The Boy Who Could Draw Tomorrow (11 page)

Val let her in, his shirt-sleeves rolled up and a bottle of Windex in his hand. She pecked him on the cheek, put the cake box in the kitchen, and dialed Town and Country, Sam's old nursery school. Thank God she had one ally, especially now that her instincts told her everything was coming to a head.

"Hi, Ruth," she said, when the school secretary had answered the phone. "This is Peggy Cooper. Is Sarah Goldenson still there?"

"Oh, Mrs. Cooper, haven't you heard?" Again, the needle in her heart, the accelerating dread spreading everywhere. "Heard what?" she breathed, not even trying to hide her alarm, not even capable of trying.

"Miss Goldenson was in an accident. Run over by a hit-and-run driver at Thirty-fourth and Park. It was raining like crazy the night it happened—the car must have skidded out of control. She died before they could even get an ambulance to take her to the hospital—at least that's what I heard. You know they'll never find out who's responsible. I'm telling you, people can get away with murder in this city."

Without a word, Peggy placed the receiver back on its hook. For what seemed an eternity, she gazed mindlessly out the kitchen window, watching a tanker moving along the East River. She saw it passing from one end to the other across the space that provided a clear view between two intervening buildings. It was like a cardboard boat moving across a canvas backdrop, as if technicians out of sight of the audience silently advanced it across a stage. But she knew it was no more than an illusion, that if you were down there, on the river, close up to that iron hull, you would hear a maddened propeller thrashing at the water and everything howling with power.

Peggy shuddered slightly, feeling more alone than she ever had in her life. But she had to be strong—strong for Sam.

First she settled Sam in his room. Then, after giving Val his instructions as to how to handle Sam's bath, how to make sure he finished his supper, where to find the telephone number for the Four Seasons, she raced to get dressed, redid her makeup and topped it all off with the new necklace.

In the kitchen she got down her finest serving plate and slid the torte from the box, centering it on the plate and wetting her finger to wipe away the small jellied trace that had smeared across the rim. She climbed the footstool again and took down two of her fanciest cups and saucers, then carried everything into the living room. She went back for the good linen napkins, dessert dishes, the best teaspoons, the creamer, the sugar bowl, serving knife, forks. Then she hurried back to the bedroom to check her face in the mirror.

FORGIVE

She ran water over a wad of toilet paper and scrubbed frantically at the letters, drying the glass off with more toilet paper. But still the word was there, stubbornly visible if you really looked. She tossed the toilet paper into the bowl, hiked up the skirt of her dress and sat down, pulling her under-things to her knees and straining to empty herself out. But nothing came. There was just the nagging sensation, an incessant tension in her groin.

On her way back to the kitchen she stopped in Sam's room and stood over him to see how far he'd gone.

The page was blank.

He looked up at her, his face stiff with anxiety.

"She here yet?"

"No," Peggy said. "Any minute."

"Where's Granddad?"

"He just went down for cigarettes. You having trouble?" Peggy said, tilting her head at the empty sheet of drawing paper.

"I don't know," Sam said. "Maybe I'm not in the mood or something."

She pulled his reading chair over and sat down next to him. "Honey," she said, "I really hate to do this, but you've got to. I mean, Granddad's counting on it, and I promised him."

"But why
that
?" Sam said, his eyes pleading. "Why can't I draw what I want?"

"Because," Peggy said, reaching her hands to his face and turning his head so that he looked at her. "Because Granddad's not allowed in your school and he wants to see what your class is like. You can understand that, can't you?"

"But I don't
want
to," Sam cried, pulling his face away from her grasp.

"Oh, honey," Peggy begged, "it's not so much to ask. Just draw what you did before—only this time don't have that boy fallen over like that."

He looked at her, his head rigid, the flesh drained of color.

"No!" he wailed.

"You've got to! I'm begging you to!"

She saw him look wildly around, his face contorted with something nameless, a kind of frenzy that made him strange.

"Sam, you must!" Peggy yelled, grabbing at his shoulders to make him pay attention. "I don't have time to argue with you. I'm begging you. Please, Sam, please!"

When he looked at her, she saw it all in his eyes, saw everything she had feared. And when he spoke, his voice was very quiet. He was like an old man speaking, an old man that was very afraid.

"She made me swear."

"Swear
what
?" Peggy nearly screamed, her fin
gers trembling as they held fast to his small shoulders.

"Never to draw her. She said I'd die if I ever did."

Her heart stopped; her breath slammed to a halt in her chest, and in her groin small, jagged things raged. She opened her mouth to speak, swallowing to catch her breath, gasping for the right words, any words.

It was then that she first heard the door buzzer ringing, and understood that she had been hearing it long before this.

"Stay here," she said. "I love you, baby. It's okay. Just stay here."

She hugged him tight and then went to the front door, her body held as if poised to catch the weight of something fanged.

***

They were both there—the blonde woman looming, her great bulk pressed up close to the doorway, Val slouching a few paces behind her, his eye slitted against the smoke that rose from his cigarette.

"This here's Miss Putnam, Pegs," Val called over the big woman's shoulder as if proudly declaring his discovery. "Says she's old Sammy's teacher and has come to pay a visit."

Peggy felt something wet and sandy grind across her heart. Her hands fluttered to her breast, her fingers catching on the pale cameo. "What do you want with us?" she said.

The woman smiled blandly.

"You haven't forgotten, have you? Or perhaps Mr. Cooper neglected to tell you I was coming."

The woman had her hand out, waiting. Peggy lowered her hand from her bosom and hesitantly reached it forward.

"How very nice to see you again, Mrs. Cooper," Miss Putnam said, swallowing the smaller hand in hers.

"I'm so sorry," Peggy stammered. "I don't know what's getting into me lately. Yes, of course Hal told me. I was expecting you. You really must forgive me. We're going out tonight, and I suppose I'm a little flustered."

The woman lifted her heavy-buckled briefcase in front of her and hugged it to her chest. Peggy stood staring at the big woman, the tautly combed-back yellow hair, the plain grey wool jumper, the dainty Peter Pan collar. It was the costume of a simple, earnest woman, someone studious and modest and cultivated. Was she really a person to frighten children? Or was it all just a lot of craziness, Sam fibbing for some reason and her own vivid imagination running riot?

But when had Sam ever lied?

She saw the nose, blunt and flaring, the pinkish nostrils that swept sharply back, the fleshy parts actually quivering when Miss Putnam pronounced certain vowels.

"I'd like you to meet my father, Mr. Potter," Peggy said, not moving from the doorway.

"Oh, but we've met, we've met!" Miss Putnam confirmed, her frosted eyes never once straying from Peggy's face. "I observed the resemblance instantly."

"People say that," Peggy said, blushing, trying to free her hand from the big woman's powerful grasp, pulling it away awkwardly.

Then she stood aside and motioned Miss Putnam in.

"You must have a great deal on your mind," she said as she swept into the apartment. "Sam tells me you've only recently moved in."

"A few weeks ago," Peggy said. "We haven't really got it all fixed up yet."

"Looks pretty damn fine to me," Val called out as he closed the door behind him.

Peggy could see him waiting for someone to pick up on his remark, to congratulate him on having such a go-getter for a daughter, perhaps for the schoolteacher to give him a grade. But when no one said anything, he hunched his shoulders and studied the floor at his feet.

"Guess you two ladies will excuse me while I go catch myself a little nap before supper."

"You go right ahead," Miss Putnam said, offering her hand. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Potter. Sam has already addressed the class on the subject of your inventions. I must say, he's a lucky boy to have such a creative person in the family. No doubt it's from you that much of his marvelous talent derives."

"Me?" Val spluttered as he pumped the woman's hand, a hand easily as large as his own. "Heck, I'm just an old flyboy fella—nothing about me the least smidgen artistic at all. No, ma'am, it's old Pegs here that's to blame for what Rembrandt there is in the boy."

"You sell yourself short," she said perfunctorily, clearly indifferent to the entire conversation.

"Well," Val said, but the sentence he was starting never went anywhere. He toed the floor and then looked meaningfully at Peggy. "I'll just go along now and leave you ladies be."

He shambled down the hall, Peggy listening for the track of his footsteps. Sam's room? Or was he really going to take a nap?

***

She turned to face the blonde woman, and again she felt the texture of something rough roll violently across her heart, as if the belly of a serpent strove for greater traction as it sought a new position in her chest.

"Shall we?" Miss Putnam inquired, tipping her high forehead in the direction of the living room, the tight bun at the back of her neck gleaming in the late-afternoon light.

"Oh yes, of course," Peggy said. "Just go right in."

She let the schoolteacher lead the way, falling in behind her with numb, child-like obedience, as if she now comprehended that escape was utterly hopeless, that there was nothing left but for her to submit to some dreaded but subtle punishment, justified, yet insufferable.

Was it because she knew about Sam? His secret, devastating power? Was that why she felt so guilty and—ashamed? Even when she sat down—choosing the least comfortable place—she felt as though she was surrendering herself for some agony that was truly deserved.

"Now then," Miss Putnam said, lowering her briefcase to her lap, "this
is
comfy." She uncrossed her ankles and leaned closer. "I am so glad to have this visit—since, even this early on in the year, Samuel has already distinguished himself as potentially one of my best boys ever."

"Tea, Miss Putnam?" Peggy asked, knowing that what had been said called for some response but already reading from her prepared script. She lifted a cup by the saucer and heard its telltale rattle.

"Do call me Victoria," the blonde woman said, nodding at the proffered tea cup, her nose perceptibly twitching. "No sugar, thank you. Just milk," she warned. "And you're Peggy, aren't you? Do you mind?"

"Oh no, of course," Peggy said. "We're very informal around here." They were, but Peggy's very manner around this woman seemed to belie it.

"Cake, Miss Putnam?" Peggy asked, wishing she had thought to say
torte.

"No, thank you," the woman said, frowning as if a prize student had just failed to master a crucial lesson. "Victoria," she said, enunciating very carefully. "Do feel free, Peggy, and please, I insist you be at ease with me. I'm really deeply opposed to those crusty forms St. Martin's seems to stand for in the minds of so many of our new parents. Actually, we're really a terribly relaxed group—the school and what we like to think of as our extended family—the old boys, the parents, even . . ." She waved her fingertips to indicate the back of the apartment. "Even the grandparents."

Miss Putnam chuckled, and then tested her tea with thin, colorless lips, her nose seeming to lift itself cautiously over the rim of the cup.

Peggy raised her own cup to her lips. But without sipping, she returned it to her saucer, setting it down with an emphatic click.

"I am so concerned," she said, forcing herself to look directly into the woman's face, "and because you're so friendly and all, I think I can speak openly."

Miss Putnam's eyebrows shot up questioningly.

"You may, you may!" she said, and touched her fingertip to the bridge of her rounded spectacles as though to steady them before they fell from their perch.

"It's about the drawing again," Peggy said, feeling panic as she prepared the way for what was to come next. "I just don't know what to believe anymore—because he maintains so staunchly that you're telling him what he can and cannot draw—even on his own time. And Sam has never been a fanciful, much less a deceitful, child."

As she talked, Peggy watched the woman's face for signs, hints that would help her find her way. But there was nothing, just that incredibly impassive expression contradicted by the smile that never left those bloodless lips. It was like a snort almost, more a snort than a real smile.

"You see—Victoria—you see," Peggy began again, "Mr. Cooper and I,
Hal
and I, we've always done everything we could to give Sam all the freedom he wants. I mean, so far as drawing goes, of course. Since he was a little baby, that's how it's been, because he's been doing it for years and years, and it's hard for you to know this, but he's really very passionate about it. Oh, you know how a boy can be—and so to have someone come along, even someone who has his best interest at heart, and say to him that, well, there are certain ways he's supposed to do it and certain things he's not supposed to draw, well, it's incomprehensible and maybe even traumatic to him."