Dani rises and walks to the sink. “Jesus, what a mess.”
“Don’t touch it. And don’t think you’re going back to the city tonight. Not unless I put the two of you on a train.” She looks at her watch. On a Saturday, the last train into the city leaves in less than an hour.
“I can’t stay.”
“Yes, you can. Call Jane. She’ll be fine. Merry probably wants to stay. I don’t think I can tear her away from those drawings.”
For once, Dani doesn’t argue. “I told her about Ivo. Merry, I mean. That book…it’s like a mythic thing to her—so she was kind of blown away, I think.”
Before sharing the long, boozy meal with Merry—and, before that, the brief drama with Serge, the policeman, and the stalkers in search of the famous actor—Tommy would have been distressed to hear this. It would have been something Merry “had” on her; because without ever having discussed it, neither Morty nor Tommy had told anyone how they met. Or Tommy hadn’t. And why would anyone ask? She was his employee; surely she’d answered an ad.
Now she wonders why. Interviewers must have asked Morty about the origin of that alluring boy—so different from the others that came before—yet by the time Tommy worked for him, he was beyond the first thunderclap of fame, the early acclaim for Colorquake itself. What was Morty’s trademark line? Ivo is the archetypal boy all grown men wish they had been…and wish they could be still. But Ivo wasn’t an archetype, not physically. He was, at his inception, a very particular boy.
Dani turns around. “But what’s the big deal, right? It’s not as if it ought to have made a difference to my life, right?”
“Practically, no.”
“You know, I think about Joe and that book. What it will be like for me when he comes to it. In preschool, wherever.”
“I wouldn’t blame you for banning it.”
“You know what’s so weird?”
He smiles at her with an unaccustomed tenderness.
“The building where I work? It’s right near that playground. I walk past it, and it’s like looking in some kind of distorted mirror, only backward….Wow. I really am wrecked,” he says, sitting down.
“Call Jane,” says Tommy. “I’ll make up the guest room. Or wait.” Where will she put Merry? “I’m going to put you in Morty’s room,” she says to Dani. “I’ll give you sheets. Really—call Jane now. I am going upstairs, and I’ll be back.”
She hands him the kitchen phone. “Better connection out here than your cell. I’m going to watch you punch in the number.”
In the dining room, Merry is bent down so close to the table that tendrils of her dark hair rest on one of the drawings.
She stands up quickly when she hears Tomasina enter. The last thing she needs is to annoy the woman who controls the fate of this unburied treasure—which, in Merry’s state of inebriated overwhelm and geographic dislocation, feels like her very own fate.
“Will you please, will you please tell me where in the world they came from, I mean why a bank box, why wouldn’t he have shared them? For God’s sake. Not that I understand the man. Not anymore. I should want to rip these up.”
“Merry, I don’t know the whole story, but listen. You’re staying here tonight. Nobody’s driving, not even me. I could call a cab, but I don’t know if you’d make the last train. There’s a guest room upstairs.”
“Thank you,” says Merry, surprised by the emotion in her voice. “God, thank you. And could you please…could you promise that tomorrow we can discuss these drawings? Please.”
Tomasina reassures her that they can—probably just to get rid of Merry, and why not?—and then says something about towels.
Merry follows her up to the second floor and another flight of stairs, this one dauntingly steep. “Yikes,” she says, and she takes off her heels. Tomorrow, she is going to be mortified. And her head is going to feel like a kettledrum in a Russian symphony.
When they reach the attic room, Tomasina asks, “Should I lend you something to sleep in?”
“No, God no,” says Merry. “Terrible things happen in fairy tales when you lend somebody your pj’s. Enchantments and such. You sleep for a hundred years.”
“Until the prince shows up.”
“Can’t rely on princes these days. They don’t make princes like they used to.”
“I’ll leave the stair light on,” Tommy says. As she retreats—careful to rely on the handrail herself—she wonders why she was so afraid to speak to this woman. She likes Merry, and she feels sad that Morty turned on her.
Merry sits on the bed. Except for the AC (and thank God for that), the room does make her feel as if she’s tumbled into a fairy tale. The furnishings are old and dainty—egad, there’s even a spinning wheel in one corner!—and the textiles are intricately colorful, kaleidoscopic with pattern…or maybe it’s her mind that’s gone kaleidoscopic. According to the brass clock on the bureau, it’s nine o’clock. Is that all? She goes over to the clock and holds it up to her ear, to see if it’s working. It hums like a bee.
Linus! She fumbles for her phone, in the pocket of her jacket. She texts the girl next door, who texts back instantly to say it would be awesome to keep him overnight. Maybe she should give Linus to the girl….What a traitorous notion!
Her purse is still in the kitchen. She sighs. Never mind. She will lie down for a few minutes, and then she will go downstairs, use the bathroom, and retrieve her bag. She could use the bottle of water she packed, and she’ll have her comb, so that in the morning, when she has to show her face again, at least her head will not resemble a vulture’s nest.
Tommy returns to the kitchen. Glancing toward the den, she sees a seam of light along the bottom of the door. She stops to listen: nothing. Perhaps he’s fallen asleep with the light on. There’s no reason to feel she must outlast her so-called guest; what is the point when he’s made himself so outrageously at home? But she smiles at the singular mayhem Nicholas Greene has brought to her life. The coming week will be a trial by fire, or perhaps by ice (an element more appropriate to legal matters).
Dani is washing dishes.
“I asked you not to,” she says.
“Just want to do my share. Need to. Start the atonement before the guilt slams me tomorrow morning.”
“Well, that’s your share then. Done.” She reaches around him and turns off the water. “How about a cup of tea? Something.”
“Sure.” He reaches for the kettle and clears a burner to put it on. She gets out the mugs and the tea bags.
“I was remembering that time I came out here when you had that big party.”
“Which one?”
He laughs. “The only one I ever came to. One was enough. It was Soren’s birthday. I’m sorry, but he was insufferable. I don’t even know why I was invited. I shouldn’t have said yes.”
There had been half a dozen birthday parties for Soren. Like Morty, he liked it when friends remembered the occasion. Unlike Morty, he wanted everyone there.