Painting Naked (Macmillan New Writing)

by Maggie Dana

  “Can you fix it while I wait?’

  “Yes,” Dave says. “But it’ll mean a whole new exhaust system.”

  Shit. This won’t be cheap. “Go ahead.”

  Dave does the job in less than two hours. “Your brakes need relining,” he says, writing up my bill. “And you’re due for another timing belt. Do you want to make an appointment?”

  “Not yet.” I open my checkbook and glance at the register, but there’s not nearly enough to cover this little repair. “Dave, can I come back and pay you later?”

  “No problem,” he says.

  * * *

  Colin’s bracelet fetches three hundred dollars at the pawn shop behind Wal-Mart. I’m sure it’s worth more, but it’s enough to cover Dave’s bill and that’s all I care about right now.

  Feeling a bit shattered and in need of a hug, I drive out to see Lizzie. After telling me she’d like to nail my ex-boss to the wall, she asks about Anna and I tell her she’s doing just fine. “She’ll be home in time for Halloween.”

  “Which reminds me,” Lizzie says, “Fergus and I are going to the dance Friday night. Come with us.”

  “I’m not in the mood.”

  “Rubbish,” Lizzie says. “It’ll do you good to get out. I’m going as a pumpkin.”

  “That’s original. What about Fergus?”

  “Do you really want to know?”

  “Yes.”

  “The Energizer Bunny. He’s got a drum.” Lizzie grins.

  So do I.

  “It’s good to see you smiling again,” she says. “And I won’t take no for an answer. You’re coming with us, and if you’re worrying about Elaine, you can stop right now. I doubt she’ll dare show her face.”

  “Don’t be daft. The whole bloody festival committee will be there.”

  “But not Elaine Burke.”

  “Why?”

  “Because she screwed up,” Lizzie says, grinning hugely. “The festival hasn’t exactly been a whopping success. The money they were supposed to raise for the new library hasn’t materialized, and now”—her grin widens—“some of the village elders are pissed at her.”

  “I had no idea.”

  “That’s because you haven’t been paying attention.”

  * * *

  Claudia calls to tell me she’s in touch with the toy company representatives in London and that finally things are looking up for the squirrels. I swallow my own disappointment over not having heard anything positive about Archibald and tell Claudia I’m thrilled for her.

  She wants to share it with me. “Fifty-fifty.”

  “No,” I say. “Absolutely not.”

  “Then I’ll give you sixty percent, and—”

  “Claudia, the squirrels are yours. I only gave things a bit of a leg-up, that’s all.”

  “Nonsense,” Claudia says. “Without you, nothing would have—”

  “Please, don’t argue. I told Sophie six months ago I did this for you. To thank you for being the mother I never—”

  “I insist you get something.”

  “What I really want from you,” I say, suddenly overwhelmed with thoughts about mothers, “is Edith’s address.”

  “You’re going to write to her?”

  “Yes.”

  Claudia sighs. “I’m glad,” she says. “For your sake.”

  After I jot down Edith’s address—a nursing home in Sussex—I pull out my photograph album and turn to the second page. I remove a small photo. Edith’s strong features—high cheekbones, prominent chin, and deep-set dark eyes—still have the power to control. I swallow hard and prop my aunt’s picture on the shelf next to one of Jordan and Alistair fishing for crabs by the jetty. I’ll find a suitable frame for it later. In the meantime, I have a letter to write.

  The words come slowly. My fingers freeze on the keyboard more than once. Then I change my mind. I’ll write this by hand, so I rummage in the cupboard and pull out a plain white card, folded, with a raised scroll across the bottom. Matching envelope. Edith will appreciate this. So I pen my words of reconciliation in a careful script and hope her eyes aren’t too old to see them. I’m sure someone, a nurse or a volunteer, will read this to her.

  Before I can change my mind, I seal the envelope, slap on a stamp, and drive it to the post office where I stand, hesitantly, in front of its sturdy blue mailbox. Opening the flap, I sigh deeply and let go of another piece of my past.

  * * *

  Disguised as a cat—black sweater and tights, velvet ears, and bristly whiskers borrowed from a broom—I join Lizzie and Fergus at the village’s annual Halloween dance. There’s no sign of Elaine so I relax and enjoy myself by pretending to be someone else for an hour or two. I hadn’t planned on staying longer than that, but when some guy dressed as a monk in long, black robes and a mask shows up and nobody knows who he is, I’m intrigued enough to stick around.

  Using sign language, he asks me to dance.

  I shoot a nervous glance at Lizzie. She grins and tells me to get on with it, so I follow him to the middle of the room and we jerk about in the awkward way middle-aged people do when they dance to young people’s music. God only knows how old this guy is. I can’t see his face. It’s covered by a cowl and a hideous mask—blank eye sockets, dripping fangs, the works. He doesn’t talk, just shrugs and points, and when the music speeds up, he gets tangled in his cloak and trips over his feet. One of his sandals is missing a buckle.

  At midnight, he wanders off toward the bar and disappears.

  “Maybe he turned into a frog,” Fergus says.

  Lizzie grins. “Or a prince.”

  * * *

  Much to my disgust, the fun I had at the party is obliterated by problems with the plumbing. I crawl out of bed the next morning, bleary-eyed and a little hungover, to find the kitchen sink is stopped up and the downstairs toilet is leaking.

  Nothing I do solves either problem. The door bell rings and I answer it, clutching a pipe wrench and still in my bathrobe.

  My next-door neighbor smiles at me. “Need any help?”

  “No.” I try to close the door, but his foot’s in the way.

  He points at my wrench. “I’m a fabulous plumber.”

  I’m tempted, oh so tempted, to smack him, but I hear the sound of running water and race for the bathroom. He follows and takes the wrench from my hands and in less than ten minutes he fixes both toilet and sink, and I wish, nastily, that he’d had at least half the trouble I had. It must be some sort of strange male mystique in which pipes and plumbing refuse to cooperate with any female over the age of fifty.

  “Have I earned a cup of coffee?” Tom places my wrench on the kitchen table and sits down, and I glare at him while Zachary hops into his lap and starts to purr. Traitorous beast.

  “I’d rather you went back to your wife and daughter.”

  “But I’m not—” He stares at me. “My daughter?”

  “That little girl with brown hair and dimples.”

  “Molly?”

  “Who else?”

  Tom laughs. “She’s my granddaughter.”

  Zachary leaps on the table and licks the butter. I’m too stunned to stop him. “But what about Carrie?”

  “What about her?”

  “She’s your wife.”

  “You’ve really got things screwed up, haven’t you,” Tom says. “Carrie’s my daughter, and Molly is hers.”

  Feeling like a prize ass, I duck my head and stumble into the hall, pulling my bathrobe together with one hand while gesturing toward the front door with the other. “Thanks for the sink, but I’d like you to leave.”

  “Why?”

  “Because—”

  “How about having dinner with me?”

  “No. Please leave.” I take a deep breath. “Right now.”

  “But why?” Tom says. “I’m available.”

  “No, you’re intolerable.”

  He grins at me. “Then I’ll have to do something about that,” he says, picking up the broom I’ve left
by the door. “Nice bristles. I hear they make wonderful whiskers.”

  The blush I’ve been dreading sweeps up my neck like a tidal wave and I slam the door with a force that rattles its frame. Breathing hard, I lean against it while anger and embarrassment battle for control.

  Thud.

  When I’m positive he’s gone, I open the door.

  One leather sandal, minus a buckle, lies on my door mat.

  Chapter 35

  Sands Point

  November 2011

  I’m about to kick Tom’s sandal off the porch when the telephone rings. If that’s him, I’ll throw the damn phone at the wall. I’ll—

  But it’s Lizzie.

  “Hey, what’s up?” she says.

  “I don’t believe it,” I say, heading for the bathroom. “I don’t bloody believe it.”

  “Huh?”

  Cradling the phone with one shoulder, I rummage in the cabinet for a Tylenol. My head is reminding me I have a hangover. “He’s not married. He fooled us.”

  “Who did?

  “Tom Grainger.”

  “Jill, what the hell are you talking about?”

  I swallow the pill without water. “Carrie’s his daughter, not his wife. He just unclogged my sink.”

  Silence from Lizzie’s end, and I imagine her pursed lips, her wrinkled brow and cocked head as she tries to solve this equation.

  “And the connection here is?” she finally says.

  I explain and she snorts with laughter. “That’s not all,” I say, glaring at the toilet my neighbor just mended. “Remember that stupid monk?”

  “The one you danced with till midnight?”

  “Did not.”

  “What about him?”

  I spit out his name. “It was Tom Grainger.”

  “Jill, that’s priceless. How did you find out?”

  “He left a sandal on my porch.”

  “Sandal?”

  “The one missing a buckle.”

  “Holy shit,” Lizzie says, laughing even louder now. “Cinderella the Monk.” She catches her breath. “Which of course, makes you Princess Charming.”

  “Bloody hell!”

  “Your anger,” Lizzie says, with exasperating patience, “is bombing the wrong target. Stop beating on the guy who’s taken care of your cat and fixed your sink and get mad with the man who really hurt you.” She pauses. “Think about it and call me tomorrow.”

  The phone clicks softly and disconnects.

  I stomp into my office and stare at the photo I ought to have tossed in the trash. Reaching forward, I drag my fingernail over Colin’s face, his nose, his lips; along the curve of his shoulder and down his arm, across those lean fingers that touched and teased—

  He brought me to a place I never reached before.

  Just rip the damned thing off the wall.

  I can’t.

  My hand trembles and I snatch it back. What the hell am I supposed to do? Stick pins in his eyes? Burn his letters? Cut the sleeves off that pink shirt?

  Does he remember wearing it the day I fell back into his life?

  Why the hell do I still love him so much?

  If I could just hear his voice, ask why he left the way he did. Does he think of me at all, or am I a regrettable memory he’s thrown in the trash? My hand reaches for the phone, my fingers punch in his number, and my heart lurches. Suppose he answers. What will I say?

  “North Lodge. May I help you?”

  Christ, it’s him.

  I hang up.

  Two days later, I pluck up my courage and try again. This time I don’t chicken out when he answers. “Colin, it’s Jilly. I need to—”

  “Sorry, there’s no one here by that name.”

  I’ve never felt so betrayed by anyone in my life.

  * * *

  The Sunday paper has plenty of openings for systems analysts, home health aides, and database managers, but precious few for people with my skills and I’m about to give up when a small ad catches my eye. A media publisher—whatever that is—needs a typesetter. Call for appointment.

  I can handle that.

  “Come and see me tomorrow,” the man shouts above the noise of machinery in the background. “Five o’clock. Bring a résumé.”

  Even though he didn’t ask, I’m going to take my portfolio. Maybe I can convince him they need a graphic artist as well.

  * * *

  After several wrong turns, I reach my destination—a dismal, one-story building with a cement floor and no windows. People hunch over keyboards; others sit at long tables reading proofs. A woman with a haircut that reminds me of a corn muffin hurries past carrying a clipboard and yelling instructions above the roar of presses that churn through miles of paper in a room the size of a supermarket.

  Phones ring.

  Nobody smiles.

  My interview is with the production manager, a thin, hollow-cheeked man who reeks of cigarettes. He glances at my résumé, ignores my portfolio, and offers me a job.

  Surprised, I say, “When do you want me to start?”

  “Thursday.”

  “Then I’ll see you the day after tomorrow.” I hold out my hand.

  He grasps it with nicotine stained fingers. “Seven thirty sharp.”

  The wall outside his office is stacked high with boxes of coupon books, begging letters, and credit card offers. Stuff that clogs mailboxes and drives everyone mad.

  A plow with flashing red lights pulls into the parking lot. How can so much snow pile up in less than half an hour? Slipping and sliding, I make a mad dash for my car. It takes forever to start and I drive back to Sands Point ambivalent about working for an industry that destroys millions of trees in order to piss off an equal number of people. But, what the hell. It’s a job and I need it so I’ll keep my opinions to myself.

  By the time I pull off the highway, heavy wet snow has given way to freezing rain and I can barely see where I’m going because my windshield wipers have turned into popsicles. The heater groans with effort. Can’t afford to have it fixed, so if I’m to survive this dreadful commute, I’ll have to wear extra clothes. And socks. Plenty of socks. My feet are getting numb.

  The village has no lights.

  Neither does the beach road.

  Damn. The power must be out and I don’t have any dry firewood. No kindling, either. My cat is probably freezing. Was he inside or out when I left, and why is my steering wheel suddenly heavy?

  My car slows and coasts to a stop.

  Sod it.

  I crank the ignition, hold the key too long, and flood the engine. Very good, Jill. You know better than that. It’s bloody cold in here. I breathe on my hands, rub them, and count the seconds till I can safely try again. A minute, maybe two, crawls by. Is that enough time? I turn the key.

  Click. Wheeze. Click.

  Careful. Don’t fuck it up. I give it one more go, but my car sighs as if it’s too tired to move another inch.

  I bang my fists on the dashboard.

  Don’t give up on me now.

  But it already has.

  My flashlight, thank God, is still in the glove compartment. I fumble with frozen fingers for the switch. On, off. On, off. Come on, damn it, work. I shake it, but the batteries are dead. Wonderful. I open the door and the wind wrenches it from my hand.

  Shit, shit, and more shit.

  Clutching my jacket to keep it closed, I stumble forward in the dark. Can’t see a thing. Sleet stings my eyes and sandpapers my cheeks. A vicious wind slices through my clothes. Why didn’t I wear a heavier coat, and what possessed me to wear such silly little shoes on a day like this? Black leather pumps with cutwork—holes, for God’s sake—that spew like a lawn sprinkler as I walk.

  I must’ve been mad.

  Headlights approach. A sports utility vehicle roars by and sprays me with ice water. Mud dribbles down my legs. Into my shoes.

  I’m too fucking cold to care.

  It stops by my Volvo, the driver sticks his head out the window and yells
back at me, but the wind hijacks his words. He reverses, wheels tearing into the sand bank, and halts beside me.

  “You’re soaked.”

  No shit!

  My neighbor grins at me, leans over, and opens the door. I don’t want to, but I climb inside. Even I’m not stubborn enough to refuse a ride home.

  He reaches behind his seat. “Wrap up in this.”

  A rough blanket smelling of wet dog lands in my lap. I shrug into it, shivering despite the hot air swirling around my feet. Can’t feel my toes any more. Maybe I have frostbite.

  Tom guns the engine, performs a gravel-crunching, three-point turn, and speeds back to the beach. “You’d better come home with me.”

  “No.” I put a hand on the door.

  He clicks the lock. “Don’t be stupid.”

  We jerk down our dirt road, past one gloomy house after another, and Tom’s is the only one with lights. Lucky sod. He must have a generator. My house, just beyond the willows, is dark as a tomb. Tom’s garage doors open and he drives inside.

  They bang shut behind us. I’m trapped.

  My door won’t open.

  Tom unlocks it, and I squeeze out of his car, edge sideways past a sack of sunflower seeds, and squelch up the steps into a mud room. Old newspapers, dog bones, and stray boots litter the floor. A ladybug umbrella leans against a stepladder and Tom’s mask, propped on top of a recycling bin, has a pink mitten drooping from its mouth and looks as if it’s just bitten off a child’s hand. His black cloak hangs from a hook on the door.

  Cinderella the Monk.

  If he mentions Halloween, or worse, the night he caught Colin and me on the beach, naked, I’ll die blushing.

  And then I’ll leave town.

  Permanently.

  Tom ushers me into the kitchen, drops his keys on the counter, and picks up a bottle of wine and a mug. He turns to me, smiling. “What’ll it be? Cabernet or cocoa?”

  I shiver. “Cocoa—and thanks.”

  * * *

  Tom supplies me with dry clothes—socks, sweatpants, and a sweatshirt that hangs to my knees—and I change in a small bathroom off the kitchen. When I emerge, he’s holding two mugs of cocoa.