“So change your style. Do it fast and sloppy,” Fredreeq said.
“I can't,” I yelled. “Twenty-five thousand people are going to be looking at it!”
“Do we know the peoples?” Zbiggo asked.
“It doesn't matter. My name is on it.”
“Professional ethics,” Felix said. “Yes. I understand.”
“So why you don't quit?” Zbiggo asked. “Just to quit, that is best.”
“I can't quit, Zbiggo. You heard Mrs. Winterbottom. If I disappoint her, she'll take it out on my brother. She's mad now, but add to that social humiliation and it's all over for P.B. If he gets kicked out of this halfway house, it's a catastrophe. There is no good ending to that scenario. And Mrs. Winterbottom can make it happen.” Even with government intervention, on orders from the FBI—assuming the feds did in fact back me up—in a fight between Mrs. Winterbottom and Bennett Graham, it was probably a dead heat. “If twenty-five thousand people see a blank square where Haven Lane is supposed to have a Virgin Mary in chalk—”
“Forget the peoples,” Zbiggo said. “Is the chalks. You fight the chalks, you make the chalks fear, you see only the chalks, you don't see the peoples, you don't think the peoples.”
It was so unexpected, to get motivational advice from Zbiggo, that I had no response. And how did one instill fear in a stick of chalk?
“Petition the Virgin to make you draw fast,” Felix suggested.
“You can draw fast,” Joey said. “I've seen you sketch greeting cards in seconds.”
“That's different,” I said. “Line drawings. Black and white. Small. Impressionistic. Which I can tear up and rework until I'm satisfied.” I honked at a Viper trying to cut me off. “Twelve feet by twelve feet? That's gigantic. That's bigger than my last apartment! In chalk! Chalk's not my medium! I can't do it!”
“Calm down, Frida Kahlo,” Fredreeq said. “How come you didn't get the word on this till ten minutes ago?”
“Because P.B. volunteered me without telling me, obviously. And forged my signature, for all I know. Joey, where are we?”
“Couple more blocks, then left on Laguna,” she said, consulting a map.
“This mission, is it a government building?” Felix asked.
“I guess,” Joey said. “It's a historical landmark. They're all over California, these missions.”
“Monuments to past popes,” Fredreeq said, “who imposed their tacky religious values on the Native Americans, taking away their peyote and sweat lodges, and now we spend tax dollars to preserve the buildings so that bored schoolkids who would rather be working on their soccer skills are forced to take field trips and write term papers on them, in clear violation of the separation between church and state.”
“Interesting perspective, Fredreeq,” Joey said.
“I'm quoting my ninth grader. I typed the term paper. She broke her wrist at soccer.”
“So this building is federal?” Felix asked.
There was a moment of silence. “That's a strange question,” I said, looking in the rearview mirror. And a rather arcane distinction, for a guy who was still working on the English for “dressing on the side.” Felix avoided my eye in the mirror.
“I think those friars still run them,” Fredreeq said. “So I guess they belong to the Vatican. But why exactly do we care about this?”
“Here's what I care about,” I said. “Does anyone in this car have artistic talent? Or a feel for chalk?”
This was met with a chorus of no's. I was not surprised. Drawing scares some people the way singing scares me.
There was no way out. I was the responsible party.
I took a deep breath. Everyone could go off to lunch without me. I'd collect my designated chalk, find my designated square, and somehow crank out a substandard, half-baked image of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a thought that made me crabby to the point of madness. And a little nauseous. Unless that was me being poisoned.
First, though, I had to find P.B.
The mission grounds were bustling with prefestival activity. The mission itself was refreshingly authentic-looking, humble when compared to your average cathedral. It was white adobe with a red roof, adorned with medieval-looking flags. We walked past a fountain with just a trickle of water coming out and approached the artists' sector.
The blacktop parking-lot area surrounding the church steps was measured and marked with masking tape, creating rows of squares in various sizes. Each square featured the name of its sponsor, stenciled in chalk across the bottom, everything from Tri-County Court Reporters to the Afghanistan Dental Relief Project, Inc. My own square wasn't in view, as this area was reserved for smaller spaces. I longed for a nice, manageable four-by-six rectangle. Or even a seven-by-seven. Why twelve feet? That was me times two, laid end to end.
“This is fabulous,” Fredreeq said. “I wish I'd brought my kids. This is a lot more cultural than paintball or bowling.”
I might have agreed, had I been here as a civilian. A number of artists were already at work. They knelt on pieces of cardboard or scraps of rug. Some wore knee pads. Many worked from sketches, in some cases lithographs of old masters. There were grids and graph paper in evidence, and a few serious types used long sticks with the chalk on the far end to get a sweeping gesture from a standing position. Great. I had no props. No tools of the trade. I had a huge square, no ideas, no preparation. I didn't belong here. I was a fraud.
I moved my group along, anxious to find my brother.
Across from the parking lot was a large grassy lawn that was being filled up with tables and tents and vendor booths. “There they are,” I said.
My brother wore ill-fitting cargo shorts and a T-shirt that said “Cat Lovers Against the Bomb” and had bits of grass in his hair, as though he'd been napping. My uncle was in his usual attire of natural fabrics, unironed. “Wollie!” he called, hopping up from the ground with more alacrity than one would expect in a man of his advanced years. “Wait until you see your canvas.”
“It is a primo spot,” Apollo said, jumping up too. “The whole world will see it.”
“Great news.” I hugged them. “Apollo, tell me you didn't drive here from Glendale.”
“He's quite good,” Uncle Theo said. “A better driver than even you, dear.”
“That's nice to hear, Uncle Theo, but he doesn't have a license.”
“Yes, but he's a very smart boy.”
“He could be Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, but he's still fifteen. The DMV doesn't have a genius exemption. And speaking of geniuses, P.B., what did you sign me up for?”
My brother looked up, his blue eyes shining. “Did you bring my book?”
“What?”
P.B.'s eyes narrowed. “Superstrings and the Search for the Theory of Everything. You didn't bring it.”
“What am I, Supergirl? Explain this pastel thing, wouldja? What kind of opus is Mrs. Winterbottom expecting?”
“I can't believe you didn't bring it,” he said. “I asked you five times this week—”
“Look!” I yelled. “My plate has been just a little bit full of late, and—”
“Children, children,” Uncle Theo said, putting an arm around me. “Everything in its own time. Goodness, is that Joey? And Fredreeq! What a lovely day it's turning out to be. And is that Fredreeq's husband with her? A large fellow, isn't he?”
“Where?” I turned. “No, that's Zbiggo.” The trio approached, and I started to get a bad feeling. I looked around, quickly, then back at Joey and Fredreeq.
“Where's Felix?” I called. But I knew the answer as the question hung in the air.
Gone. I'd lost another one.
FORTY-THREE
“Please God, don't let him have taken the Suburban,” I said.
“No, we checked,” Joey said. “It was the strangest thing. There one minute, gone the next. Hi, Uncle Theo. Hey, Apollo. Howdy, P.B.”
I introduced Zbiggo to everyone and explained that I'd misplaced my other date, Felix. “He expressed an unu
sual interest in the mission,” I said. “I'll take a look inside.”
“You stay. I'm on it,” Joey said, and jogged toward the building.
“Wollie, we'll find him,” Fredreeq said. “You need to start drawing your Virgin. See that tent over there? That's where you sign in and get your free chalk.”
“Free chalk” Uncle Theo said. “What a nice, unexpected treat.”
“Wollie,” P.B. said, “when are we going to the bookstore?”
“P.B.,” I said, “not now.”
“I would take you, P.B.,” Apollo said, “but I don't have a license.”
“I'll take you,” Fredreeq said, “but not in that Belarusian bus we drove here in. Whose car did you steal, Apollo?”
“My cousin Archimedes has given me the Kia. It is tiny, but very fun.”
“Forget it. We'll take the horse we rode in on. Keys, Wollie. Zbiggo, you stick with me. I'm not having you go missing too.”
Uncle Theo accompanied me to the artist sign-in tent, where I was issued a new box of forty-eight pastels, something that, even in my current state of anxiety, evoked a little ping! of pleasure. No one is immune to the charm of a new box of colored chalk.
“Too bad you couldn't come to the chalk party two weeks ago,” the chalk woman said, checking me off her list. “A lot of the artists made their own from pure pigments, much better than the commercial stuff. As you know.”
“Do I?” I asked.
“You're the Haven Lane artist, right? Eleanor Winterbottom says you're topflight.”
“She is topflight,” Uncle Theo assured her.
“Oh, that Eleanor,” I said. “Always so kind. But the truth is, I've never—” I stopped. Should Mrs. Winterbottom be contradicted?
The woman looked up. “Painted on a parking lot? No worries. It's nicely paved, and we just put a fresh seal coat on it. We do it every two years. Chalk sticks beautifully.”
“How long do I have to work on it?” I asked.
“Until the sun goes down, and then all day tomorrow.”
“Gotta finish today,” I said.
She glanced at her watch. “Well, I hate to say anything's impossible. At any rate, sunset's at eight-oh-five. I know this because I've been looking it up for Samantha Tzu. She's squeezed every last minute out of the daylight, all week long. If you want a treat, go look at her work. She's our featured artist this year.”
I looked to where she pointed. Directly in front of the mission entrance was a chained-off area with a woman inside, working on a huge painting. They'd have to chain me too, to work on something that big, and in public, I told Uncle Theo. But as we approached, my apprehension turned to awe. The painting was glorious. Botticelli might have been airlifted out of the fifteenth century and plunked down in Santa Barbara. A Madonna frolicked in a forest with seraphim and cherubim, along with some squirrels and a couple of greyhounds. It was nearly finished. Samantha must have begun it around Christmas.
“Look!” Uncle Theo said. “Everyone's eyes have the epicanthic fold.”
The artist glanced at us, then returned to her work. I looked again. Uncle Theo was right; every cherub and angel and, most interestingly, the Madonna, looked Asian.
“Amazing,” I said.
“Wonderful,” Uncle Theo agreed. “My dear, I've been wondering all day, so put me out of my suspense: what will you paint?”
“Uncle Theo,” I said, anxiety returning, “I haven't a clue.”
Apollo stood by my twelve-foot square, a vast expanse of blacktop flanked on one side by “Channel Island Surfboards by Al Merrick” and on the other by “Gabby Mesquite, CPA.” Both of my neighboring artists were hard at work on their squares, both working from photographs. The Gabby Mesquite artist was doing a credible reproduction of Monet's Water Lilies, which did not immediately evoke certified public accounting, but that was reassuring. It meant that I didn't have to somehow tie in Haven Lane with the Blessed Virgin Mary. My hellos to the two artists were met with a grunt on one side and a curt nod on the other. I envied them their single-minded focus on the task at hand. It beat the paralysis of fear.
“I thought you were off to the bookstore with P.B.,” I said to Apollo.
“No, P.B. said I should stay behind,” he said. “We have a mission.”
“A mission at the mission!” Uncle Theo said.
“We are stalking Joseph Polchinski,” Apollo said. “We were told he would be here.”
“You're still stalking him?” I asked. “I thought you found him at Pepperdine.”
“No, that was bad information. Not Polchinski at all. Joseph Polonsky”
“Polchinski deserves a wider following,” Uncle Theo said. “I imagine he will be honored to be stalked by you. Ask him to expound upon the positive nature of dark energy.”
“First I must discuss Maldacena duality,” Apollo said. “And for P.B., Heterotic-O strings. We must stalk him again to get all the questions asked. Wollie, have you questions?”
“No. Just please don't be the kind of stalker that ends up in court,” I said, and focused on the blacktop in front of me.
I had no real education in art beyond high school and the odd extension courses at community colleges. I was an on-the-job trainee. What I did have was a lot of experience in greeting cards and moderate experience with murals. My twelve-by-twelve square was something in between, neither miniature nor panoramic. In fact, it was just life-sized. Okay, larger than life. Like a giant. Or yes, an angel, if your angels were more Caravaggio, all grown up and sexy, as opposed to the cute Raphael cherubs.
Or like a superheroine.
I grabbed the application from my purse, along with a pen, and started sketching.
“Wollie,” Uncle Theo said, “is that big fellow Zbiggo from Ukraine? I'm trying to place his accent.”
“No. Moldova.”
“Imagine not being able to distinguish Ukrainian from Moldovan. By the way, Mykola, my Ukrainian barber, gave me an update on the situation over there. There are rumors of Lukashenko entertaining ideas to develop the wetlands. He's already building nuclear energy plants, unthinkable just a few years ago. The country is very poor, so it's understandable, however distressing. There was an article in the last issue of Welt am Sonntag, a German newspaper. I was quite upset to learn of this, old tree hugger that I am. But tonkey zvonek zvonit gromkey, as Mykola says.”
I turned and stared at him. “Wait a minute. You speak Russian.” I did a quick sketch of the Cyrillic letters I had committed to memory. “Uncle Theo, what's this say?”
“Poprobuji 31 Aromat, tebe legko budet osmotretsya—Udachi.” Uncle Theo looked skyward. “Let me think. Ah, yes. A loose translation would be ‘Thirty-one flavors. Easy to case the joint. Good luck’ Well. What do you suppose that means?”
My phone rang.
“Wollie, it's me,” he said without preamble. Simon didn't bother with an alias this time, and he didn't bother to moderate his tone of voice. “I want to see you in an hour.”
“Sorry, can't,” I said. “Unless you happen to be in Santa Barbara.”
“What are you doing there?”
“At this moment? Communing with the Blessed Virgin Mary.”
“How soon can you get back to L.A.?”
“No idea.”
“Goddamnit.” He was breathing heavily enough for me to hear it, a hundred miles north. Was he exercising? “Okay, I'm coming to you. Where are you specifically?”
“Not that it's any of your business—”
“My business is exactly what it is. I can't f—” Another intake of breath. “Don't give me any grief right now. Okay? Time-out. Whatever you're mad about, put it on ice. This is serious, and the clock is ticking, for both of us.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that you're in trouble and every minute counts. We can break up later, but right now, you've got to tell me where you are.”
The words made my blood run cold. Unless that was the poison taking effect. “The Santa Barbara Mission,�
� I said, and pressed the end button on my phone.
FORTY-FOUR
Apollo had borrowed graph paper from the Channel Island Surfboards by Al Merrick artist, explaining that the most rational way to transfer my pen sketch of the Blessed Virgin Mary to the blacktop was to work it out on a grid.
“Yes, so I gather,” I said. “But I just got a phone call that was stressful to the point of hysteria, so I can't really concentrate on geometry, Apollo. It's not my métier. At the moment, I'm not sure I have a métier, but—”
“This is not even geometry,” he said. “It is only a simple calculation of—”
“Apollo! Are you listening? If you talk numbers or algorithms or stringy theories, I'll start screaming. Where the hell is Felix?”
“I believe I see Joey over there,” Uncle Theo said. “Perhaps she found something.”
My phone rang again.
“Bennett Graham,” he said, halfway through my hello. “Where precisely are you?”
“The Santa Barbara Mission.”
“Don't leave until we make contact.”
“But—but—”
Too late. He hung up. My phone rang again instantly. I answered.
“Wollie? Yuri.”
“H-hello, Yuri,” I said. “What's up?”
“I want you to come home.”
“N-now?”
“Is something wrong?” he asked.
“Uh—no. Everything's fine. Relatively speaking.”
“You sound uncertain.”
“No, no, I'm certain.” No one was dead, right? That I knew of. Today, anyway.
“Fine. I'll see you in about ninety minutes,” he said.
“Wait! Okay, we're right in the middle of things and the car is a little bit of a walk,” I said, and looked up to see Joey walking toward me. Felix was definitely not with her. Damn.
“You didn't use valet parking?”
“Where? Oh! No, we—the boys—wanted to meander before hitting the restaurant.”
“Two hours, then. Hurry before traffic gets bad.”
“But the boys—it's going to take some time to round them up and also my brother is … a little needy. At the moment.” Joey was standing in front of me now, signaling. “So P.B. may need a little transition time, since we were expecting to spend the afternoon togeth—”
A Date You Can't Refuse Page 28