Obituary Writer (9780547691732)

by Shreve, Porter

  Interspersed with her game summaries, she imagined herself joining my father in the South Pacific. She wrote of them walking the beaches of Fiji, sailing a sloop over an archipelago, setting up camp on empty lagoons. In later letters, when he had returned to the States and she was in her last year of college, she fantasized about crossing the country on a motorcycle and riding down the coast with him to Florida. I couldn't help smiling at the image of my mother on a motorcycle, or even of my mother in love. She had always simply been my mother. It was strange to imagine her as anything else.

  She never dated after my father died. At least not so far as I knew. She had suitors, but only the most self-abasing kind, men who sought out rejection. I remember meeting one of them, a furry little geology professor named Alvin Bosky, who had been begging her for months to have dinner with him. We were at a cocktail party after the Missouri Awards, the biggest event of the year at the journalism school, and I'll never forget the look she gave him when he approached her with two glasses of wine. It was a look that went beyond scolding, something a third-grade teacher might spend a lifetime getting right. A will-you-ever-learn look that settled into one much harsher: "you're miles below me." I had rarely seen her icy side and wondered if my being there hadn't encouraged her to drop the temperature a few dozen degrees. "We're just leaving," she had said, and grabbed my hand and walked away.

  It's difficult to say, of course, but my guess is she chose not to remarry less because of me than for the fact that my father had been everything to her and no man could live up to that standard.

  The door off the kitchen opened, and I could hear my mother struggling with the groceries. I quickly put the letters back in the box and went into the living room.

  "Are there more in the car?" I asked.

  "This is it," she said. "Sorry I'm so late." She put the groceries on the counter and took out orange juice, iceberg lettuce, a store-made rotisserie chicken. "How's this for an early dinner?" she asked.

  "Great, but I'm still pretty stuffed from this morning."

  "It was a madhouse at Schnucks. You would have thought warheads were on the way," my mother said. "It's Sunday afternoon. I don't understand."

  "Everyone's out buying chips and beer," I said. "The Cards are playing a night game and the fans need their fuel."

  "Baseball?" she asked.

  "Football," I said.

  "I thought the football team moved out west."

  "They did, but people stay loyal to them anyway. I guess it's all part of the mourning process."

  She handed me the latest issue of Time. More protests in Eastern Europe. "So what did you do while I was away?"

  I leafed absently through the magazine, then set it down. "Not much. Just checked out those old newspapers in the garage. You really don't need to keep them," I said. "We have everything archived at work."

  My mother finished unpacking the groceries and leaned against the kitchen sink. "You just want me to throw them away?"

  "I assumed you already had."

  She looked at me as though we weren't understanding each other, then shook her head and crossed into the living room, gathering up the morning paper. "Those newspapers are your childhood, Gordie," she said, "and I'm going to keep them."

  Later that afternoon, we ate our chicken dinner in silence. I had clearly upset her, but I didn't know how nor did I have the energy to set things right again. Reading the letters, I had felt closer to her than I had in months. I had glimpsed a side of my parents' lives that I hadn't known before, but talking about it seemed awkward. Just like that, my mother and I had fallen back into our old patterns.

  As I put on my jacket to leave, she was standing in the doorway between the living room and kitchen. "I guess I expect too much," she said, a mix of anger and disappointment in her voice.

  "What do you mean?" I turned around to face her.

  "I thought we'd have a nice day together, that's all."

  "I thought we did," I said, because there was nothing else to say, and crossed the room to hug her goodbye.

  10

  TUESDAY MARKED two full weeks since Arthur Whiting's funeral, and still I hadn't heard from Alicia. The visit home and my parents' love letters had only increased my loneliness. I had been thinking about driving by Alicia's house again when Arthur's brother, Joe, called me at work.

  We had spoken a couple of days after the funeral, right in the middle of deadline, and I'd had to hang up after failing to explain in ten chattery minutes why it was a bad time to talk. He had called back a half-dozen times since, leaving word with the switchboard or, to my great embarrassment, with Ritger, who took a devilish glee in passing on his messages.

  "I had a nice talk with your friend Joe Whiting," he'd say, his face a piggish pink. "He's upset you've been stealing his medication."

  On the rare occasion that Ritger said something meant to amuse, he'd laugh rapidly through his nose, then stop all of a sudden, letting his face go serious, the way the comedian Paul Lynde used to. But Paul Lynde was funny.

  "You're there, perfect, you're there," Joe said, ecstatic that he had finally gotten through. "Right in the nick of time, Nick. You're right in the nick of time."

  "Sorry I haven't gotten back to you," I told him, careful not to say too much. "We've been very busy here at the paper. In fact we're very busy now."

  The fan above me clattered away. Ritger had gone off to lunch. It was, in reality, the most convenient time for Joe to have called. But I'd set my mind to ignoring him, which was why, when he said something I had waited two weeks to hear, I wasn't listening. Were it not for his manner of catching and repeating certain words, I might not have had another chance to see Alicia.

  "I'm going to the museum today," he was saying. "I've been to the museum before. They have pictures on all the walls. Bobby Campanis will be there. The greatest painter of the United States."

  I was drawing in blue ink around the outline of V´clav Havel's face, the lead picture on the front page of the morning paper. Havel had spoken the night before in front of a huge coalition of opposition groups known as the Civic Forum. Editorials everywhere were predicting that the Czech Communist government would soon fall.

  "Margaret won't go because Alicia will be there. You should go. I can give you a ride," Joe was saying. "I don't drive, but I can give you a ride, you know, not me, but the car I'm in can give you a ride."

  "It's really not a good time, Joe," I said. "Seriously, I'm going to have to go now."

  "Oh, you don't have to go. It's not so serious. Don't feel you have to go," he said. "Alicia says it's not to be missed. Not to be missed, she says."

  I sat up.

  "What does Alicia have to do with the museum?" I asked.

  "Quite a to-do at the museum," he said. "Quite a to-do, and everyone will be there."

  I spotted Ritger returning from lunch and hastened Joe Whiting off the phone, thanking him for the call, saying I'd do my best to make it.

  I buzzed the research library for a calendar of events and later found an announcement on the schedule for that Tuesday evening, October 22. The announcement must have come from an old press release; Arthur's name was still on it.

  ST. LOUIS DOG MUSEUM—Portrait unveiling of local champion Gambolling Gavin of Galway to be held in the main exhibition room following regular hours at 6 P.M. Featured speakers: Helen Stansbury of Missouri AKA and Arthur Whiting of the Irish Wolfhound Club of North America. Wine and cheese to follow. The dog museum is open to visitors daily, except Mondays and holidays, from 9–5 (Sundays 12–5). A not-for-profit organization.

  Driving the back roads to Queeny Park, where the dog museum was located, I wondered if Joe Whiting had called on his own or if Alicia had put him up to it. I tried to imagine that her past two weeks had been as distracting as mine—lingering around the phone, gazing into the mirror, rushing to the window with each footfall on the sidewalk.

  I wondered if she hadn't been waiting all this time.

  The St. Louis Dog
Museum took up the whole of a Greek Revival mansion plus an additional wing, built to meet demand. The lawn, lush and manicured, was dotted with statues of dogs: a pointer at the gate, a Jack Russell along the walk, a basset hound curled in the flower garden, a pair of Saint Bernards guarding the front door.

  A woman I recognized from the funeral, the bigger of the two who had sat next to me at the service, was greeting guests. She introduced herself as Mrs. Cunningham. Around her neck was a blue scarf sprinkled with small brown terriers.

  "I'm Gordon Hatch. I think we might have met at Arthur Whiting's funeral."

  "We're so glad you could come," she said. "It's nice to see you." She reached around me then, offering a limp hand to someone who had come up behind me. "I see we have the handler, but where is her champion?"

  It was Alicia.

  She looked lovely, more formal than last I saw her, in a summery off-white linen dress that hung loosely on her body. The puffiness around her eyes had gone. She leaned toward me to shake my hand, a handshake that I could have sworn suggested, If we were anywhere else I would put my arms around you.

  "I thought you'd come." She smiled in the most casual way, as if we had just seen each other this morning at breakfast. I could feel the blood rushing to my face.

  "Gavin isn't feeling well," she told Mrs. Cunningham, "so I've left him at home."

  "For his induction?" our greeter asked, somewhat incredulously. "It must be serious."

  Alicia walked past her, saying she needed to speak with me, and led me from the foyer into the main hall, through a room filled with porcelain Dalmatians and photographs of fire departments posing with their dogs.

  "I just needed to take a breath before this all starts," she said. "These little gatherings can drive anybody crazy."

  "I was going to call you," I said, feeling more comfortable now. "If you're still interested, I'm more than happy to work on that story we talked about."

  "I'm sorry too. I haven't been able to think much about it. I've been packing. I can barely find my feet amidst all of Arthur's things."

  At the entrance to the permanent collection, where the addition wing began, she spotted Joe Whiting.

  "He's with Bobby Campanis." She nodded in the direction of a man who was listening distractedly to Joe. "You've probably never heard of him—he's not much of a painter, but he does manage to make a living at it, which isn't easy." Her silver bracelets clinked together as she combed her hair around her ears. "I know how hard it is," she said. "I used to be a painter myself."

  "You were?" I asked.

  "Yes, I did landscapes. I was living in the desert, where you couldn't help but paint."

  "Where in the desert?"

  "Arizona."

  I tumbled this over in my mind for a moment.

  "What kind of landscapes?"

  She seemed a little embarrassed by the question. "It's hard to summarize. More or less, 'body as landscape, landscape as body,'" she said, as if it were not worth explaining. "But that was a lifetime ago. I haven't picked up a brush in years."

  "And what about now?"

  "Mostly I've been working with the dogs, grooming and handling, that sort of thing." She shrugged. "But I've already been to the top with Gavin. It's pretty much run its course."

  Bobby Campanis was coming up to us now, looking muscular and Mediterranean with a tightly groomed beard that blended smoothly with his cropped black hair. He wore a white T-shirt with black suspenders, tight black pants, and combat boots.

  Alicia introduced me as a reporter doing a feature story. Campanis brightened immediately, assuming that the story was about him.

  "Mostly I do western scenes," he explained with a New York-New Jersey accent.

  He named some painters I'd never heard of—Andrew Melrose, William T. Ranney—and one I knew, George Caleb Bingham, calling them "the dead guys who pay my bills."

  He'd been selling his oils on the state fair circuit seventeen years ago—his first trip west of Piscataway—when he was offered a commission by an insurance executive to reproduce Leaving the Old Homestead, a James F. Wilkins painting that hung at the Missouri Historical Society.

  "Around here it's all about Manifest Destiny," he said. "The peopie can't get enough of it. Historical stuff, you know. After the Wilkins, there was a Bierstadt, then a Melrose, then boom, I'm in demand."

  "Bobby did the picture of Gavin," Joe began excitedly. "Gavin liked getting his picture done. He's a picture dog—"

  "That's right, Joe," Alicia said, patting him on the arm to quiet him.

  Joe pushed his thick glasses back up his nose, slid his hands into his pockets, and settled into an agitated silence. Alicia's power over him was sweet and impressive.

  To be polite, I asked Campanis how he had become interested in dog portraiture. Apparently, Arthur Whiting was to thank for that.

  "I did a huge Bingham for the bank he worked at, and he loved it so much he told me, 'One day you're going to have to paint one of my dogs."'

  "Not just a dog. A champion dog," Joe weighed in, stooping his shoulders apologetically.

  "Have you painted dogs before?" I asked.

  "Oh, sure," Campanis said. "They're always chasing after stagecoaches, plus Daniel Boone had a coonhound. I've probably done a thousand Daniel Boones."

  The sound of a gavel was heard from across the room as someone else I recognized from the funeral took her place beside the portrait, which was covered with a cloth. She wore the same tweed suit from two weeks before.

  "First of all, I would like to thank the Ralston Purina Company both for sponsoring this event and for generously commissioning the fine portrait which has brought us together this evening," she said. "Mr. Spears, please take a bow."

  Applause rose from the audience of no more than forty people, and the youthful Mr. Spears half stood, waving from the front row, where folding chairs had been set up around a lectern.

  "Also, this event could not have taken place without the efforts of Evelyn Cunningham and Barbara Moore Seawickly, co-chairpersons of the Sight Hound Club of Middle America."

  The big woman at the front door and her friend acknowledged the light applause by standing up in different parts of the room and clapping in each other's direction, to indicate, The credit is all yours.

  "I'm Helen Stansbury, curator of the St. Louis Dog Museum, and I'd like to welcome you all to this grand occasion. Today we recognize not only a great local champion but a dog of national prominence—winner in Lubbock of Best of Breed at the tender age of fourteen months; winner in the Hound Division at the Steel City Kennel Club six months later; winner of Best in Show at Louisville, October 1988; and at two and a half, winner of Best of Breed and Best in the Sight Hound Division at the one hundred twelfth Westminster Kennel Club show in New York City."

  She looked up at the audience, taking off her glasses and setting them on the lectern.

  "Gambolling Gavin of Galway is the youngest dog ever to have his portrait hung on these museum walls. He is the most distinguished St. Louis champion since the pug Calypso Mirabella, owned by Mr. Herbert Etheridge of Creve Coeur, who is here with us today."

  A fist rose from the middle of the room and shook in the air.

  "As many of you know, this event is bittersweet," Ms. Stansbury continued. "Gavin's owner, Arthur Whiting, passed away suddenly three weeks ago and in the prime of life. Mr. Whiting was editor of the Irish Wolfhound Quarterly, majority owner of the Mississippi Valley Irish Wolfhound Farm, an active member of the board of this museum, and a regular contributor to a number of hound club newsletters. He was one of the most committed members of the show dog community, and his loss will be deeply felt." There was a hush as people turned to look sympathetically at Alicia.

  She was standing beside me, her arm trembling against mine. I wanted to touch her shoulder, reassure her.

  The museum curator wrapped up her speech and brought Bobby Campanis before the audience, where he was warmly received. He said a few words about how well beha
ved Gavin was, how he had sat for his portrait barely moving for the whole eight hours.

  "I've got a golden retriever," he said. "You wanna talk about ants in the pants."

  When the cloth was lifted, there was a unanimous "Ahh." People got up from their seats and gathered around the portrait for a closer look: on a high bluff over a wide river Gavin sat nobly surveying a dark and ominous landscape. A beam of sunlight fell from above. His masters, a woman in a white veil and a man with a musket slung over his shoulder, stood behind him. A single gnarled tree seemed to point across the river to the open prairie on the other side.

  "See, look what I told you," Joe said. "He's the best. So true to life. Totally lifelike. As true as life can be—"

  Alicia politely lifted a finger to her lips. "It's just gorgeous, Bobby," she said with the appropriate amount of conviction.

  As wine and hors d'oeuvres were brought around, Alicia and I managed to find a corner in the back of the room to talk.

  "This must be nice for you," I said, leaning against the wall, trying to look casual, a glass of wine held next to my cheek. "Even if the painting isn't so good, it must be an honor to have Gavin's portrait in this museum."

  "Oh, I don't know," she sighed. "This is Arthur's world, and the people in it are a lot older than me." She rubbed her hands over her arms as if she were getting cold. "I never missed a single dog show in the entire time that Arthur and I were together. I was completely devoted, and he used to give me all the credit for Gavin's success. But he was the only one. Most of the people here don't even like me."