A Thing of Beauty

by Lisa Samson

  “That’s Lucy. But normal? No way.” He swigs.

  Lucy owns an ice-cream truck and is an avid gardener; she works like a wind-up clock for three months until the summertime winds die down and the small feet that ran over hot asphalt are tucked safely back in their school shoes. She spends the next nine months in either her yard or greenhouse, designing the flowers for small weddings and arrangements for all seven of the churches in her town each Sunday.

  So Randi’s got the life at her Bizarre, and Lucy most definitely has the life down there in South Carolina. What is their secret? How did they decide just to do stuff with their day?

  Jack sets the bottle on his knee. “Well, she loved you, Fia. Saw beyond the act, not surprisingly.”

  Like mother, like son.

  We sit awhile longer in silence until the evening sky takes over the afternoon, then chitchat the way we are able to do (I love that about him) until I can’t stand it any longer.

  “How do you view me, Jack? I mean, the other day . . .”

  “I went out on a limb.”

  “I’m trying to understand here. What do you think has been going on between us all these years?”

  He sets down his bottle on the tray between us, looking leading-man sexy without the leading-man arrogance.

  He sits up, swings his feet around, plants them at the side of his chair, and leans toward me. “What’s been going on with me and what you think has been going on with me have been two different things. I am fully aware of what the nature of this relationship has been to you so far, Fia. But what you’ve seen as payment has been anything but from my viewpoint.”

  I raise a hand. “Hold up a sec. You mean you’ve been going along with the arrangement, but not really.”

  “Not as far as I’m concerned. As far as you’re concerned, by the letter of the law.”

  “But why?”

  He reaches out and places his fingertips along the side of my face. I grab them, squeeze them together, and remove them. But I keep hold, our hands landing together in my lap.

  He closes his blue eyes against the orange of the sun, opens them again, and looks into mine. It isn’t forthrightness or courage I see there, just the windows to an open heart. “I’ve loved you since I was thirteen years old and saw you in Everyone Lives. I bought the Most Beautiful People edition of People when you were in it. I defended you to everyone during your various falls and exploits, and when I saw you three years ago, I knew I would take whatever you had to offer and give whatever I could.”

  Unconditional love? Well, I don’t believe in it, not surprisingly. But this is probably the closest I’ll ever come to receiving it. “But you’ve played the role so perfectly.”

  “Yes.”

  My heart feels as if rain is pelting it from the inside out.

  “I’d better go.” Get the hell out of here, I mean.

  He sighs, releases my hands, and stands. “I knew you’d say that.”

  “I can see my way out.”

  Of course I can. I’m very good at that.

  Twelve

  After my departure from Jack, I began having tea with Josia after he arrived home some evenings, sometimes saying little, sometimes chatting about the trivialities of our day, but never anything deep or profound. It’s as if he knows I’ve allowed my thoughts to consume me so thoroughly these past ten years, I don’t want to talk about them anymore.

  On a rainy night in May, sitting cross-legged on his bed across from where I sit on his desk chair, he confesses he is itching for another project.

  “What about the kitchen?” I ask. “I mean, since you’re allowed there anyway.”

  His eyebrows rise. “The kitchen. Really? Good. Yes, I think I can come up with something you’ll like.”

  “What about welding?” I ask.

  “Yes?” he asks, reaching for the remainder of the Nutty Bar he started at the beginning of our teatime.

  “Do you know how to do it?”

  “Yes. It’s quite a satisfying experience gluing materials together that don’t seem like they should be glued.”

  I laugh. “Yes! That’s it.”

  “Why do you ask?”

  I tell him about Randi’s suggestion for the entry arch to the Bizarre.

  “Oh yes. That sounds good. Very good.”

  “So I think I’ll take a new tack on clearing things out. Keep the things you need a blowtorch to glue together.”

  He raises his mug. “I like it.” Then takes a sip.

  I want him to offer to help me learn but realize the fences I erected in our relationship prohibit him from doing so.

  Drat. And I thought I was being so smart.

  I’ll ask later, though. Since the rift with Jack, I just haven’t been in the mood to change things, and that interview is coming up sooner rather than later. I’ve been walking more to get in shape, but how much difference is it really going to make?

  So far, for the trip to New York for the interview, I’ve got a thousand dollars saved. I want to stay at the St. Regis because that trumps all other hotels there, as far as I’m concerned. And I’ll need to arrive in a limousine in a fabulous designer outfit because this isn’t just about the interview; this is about playing a role from the moment my high heels descend in the city to the second they leave. I have to be fabulous on the interview set as well—which is yet another outfit—and I have to be convincing. It’s the only way to trump Jessica’s book.

  I figure another three thousand dollars and I should be set. I wish Lila were here. She’d walk me through it all. And she’d make it fun.

  After our tea is finished I head upstairs and clear the clothes off of my bed, trying as best as I can to put them away. I whisk up the dress I wore to dinner with Jack’s mom, along with the red high heels, and head into the Hollywood Room. And there it still is, Lila’s coat, hanging in the closet.

  I throw down the clothing and rush over.

  The sudden freshet of grief scours off the scab long covering past pains, revealing how sharp it all still is. I reach out and run my fingertips down the beautiful ivory coat she once owned, the coat the EMTs pulled off of her body, yanking it open to expose her chest. Have you ever seen an overdose?

  I truly hope you haven’t.

  Wrapping it around me, I hug the fabric, hold the collar up to my nose, and breathe in deeply. Please, I ask the soft, brushed wool. But her aroma is gone. Ten years is such a long time.

  Lila’s coat still around me, I’m standing in front of my worktable looking at my button strings arranged in two lines of eight buttons each. This is the best arrangement yet.

  In fact, this is the arrangement.

  Right?

  Now, what it will be arranged upon or with, I don’t know, but I’m pretty sure a blowtorch will be unnecessary.

  I place my hands on my hips and twist my waist as my eyes scan the front of the stacks of boxes and supplies.

  Yes, they should definitely be mounted to something, okay. I remember those remaining crib ends, but shush the idea because for some reason my brain has moved on from the baby idea, and like a woman who wasn’t all that keen on having children finding out she’s barren, I realize it’s no big deal.

  Well, the mounting surface will reveal itself. With all these things around me, how can it help but do so? I’ll just have to remind myself to keep my eyes open and looking around because you never know when something unexpected will come your way.

  Hopefully that’s a good thing.

  I take off the coat and drape it over the back of my work stool. Maybe Lila, in her own way, will lend a little inspiration.

  Randi swirls a cleaning rag, shaking her head. “Wow, that’s a lot of work he’s doing. And for free?” She squints, her mouth dropping into a grimace.

  “What do you mean?”

  She shrugs.

  My shoulders mimic hers, but with less skepticism and some apology for my apparent naïveté adjusting the slant a tad. “I think he’s just a workaholic, but doing it
in a completely lovable way.”

  Randi places her hand on her hip, the rag flowing back over her curled fingers like the bustle on a lady’s ball gown. “To be honest, Fiona, I think it’s a little odd. Who does that sort of thing for someone? I mean, he’s got to know he’s not going to live there forever, you know?”

  “Maybe he’s just a nice person, Randi.”

  She laughs. “Maybe I’m too jaded for my own good.” Then she finishes up the counter, shining it with a towel in broad strokes from the front edge to the back.

  My phone rings and the word Brandon lights up the screen.

  “My dad,” I whisper. “That’s odd.”

  “Take it away!” Randi says, grinning at the prospect of listening in.

  “Hi, Brandon.”

  “Fia, hi. I’m coming to Baltimore for a benefit luncheon for Center Stage.”

  “So why are you calling me, then?”

  “I need your help, Fia.”

  I want to bark out a snotty little laugh, but the truth is, he’s never asked for my help before.

  “What is it?”

  “Would you come with me to the benefit, not tomorrow afternoon but the next? Center Stage is where I got my start. It would mean more to me than I could say if you accompanied me.”

  “Okay.”

  A moment of, I presume, stunned silence ensues and he says, “Well, great. Are you sure? You know a photographer is likely to snap us together.”

  I hadn’t thought of that, but even if I had, I’d like to think I would have made the right decision and say, “That’s okay too.”

  Talk about something unexpected coming your way. I didn’t mean this. I didn’t mean a family loyalty scenario at all. I meant winning the lottery, or helping someone on the street and finding out he was a monk from Tibet with the wisdom of the ages tucked inside and sent on a mission to teach the first person who helped him in America the secret to peace and happiness, and you’re the lucky winner, Fiona Hume.

  Something like that. Not the father I divorced sixteen years ago.

  “All right, Fia, thank you. I’m going to hang up before you can change your mind. I’ll call you when I land tomorrow evening. Plane gets in at 7:35 p.m. but I’ll be renting a car. And thank you again.”

  True to his promise, the line goes dead before I can say even a quick good-bye.

  “Well, way to go, Fiona,” I say to the phone, then proceed to relate the conversation to Randi.

  “Really? You’re going to appear in public with Brandon Hume? I really will have to see it to believe it.”

  “Oh, you’ll see it. You can believe that completely.”

  She stifles a laugh with her hand. “Is he anything like his character in Galaxy Goons?” she asks, then, “Hold up,” as she attends to a customer just approaching the counter, a younger man wearing skinny jeans even goofier than Galaxy Goons.

  Galaxy Goons. The goofball comedy came out when I was fifteen. Everyone called my father a fool for starring in what turned into a summer blockbuster and an immediate, quotable classic all at the same time. “When Airplane! collides with Spaceballs and Heathers, Galaxy Goons is the result,” one prominent reviewer said, and he was right.

  It’s Brandon’s one comedic standout, a hilariously shining departure in an otherwise serious career, and he’s taken it pleasantly in stride. “Here’s to something being better than nothing!” he said in his interview on Good Morning America.

  “No,” I say. “He’s a little smarter than Captain Quirk.”

  “Are you putting him up at your place?” she asks.

  “Oh, sure. Yes. I’ll just kick Josia out of his room.”

  “I’m sure that would go over big.”

  My heart begins to pound, thinking of seeing my father again. “The sad thing is, Josia probably wouldn’t mind.”

  Merely the thought of that gentle man slows the pace of my anxious heart.

  Thirteen

  Brandon is due to arrive in less than twenty-four hours, and Josia is working late tonight on a set of outer doors for a chichi new restaurant in Prince George’s County.

  I was really looking forward to the nightly cup of tea, having worked so hard in the garden earlier—some weeds, stalky and woody, required more exertion than I prefer. Pulling with my back, my legs, my stomach—now that’s what a workout should be. The Farm Workout. I could make a million getting rich people to work a farm, the produce of which I could sell for profit. What an idea!

  Josia, had he been around, would have appreciated my efforts, and he would have listened to me dream a little about what that newly cleared patch of ground might become with a little forethought, love, and time.

  The earth smelled so good. Clean and new and yet so ancient at the same time. How can that even be?

  I wanted to tell Josia about it. And even more so, I wanted to tell him about my father. He would have some good advice. He would probably tell me to be open and honest with Brandon because that’s Josia’s way. But I won’t let my father think I’ve frittered away my earnings when part of my reason for filing was the supposed mismanagement on the part of my parents’ financial manager. Yes, Brandon, I did a bang-up job on my own, as you can see by my crumbling yet genteel home and my daily trips to Subway.

  No, thanks. I don’t want to touch the money I’ve saved for the New Big Reveal. I’ll have to take care of some things on my own. Take a little sashay down to the pharmacy and buy a little something to perk up my hair.

  So I call Jack because he can give Josia a run for his money when it comes to calming down a case of the nerves. I’ve never initiated us getting together, and apparently that was the right instinct. When his phone goes to voice mail after only the second ring, sadness envelops me. Why did he have to confess the way he felt? That ruins everything.

  That he chose to love me when I gave him no reason to think our arrangement was anything other than business doesn’t make me feel any better for having, what amounts to, broken his heart.

  In any case, none of the men in my life are available right now.

  I wonder if Big Mike makes house calls.

  A composition book in my lap and a glass of chocolate milk beside me, I sit outside in the backyard, ready to tackle another flower bed. But first—a plan. A visit from Brandon is huge. Until now, I’ve always remained firm about parental visits. This feels different, though. I write at the top of a sheet in bold letters:

  How to Look Like You’re Doing Well Financially on a Shoestring When You Aren’t, by Fia Hume

  Okay.

  1. Drag out the expensive clothing.

  2. Act confident.

  3. By all means do whatever you must do to keep your father away from your dilapidated and obviously neglected city mansion that eats away your money day by day.

  4. Lip gloss, lip gloss, lip gloss.

  He’ll expect to come over right after he lands, so I’ll thwart that by meeting him at his hotel for a late dinner, and then the benefit luncheon the next day, and hopefully that will just be that and back to Idaho with you, padre! It’s not like he was asking me to hang with him the entire time he’s in town.

  But for now, the garden calls me back.

  A brick wall surrounds the rectangular garden, square stone posts breaking up the space every twelve feet, those closest to the porch supporting pineapple finials.

  A week ago I started removing the dead cherry tree in the middle by sawing off branches, and now it stands, a trunk with its upper, vertical branches pointing skyward like a drummer’s snare brush. It will just have to stay that way for the present.

  Today I’m determining which shrubs to save and which to keep. Someone loved azaleas, that much can be determined, and as the blooms are now fading and wilting around the edges, I can still decide which colors to keep. I’m going with the bright pink and the red.

  I finish my milk and enter the outside door of the basement, crawl over the last year or two’s worth of supplies toward the spot where some old rakes and shov
els lean up against a side wall. I grab a shovel and, stepping over a box of gears from some mysterious machine, a tine from a rusted rake digs its jagged finger through my pajama bottoms and down the flesh of my outer thigh.

  I drop the shovel immediately, my right hand grabbing the offending implement and pushing it away as the fire of jagged pain flows down the wound and blood begins to flow.

  Gush, actually.

  The quickness of the crimson flow shocks me as much as the handle of the rake as it bounces against the hot water heater, sending it back in my direction. Thankfully, my left hand, now streaked in blood, springs up to block my face.

  A rusted rake! Why did it have to be rusted? But then, how could it not be? Everything about my life has oxidized.

  I scramble slowly over the basement’s junk offerings, doing my best to hold my thigh and stanch the flow at the same time. Never has all this stuff looked so worthless. And not just worthless, but decidedly a deficit. Worse than worthless. In my way. In my way. It’s all in my way.

  I stumble over boxes and around at least fifteen straight-back chairs. Then coatracks, a couple of steel desks, and more boxes. Boxes and boxes. There’s even a box of boxes.

  Somebody please get me out of here!

  Finally, I hobble up the basement steps until, in the kitchen, having left heavy drops of scarlet in a line down the hallway, I run cold water and nab the roll of paper towels on the counter. I begin to dab at the gash. But despite my flimsy attempt at first aid, the blood continues to soak through the paper towels at a rate that frightens me. It’s going to need stitches. Hopefully before a transfusion is necessary.

  There’s nobody else to call but Jack. This time, when his voice mail picks up, I leave a message.

  “Jack, I know you’re probably off in Dubai or Tahiti or Alaska or something, and I know you’re upset and want nothing to do with me anymore, but I need your help. I just had a stupid run-in with a rusty rake. I need stitches I think, and I don’t want to ride my bike over to the emergency room. So if you could call me back if you get this right away, I’d appreciate it. Thanks. I’m sorry.”