The Animators(114)

“There’s a version of me out there that I have no control over,” he finally says. “Even when I specifically told you no, you went ahead and did it anyway. And when you did that, you chose Mel. Okay? Which is what she wanted all along. She could talk you into dancing on burning coals, Sharon. You could never say no to her.”

I slide down to the floor, speechless. My mind flashes on him and Mel sitting across the table from each other in the kitchen, glowering behind their wineglasses. I know he’s not wrong. I put my head in my hands and say the only thing I can think of:

“I can hear her.”

“Hear who.”

“Your fiancée. When were you going to get around to telling me about her?”

“Never. Not if I could help it.”

I feel a cool wash of unpleasantness bleed through my belly. I can’t see for a moment. It hurts that badly.

“This is why I didn’t call,” he says. “We are at an impasse, Sharon. There’s nothing left to say.”

We’re at an impasse. If the man has one weakness, it is this: forever picking the wrong moment for sanctimony. I feel my temper spike through, hot and sharp. I go for the grenade. “You wanna know why I left Kentucky? My mother finally broke down and told me the truth. I’m illegitimate. And guess who my biological father is? Your dad. Because my life is just that much of a sideshow. We just committed biblical incest. You have a good one. Ted.”

He makes a choking noise. I hang up.

In the other room, Ryan and Tatum blink at me sleepily. I hand Tatum his phone. “Sorry,” I tell him.

“Is that true?” Ryan says.

“What, that Teddy’s dad is also my dad? Maybe.”

There’s a moment of quiet, then Tatum spouts an incredulous chain of dudes. Ryan yells, Gross, you did it with someone you’re related to and Tatum affirms, Dude.

I collapse into a chair, an empty gnawing in my chest. Teddy’s right. He doesn’t owe me anything.

—

Back in Park Slope, Mom comes into the living room and slaps my sketchbook down. “You’ve never drawn a picture of me.”

“I drew you from the eighties for Irrefutable Love.”

“I mean, like I am now.”

“I didn’t think you’d want me to draw you like you are now.”

She narrows her eyes. “You thought wrong, sugar. Draw me.”

I shrug. Feel around for a pencil. Limp over to the drafting board to pluck one out of the coffee cup.

“Don’t see you using that thing much,” Mom says.

“I’m taking a break.”

It’s weird, sitting with a sketchpad again. I finger the pencil, feeling ungainly. Could I ever really do this? I look at the pad, then up at her.

She stares back at me. Lights a Doral. “Well?”

She’s lowered herself into the canvas Ikea chair she claims hurts her ass, crosses her legs. I do a survey. Sweatshirt, jeans, puffy sneakers, glasses on a chain against her chest. Her neck is a latticework of lines, folded skin. Deep webbing around the eyes, the seams linking nose to mouth, the hill where the chin ends and the neck begins.

Mom was beautiful when she was young. All milky and blond, none of the Kisses swarthiness. A very seventies kind of beauty, full and bawdy, an era in which imperfect teeth failed to impede sex appeal. We drew her in this way for Irrefutable Love—the tornado scene as the toppling point for my mother’s prettiness, before she started to wear, long before I learned about line or contour or critically identifying those things in anyone. I feel badly for thinking this. But her face is better than pretty. It is an interesting face, one with depth and contour that requires skill, care in replication. It calls for a study. What Mel always said: The beautiful face is the simplest to draw.

“Come closer,” I say.

She moves next to me on the couch. I fold my leg carefully underneath me, study her nose. “Been a while,” I tell her, making preliminary marks, “since I picked up a pencil.”

“Well, I reckon it’s time to get back on the horse.”

“Try to keep still.”

“Can I still smoke?”

“Yeah. Just move your arm. Try not to move anything else.”

She goes quiet. Mom has been in New York City for six weeks. She’s no longer afraid to stay in my apartment by herself. We’ve both gotten used to her being there. I’m going to the studio later to watch Wild at Heart with Ryan and Tatum. It’s nice to have plans, gives a warm sort of momentum to this sketch: Here are the things I have to get done before I go out and spend time with my friends.

“I’m gonna go back home,” she says.

I stop. “You are? When?”

“Next Saturday. Kent got me a ticket. He says hey, by the way. He says when you come to visit again, he’ll bake you all the pies you want. Between you and me, I think you’re his favorite.” She takes a drag, exhales a plume of smoke. The cloud tapers. She looks at me from the corner of her eye. “You’re back on your feet. You’ll be okay.”

“I was always okay.”

“I know.”

I lean back into the sketch. The division, or melding, between chin and neck will be a challenge. I try to see if there’s a common stream, a line to follow, and instead find five, all diverging. “Running out into traffic wasted,” I murmur, “is far from the worst thing that’s happened in our family. You people dance shamelessly with the devil.”