The Prodigal
Twenty-eight
AWARDS WERE DELAYED because of the length of our match. There were still two pro matches to be played, but the crowd was already thinning. At seven we were called to the podium. We joined a bunch of other players, coaches, and fans to have a victory dinner and dragged ourselves to the hotel. I’d been drinking water from the moment I got off the court and now I had to pee about every five minutes. At least that meant I wasn’t still dehydrated.
I was exhausted, though. I hardly kept my eyes open during dinner. Lissa and Melody gently got me ready for bed and I fell quickly asleep.
We woke in the morning with plenty of time to make love before we drove to LAX and boarded our flight for Seattle.
Wendy met us at the airport Monday. She should have been in class, but maybe Kate was busy with the Trips. We loaded our bags in the car at passenger pickup and I slid in front, reaching to hug Wendy. One look and I knew something was wrong. Wendy was barely holding it together. She ignored my offered hug and pulled away from the curb. We buckled up and Wendy hit the freeway at seventy.
“What is it, Tiger? Where’s Kate?”
“She sent me.” Shit! The last time Kate gave Wendy an order she was in trouble and used Wendy to get a message to us. Wendy’s terse statement indicated that this had been an order and she wasn’t happy.
“Where is she?”
“Studio.”
“Is she alone?” Wendy shook her head. “A model?” Another head shake. “You’d better take us there.” A nod.
Fifteen minutes of silence later Wendy pulled up behind the studio. Melody and Lissa were frantically silent when I looked back at them. They were holding onto each other like that would save the world. Wendy slammed on the brakes and we all piled out and rushed the door. We pushed through the clothing and found Kate sitting alone in the middle of the studio floor. She was surrounded by drawings and sketchbooks, many of which had been torn apart. Tears were flowing down her cheeks as she repeated, “Shit. Garbage. Sophomoric. Crap.”
“Kate! What are you doing? Don’t ruin your art!” I yelled as I rushed toward her.
“Stay away! Liars! Liars! All of you are liars! It’s all garbage!”
“That’s not true, Kate. I love your art.”
“Don’t patronize me. You of all people. You with so much talent you have to hide it. Nothing I have will ever be as good as yours. You told me I was good. I believed you. And you hide what you can do so I won’t feel bad. Well, I do feel bad! I can’t work here. I can’t live here.”
“Fuck this shit,” Melody said. She stepped over the mess on the floor and picked Kate up. Melody is little, but she’s strong, especially when she’s mad. Lissa was right beside her and when Kate put up a struggle, it only took a moment for the two of them to subdue her. They dragged Kate to the chair and the three of them piled into it, practically smothering Kate in their hugs. I heard Lissa repeating over and over “We love you. I love you.” I could hear Melody’s voice, but not to understand the words she was pouring out to Kate.
I sat on the edge of the dais and looked at the mess Kate had made of her drawings. Why? Why?
“Who told you your paintings weren’t good enough?” I demanded, holding up a sketch of the Trips that I especially liked. It had been torn diagonally through all three of them. “Who made you do this to these treasures?” I was sure this hadn’t been Kate’s idea. Someone had to have been tearing her down. Kate’s sobs were dying to hiccups. I barely heard the one word she spoke.
“Neil.”
“That worthless piece of shit? You believed him? Why was he here?”
“He wanted to see more of my work. I didn’t see any harm in it. Just publicity.”
“Some people just aren’t worth the effort,” I said, disgusted.
“He was nice and well-behaved. He complimented my paintings and started in on his spiel about needing him to represent me in New York. I knew he would, but I wasn’t having any trouble telling him no until he saw the painting. Now I can’t even look at my garbage.”
“What painting?” I asked. She motioned vaguely. My eyes shot up for the first time to where my latest painting was draped in the corner of the studio. Only it wasn’t draped anymore.
“I didn’t show him. I was putting a canvas away and when I turned, he was staring at it. He started saying that this was what he was talking about. I shouldn’t hide paintings like this. It was better than anything he’d seen. It proved I was a much better artist than you. All he could do was praise it. And then I saw it.” She started crying again. Melody and Lissa were trying to see what she was talking about, but they weren’t in a position that they could see the canvas.
“I screamed at him to get out. Get out of my studio! He left and I… I looked at it. You don’t even show people what you can do, Tony. I’ll never be that good. I’ll never be able to show so much emotion in my painting. And I hate you. I hate you all.”
We mostly carried Kate home. When we got there, she spoke to Wendy for the first time.
“May I come to your room, Tiger? Please?” I thought for a minute Wendy would refuse her. She’d refused to come into the studio with us. But she nodded and took Kate downstairs. When I offered to come along, Kate said “No. Just Wendy.”
I tossed our bags in a corner of the bedroom while Lissa found a bottle of wine and opened it. We sat in the living room and talked quietly—all of us tempted for the first time to guzzle as much of the wine as we could.
“When did you paint that?” Melody asked as she cuddled with Lissa on the sofa. I leaned back in the recliner and took another sip.
“The day after the gala.”
“When you left early to work out?”
“I went to the studio first.”
“And you did that all that morning?” Melody and Lissa had looked at the painting in the studio to see what had caused the hubbub. They’d seen the painting I intended to send directly to the vault. I just nodded.
“But, Tony,” Melody persisted. “That’s a huge amount of work. Just sketching it must have taken hours.”
“I didn’t sketch it. I just put paint on the canvas. It took about three or four hours. It takes two or three weeks for them to dry.”
“Them?” Lissa asked. “This isn’t the first one? When were you going to show us?”
“In a few years. Lissa, if I showed people two or three paintings like that, I’d never sell anything else. I can’t do it. I’ve done four in six months. It’s not stuff I can just produce.”
“Where are the other three?”
“Two are in the vault,” I sighed. “The other one… I think Kate took it a few months ago. I didn’t want to say anything to anyone because I didn’t know if I’d ever paint anything like that again. I painted it the night before we went to New York when Kate… upset Wendy and me. When we came back from the Habitat build after Christmas, it was gone.”
“And you think Kate took it?”
“I didn’t want to think anything. It was just gone and Kate was the only one I could think of that had access.”
“You haven’t trusted Kate since, have you?” Lissa asked. “You’ve been mad ever since. Tony, you might have lost our girlfriend.”
“Fu-uck! No… please, no.”
Kate started packing the next morning. I tried to discuss it with her. Fuck, I begged her not to go. It was futile.
“I can’t stay here, Tony. I don’t know if I can even come back to school. I can’t work in your shadow and I can’t hold you back. You can’t hide what you can do because of me,” she said.
“That’s noble, but I wasn’t hiding it from you. If anyone saw it, I’d never be able to sell anything else. I can’t paint like that all the time.”
“You will, though. And I’ll always know you will. I can’t do it, Tony. Please don’t try to make me.”
“I’ve never tried to make you do anything, Kate.”
“I wish… I just wish.”
“Where are you going?”
“I’ll stop by the commune with the Trips when they leave tomorrow. Then, I don’t know. I’m going to go buy a car now.”
She left the house. I went to Wendy. That’s where I was in the morning when Kate entered. I thought she would join us the night before.
“Wendy…”
“You’re leaving.”
“I have to, Tiger.”
“You’re leaving me.”
“Come with me. We can go far away. Come with me.”
Wendy ran to Kate and hugged her then kissed her with all the love I’d ever seen.
“I love you, Kate. You are my sunshine. I love you more than I love my life.” Wendy stepped away from Kate and came to my side. “But I know my place.” Wendy sank to her knees next to me.
“No! No. God, no. Wendy, don’t do that now. Go with Kate. You love her. She loves you. At least the two of you can be happy.”
“Don’t order me to go, Tony,” Wendy said, never lifting her head. “I would have to disobey.”
Tears ran down Kate’s cheeks as she looked from me to Wendy kneeling on the floor. She turned and ran out of the room.
Out of the house.
Out of our lives.
END PART II
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