Fifty-six

FRIDAY, IT WARMED UP by nine and looked like a good weekend. It was just Kate and me until mid-afternoon. Melody had a bunch of stuff to get ready for our sales area at National Singles. I was beginning to dread the week in California. I was only practicing on Tuesday and Thursday nights with the team. I couldn’t let racquetball bog me down when I had a wall to work on with the Memorial Day dedication looming ever closer.

Saturday morning, we started early. I was onsite at eight and painting by nine with a full crew. This was the push. There were still several quadrants that needed more depth and long-distance texture and four more focal points that needed to be laid in. Those glaring white spaces on the wall looked ominous. Kate and I focused on one focal point and Maggie and Jim were on another. Amy fearlessly moved her lift from area to area as she spotted the defective highlights and shadows, but the other one sat idle. Two would go back to PCAD after this weekend.

My music stopped, which meant it was noon and we were supposed to take a break, but Kate and I just kept on working. It was only a couple of minutes later that I heard three strikes on a huge drum that rumbled and echoed against the wall. Kate looked at me and grinned. I glanced down to see the whole Oregon commune with their drums joining the beat one after another. People flooded through the gates and dropped money in the boxes. There were already over a hundred on the field watching us. Holy shit! I saw that Justin and Amanda were with the drummers, as well. In a matter of minutes, the drums were at full rhythm. I smiled at Kate and we painted.

The first time I heard them, I thought that the school ought to hire them for a dance. I knew they could go non-stop for four hours and that meant we’d have a productive afternoon. Kate and I caught the rhythm and painted as if we were one hand. Every so often, we would just be caught up dancing on our platform and into each other as much as the painting. We got our safety harnesses tangled once.

But we kept painting.

We were working on a picture of an old woman in her tent. I’d only met her once, but I knew her. She’d died in the fire. That wasn’t what we were painting, though. In the image we were working on, the old woman was reading a book by the light cast from an oil lamp. She looked peaceful and happy. It was what I hoped the afterlife had in store for her if there was one.

Two or three times we had to lower our lift and step out in the field to get a good view of the wall. We used the restroom and then ran right back to our lift and put more paint on. We barely heard the bells ringing, signaling the start of dancing. We let the sounds of Oke’s guitar and Amanda’s flute just carry us further into the painting. And when Allison joined the fray with some vocalese extemporizing with the guitar and flute, we flooded the painting with tears as well as color.

I could hear the drummers winding down. Kate and I dropped our brushes and kissed each other as the lift took us down. There were four huge strikes of the big drums and then everything went silent.

Out of the silence came the applause. I looked up and there were hundreds of people in the field. Okay? Two hundred is hundreds and I’m pretty sure there were more than that. It had been a hell of a party. Ken, Oke, and Gypsy found us and hugged Kate and me. I saw my brushes and paint disappear from behind me and knew someone else was cleaning up my mess. I sent them a silent thank you. Our Oregon trio was right with us and the girls were in costume to dance with Gypsy. The rest of the Oregonians were there as well. Amanda and Justin shoved a little to get up to us. All I could do was keep saying “thank you” to everyone I met.

“It looks good on her,” Gypsy said.

After everything was cleaned up and put away on the jobsite and the drums were loaded back in their campers, we invaded Carmine’s Cucina. I’d lost track of the number of people who were with us. It was most of the adults from the commune, my wives, their girlfriends, and a few others. Wendy had warned Carma and she’d set two long banquet tables right down the middle of the restaurant. They were serving a capacity crowd at the other tables and booths. Wendy still had fifteen minutes before she could join us as Carma had needed all her waiters for most of the evening. I was sitting between Gypsy and Kate.

“What?” I asked.

“The jewelry on your fourth queen,” Gypsy said. Wendy was wearing her collar as she waited on tables. I had thought our agreement was that she wouldn’t wear it unless we were alone together, but I suppose that would mean she couldn’t show the beautiful jewelry to anyone else. And she did love it. As a waitress, I suppose she was acting as a servant. I wasn’t going to get mad about it.

“It’s her favorite thing. I don’t even know where she got it. She just asked me to give it to her,” I said. That still puzzled me, but I didn’t expect Gypsy’s laughter.

“You really don’t know?” she said. “It came from the same place as your bracelet.”

“I guess I don’t even know where that came from. Lissa and Melody bought it for me in Chicago and it had to be shipped to them from the manufacturer,” I said, looking at the chain I always wore on my left wrist instead of a watch.

“A manufacturer of jewelry is called a jeweler,” Gypsy said with a little huff. I was a bit in the dark.

“Tony,” Kate whispered to me, “I should have told you. Those are both Mama’s creations. Your bracelet is what was in the painting over her fireplace. I thought you recognized it.”

Oh my. Wait. That was before we knew Gypsy and hadn’t made Kate a part of our ménage yet.

“How did you know?” I asked.

“None of us did,” Gypsy said. “They chose it out of a catalog of my pieces. I didn’t know until I saw it when you visited.”

“And you made Wendy’s col ... necklace, too?” I asked.

“I asked her to,” Kate said. “I knew at New Year’s what Wendy wanted. I thought if I had it in my hands, I’d get used to the idea and be able to do what you did. I couldn’t. Thank you so much, my love.”

I heard a dish crash back in the kitchen. Wendy rushed to us, practically falling over the table to get between Kate and me. She hid her face against me and was shaking like a leaf.

“What is it, Tiger?” I asked.

“Rafe.” A chill went down my spine.

I looked over and a young man stood inside the doorway of the restaurant with a willowy woman quietly behind him. He was asking the hostess something and she turned to look, pointing directly over to us. The guy looked up and caught my eye. He wasn’t what I expected. In fact, he wasn’t at all what I expected. Rafe was a skinny, nerd with thick glasses and acne scars. He headed our way.

I stood up and placed myself between Wendy and the couple.

“Excuse me,” he said. His voice was no stronger than the rest of his appearance. “I’d like to speak to Wendy, please.”