“Okay,” I said. “You need to get out of that tub. I’m going to hold up this big towel to give you some privacy. I want you to take off those wet clothes. And leave them in the tub to keep soaking. That was a good idea, by the way. Just what I would have done, although I think I might have gotten out of them first. Then let’s get you dried off and into your pj’s.”
“‘Let’s get out of these wet clothes and into a dry martini,’” he said. “Robert Benchley.”
I laughed. I was so relieved he wasn’t dead that I would have laughed at anything.
“I’ve been waiting all my life to say that,” Frank said. “Robert Benchley was a famous wag who belonged to a group of Jazz Age writers known as the Algonquin Round Table. What you may not know is that Robert Benchley’s grandson Peter Benchley wrote Jaws. Book and screenplay.”
When Frank stood it sounded like Niagara Falls as the water cascaded from his clothing. If all the grunting coming from the other side of the towel was any indication, getting out of the wet clothes was about as easy as going over those falls in a barrel. “Do you need a hand?” I asked.
“No thank you. Almost finished. Archimedes discovered the way to measure volume of irregularly-shaped items when he stepped into the bathtub, did you know that? The water level rose an amount commensurate with the volume of his body. He was so excited by his insight that he shrieked ‘Eureka!’ which means ‘I have found it!’ Then he ran through the streets naked. I have never been excited enough about anything to consider doing that.”
“That makes two of us,” I said.
Frank took the towel moments later and wrapped it around himself like a burka. “Now into my pajamas,” he said. “Alice, could you put yours on, too? I’ve always wanted to host a pajama party. I’ve never had a friend to invite before.”
I didn’t want to leave Frank alone for even a minute but I wasn’t about to decline that invitation. So I sprinted to my room, changed, and dashed back to the kitchen. There I found the pajamaed Frank at the breakfast bar, cocktail music oozing from the piano and two full martini glasses in front of him. Frank held one out to me.
“Thanks,” I said, cradling the glass in my palm and sniffing it. Club soda.
“I asked for martini glasses for my ninth birthday,” Frank said. “So my mother got me plastic ones.”
“Your mother is a smart woman.”
“You’re supposed to hold your glass by the stem, like this, see?” Frank demonstrated. “That way the warmth of your hand won’t ruin the chilly deliciousness of your cocktail.”
“My hands aren’t warming up anything right now. It’s freezing in here.”
“It’s because we’re missing a door.”
I looked at the hole that had once been sliding glass. “We should cover that, huh? We could use blankets, or a big piece of plastic if we had one.”
“Dry cleaner bags,” Frank said. “I have a lot in my closet.”
I knew this to be true. “We’ll piece them together,” I said. “You get the bags, I’ll find the tape.”
After ransacking the kitchen drawers—bupkis—I found packing tape in a laundry room drawer. When I emerged, Frank was on the kitchen floor swaddled in dry cleaning bags. He was indulging in a much more transparent and dangerous version of his favorite game, rolling-around-in-a-comforter.
“Stop that,” I said, grabbing the plastic and rolling him free. “What are you doing?”
“Playing.”
“You can’t do that with a dry cleaning bag, Frank. This is not a toy. Look, it says it right here on the bag. ‘This is not a toy.’ You could suffocate. And we can’t use these now. You’ve shredded them.”
“I’ve got more.”
“That’s not the point,” I said. “The point is, you’re a smart boy, and this would be a dumb way to die. Come with me, please.” I herded him to his closet to harvest more bags. “Don’t touch the bags. Do you hear me? Do. Not. Touch.”
“What can I do then?”
“You carry the tape. I’ll get the tape measure. Meet me in the living room.”
When I got there, Frank was sitting on the floor, behaving himself. I measured the hole and lay the bags on the floor so we could piece together something big enough to cover it. “Come and give me a hand with this,” I said. “Please.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not? I said please.”
“Look what I’ve done this time,” he said. I looked. The kid had manacled his hands together with the tape. The almost-empty roll dangled from his wrists like a charm on a charm bracelet.
“How’d you manage that?” I asked.
“With my teeth,” he said. “It was easy at first, and then harder.”
“I believe you. I’m going for more tape. Don’t touch anything while I’m gone.”
“I don’t think I could if I wanted to.”
“Good.” I ran back into the laundry room and came back with a second roll of tape and a pair of round-edged children’s scissors to cut Frank loose.
“Vive la France,” he said when I’d freed him.
“Vive la France,” I said. “Now hold the plastic still while I tape it together.” When we had a sheet that was big enough I took it and stood by the door. “I’m too short,” I said. “I need something to stand on.”