Laughing, she turned away, as if the comment made her blush, even though it had been directed at her son.
“’Sides,” I said, “Robyn has been begging me to get some one on one face-time with our most gifted artist- in-residence.”
“Don’t forget famous,” Mrs. S said.
I raised my eyebrows while she made the stairs, walked on past me, and opened the unlocked door.
“Just yesterday,” she went on speaking as we entered the house, “I got a call from New York. An associate producer from MSNBC, grew up in this area.”
“You’ve got to be kidding,” I said, moving into the semi-dark, musty smelling living room.
“I kid you not. Woman by the name of…” She peered upwards as if her memory escaped her. And apparently it had. “Oh I forget her name. But she had a nice voice and she was all excited about Franny, his art. She’s putting together a primetime special report on autistic savants. Musical savants, mathematical, literary. Franny would cover the visual arts aspect.”
She headed through the living room and into the kitchen at the end of it. When I entered behind her, I watched her take a tea kettle from off the gas stove and begin filling it with water from the tap.
“So don’t leave me in the dark, Mrs. S. Did you accept?”
“I haven’t called back,” she admitted solemnly. “To be honest, I have not made up my mind about it.”
“It could mean fame and fortune for Franny,” I said, stating the obvious. “A spot on MSNBC in the primetime would catapult him into the limelight.”
“Which is exactly what worries me, Rebecca.” She sighed as she joined me at the large harvest table. “It’s just that Franny has never been beyond the farm. Oh, he goes to Albany of course. To the Albany Art Center. But I just can’t imagine how he might handle going on national television in New York City. I…” She let the thought trail off while shaking her head, staring down at the table-top.
Her gestures, her ambivalence: they made me wonder who was more scared of Franny’s moving on. This lovely widow or Franny himself.
There was a long pause. Long enough for it to become a little uncomfortable. When the tea kettle whistle blew, it nearly frightened me out of my chair. Mrs. Scaramuzzi got up.
“Enough television talk,” she ordered. “Obviously you’ve made a prodigal return to your homeland to meet with me up close and personal. So let’s get to it.”
Grabbing hold of the tea kettle she set it onto an unlit burner.
“But before we get started,” she went on, “I’d like it if you’d call me, Caroline. Mrs. Scaramuzzi was my husband’s mother.”
I laughed.
“Caroline,” I said, trying it on for size. “Caroline is fine.”
I got up from the table to help her with the tea. While Caroline set out mugs with good old fashioned Salada tea bags in them, I picked up the kettle and began pouring in the hot water.
“Go sit, Caroline,” I insisted. “I’ll get this.”
“A guest in my own home,” she said, sitting back down at the table. “Feels kind of sweet.”
“How do you take your tea?” I asked, while replacing the kettle onto the stove.
“Naked,” she said. “Like my men.”
The ice broken, we both had a good laugh while I carried the mugs back over to the table.
Chapter 21
The spacious kitchen was something out of Town amp; Country Magazine . The farmhouse that contained it had to be over a century old. Most of the stainless steel appliances were new, no doubt the spoils of Franny’s hard work and talent. You couldn’t look at a single wall and not spot at least a reminder of the success the autistic savant had become in the many years I’d known of him, and the seven years I’d truly come to know him.
Even inside the kitchen, the walls and shelves were ripe with framed sketches, limited prints, original canvases of every type, style and theme. From crazy eye-dancing abstracts to serene landscapes, to black-and- white self-portraits to pencil sketch studies of his mother engaged in various tasks like cooking, clothes pinning laundry on the outside line, or working in the vegetable garden.
The one image that provoked skin-deep chills was a simple drawing of Caroline. She was standing alone at the edge of the gravel drive, long hair blowing back across her face by a storm-driven wind produced by blue-black clouds visible on the horizon. It was a scene that evoked Wyeth, but that hit me deep inside since its true-life subject was sitting directly in front of me.
We sat with our steaming mugs of tea.
I attempted to sip mine. But it was still too hot.
Caroline smiled graciously.
“So what’s on your mind, young lady?”
I guess when you’ve gone beyond 70 in years lived, 42 seems almost adolescent.
“Are you aware that over the past two days Franny’s given me two of his paintings?”
I looked for a sign of surprise on her face. An upturned brow, a flushing of the cheeks. I got neither as she calmly sipped her tea.
“I’m aware that Franny has been working feverishly. I see that he brings his paintings along with him to the art center. But I didn’t know he was painting them for you, Rebecca.” She peered down at her tea, then up at me again. “Why do you think he would do something like that?”
“That’s what I came here to find out. So far this week he’s been at the studio everyday, all day. Today will make the third day in a row. A record for him. And from what you’re telling me, he has another new painting with him today.”
My stomach did a little flip when I said it. I couldn’t imagine what kind of image I would have to confront when I made my return to the studio later that morning. What word might I see buried inside it? Which one of the three out of five senses left?
“If Francis wants to give you his paintings,” Caroline said after a time, “then that’s his business. I have no problem with it.”
“Oh don’t get me wrong, I love Franny and I’m honored to be gifted his work. To be frank, I’ve learned from his style.”
Caroline shook her head, pursed her lips.
“Then what’s the problem?”
I took another sip of my still too hot tea.
“Has Franny been acting a little strange lately?” I nervously asked.
Caroline broke out in laughter.
“He’s autistic, Rebecca.” She giggled. “He’s always acting strangely.”
I was more than a little taken aback at her response. And I think she knew it. Because she started laughing even harder, from deep inside the raspy lungs of a former smoker.
“It’s a joke,” she said, eyes wide. “Get it? Strange? Autistic? When you stand in my shoes, young lady, you don’t expect normalcy from a boy like Francis. You expect something new and weird and quite wonderful with each new day.”
I couldn’t help but take notice of her referring to a man pushing fifty as a boy. But then Franny was a boy. He would never grow old despite his body.
“Listen Rebecca,” she said, “I can tell something’s got you upset, so perhaps I should explain a little about Francis’s condition. It might shed some light, help you to understand why he does the things he does-why he paints the way he does.”
I nodded. It was worth a shot.
She sat back, both hands wrapped around her mug, deep eyes peering into it as though it were a crystal ball that revealed the past instead of the future.
“Not long after Franny was born he was diagnosed with retardation,” she said in an almost exasperated
