[26]

Emphysema and Apple Pie, 1988

After one year, the pantry was piled with warped canvases of unfinished nudes and still lifes and oils never left to dry.

Christopher Lord, Becca’s professor, met her for pizza on Bleecker Street. Becca called him Apple Pie in spite of his steel-studded leather jacket and his get-in-free card at CBGB’s. She called him Apple Pie because of his wife and two kids on Long Island. Because of his board memberships and tenure—something her father had never managed.

Across the table, he squeezed her hand.

She said, “This is the sketchbook I was telling you about.” She called it “Mon Histoire, My History.” She felt the need to share it with him, wanting his approval. There were charcoal and oil pastel depictions of Grandma Edna, pen-and-inks of the woman selling watermelon in Yeatesville, of her dad in Barnacle Bob’s, of her mom on the kitchen floor. There was a pencil drawing of Kevin Richfield.

He flipped quickly through the pages. “When did you do these?”

“Last year, when I first got to SVA.”

“Don’t show them to anyone. They’ll think you shouldn’t be here.”

It was cruel.

“Who’s the old lady?”

“My grandmother.”

“It’s so commonplace, Becca.” He was disappointed.

Becca didn’t eat anything. After Apple Pie finished his third slice of pizza, they went back to her place. They drank the wine he’d brought. They had sex-sex. Apple Pie could last until he was sure she’d climaxed. He liked to yank her red curls, pressing her naked against the exposed bricks. She liked it too. She was falling hard for him.

Every Friday after Apple Pie’s two o’clock studio class, he went to Becca’s loft. She promised not to tell anyone about the affair, although she did tell Jack and Lucy—her neighbors and closest friends in New York, and for some reason, though she felt compelled to confide in her mom, she didn’t.

In Chapel Hill, Mary quit smoking.

Despite profiting from Rowan’s work for Atkins and Thames, she didn’t want to line his or his whore wife’s pockets with any more cigarette money. She quit cold turkey by pretending (to herself) that she had emphysema. (She also pretended to have emphysema with the boy who bagged her groceries and a cashier at the Rite-Aid.) Claire said on the telephone, “That’s a strange, deceitful way to quit,” but, thrilled that Mary did so, she added, “Whatever works.”

Carrie majored in economics at UNC Chapel Hill, and Mike worked construction for his dad’s company. They got engaged. Mike’s mother, twice divorced, gave him one of her old wedding rings.

As for Whiskers, he waited for Becca’s return. She’d spent the night away before. He knew she’d be back. He waited on her bed.

Months passed. He waited. Every time the front door opened, he ran to meet her. He paced the purple flower rug, and Mary didn’t have the heart to tell her daughter (who was finally free of Chapel Hill) that the dog’s heart was broken—that he was waiting for a ghost of a girl, a girl who would never return.

Mary tried cheering him up. She took Whiskers for morning walks, and she took him to work. He wagged his tail, seeming to perk up, but every time Mary took him home again, he went to Becca’s bed and waited. Finally, Mary shut him out of Becca’s room and he lay with his salt-and-pepper back pressed against her door. Mary tried to coax him into her own bed, but nothing doing. He was waiting on Becca.

Fourteen months after Becca’s departure, Mary found Whiskers, his salt-and-pepper back pressed against Becca’s bedroom door, dead.

The vet ruled Whiskers’ death congestive heart failure, but Mary knew the truth: a broken heart.

Becca was in the throes of Apple Pie then. She hadn’t called home in a good while, and when Mary telephoned New York with the sad news, Becca wept.

She met Apple Pie outside his office door. He was with colleagues. She said, “I need to talk to you.” It was obvious she’d been crying.

He said to his colleagues, “She’s upset about her grade.”

“Please, can I talk to you?”

“I don’t budge on grades. I’ve explained this. Art is subjective. Consider me the audience for all work while you’re enrolled in my class.”

One of Apple Pie’s colleagues patted him on the back before they left Becca crying in the hallway.

You might think Becca would toss Apple Pie aside, but she’d grown accustomed to the men she most revered discarding her like garbage. She was a smart girl, but some lessons are hard, taking years to learn, and even more years to master.