“I’m not surprised.”
“The fez is named after Fez, the town in Morocco that had a monopoly on its production.”
“Uh-huh,” I said. “Wait, I don’t remember a character from the Foreign Legion in Casablanca.”
“There isn’t one. But my father is.”
“Your father is in Casablanca?” Geez, his dad had to be about a hundred years old by now. Maybe that’s why Mimi didn’t like to talk about him.
“Not in the movie,” Frank said. “In the French Foreign Legion.”
I sat forward. “Your dad is in the French Foreign Legion?”
“I imagine he might be. Otherwise, why doesn’t he visit?”
Oh. “Have you asked your mom about that?”
He exhaled a plume of imaginary smoke and nodded. “What did she say?” I asked.
“Nothing,” he said. “Nada. Bupkis. Diddly. Zip. Zero. Zilch—”
“I get it, Frank,” I said.
“There are a lot of words for nothingness,’” Frank said. “Love means nothing.”
“That’s not true.”
“Yes it is. In tennis. What’s your father like, Alice? Is he the gentleman you’re always referencing?”
I ran my cigarette under my nose like a Havana cigar. “No. I mean, I don’t know what my father’s like. He’s been gone since I was eight.”
“Is he dead?”
I peeled the paper off my cigarette. “No. Maybe. I don’t know. He’s just—gone.”
“Maybe he’s in the Legion with my dad.”
“Maybe he went out for a pack of chocolate cigarettes and never came back,” I said. I wasn’t up for talking about my father.
“People do that?”
“I imagine they do. Now let’s get you in the tub and then into your pajamas and bed.” I ate my cigarette on the way to his bathroom. Frank stood there, mesmerized, watching water cascade from the faucet. “Get undressed,” I said. “I want to soak your clothes overnight so the stains won’t set.”
He turned his face from the water to commune with my elbow.
“What are you waiting for?” I asked.
“Some privacy,” he said.
“I won’t look,” I said. “Come on. Hand over the clothes.”
“Please,” he said. “If you don’t mind.”
I sighed. “Fine. Wash your hair. Scrub your nails. I’ll be outside if you need me.”
I lay down across the doorway in the hall. He’d be okay in there by himself. As long as I could hear him splashing around I’d know he was alive. I’d have to be deaf not to hear him. It sounded like he was wrestling an alligator in that tub.
But lying down was my first mistake. The hall was carpeted, so of course I fell asleep.
I THINK THE quiet woke me.
My first thought was that Frank had made a break for it. Stepped over me while I was snoozing, wandered through the living room door hole, jumped the wall, and now lay at the bottom of the hill in a million pieces. Bleeding. Which was a good sign, we’d learned from the paramedics earlier in the day, because bleeding people aren’t dead yet.
But Frank was the kind of kid who left a trail—wet footprints, chocolate hand-tracks, scuffed walls, broken stuff. There was no sign of his passage in the hallway. Oh, no. I yanked the bathroom door open and all but fainted on the spot.
Frank was in there all right. Fully clothed, goggles pushed on his forehead and toy submarine clutched to chest. Eyes closed, pale as death, halo of floating hair. Imagine Jules Verne, Angelic Shipwreck Victim. Angels, of course, are known for many things, one of them being that they are dead. How was I going to tell Mimi I’d let her kid drown in the tub while she lay in her hospital bed?
I fell to my knees alongside the tub. “Oh, Frank,” I gasped. “Oh, no, no, no.”
His eyes slitted open. “Is it morning already?” he asked sleepily.
I sat back on my heels, dizzy with relief. “You almost gave me a heart attack, Frank,” I said. “I thought you were dead. What are you doing in the tub with your clothes on?”
“Sleeping. I thought it would save you work if I soaked my clothes while I soaked myself.”
“Are you insane?” I regretted saying that instantly.
“No,” he said. “See? I took my boots off first.” He lowered his goggles over his eyes and went under. He watched my chin while I watched the water fill the goggles.
“Those aren’t watertight,” I said when he came up for air and pushed his goggles up his forehead.
“I know. I was just confirming earlier research.”
“Listen, Frank. I’m sorry I said that you’re insane.”
“You didn’t say I was insane. You asked. One is a statement and the other is a question. You’re not the first to ask me that, either.”