“Frank!” I said. “Cut that out. What do you think you’re doing?”
“I’m checking you for brain damage. In case you struck your head when you fell.”
“I’m fine,” I said. I sat up and rubbed my hand across my face. “Is anything on fire?”
“What’s your name, Alice?” Frank asked me.
“Frank, for Pete’s sake.”
“Oh dear. Not good. I’m Frank. Your name is Alice.” He blinded me with the flashlight again. “Your pupils are responsive to light, but your possible head injury may have rendered you unable to remember the paramedics saying that not knowing your own name may signify brain damage. Also, nothing is burning and olfactory hallucinations can indicate compromised brain tissue. George Gershwin imagined he smelled burning rubber for weeks before he died of a brain tumor on July eleven, 1937. We should call an ambulance.”
“We do not need to call an ambulance, Frank. My name is Alice Whitley, okay? I asked if something was on fire because the last time you woke me in the middle of the night, something was. What do you need?”
“I need to look for Xander.”
“Why?”
“Because he’s lost.”
“I wouldn’t waste my energy thinking about Xander. I’d worry about my mother,” I said as I kicked myself free of the sheets and stood up. Xander needed to get lost, if you asked me. He was as guilty of setting the Dream House fire as Frank was. More. What’s worse, every mention of Xander’s name forced me to consider that I might be somewhere on that continuum of guilt. I should have soaked those Roman candles in a bucket of water, cut off the fuses, and driven them halfway to Vegas to bury them in the desert.
“But, Alice, your mother is dead. No amount of thinking on my part will bring her back.”
“Not my mother, Frank. Your mother.”
“Why should I worry about my mother? She’s not lost. Mr. Vargas knows where she is.”
Mr. Vargas knew where Mimi was? That was news to me. By then I was awake enough to realize I’d better zip it about worrying about Mimi if I didn’t want Frank to go rigid on the floor. “I’m going back to sleep, Frank,” I said. “So should you.” I picked up the sheet and coverlet, rearranged the bed, and got in. Once I was back under the covers Frank perched on its edge. “Do you want me to tuck you in, Frank?” I asked.
“That’s all right. I’m not tired. I’ll sit here until you’ve rested enough to talk.”
I sighed. “What do you want to talk about, Frank?”
“Looking for Xander.”
“What makes you think we need to look for Xander?”
“I told you. He’s lost.”
“Xander’s not lost, Frank. He’s probably outside Salt Lake City right now, blowing a wad of cash.” I thought of the three sad, crumpled singles in his wallet that he didn’t even have.
I guess Frank was thinking about that, too, because he said, “Xander doesn’t have a wad of cash to blow. All the money he has is in his wallet, which you’re keeping in your purse. Also his monthly bus pass. He wouldn’t have invested in a monthly bus pass if he meant to leave town before the month was halfway done. He’s not crazy, you know.”
I was so beyond getting mad at the kid for going through my purse again that I stifled a massive yawn. “Can’t this wait until morning, Frank?”
“It could. But then I wouldn’t have an excuse to use this excellent flashlight.” He gave the flashlight the kind of two-fisted, elbow-intensive shake that bartenders at the Algonquin probably used when mixing martinis for Robert Benchley and his crew of jaundiced wits. Then Frank put the flashlight in my hand, pulled his bubble pipe from the pocket of his cape, and extracted a small rolled-up piece of paper from its bowl. He smoothed it on the bedside table, grabbed my hand and directed the flashlight’s beam onto it.
“So,” he asked. “How early is too early to telephone this ‘Sara’?”
AT BREAKFAST THE next morning I sent Frank to the yard to pick a rose for Mr. Vargas to use as a pocket square. While the kid was outdoors I asked Mr. Vargas if he knew where Mimi was.
“Of course not,” Mr. Vargas answered. He put down his knife and fork and wiped his hands on his napkin. “What makes you ask?”
“Because Frank thinks you do,” I said.
“Why would he think that?”
Before I could let him in on what Frank told me the night before, the kid burst in with the rose and thrust it at Mr. Vargas to smell. I put my hand on the back of the chair to keep Mr. Vargas from tipping over when Frank came at him.
“Lovely,” Mr. Vargas said. “I think I’ve smelled it enough now, thank you, Frank.”
Frank crammed the blossom into Mr. Vargas’s breast pocket and then arranged its tips with a neurosurgeon’s care.
“So Frank,” Mr. Vargas said, “tell me, what’s your favorite thing about school these days?”
“Not going,” Frank said. “I’m on hiatus. Like my mother.”