The Prodigal
Thirty-five
MOM AND DAD HEADED BACK to Nebraska on Monday before I went to Doc’s summer class. Lexi was staying with Jack another few days, but decided she needed to be back in Boston before Mel and Liss got home from their honeymoon. Wendy decided that now that the house was empty, she would do a thorough cleaning.
There were two other students in the specialized affresco class. Adolfo Mazzarelli was exactly like his name sounded—tall, dark, handsome, Italian. Only he wasn’t Italian. He’d changed his name for the sake of his art. Morgan Dennis was unreadable. She had black hair, always tied in a tight bun. She never quite looked straight at you, even when she was talking to you. She dressed in baggy jeans and a sweatshirt, even in the heat of July, so who knew what she was shaped like?
We were there to learn the fine art of painting on wet plaster—affresco. I’d painted two wall murals, but they were both on dry surfaces—a secco.
We spent the first week mixing plaster with lime and distilled water and learning how to use a trowel to spread it on the wall surface. In our case, the wall surfaces were the backs of ceramic tiles. The roughed-up backside that most people apply adhesive to was perfect as a practice surface for plastering. What a mess! The clothes I wore that day were permanently marked as my plaster mixing clothes. Between sessions of mixing the plaster, Doc lectured us on everything from the composition of the plaster to how we worked with it.
Plaster doesn’t ‘dry’ in terms of the water evaporating. If it did, it would be plaster powder, just like it was when we started mixing it. The lime in the plaster crystalizes. It binds the plaster particles together and, in fresco, traps the color that’s painted on it in the crystals.
I learned a bit about my fellow-classmates, too. With just three of us enrolled in this special class, we had both time and necessity to interact. We not only had to mix our own, but we had to test each other’s plaster, judge how smoothly we’d applied it, and how we used our fresco float—the trowel. By the time I was finished with the first week of class, I felt like I could plaster a house or at least tape and mud drywall.
Morgan was quiet until she got to know us better. Adolfo was loud and boisterous, quick to crack a joke, and frequently silenced by Doc. I just went along with everything. I was learning, yes, but class was about the least stressful thing in my life. I had two more weeks until I left for the World Games in Colombia. In the morning, after coffee with Wendy, I went to class. After class, I pulverized racquetballs. Wendy crawled into bed next to me when she got home at ten-thirty and we’d both be asleep until I started off to school again in the morning.
I don’t know why, but we’d made Wendy’s room downstairs our home. There was nothing wrong with using the big bed upstairs, but without Melody, Lissa, or Kate, why bother? I was sure, our newly married lovers were having sex three or four or ten times a day in Hawaii while we were too tired to make love once during the entire week.
I don’t know if it was Wendy or me that was most happy to see Mel and Liss at the airport Friday night. Wendy took the night off to go with me to the airport. The two gorgeous beauties that came to baggage claim took both our breaths away. They were so happy they glowed. I couldn’t help but have my spirits lifted as well.
We went home, fed the two a beautiful meal that Wendy, of course, had prepared, and then fell into bed with them. We didn’t make love… again. We were all just too tired. We fell asleep cuddled together like we had not been for over a week.
Saturday morning was a different case, entirely. Wendy and I both awoke to the sensations of having our most intimate parts licked and fondled. Melody was between my legs and Lissa was between Wendy’s. I was a little worried because I wasn’t sure Lissa and Wendy had been that intimate before, but Wendy took my hand and kissed it, tilting her head toward me and smiling dreamily. For both of us, the morning started out with a bang.
It didn’t end there, though, and by noon we’d been in every combination and position we could imagine and were all starving. It was so wonderful to have Melody and Lissa back with us again. It seemed they had not forgotten us after all.
“The cruise was wonderful.”
“The food was fabulous.”
“Her bikini was incredible.”
“She, without her bikini, was delectable.”
“The sun shone.”
“It rained sometimes.”
“We swam.”
“We made love on the beach.”
“We missed you.”
That was the story of their week—their honeymoon. All I heard was how they missed us.
I was content to continue in my hectic life, learning a new art form but not creating any art. I hadn’t felt inspired since the night I painted Hope. I could convince myself that I was still working on art because I was learning something. It was a thin deception.
Just as I’d accepted my violent racquetball practices as sport.
Lissa joined me on the court Monday afternoon expecting to pick up where we’d left off, but I was way beyond that. She walked off the court after half an hour. I hardly noticed she was missing. I walked off the court an hour-and-a-half later, dripping sweat.
“Where’d you go?” I asked.
“I couldn’t stay on the court with you, Tony.”
“Why?”
“You’ve always been intense, whether it was racquetball or art or making love, dear. But I’ve never felt I was in danger. Now I do.”
She walked away and left the club. I shoved my gear in my locker. Afraid of me? She was afraid of me? What have I become?
I took off out of the club on a dead run. I ran for two hours, pushing as hard as I could along the shoreline, across the locks, uphill toward Wallingford, around Green Lake, twice, and across the Fremont Bridge toward home. The last five blocks up Queen Anne Hill left me almost dead. My heart was pounding so hard in my chest that I thought it would explode. My mouth felt like cotton and I couldn’t catch my breath. I fell against the front door instead of going inside.
Apparently, that made a racket and Lissa, Melody, and Wendy were outside administering first aid when I came to. Water was trickling into my mouth. Wendy held my head in her lap and Melody was covering me with a blanket. I could barely force my eyes open in slits. Lissa was on the phone and somewhere in the distance I could hear a siren. I wanted to cry, but there was no more water left in my body for tears.
“What’s your name?”
“T… Tony.” It was hard to get the word out. My tongue kept sticking to the roof of my mouth.
“Do you know what day it is?”
“Monday.”
“Date?”
“July… fifteen?”
“Right.” He fidgeted with my bed and I came up to a sitting position. He handed me an ice cube. “Suck on this. Don’t chew. Don’t swallow it. Just keep it in your mouth. It will lubricate your vocal cords.” I stuck the ice in my mouth and held it there. So much pleasure. I loved ice cubes. I pointed at the tube running into my arm.
“What thot?” Not the most eloquent speech.
“Fluids. You are severely dehydrated. It is Monday, July fifteen at eight o’clock in the evening. Make that a quarter after. At five o’clock, the temperature hit ninety-seven degrees. The hottest day this year. Mind telling me what inspired you to run for two hours with no water?”
I was sobbing, even with no water to make tears, my body convulsed.
“She left.” I croaked out.
“Tony, we’re here,” Lissa said hurrying to the bed. Melody and Wendy were right behind her, coming through the door the doctor had just left through. “I’m not leaving you. We aren’t leaving you. We’ll never leave you.”
They must have thought I meant Lissa left. I remember she was upset and I saw her walk away. Poor Lissa. She thought I meant her.
“No,” I said. “I know. I know. I know you wouldn’t leave me.”
“Then what?” Melody said at my other side as she cuddled against me. “What did you mean, baby?” I looked up and saw Wendy standing at the foot of the bed. She knew. Tears were running down her cheeks.
“K… Kate. She came back for the wedding. She left a note that said she loved us.” I’d called Melody and Lissa as soon as they landed in Hawaii so they knew. “Then she left again. She fucking left again. I can’t do it, Wendy. I’m so sorry. I can’t make it without her.”
They kept me overnight to be sure I was rehydrated. Must have been a slow day at the hospital. In the morning I made it to Doc’s class a little late, but I focused all my attention on the right way to mix pigments for fresco. Like the sand, the pigments are mixed with lime and distilled water. Working with them is more like working with watercolor than oil or acrylic, but the surface doesn’t bleed so much. Most of the fresco painting is precise with minimal washes and wet blending.
I didn’t go to the club. I was told to take a day off from training. So, I worked on my online classes. Anything to keep my brain from working. It sounds stupid to study in order to keep the brain from working. I guess it was thinking that I didn’t want to do. I didn’t want to think about how disappointed, angry, and bitter I’d become.
That was it. The whole weekend after the wedding, I kept expecting Kate to walk in the door. She was in Seattle. Certainly, she wouldn’t pass up the opportunity to see her family. Her mom and dad and grandpa were here. Her brother and sister. I was here, goddammit! But there was never another word. There was no way to tell her we still loved her. No way to ask her to come home.
“Tony, do you believe us when we say we’ll never leave you?” The four of us were curled up in bed. Melody and Lissa were on either side of me and Wendy was wrapped around Mel. I hadn’t managed to get to sleep before everyone else got to bed.
“Yes, Liss, I believe you. I know you wouldn’t leave me. I’m sorry it sounded like that’s what I was saying. Melody, love, I know you’re in it for the long haul. Wendy, Tiger, I don’t understand it, but I know you’ll never leave me. Okay? I know I’ve been a jerk. I’m sorry.”
“Tony,” Melody said, “that’s all one-sided. You have to tell us, too. Tony, come back. Please don’t ever leave us.”
Oh shit! Why is it always about me? I’m so insecure that I have to be reassured by my lovers and never think to let them know—to reassure them. I’m such fucking asshole! No wonder Kate left.
“Oh god! No! Melody. Oh, love! I would never leave you. Lissa, never! I could never leave you. Wendy, please don’t think I’d ever abandon you. You are all I have. I would never leave you.”
“Then get your head back in the game,” Lissa commanded, sharply. “You sink into yourself where none of us can reach you. That’s the same as leaving us.”
“But…”
“Do you think I don’t miss Kate as much as you do?” Wendy asked. Her voice was firm, but tears were streaming down her cheeks. “Please be with us, Tony.”
We applied color in Doc’s class on test swatches of wet plaster. We watched them dry and change color. The medium feels wrong. You paint on a gray substrate that disappears after the paint is applied so the true colors come out. The finished result is way different from what it looks like when it’s wet. I guess you have to not see the wall.
I met with Clarice, Allison, and Allison’s producer, Jonathan Reichman. That guy treats Allison like she’s Bette Midler. He adores her. He claims his husband and partner, David, has suspected he is bi, but he denies it. He fell in love with Allison’s voice outside our room in Chicago over two years ago.
The meeting went well. Jonathan bought the portrait I painted of Allison and named Diva. He wanted to use the image for Allison’s one-woman show and had titled the show, Diva. Allison was getting some serious promotion for her career and I was determined to help if I could. We had never run a print of Diva, so Jonathan wanted exclusive rights to sell the print across the country if Allison did a nationwide tour of the show. There were so many clauses and contingencies that Allison and I left it all to Clarice and Jonathan to work out the details. We went for a walk, heading for the docks where one of the many cruise ships that stop in Seattle was boarding passengers.
“Jonathan says we’ll be too late to book this season’s cruises out of Seattle, but we might book cruises out of Miami this winter.”
“Miami? That’s a long way away, Allie.”
“Listen, Tony. You’ve got to get this through your thick skull. Even if we can’t be with you all the time, we’re still with you. Got it? Don’t act like we’re all jumping ship. I’m even joining the family in Nebraska next month. Jonathan has cleared a week off in my rehearsal schedule. Imagine—a week off in the summer. And guess who else will be there.”
“Mmm. That could only be Dumpling,” I said wistfully. I needed a hayloft meeting with Beth, that was for sure.
“That’s right. Even though we broke up, we’re still looking forward to seeing each other—maybe even double-teaming the great Tony Ames,” Allison laughed.
“Allie, I know I can be—in fact that most of the time I am—a jerk. An unthinking clod. But I hope you know I love you,” I said as we watched passengers boarding the ship from the heights across the way.
“Do not follow that by saying ‘goodbye,’ Tony. It is way too melodramatic and this is life, not theater,” Allison laughed.
“What’s the difference?” I laughed back at her.
“Oh. That’s easy. Theater has to be believable. Your life isn’t.”
I had one more big event before I left for Cali, Colombia. Damon’s birthday party was on Saturday, three days before his birthday. I was flying out on his birthday, Tuesday. We had a blast! I got so wrapped up teaching the kids how to run Parkour and joining their laughter that I completely forgot about Kate. The kids tried to tag me and I threw each one onto the big bouncy mattress that Jack rented. And you should have seen the kids doing sumo wrestling in inflatable suits that made them all look like they weighed two hundred pounds. The kids would fall over and that was the end of the match. The kids loved it. Once they’d all had a turn, they were back in line to get suited up again.
“Wait. What do you mean we’re all going? Was anyone going to tell me that?”
“I’m going as your coach,” Lissa said. “Even though Coach Elliot is the team coach, for World Games, it’s recognized that all players have their own coaches. Arnie will be there as will several of the others you know. Melody doesn’t have classes or any reason not to go and why would we leave Wendy behind?”
“But… someone should be here… in case…”
“Tony, we’ve been planning this for months. If Kate shows up at the airport, there’s a ticket waiting for her. If she shows up here while we’re gone, she’ll wait. She knows we’re going to Colombia.”
I steeled myself against any further complaints.
Suck it up, Tony. The World Games. Let’s play racquetball.
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