“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It’s something my mother used to say. It means nothing you can do will make a person like you as much as they like somebody else. Because you can’t even sweat as good as that other person does.”
Xander used the flat of his palm to brush my face dry and handed me my purse again. “There,” he said. “Aren’t you glad that’s over, Oklahoma?”
“Nebraska,” I said.
“I wasn’t off by much.”
“Just the whole state of Kansas. And yes, thanks, I feel better. I guess I needed that.”
“After you’ve ridden a bus cross-country twenty or thirty times, all those states in the middle start to run together.”
“I took a bus from Nebraska to New York once. I remember every mile.”
“I bet you do,” he said, and smoothed my hair back from my face with his fingertips. “By the way, with all respect to your mother, I have a feeling that your sweat is every bit as good as mine.”
That’s how it started between us.
( 13 )
IT’S NOT LIKE I meant for anything to happen.
That first day we were lying in a tangle of sheets in the atelier’s big painted bed, me curled up against Xander with my back to him because the fact of him close up was a lot to take in. I had to laugh at the absurdity of somebody like me ending up in the altogether with a guy who looked like him.
Xander propped up on his elbow and wiped the perspiration off his face with a corner of the sheet. “What’s so funny?” he asked.
All I could think to say was, “You don’t appreciate just how yellow everything is in here until you’ve lived it for a couple of hours.”
“Welcome to the Dream House,” he said.
“The Dream House?”
“Frank told me that’s what you call this place.”
“I do?”
“Barbie’s Dream House meets van Gogh at Arles,” he said in an uncanny imitation of Frank’s monotone.
“Oh. I had forgotten about that.”
“How could you?” he said. “It’s perfect.” He picked up my hair and wrapped it around his wrist. My braid was the first thing he’d undone before we started. It had seemed to take forever, in the very best way possible. “You have the most amazing hair,” he said. “You should wear it down more.”
“It gets in my way,” I said. “It’s a distraction.”
“Your hair isn’t the distraction. You’re the distraction.”
Later, after we’d had a chance to catch our breath again, I asked, “So, what else did Frank tell you about me?”
“That you’re five feet, eight inches tall, weigh a hundred twenty-seven pounds and were born October twenty-fifth. He wouldn’t tell me what year because he said a gentleman never discusses a lady’s age.”
“How does he know all that?”
“He also mentioned you don’t need corrective lenses to drive and that you’re an organ donor. Make of this assortment of facts what you will.”
“Frank’s gone through my purse?” I sat up in bed, clutching the sheet to my chest because I felt more naked then than I had a few minutes ago. I guess my purse wasn’t the Fort Knox I’d thought it was.
“So what? So have I. How could you not have tissues in that Mary Poppins satchel of yours? Aside from the usual purse stuff, you have a set of tiny screwdrivers and a flashlight and Band-Aids and a box of raisins and a pair of argyle socks and a notebook and dental floss, but no tissues. Explain that to me.”
“I ran out of tissues.”
“Ah. So I guess you aren’t completely perfect after all. Listen, Alice. Don’t get mad at Frank. The kid can’t help himself. He lacks executive function. Although when I was growing up they called it other things.”
“Like what?”
“Impulsive. Irresponsible. Eccentric if you were born rich. Crazy if you weren’t.”
“There’s nothing wrong with Frank that can’t be fixed,” I said.
“If you ask me, there’s nothing about Frank that needs fixing,” Xander said. “I’m a big fan of crazy. Without it there’d be no van Gogh at Arles. For all we know, no Barbie’s Dream House, either.”
“Frank’s not crazy,” I insisted.
“Fine,” he said. “He’s eccentric. Come here.”
I slid out of bed and started dressing. “I can’t,” I said. “I have to go.”
“What’s your hurry?”
“I have to make Mimi’s lunch.” I turned my back on him while I buttoned my shirt. He sat up on the edge of the bed and grabbed my wrist.
“Aren’t you the responsible one,” Xander said. He turned my hand over and kissed my palm, then folded my fingers over the kiss for safekeeping and slid his fingers up my arm. If he did that to make sure every follicle on my body was at attention, I’m guessing he wasn’t disappointed.