“I only have the one. A paper I’ll hand in before I go to Arizona.”
“Oh.” Oh, yes, there it was. He was leaving. “You’ll be away until the fall?”
“I’ll be back in Michigan at the end of July for team meetings on Mackinac Island, then we come down here to the training facility,” he said.
End of July. That was months away, and finals were in only two weeks.
“I’m handing in my paper early so I can get going to Phoenix,” he continued. “I’m leaving next week.”
“Oh.”
“You look…” He studied me. “Disappointed.”
Well, of course I was! “It’s just a shame that you’ll miss the summer up here,” I said, and that was definitely true, but not the reason for my unhappiness. “There are so many fun things to do in northern Michigan, so many great beaches, and sailing, fishing, waterskiing, hikes, camping, and everything. It’s the best place to be in the summer.” I sounded like I was running a tourism campaign.
“I’m here for August, but we work too hard to do any of those things. Almost every minute is planned out. It’s like that for the season too. I’m too busy to do anything but football.”
I understood him. This was his way of saying that we wouldn’t be seeing each other again, with him leaving for Arizona, then back here for training camp (but he’d have no time), then playing during the season (when he’d have no time), then off to Phoenix again or into retirement, and goodbye. I wasn’t going to cry about it, I told myself. Not in front of him, anyway. And then I got an idea that was so far out of my normal course of behavior that my mouth dropped open a little. Could I do that? Could I make the first move? Knox didn’t seem like he wanted things between us to progress, but I did, even if it was going to be goodbye after tonight.
I was going to have to channel the yoga girls. Maybe even the spin girls.
“Are you done?” Knox was asking me, and I nodded as my phone started to ring. I looked to see that it was Tatum, and then it stopped and started again, twice more. “Sorry. I’m just going to pick up so she stops calling. It’s probably a mistake.”
“Daisy?” Her voice sounded odd when I answered. “Is that you?”
“Tatum, you were calling me. Are you ok?”
“No.”
I heard noise in the background, people talking and music. “Where are you?” She mumbled something, but I couldn’t understand. “What? Where?”
“In the bathroom at Ginger’s. There was this guy…” She started on a rambling story about tennis, and someone’s ukulele, and fall foliage.
“Tatum, I don’t understand. You’re not making any sense.” Less than usual. “Do you need something?”
“I drank so much, then he gave me that pill, Daisy, and now I don’t feel good. I’m in the bathroom and he’s waiting for me outside but I’m freezing. I mean, I’m frigid. I’m fr—I’m fri—”
Oh, God, she didn’t sound good. “You’re cold?”
“No, I’m frightened of him,” Tatum said, and she started crying. “I don’t know him. He was pulling my arm.”
“Ok, I’m coming.” I was on my feet already, pointing at the door. “I’m on my way right now. Stay where you are. Stay on the phone—” It beeped in my ear, as the signal was lost with her deep in the bar bathroom. “Damn! I have to go get Tatum,” I told Knox wildly. “She took some pill from a guy and she’s hiding from him at Ginger’s.”
He picked up my coat. “Let’s go. I’ll drive.”
I babbled on the way to the bar. “Why would she take something from a guy she didn’t know? Why would someone give her something to make her sick?”
“Daisy, guys do a lot of things,” he told me, and sighed. “How long have you known this Tatum?”
“Not too long. But she’s calling me because I think her other friends aren’t really her friends. They’re all in competition over, um, acquisitions and conquests. Of men, I mean.”
“Women do that?”
“They do,” I nodded. “I don’t think either sex should. Not sex, gender,” I said firmly. “Neither gender should do sex conquests.” I had to stop saying that word. “I’m really worried.”
“I’m driving fast.” He was, and was passing other cars, too. Red and blue lights suddenly flashed behind us.
“You’re getting pulled over!” I exclaimed, and Knox said a string of pretty filthy words as he slowed and moved the car onto the shoulder.
“Put your hands on the dashboard,” he ordered me, and rolled down the window before he put his own hands on the steering wheel.
“What? Why?” I asked, confused, but he just repeated himself, so I did it.
The officer approached the car. “Do you know how fast you were going?” he asked sternly. He looked into the truck, squinting at Knox. “Knox Lynch?” His tone had changed.
“I’m sorry, officer,” Knox said flatly. It didn’t even sound like his voice. “I apologize for my speed.”
The policeman stood up and knocked on the door of the truck. “That’s all right. Don’t do it again. Good luck next season, and go Woodsmen!”
“Go Woodsmen,” Knox repeated in the same voice. His fingers still clenched the wheel. They stayed there as the police car pulled out from behind us and disappeared down a curve in the road.
“Knox?” I asked softly. “Can we go get Tatum?”
He seemed to snap out of the trance he was in. “Yeah. Yeah, but I have to slow down.”
“Sure.” I watched him as he drove toward town, not saying a word until we pulled up the street to Ginger’s Tavern. He slowed even more as we went by, and I could see that it was busy, bustling. I started to take off my seatbelt to get out and Knox finally spoke.
“I want you to go with me. If there’s a guy hassling her, I don’t want you in there alone. I’ll park in the alley.”
I was itching to get out of the truck, and practically running to get to the bar, but I still barely kept up with Knox. He pushed us through the crowd at the entrance and then everyone sort of magically parted, like he was Moses or something. “Knox!” voices called, “Knox Lynch,” and “Go Woodsmen!” Both of us ignored them and rushed to the back of the bar to the ladies’ room.
“I’ll get her,” I told him, and shoved the door. “Tatum? It’s me, it’s Daisy. Are you in here?”
A stall door swung open, and Tatum stepped out. Mascara had run down her face from tears and her lipstick was smudged across her mouth. And she had…yes, that was vomit, all down the front of her dress. “I threw up,” she said, and started crying again. “Is he still out there?”
I hugged her, vomit and all. “If he is, Knox and I will make him leave you alone, so don’t worry.” She bawled into my arm and I led her out of the bathroom.
Knox stood with his body stretching across the small hallway, preventing anyone else from walking down it. I could see flashes from people taking pictures of his back as we came out. “Here,” he said, and stripped off his coat. I hung it around Tatum’s shoulders and it went all the way down to her ankles. I put my arm around her again, and put my own head down as he stalked in front and cleared a path for us back out through the people and to the street. Now I was very aware of the crowd, of the smells, of the closeness of the bodies, the flashing neon lights behind the bar, and the music booming out. I took a fistful of Knox’s t-shirt and watched his feet moving toward the door. Tatum was sagging next to me and my other arm kept her upright.
“Help me with her,” I said breathlessly as we got outside, and Knox picked up Tatum and took off back toward where he had parked the truck. I flat out ran to keep up with how fast he was moving, but I still fell behind. He had put her into the cab, into the middle seat, when I got there.
“I can’t go home,” she was wailing to him as he climbed in the driver’s side. “My dad will kill me!”
Knox looked her square in the face. “How old are you, Tatum?”
“Um,” she said hesitatingly, and I spoke up as I closed the car door be
hind myself.
“She’s twenty-three.”
He leaned forward, staring down at her. “You’re at least five years too old to be worrying about what your father is going to do to you. And there’s no age where you should have been drinking yourself silly and taking drugs from men you don’t know. Daisy, roll down your window. It stinks worse than a locker room.”
Tatum cried all the way back to my house, which was where Knox had directed the truck. She cried as I pulled her clothes off her and got her into the shower, she cried as I helped her put on some of my clothes and rolled them up so they would fit. I also changed my own shirt due to my proximity to her vomit. She continued crying as I led her into the guest bedroom and handed her a glass of water. In between the tears and sobs, she managed to tell me that she felt better, not high anymore and not so drunk, that the guy hadn’t touched her except to pull her arm to try to get her out of the bar with him and he had scared her to death, that all the women she had come with had left even when she had told them that she was sick and frightened.
“Don’t go out with them again,” I told her. “Tatum, you made me very, very worried.”
That started her sobbing so hard she couldn’t talk, but after a while, she calmed down and dozed off, and I went out into the living room where Knox had settled on the couch. It seemed to be bearing up ok, definitely better than the chair in the corner, which had never come back from when he had sat in it before. “She’s going to sleep,” I announced. “I was thinking she’d need to go the hospital, but she’s much better, lucid. As much as usual,” I added.
Knox passed his hand over his face. “I’m glad. She’s lucky she has someone to call.”
“We all need someone to call,” I told him, thinking that my rescuers would take a while to get to me, since it would be about a four-hour drive for my brother, his wife, or her mom to come north from Ann Arbor. I carefully sat down on the couch also, and it stayed in one piece. I was sitting on the other end, which should have been far away, but instead Knox seemed very close.
I realized I was leaning towards him, too, looking at his face. He turned and met my eyes and I jerked back. “I was remembering that my car is at your building. I’ll have to come over and get it,” I remarked. Oh, God. My voice sounded hopeful.
“If you give me the key, I’ll have it over here by the morning. Don’t worry about it.”
Oh. Ok.
“Will you be careful with her?” He pointed toward the bedrooms, where I hoped Tatum was sleeping. “If she calls you again, if you go places with her, you have to be careful. And when you go in the library basement to look for books, have that Solomon there with you. Have him walk you out to your car, too, at night.”
“I’m fine,” I said. “I’ll be fine.” Knox was saying goodbye to me, I realized. He was getting ready to go. My stomach clenched, and so did my heart. “I’m going to be so busy, with finals and then summer session, and I’m working, and Domenico and I will keep looking for the portrait. And I’ll work here, maybe, painting,” I said, pointing across the living room, “and maybe my brother will come home to visit, and…” I was convincing myself.
“What do you mean, painting here? What’s behind the door you’re pointing at?” He looked to the end of the room.
“It’s a studio, an art studio. The woman I rent this cottage from is an artist and an art teacher. I used to come over when she lived here and paint a lot with her, before she moved downstate. But I don’t really paint very much anymore.”
“Why?” he asked.
I thought. “I don’t need to. Art was the only way I could express anything, before.” He was just watching me, so quietly, and I kept going. “I didn’t talk to anyone besides my brother on the phone and sometimes my mom, but she was in her own world. I wasn’t leaving the house, I was a mess. Scared and unhappy. I painted to get it out, but now, I have so much.” I moved my hand to gesture around the room, but I meant everything. “I can go wherever I want, to the grocery store if I need anything, or last week, my mail stopped coming for no reason and I went right over to the post office to fix the problem.” I flushed, because I heard myself describing a trip to get bread like it was such a thing. “I don’t need art as much anymore and I don’t have the time,” I concluded. “Um, do you want something to drink? Eat?” I wanted to keep him here on my couch for as long as I could.
“Can I see your paintings?”
“Oh. Sure, I guess.” I led him into the studio, which was freezing, because I had turned down the heat in the room to save some money. I ran my hands up and down my arms as Knox bent to study what I had hanging on the walls and an unfinished piece on an easel.
“The attic at the college is a lot warmer,” he noted. “Is that to keep the art safe?”
I was surprised he had noticed. “Yes, it probably isn’t very good for my canvases to sit in this meat locker, but it’s not like there’s an Old Master painting in here somewhere,” I smiled, but Knox turned to me and looked very serious.
“You should be more careful with these. They’re beautiful.”
I felt a flutter in my chest. “Thank you. Maybe I’ll turn the temperature back up.”
He stepped toward me. “Are you cold?”
I nodded, unable to form the word “yes” to answer. I could feel the heat coming off his big body as he stepped even closer. I heard my heart beating, thumping in my ears.
“I’m glad I scared you in the basement that night,” he said. “I’m glad I got to meet you.”
“Me too.” I gathered my courage again. “It sounds like you’re saying goodbye.” I swallowed. “Maybe when you come back up for the season, we could…” My heart pounded. “I could cook dinner,” I told him. “It’s only fair, since you did for me.”
Knox didn’t answer. So, no, he didn’t want to see me again. I wanted to cry, but I also didn’t want it to end like this, on a whimper instead of a bang. Maybe this was it—maybe it was the only chance I would ever have. Come on, Daisy, I told myself. For once in your life, do it. Think yoga girls, and do it! “You could kiss me goodbye,” I said. My voice shook.
He put his hands on my shoulders, and then moved them up and down my arms, rubbing gently. He could probably feel me trembling, and not because the studio was so cold. His body almost touched mine and I put my hands flat against his chest, where his heart beat steadily under my palms and his warmth moved into me. “Daisy, I think you’re wonderful,” he told me, his voice rumbling like summer thunder. Slowly he bent to me and my arms circled his neck, like I had done this before.
Then he kissed me. His lips were soft, funny for someone so hard and solid all over the rest of his body. He moved them back and forth a little, skating against mine. Before I even knew it was over, he held me against his chest, my ear pressed to him so that I could hear his heart. It pounded now, too.
Knox stepped away. “Goodbye.”
Part Two: Summer
Chapter 8
“Is that seventy-six B?” Domenico fanned himself with a thick sheaf of papers. Some spilled out of the stack and blew away from him in the draft created by all our fans.
“This is crate is seventy-nine C,” I said wearily. I put down the crowbar and wiped my forehead with my arm, then bent to pick up the papers he had lost, before returning myself to forcing open the box. We had the fans and portable air conditioners going non-stop, but it was still way too hot up in the attics, for the art and for us. Northern Michigan was in the midst of a terrible heat wave and we were all miserable.
From way up here, if I strained my eyes to look through the small, dirty windows, I could get a tiny glimpse of the blue of Lake Michigan. I wished more than anything that I was in there right now, submerged in the clear, cold water. It seemed like I had spent the entire summer locked away in this attic, opening boxes, going through boxes, repacking boxes, breaking down boxes. I dreamed about them at night.
And we hadn’t found it. We had found many other interesting things—an etching which t
he professor thought might be by William Blake, early Delftware pottery, 15th century parchments, and lots of other stuff. But no early Renaissance portraits, nothing that could be taken for an Italian Old Master.
We were still looking, but for me, the fever had died. It had waned, the more I worked, and then it was totally gone when an alabaster bust (19th century French, per Domenico) fell on my foot and broke my toe. That had landed me in a walking boot for a few weeks and completely killed my enthusiasm for locating the Pisanello.
Even Domenico was tiring of it. Enrico Visconti, the man from California who had started us on this search, had been hounding the professor to locate it immediately, with daily calls, faxes on the old machine, and letters. He drove every bit of fun from the hunt for Domenico as well. The latest was that Visconti had tossed out the idea of a lawsuit to force us to permit his own team of experts to search the collection. The threat of legal action meant that the administrators of the college got involved, and the secret of the missing painting started to get out.
But the legal agreement between the Whitaker family and the college meant that the art belonged solely to the school, with no strings attached. On top of that, the contract between the professor and the college meant that Domenico was in complete control of the collection—its care, cleaning, and organization were at his discretion. I had read all the agreements carefully, as boring as they were. And from what I could see, even if we did find it, it wouldn’t belong to the Visconti family like in my earlier fantasies where we had presented it to them, smiling. In fact, the more I read about the painting in the documents that Enrico Visconti had faxed over, the more questions I had about its ownership. There were gaps in their documentation and some of it didn’t make sense to me, but I was no expert, and Domenico was so tired, I didn’t want to give him one more thing to worry about.
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