“Great!” he said. “See? Patience. Patience and kid gloves. Works every time.”
I couldn’t help picturing those kid gloves. Red ones. Elbow length. Italian. Beautiful gloves. Not gloves I would have dreamed of before knowing Frank.
“Alice?” Mr. Vargas said. “Alice? Are you there?”
“Yes,” I said. “I’m here.”
FRANK AND I watched that Buster Keaton movie to the end. And the one that came after it. By the time we got back to the house Frank was asleep. I managed to get him out of the car without waking him and half-dragged, half-carried him into the house and tucked him into bed, tennis shoes and all. I could hear Mimi typing so I didn’t bother to tell her we were back. She could figure it out for herself.
I don’t know how long I stood there looking at Frank’s face illuminated by a shaft of light falling through the bedroom door. When he was asleep he looked so harmless. He was a beautiful child, really. Just handsome enough to catch a few extra breaks in life, but not handsome enough to be hamstrung by it. It was the way Frank packaged himself that pushed him over into the spectacular. That nobody could take from him, no matter how many small-minded men in horrible shoes might try.
I lay what I thought of as his Ragged Frank outfit—the blown-out morning pants and tattered tailcoat that were as close to owning sweats as he got—on top of his bedclothes so he’d see that instead of the T-shirt and khakis he’d gone to sleep in. I left his top hat on his bedside table. By that time I was practically asleep on my feet—horses sleep standing up, did you know that?—and put myself to bed, too. I didn’t turn on the light, just tottered over and pulled the covers back.
Underneath the covers, I found Xander.
“What are you doing in my bed?” I asked.
He opened his eyes and blinked sleepily. “Hold on, Goldilocks. This is my bed, remember? I thought you blew town so I moved back in. What’s going on?”
“I didn’t go,” I said. “Scoot over. Keep your mouth shut and your hands to yourself.”
I talked, though. Boy, did I ever. I ended up telling Xander all the stuff about the day that I’d wanted to spill to Mr. Vargas. “So then Frank says, ‘Do you know that ancient man was chewing a gum derived from birch tar during the Neolithic period more than five thousand years ago?’ He just scared the liver out of all of us, and he’s talking about the history of chewing gum?”
Xander raised his hand.
“What?”
“Can I say one thing?” he asked.
“Okay.”
“Frank couldn’t wear his armor today,” Xander said. “Facts were all the protection he had. Facts were his force field.”
( 20 )
WHEN I WOKE up it was light out and Frank was howling. I was in the hall outside his room without any memory of running there. He was with Mimi, wearing the Ragged Frank ensemble, his arms wrapped around his mother’s calves. Mimi was wearing the typical cardigan ensemble, plus Frank’s top hat.
“I don’t belong there!” he shouted.
“I’m very near the end,” she answered. There was something flat and dead about her voice that frightened me.
“I don’t belong there!”
“I’m very near the end,” she insisted. I realized then that her tone of voice reminded me of Frank.
“Stop it, both of you!” I yelled.
“Alice, wake up,” Xander said. He was shaking me by the shoulders.
I opened my eyes. It wasn’t still black night outside, but it wasn’t light yet, either. “Okay,” I said. “Okay, okay. What time is it?”
“It’s just before six.”
“You have to get out of here, now,” I said. “This never happened.”
I WISH I could tell you that what actually happened that morning made a whole lot more sense, but it didn’t. Mimi told me to take Frank to school. Dressed in a T-shirt and tennis shoes. Also jeans.
“Did you talk to his psychiatrist?” I asked.
“When? I had to spend half the day at the hospital, and after I came home I had to go right back to work. I don’t need to talk to anybody’s psychiatrist. Frank will be fine. He has to be. This is not a negotiation. Stop wasting my time.”
Xander stood in front of the garage watching us back down the driveway. He was barefoot and in boxers, something he couldn’t do in mid-January in Alabama or Nebraska. He had his arms crossed over his chest, cradling each elbow in the opposite palm. Every line of his body said: “This is a very bad idea.”
“You want to take Xander with us?” I asked Frank, looking over my shoulder.
“He isn’t dressed,” he said.
I stayed like that, twisted backward, using my eyes instead of the rearview mirror to guide myself down the driveway. I imagine Xander waved at Frank as we left because Frank gave a sad little salute that didn’t seem directed at me. I didn’t want to look. I didn’t want to see.
INSTEAD OF DROPPING Frank off at school I parked and got out of the car with him.
“Where are you going?” Frank asked.