Gathering String

by Mimi Johnson

  “She said some paint had been thrown around, but her work was OK. I didn’t think too much about it. I wasn't in there last night or this morning.”

  “Well, it looks fine,” Sam must have just passed the doorway. Jack could hear footsteps on the hardwood floor of the room. But then there was a sharp intake of breath, and Sam muttered, “Oh, fuck.” After a slight hesitation he added, “Maybe you’d better bring home some wall paint, Hoss.”

  “What?” Jack asked, breath suspended.

  “Back here, on the porch with all the windows, someone scrawled something across the wall. In red letters. It’s faded. She must have tried to wash it off, but …”

  “Damn it,” Jack hung up and went for the darkroom.

  Sam pocketed his phone, took one more look at the wall in front of him with a sharp frown of disgust, and then went back into the main room of the studio. Faintly he could see where Tess must have mopped paint from the floor as well, but he didn’t see any more shadowy letters like those on the wall. And with growing relief, he checked her work and found it hadn’t been touched.

  Slowly he studied what had been hung on the walls, and then, gently, he pulled back the pieces that leaned in the corners. She did have a way of bringing out the most interesting things. He could see that she was concentrating on the transition of light into dark. She had an amazing gift in playing out people’s faces. He’d done a lot of interviews in his time, and knew how much could be learned from faces rather than words. The way Tess portrayed them, his imagination was immediately fired by the stories he saw in her subjects’ eyes or the way they held their mouths.

  Gradually, he worked his way back toward where her easel stood in the bright sunshine. Walking around to see what she was currently busy with, he stopped short.

  It was a picture of Jack. Unlike her other work, this one wasn’t a painting over a photograph. She’d drawn him bare-chested, sketching out his heavy muscles in dark, shadowy colors. The line of his shoulders spanned the canvas, then fell downward, angling steeply to his waist. He was looking down and to the left as if he were just turning away. His left hand was raised, going to his brow to brush back the heavy hair that fell forward over the curve of his forehead. It was the hair that brought most of the light into the picture, and she’d played out the strands in what looked like a thousand shades of pale gold, beige, yellow and the faintest touches of rich, reddish brown.

  In spite of the darkness of the body, she’d been painstaking in detail. The arch of his high cheekbones, the clean line of his jaw, the shadow of his fine-boned nose, even the bristles of his eyelashes were clear. If Sam had looked, he would have seen the small tattoo on his right bicep, the faint line of a scar in the hair over his left temple, and even the thin bit of shine that was his wedding band.

  But Sam’s eyes were riveted on one thing. The only other light came from the reflection of something that hung from his neck. Tess had been vague here, the bright disk seeming to be caught in motion as the body turned. But Sam knew with a twisting in his heart what it was. Tess’s St. Francis medal. He’d touched it, warmed by her skin, too many times not to know it with certainty now. Uncomfortably, Sam recognized the sudden urge to reach out and touch it again now. He jammed his hands in his pockets.

  Tess had called Jack a “classical study,” and she certainly made her point, unfinished though it was. It was an exceptionally stirring, frankly erotic painting, and he frowned with consternation, his face flushing. He felt as if he’d walked in on them together. “Jesus,” he muttered softly to himself, “No wonder they’re having a child.”

  Brooding, he moved away to the battered desk that stood in the corner, next to a bookshelf, glancing over the messy piles of photographs, letters, bills and tubes of paint that littered the top, searching for any distraction. Glinting color on the bookshelf caught his eye and he realized it was the starfish, the five Lalique crystals he’d given Tess after Tofino, one on each shelf. He stared at them. Finally, he reached out and picked up the smallest, the one that was sapphire blue. Running his thumb along the facets, he turned his hand just a little, to catch the light and watch it twinkle.

  She was having a child. Convulsively his hand closed around the bit of crystal, and he looked back toward the easel. Tess was having Jack’s child.

  His mouth grim, he turned back and put the little starfish down carefully, exactly as it had been. And after a long hesitation, he dug into his pocket and pulled out his own battered medal. For a long while, he looked at it in the palm of his hand, and then slowly reached out and laid it next to the crystal. For just a heartbeat longer, he stared at them together, and then he left, closing the door softly behind him.

  Meanwhile, the “classical study” was just rounding the sharp corner of the old darkroom where his wife was working. But rather than finding her absorbed under the soft glow of work lights, the regular overheads were on, and she was sitting on a stool at the counter, sorting listlessly through a pile of photographs, her face drawn and bloodless. When she heard him, she looked up with a small, worried smile. “How’s it going?”

  He shook his head and came to her, saying firmly, “Tell me about the paint thrown around in your studio yesterday.”

  She shrugged, looking back down at her pictures. “I tried to get it cleaned up. It was mostly just the waterbase.” Little lines of apprehension drew her brows down. “Only the red paint on one wall was oil, so it didn’t …”

  He nodded. “What did it say?”

  She looked at him sadly and asked instead, “Sam called you? He’s up in my studio?”

  “I asked him to go look. It was Swede who called. He’s sorry about the dog, about your workroom, about frightening you.” His mouth twisted down cynically. “He just hopes it won’t be necessary to send Pete around again.”

  Her breath caught, and she suddenly leaned forward, resting her head against his chest. For a second he thought the sound she made was a groan of pain, but then he realized it was a deep, wracking sob. Taking her shoulders, he tried to pull her back, but her arms came around him, clinging. He pulled her closer, rocking gently, allowing it all to break, the tension, frustration, anger and fear. It seemed endless, the shaking of her shoulders, the soft, gasping of her breath. Burying her face tight against him, his shirt muffled the sound, the tears soaking through the soft cotton.

  Finally the sobbing slowed, and he slipped down onto one knee, to look into her face, still holding her shoulders tight. Otherwise she would have pulled away and hidden behind her hands. “I’m s-so sorry,” it was a hoarse whisper, “Oh Jack, I’m just so tired.”

  He pushed the strands of hair back from her wet, red cheeks. Staring into her strained, thin face, he saw that she wasn’t just upset. She was ill. And his heart started to race as the memory of something she’d said yesterday surfaced in a blinding second. “That appointment in the city, it was with a doctor?” She nodded, but before she could speak, he blurted, “You’re sick? My God …”

  She shook her head quickly, drawing a shuddering breath to murmur, “Not sick, not really …”

  As she hesitated, she saw the fragments that tumbled around his weary mind for weeks fall into a whole, and he caught his breath, “Oh Tess.” There was wonder and anguish in the words as his fingers spread wide and his hand went to the denim over her smooth, flat stomach. His wide eyes held the question, and for a stunned moment she only looked at him. Then, very slowly, she nodded her head. When she took his face in her hands, she wiped away his tears with her warm, moist fingers.

  She was asleep on the old sofa in the break room when he left, covered with an afghan his mother had made. She was too spent, too ill with fatigue, for anything else. He didn’t try to make her talk. He just held her until she dropped off, quickly and deeply. On his way out, he stopped at the front desk where Thelma and Amber were talking and said, “Tess is asleep down in the break room. Leave her …”

  “For heaven’s sake, why would she sleep there?” Thelma’s voice never s
eemed more strident. “It’s not like she works. She could just go home …”

  “Leave her alone, Thelma.” The tone of his voice was enough to cause the old woman to snap her mouth closed and her eyes to widen. “But if she does wake up, tell her I’ll be right back. I have to take care of something at home. Just keep her here.”

  Both women looked at him like he was crazy. Amber nodded, but Thelma spoke up again. “The ad agency for the Corner Grocery Stores called a bit ago. They wanted the details on our new advertising rates. Jack, where did they get the idea we’d made such an increase? They were talking about prices all out of reason …” When he turned back, Thelma was stopped by the look on his face. “It was a mistake?” she asked quietly.

  “A big one,” he muttered, and then he went out the door. As he went down the front steps, he noticed a Highway Patrol car parked across the street. When he pulled the Jeep onto the street, he glanced into the rear-view mirror to see that it had pulled out and was following a discrete distance behind him.

  Sam was watching Jack Westphal play basketball. It was an old ESPN broadcast he’d found in a stack of DVDs next to the TV equipment set into one of the bookshelves. More discouraged than he’d ever remembered, he ignored the fruitless itineraries, grateful for anything that would take his mind off the scrawling on the wall and the picture upstairs. With his stocking feet propped up on the shiny cherry wood desk, he’d fast-forwarded to the last half of the game. With two minutes left, State up by two, he smiled grudgingly as a much younger Westphal seemed to stand in mid-air to pull in a rebound, coming down with a pirouette worthy of a dancing master.

  When the front door slammed, Sam sat up quickly, stopping the disk and closing the lid on his laptop. Hurrying into the hall, he caught sight of Jack clearing the landing, going up the stairs two at a time. He started to call after him, but heard the footsteps in the upstairs hall, and they turned toward Tess’s studio. Sam frowned. Looking up the stairway, he didn’t want to follow. But he also knew what was up there couldn’t be ignored. He started climbing slowly.

  Jack was standing still as stone, staring at the sun porch wall, his face gray. Just past the threshold, Sam stopped and waited without speaking. He already knew the word “WHORE” was plainly visible. He already knew how it looked, the red paint dribbling down from the H, bloody and lurid. He didn’t need to see it again.

  He watched as Jack just stood there with the bright sunshine illuminating the fouled wall in front of him. And then Jack turned toward him, slowly, as if his neck moved on a rusty hinge and said, “She’s pregnant.” It was a harsh rasp of sound.

  At Sam’s carefully blank face, Jack knew he’d been beaten again at putting the pieces together. With a groan, he shut his eyes. “This isn’t the way it was supposed to be. Not like this.” Sam just continued to watch him. “I thought … I imagined … that the first person I’d want to tell, but ... He sent his crazy brother out here to threaten my wife.”

  A tiny frown of impatience creased Sam’s mouth. “So?” Jack’s eyes flew open and flashed toward Sam. “So it’s not what you imagined. What ever is?”

  The brown eyes widened with loathing, and his arm flung out toward the wall. “She said last night Swede knew about you and her. This is why.” Sam nodded, but held his tongue. In the face of the sudden candor, he showed no surprise. “She was so young,” it was just a murmur, and Sam came further into the room to catch what Jack was saying. “She had so much talent, so much going for her. She made it to the Trib so fast.” The furious eyes narrowed and Sam stopped in his tracks. “She was so much younger than you. And you, you used her, like any of your other fucks …”

  “No.” Sam was startled at the abrupt sound of his own voice. “No, it wasn’t like that. She …” And the words froze in his throat as Westphal started for him, fists clenched, the two quick strides forcing Sam to instinctively back toward the door as he blurted, “She saved me. For God’s sake, Jack, she saved me.”

  Something in the words stopped the advance, but not the threat. “You fucked up everything she’d worked for. And then when you were done with her, you dumped her and went back …”

  “She left me.” Sam said it quietly, but couldn’t mask the pain in the words. “I would have given anything. Done anything. But she left me.”

  The knuckles of the big fists went white, and Sam braced himself, planting his feet, trying to be ready if he came at him again. But the struggle was all Jack’s. Aching to pull Waterman to pieces, his entire body strained with the effort of holding back. For a few seconds he stood there, breathing deep and ragged, and then his hands opened and flexed. Turning away, he ran them over his face. His voice was muffled. “You have got to get out of here.”

  Sam nodded, but his words were insistent. “I still need …”

  Jack shook his head, looking back at the wall. “I don’t give a shit what you need.”

  “So that’s it?” Sam didn’t hesitate to push in spite of the danger. “You’re tossing me out before …”

  “You step off the porch, and you’ll be marked before you get to the front gate,” Jack said. “A state trooper followed me from town. He turned just past the creek. I figure he’s watching the house from the dirt road along the bottoms.” Sam’s frown deepened. “I can’t make a move Erickson doesn’t know about. And neither can you.” He looked back at the wall and added with an ominously soft voice, “This has got to stop, Sam, and it’s got to stop now.”

  “You chicken shit!” Sam face went red. “You’re just going to curl up and let Erickson walk free and clear and right over you? Tell me something, are you taking him up on that increased revenue?”

  “No.”

  “Well, you might as well because unless we bring him down, and that means you and me, Hoss, because I won’t get him alone, you are going to be jumping to his tune for a hell of a long time to come.” All sense of caution was lost to Sam’s wild desperation. “Come on, let me take a crack at the mother …”

  “No! We’re not doing that. We leave that old woman alone. There’s no need …”

  “It’s the only … ,” and then Sam caught a sharp breath, the room suddenly, utterly quiet until he muttered, “We?”

  Jack nodded.

  “You’re in?” Jack nodded again, and against all reason, Sam snapped suspiciously, “Why?”

  “I won’t live like this. This is my home, this is my life, and he’s trying to force me down on my knees.” Jack’s head came up, and there was relief in his voice. “I’m in. We’ll write it together.”

  “You’re, you’re going on the record?” Sam couldn’t wipe the skeptical scowl from his face.

  “Yes,” Jack nodded, but there was a hard gleam in his red-rimmed eyes. “But wouldn’t you rather have the candidate?” He reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out something small, holding it up between his two fingers, and whispered gruffly, “In his own voice?”

  Sam’s eyes narrowed, and for a heartbeat, he just stared at Jack’s raised fingers. Then he was the one who came striding toward the other man. “An audio disk? You had that little recorder …”

  Jack admitted softly, “In my pocket.” The corners of his mouth twitched up, as he squared his shoulders.

  That was enough to bring Sam up short, but he held out his hand. “Give that to me, you son of a bitch.”

  But Jack’s hand snapped closed. “It comes with conditions.”

  With a sardonic twist to his mouth, Sam spat, “Man, you are a piece of work. Your clean-cut, country boy ass is hanging a good long way over the ethics line with this one.” If he’d had a hope of wrestling it away from the bigger man, he still might have tackled him. “Erickson couldn’t have known.”

  “He knows I always use one. He never said he was off the record.”

  “He never thought you’d walk in there with that in your pocket, and you know it.”

  Jack tilted his head in agreement. “He could have asked. He should have asked. What are you trying to do, Sam, talk
me out of using it?” Sam just glared at him. “You want to hear the conditions, or not?” Sam didn’t answer, just stepped back with a loud exhale.

  “We write the story together. As soon as we’re done, you get the hell out of here, subpoena be damned.” Sam nodded. “It runs on both the Politifix and the Journal websites under our shared byline on the same morning with a copyright. Same deal with the podcast of the audio. I'll print it in a special morning edition of the Journal as well. And I want to be paid by Politifix.” Jack’s mouth was a grim, thin line, “But not the usual freelance fee. I want a lot. A hell of a lot. Once the Journal’s revenue goes down, I’m going to need every dime I can lay my hands on.”

  Sam crossed his arms over his chest. “All I can do is ask.”

  Jack nodded and said, “Then ask. But before you do, we have to sit down with Tess. You don’t make a single call to your editors until then.” Sam’s head tilted in question. “She needs to hear this too. We’re not using any of this until she signs off on it.” As he spoke, the pallor of his face went even whiter.

  Sam felt the nauseating sensation of his own stomach rolling over. He knew what was on that disk. With a short nod, he said, “Go get her.”

  “No need,” her voice came from behind them, and they both turned. She’d come up the stairs so quietly neither knew how long she’d been standing in the doorway. “I made Thelma drive me out.” Still pale, her eyes still swollen, she looked from one to the other. “Let’s go downstairs and at least be comfortable while we listen.”

  The recording wasn’t really that long, but to the three listening, it seemed an eternity. Except for the voices, audible if a bit muffled, there was no sound. No one said anything. No one asked questions. They were in the living room. Jack stood looking out at the familiar sight of his own front yard while it played. Tess sat in the overstuffed armchair, Sam on the sofa.