I swallowed. Shooting a forced smile from across the room at the two retired women, I reluctantly made my way toward Franny and Robyn.
“Okay kids,” I said, “keep your clothes on.”
“Okay kids,” Franny chanted while rocking on his stool.
“Wait,” Robyn barked, coming around fast from behind the canvas. “Close your eyes, Bec.”
“Come on, Rob, I’m not in the mood. I haven’t slept-”
“Just do what I say,” she demanded. “This is magnificent.”
My heart pounded; stomach twisted and turned.
No choice but to play along.
I closed my eyes. But just to make sure I wasn’t cheating, Robyn propped herself behind me, masked my eyes with both her hands. From there she led me around to the business side of the canvas where I stood directly beside Franny. Pressed up against him actually. As usual, he smelled like he’d just taken a bath in Old Spice.
“What you’re about to see,” Robyn said, “took the master only eight hours of non-stop painting.”
Thus all the fuss?
God, I felt like back-kicking her. If only my heart weren’t pounding so hard.
“Come on, Rob.” She pulled her hands away.
When I opened my eyes it felt like two charcoal pencils were being shoved up into my eyeballs. This painting, as opposed to yesterday’s, contained no abstract squiggles and dashes. But very much like yesterday, it depicted a rural landscape. Accordingly, Franny had chosen to paint the piece using sublime colors-greens, browns, soft yellows and oranges, blues and even ocher.
But it was neither color choice nor style that robbed me of my breath. What shook me up was the field of tall grass. Beyond it I saw a stand of trees that marked the beginning of a thick dark wood. No question about it, the field and the woods were just like my dream-the recurring dream where I am following Molly. Or, more precisely said, the dream which was not a dream at all, but the re-creation of actual events that took place almost thirty years ago to the day.
There was something else too, something I recognized in the tall grass. It contained the word ‘See’. Maybe you had to really search for the previous day’s word, but not this one. To me it was obvious that the letters that made up the word S-e-e were transposed onto the canvas in the play of yellow sunlight on brown grass. But even with the word that obvious, I didn’t open my mouth up about it. Nor did I mention that the scenery matched that of my dream.
But then if the word was so obvious, why didn’t Robyn say anything about it?
“Earth to Becca,” she said, breaking me out of my trance. “Earth, Becca. Earth.”
“Earth,” Franny said. “Earth.”
I pulled my eyes away from the new painting, focused silently upon Robyn’s face, her blue eyes.
“You’re right,” I said, half under my breath. “Incredible… for only eight hours of work.”
But I don’t think Robyn heard me at all. She took a step back, squinted.
“Whoa, girl,” she said. “You’re so white you look like you’ve just seen your own ghost.”
She couldn’t have been more right. That’s when everything inside me fell-a total organ slide. Sliding myself out from behind Franny’s painting, I made a beeline for the bathroom.
Chapter 12
I flew into ceramic-tiled bathroom, made my way for an empty stall, dropped to my knees, buried my face in the toilet. But all I could manage was to purge an acidic mixture of bile and hot latte. Still, my stomach convulsed, chest heaved, sternum split down the center.
After a time I got back up onto my feet, somewhat dizzy, out of balance, mouth tasting like turpentine. Stepping out of the stall, I made my way over to the sink, turned on the cold water, positioned my open mouth under the faucet, and rinsed it out. I then splashed the water onto my face.
My face. Molly’s face. Just as chalky and ghost-white as the day she died. While the water dripped off my chin into the sink, I breathed careful inhales and exhales. Calm enveloped me like a blanket. But it did nothing to end the fear I still felt for Whalen even after all these years. It did nothing to end the sadness I felt for Molly.
Pulling a handful of paper towels from the wall-mounted dispenser, I thought about heading back to the classroom when the wood door flung open.
Robyn.
She stood tall, narrow-hipped, cotton t-shirt barely concealing a belly button pierced with a silver hoop. She stuck both hands into the pockets of her low-waist Gap jeans.
“What’s the matter with you?” she demanded. “Franny thinks you don’t like his painting. And might I remind you that Franny’s mother has provided us with one huge annual contribution to pretty much be professional art cheerleaders for her gifted artist-in-residence.”
I inhaled again, nodded.
Robyn was right. What was going on with me? You just don’t walk out on a talent like that; on a sweet human being like that.
“This isn’t one of those words-in-the-painting things is it, Bec? Because if it is, I’m calling Albany Psychiatric.”
“Phone book’s in the bottom desk drawer in the front office,” I said, trying my best to work up a smile through all the lightheadedness, the dizziness. “Unless of course you want to just cut to the chase and call 9-1- 1.”
How can she not make out the word ‘See’ in the tall grass? How is it that I see it and she can’t unless I spell it out for her?
Robyn pursed her lips, ran an open hand through thick hair.
“You wanna tell me what you see this time? You wanna talk about it?” Her voice became calmer, more sympathetic.
Should I be honest with her? Reveal precisely what I saw inside Franny’s canvas? The field and the dark woods behind my parents’ house, the painting depicting them precisely the way I see them in my dreams? The way I remember them from that long ago October afternoon? Should I tell her that in the dark and light shadowing of the tall grass blowing in the wind I recognized the letters S-e-e? Should I tell her that Franny’s paintings were somehow speaking to me?
Robyn was my friend and partner. Still, intuition told me to shut up about this one. That yesterday’s ‘Listen’ episode had been enough weirdness for one week.
I shook my head. “It’s nothing. I’m just feeling nauseous is all. It’ll pass.”
Reaching out with her dominant hand, Robyn pressed her cold palm against my forehead.
“Cold and clammy,” she commented, then spoke in the third person. “Is it alive or is it Memorex?”
I had to wonder.
“Maybe you should go home, go back to bed. I can handle things here. It’s just Franny and those two rich old ladies who can’t paint worth a crap. ‘Sides, we’re not running any classes this afternoon or tonight.” She quickly lowered her head, made like she was looking under the stall to make certain one of those same rich old ladies didn’t occupy it.
“It’ll pass, whatever it is,” I repeated while trying to get around her to the door. The former Catholic school girl’s room had suddenly become too small for the both of us.
“Wait a minute,” she barked. “You’re not getting off that easy, Miss Underhill.”
I about-faced, my hand still clutching the door opener. Somehow I sensed what was coming. I could tell by the pensive look on her face.
“You’re not…” Instead of finishing the question, she held an open hand out in front of her stomach as if to indicate a growing belly.
“Not a chance,” I said. “You have to engage in consensual sexual activity for that to happen.”
“Uh huh,” Robyn murmured with one of her sly smiles and a wink of her right eye.
I could have slapped her. But at least she made me smile again.
