Frannie in Pieces (15 page)

Andy gives in to my plea
to make a quick stop at the bookstore before he drops me off, and he forces me to listen to country music, which turns out to be a mind-calmer. When I walk into the house, I hear the vacuum. Rosanna must be here. It's not her usual day.

I make my leisurely way up the stairs leafing through my new English-Italian phrase book. Although it's impossible that Mr. Super Chef might be right—not Ireland, Italy—I bought a book, just in case.

Good grief, she's vacuuming my room.

The board has been spun from under the bed over to the window. Piles of sorted pieces stacked around the edge of the puzzle have toppled, perhaps from a quick swivel or the force of Rosanna's yank. Jigsaw pieces are far flung, like shattered glass.

“Stop!” I shout. It's one of her English words.
Por favor,
I also shout, which everyone knows means “please,” but Rosanna, oblivious, on her knees, is ramming the vacuum nozzle into every nook and cranny under the bed. I hit the
OFF
switch.

The silence takes a second to register; then Rosanna sits back on her heels. “Frannita.” She hops up and begins scolding me in a torrent of Spanish. I get the message but not the words, except possibly “dirty” and
mucho
. She's talking about my room. “Surprise,” I tell her, “
Sorpresa
.
Sorpresa
for Mom.” I gesture toward the puzzle.
Puzzle
is not a word I know in Spanish, I've only studied for two years. I close the bedroom door and put my finger to my lips. This is hush-hush. Secret.
Secreto
. Mom does not know. Mel does not know. I tell her that in Spanish. Thank God he hasn't wandered in. Thank God on summer Saturdays he shops at the farmers' market. Right this second he's probably feeling up corn. He claims that when you buy corn on the cob, you can tell if the kernels are small and plump by squeezing the husks. Isn't that fascinating?

In case you're wondering why Rosanna hasn't vacuumed in here since I brought the puzzle home weeks ago, I told her not to. I announced it in front of Mom, who nodded approval. Nodded vigorously—Mom doesn't speak much Spanish, and even when she can say something, she indicates instead, or overindicates, to make the point. Because Mom believes it's character building for teenagers to clean their own rooms, I was able to keep Rosanna away from the puzzle and my beautiful carved box.

The box. Where is it?

“Box,” I say to her. Do I know that word in Spanish? I can't remember. Rosanna waits. It's
hopeless. I flatten to look under the bed. Not there.

“Box?” Rosanna shakes her head. I speed-hunt through the room, flinging up sheets she stripped off the bed, pillows, dirty clothes. Oh, there it is. In a safe place, cushioned by Dad's shirts, it's nestled in one of the open cardboard boxes. Box, I show her what I was referring to.
Secreto muy grande.

Rosanna beams and says something that I don't understand.

“Uscita.”
I toss it up and see if it lands.

“Who?” she replies in English.

So
uscita
is not Spanish. In fact, I'll look it up right now. There it is, in my Italian phrase book, under “Signs & Public Notices”: Exit:
uscita
.

For sure, the puzzle is Italy. Dad has been in Italy, in this ancient town, whatever it is. And mom thinks that's funny. Obviously
he
didn't think it was funny, or he wouldn't have made me this puzzle.

In an attempt to hustle Rosanna out of the room, I collect her dust towel and cleaning sprays (poison for sure). She swipes her finger across my bureau.
Dust, she shows me. She moves some big boxes, revealing crumbs from old sandwiches, crushed peanuts. She points out an empty cellophane bag (red licorice) and a shriveled plum under the bureau.

“I'll vacuum,” I say.
Yo
vacuum. Please, Rosanna. I give her a big hug. I hear Mel pull into the driveway as I maneuver Rosanna out the door.

After flipping my Italian phrase book onto the bed, I hit the
ON
switch. While the vacuum roars, a decoy, I get on hands and knees and hunt for jigsaw pieces, combing the shag one small area at a time. Suppose a piece got sucked up in the vacuum? I can't think about that. I don't even want to consider it. Good grief, here's one on the bathroom floor.

I'd better check out the vacuum bag: hold it over the trash basket and rip. This is disgusting. It's packed with dust balls and food bits, but fortunately, no puzzle parts.

I must make a decision about going back in.

Control. I have no control. But…but, but, I have noticed that my going into the puzzle happens
late at night after hours of puzzle work, a consequence of dizziness and near-hypnotic concentration.

I don't want to go back in until I'm absolutely ready.

So I've given up working nights. That's why I stayed home from camp for an entire week. “Toodleoo,” I told Mel every morning and pranced out the door. “Tooth infection,” I fibbed to Mr. DeAngelo. The bus rumbled on, and I sped behind the garage and waited, giving Beastoid time to retreat to his study. After about a half hour, I snuck back in through the kitchen door.

It was risky. Mel can get sidetracked by the most boring things. Once Mom saw this book about coal.
The History of Coal
. She bought it for him, and you know what he said? “I've already read that.” No kidding. There is always the possibility that he'll get obsessed with something in the newspaper, something endless and dreary like an article about peach pits, and put off serfs until later. “Oh, I couldn't put the paper down, freestone peaches are so riveting.”
But mainly he's reliable. “I could set my watch by that man.” I once watched a TV show about an old man who did everything the same way every single day, and when he got murdered, that's what his landlady said. “I could set my watch by that man.”

Hide in plain sight. Ever heard that expression? I wasn't in plain sight, but my bedroom was hardly deep cover either. Knowing there was no reason for Mel to enter my room (and that he did not venture out of his study until six), I worked days undetected for a week. Kept myself alert at all times, too. If I got loopy or droopy—so close to the puzzle that I could lick it—I took a break.

I never fell in.

Here's a puzzle piece on the shelf. Boy, Rosanna creates a mighty wind. It landed right next to Dad's unfinished sculpture, my precious wavy bird. Perhaps the bird was guarding it, keeping it safe.

I place the jigsaw piece on my palm and blow off specks of dirt. It's plain, yellow with white letters:
VIA
. No other piece has had letters on it. I wonder where it goes.

I cruise the empty spots. The hulk of the church is gray, but the dome glows a bright lemon. No match for the muddy yellow in my
V-I-A
piece. Along the cove, buildings in different shades of rose and maroon have yellow stripes, but all as pale as tapioca. Jumping to the other side of the puzzle, I work my way down from the top: the restaurant, garden, stone steps, rooftops. Is there a dot of mustard by that building? The faintest smudge? I don't hear the satisfying click because the vacuum is blasting, but the puzzle surface is smooth, interlocking curves in perfect harmony. I love it when I make a match.

I celebrate by turning off the vacuum.

Break time. Study Italian time. James was right. Chef Man tells the truth. Hard for third wheel to accept. Puzzle must be Italy. I try to get into Dad's head about this. Why would Dad give me Italy? He
didn't like opera. He loved pizza. Did he tell me about Italy? Was it a bedtime story? Did I forget?

I know my dad. Don't I?

I'd better keep this phrase book with me at all times in case I fall into the puzzle by accident. Since it's the size of a chocolate bar, it will slip easily into my pocket.

When I pick up the book and roll onto the bed, something stabs my back. Another missing piece. More letters, and, like the other, mustard yellow with white lettering:
GRAVINO
. I fall off the bed and, in a second, make the match:
VIA GRAVINO
. A place? A street?

I hope that is truly the last of the missing pieces.
Suppose my 1000-piece puzzle is now a 999-piece puzzle? Worse, a 989-piece puzzle? The way to my father, if this is the way, could be blocked.

Don't think about that.

Study.

Prepare.

I prop up my pillows, sock them a few times, sit back and wiggle to get truly comfortable, then thumb through the book. Father.
Padre
. “Is there a campsite nearby?”
C'è un camping qui vicino?
Camping? I hate camping. I hope I don't need to camp. “Can I buy ice?”
Si puo comprare del ghiaccio? Ghiaccio?
How do you pronounce that word? I'm passing on ice.
Dov'è?
Where is?
Dov'è mio padre?
Where is my father?

The sky is dumping rain.

An enormous yellow slicker and black rubber boots splash into the barn. Slung over its shoulder, a bulging plastic garbage bag clangs when it's swung down and hits the floor. An arm flies up and knocks back the hood, and out springs the screaming red hair. The Honker's face is wet. From the bottom of her somewhat pointed chin, water drips like a leaky faucet. She hunts around in a big patch pocket, produces a red kerchief that she rubs over her face.

In strolls Simon, sopping wet in a T-shirt and
cargo shorts. He stops, shakes his head, spraying water in every direction, and wrings out his shirt by twisting the front. Crowding in behind is a group of campers. He herds them over to a corner where they shed their rain gear. Not that I'm paying attention. I'm too busy and too miserable. The hot, sticky air reminds me of a sauna Jenna and I once took because she insisted it was good for the skin. I flap Dad's shirt for air-conditioning while I supervise parachute construction. Except for Simon's little corner, where he settles his campers in a circle, I've taken over the barn. My kids, on the floor, wield scissors, dip brushes in vats of glue, and bathe volumes of tissue paper with it. I'm counting the hours until I can get back to the puzzle.

This morning I wondered if I had made a mistake. A colossal mistake. Suppose by working sensibly, keeping alert at all times, I blew my chance to enter the puzzle again? Suppose I blew my chance to see Dad? I have no control. Why do I think I have control?

“I don't know what kind to make, Frannie. What kind of parachute should I make?” Pearl trails me, tugging on my shirt, driving me nuts.

“I'm sure you can figure it out. You'd better get started—everyone else has been working for a week.” Harriet nods approvingly. I can't help overhearing Simon's booming voice. “Sensitivity, dudes, let's hear it for sensitivity.” He insists that they cheer several times until he's satisfied with the level of pep. “Today we're working on friendship and conversation,” he tells them. Mr. Marry-Me-and-Be-My-Canoe is teaching the art of conversation.

A crackle of lightning, and everyone stops what they're doing, waiting for the boom of thunder to follow. “Will the roof fall?” asks Isabel.

“Maybe.”

“The roof won't fall,” says Harriet. “That's ridiculous. What are you talking about, Frances?” Digging into the garbage bag, she produces several pots that she proceeds to place strategically to catch the many leaks. Meanwhile, the rain on the roof
sounds like animals stampeding, and the damp, seeping through the old boards, creates areas of discoloration like sweat marks. Sure, the roof won't fall, but the barn is sweating. Like that's normal. The sides will collapse, I'll be buried under debris for days and end up a vegetable. If I ever see the puzzle again, I won't even recognize it.

“Look, Barbie's swimming pool.” Seymour grabs Beatrice's doll and dunks her head in a pot. Fortunately, the pot has barely an inch of water. Beatrice snatches the doll back, and to my surprise Amber starts whacking Seymour with her Barbie, landing blows all over his head and shoulders. He stumbles backward and almost falls on Lark's parachute. Lark throws her body over it as if she's protecting her baby from gunfire.

I yank Seymour away, but Amber, the tiger, keeps swinging. Simon lifts her into the air. “Sensitivity, both of you.” He moves two campers over to make space, drops Amber into the circle, and pushes Seymour in next to her. Seymour has not been
working on a parachute. His sole interests are tormenting girls and gum chewing. He takes wads he's done with and sticks them on himself. Simon plucks one from Seymour's forehead and flicks it into the garbage can.

“I don't know what to make,” whines Pearl. “Frannie, what should I make?”

“I don't know.”

Lark's parachute, decorated with the face of a lion, is a remarkable creation. She's slathered glue onto several identically sized circles of yellow tissue, about three feet in diameter, and stuck them together so the main body of the parachute has a little extra weight and stiffness. I use it for a demonstration model. The parachutes are most likely to waft down gently and the eggs to land safely if the main frame is shaped as Lark's is, I show them. She acknowledges my compliment with a wiggle of her shoulders and a few thrusts of her fists. On top of the parachute she's built the lion's face: a wreath of short strips of brown, gold,
and copper for a shaggy mane, flat round black eyes, a cone of brown tissue for the nose, and an open gaping mouth—the better to eat you with—which she's working on now. As she concentrates on shaping a twisted rope of tissue into an oval and gluing it down, her own mouth gapes open in imitation. “I'm going to stuff red tissue inside,” she says.

“The tongue?”

“The tongue.” She sticks hers out. “I'll rest the egg on it.”

“I hope mine drops like a bomb,” says Gregor, who is gluing tissue around an inflated balloon (another technique suggested by the book). When the tissue dries, he'll pop the balloon with a pin, and the hardened tissue should remain balloon shaped. Then he must cut a small hole in the tissue balloon and glue in a bunch of tissue shreds or a toothpick basket to carry the egg. Before Amber got hijacked into sensitivity training, the Barbies were building a boat parachute, powder blue with silver stars.

“Suppose the wind won't carry it? Suppose there's no wind?” asks Beatrice.

“If there's no wind, the ground will be splattered with yolks and broken parachutes.” Out of the corner of my eye I see that Simon has arranged his campers in pairs. They face each other cross-legged.

“I don't know what to make,” says Pearl.

“A butterfly. Sit right down here and make a butterfly.” Before I scream, but I don't say that.

“What color?”

“Pink.”

Rocco is making a centipede parachute. Many legs, different-colored strips of tissue, dangle off a long rectangle, the main body. His bug could never walk because all the legs are different sizes. He doesn't cut tissue, he rips it. He and his sister are from different worlds—she methodical and exacting, he charismatically chaotic. Sitting on his shoulder, watching him splatter as much glue on himself as on the tissue, is Leo. Isabel has tied a red ribbon around his rubbery green tail, and he looks
festive, a Christmas lizard in August.

“Leo can fly. Who wants to hold Leo?” asks Rocco. “For five dollars, anyone can hold him who wants to.”

“Me, and I'm not paying.” I place an open hand next to Rocco's shoulder, and Leo pads on. I contemplate him, he contemplates me. I think he's smiling, like a Buddha, as if he has wisdom and knowledge that all of us don't. He seems peaceful. Leo the anxiety-free lizard. Brave to be anxiety-free when your primary caregiver is a maniac. Every so often his throat contracts and inflates again. Every so often his tongue flicks out, but otherwise he remains still. Have you ever heard the expression “No one's home,” meaning that the person is vacant, empty, even soulless? With Leo, someone is definitely home. Could he be Dad reincarnated? I know that's a bizarre notion, but imagine: Your dad dies and you find a lizard, keep it in a box, and, unbeknownst to you, it's really your dad. You figure that out because one night he crawls into the moo
shu pork, your dad's favorite Chinese food. I could draw that—a perfect white box and Leo's triangular head and sweet bulging eyes peeking over the top. I could call the drawing “Dad's Back.”

Dad is back and waiting for me in the puzzle.

Suppose I can't get in again?

That thought is tormenting me.

I put Leo in his box on top of a pile of dry grass. I tickle his tail. He stretches his legs before moving away.

“I'll do it with Frannie. We'll demonstrate,” I hear Simon announce.

I whip around.

He waves me over to his little circle.

“That's okay, thanks anyway, we're busy over here.”

“Frances, Simon needs your help,” Honker rasps in my ear.

“Well, that's too bad, I'm very busy. Keep working,” I tell the kids, but they don't. While Simon keeps waving and calling, “Come on, Frannie,” they
look at Simon, then at me. Back and forth. Their brushes, poised in the air, drip glue; scissors pause mid slice.

“Frannie, Frannie, Frannie,” Simon chants and they all join in.

The Honker gives me a push, the nerve. While everyone cheers, I step over and around children and parachutes. It seems a very long distance to Simon and not long enough. “What am I supposed to do?” I inquire in a most businesslike way, and in response, he sits down on the floor and crosses his legs. I follow suit, facing him. He inches closer until our knees are touching, and without being obvious I avoid eye contact. My eyes dart over his shoulder, at his left ear, at the scrunched-up section of his T-shirt, the light hair on his wet arms. “We are going to close our eyes and feel each other's faces,” he says.

A sudden cold sweat with the humidity at ninety. I am experiencing panic. “What does this have to do with sensitivity?”

“She'll see,” he tells the campers. “Okay, dudes, are you ready?”

The dudes are ready. Even Lark is fascinated. While cradling the red tissue tongue in her hands, she stares; her eyes pop to the widest shutter opening; her thin half-moon brows rise. Rocco, riveted as well, has his finger up his nose. Hazel, engrossed in peeling glue off the tips of her fingers, stops scraping. Isabel, with a beatific grin, expects to see something romantic, while Harriet, her face all pinched and practical, is viewing the proceedings scientifically. I recognize the look from biology class, whack, down comes the chopper. “Let's slice up this frog's head, the brains are green, can everyone see this? Hey you, Jack, in the back row, can you see these brains?” She's Jack in the back row, craning to see the results of the experiment. They are all waiting. Someone has waved a magic wand, and they are statues and will be freed only by my submitting to Simon.

“We're going to shut our eyes and feel each
other's faces,” Simon repeats.

I am so intent on cool, so intent. I'm going to feel his face but I'm not going to feel his face when I feel his face because someone else is sitting here knocking knees with Sensitivity Man, not Frances Anne Cavanaugh. An impersonator, a stand-in. “You're witnesses,” I tell the kids. “If he doesn't shut his eyes, too, I expect you all to yell.” To him I hiss, “This has nothing to do with sensitivity.”

He ignores me. “On three we start. One…two…three.”

I shut my eyes. You know what that's like in daylight: You're looking at the insides of your eyelids, murky shadows, and along the bottoms, a rim of lifeless light as if the sun is setting on a brown day.

After a few agonizing seconds, I feel his fingers touch my cheek, a hand presses down, skin rough and callused clumsily pats over my nose to the other cheek as if he's trying to determine my species, girl or elephant. I start to giggle. “Sorry.” Get a grip, Frannie. I stick out both arms, hands up
and wide open, trying to make this as silly as possible, but it's unnerving not knowing the distance or location. Whoa, my hands collide with a land mass, his face. Tap-dancing my fingers around, I climb the little mountain of his nose, encounter an eye. His lashes tickle the tip of my third finger. Intentionally I brush the wrong way across his eyebrows. I locate a blister somewhere—it's harder to identify face geography than I expect—but if I concentrate on touching him, I'm less aware of his hands touching me. What's this? His chin bone? I'm tracing the line, chin to ear, when he smoothes my lip with his finger and electricity shoots down my spine.

“That's enough.” I open my eyes and am looking directly into his. Not the least bit unnerving, locking eyes with Simon is actually pleasant. I could walk right in and sit right down, stretch out across those pale blues and pitch a tent there without thinking twice. He's nice. That thought surfaces
the way an object floats to the surface of water and reveals itself.

“Now Frannie has to ask me a question.” He gazes steadily at me but addresses the kids.

“How did you learn to canoe?” I say. How lame is that? Utterly. And yet, do I care?

I'm not wise, but I am aware, as if another part of me is watching, that my defenses are scrambling to get back into service. I have no interest in them, because I like it where I am, paddling around in Simon's eyes, doing the breaststroke, the back-stroke, kicking from one end of the pool to the other.

“Canoe?” says Simon. “Well, my dad. My dad taught me. My folks have a cabin in the Adirondacks. We go there on holidays and weekends. I learned everything about the outdoors from my dad. Next year my dad and I are going to Yosemite.”

Next year his dad and he…they've got plans.
Things they're going to do together.

“Now Frannie has to ask a follow-up question.” Again he addresses the campers without breaking eye contact with me.

Next year his dad and he…I feel my chest cave, and other parts reflexively tighten, my arms, my neck, even my jaw stiffens trying to keep the sadness at bay. The only comfort is Simon's blue eyes. They seem to see deep inside me, right to the wound. “You know what, Frannie doesn't have to ask a question.” He takes me off the hook. “I'll ask her one. What's in your pocket?”

“What?”

“Your shirt pocket. What's in it?”

“Nothing.”

I slip my hand inside to prove it and find an object instantly familiar—the weight, the flatness, the jigsawed edges. What is a puzzle piece doing in my pocket? How did it get there?

I show it to him. “My dad made me a jigsaw puzzle.”

Except for Jenna and James, he's the first person I've told, and it escapes me that it's not a confidence, that dozens of kids watching are also privy to this fact that has no meaning to them but means everything to me.