Duma Key(108)

"Hi, Alice, it's Edgar Freemantle."

"Yes, Edgar?" Cheery became cautious. Had that cautious note been there before? Had I just ignored it?

I said, "If you have a couple of minutes, I wonder if we could talk about ordering the slides at the lecture."

" Yes, Edgar, we certainly could." The relief was palpable. It made me feel like a hero. Of course it also made me feel like a rat.

"Have you got a pad handy?"

"You bet your tailfeathers!"

"Okay. Basically, we're going to want them in chronological order-"

"But I don't know the chronology, I've been trying to tell you th-"

"I know, and I'm going to give it to you now, but listen, Alice: the first slide won't be chronological. The first should be of Roses Grow from Shells. Have you got that?"

" Roses Grow from Shells. I've got it." For only the second time since meeting me, Alice sounded genuinely happy that we were talking.

"Now, the pencil sketches," I said.

We talked for the next half an hour.

vi

" Oui, all ? "

For a moment I said nothing. The French threw me a little. The fact that it was a young man's voice threw me more.

" All , all ? " Impatient now. "Qui est l'appareil?"

"Mmm, maybe I have the wrong number," I said, feeling not just like an ass**le but a monolingual American ass**le. "I was trying to reach Melinda Freemantle."

" D'accord, you have the right number." Then, off a little: "Melinda! C'est ton papa, je crois, ch rie. "

The phone went down with a clunk. I had a momentary image very clear, very politically incorrect, and very likely brought on by Pam's mention of the cartoon books I'd once drawn for a little sick girl of a large talking skunk in a beret, Monsieur Pep Le Pew, strutting around my daughter's pension (if that was the word for a bedsitter-type apartment in Paris) with wavy aroma lines rising from his white-striped back.

Then Melinda was there, sounding uncharacteristically flustered. "Dad? Daddy? Is everything all right?"

"Everything's fine," I said. "Is that your roommate?" It was a joke, but I realized from her uncharacteristic silence that I had unwittingly hit the nail on the head. "It's not a big deal, Linnie. I was just-"

" goofin wit me, right." It was impossible to tell if she was amused or exasperated. The connection was good but not that good. "He is, actually." The subtext of that one to come through loud and clear: Want to make something of it?

I most assuredly did not want to make something of it. "Well, I'm glad you made a friend. Does he wear a beret?"

To my immense relief, she laughed. With Lin, it was impossible to tell which way a joke was going to go, because her sense of humor was as unreliable as an April afternoon. She called: "Ric! Mon papa... " Something I didn't catch, then: "... si tu portes un b ret!"

There was faint male laughter. Ah, Edgar, I thought. Even overseas you lay them in the aisles, you p re fou.

"Daddy, are you all right?"

"Fine. How's your strep?"

"All better, thanks."

"I just got off the phone with your mother. You're going to get an official invitation to this show I'm having, but she says you'll come and I'm thrilled."

" You're thrilled? Mom sent me some of the pictures and I can't wait. When did you learn to do that?"

This seemed to be the question of the hour. "Down here."

"They're amazing. Are the others as good?"

"You'll have to come and see for yourself."

"Could Ric come?"

"Does he have a passport?"

"Yes..."

"Will he promise not to poke ze fun at your old man?"

"He's very respectful of his elders."

"Then assuming the flights aren't sold out and you don't mind sleeping two to a room I assume that's not a problem then of course he can come."

She squealed so loudly it hurt my ear, but I didn't take the telephone away. It had been a long time since I'd said or done anything to make Linnie Freemantle squeal like that. "Thank you, Daddy that's great!"

"It'll be nice to meet Ric. Maybe I'll steal his beret. I'm an artist now, after all."

"I'll tell him you said that." Her voice changed. "Have you talked to Ilse yet?"

"No, why?"

"When you do, don't say anything about Ric coming, okay? Let me do that."

"I hadn't planned to."

"Because she and Carson... she said she told you about him..."

"She did."

"Well, I'm pretty sure there's a problem there. Illy says she's 'thinking things over.' That's a direct quote. Ric's not surprised. He says you should never trust a person who prays in public. All I know is she sounds a lot more grown up than my baby sister used to."

Same goes for you, Lin, I thought. I had a momentary image of how she'd looked at seven, when she'd been so sick Pam and I both thought she might die on us, although we'd never said so aloud. Back then Melinda had been all big dark eyes, pale cheeks, and lank hair. Once I remember thinking Skull on a stick and hating myself for the thought. And hating myself more for knowing, in the deep reaches of my heart, that if one of them had to sicken that way, I was glad it had been her. I always tried to believe that I loved both my daughters with the same weight and intensity, but it wasn't true. Maybe it is for some parents I think it was for Pam but it never was for me. And did Melinda know?