardly at all.”

  “After that, she canceled on us. I thought the word about him might have got round, you see. People don’t understand there’s no harm in it.”

  “But Mr. Bootmaker, you honestly don’t think I would cancel because …” Bianca let the sentence drop. The idea was almost too hurtful for words.

  “He can’t drive a car, of course. That’s why I do the driving.”

  “I never knew that was the reason.”

  “But I put it to you, ma’am: what other sort of work are they going to give him, people the way they are? This is something he can do, so long as I drive the truck. I watch over him, you see.”

  “Of course you do.” It was going to be disastrous if she started to cry.

  “Mrs. Bootmaker, God bless her, she’s been gone a long time, you see. So it’s just me now watching over the boy. I’m all the family he’s got.”

  “It’s still family,” Bianca pointed out, as the shadowy room began to fill with ancestral ghosts, one of whom—another little man—she recognized.

  “I say to myself, Dicky, you’re seventy-seven and you’ve got to keep going, you can’t retire. And you’ve got to take care of yourself, because you still have a boy to watch out for. You know what that is. You have two sons yourself.”

  Something heaved within her and it was all decided in a moment.

  “Mr. Bootmaker, I’ve made a terrible mistake.”

  “Ma’am?”

  “I’d like to start up service again. It was my husband who insisted.” But this wasn’t fair. This wasn’t right. She had to take responsibility. The little man before her was seventy-seven years old, and today he’d finished his long route and gone home and put on his one good suit and, swallowing all his pride, driven over to plead with a woman young enough to be his granddaughter. “What I did was wrong,” Bianca said. “I don’t know what I was thinking to agree to it,” she said, but again this wasn’t quite fair. “It was wrong. I made a mistake.”

  “I don’t ask on my own behalf. I don’t need a thing myself,” Mr. Bootmaker said. “It’s my boy. I have to watch over him.”

  “Of course you do.” Of course he did: this little old man had to watch over a grizzled “boy” who wore a size 12½ EEE shoe.

  “You won’t regret it,” Mr. Bootmaker said.

  “I know I won’t, Mr. Bootmaker.”

  The old man was looking toward the door. His errand successfully run, he was eager to be on his way.

  “Well if that’s your decision, Mrs. Ives, I have something for you.”

  “Something for me?” Bianca couldn’t imagine what this might be.

  Mr. Bootmaker drew from the inner pocket of his suit coat an envelope, on which was artfully written Mister Roy Bootmaker, embellished with a holly wreath and little red bells. “If we have you back, Mrs. Ives, that’s all the Christmas present Roy and I would ask.”

  She accepted the envelope. “Let me be the first to say it, then: merry Christmas, Mr. Bootmaker.”

  The old man smiled broadly, creasing his face in a hundred radiant lines. For the first time since he’d stepped inside, he looked at ease. Any portrait artist would have glimpsed it in an instant: the old man had a wonderful, luminous face.

  “It isn’t just the milk and eggs,” he explained. “Roy will watch out for you. You go on vacation, he checks up on your house. Makes sure everything’s all right. It’s good to have someone looking out for you.”

  “Of course it is,” Bianca said.

  “Good for the entire neighborhood.”

  “Of course.”


  “And not a word about my coming today.”

  “Heavens no. You’ve been off playing pinochle.”

  And the old man actually winked at her. He’d been a charmer, once. He was still a charmer. “You’re in good hands,” Mr. Bootmaker said.

  “Good hands,” Bianca said.

  The breaking of the news to Grant was something to be done thoughtfully. Not that she needed to be cautious—not after the official word of her pregnancy. He was feeling over the moon, as he kept announcing to everybody. It’s a wee bairn, is it? The last few nights, the two of them had been jubilantly, passionately celebrating …

  Still, she wanted things to go smoothly. Ever since Maggie’s remarks about Grant’s being under her thumb, Bianca had been feeling misgivings about his authority at home, or lack of it. The truth was, he rarely put his foot down as he had over Mr. Bootmaker, and how had she responded? She’d agreed to follow her husband’s advice, then done the very opposite.

  She waited until Friday, catching him the moment he came home from work. “Grant, I need to talk to you.”

  Experience had taught her that a direct approach worked best. The very phrase—Grant, I need to talk to you—had a way of turning him jittery and accommodating. She took a seat on the living-room sofa; he took a seat across from her, in the armchair.

  “Grant, did you know Roy Bootmaker is epileptic?”

  “Who?”

  “Our—the milkman. The man who has been delivering our milk ever since we moved here.”

  “No,” Grant said. “How would I know that? Did you know?”

  “I didn’t, but I had a visitor. Mr. Bootmaker Senior.”

  “Senior?”

  “You know—his father? The little man who drives the truck.”

  Grant’s response came quickly: “Listen, either of them has anything to discuss, they can take it up with me.” It was one of his most appealing traits—this unnecessary, chivalrous impulse to protect her even from men who posed no threat or problem.