The Boy Who Could Draw Tomorrow Page 4

  "Not here," Peggy whispered, kissing her husband's ear.

  "Come on, then," he whispered back. He got to his feet and stood over her and started lifting her from the couch.

  But Peggy resisted. "Don't you want to see the rest of this?"

  Hal's voice was hoarse with desire when he answered. "I know what I want to see the rest of, and they're not showing it on TV."

  She knew it was no time to try to talk. But she wanted to turn him off. There was too much to think about, and she was afraid to make love and then fall asleep and dream. Besides, there was a hard carnal edge to Hal's lovemaking lately that she just didn't find all that much of a turn-on. So, instead of letting him lift her, she pushed at his chest. "You could always go to that X-rated motel out by the airport. Didn't you notice it on the way in? Closed-circuit movies in every room?"

  Even in the weak light, she could see the angry look that came over his face. It wasn't like Peggy to put him off. It wasn't like her to do it, let alone want to.

  "I must be selling the wrong line of goods," he said, backing away slightly and standing back up to his full height.

  "I'm sorry," Peggy said. "It's just—I don't know. Losing my bag and everything. I can't seem to settle down."

  "That's okay, Pegs," he said, trying to mean it. He bent down, kissed her a quick peck on the forehead, and went off to the guest room, like Sam, making contact with the wall as he worked his way along the hall past the room where Val and Sam were sharing the bed.

  ***

  Things were strained between Peggy and Hal the rest of the week. But the time went quickly. Val and Sam went fishing together almost every day. Peggy and Hal hung around the house. They sunbathed, took long naps, now and then talking together in a new and guarded way. Mainly they went over their new budget and mapped out the belt-tightening that would have to set in as soon as they got back to New York. Hal worked on a batch of releases. Peggy did sketches of some ideas she had for the store's late-autumn windows. And in no time at all, they were on their way home, having made Val promise he'd visit them in their new place come Christmas and that he'd also remember his safety goggles whenever he was inspired to fool around in the garage.

  Peggy kept an eye on Sam's drawing now. At Val's he'd been too caught up with fishing to bother with his pad. But as soon as they were strapped into their seats, he got out his pad and went happily to work. Without letting on that she was doing it, Peggy made sure she got a look at everything he did. Halfway into the flight, she saw one that unnerved her completely. It showed one of the bridges that spans the East River between Queens and Manhattan—a reasonable rendering of the very bridge they would pass over on their way back into the city. In the first frame of the drawing, a large chunky car was crashing through the guard rail, heading for the river below. In the next frame, the car had hit the water, and a crowd had gathered near the broken railing to stare in horror at the vanishing car and its driver.

  "Oh, Sam," Peggy almost cried. "Why on earth would you want to draw something so terrible?"

  She hated herself for saying that—she would have her self freaked-out in no time at all if she didn't snap out of this thing about Sam's drawings—attaching such morbid and outlandish significance to it. But when she saw what he'd sketched in response to her outcry, she couldn't help but feel an inordinate sense of relief. In a third frame, Sam had shown the driver of the car being pulled to safety by what looked like a police rescue team in a motorboat. And when Sam turned to a fresh page and started to form the outline of an airplane, she reached out instinctively to put her hand in the middle of the sheet of paper to interrupt the motion of Sam's pen.

  "Honey? Could I have a piece of paper to make some notes?"

  She didn't give him a chance to offer another. Instead, she tore off the page he'd started to work on—and then, to distract him from going back to the same subject, she said it was time to visit the bathroom.

  "Poke your daddy and tell him we have to get out."

  Hal Cooper came awake angrily. "I don't like it," he growled as Peggy and Sam were making their way past him into the aisle.

  "What, darling?"

  "The way people are always making cracks about your dad and me having names that rhyme."

  Peggy sent Sam on a few steps ahead and then turned back and touched her husband's arm, leaning down so that the other passengers would not hear. "Please, sweetie," she said, "please don't be angry with me. Everything will be back to normal before you know it." She hoped he would understand what she meant by normal, but the look Hal shot her before Peggy turned away to catch up with Sam was clear evidence that he hadn't.

  She followed Sam down the aisle toward the back of the plane, aware that this was the first time in her married life when she and Hal weren't getting through to one another. Yet wasn't it her own fault? She was distracted. She was worried about Sam, about his drawing things as if his pad and pen could see around corners. But why didn't she share her concern with Hal? Was it just because she didn't want to burden him? Was she afraid he'd shrug it off and tell her she was crazy? Or was it something else that kept her silent?

  Peggy went to claim her purse at the Eastern office while Hal and Sam waited at the carousel for their luggage to come around. Sam loved to help. He loved to be the first to spot a piece of their luggage as it bumped along the conveyor belt. In the taxi back to the city, Peggy went through her purse. It was all there, not a button missing. She breathed a sigh of relief and handed Hal the slip of paper on which she'd jotted down the name and address of the driver.

  "I'll call him first thing in the morning," Hal said. "Let him know we're mailing him something. Twenty-five dollars okay?"

  "No," Peggy said, "I'll do it. I was just wondering if you recognized the name now that you see it. I mean from that nameplate thing. You know, up there," and she pointed to the front seat to show what she was talking about.

  But she could see that Hal didn't seem to understand. Or didn't want to.

  "You know. Oh, forget it," she said, and took back the slip of paper.

  He made an exasperated sound and turned to look out the window. "All I know is the guy had sad eyes and one of them strayed like. You know, it didn't track. And he said something about what a great family I had."

  Peggy detected a faint note of irony in Hal's voice, and she was angry about it for Sam's sake. She couldn't understand Hal's unwillingness to patch things up. Maybe the strain of the new apartment, and all the debts that came with it, were beginning to tell on him. Why was he being so obstinate—and sarcastic?

  She tried to make her voice soothing, and she hoped he would turn around and see that she was smiling. "I'll call and let him know something's on the way. After all, it's my job to thank the man."

  "Sure," Hal said, and refused to turn around.

  "I miss Val already," Sam said out of the blue.

  Normally, she or Hal would have said something about that—something to brighten Sam up, or at least remind him to say "Granddad." But neither of them spoke the rest of the way into the city. Even when they pulled up in front of their new building and the crustier of the two doormen came trotting out to fling open the door and stand respectfully to one side, even then Peggy and Hal kept to their grim silence. It was Sam that greeted the doorman and stood around chattering about his week in Florida while the second doorman came out to take charge of the luggage. As for Peggy and Hal, they went sullenly into the lobby, walking the distance to the elevator in as frosty a silence as they'd ever experienced together. But as they stood at the elevator doors waiting for the luggage to be wheeled in, they could hear Sam struggling to describe the thing that huffed and puffed and gave you a glass of Kool-aid.

  It made them smile—and then they laughed. By the time Sam appeared, his hand resting proprietarily on the stack of luggage piled up on the dolly the younger doorman was pushing, Hal and Peggy were hugging as well as laughing.

  Thank God, Peggy thought with wild relief, everything's back to norma
l.

  ***

  It was wonderful being home. And it felt like home, even though they'd slept in the new place only three nights before they'd left for Florida. Now that it was finished, Peggy had to admit that she adored her new kitchen. She stood in the doorway admiring the gleaming surfaces, everything so white and spanking clean, the brass hinges winking back at her in the late-afternoon sunlight that poured through the shuttered window over the sink.

  "Come see," she called to Hal as he dragged the luggage into the foyer.

  He came to stand beside her. "Nice," he said, and hugged her waist.

  They stood for a time gazing at the one room that most powerfully suggested the change that had come into their lives. It was in the air between them, a good feeling, a feeling of enormous pride. They both felt it, didn't they? Peggy could tell it made things better. She leaned against him.

  "You get Sam bathed and into his pyjamas while I whip us up a nice, light supper.''

  But Hal said no, tomorrow was a big day—back to their jobs and first day of school. "And anyway," he said, "we're still officially on vacation."

  So they went to a coffee shop a few blocks away, and got home in time to watch Sixty Minutes and get the unpacking started before Sam had to go to bed. Peggy laid out his new clothes, the outfit that conformed to St. Martin's dress code—school blazer, tie, proper leather shoes—the works.

  "Why can't I wear my Nikes?" Sam said. He sat cross-legged on the bed, his old stuffed fox nestled in his lap. Hal sat at the foot of the bed, ready to bestow his kiss goodnight, while Peggy bent down to pick lint off the blazer and arrange it again on the top of Sam's toy box.

  "Because those are the rules, mister. So don't waste your energy fighting it. Any more questions?"

  The boy stared at the ceiling as if he was hardening himself to endure unspeakable tortures, but when Peggy came to kiss him and arrange the covers over his chest, Sam threw his arms around his mother's neck and hugged her with all his might.

  "Thanks, Mom."

  "Thanks for what?"

  "For the new house and the new school and the new clothes and all that. And for getting to see Granddad, too. I had a great time. Tell Dad thanks, too."

  "Tell him yourself."

  "Thanks, Dad," Sam called out as Hal stood in the doorway waiting to snap off the light.

  "That's okay, Son. You get a good night's sleep. Tomorrow's going to be a big day. So sleep tight, okay?"

  They left his room with their arms about each other's waist, and without a word they turned to their own bedroom.

  "The hell with unpacking," Hal said.

  Peggy answered by touching the back of her hair with her free hand and then pivoting invitingly—so that she faced him as she walked backward, her fingertips tucked meaningfully into his belt.

  ***

  What awakened her? The room was absolutely stifling. Yet it had been downright cool when they'd gone to bed. She could feel pinpricks of sweat forming between her breasts, as if the hair on Hal's chest was drilling tiny wells into her flesh. She tried to ease herself out from under him, but his weight pressed upon her massively and his legs still lay between hers, so that he was like an anchor that moored her in place. She lay there for a long time, listening to his heavy breathing and to a ticking sound that seemed to be coming from behind her head.

  Good God, she thought, they've got the heat turned on and the radiator valve in here must be wide open.

  It was then that she started worrying about Sam's room. He must be burning up.

  She had no choice. She shoved herself out from under Hal and rolled toward the edge of the bed. Then she got up on one elbow and listened to hear if she'd awakened him. What she heard was Hal's even, slumbrous breathing, almost a snore.

  She got down on her hands and knees and crept across the carpet until she felt the radiator sizzling in front of her face. She turned the valve all the way off, then got to her feet to check Sam's room. But the air in there was just right. She stood in the middle of the room. In the moonlight that came through the Levelor blinds she could see where she'd laid his things out on top of the toy box at the foot of his bed. The new shoes glowed like incandescent mice.

  ***

  She went to the kitchen and turned on the light. It occurred to her that this lovely room was even more beautiful at night, its smooth white surfaces so creamy that they seemed to give off a kind of electric hum, as if a miniature dynamo purred from behind each sleek panel and tile.

  She saw her purse sitting on the marble baker's table, the clasp open, the slip of white paper peeking over the top.

  She looked at the digital clock embedded among the battery of dials that operated the built-in wall oven, and was amazed to see that it was only minutes after nine o'clock. She smiled with pleasure, remembering now the small cry that had escaped from her throat when Hal's climax triggered her own and for long instants their bodies had pulsed in perfect unison, the pressure of their embrace gradually subsiding into bottomless sleep.

  Yes, everything was back to normal. It was even better than normal—because the great contentment of their lives had survived the transition to this new and much more comfortable home. They would be even happier here, lead even fuller lives. It was wonderful, how good things could be. Peggy felt herself unimaginably blessed. She murmured a small prayer of thanks, for herself and for those she loved, as she took up her purse and moved across the cool, irregular surface of the Mexican tiles.

  She'd had a wall phone installed, white to go with the dominant color in the room. She lifted the receiver. She felt grateful and generous. She was in a great hurry to share her good fortune. What had Hal said? A man with sad eyes who thought her family worth complimenting? What a good person this cab-driver must be. Imagine, in this day and age, in New York, going to all that trouble to return someone's property. Who knows, the poor man might have even gotten a ticket while he went inside to check with the airline. Certainly a little after nine on a Sunday night wasn't too late to call, to thank the man and let him know that at least one person appreciated an act of such old-fashioned decency.

  Twenty-five? She'd send him fifty! It was worth it. He needed it more than they did. Just look at how comfortably they were living! Fifty—she'd make the check out for fifty, and she'd tell the man it was on the way.

  She dialed information, gave the name, the address in Queens—and then she dialed the number.

  The phone had rung so many times that Peggy was just about ready to give up, when a gruff and breathless voice on the other end answered, "Max Tauber speaking."

  "Mr. Tauber," Peggy exclaimed, concerned that she'd awakened him, despite the early hour. "Mr. Tauber," she repeated, "I hope I'm not disturbing you. My name is Peggy Cooper. I'm the woman whose pocketbook you rescued from your cab a week or so ago. I'm calling to thank you, and to let you know I'd like to send you a reward for all the trouble you took."

  The silence that greeted these remarks was so prolonged that Peggy began to wonder if she even had the right person at the other end of the line. But then the man cleared his throat and said.

  "Oh shit, now I remember you! Yeah, you have that cute little blond-haired kid and the nice old man. I'm afraid I'm not really playing with a full deck these days—it took me a minute to place you. But I had a pretty spectacular car accident a while back, and it's kind of pushed everything else to the side."

  "Accident?" Peggy said weakly. "When? What happened?"

  He named a date, but Peggy hardly heard it as her heart had begun to knock against her ribs so violently she could feel it. An accident, and that very day Sam had . . . "What? What were you saying, Mr. Tauber? I'm sorry I couldn't hear you."

  "... almost went to meet my Maker flying off the 59th Street Bridge on my way back to the city," he was saying. "I'm in a wheelchair—the doctor says it'll be at least six weeks before I can walk again. But hell—it's a complete miracle I'm even alive, so I'm not complaining!"

  Peggy felt something go fun
ny in her legs. The muscles up and down the backs of her thighs buzzed as if electrodes had been attached to the fibers and were firing off in some kind of infernal pattern.

  "Forgive me," she breathed, "but are you saying your cab went off a bridge?"

  "Damn right it did, lady. Some maniac driving about a hundred miles an hour—probably tear-assing out to Kennedy to get a plane—came at me in my lane. All I could do was try to avoid a head-on collision and swerve to the right. Well, I did, but the car skidded, and the next thing I knew I was bound for glory over the side. Only God's grace could have seen to it that there was a police patrol boat practically on top of me when I hit the water. I got out of the cab somehow, and they picked me up. Nobody can believe I survived. Kind of makes you think there might be a Santa Claus after all, you know what I mean?"

  By now Peggy was so strangled with foreboding she could scarcely breath. God in heaven, what did all this mean? "Mr. Tauber," she finally managed to stammer, "I'm profoundly glad to hear that you're going to be all right. I'll send you the reward tomorrow. You take care now!" And without waiting for him to say another word, she sent the receiver clattering back down on the phone.

  ***

  It wasn't until the oven clock read after midnight that Peggy was able to lift herself from the kitchen stool and wash out her coffee cup and ashtray. She went directly to Sam's room. She found the pad on his worktable. Even in the dark she could tell how he'd lined it up squarely in the middle, the edge of the fat Jumbo pad precisely parallel to the edge of the butcher-block top that Hal had fashioned into a table where Sam could do his hammering. But Sam never hammered on this surface. He used it instead to support his pad as he labored over his daily drawings under the good light from the architect's lamp Hal had later clamped to one corner.