Cat in a Bag

by Angela M. Sanders

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I mean I’m good at copying things, but I don’t have the artistic temperament and imagination.” The words came out so easily that she barely heard them.

  “What?” Gilda stood, her expression now tightening to anger. “Who told you that?”

  Adele’s hands felt thick and clumsy. She set down the paintbrush. “It just…is.”

  Gilda lowered herself to the chair again. As fast as it had come, her anger morphed to concern. “When did you start to paint, honey? Tell me about it.”

  “Oh.” Adele’s hands reached for the brush again. As she painted—quick strokes here and there, her eyes darting between Gilda and the canvas—the high of creating settled over her like a goose feather duvet, warming her through her bones.

  “You’ve been painting for a long time?” Gilda asked.

  “What?”

  “Since you were a kid?”

  “I’ve been looking at things like an artist as long as I’ve been able to see, I think. But I didn’t start drawing until I was twelve years old.”

  Her parents had always been fighting, it seemed. Yelling, smashing plates, slamming doors. The best way to survive was to keep her mouth shut and her eyes open. So, she’d watched, and she saw the world beyond its surface. The pieces of crockery fell in crazy angles, each casting a lip of shadow on the linoleum. Outside the apartment’s window, a little boy held his mother’s hand and laughed.

  “Too young when they married,” Uncle Larry had told her. It had nothing to do with her, he’d said. Finally, he took her to his home, and she hung out with him in the TV repair shop where he did business as a fence. Sometimes, when clients stopped by, she took bottles from the back of an old console television set he’d converted to a bar and made drinks. She watched the clients, too, watching them hopeful, then shrewd, then, at last, satisfied as they stuffed cash into their wallets.

  Uncle Larry had been the one to notice her drawings on the back of his yellowing repair receipts. He’d given her pencils, then watercolors. Finally, he financed her tuition at art school. And now he wanted to make her happy before she died.

  “I was an artist, too. A chanteuse,” Gilda said. “That means singer in French.”

  Adele made a noncommittal noise as she continued to paint.

  “Can I see?” Gilda asked.

  “I’ve barely started.”

  Gilda rose from the chair and pushed to her side of the canvas. “Oh, darling. This is amazing. In ten minutes, you did all this. It’s not that there’s detail, it’s something about the shape. It feels like me.”

  Adele had always been told she had a gift for sketching. Her detail, her ability to capture a split second nuance one teacher told her was “unseen—no one does this anymore.” And she loved to do it. When she painted, her style was looser, but it still held the lifelike, yet candid, feel of her sketches. But, so what?

  “It’s nothing, really. Just a parlor trick.”

  Gilda put her hands on her hips. “That again. You’re dismissing your own talent. You didn’t come up with that on your own. Someone told you.”

  “Just because I can replicate something doesn’t mean there’s any art in it.”

  Gilda shook her head. “Where did you hear all this? This is not a photograph.” She gestured at the canvas. “This is a moment in time, seen by you.”

  “No one cares about that anymore. I’ve been to art school. I know.”

  Gilda returned to her chair. “It was a professor, wasn’t it?”

  Adele’s eyes widened. “How did you know?”

  He was a professor all right. Handsome with his dark hair and straight figure, but his bent nose kept him from being model beautiful. So smart, too. He could talk about art for hours, and he knew so much. He’d pointed out how Rauschenberg was a fraud working to please the populace, and how Mondrian’s genius wasn’t fully appreciated. She’d venture an opinion, and he’d gently laugh and correct her. He told her she had a gift for mimicry, but that wasn’t the same as art. She couldn’t disagree. A quick glance at any art gallery put her in her place. At best, she was out of style. At worst, unimaginative.

  At first, she’d been hurt. Then she was honored that he’d wanted to help her, despite her lack of talent. Besides, he’d praised her for being a good listener. He’d needed her.

  “Damned teachers. You were a child. He was wrong to take advantage of you. I’m right, aren’t I? You had an affair with him.”

  Blood rushed to Adele’s cheeks. “You haven’t met him. He used to hang out with famous artists. He wrote art criticism. He even has a painting in the Carsonville Art Museum.”

  A look of understanding came into Gilda’s eyes. “I’ve met men like him. I don’t know these people you’re talking about, but this much I can guess: he’s twenty years older than you. He told you that you had a lot of talent, then cut you down. He regularly got into the pants of his prettier students. For crissakes.”

  Adele squeezed her fingers one by one.

  “Honey. I don’t have to tell you that I’ve seen this before. There’s a certain breed of men no better than vampires, suckling on young girls to feed their egos. Not all men, though,” Gilda said. “There are some good ones, too.”

  A lump lodged in Adele’s throat. “He told me I was no good. As an artist. Said I’d never amount to anything.”

  “He said that?”

  “Not in those words, but that’s what he meant.” She’d read it in his expression when he pointed at the curve of an eyebrow she’d drawn and pronounced it “precisely rendered” in a dry tone. He’d flipped through her sketchbook with a microsecond’s pause at a page here and there, then handed it back with a stiff smile.

  The wind filled their silence. Gilda drew a breath. “Jerk.”

  “After a while, he lost interest in me. I dropped out of art school.” Adele squeezed a fist as if she could squeeze back the painful memory. “At first, I took a job in a bookstore. But I was obsessed with painting. It was all I could think about. When I had a few minutes, I drew. But I always hid it. Then Uncle Larry found one of my drawings. When he couldn’t get me to go back to school, he hooked me up with Patch.”

  “Patch, the fine art fence. I never met him myself.”

  “Yes. He set me up in my own studio. He asked me if I could paint a Pissarro from a photograph.”

  “And you did.” Gilda’s expression was sympathetic.

  “I don’t want you to think the art professor was bad. I owe him a lot. He taught me that I don’t have it in me to be a true artist. Then, Patch taught me that I was a good forger. Forging is all about mimicry, like Oliver—that’s the professor—had said. That I could do. That way, I could still paint.”

  “How’d you get busted?”

  Adele abandoned the painting for the moment and sat on the bed. “It was one of Patch’s gang. The one who got through the security systems. He was picked up on another job, and he traded his knowledge for a few years off his sentence.”

  Gilda looked alert. “What’s his name?”

  “He’s not around here anymore. He did his time and got out of town before Uncle Larry caught up with him.”

  “I see.” Gilda stood. “I get it. You won’t be calling anyone else, right? You’ll stay put?”

  She nodded vigorously. “I promise.”

  “Then I’ll fix things with Warren. Don’t you worry about it. And I’ll be back tomorrow so you can work on my portrait.” She was halfway to the door when she turned around. “That jerk professor.”

  12

  The next morning, Adele fiddled with a stray tongue depressor as she waited in the Villa’s infirmary, or “sick bay,” as the residents called it. Breakfast had gone all right—Gilda had calmed Warren and the other Villa residents as promised—but having another doctor look at her was a waste of time. She knew her days were numbered, and that number was low.

  The doctor in the prison’s infirmary had barely been able to look her in the eye
when he told her she had a brain aneurysm. He’d made her sit down. He said it wasn’t the first time he’d had to deliver this kind of news. He’d even offered to give her a few extra days in the infirmary, where the beds were softer and showers nicer, if she’d wanted.

  A soft knock at the door told her the Villa’s doctor had arrived. She straightened. “Come in.”

  A thin, basketball-player-tall man ducked his head and entered. His stethoscope swung as he bent to offer his hand. “I’m Doctor Parisot. I hear you have health challenges.”

  “I’m going to die,” Adele said. “If you call that a challenge.”

  “We all are.”

  “Any minute? The doctor told me that one day I might get up to put on a sweatshirt for yard exercise and, poof, I’m dead.” Despite her flippant attitude, her voice trailed off.

  Gilda appeared in the doorway, the hall lights illuminating her hennaed hair. “You okay, honey? You want me to stick around, or should I wait in the cafeteria?”

  She clearly wanted to stay, and Adele saw no reason to hide her physical condition from her. “Come in.”

  Gilda moved to the corner and turned her walker around so it made a seat. Dr. Parisot took the stool next to the examining table. Seated, he was much shorter. His height must be in his legs, like a spider.

  “Now, tell me your situation,” Dr. Parisot said. “What’s wrong?”

  Adele smoothed her skirt over her thighs. She was too small to wear anyone’s pants except Grady’s, and he wasn’t keen on that, so they’d given her one of Candace’s dresses. She felt like she was in a tent, and she was the tent pole.

  “I was having headaches, and they kept coming back. I figured they were migraines, and maybe the doctor could do something. I went to the infirmary, and the doctor asked me a few questions, but everything checked out fine. So they put me in a CT scanner.”

  “I see. And?”

  “It showed I had a brain aneurysm. Right here.” She placed a finger at the base of her skull. “He said it could rupture anytime, and I’d die. Just like that.”

  Gilda’s walker gave a squeak. She must have flinched.

  “He told you not to over-exert yourself, I hope.”

  She nodded again.

  “You’re not a smoker?”

  She shook her head.

  He drummed his fingers on the chair’s arm. “Who diagnosed you?”

  “It was at Carsonville Women’s. Dr.—”

  “Bradley,” Dr. Parisot finished. Adele nodded. “Not particularly bright, but he’s thorough.” The doctor turned to Gilda. “Get Grady. I want to see that scan.”

  Adele expected Gilda to leave. Instead, she yelled, “Grady!” All those years as a singer must have really developed her lungs.

  Mort appeared in the doorway. “I’ll find him. I think he’s saving his spot in the TV room.”

  A moment later, Grady hunched in. “You called?”

  “How’s the hearing aid, Grady?” Dr. Parisot asked. “You’re wearing it, aren’t you?”

  “It buzzes,” he said. Grady’s head barely reached Dr. Parisot’s chest. Where the doctor seemed to sprout upward, Grady had sunk into himself over the years.

  “You’ve got to get used to it. Play with it. It’ll be worth it in the end.”

  “Sure, doc. What do you want?”

  “He needs some records on the computer. For Adele,” Gilda said.

  “Yeah. What?”

  “We need Adele’s CT scan from prison. Can you call it up on a laptop and bring it here?”

  “Sure, no problem. What’s the date on it?”

  “Last week,” Adele said, glad she could contribute something. “Tuesday.”

  Grady jotted a few notes on the edge of a TV Guide he’d taken from his back pocket. “Fine. Give me five minutes.”

  “It’s in a HIPAA-protected database,” Dr. Parisot warned.

  “Three minutes.” Grady shuffled away.

  “Adele is Larry the Fence’s niece,” Gilda said. “We’re helping her out in exchange for straightening out the Villa’s licensing.”

  The doctor sat back. “No kidding. Larry’s niece, huh? What’s he like? I’ve heard so much about him.”

  “Gentleman and a hustler,” Gilda said.

  “Uncle Larry is a good man.” He’d brought Adele here. He’d put her in the care of these kind people. She looked at Gilda, who was in turn examining her tangerine-colored manicure. The theme song from Gunsmoke sounded next door. An issue of Home Security International on a side table was folded open to an article on wireless burglar alarms. A coupon for denture cleaner was its bookmark. The Villa’s residents might not be Navy SEALs, but they had hearts of gold, and they were doing their best for her.

  “I’m back,” Grady said.

  “Like a bad penny,” Gilda said.

  The old man set a laptop on the desk and opened it for the doctor. He clicked through a few screens, squinting, then tapping more keys with his knobby fingers.

  Adele knew better than to hope he’d find that the infirmary’s doctor was wrong. The blotch where unmarred brain tissue should have been was unmistakeable.

  “Can you enlarge that?” the doctor asked. A moment later, he said, “Next screen, please, lateral view.” After a few minutes of examining the scan and her other health records, he sighed and closed the laptop. “Thank you,” he said to Grady. Then, to Adele, “I’m afraid the infirmary’s doctor was right. Classic aneurysm. The artery is unusually stressed. Let’s check your pulse.”

  His fingers could have circled her wrist twice over, but they were surprisingly soft.

  “Your blood pressure is low, at least. How about the headaches?”

  “They come and go.”

  “Keep the stress down.” He fidgeted with the end of his stethoscope. “I’m afraid—”

  “Afraid what?” Gilda asked.

  “It’s a serious lesion. I’ve never seen anything so severe in so young a patient.” He shook his head. “I’d put her remaining time in days, maybe weeks, if she’s lucky. Not months.”

  They talked about her as if she wasn’t there. “I—”

  “Is that it?” Gilda interrupted. “There’s nothing you can do? Give her some pills or something?”

  He looped his stethoscope from his neck and set it on the examining table. “I wish I could tell you differently, but I’m afraid, no.”

  “Nothing at all?” Gilda said. “It’s not like she has a lot to lose. Maybe there’s something experimental?”

  Adele looked around the sick bay. It might well be where she’d die. The room had little to recommend it—white walls, generic cabinets, linoleum floor—but it was part of the Villa, and so was strangely comforting all the same. It could be worse. Warren hated her, but the rest of the Villa’s residents were sweet. She could paint and take baths. This week’s menu included a spring vegetable fricassee and pasta primavera with handmade noodles.

  “There is one thing, but I don’t see us pulling it off.”

  “What?” Gilda said before the doctor had finished his sentence.

  “There’s a neurosurgeon in town who specializes in correcting brain abnormalities that other surgeons wouldn’t even attempt. Name’s B. E. Lancaster.”

  “What’s the B and E stand for?” Gilda asked.

  “Don’t know. He lives here in Carsonville, but he has a national reputation. I saw him give a paper at a conference last fall in Orlando. Masterful.” The doctor drifted off for a moment. “He has an innovative approach for accessing the hippocampus. I—”

  Gilda snapped her fingers. “What would something like that cost?”

  Adele’s spark of hope fizzled. She was a prison escapee. She could paint forgeries for decades and not come up enough money to finance brain surgery. She didn’t have decades. Maybe only days. And that’s assuming the surgeon would even see her. “Never mind. As long as my forgeries are destroyed by the time I die, I’ll be satisfied.”

  “I couldn’t even tell you the cost
,” Dr. Parisot said. “His surgeries are probably scheduled out for months, too. By then….”

  “By then it will be too late. I understand,” Adele said. Somehow, knowing it was settled, she felt strangely peaceful.

  “You don’t care, do you?” Gilda asked her.

  “Of course I care. I just….”

  “You’re just too worn out to care at this point,” the older woman finished. She examined Adele before rising and turning her walker to locomotion position. “We’ll see about that.”

  * * *

  “Did you get my present? The telescope?”

  Ellie’s eyes snapped open to see the grimy-faced kid from the day before leaning over the couch. Gray-shrouded sun leaked through the windows behind him. She bolted upright. “It’s Saturday. What are you doing here?”

  “I live close by. I brought you some breakfast.” He clutched a toaster waffle. His mouth hung open slightly as he breathed.

  “Where’s your mom?” If she came looking for her brat, Ellie’s cover was blown.

  “At work.”

  She relaxed slightly. The child still held out the waffle, complete with chunks of margarine clinging to its edges. Her hips and shoulders ached from the night on the couch. She rubbed her lower back. “You eat it. I’m not hungry.”

  The boy crammed the waffle into his mouth in large chunks, as if he hadn’t eaten for days. When he finished, he watched Ellie. Snot crusted under his nose, and his hands were greasy.

  “Why did you bring me the waffle?” Ellie asked.

  “You’re a princess trapped in the attic because no one loves you. I don’t want you to die here.”

  An unfamiliar quiver rose in her chest, then died as soon as it had tried to break free. “Maybe I’m here because I want to be.”

  The kid surveyed the attic, then shook his head. “They made you go here.” He sniffled and wiped his face with the sleeve of his sweatshirt. “You could go anywhere. You wouldn’t be here.”

  As if she needed the reminder. “Go home.” She turned her back. She didn’t hear his footsteps. After a moment, she swiveled to find him staring at her. “Why are you still here? I told you to go home.”