I think he began to love me too, but he didn't say things like that. Only that he was happy, or that he wanted to share things he'd held in reserve all his life.
Because he knew sooner or later he'd have to go away (where he never said, and I stopped asking), he seemed to have thrown all caution to the wind. But before meeting him, I'd never thrown anything away, caution included. I'd been a careful reader of timetables, made the bed tight and straight first thing every morning, and hated dishes in the sink. My life at forty was comfortably narrow and ordered. Going haywire and off the deep end wasn't in my repertoire, and normally people who did made me squint.
I realized I was in love and haywire the day I taught him to play racquetball. After we'd batted around an hour, we were sitting in the gallery drinking Coke. He flicked sweat from his forehead with two fingers. A hot, intimate drop fell on my wrist. I put my hand over it quickly and rubbed it into my skin. He didn't see. I knew then I'd have to learn to put whatever expectations I had aside and just live purely in his jet stream, no matter where it took me. That day I realized I'd sacrifice anything for him, and for a few hours I went around feeling like some kind of holy person, a zealot, love made flesh.
"Why does Michael let you stay there?"
He took a cigarette from my pack. He'd begun smoking a week before and loved it. Almost as much as he liked to drink, he said. The perfect Irishman. "Don't forget he was the one who left Lenna, not vice versa. When he came back he was pretty much on his knees to her. He had to be. There wasn't a lot he could say about me being there. Especially after he found out who I was and why I'd come. Do you have any plum pits around?"
"Question two: Why in God's name do you eat those things?"
"That's easy: because plums are Lenna's favorite fruit. When she was a little girl, she'd have tea parties for just us two: Scott Joplin music, imaginary tea, and real plums. She'd eat the fruit, then put the pit on my plate to eat. Makes perfect sense."
I ran my hand through his red hair, loving the way my fingers got caught in all the thick curls. "That's disgusting. It's like slavery! Why am I getting to the point where I don't like my best friend so much anymore?"
"If you like me, you should like her, Juliet. She made me."
I took his hand. "That part I like. Would you ever consider moving in with me?"
He kissed my fingers. "I would love to consider that, but I have to tell you I don't think I'll be around very much longer. But if you'd like, I'll stay with you until I – uh – have to go."
"What are you talking about?" I sat up.
He put his hand close to my face. "Look hard and you'll see."
It took a moment, but then I gasped: From certain angles I could see right through the hand. It had become vaguely transparent.
"Lenna's happy again. It's the old story. When she's down, she needs me and calls." He shrugged. "When she's happy again, I'm not needed, so she sends me away. Not consciously, but – look, we all know I'm her little Frankenstein monster. She can do what she wants with me. Even dream up that I like to eat fucking plum pits."
"It's so wrong!"
Sighing, he sat up and started pulling on his shirt. "It's wrong but it's life, sweet girl. Not much we can do about it, you know."
"Yes, we can. We can do something."
His back was to me. remembered the first time I'd ever seen him. His back was to me then too, the long red hair falling over his collar.
When I didn't say anything more, he turned and looked at me over his shoulder, smiling.
"We can do something? What can we do?"
His eyes were gentle and loving, eyes I wanted to see for the rest of my life.
"We can make her sad. We can make her need you."
"What do you mean?"
"Just what I said, Fiddy. When she's sad she needs you. We have to decide what would make her sad a long time. Maybe something to do with Michael. Or the children."
His fingers stopped moving over the buttons. Thin, artistic fingers. Freckles.
3
Finky Linky drove me to the airport, which was nervous-making because there was always a good possibility he might drop dead at any moment.
Finky Linky, alias Wyatt Leonard, one-time star of the funniest and most innovative children's show on television.
"First there was Pinky,
then there was Winky.
Don't forget Pee Wee –
But the king of them all is
Finkyyyyyyyyyyyyy!"
Remember that? Remember Finky-Pinky-Rings? Or the Finky Linky Stinky Magic Carpet that no one on the show ever wanted to ride, despite its magic, because it smelled too much?
Wyatt made it big so fast because he was smart and crazy and willing to do anything to make kids laugh. I have never known anyone who loved children as much as Wyatt Leonard.
I met him a few years before he joined our Cancer Theater Group. A friend-of-a-friend of Cullen James, he was at the peak of his success when it was discovered he had leukemia. He accepted his fate so calmly. Perhaps because he never really believed it would get him or else, as he said, a million children's love buoyed him over death's fearsome sea.
Six months after I began working with the group in New York, he showed up and asked if he could watch. It would be another year before we actually tried to put something on stage, because those early days were more group therapy sessions than anything else. A bitter young woman, bald from radiation treatments, pointed to her head and asked if he had a part for her on his show. He did. Remember Wig Woman with the pink dress and all those different hairdos? The first star that ever emerged from the New York Cancer Players. People associated with the show thought she was only a nut with a shaved head. Neither Wyatt nor she ever told them the truth until she died and Finky Linky did the show about death that won him an Emmy.
When the constant medical treatment and hospitalization ate into his energy and resistance, he gave up the television show and became the hardest working member of our group.
Phil was a great fan of the show and thrilled to hear I knew Wyatt, so I introduced them. A month later, Fast Forward Productions flew Finky Linky out to LA to do that bizarre bit in Midnight Too that had everyone laughing . . . and retching.
After I read "Mr. Fiddlehead" that morning, I called Wyatt and asked him to take over rehearsals for our play. When he found out why I was leaving town, he told me to get someone else because he was going with me.
"How come?"
"I'll tell you on the plane. What time does it go? I'll drive us out."
I've traveled with famous people before, and it's always interesting to watch how the man in the street reacts. With movie stars, you see the expected admiration and desire, but also many darker things – envy and hunger, real anger.
With Wyatt it was entirely different. When he parked his car in the long-term lot at Kennedy Airport, the attendant not only had him autograph his baseball cap but ran next door to the hot dog stand to tell the gang there. A stampede followed, all saying "Finky!" The show had been off the air for over a year, but he was still their funny hero and friend. First he had to give five people the secret handshake – touch the heart, touch the nose, blow a kiss, shake. Then autographs. One bedraggled man asked for a personal souvenir. Wyatt gave him the paperback book he had in his pocket, and the man asked him to sign it.
"But I didn't write it!"
"Yeah, but you owned it!"
The same thing happened in the terminal building and right onto the plane: greetings, handshakes, pure love for an old and missed pal.
After we took off, a stewardess came up and said she'd once won a wet T-shirt contest wearing a Finky Linky shirt. Wyatt looked long at her chest, smiled, and said in his Finky voice, "That was a lucky shirt!"