Thirty-nine

THE WORLD TURNED TO CHAOS Monday morning. Bree and I going to Dennis’s class together in the morning was about the last thing I remembered clearly. Life started to gradually spin out of control.

I met with Doc to go over the estimates for the mural and he corrected a few items. Eric called and asked me to meet with the student organization and the Board of Regents. I needed to present the cost estimates and my actual painting. The committee had put together a proposal to raise funds, both for the mural and for the fund to benefit the homeless. Doc had already talked to a nationally known paint manufacturer and they had agreed to supply all the paint. Clarice showed a slide show of my work. It seemed like the project was a go.

“Mr. Ames, is this what the mural will look like?” the President of the University asked me. Bree was right beside me, filling me in on who was who. Otherwise I wouldn’t have known who I was talking to.

“No, Dr. Haywood,” I said. “This painting is proportioned differently than the proposed project and is intended for viewing by an audience that is at eye-level with the horizon line. It is a painting that I did before there was any talk about a mural—in fact, before there was any reason for the project. It shows the concept but the actual painting will be appropriately proportioned for the surface of the building. I also need to check the texture and uniformity of the surface to find out what special considerations will be needed.”

The panel buzzed as they talked to each other off the microphones that were set in the middle of the table. There was a nodded agreement among them and they announced a tentative approval of the project. Final approval would be based on fulfillment of half a dozen additional requirements, most of which fell to the student committee. I had to be at the next meeting in thirty days to present the final rendering of what the wall would look like.

Classes this term were whipping me. My Human Physiology team was meeting to study every other day. It was obvious that a piece of artwork wasn’t going to carry our grade this term, no matter what we put with it. And Literary Criticism had more reading each week than I had hours to put into it. Rio spent an hour with me any day I wasn’t with my HP team to go over the material.

It doesn’t sound like much, just having two classes. Three when you count the hour each day I spent chasing Coach Fredericks around campus or downtown Seattle. And two more hours each day spent practicing racquetball and another trying to ease the pain out of my muscles. And trying to manage a fucking eighty-foot-wide mural when the most I’ve ever painted on a fucking wall is a picture of Melody and Lissa! Fuck! Not to mention that I’m trying to paint a couple of fucking masterpieces in a studio that always smells like bleach because we’ve got a fucking business that needs to dye fabric and... Fuck!

And let’s not forget two studio classes with Doc and another meeting or two to go over the planning for the mural. It was only the end of January and I was so fucking behind that I couldn’t see straight. Fuck!

I almost forgot Melody’s birthday. She was twenty years old.

“Um ... Tony?”

“Hey, Tiger. What’s up?” I’d been working on my rendering for the mural and it wasn’t going well. I turned on my stool and saw Wendy stretching out on the daybed. She was just wearing her usual jeans and a scoop-neck t-shirt, but something about the way she rolled toward me to talk just struck me as cool. “Don’t move. Talk to me, but don’t change position, okay?”

“Yes Tony,” she said. She didn’t move a muscle. “I wanted to suggest that we all go to Carmine’s for dinner tomorrow. I’d love to just treat everyone, but I can’t afford it by myself. Would you ... um ... chip in?”

“Sounds like fun,” I said, quickly sketching the way her left knee was bent over the right leg and her head rested on her hand. “What’s the occasion?”

“Tony?” she got up and walked over to me.

“No! Oh. I didn’t take a reference shot. That was a great pose.”

“I’m sorry, Tony.” She was almost hyperventilating and I realized I’d been giving her orders and she’d just disobeyed. Shit! I’m not supposed to do that! She was really in conflict now. “This is really important,” she nearly whimpered.

I held out my arms, dropping my sketchbook on the floor. Wendy practically jumped into my lap and buried her face against my shoulder.

“I’m the one who is sorry, Tiger,” I said. “I wasn’t paying attention and said things I shouldn’t have. Please. Will you tell me what’s on your mind?” Wendy was really still very fragile.

“It’s Melody’s birthday Monday,” she whispered. “I wanted to do something nice for her, but I can’t afford to do it alone.”

Oh, shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! How could I forget my wife’s birthday? I’m a cartoon character spouse!

“Wendy! Oh my god! What am I going to do?”

“You forgot?”

“Please, don’t tell her that! I’ve got to get a present. And yes, Carmine’s is a great idea.” We’d talked about this before the posing party and decided that it would be just one party. We even sang to her.

“I won’t say anything, Tony. You can say that dinner was your idea.”

“Not on your life, Tiger. It’s a wonderful and thoughtful gift. I tell you what; you pay for Melody’s meal and I’ll pick up the rest. Okay?”

“What will you do?” she asked.

“I think I need to go shopping,” I laughed. “You are so caring and thoughtful, Wendy. It’s no wonder Kate loves you!” I regretted that as soon as I’d said it. “I mean, we all love you, but it’s kind of obvious that Kate is really in love with you and you with her,” I stumbled on.

“You don’t have to love me, Tony,” she said. “Just let me be with you, okay?”

“Of course, Tiger. I want you to be with me. I just don’t know how to put things together right now.”

“Right now, maybe you could take me shopping with you?”

Our shopping trip was successful. I knew where to go at Pike Place Market where there was a woman with a shop on the Underground level who sold hand spun yarns. It took us a while to convince her that I really did want to buy thirty skeins—all she had—of one particular Alpaca yarn, but I got them all gift-wrapped in a big box and gave them to Mel when we went out to dinner. Melody was happy with both the yarn from me and the dinner from Wendy. I still felt like shit.

I found another second hand shop when I made a wrong turn Friday night, and got caught on 99 with no place to exit. I wandered around trying to get back across the water to find where home was. That’s when I spotted this place. It was dark out—it gets dark in this stupid town at a few minutes after noon in the winter—and I saw a light in the store with a chair in the window. It looked a lot like the recliner I’d bought for the studio. I couldn’t really work in the studio right now because of the smell and sleeping there was out of the question, so I pulled up and went into the store. The recliner was fifty bucks. I bought it and asked directions to get back home.

I lugged the chair into the basement where I’d been doing some work and just flopped down in it.

That was all she wrote.

I slept through supper and bedtime and woke up trying to figure out where I was. Once I figured it out, I could hear the boys moving around upstairs. They came home while I was out driving around lost. I covered up my head with my coat and went back to sleep.

The next time I woke up, the house was quiet. I checked the time. I’d slept till one in the afternoon. It was the first time I could remember that I’d missed family dinner. Even the night I fell asleep on the massage table, I still made it home and had some time with the family. I felt crappy. I’d abandoned them all. Why would I expect any of them to be around when I finally deigned to wake up?

I went up to use the bathroom and shower. I had a shit-load of reading to do. We had to write a critique of an 18th century novel in an appropriate style. Then we were going to have to compare our work with the works of contemporaries of that period. And there were two chapters of HP that I needed to read before class on Monday. I’d fallen a chapter behind last week and my team was pissed at me. I stumbled out of the shower and grabbed my towel.

There was a cup of coffee on the sink. Hot, strong, and black. God, I needed that. I just stood there with the water dripping off of me as I sipped it and came to life. My headache started to disappear before I realized I had one. I finished drying, shaving, and dressing and headed for the kitchen. There were eggs, bacon, toast, and another cup of coffee sitting on the breakfast bar. But no one was around.