Frannie in Pieces (18 page)

I sniffle. “No, Jenna's boyfriend is.”

“Your dad and I were in Italy before you were born. In this tiny coastal town so innocent—” She stops. Her body tenses, her face stiffens. Boy, do I recognize that jarring halt, the instinct to resist a feeling so powerful it could mow you down. She takes her time, letting emotions recede before confiding. “It was the most romantic time of my life.”

She pulls me into the house and swings her arm around my shoulder, keeping me close as we walk to the kitchen. “Come on, come with me. Are you hungry? What can I get you?”

“I don't know.” I can't keep the wail out of my voice.

“Sit down right here.” She pulls out a chair and I sink into it. My head feels wobbly. I have to lay it on the table.

Mom pulls a chair around right next to mine. Over and over she strokes my hair. She has a feather touch. My eyelids droop and finally close. My brain gives up and shuts down. I wish I could rest here forever.

Eventually she gets up and I hear rustling, so I look. She's tasting something in a big pot. She sprinkles in spices, salt and pepper, tastes it again, and lowers the heat. “Chili,” she says. “It will be done soon.” She hangs up her apron.

“Do you want to watch the light, Mom?”

“The light?”

“The sunset.”

“What a wonderful idea.”

We go upstairs. Off her bedroom the deck has a brand-new wicker couch. With my legs tucked up and my head resting on Mom's shoulder, we snuggle while the sun melts on the horizon. It looks like an egg, sunny side up.

I can't do the blues.
Every time I try, I break down. Sobbing, wailing, moaning. Sounds come out of me I've never heard before. I roll around on my bed, muffle the noise with my pillow, mop my face with a towel, and try again. More sobs. I didn't know eyes could produce so many tears. Scientifically speaking. My chest hurts and my nose is sore from blowing it. I don't want to finish the puzzle. I know I can't go back, but I don't want to go forward either. The blues are good-bye, the final closing of the gate, good-bye to Dad.

After crying enough tears to bust a dam, I concentrate for a moment here, a moment there, and then I get caught up because the blues are so challenging.

To make matches, I have to be sensitive to nuance because there are no obvious clues. With the pastels, for instance, all those baby blues, it isn't just that I have to hunt for tinges of pink or the barest hint of lilac or the tiniest brush of white that might be a cloud. I have to see the emotion in color—the sunniness, the flatness, the joy, the calm, the ache, the sigh. Sometimes I can't rely on color, only shape—slight angles, fractional differences in depth or curves. The blues sharpen me. They make me see things I never saw before. They force me to see in new ways.

Mom and Dad were in Vernazza together in July, aka
Luglio
, 1990. July. Nine months before I was born. Once I ponder those facts, I understand Dad: His obtuseness when I said he'd waved to me from the hotel window; his surprise that
I
did the
puzzle; his confusion when I raved about how amazing it was that he'd finished it early. Dad never finished anything early. Like everything else he did, this was late. By the time he completed it, their marriage was over. I guess he wrapped it up and put it away. It had been stashed under that desk for years. The wrapping paper wasn't recycled. It was old.

The puzzle and box were for Mom. An act of love, as Jenna said. He carved my name, Frances Anne, because I happened there. Me. Their creation.

They had me because they were happy together. It's comforting to know that. It's comforting to know that my parents loved each other, even if it wasn't forever.

Dad made these gifts for Mom and that's who's going to get them, but how? I can't leave the puzzle on the floor. What is Mom going to do with a completed jigsaw puzzle as large as the kitchen table? That will be her problem, not mine,
although I searched the web and it turns out you can have puzzles framed. As for that gorgeous box, she can use it for jewelry or for pictures of me—I could suggest that. I think she'll like having the mementoes of Dad.

Dad wasn't right about something. All that “trust the eyes” stuff. My eyes led me to misunderstanding and wrong conclusions because here's something else I figure out while I'm doing the blues: The eyes see only what the heart lets them. Take Mom's listening to Dad's hideous pennywhistle music on that afternoon when we cleared out his house. She was relishing those bird twitters, she was a million miles away, maybe thinking of some dreamy time when he played her that music, maybe when they were lolling about on a Sunday afternoon or had just brought me home from the hospital and they thought they'd delight my baby ears. But what did I see when she tapped her foot in time? Irritation. A frenemy in motion.

If you have to ask the big question—what rules,
brain or heart?—you have to say heart. Which is why life is an illusion. I mean, there are some facts. My dad died. But the sense I make of what happens after or what came before—that's my heart, filtering, judging. My heart was always biased toward Dad.

I want to ask Mom about Dad, so I wait for a cozy moment. We're sorting his things in the garage, up to our elbows in dump treasures. I'm trying to make a more serious attempt at parting with his belongings. “You stopped painting because of me, didn't you, Mom? Someone had to earn the money.”

“I love my life, Frannie.”

“But that wasn't fair of him.” This is really troubling me. “Was Dad selfish?”

Mom is combing through ceramic bits and pieces, someone's broken patio tiles. She takes her time, stacking the tiles in a paper bag, folding over and creasing the top. “Sometimes I thought so. Sometimes I was furious at him. No…” She thinks
some more. “The truth is, I was so resentful that until he died, I forgot why I fell in love with him to begin with. All that passion.”

“If he was so passionate, why did you get divorced?”

“I changed when we had you. I thought he would too.”

“How changed?”

“Frannie, looking at it now with different eyes—”

“You mean, with your heart. Looking with your heart.”

“Yes. Your dad wasn't selfish. It was just that, for him, art was as essential as breathing.”

I wonder if I'm like that.

Mom decides we need some refreshment, so she heads into the house. I chase after. “Why did you give the painting to Mel? A memento of your romantic time with Dad? How could you?”

She stops, a bit stunned. “That painting came out of an experience, but once I completed it, it became its own thing. A work of art. You're an
artist, you understand.”

“I guess.”

“I love the painting and I love Mel. I can't explain it any more clearly than that.”

Maybe Mom will give the puzzle to Mel too. Until that second, it never occurred to me that this puzzle could end up in the hands of Booper.

I have no control over that, do I? Dad said that after you die you have no control, but it seems to me that you don't have much control when you're alive, either. I mean, look who Jenna fell for. And whoever thought I'd feel at peace gazing into the eyes of a guy who eats art. That was so peculiar, I'd rather not think about it. And Mom. She didn't have any control about falling in or out of love with Dad.

I make a drawing. A patio table shaded by an umbrella, a half-drunk cappuccino, a jacket thrown over a chair. Perhaps on vacation in an Italian village called Vernazza, a man goes off by himself exploring. From high up on a stone terrace he takes
a photo of the whole vista—the cove, the village, the hotel, rooftops receding up the mountain, and a seaside café. The café is barely visible from afar—a jumble of patio umbrellas, that's all—but he particularly notices a bright tangerine umbrella tilted at a sharp angle. He returns, and from his hotel window, in this much closer view, he sees the things he missed. Details, people. Under that tangerine umbrella, shaded from the sun, sits the woman he loves. “Laura,” he calls. He raises his hand, their signal. In her haste, running to meet him, she forgets her jacket, leaves her coffee half drunk.

I'm not sure what I'll call it. Maybe B.F. Before Frannie.

Testing its stability,
Harriet gives the ladder a shake. “Go ahead,” she tells Simon, who presses his foot on the first rung and gradually transfers his entire weight. The rung bends but holds, and Simon, a hammer tucked into his belt, ascends to the barn loft. As he treads across, the loft floor groans. Bits of hay between the slats dislodge and sprinkle us. I keep expecting his foot to slip between the slats and snare him like a bear in a trap. Simon pries off the board that seals the window, rips off the plastic, bright light floods in, and we're ready to launch.

On this last day of camp, Harriet has decided that the Egg Drop is the big event. The campers have invited their parents, whose cars jam the parking lot and stretch along the side of the road. I invited Jenna because she's been sad about James, but when I leave the barn, Jenna is bounding toward me with a gleeful grin (translation: He's back). Which is self-evident. James ambles alongside her, carrying four dozen eggs.

“The eggs are here,” shouts Rocco.

“Thanks for bringing them,” I tell Jenna and James.

There's a pause long enough for my hair to grow an inch. Finally Jenna chirps, “Hi, I'm Jenna,” and Rocco volunteers, “He's Simon, this is Leo,” and I realize that Simon is hanging out behind me. “Hey,” says Simon.

“I got great eggs.” James flips a box open.

“Are those dinosaur eggs?” asks Rocco.

They are very large and they are green. “Jumbo organic,” says James. “From free-range chickens.”

“Why are they green?” asks Hazel.

“The chickens ate only alfalfa grass,” James says. “They make a fantastic omelet.”

“We're going to launch them, didn't you tell him we're going to launch them?” I ask Jenna.

“Oops,” says Jenna.

“Launch?” James appears mystified.

“They're going in parachutes,” says Simon.

“Everyone's parachute should be in the barn,” I shout. “We're starting in fifteen minutes.”

“Parachutes?” says James. “No way.”

Fortunately Harriet sails up at that moment. She thanks James, whom she knows from Cobweb, whips the egg boxes out of his hands, deposits them in mine, and shoos me and Simon back to the barn.

“How do you want to do this?” Simon asks me.

“I don't know.”

This riveting communication is our first exchange since we felt each other's faces. I've been avoiding him. As we walk across the field, I know he's
matching me stride for stride. It's impossible not to be aware of his hulking body next to me even if I'm not looking. Besides, his meaty arm swings to and fro, invading my peripheral vision.

Since I contribute nothing, he suggests that I go up the ladder and he'll hand me the parachutes.

I should go up the ladder. I should stand in the open loft window. I should send the parachutes and their egg passengers to their destinies. “No problem,” I hear myself reply.

As we're about to enter the barn, Simon says, “Wait one second,” and sprints over to the tennis court, where the ENP has set up a refreshment table with juice and a bunch of desserts contributed by the moms. The whole activity must have exhausted her, because she's sitting in a folding chair while Pearl waves a fan to cool her. Simon downs several glasses of juice and chats. They must be making a date, because when she talks to him, she bothers to stand.

No way am I watching this close encounter, so I
head into the barn. The floor is strewn with the campers' creations, all the crazy concoctions of tissue paper, glue, and toothpicks. I have to negotiate my way carefully.

I test the ladder, giving it a shake the way Harriet did, and start up. On about the fifth rung I start down, almost miss the last rung in my haste, shove parachutes away to clear space. Not until I am flat on the floor, on my back, in a major time-out, does the panic ebb. I hear Lark declare, “She's horizontal.”

“What?” That's Simon's voice.

“That's what she calls lying down. Hey, why do I have to leave?”

I hear the barn door slide close and see Simon looming over me. “What's wrong?”

“How can you live if you're scared?”

“Heavy,” says Simon. He squats down next to me. “Is that one of those questions with no answer?”

“Maybe.”

He wrinkles his nose. He looks as if he's sniffing,
but my guess is he's thinking. “What are you scared of?” he says.

“Death. What else?”

“Are you sure it's not—”

“What?”

“Life. You've got to live, no choice, so the question is how? If you're not scared, it's got to be more fun.”

“Fun?” I hadn't thought about fun.

“Anyway, worrying is a waste because there's no predicting.”

“What?”

“Anything.”

Outside, Lark provides a news report: “She's resting.” Harriet tells her to hush and continues blasting through the bullhorn about how the campers made the parachutes, and how proud of them she is, and that I am a brilliant arts and crafts counselor. How can a person be brilliant at arts and crafts? It's hardly an IQ thing. Meanwhile Simon's face is coming closer. Is he checking to see if my
pupils are dilated or if I need the paramedics?

He kisses me.

You know how in the movies when a man and a woman kiss, it looks as if they're swallowing each other's mouths? As if they're motivated by hunger. Well, this is nothing like that. This is the opposite. His lips graze mine, then they're gone. It's as if he was scouting the territory, checking the lay of the land. I'm about to open my eyes, thinking the whole event is over, when his lips are back, lingering longer, off and back again, this time with a few tender nibbles thrown in. What is this? This is so original. I'm quivering. Did he invent it?

I open my eyes. Simon is sitting back on his heels, breathing heavily.

“Grazie,”
I say.

Grazie?
How deranged is that? Why do I thank him for kissing me, much less thank him in Italian? How utterly mortifying. But Simon only responds by putting out his hand. I take it, and he hauls me up. As soon as I'm standing, he's going to grab me,
or maybe I'm going to grab him, I might be mixed up about that.

“What's going on?” Harriet booms from outside, which halts the fun.

Simon climbs the ladder. Without discussing it, we agree that this is the better deployment of our workforce. There's some clapping. I suppose he's appeared in the loft window.

After I hand up a box of eggs and Lark's lion, I slide open the barn door so I can view the launchings.

Out glides her lion, its mane fluttering. In a swarm the entire camp and their parents follow the trajectory. It hesitates in the air above the tennis court, swaying back and forth, before making a slow descent onto a plate of cupcakes. Harriet checks the mouth of the lion, where Lark has stashed the egg. Thumbs up. The egg survived.

Lark dances around, waving her lion. “I'm going to win,” she crows, which causes Harriet to raise her bullhorn and announce that there are no winners.
“This isn't a win thing,” she claims.

One after another, Simon sets the parachutes loose. The Barbies' honeymoon cruise, as they call their blue-and-silver-starred boat, does a dance, spinning in place, and then collapses. The egg breaks. The Barbies turn wild and stomp the boat to pieces. Gregor's bomb pleases him no end when it torpedoes south and slams into a rock. Seymour's parachute is a mountain, at least that's what I always thought—an all-beige mound of tissue—but this week he covered the peak with a bit of dark-brown tissue. As soon as it commences its disastrous journey straight down, Hazel yelps, “It's a breast,” and slaps her hand over her mouth as if she's said something shocking. All the boys shriek with laughter and sock one another. Seymour thrusts his fist into the air. The parachute crashes and the egg shatters. Pearl's butterfly swiftly blows out of camp. On its gradual descent into the middle of the road, a pickup truck slows down, and a hand reaches out the window, catches the butterfly,
and takes off with it. The egg tumbles out, however, and cracks. Hazel's daisy has the most graceful flight. All the petals flutter as it lightly bounces along a gentle wind, then alights on some tall grass and rests atop it. The egg survives.

Rocco scrambles by me into the barn and is up the ladder before I can catch him. “Hey, you forgot the egg,” I hear Simon say, as Rocco yells, “Go Leo.”

As his centipede parachute wafts out, the many legs loosely dangling, I see a tiny triangular head bobbing above the tissue-paper basket that Rocco has built on the centipede's back. The parachute catches a swift gust and picks up speed.

“Leo's flying,” shouts Rocco.

“Leo's on the bug,” the Barbies broadcast.

In two jumps Simon is down the ladder, and we streak across the field, leading the pack. The centipede dips and rises. Has Leo tumbled out already? No one can tell, but we all pound the ground in pursuit. The bug stops midair, hovers while we
watch breathlessly, and plummets. We rush to the crash site. Leo's guts will be spilled, his body in smithereens. I clutch Simon's arm as we close in on the pile of crumpled tissue. Remarkably, the basket is intact and Leo remains in it. But he's still. Utterly still.

Everyone erupts, screaming at Rocco. “Killer!” “Murderer!”

“I'm not. He loved it. He flew. He's the first flying lizard.”

“He's dead, dummy,” says Lark.

“No hitting.” That's a grownup voice. I don't look, but it's probably Rocco and Lark's dad, scolding Lark. There is lots of sniffling.

I open my hand next to Leo. Slowly he creeps onto it. His lids rise, descend, and rise again.

“Leo lives!” I shout. “He lives.”

Everyone cheers so loudly, the trees shake.

Simon places Leo on his shoulder and Leo rides like a champion to the refreshment table. Harriet beams. “Great job with the parachutes, Frannie.”
All the kids drag their parents over to meet me. My hand is nearly shaken off. Jenna sits in James's lap and feeds him a cupcake. A cloud moves across the sky, and the sun flickers in and out, casting bright beams and shadows, turning Harriet's hair from flaming red to brown and back again.

Simon, eating Oreos, has ten campers hanging off him. He's a human jungle gym. “Hey,” he says, “who wants to canoe?”

The campers jump up and down, me, me, me, me.

“Me.” I raise my hand.

We all troop down to the lake.

He's not my type. I could never be with a guy who isn't an artist.

But maybe Simon is an artist. An artist when it comes to kissing. A kissing artist.

I have to think about that.