The Animators(70)

We laugh, still in step with each other, then let the silence spread and break while we search for something else to say.

“Well,” I try, “I’m glad to hear she’s bounced back. It’s scary, getting to this age where shit’s happening to our parents.”

“It happened to you.”

“It happened to me.”

God, I want to smell him again. I wonder if I would have noticed Teddy Caudill in New York—objectively, were he simply a man who looked like Teddy Caudill as opposed to the real thing. That pretty boy’s face is still pretty, with some well-placed lines around the eyes, a couple of feathery seams running nose to mouth. He’s wiry-strong. He makes eye contact. No one in New York has a face that open. I consider Louisville, and wonder how many baristas and bookstore clerks are after Teddy. How many come into his store in dresses and cowboy boots, hoping to see him.

Mel glances back at me, ticks her head. Ryan and Tatum are running circles around her, jabbering, poking each other.

“How are your parents?” Teddy asks me.

“Mom’s okay. We’re actually staying with her right now. She lives in the same house. A couple of years after Dad died—”

“Your dad died? Oh, Sharon. I’m so sorry.”

“Thanks. It was a while ago, actually. My sister and her husband bought the property where you were and built a new house there, so they’re next door.”

His Adam’s apple jumps as he swallows. “So they knocked the old house down.”

“Uh. Yeah.”

We fall silent. We listen to the back-and-forth between Ryan and Tatum and Mel—Mel holding court about some sketch technique and Tatum wagging his hands, saying, “Wait wait wait,” and Ryan punching him in the back, saying, “Dude, shut up.” We pass a head shop, a cupcake shop, another bookstore. A girl in front disassembles a sidewalk sale. She wiggles her fingers at Teddy, glancing surreptitiously at me. Something slick and familiar inside me turns over, hums. I nearly jump out of my skin. Holy shit, this is jealousy, all scales and forked tongue and lizard brain. The first stab of it I’ve felt since I got sick.

I smile wide, weirdly. I am returned to myself, new, rich blood pumping through my veins. Then I remember we’re talking about my dead dad and I try to tamp the smile down.

Teddy changes subjects. “What I meant a minute ago is that you look really healthy, for a stroke patient. Didn’t you used to have darker hair?”

“Yeah. I was heavier, too.”

“You know what made me look you up in college? Your first cartoon. Or one of the first. Custodial Knifefight.”

I hide my face in my hands.

“No. It was awesome. I saw your name in the credits, and it was so weird—it was like I had forgotten about Faulkner, in a way. I never forgot about you, of course. But seeing your name in print? It actually knocked the wind out of me. Like, Holy shit. Sharon is out there in the world.”

“That sounds pretty terrible, knocking the wind out of you.”

“Not at all. It was a glad sort of unsettling, you know? I always wondered about you. Wondered where you’d ended up.”

Mel and the guys turn toward a building decorated in the same fashion as Weirdo Video—glass mosaics, neon marquee. Above the door in a purple glow: A LIGHT IN THE ATTIC. They cluster by a rock garden to finish their smokes. “Don’t steal her, shitsacks,” Teddy says to them, opening the door for me.

“Thanks, Ted.” I poke him.

He cracks a lopsided smile and pushes his glasses up on his nose. “You’re very welcome. You will have to excuse the associates, there. They are starstruck by the two of you. It’s sort of cute, really.”

“We’re obliged.”

A bartender waves to Teddy; Teddy confers with him and brings back a pilsner and a club soda. “I could handle a beer,” I tell him.

“I’m sorry. I figured you probably couldn’t drink.”

“Oh, can she, though.” Mel approaches from behind, delivering a soft noogie to my skull. “We call this one Rummy.”

We sit at a table built atop an old Galaga console. Tatum asks how we started working together. “Art class, in college,” I tell him.

“I just wanted to bang her,” Mel says. I poke her, irritated. She guffaws. “Look at that. Look at how much that scares Sharon. It’s hilarious.”

“Is the Lite-Brite thing in the movie true?” Ryan asks.

Mel grabs a napkin, sketches a miniature Lite-Brite, requisite bulbs reading Fuck You Ryan, slides it across the table to him. This pleases him to no end; he demands she sign it, and she does. He sandwiches the napkin in between the pages of a book he’s carrying.

Teddy’s right. It’s adorable, these two hanging on Mel’s every word. And she’s kind to them, is enjoying them. I keep it to one stern look when she goes in on a pitcher. Mel shape-shifter, Mel tightrope cruiser. I’m not sure how I feel about Teddy Caudill right now, but I’m fairly sure I don’t want to be embarrassed in front of him.

We down first and second beers, dawdle on thirds and the greasy food we’ve ordered. Mel and the boys huddle to draw on napkins. Teddy and I are segregated at our own end of the table.

He’s still giving me that curious look. “So,” he says.

“So.”