Michelangelos Shoulder | Page 2

loved her birds. And who knows who else? He loved Lorna. Lorna loved Pike, or used to, and Molly, their daughter. Molly herself would be falling in love any time now, if she weren't already. Round and round we go, getting the job done. Except he hadn't gotten the job done, not unless you counted the paintings as kids. Not a happy train of thought. Piss on it, he'd have a waffle at Cleary's. Tide him over until the big feed.
On Thursdays they had the big feed, he and Riles and Kai. Thursdays, because weekends were unpredictable. He walked the six blocks to Cleary's, just around the corner from the house--Riles's house, Kai's house--he couldn't call it home exactly, although he'd spent more winters than he cared to remember in the basement studio reserved for caretakers or indigent relatives. He was a little of each--an old friend of Riles and useful around the place, watching the gallery several times a week and doing the framing jobs that came along.
The Cleary's waitresses were wearing Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil T-shirts. Not a bad image, from the cover of the best seller, but it annoyed him to see his friends wearing advertisements.
"Pecan waffle, Don?"
"Yes, Ma'm--for my strength. It's that time again. I'm going north."
"Take me with you."
"Can't afford you."
"Next year," she suggested.
"Do my best," Don said. "Something to live for. There's not much up there, Jilly, just Yankees, shivering and eating beans."
"I could stand the shivering. Want some grits?"
"Read my mind," Don said.
He ate slowly, drank an extra cup of coffee, left a big tip, and got on with packing. By cocktail hour he had cleaned his room and stashed his belongings in a footlocker and a duffel bag. The easel and the painting gear stayed, part of the decor. He packed his best brushes, his watercolors, and a block of good paper. There was no limit to the number of lighthouse and/or lobster boat paintings he could sell, if they were cheap enough. The portraits and the figures were different. Drawn or done fully in oils, they were given away, or nearly. It was hard to put a price on them.
"How well you look, Don," Kai said.
"Thank you. I'm having my annual burst of optimism. Did Riles tell you that I'm off to Maine tomorrow?"
"Riles never tells me anything."
"Mother, really!" Riles appeared and put an arm around her shoulders. They were handsome together, short and dark with identical flashing smiles. Riles's hairline had receded considerably, and Kai's hair had long ago turned a tarnished silver, but they both were slim and upright and moved with a lack of effort that made Don feel as though he were dragging a wagon behind him. "I only just found out. Don is secretive, you know."
"Don is not good at planning," Don said.
"We must count on the turning of the seasons, Mother, the great migrations, to bring him back to Sherman's Retreat."
"He is not a goose, Dear." She turned to Don. "The sooner you come back, the better."
"Honk," Don said, embarrassed, and added, "if you love Jesus."
"I think this calls for a Riles Blaster. Don? Mother?"
Riles Blasters were made from light rum, Grand Marnier, lime juice, and other secret ingredients combined with ice and served, after great roaring from the blender, in sweating silver tumblers. Riles claimed that they prolonged life by rendering stress inoperable and irrelevant. A Riles Blaster, he pronounced, allowed one to focus on what mattered. "What mattered" was left undefined, allowing to each a certain latitude. They toasted what mattered and then "Absent loved ones."
Blasters were reliable--one brought a sigh; two put a helpless smile on your face. It was best to switch to wine at that point. Another virtue: "A modest red becomes--acceptable." Riles pronounced each syllable of "acceptable" so lightly and with such pleasure that you had to agree. The dark side of Riles was private. Don understood and left it alone.
"Will you be seeing that attractive friend of yours?" Kai made her innocent face.
"I usually do--at least once. I'll try."
"I love that oil of her as a young woman. Would you part with it? We think it belongs in the permanent collection."
Riles raised his eyebrows, indicating that "we" meant "she."
"You may have it, of course."
"We can't afford what it's worth."
"You don't have to buy it. I'll give it to you. It's yours."
"Don, you must take something at least--for the materials." She went into the living room and returned with a check which she handed to him. "I have wanted that painting for so long," she said, breaking a silence.
"That's a hell of a lot of materials."
"Good. More paintings! It's worth ten times that."
"Quite so," Riles said.
"Well." Don raised his glass. "Thanks."
"Bon voyage." They clinked glasses and that was that. Riles and Kai were skilled at