Duma Key(36)

She turned to me, her face bemused rather than angry. "When did you do this one?"

"Well..." I said. "Stand aside a little, would you?"

"Is your memory playing tricks again? It is, isn't it?"

"No," I said. "Well, yeah." It was the beach outside the window, I could tell that much but no more. "As soon as I see it, I'm sure I'll... step aside, honey, you make a better door than a window."

"Even though I am a pain, right?" She laughed. Rarely had the sound of laughter so relieved me. Whatever she'd found on the easel, it hadn't made her mad, and my stomach dropped back where it belonged. If she wasn't angry, the risk that I might get angry and spoil what had, on measure, been a pretty damned good visit went down.

She stepped to the left, and I saw what I'd drawn while in my dazed, pre-nap state. Technically, it was probably the best thing I'd done since my first tentative pen-and-inks on Lake Phalen, but I thought it was no wonder she was puzzled. I was puzzled, too.

It was the section of beach I could see through Little Pink's nearly wall-length window. The casual scribble of light on the water, achieved with a shade the Venus Company called Chrome, marked the time as early morning. A little girl in a tennis dress stood at the center of the picture. Her back was turned, but her red hair was a dead giveaway: she was Reba, my little love, that girlfriend from my other life. The figure was poorly executed, but you somehow knew that was on purpose, that she wasn't a real little girl at all, only a dream figure in a dream landscape.

All around her feet, lying in the sand, were bright green tennis balls.

Others floated shoreward on the mild waves.

"When did you do it?" Ilse was still smiling - almost laughing. "And what the heck does it mean?"

"Do you like it?" I asked. Because I didn't like it. The tennis balls were the wrong color because I hadn't had the right shade of green, but that wasn't why; I hated it because it felt all wrong. It felt like heartbreak.

"I love it!" she said, and then did laugh. "C'mon, when did you do it? Give."

"While you were sleeping. I went to lie down, but I felt queasy again, so I thought I better stay vertical for awhile. I decided to draw a little, see if things would settle. I didn't realize I had that thing in my hand until I got up here." I pointed to Reba, sitting propped against the window with her stuffed legs sticking out.

"That's the doll you're supposed to yell at when you forget things, right?"

"Something like that. Anyway, I drew the picture. It took maybe an hour. By the time I was finished, I felt better." Although I remembered very little about making the drawing, I remembered enough to know this story was a lie. "Then I lay down and took a nap. End of story."

"Can I have it?"

I felt a surge of dismay, but couldn't think of a way to say no that wouldn't hurt her feelings or sound crazy. "If you really want it. It's not much, though. Wouldn't you rather have one of Freemantle's Famous Sunsets? Or the mailbox with the rocking horse! I could-"

"This is the one I want," she said. "It's funny and sweet and even a little... I don't know... ominous. You look at her one way and you say, 'A doll.' You look another way and say, 'No, a little girl - after all, isn't she standing up?' It's amazing how much you've learned to do with colored pencils." She nodded decisively. "This is the one I want. Only you have to name it. Artists have to name their pictures."

"I agree, but I wouldn't have any idea-"

"Come on, come on, no weaseling. First thing to pop into your mind."

I said, "All right - The End of the Game."

She clapped her hands. "Perfect. Perfect! And you have to sign it, too. Ain't I bossy?"

"You always were," I said. " Tr s bossy. You must be feeling better."

"I am. Are you?"

"Yes," I said, but I wasn't. All at once I had a bad case of the mean reds. Venus doesn't make that color, but there was a new, nicely sharpened Venus Black in the gutter of the easel. I picked it up and signed my name by one of back-to doll's pink legs. Beyond her, a dozen wrong-green tennis balls floated on a mild wave. I didn't know what those rogue balls meant, but I didn't like them. I didn't like signing my name to this picture, either, but after I had, I jotted The End of the Game up one side. And what I felt was what Pam had taught the girls to say when they were little, and had finished some unpleasant chore.

Over- done with-gone.

xvi

She stayed two more days, and they were good days. When Jack and I took her back to the airport, she'd gotten some sun on her face and arms and seemed to give off her own benevolent radiation: youth, health, well-being.

Jack had found a travel-tube for her new picture.

"Daddy, promise you'll take care of yourself and call if you need me," she said.

"Roger that," I said, smiling.

"And promise me you'll get someone to give you an opinion on your pictures. Someone who knows about that stuff."

"Well- "

She lowered her chin and frowned at me. When she did that it was again like looking at Pam when I'd first met her. "You better promise, or else."

And because she meant it - the vertical line between her eyebrows said so - I promised.