Harder (Caroline & West #2)(60)

Frankie’s in her room. She came out a few minutes after our talk, asked me for a ruler and some paper from my art class sketchbook, and then returned to her cave. Later, she emerged again and said her pencils all sucked and she had to use the set I bought for my art class.

I gave her one of them and the sharpener. She disappeared.

Bored with my reading, I text Caroline.

It’s snowing, FFS.

She texts back, I noticed.

When are you coming over?

Little while. I’m writing.

You think the roads are slippery?

It’s melting, Oregon boy. Too warm for it to stick.

Come over, then.

What are you doing?

Reading about Stalin.

How’s Stalin?

Megalomaniac. How are the Irish?

Such a problem.

Come over.

I need to finish this draft.

Come over.

Yeesh.

I grin.

An hour?

Two.

Bah.

You’ll survive, darling.

Call me that later when I’m f*cking you.

In your dreams.

I know, right?

Quit texting me or I’ll never finish.

See you in 1 hr. 58 min.

GOD.

Satisfied, I put the phone down. Frankie comes out with a paper in her hand.

“What?” she says.

“What what?”

“Your face.” She points.

I run my hand over my mouth and chin. I’m still smiling. “Caroline’s coming over,” I report.

“You told me that already.”

“Yeah.”

She shifts from foot to foot. “So I guess she’ll be over a lot now, huh?”

“She might.”

“You know, she was my friend first.”

“She was my girlfriend first.”

“But that was a long time ago.”

“It was last spring.”

“And you f*cked it up.”

“Who told you I f*cked it up?”

She rolls her eyes. “Like anybody needed to tell me.”

“Yeah, well, I fixed it, so now we’re gonna have to share her.”

“Will she still pick me up from school?”

“I think you better ask her that when she gets here.”

“She’s coming now?”

“In a couple hours.”

Frankie waves the paper at me. “I want to run over and give this to Rikki.”

“Can I see?”

She flips the paper over and shows it to me. It’s a portrait of a woman—glamorous, all hair and lips like a fashion model. It’s shaded and intricate, with decent perspective. Fucking impressive. Way better than her other drawings.

“You made that?”

“Rikki showed me how. You just make a grid on the magazine and then you make a bigger grid on the picture, and you draw it one square at a time. It’s easy. It’s not really like drawing at all.”

She hands it to me, and I can see the faint gridlines now and some details that aren’t quite right—a squinty eye, the jewelry cartoonish where Frankie drew what she thought it was supposed to look like instead of what it actually looks like. Still. “This is amazing.”

“No, it’s not.”

“Franks—”

“Can I take it over to Rikki’s?”

“Yeah, if you get dressed first.” I give her the picture back. “Would you make me one next?”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. Just to have it.”

“I guess so. Sure.”

“Great.”

She leaves the room, and I hear a dresser drawer open. When she comes out, she’s wearing jeans—normal jeans, not huge ones—and a giant sweatshirt. She opens the front door. “You should draw your own,” she says. “It’s really easy. I could show you how.”

I follow her to the door. “After dinner. I’d like that.”

She smiles up at me.

“Careful on the steps,” I say. “It’s snowing.”

“Okay, Grandpa.”

I watch her make her way down, one hand gliding over the powder on the railing. Then she’s off, running across the yard without a coat, snow falling in her hair.

Laurie’s moving around in the space outside his workshop. I wanted to talk to him, so I throw on a coat and head down the stairs myself.

I find him buried to the elbows in a big gray metal box on stilts, peering through a small glass window while a compressor hums loud over a low hissing sound that stops and starts, stops and starts.

I don’t come out here much, and when I do it’s usually because I’m grabbing Frankie for hanging around too long. I don’t blame her for wanting to hang around, though. Laurie’s workshop is sweet. It’s like a barn crossed with a carport. Inside, there’s a space like a hayloft full of rusted-out pieces of scrap metal and a row of stalls that makes me think the place was a stable once. Each stall holds a different kind of supplies—wood and metal, ceramics, rubber, glass.

The open-air part under the carport roof is where he does welding. There’s a big compressor just inside the door, propane tanks, face shield, huge gloves, I don’t know what-all else.

I’m still trying to figure out what the f*ck the story is with the gray metal box when the compressor kicks off and he steps back.