My Beautiful Failure

by Janet Ruth Young

84.

  one-man show

  True to Gordy’s word, he and his dad were the first guests. Gordy half-hugged, half-choked me and gave Mom a box of fancy cookies that she put on the refreshment table. Donald Abt wore a leather jacket and motorcycle boots. Although he was a lawyer, he looked hip because he hung out with musicians.

  “Pretty exciting, Bill,” he said. “You’ve waited a long time for this day, I hear.”

  The doorbell rang, and Dad’s friend June arrived with two of his coworkers. She carried a bunch of white helium balloons printed with the phrase WOO-HOO!

  “Not a very intellectual message, I’m afraid,” she said, “but they express how I feel.”

  “Me too,” said Dad. Linda tied June’s balloons to the mailbox with the other bunch. Gordon, Donald, and Dad’s office friends walked along the back wall. They stopped at the fruit-bowl series.

  In the center work—titled Where Does It Come From?—each piece of fruit had a migrant worker’s face. Dad tried to capture in a few strokes the fatigue and tenacity of some workers in a New York Times profile he’d taped on the studio wall as a reference. The worker-fruits wore straw hats or baseball caps, and an entire bunch of grapes had kids’ faces.

  “Wow,” Donald Abt said. “I feel that like a punch in the gut.” Gordy widened his eyes at me.

  People from Mom’s museum showed up next. “The light at the top of your hill is remarkable,” Mom’s volunteer docent, Mrs. Armenian, commented. “Even on a gray day, it’s so—”

  “Luminous?” Mom suggested.

  “Yes, luminous. And the gray sky coming through the windows makes the colors in your husband’s paintings just pop.”

  June zeroed in on the killer-tree painting. In white pants and a white parka with fur around the hood, she looked like a monarch in a Hans Christian Andersen story. Having been through last winter with us, she was probably worried like I was. I’m pretty sure she would have bought something whether Dad’s work was good or bad, but having seen something she wanted to own, she looked relieved and happy. I admired June even more.

  “It was a wonderful fall, wasn’t it?” she asked me, laughing at the tourist-eating tree.

  “It was a really wonderful fall,” I told her, thinking about my secret. I checked the door to see if Jenney had shown up yet. She and June would really hit it off. My mouth got so dry that I couldn’t close my lips after talking or smiling. My head felt groggy and I wanted to nap. To avoid the rest of the day and to wake up when it was tomorrow.

  Mom’s former boss, Pudge, arrived next with his husband, Kenneth. They gravitated toward the sunsets.

  “Ruthless,” Kenneth said. “The way he subverts the clichés.”

  Pudge spotted my sister wearing a velvet suit of Grandma Pearl’s with a partridge on the shoulder. “Linda—so elegant and grown up. I barely recognized you.”

  Jodie offered Pudge and Kenneth hot cocoa from a tray. She and Linda had spent hours deciding on Styrofoam or real mugs. To underscore Dad’s environmental concerns, they decided to buy mugs at the dollar store and donate them to a homeless shelter after the show. Linda wanted to charge for the cocoa, but Jodie convinced her it should be free.

  “You’ve thought of everything,” Pudge said.

  “Is your coat real cashmere?” Linda asked Kenneth.

  “It is.”

  Linda saw me watching them. “See, Billy? It’s not wrong to have money and nice things.”

  “As long as you remember there are some things money can’t buy,” added Jodie.

  “That’s a cliché that should never be subverted,” Pudge agreed.

  “Is that John Cage?” Mr. Abt asked. A phrase from the CD drowned under the highway noise.

  “That’s right,” Linda said. “Dad wanted to go a little edgy with the music. Should I turn it up?”

  I saw Gordy’s dad talking to Uncle Marty. They were both holding the notebooks Jodie had laid out on the table. The books identified the paintings by location and title, their size, and the medium (mostly oil). The first page had a photo of Dad along with his artist’s statement, giving his biography and telling how he got the ideas for the show. The cover said ALL PAINTINGS PRICED REASONABLY. I saw Linda’s hand in that.

  “I’m so proud,” Uncle Marty was telling Mr. Abt.

  “Your father is a really good painter,” Mr. Abt said to me. He got out his cell phone. “Do you mind? I’m going to make sure my law partner sees these. But he’ll probably say your dad didn’t set his prices high enough.”

  My chest opened partway, and my head felt as light and empty as one of June’s balloons. I couldn’t believe Mr. Abt thought Dad’s paintings were good. Many times I pictured Jenney helping me through my misery. I hadn’t imagined her sharing my pride.

  “It’s not about the money,” I said. “Glad you’re enjoying yourself, Mr. Abt.”

  “I’m planning to buy one,” Marty told me. “I want a Bill Morrison to hang up in the bar. The one I want is pretty steep, but I don’t want bro giving me any discounts. I suppose you know which one it is.”

  He smiled like I was expected to know something.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I told Marty.

  “Come on, Billy, you’re being cute with me.” He turned up the collar of his wool blazer against the cold. The electric heaters Linda had plugged in weren’t warming the space yet. “I want the painting of you.”

  Dr. Fritz arrived. He had lots of degrees but dressed like a lumberjack. With him was a woman with long gray hair. “Billy, this is my wife, Geraldine Perkins. She’s a painter too.”

  Geraldine gravitated toward the wharf miniatures.

  “These are our small paintings,” Linda told her.

  “Very strong,” Geraldine commented to her husband about a decrepit fishing boat.

  “I’m not surprised,” he said. “Not surprised in the least.”

  Jodie interrupted Dad to introduce him to a stranger. It was a reporter from the Hawthorne Beacon-Times asking to photograph Dad and have him write a “My View” column on the state of painting.

  In the right corner of the garage Mom’s Brooksbie friends clustered in front of a large vertical painting.

  “Exquisite draftsmanship,” one woman said. “Almost photorealistic.” I recognized her as the painter of the malicious chicken that hung in our dining room.

  Dad’s painting was maybe three feet by five and made up of about three hundred small gray blocks on a grid. I could barely make out the subject until I stood back. I saw a close, cut-off version of my own face. My eyes were narrowed and my mouth was thin and stiff. My fingertips pressed against the screen so tightly that they flattened into discs, like the fingertips of a tree frog. The crowd of Brooksbie people parted, waiting for me to speak.

  I hadn’t even known he was looking at me.

  85.

  watching dad

  By one o’clock I hadn’t seen Jenney, but I had gotten used to my portrait. I planned to get her some cocoa and take her by the arm and walk her to that painting first. That way when she met my parents she would have something to talk to them about.

  At 1:10 Pudge told Dad that the Museum of New England Heritage didn’t have funds right now for new acquisitions, but he asked if Dad would lend Where Does It Come From? indefinitely, to be hung in the lounge area near the vending machines.

  “Right now, unfortunately, it’s a thought-free zone,” Pudge told him.

  “Why don’t we talk?” Dad replied.

  86.

  she?

  At one fifteen a girl in a long down coat, with a ski hat covering honey-colored curls, walked up the driveway. I stood by our mailbox as if my legs were two more posts driven into the concrete.

  “Is this where the art show is?” she asked.

  “It absolutely is,” I said. “Welcome to 32 Ithaca Street.”

  “You must be the son of the artist.”

  “That’s right, I’m Billy,” I said. I took her mittened hand in both of
mine. She was beautiful. Not perfect, but strong and full of life. Someone who turned every hurt and insult into fuel for an opportunity. Every kick is a boost, as Mom said. I wondered if I should hug her or wait for her to hug me.

  She squeezed my arm. “I’ve heard so much about you. I’m Tish London. I work with your mom at the museum.”

  I felt my smile fade. “Let me take you to see Mom.” I walked Tish to the garage and then came back to my sentry post at the end of the driveway.

  “Who was that?” Gordy asked a minute later, bringing me cocoa in an ATLANTIC CITY NEW JERSEY mug.

  “A coworker of my Mom’s.”

  “Pretty.”

  “She’s okay.” I watched the lower half of our road, the direction where people would likely come from downtown. I had never asked Jenney what type of car she drove.

  “The way you reacted, I thought she was special for some reason.”

  “Well, no.”

  “You seem on edge.”

  “I’m planning to meet someone here. That girl you saw, I thought she was the one I’m going to meet.”

  “You don’t know what she looks like?”

  “Not really.”

  Gordon raised his eyebrows. This was the second time he had asked about Jenney’s looks.

  “How do you know her, from a chat room or something?”

  “No. All right, Gordy.” Deep breath. “Can you keep a secret?”

  “Of course I can.”

  “Because no way can anyone find out about this.” I spoke to him with half my attention, while keeping an eye on the people who arrived.

  I leaned in and tapped his parka sleeve with my index finger. “I’m sort of involved with somebody at Listeners.”

  Gordy rocked back and forth in the cold. “One of the volunteers? Cool. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “No, one of the callers.”

  His mouth opened and he closed it again. “Oh, is that allowed?” he finally said.

  “No, it absolutely is not allowed. It would get me kicked out of there.” I shook my head and laughed over my cup like a worn-out guy sitting at a bar, implying that although my relationship with Jenney was against the rules, it was “just one of those things.”

  “Why are you doing it, then?”

  I climbed onto the white rock Linda had painted. Jenney would see the rock, 32 MORRISON, and me.

  “Because . . . How can I put this? Because I’ve never felt such a connection with any girl before. What’s happening with this girl and me . . . well, it’s going to have a happy ending. This first part where I’m breaking a rule is the only weird part. And the first part will end up meaning nothing in the long run. In the story of who we’ll be together.”

  People waved as they flowed in and out of the yard, but no one interrupted our conversation. The garage was where the action was. Gordon looked around for his dad. Donald Abt was still inside the garage, talking to June Melman, and showed no signs of leaving.

  “Not that I know anything about this,” Gordon continued, “but what you’re doing sounds really sketchy. If I worked at a suicide hotline, I’d want to follow all the rules. People’s lives are at stake, right?”

  My face got hot. Because he didn’t know Jenney. “Jenney isn’t one of those people. She’s the smartest girl I know. She gives great advice. She’s had problems in life, definitely, but she’s got both feet on the ground. She could be a volunteer herself.” I smiled, remembering my promise to give her a cushion.

  “So this must be the girl you asked me about on my run that day. The amazing one.”

  “It is.” I teetered on the rock as if it was a skateboard. I started to fall, and Gordon grabbed my arm.

  “That’s why you couldn’t say more. Because of the hotline.”

  “Right,” I said. “Now you know everything.” The conversation had that wrapping-up-discoveries feeling, like the end of a Sherlock Holmes movie.

  “Wow. It seems like you think a lot of her.”

  “She’s unbelievable, Gord. I can’t wait for you to meet her.”

  “But the hotline thing is definitely an obstacle.” Gordon pulled me off the rock. I had the feeling he was about to drag me inside.

  “It doesn’t have to be. Lots of couples have gotten over obstacles in order to be together.”

  “It does have to be,” Gordon said.

  “Why?” Another photographer, and someone with a video camera, arrived, and I pointed them toward the garage. I got the impression that random cars were stopping too, the way they do for a yard sale. No one who got out of them looked like Jenney.

  “I’m not sure why. I just have to believe that whoever created that rule did it for a good reason.”

  “I can’t believe you’re not in my corner. When I’m finally happy.” I felt like saying something harsh about Brenda Mason or one of Gordy’s past girlfriends. Tight pants, overly concerned with status, cheated on the French exam. But I felt Gordy’s hand on my back, calming me down.

  “I am in your corner. I absolutely hope this works out, I would love to meet her someday, and I hope you guys get off to a good start. But I think you have a serious decision to make.”

  “What’s that?” I didn’t see how any decision regarding Jenney could be difficult.

  “Can we sit out back?”

  “Sure.” We passed through the gate into the backyard. Half a dozen plastic chairs were grouped around the statue of Athena. I turned two of them to face each other.

  “You have to be honest in order to live with yourself,” Gordy said. “You have to decide which is more important: this girl—Jenney, right?—or your volunteer work. Then you give up one and keep the other. So if she means more to you, you resign from Listeners, and that way you can keep your head up and be honest and aboveboard and not sneak around. Or ask your friends to sneak around.”

  I wanted to smile, but my face wouldn’t make the right curve. I finished the dregs of my cocoa and reached for Gordy’s NATIONAL GRID ENERGY DELIVERY mug. I shouldn’t have said a word to Gordy about Jenney. I would go into the kitchen and wash the mugs and never speak to him again. No, I should have told him. He was right. Absolutely right. And just as I saw Listeners as a blip, a bump in the road, in the story of my happiness with Jenney, I saw quitting Listeners as a blip too. I could easily do that in order to be with the girl who made me happy.

  “Do you know you’re a pain sometimes?” I asked Gordon as we got up to join the others.

  “Why?”

  “Because you’re right way too often.”

  “You wouldn’t think that if you were wrong less often,” Gordon said. “Hey, my dad and I will probably need to go in a few minutes. This show was great.” He slapped my chest. “You come from a lot of talent, you know that?”

  87.

  shrinkette

  By one thirty Gordy was gone and there was no one I wanted to talk to. Mom, Marty, Linda, and Jodie were doing a great job chatting everyone up, so I took my bike out front and tinkered with it as people came and went. I dropped the bike and jogged to the road when I saw a tall, slim girl walk up in cowboy boots, corduroys, and a fleece vest, with a long braid hanging in front of one shoulder.

  “Hi,” I said.

  “Hey.” Was that her voice? I needed to hear more.

  “How did you find out about this show?” I asked.

  “I heard about it. . . . Word of mouth, I guess?”

  “Jenney, it’s me.” I extended one hand. And then the other, for whatever she wanted to do with it.

  “I’m sorry?” the girl said, touching my fingertips.

  “It’s me, Billy.” I squeezed her gloved fingers and felt the smile nearly split my face open. “And I’ve got something big to tell you. I’ve decided to quit Listeners.”

  “Liza!” Dr. Fritz called. He was still here, having a great time, apparently. He came out to the driveway and put his arm around the girl. “This is my daughter. Liza, this is Billy, the artist’s son.”

  “Oh, I’
m sorry,” she said, shaking my hand. “I didn’t know if I should say because my dad—”

  “Because your dad has Billy’s dad for a client,” Dr. Fritz finished. “That’s okay, Liza. Billy and I are old friends.”

  “What were you saying?” Liza asked me, taking off her gloves and smoothing her braid. “You had news about a decision? Or did you not mean for me to hear that? I’m sorry, this is so awkward.”

  “No, I’m sorry,” I told her. They were Dad’s people, not mine. I wished they would go into the garage where they belonged. “I confused you with someone else. You look a little like a friend of mine.” I bent over my bike and pretended to adjust the brakes. “Enjoy the show, okay?”

  88.

  together and apart

  By four o’clock about eighty people had come and gone from the show. Dad had sold twelve paintings and gotten inquiries about lots more. Uncle Marty left, saying he had made a video of the whole day and couldn’t wait to watch it with us. The sky was already dark.

  “I hate for it to end,” Jodie said. But Dad shut off the music and turned off the space heaters. Linda put the bios and price lists in a box, and I helped her carry in the card table.

  With no guests to talk to, Mom sauntered to the back of the garage and positioned herself in front of Diverted Horizon. After twenty seconds, Dad noticed her there. He walked slowly to the wall and stood beside her. Jodie waved to Linda and me.

  “Let’s go inside,” she said.

  There would be time later to take down the poster and balloons. If Dad wanted me to, I would help him bring the artwork back inside. For now we left him and Mom to see what they needed to see.

  PART 5

  89.

  shift 10, december 6. call 45

  Listeners. Can I help you?”

  It’s me.

  “Jenney, where were you?”

  I’m sorry. I couldn’t make it.

  “I waited and waited for you.”