I HAD TO do something.
I wanted to tell Mimi everything Paula had said but I knew she’d get mad at me in a shoot-the-messenger way that wouldn’t help a bit. Frank’s shrink had shut me out and I couldn’t bring myself to tell Mr. Vargas how badly I was failing him. I was running out of people to go to for advice.
Sometimes just explaining your predicament—to a bartender, a priest, the old woman in a shift and flip-flops cleaning the lint traps in the Laundromat dryers—is all it takes to see a way out of it. Trust me, I didn’t turn to Xander because I thought of him as a child-rearing sage; honestly, who is? It was just that Xander knew all the characters in our sad little drama and could lend a sympathetic ear. When he suggested a few weeks of therapeutic hooky for Frank until Mimi was done with her novel and could start living in the world outside her head again, I was able to convince myself that it was a spectacular idea.
“How do you propose we do that?” I asked. “Mimi expects me to take Frank to school every morning.”
“You leave with him dressed for school, park around the corner, and I meet you there. Frank changes into Frank clothes in the backseat. The three of us hang out until it’s time to ‘come home from school.’ Frank changes clothes, you drive up the driveway, I show up later. We’ll get through this, Alice. You can count on me.”
I was desperate. I was in.
EXCEPT I DIDN’T see how we would get Frank to understand he couldn’t breathe a word of our plan to his mother. “I’ll handle that,” Xander said.
They had a conference on a park bench. Frank was wearing a loud plaid zoot suit I’d never seen before, with taxi-yellow suspenders, yellow pocket handkerchief, dice cuff links, and two-toned shoes. Xander, in ancient jeans and a T-shirt, looked like he was having a session with his new bookie, Little Frankie, whom he’d met while working as a grip on the set of a remake of Guys and Dolls.
“So when I change my clothes, do I do it in a phone booth?” Frank asked.
“Nope. Backseat of the station wagon. We won’t look.”
“Good. Phone booths are hard to find these days. Can I ask you something?”
“Of course.”
“Did I get kicked out of school?”
“No way, pal. You’re on hiatus. Once your mother and her book are squared away, we’ll find you a new school you’ll like much better. Until then, let’s not tell your mom any of this. She has enough to worry about already.”
“I’ll miss my friends,” Frank said. “Paula. Miss Peppe.”
“And they’ll miss you. But that’s how it is for academic staff. Students come and go like waves on the beach. I guarantee you, Frank, of all the generations of kids that Paula and Miss Peppe have known and will know, you’re the one they’ll remember best. You’re the one they’ll miss the most.”
Frank nodded. “You’re probably right.”
I had to hand it to Frank. He took it like a champ. And he had been right about Xander all along. There were times when you really could count on him.
“DO WE BELIEVE Mimi’s almost done with her book?” I asked Xander that night after Frank had gone to bed and we had, too.
“No idea,” he said. “How does that joke about the deer go? The one that ends with ‘no idea’?”
“What do you call a deer with no eyes,” I said. “No idear. I hate that joke. I picture the deer stumbling around in the woods, bumping into trees.”
“I wouldn’t worry about that. The coyotes will get the deer before the trees do.” He tried to kiss me but I pulled away.
“She types all day,” I said.
“Alice, she’s been typing as long as I’ve known her. Less since Frank was born, but still. She could have written a dozen books by now. Six, maybe. Four, at least.”
“All that typing and she’s never finished anything?” This was very bad news.
“How should I know? The woman is a sphinx.”
“Are you kidding? She tells you everything, Xander. You’re the sphinx.”
Xander rolled to his side and narrowed his eyes at me. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You never tell me anything about yourself.”
“Are you kidding? I’m an open book. What do you want to know?”
“Why don’t you have a driver’s license?” I asked. “Does it have anything to do with your sister who died?”
He propped himself up on an elbow. “Mimi told you about that?”
“Some,” I said, fishing. “Nothing” would have been closer to the truth.
Xander lay back and stared at the ceiling for a while before he said, “I’m going to go play the piano for a little while.” He pulled on a pair of pants and his T-shirt. “There’s this piece I’ve been trying to get under my belt forever.”
“Xander,” I said. “What happened to your sister?”
“Which one?”
“The dead one.”