“He wasn’t a real musician anyway.”
“Just rich,” I said. I brought Arthur a bowl of stew and he started eating.
“Katherine,” he said, “you haven’t said much about Travis.”
“There’s not much to say.”
“I don’t want you to keep things from me.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Because of my good news. You might be waiting for another time.”
“Don’t be crazy,” I said. “Your food’s getting cold.”
Arthur took another mouthful and looked me straight in the eyes. “Are you happy here, with me?” he asked.
“You are the one thing that makes me happy,” I said.
“Good stew,” he said.
I shrugged. “It needs those little onions and more tomato.”
Arthur ate quickly. I watched him. I’d already eaten and I was trying to finish the bottle of wine.
“What is this anyway?” he asked.
“Veal.”
“Good stuff,” said Arthur. “Come here, Kevin. I even saved you a piece.” Kevin came over and sniffed the meat, but he refused to eat it. “Don’t you like veal?” Arthur asked.
“Maybe he’s too P.C.,” I said, “to eat the milk-fed stuff.”
Sunday was the day Arthur had the gig in Boston. It was an evening wedding and he didn’t have to be in Boston until eight. The band was leaving Portland at 4:30, but at around ten A.M. the sky turned gray, the temperature dropped, and the first of the snowflakes began to fall. I got a phone call from someone named Eamon telling Arthur to be in town in the next two hours so they could leave. The worst of the storm was supposed to hit at around two. Arthur hadn’t laundered his one good shirt, so it went straight into the wash.
Arthur carefully packed up his violin. He had four extras for every string, as he had a tendency to break them when he was excited. “The weather’s turning to shit. What if I get stuck in Boston?”
“I have food, candles. There’s even firewood.”
“It’s not the storm I’m worried about.”
“You’re still thinking about Johnny.”
“Aren’t you?”
“Yes,” I said. “But what are you going to do? Stay?” I rested my hands on Arthur’s shoulders. “I have Kevin to keep me company and if I hear something, I’ll call the police right away.”
I was reading Typee. I’d enjoyed Moby-Dick a great deal in a few places (and been tortured in many others) so I’d decided to give Melville another try. Besides, the tropical climate—despite its privations—was an indulgence, given the darkening skies and arctic temperatures. Arthur was waiting to put his shirt in the dryer. He was hovering around the washing machine, when it finally shuddered to a halt. I heard the lid to the washer clang open and the door to the dryer slam shut. Then nothing. Then Arthur was standing in the living room and he looked concerned.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Travis’s clothes. They’re in the dryer.”
“We’ll have to send them to him,” I said, and looked back at my book.
“Katherine, don’t you find this a little strange?”
I pushed my reading glasses up my nose and shrugged. “He left in a hurry.”
“Katherine there are four shirts in there and two pairs of jeans.” Arthur made it sound like a question.
“Why do I feel like I’m in an episode of Scooby Doo?”
Arthur cocked his head to one side. “Travis only had five shirts and three pairs of jeans. That’s all he had with him.”
“How do you know that?”
“He made such of production of washing and ironing everything. How could you miss it?”
Arthur was right. I did know all of Travis’s clothes—his five shirts, his two pairs of blue jeans, one dark indigo, one slightly more faded with a noticeable crease line, one black pair.
“His underwear and socks are in the dryer too.”
“Which means?”
“Which means that he left with only the clothes he was wearing. Did he bring his suitcase?”
“Yes.”
“I wonder what he had in it?”
“His manuscript?”
“And no clothes?” Arthur scratched his head. “Did he take the typewriter with him?”
“I’m pretty sure he did,” I said. “It’s not in the room anymore.”
“Do you have a phone number for him?”
“Somewhere.” I took off my reading glasses, resigned and having lost my place. “When you get back, we’ll call him.” I looked out the window where the snow was just beginning to stick to the branches of the trees. “You’re going to have to get going pretty soon.”
“I’m still waiting for my shirt to dry. Do you have Travis’s number handy?”
“I’m sure I could find it,” I said. “But he’s going all the way to Texas. He’s probably still on the road.”
Arthur nodded.
“I wouldn’t want to get his mother on the phone.” I got up from the couch and gave Arthur a big hug. “When did you become such a worrywart?”
“Maybe when Johnny was killed on the back deck?”
“I think you’re just nervous about performing with a new band. And all that new material. You’ll do great. If it wasn’t somebody’s wedding, I’d go with you.”
Arthur seemed to accept this, but a part of him was still bothered. I was worried about him, really. I’m not usually one to buy into this stuff, but I thought his artistic temperament left him less able to deal with Johnny’s death. I ironed Arthur’s shirt for him. I wished him luck. I waved through the thickening snow as his van sputtered down the drive and disappeared at the bend in the road, where a clump of dead bittersweet was turning a beautiful, crystallized blue.
Winter had been cold until then, but that snowstorm marked the beginning of a season of such ferocious temperatures and obscene precipitation that soon all the land around was blunted and smoothed into sugary mounds. The roads and pathways became tunnels. Kevin would leap into the snow and find himself submerged, his nose poking above the surface like a periscope. He was startled everyday by this, and I was too. I began to think the snow would never melt. Shackleton must have felt this way, and Franklin. Sometimes I’d take a wrong turn and find myself, after negotiating the drive, at someone else’s house. The very sameness of the landscape was disturbing. Christmas came and went. And we celebrated, burrowed in our little bungalow like merry chipmunks. Arthur’s band had a following now. In this meat locker of a winter, sitting in a bar listening to Pogue’s covers and drinking thick, bloody Guinness was the only soothing activity. When he wasn’t at the bars, Arthur played at parties. This new band liked its beer, but they were drug-free and hard-working. Busy, busy. And as with all people who have known the ache of an impoverished life, Arthur never said no to work. For New Year’s, I went to New York to visit Boris.
Boris and I were married in the courthouse. Ann, out of some masochistic need, was there to witness, as was Boris’s lawyer, the mountain-climbing Rand Randley. To celebrate, the four of us went out for dinner, then back to Boris’s apartment for drinks. Rand had some papers for me to look over. Apparently, Silvano had left me everything, which had been contested, successfully, by his family. I could have fought them, but felt that it would have been in bad taste. Boris and I fought, passionately, over that. But I stood my ground. Still, there was some paperwork. I would take some jewelry, I decided, and his family—represented by his sister Laura—thought it was fair (or maybe unfair) that I should get it (a necklace worked in gold with blue diamonds and matching earrings; a heavy gold cuff; an amusing, neck-wrenching tiara) so that I wouldn’t start going after the other stuff: the house in the Oltrano, the leather business, a set of apartments in Sesto Fiorentino, and a villa in Fiesole that had been rented to the University of Oregon for the last thirty years. It was my wedding day, but I thought that as long as Rand was there, it was a good time to go over the papers. We sat at the dining room table, while Ann and Boris argued in the living room. I think they were arguing over whether or not her manager was doing a good job of selling her work. She thought he was. And Boris was telling her that she should expect more from her agent, from life in general. She needed to start standing her ground.