Before #2
“She’s perfect in every way,” he said, beaming. “She’s best friends with Gretchen, Richard’s wife.”
Van and Brooks were also married. Van’s admiration for his wife seemed a little less grandiose but no less genuine.
“And Melinda and Brooks are in a throuple with their jobs,” Scotty quipped as he and Van high-fived.
“If by that you mean that I’m married to a woman who’s my intellectual equal, then yes,” Brooks replied. “I am.”
Richard rolled his eyes. “Feminism thanks you, Brooks.”
“Are we sure Melinda is a woman?” Van asked. Now everyone laughed, even Brooks.
Melinda was apparently a partner at a prestigious D.C. law firm where she and Brooks had met years ago before he’d left to join his family’s company.
“We’re kidding; Melinda is great,” Scotty said, though he didn’t sound sure.
“She’ll make an excellent first lady of Grace Chemical,” Van said. “Once they hurry up and hand you the baton. You deserve that CEO slot, Brooks.”
“Thank you, Van,” he said. “I appreciate that. Seems like there’s some kind of reverse nepotism thing going on at the moment.”
“That’s bullshit,” Scotty said. “Van’s right. You’ve earned that job fair and square. You paid your dues.”
“Anyway, Melinda will be the real CEO,” Richard said. “Brooks has always been just a puppet. I’m surprised they haven’t figured that out and ousted you.”
“Great, thanks, Richard,” Brooks said, sounding wounded. Van gestured for Richard to lay off and Richard made an apologetic face. Something about Brooks’s job had rendered it off-limits for joking, it seemed.
I had no idea what was going on beyond love and history. But I did have old friends from college who sometimes squabbled like family.
“Just to, on purpose, change the subject,” Van said, reaching over to pat Scotty’s ample belly. He was the most obviously out of shape. “Did you do anything to prepare for this?”
“Excuse me, Mr. Former NFL.” Scotty laughed good-naturedly. He seemed game to be the butt of any joke. “But not all of us were born with your natural physical gifts.”
“You played in the NFL?” I asked. Even I knew this was impressive.
Van waved off the question with one of his oversize hands. He was nearly as tall as Richard but built like a linebacker—ripped, too. “An ill-fated cameo.”
“Come on, Van, don’t be modest,” Richard said. “You were a first-round draft pick, played for two years. You would have been an All-Star if it hadn’t been for your knee.”
The jeep slowed, then turned off the paved main road onto a much narrower gravel track that sent the whole car vibrating.
“God had other plans.”
“Van’s a restaurateur now,” Richard offered by way of explanation.
“I prefer ‘entrepreneur,’ ” Van said. “Health-conscious burgers. Called Honest Burger. Started as one, got a dozen now.”
“He’s minting cash,” Scotty said.
“I will be, once the sale closes,” Van added. “Everyone cross your fingers. I’m ready for retirement.”
“Me, too,” Scotty said with a wink that was lost on me but, apparently, not the group—there was a pointed glare from Richard.
“I thought you were rethinking the sale, Van?” he asked. “Just last week you said you were going to tell the corporate guys to take a hike.”
Van frowned. Talk of the sale had clearly soured his mood. “Brooks and I were talking on the flight over here. He raised some good points. Can we change the subject now?”
“So what do you do, Frankie?” Scotty asked me.
“She’s a painter who went to NYU and then the New School for an MFA,” Brooks said, turning to eye me, then smiling with that disconcerting awkwardness of his. I must have looked like a deer in headlights. “I looked you up. Only outside addition to the crew and all that.”
“How did you even know who was coming, Brooks?” Scotty asked, which was exactly what I was wondering. “I didn’t see a list of who was going to be on the trip.”
“I asked True Altitude for one.”
“Don’t take it personally, Frankie. Brooks has a thing for research and facts,” Richard said. “That’s how he got his nickname.”
“Come on, now.” Brooks laughed. “This is never going to stop, is it? Why am I the only one with a nickname?”
“What’s his—can I…?”
“Encyclopedia Brown.” Brooks sighed. “I guess it could be worse.”
“So much worse,” Richard said.
I wished I’d thought of asking for a trip list. Would I have signed on with this group, knowing I was the only woman and only outsider? Probably not.
“Didn’t you have a background check done on your freshman-year roommate?” Van asked.
“And it turned out he’d been in a mental hospital for trying to poison his roommate in boarding school!”
“That was crazy,” Richard offered. “I wonder where that guy is now?”
“In jail, probably,” Brooks said, then turned back to me. “I was just curious—I hope you don’t mind.”
“Of course not.” Though I did find it a bit disconcerting.
“Is Frankie short for something?” Brooks went on. “It’s an unusual name.”
“Now you’re insulting her name, Brooks?” Scotty asked. “Encyclopedia, take the freak pants off!”
They all laughed now, including Brooks. I did, too.
“Nope, just Frankie,” I said, then offered the explanation I’d given hundreds of times in my life. “It’s a family name.”
Which was true, in a way. Frankie was the name of the man my mother had been sleeping with, dating, pursuing—her view on it changed from day to day—right before she met my father.
According to my mom, in the years after my father left us, Frankie had been her one true love.
She’d just never told my father, to protect his feelings.
I was never exactly sure why my feelings should not have been protected, too.
Still, I loved my mother. She’d nearly killed herself to take care of me—working two jobs as a nail tech and a housekeeper—and she had a huge heart.
She just tended to offer it to the wrong people.
She was always, always telling me to “use what God gave you” to find a husband to take care of me as fast as possible.
And I would have sworn I was never listening.
But I think maybe a part of me was listening.
Part of me had memorized every word. But she had no advice for me anymore.
It had been years since she could even recognize me, her mind so lost to Alzheimer’s.
“Hey, Richard, remember when you took all those art classes?” Van said. “Maybe you could give Frankie here a run for her money.”
“Ah, the drawings.” Scotty laughed. “Fruit bowl after fruit bowl after fruit bowl.”
Van laughed, too. “Is that what they were?”
“Okay, okay, enough.” It was Richard’s turn to roll his eyes. His cheeks were flushed when he turned to me. “They were not all fruit bowls.”
“Nothing wrong with a good fruit bowl,” I offered, smiling at Richard.
“Buying art, that’s what Richard loves now,” Brooks said. “You should see his apartment. It’s like an annex of the Met. That’s what happens when you make it big after you marry someone filthy rich—to be clear.”
Richard shook his head, seeming irritated, but didn’t look back at Brooks. Scotty clapped his hands together, cutting the tension. “So, what are your paintings like, Frankie?”
“Oh, I…” Naked women. I only paint suggestive pictures of naked women.
I hoped Brooks hadn’t looked too closely at my work. Men sometimes got uncomfortable around my paintings—too confrontational, a gallerist had once said to me. They presented the naked female form in a way that was alluring but also painfully fractured.
My paintings were technically a modern form of Cubism.
At least that’s what I’d been told. I didn’t set out to paint in any particular way.
I don’t remember setting out at all—I started painting when I was a little girl and never stopped.
The work had always sprung from some instinctual place that had naturally evolved as I matured and developed my technique.
“Do you have any photos?” Van asked.
“I don’t have service right now.” This was true, but I also had plenty of photos saved on my phone. “Maybe if we have Wi-Fi once we get to camp…”
“Hey, Bakari!” Brooks called up to the front. “What is the situation with phone service here? There are some things at work I need to take care of. I read there’s Wi-Fi on the mountain, right?”
“Ha” was Bakari’s only reply.
“Is that a ‘ha, no’?” Scotty asked. “I told Hilary I’d check in every day.”
I was suddenly self-conscious that I had no one to check in with. Noah was my emergency contact. But his husband, Max, would probably be delighted that I wasn’t checking in.
“We will have Wi-Fi only at base camp. A few places on the mountain there is sometimes a phone signal. But only here and there. It is difficult to predict. You will know when you see the porters using their phones. There is never any signal for the first three days.”
Silence descended in the car. Three days. That was a long time to be off the grid even for me, and my grid was small.
“That’s not going to work for me at the moment,” Brooks muttered.
“Come on, it’s not like Grace Chemical can fire you,” Richard offered.
Brooks shot Richard a look.
“Says who?” Scotty asked. “Boards do all sorts of crazy shit. Even if the family doesn’t want it. Actually, especially then. We just had a case—”
“Scotty!” Brooks snapped, which seemed to startle everyone. “How is that helpful?”
Everyone stayed quiet for a moment.
“I think we should all take it easy on Brooks,” Van offered gently. “He’s got some sharks circling the boardroom.”
“So, Frankie—those paintings of yours…” Scotty jumped in. “Maybe you can just describe them for us.”
Describe them. I felt disproportionately annoyed. People trying to get me to explain my work in some logical way always broke my heart a little bit.
Richard cut in before I could respond. “Maybe she doesn’t feel like reducing her life’s work to sound bites just so you idiots can feel cultured.”
In that moment I knew two things. Richard was a more complicated person than his friends made him seem. And I was already in trouble.
* * *
“I’m sorry,” Richard says finally. “I’ve been talking your ear off.” And crying. At one point, I saw a tear make it out of his eye before he wiped it away. It made my own chest feel tight.
“I don’t mind,” I say. “Really. What are friends for?”
Richard turns to look at me, narrows his eyes. “Friends.” It’s not a question, exactly.
“Anyway, you distracted me from my own shit, which is good.”
“What shit?” Richard asks.
“No, no, it’s fine. We don’t need to—”
“Come on, Frankie,” Richard says quietly.
And really, why did I bring it up if I didn’t, on some level, want Richard to know?
I didn’t mention the unknown caller to Noah because I didn’t want him to feel bad.
Even after all these years, I knew he still felt guilty about what happened that night.
It was his parents’ house. And he’d been off having fun somewhere at the party without me.
Not that his being there would have changed anything.
“Just some guy from a really long time ago,” I say finally. “He’s resurfaced. He called me last night. At least I think he did. It’s got me a little…unsettled.”
“Someone you dated?”
“Sort of.”
Does this feel better, saying some of it out loud? I’m not sure. Just thinking about the situation still makes me feel ashamed. I know that’s ridiculous. It wasn’t my fault. Of course I know that. Or my brain knows that. My body seems to be holding on to a different set of conclusions.
I remind myself it’s just been the one call from the 508 area code.
The real problem is what I discovered when I did a little internet digging this morning.
Senator Adam Foley is running for another office, this time governor of Massachusetts, which many people predict is just the next step in the long road to the White House.
It makes sense that he’s showing up now, to make sure the me-shaped pothole is paved over, smoothed into oblivion.
“What happened?” Richard’s eyes are clouded with concern.
And that is comforting. I can and will take care of myself, the way I always have. But there is something nice about him caring.
“It was just a phone call. He didn’t even leave a message.”
“Then why are you…scared?”
“I didn’t say I was scared.”
“I know you didn’t. Sorry—I don’t mean to put words in your mouth. I—I just get that sense.”
I take a breath. “I am scared.”
“Do you want…I know some security people,” Richard goes on haltingly. “You haven’t told me the details, but maybe they could help.”
A favor. So that I’d owe him. The thought shocks me awake. What am I doing? This isn’t me.
I stand abruptly. “Thank you, Richard, but no,” I say. “I appreciate the offer.”
He looks confused, which is fair. I’m overreacting; I know that. “Do you want to— Let’s take a walk or something?” Richard asks. “I want to hear about the show.”
And I want him to care about my show. Because it feels good. Better than I want it to. Noah was right—I shouldn’t have met with him. What version of me genuinely believes that seeing him is going to make walking away from him easier? The version that’s an idiot.
“Does Gretchen know you’re here with me?” I ask sharply.
“What do you think?” Predictably, he seems annoyed.
“I have no idea!”
Richard closes his eyes. “No,” he says finally. “She may suspect something, though.”
“What do you mean?”
“A few days ago she asked about the ‘other person on the trip’ and how you were dealing with what had happened,” he says. “Seemed like a strange question to me.”
“To care about how I was doing?” He looks at me pointedly. And fair enough. Now I am just being petulant. “Sorry.”
“The timing was…You and I were texting the night before. It’s possible she woke up and checked my phone. There was something about her tone. She was trying to hide it, but I could tell she was angry. Really angry.”
There have been a few messages we’ve exchanged that would make any wife unhappy. Not blatantly sexual. Of course not. But flirtatious, for sure—too many emojis and winking faces. It didn’t feel all that wrong at the time. Not like it does sitting here now in the very bright light of day.
I feel my skin prickle. “I’m sorry…This is…I have to go. I just…We can’t do this.”
“We’re not doing anything, Frankie.”
“Yes, we are,” I say as I start to walk away. “Were. But not anymore.”