The Animators(117)

As time passes, they break the place in, making it theirs until, shame-faced, Tatum moves into Mel’s bedroom completely.

“I’ll keep the bed,” he says. “Don’t worry.”

“I’m only worried insofar as that’s weird, dude.”

It makes me miss her so much my rib cage aches.

—

The Civil War cartoon development deal is in the final stages, title pending. My first week back at an actual job means meetings and hemmed pants, eight A.M. commutes, coffee in little blue-and-white Greek cups. I enter the gray-and-white bizarro world of an actual job.

We have our first meeting with the network on a Friday. “People you’ll never have to see again,” Brecky assures me, and so I let her pitch and wheedle while I sit there and try to look busy.

Ten minutes into the meeting, I notice the lone female executive looking at me. Redhead, early forties. Armani skirt suit, pumps. Pretty. Well kept in the way of women who spend their lunch breaks at New York Sports Club. Her look is appraising. A little close for my taste.

I put my head down and try to scribble something on the legal pad Brecky smacked into my hands before we walked into the room. Glance back up. She’s still looking.

After the meeting, Brecky falls into step with the two guys and the redhead approaches me, hand out. “Caroline Palik,” she says.

“Sharon.”

“I know,” she says. “We met at the memorial service. Very briefly.”

The memorial service. I put my head down, try to cram the legal pad into my purse. “I gotta tell you,” I say, “I don’t remember much from the service.”

A couple of black Pilot pens clatter out of my bag onto the floor. Caroline kneels down to pick them up, hands them to me. “I probably wouldn’t, either, were I you. I suppose I wouldn’t want to.”

She tilts her head to the side, looking at me. God, I hate it when people do that. I’m supposed to say something, but I can’t come up with dick. As I realize she’s waiting for me to ask how she came to be at the memorial service, she explains, “Mel and I saw each other. For a time.”

“Oh,” I say, then, “Oh. Really? Wait a second. Did you work for HBO? Used to send a car for her?”

“That was me.”

“Wow.”

She lifts her eyebrows. “Wow?”

“I just never thought I’d meet you,” I say. “She, you know. Didn’t talk that much about that kind of stuff. Who she was dating and all.”

I see something pull and set in Caroline’s jaw. I have offended her.

“But it’s nice to meet you,” I say quickly. “Finally. At long last.”

“Likewise. Listen, do you have anywhere you need to be at the moment? This is going to sound a bit odd, but I have something I need to give you, and I knew I would be meeting with you and Brecky today so I have it with me. There’s a bar I like right around the corner. Mind stopping in?”

It’s eleven in the morning, but I nod.

Caroline Palik has a Donnie-like quality to her. Less strident, maybe. Low-register finishing school sort of voice instead of that clarinet squeal. But when she walks in a specific direction, you are compelled to fall in with her, if not slightly behind. She leads me through Columbus Circle to a swanky, red-lit restaurant with leather booths and a polished oak bar on a quiet numbered street. She is carrying both briefcase and purse. She slides the briefcase under the bar, then produces a small suction cup from her coat pocket, which she discreetly licks—a kittenish move, Mel, I will never understand your taste in women—and sticks to the wall. She hangs her purse on it.

She looks to me and smiles. “I think Mel made that same face when she watched me do that. I told her Queen Elizabeth does it, too, but she didn’t buy it.”

“Natural-born skeptic.”

“That’s what made her so good.” The bartender greets Caroline—they know each other. “What would you like, Sharon?”

“I’ll have a Coke.”

She turns to me with a thin, cordial smile. “Sure you don’t want anything stronger?”

“I’m on blood pressure medication from a stroke I had a couple of years back,” I lie. “Doesn’t match well with drinking.” I shrug off my jacket, irritated at my own impulse to explain myself.

“Mel mentioned your stroke. Your limp.” She’s not looking at me now—she has bent over to access her briefcase. When she emerges, her face is smooth, neutral.

“She talked to you about my limp?”

Caroline shrugs in a way I don’t care for. “She mentioned it in passing.”

I look around. We’re the only people in the bar. “Did you say you have something for me?”

“Just a moment.” She sifts through some files. Pulls out a folder. Puts it on the bar.

I open it up. Storyboards. Sketches. They’re Mel’s: her telltale lines, the tiny block handwriting, those wide, aerobic faces. Her storyboards were always messy as hell. This is no exception, all gummy with eraser residue, a thumbprint in clear relief in one corner. I’ve spent so much of my life looking at her notes, her schematics, adjusting and arranging. I know it’s hers in a heartbeat.

“What is this?”

“Some stuff she left at my place before she passed,” Caroline says. The drinks come. She puts her martini to her lips. Her hand trembles slightly. “I think she was working on it when you two were wrapping up Irrefutable Love. I called her to come pick it up at some point, but you’d gone to Europe. So into the desk it went. Forgive me for taking so long in getting it to you.”