Somewhere along the line, he’d outgrown it. He’d learned to read people well enough. In grade school, they’d put him in a gifted class, and now he was in an expensive untraditional high school. The last time Kim visited, almost two years ago, he had been neck-deep in the collected letters of Vincent van Gogh. He’d found an enormous three-volume set at an estate sale, and was staying up nights with it. He’d sought Kim out one afternoon in the den, knowing she’d majored in Art History in college, and conducted a one-sided conversation with her in front of the cold, clean-scraped fireplace. He’d asked her unanswerable questions about the bond between siblings, made familiar accusations about the tastes of the public. Kim had asked him how he’d gotten interested in van Gogh’s letters and he’d said he didn’t think he was interested in them as much as hypnotized by their redundancy.
“We’re going to the outlets,” Rita was telling him. “Are you going to wear that shirt to school? It looks like you slept in it.”
“I didn’t sleep in it,” he said. “Not last night.”
“You know where the iron is,” she said.
Kim hoped Franklin didn’t lump her in with these other women. She didn’t know why she would care, but she did. She was running her eyes over the sprawled sections of newspaper on the kitchen counter. They were full of the same stories that were always in newspapers. Unemployment was down, but not enough. A species of warbler had gone extinct. The smell of the women and the coffee and the lemons on an empty stomach was making her a little sick.
“I wonder, Mom, if you could spare one of your gang.” Franklin’s hair was messy by design and there was a scuff of acne along the curve of his jaw. “There’s an extra-credit thing I need to do. It’s on the Gauguin exhibit at the Art Institute. It’s a two-man deal, though.”
“At the Art Institute?” Rita said.
“I’m supposed to go with someone and then interview them about the exhibits. Anybody except a classmate. There’s a whole list of questions, then I’m supposed to think of my own follow-up questions based on the answers to the first questions. It can’t be a classmate, though. It has to be, like, a member of the public.”
Rita’s face was resigned, faintly amused. “Let me guess. Today is the last day you can do it.” She looked around at the other women as if for sympathy. “I can always tell the last day something can be done, because that’s the day he’ll mention he needs to do it. I thought we talked about you having a schedule,” she told Franklin. “Writing it all down.”
He nodded, but he was in the middle of slurping more of his lemonade. When he came up for air, he shuddered, as if he’d done a shot of whiskey.
“And what about school?” Rita asked Franklin.
“This is the morning the class meets. You can miss a class meeting if you’re doing the extra credit.”
“What class is it for?”
“The Politics of the Image. I’ve got an atrocious grade in there, so I could use the points. I mean it’s really alarming, how low my average is. The teacher says it’s sad, because my insights are of uncommon quality.”
“The Politics of the Image?” said Rita. “When I was your age, they called it Art Class.”
“You’re the one who put me in this school. None of the names make sense. We talk about Freud in Civics.”
It seemed it was Rita’s turn to talk again, but she only shook her head. The air conditioner kicked on. The woman named Teresa or maybe Tessa slipped a thin sweater off the back of her chair and hung it on her shoulders.
“Education first,” said Franklin. “That’s what I’ve always heard.”
Rita was looking at Franklin with a face Kim guessed was tough love. “You should have planned this out ahead of time,” she said. “You always do this. You always want people to change plans around you. You always want to get bailed out.”
“I planned to plan ahead, but that plan fell through. Kind of like with your pear butter.” Franklin shifted around inside his shirt. “I just need someone to respond to art. It’s not a terrible thing to ask. It’s not breaking rocks in the sun.”
Everyone was quiet. Kim could tell Rita’s friends wouldn’t get involved. The etiquette was to mind your own business when someone else’s kid was being difficult, to not say a word. An airplane could be heard passing over the house. The coffeemaker made a gentle gurgling noise.
“We should all get going,” Rita said. “Us to the mall and you to school. Manage your schedule better next time.”
Franklin exhaled dramatically. He was standing still, his eyes wide, and Kim thought he was trying to look toward her. He was looking at the area of her knees, his face stiff and apprehensive. He let his eyes flash up to her face for only a second. “If no one wants to go, no one wants to go,” he said. “I can’t force anyone.” He waited a beat. When no one spoke up his shoulders went slack and his head slumped forward onto his chest. He started fishing around in his pants pocket for something. Rita had opened a drawer and pulled out a little accordion folder where she kept her coupons organized, and was flipping through it with a fingernail.
“I’ll do it,” Kim said. She pushed the newspaper into a pile and pushed it away from her. “I’ll be the subject.”
The kitchen went silent again. Kim could feel the skewering looks of the women in the room. At this point she was enjoying them. She’d broken the noninterference code, compromised the unified front.
The look Rita rested on Kim was one of tart curiosity. Kim didn’t look away from it. Rita still had her fingers in her coupon book. She cleared her throat, and quickly enough she was smiling again. There was something brave in her smile nowadays.
“All right then,” she said. “I guess that’s settled.” She pulled what she needed out of the coupon book and placed it back in the drawer, which she closed very softly. Then she reached for her purse and gave the contents a shake. “Franklin, it looks like you’re going to slide by again.” She removed her wallet from her purse and found some cash. “Take this,” she said to him. “If Kim’s giving up her day for you, you can at least buy her lunch.”
“That’s not necessary,” Kim said, but Franklin was already accepting the bills and stuffing them into one of his pockets.
The rest of the women were gathering up their phones and sunglasses. “We could try Barbette for lunch,” one of them offered uncertainly. “They’re supposed to have really good soups.” Franklin smirked at Kim and returned to his lemonade, sniffing it and adding more sugar.
“Isn’t Gauguin the one that molested all those island girls?” Rita asked.
“That’s what they say,” said Kim.
“In Tahiti or whatever. That’s him, right? He was always having his way with the natives.”
“There was so much molesting going on in those days,” said Kim. “Hardly seems fair to keep bringing it up.”
She excused herself and went upstairs, her blood quickening with escape. She couldn’t be around Rita’s new friends another minute. She reached the landing without a backward glance and strode down the hallway. The second floor of the house was a whole different kingdom. It smelled different up here, like brand-new furniture, like bamboo.