Art on Fire (9 page)

“Mama said it was a terrible neighborhood.” Alfonse collapsed his hands and picked up his half-eaten slice of pizza. A group of four college students spilled into the restaurant. It was immediately discernible they were from Yale—not Southern or Quinnipiac or the University of New Haven. They were paler, with powdery fine skin. The girls wore long, lightweight scarves even though it was still balmy outside; the boys were quieter than regular boys. Was it breeding, Alfonse wondered, that made them so distinctive? He decided it was. They possessed an inherent superiority that could not be learned; it was sewn into their fabric by a long, uninterrupted thread.

“Papa,” Francesca said suddenly, wresting him from his reverie. “Why do I love another girl?” She tried to stop herself, but—there—it jumped out of her mouth.

He stared at her because, of course, he and Vivian and Evelyn had all wondered this. And then, with the force of a benign dictator making a ruling of what was and wasn't permissible, he spoke: “You think—you might think you love a girl. You probably do love this girl, the same way you might love a very best friend.” He made a distinct separation from this normal, best friend love, and the other sort of love which he was deeming nonexistent, as if separating them from an embrace. “You spend too much time alone, Francesca. You need other friends. This girl just came along and she made you realize you were lonely. For a friend.”

“But I do love her,” Francesca said, her voice tiny, resigned.

He shook his head. “You cannot tell your mother about this. It's more than she can bear. She's got her hands full with Isabella. You are
a good girl, Francesca. You always have been.” It was less an observation than a command.

Francesca felt sick. The college students had finished their first pitcher of beer. They were arguing about a movie they'd just seen, something that had a love story which the boys found implausible; the girls, romantic. It was a conversation that was being overheard in that moment in pizza restaurants across the country.

“Can we go home?” she asked. “I don't feel good.”

“You feel sick? Was it the pizza?” He turned to find the waiter. He was relieved that the conversation was over and he wouldn't have to listen to Francesca confess any more of her strange secrets. It was one thing to be a father, to provide money, to play catch, to bring Francesca with him on his jobs sometimes and help her with her homework. But if this newest incident were really an indication of some sort of perversion in her development, he'd rather pretend not to notice it and hope it would work itself out.

They were quiet on the car ride home, so Alfonse put on the game. The Dolphins vs. the Redskins. Francesca never paid attention to the specifics of football, but she enjoyed the sounds of the game over the radio—the announcer's enthusiasm, excited but muffled, the warm shifting of the crowd's roar, like someone turning over in bed. It made her sleepy. In this moment, it soothed her. It reminded her not to rely on anyone, least of all her parents.

When Isabella was 14, her manuscript,
A Cry from the Attic
, was published by Random House. Comprised of thirty-six sonnets written in the fictionalized voice of Anne Frank, the volume was hailed as “an unprecedented genre . . . historical poetry—unwieldy as it is thorough,”
¹⁶
“a visionary deconstruction of reality, dappled with piercing insights,”
¹⁷
and, cryptically, “the author glimpses the fourth dimension.”
¹⁸

Isabella's literary agent, Mrs. Val Noonan, suggested a party to celebrate. Invitations went out to major players in the industry: newspaper and magazine publishers, critics, Anne Frank scholars, and Elie Weisel. Vivian prepared magic tuna fish. She peppered the pink flesh with paprika, cumin seed, and chopped celery; pulverized it with a fork; then set three scoops on a large plate, in the design of a face. All of this she framed in a halo of cocktail rye breads. She created myriad hors d'oeuvres, all of them inexplicably childlike: pigs in blankets, Swedish meatballs, tiny salami and American cheese sandwiches on miniature buns with yellow mustard. Arrangements were made in advance for Francesca to stay at Evelyn's.

Cars from New York parked side by side in the DeSilva driveway. A case of champagne chilled in the refrigerator. Isabella stood pressed into the corner, largely avoided by the guests. Alfonse, too, evaded the commotion, hiding in the kitchen and replenishing hors d'oeuvres, impressing the female guests with his exotic nonaversion to housework. On one foray out of the kitchen, tray of pigs in blankets extended as a shield, he was accosted by an erudite American to expound on Sonnet #19 in Isabella's collection. Alfonse nodded and smiled, trying to place the man's remarkably unpleasant accent (was it New York or Boston?) and conceal the fact that he had not read beyond the first two poems in his daughter's volume. (He kept his autographed
copy—
To Papa, Love I
.—its cover shiny with infancy, binder arthritic from unuse, on its own shelf in his nightstand, where each night he passed it over for his well-worn copy of Italo Calvino's
Italian Fairy Tales
, a wonderfully dreamy and slumberous collection that reminded him of what he considered his home, even if he'd never been there.)

Mrs. Val Noonan suggested that Isabella be allowed a sip of champagne. “After all,” she told Vivian, “The party is in her honor. And at 14, she's a young lady herself.” She chucked Isabella's chin.

“She's right, you know, you're a perfect young lady,” Vivian gripped Isabella's arm and held on, as if it might float away.

Isabella watched carefully as Mrs. Val Noonan poured the champagne. Bracelets jingling, teased red hair spraying the air with the choking scent of roses, the agent brought the plastic cup to Isabella's lips, tilted it just enough so the bubbles scratched at the inside of her mouth and made a clear, hot stream to her stomach. Isabella snatched the cup from the veiny, jeweled hands and cemented it to her lips. A long smooth swallow sent the liquid through her body, calming her bones, slowing her hyper brain, making her eyes sink like pillows into her head. She seemed to have been dropped, feet first, into the living room. She looked down at her body, her knees, her fingers, felt her throat, and emitted a large sigh.

“Mmmm.” She smiled at Mrs. Val Noonan, unglued herself from the corner, and thrust her body into the crowd like a volleyball. Most remarkable to her was the utter absence of fear; in its place pulsed a golden warmth toward all humankind, particularly the thirty-two guests who edged about the living room—dipping things, bumbling through mundane conversation in four-syllable words, drinks in hand, cigarettes burning, glasses and suits and stale, day-long breath. She looked into each pair of eyes and smiled, welcoming them, one at a time.

“Excuse me, sir,” she pressed her small fingers into the back of a young man with a thin, sand-colored beard; he smiled and stepped aside. She spun through the crowd like a ballerina, entered the kitchen, opened the refrigerator, and counted nine bottles of champagne waiting for her. She gripped one about the neck and flew up the stairs to her bedroom, pressed the door closed, leaving sweaty prints on the white,
semigloss paint. “Ouch, ouch, ouch,” she said, kicking off her pinching penny loafers. She flopped down onto the bed.

She stared, rapt, at the dark, chubby bottle. Her fingers traced the crinkled gold foil, separating it carefully from the narrow neck. With bitten-down nails, she pulled at the wire basket, loosened it and threw it to the floor, then went at the large swell of cork with her teeth. Biting, pulling, until finally, like a shot, the cork slammed the wall of her teeth, the champagne forging a passage down her throat, taking with it, like driftwood, her left canine. Greasy blood pooled in her stomach, the champagne making it all seem to be only half happening as she poked her tongue at the new hole in the side of her mouth.

Hugging the cold bottle with her bare thighs, heart racing, skin hot, Isabella began to laugh. It was a low and spooky laugh, fermented from having been bottled up too long. Her head felt soft as a stick of butter left out overnight. She fell back on the bed and poured the champagne onto her face from above, swallowing what she could. The rest of it landed in a sweet yellow puddle around her.

Vivian exhausted her remaining crumbs of patience watching Alfonse drive up and down each row of the hospital parking lot. “This is the worst time to go to an emergency room,” she snapped. “Saturday after midnight. All the crackpots come out. Jesus, Al. Just pull up to the door and drop us off.”

“Ow,” said Isabella.

“I know, baby,” Vivian petted Isabella's head absentmindedly, breathing through her mouth to evade the putrid smell emanating from her daughter's pores. Alfonse waited at the entrance while the two women extracted Isabella from the backseat.

“If only we'd been able to save the tooth,” said Mrs. Val Noonan, taking one side of Isabella. Vivian took the other. Together they dragged her through the automatic doors.

The waiting room smelled of booze; Isabella made her own contribution, as did Mrs. Val Noonan and Vivian. They sat her in one of the pear-shaped plastic chairs, left an empty seat to her right for
Alfonse. Mrs. Val Noonan paced pathologically, smoking and frowning compassionately at Isabella, hoping this show of concern would deter a lawsuit. She wasn't sure what she'd done for which she was liable, but she knew there was something. Perhaps she shouldn't have treated a fourteen-year-old girl—no matter what her IQ—as an adult. Perhaps it was the suggestion of the party in the first place or offering that first sip of champagne. Though Vivian had been there, had gone along with it.

The glass doors swung open and Alfonse entered, smoothing his hair to the side nervously and diffidently peering about the queer room. Evelyn bounded in behind him, wearing a housedress with her faux beaver coat over it, her hair clips protruding like badly installed hardware. Her face was so compressed from irritation it looked as if she'd bit a lemon. Francesca lagged behind, wearing her grandmother's nylon pajamas under a denim jacket, her hair still sound asleep. Vivian saw them approaching and turned away to roll her eyes, appalled by their appearance. She pulled Isabella closer.

“Look who I found,” Alfonse held out his arm, too exhausted to muster his usual good cheer.

“What happened? What's the matter with her? She looks drunk!” Evelyn shouted. She glared down at Isabella. Francesca glanced at her sister, then lost interest and disappeared into the haze of cigarette smoke.

Vivian explained calmly, as though she was giving directions, how Isabella had swallowed her canine.

“Jesus Christ Almighty,” Evelyn wrinkled up her face in sympathetic pain and stared down at the girl's bloodied mouth.

“It was an accident,” said Vivian.

“Of course it was an accident. No one swallows her tooth on purpose.” Evelyn leaned in closer. “Open up. Let Grandma see.”

Isabella, no longer drunk and beginning to feel irritable and sore, glared spitefully at her grandmother. The throbbing was now constant as waves in the back of her head, and there was a second, more dissonant thud beginning where her tooth had escaped.

“What's the matter, you swallowed your ear? Open your mouth!”

Isabella obeyed, and Evelyn was practically knocked down by the
rancid odor of vomit, blood, and liquor. “My God!” she said, examining, from farther away, the black hole in the right side of the girl's mouth.

Isabella slammed her mouth shut.

Francesca found a dark corner near the pay phone. She slid down onto the floor, her legs extended out in front of her. “Paul, listen, Ursula had an accident,” said a sweaty man between drags of his cigarette. “Yeah. St. Raphael's. We're waiting to see the doctor.” It was a candy store of drama, people camped out for hours, covered in flannel blankets. There were broken bones; drugged teenagers hanging their feet over the backs of chairs; sweaty, beet-colored faces attached to shivering bodies. The floor was littered with gum wrappers and empty potato chip bags, abandoned bottles of soda and cups of coffee, cigarette butts and balled-up Band-Aids. The walls were scuffed eggshell, the windows covered in old, bent blinds with the lights of Main Street bleeding between. It looked messy, like one of her finger paintings. In the distance she saw her own family bunched together. She studied her mother's face. Her sister's head was toppled, as if she'd finally abandoned the battle to keep it upright.