Nothing but Blue Skies

44

The library had a room that housed the papers of several early Montana governors. It had a long table meant for research, and beside it a tall south-facing window that framed the shape of a terrific maple that stood within a low-walled court. The maple fractured the intense southern light and filled the room with a blue, green and silver glow. Frank loved to imagine the contemplative people whose horizons were undiminished by a thirty-gallon hot water tank and who would let this fine and eternal light accompany the life of the mind.

“How’s this?”

“This is fine,” said Gracie. She set her bag on the table and took the back of her chair in her hands. Frank knew what would be in that bag: a Walkman and tapes, an apple, a plastic rain parka, an address book, a wallet, a paperback and at least one complete anomaly: once it was a New Orleans phone book, once a field guide to spiders.

“So, let’s sit down,” he said. They sat on either side of the table, as though they were at a meeting. Well, this was a meeting. Frank felt a sweeping comfort. Something near his center was entering repose. His head retired. He knew it was only a matter of time before the center boiled over and the head was back in charge.

“Just so I can understand, Grace, Edward realizes that we are meeting?”

“He does.” Gracie had her hair tied up with a piece of yellow silk. A few strands fell across her forehead and temples.

“I just don’t understand why that is acceptable to him. I know there’re plenty of weird new males out there. But are some of them completely unpossessive?”

“You would hope so, wouldn’t you? I think in Edward’s case it’s important for him to know that my … amorous past is erased. If I can freely meet with you, I think that would satisfy that requirement.”

“ ‘Requirement.’ ”

“Yes.”

“It would seem that Edward is a completely healthy new man, then.”

“He doesn’t think so. He believes that he has an addictive personality.”

“Addicted to what?”

“Money.”

“You can be addicted to money?”

“Edward thinks so. He thinks that it is every bit as addictive as cocaine or alcohol. His wife is very rich and he worries he will go back to her because of his addiction.”

“He’s already spoken to my accountant about my financial health. Maybe he’s having a little slip.”

“Haven’t you reached the point where you’ve lost interest in scoring off other people?”

“My testosterone levels are about where they’ve been. Anything with warm blood makes my trigger finger itch.”

Gracie dug around in her purse until she found her Carmex. She opened the lid and swirled the surface inside with her forefinger, then applied some to her lips. “Look Frank, I’m going to be honest with you. Edward feels his relationship with me began in deception and typified the behaviors he associates with his addiction. He says that if you don’t actually make something, the acquisition of money has to be based in deception. For example, in sales, the money you make is the difference between what the thing you sold is worth and what you have deceived someone into believing it is worth. On the other hand, everything Edward does turns to gold.”

“Is it true he buys the life insurance policies of AIDS victims?”

“Yes,” said Gracie, unmoving. “But it’s not what you think. The sick person needs some cash and gets it. In this case, they deceive themselves because they think if they get the money they can keep from dying. Whereas Edward knows he’s soon going to have the insurance settlement. Or if they don’t deceive themselves, then it’s the insurance company who are kidding themselves by never realizing that people would understand the idea of being doomed and that those people would go on ahead and discount their policy to a complete stranger.”

“It’s depressing.”

“I think so too,” said Gracie. “But so much is depressing. It’s depressing that Holly has grown up.”

“Isn’t it.”

“It seems like yesterday she was fingerpainting in her room,” Gracie said.

“Yup. Or how about at her piano recital when she stood up and said, ‘I cannot play “Streets of Laredo” because I have a sore G-finger’?”

“No more. She’s a cheerful right-wing fanatic with her own life now.”

“Wipe your eyes, Gracie.”

“Give me a sec.”

“So, where were we?”

“These chairs are hard, aren’t they?”

“You sit in my lap?”

“Stop it, Frank.”

“I still love you, Gracie.”

“No you don’t, and if you do, shut up about it.”

“Why?”

“You make all these statements. I’m not real big on statements these days.”

“Okay.”

“So, like, can the statements.”

“Okay!”

Gracie paused to blow her nose. Frank noted happily that she was comfortable making a loud, unselfconscious honk. He bet she didn’t do that around Edward of the Money Problem.

“Anyway,” she said, “I much preferred it when we were younger. I suppose it’s a good thing that most of the world has no idea about what fun hippies had. Otherwise, nothing would work. It’s necessary for most of the world to be deceived. That’s where Edward and I differ. He is now addicted to the idea that he can put an end to deception.”

“For the whole world?”

“He says it’s little steps for little feet.”

“Does this mean that when Edward gets his way, I’m going to have to pump my own septic tank?”

“Maybe.”

“Pull my own wisdom teeth?”

“Could be.”

“This is not a world I’m looking forward to, Grace.”

Gracie got up from her chair and went to the window. Frank looked at her, remembering that he liked the way she held her shoulders back so that her back seemed concave and her shoulder blades disappeared even under a thin dress. He liked that the dress still gathered at the top of her buttocks.

“Anyway, I’m going to try to help Edward with what he thinks is his problem. I owe him that.”

Frank thought that the concept of this debt had a conclusive note that he was not sure he was correct in hearing. Any relationship between men and women was a mounting debt. Why would she single this one out?

“So, I won’t be seeing you …?”

“That’s why I asked you to meet me this morning.”

“To say goodbye?”

“Not at all. Edward wanted me to find out if you would be willing to meet with him in some sort of therapeutic way. Do you think you would?”

This was like hearing from your draft board during a national emergency. He could be as frightened as he wanted to be but he could hardly decline.

“Uh … sure.”