Page 65 of A Happy Catastrophe

“That’s why I do my little things.”

Sunday, 1:10 p.m. Delta from JFK. Only fifty million dollars. Sixty million if you want to check a bag. My mother is going to need to do that, but I probably don’t.

“Let me see what you’re doing,” she says.

“Here, you can sit on my lap. See? I press this button here, and then it already has my mother’s credit card information because she recently flew here . . . and . . .”

“So your mom is paying?”

“Yep. She’s nice that way. So I press this, and voilà! We’re reserved.”

She hits me on the arm five times.

“Why do you always hit me?”

“It brings you good luck.”

“Wait. Your hitting me brings me good luck? I think it brings me bruises.”

“Nope.” She smiles self-consciously. “I do that to bring you good luck for flying in the airplane. And last night I jumped on the bed five times so Patrick would have a good show. And sometimes I jump off the couch three times to help Ariana with her videos.”

“Ah, Fritzie, Fritzie, Fritzie, I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I’m going to miss you when I’m gone. But it’s only for a few days. You know that, right?” I hope it’s only a few days. I probably shouldn’t have said that, setting up expectations.

“I know.”

“And you’ll help Patrick take care of you?”

She nods and looks down at her hands.

Later, as I’m tucking her in bed after a tiresome argument about her theory that you can actually damage yourself by washing your hair two times in one week, she bursts into tears and clings to me, and tells me that my mom is nicer to her than I am, and that she hates the way I cook eggs, and that she didn’t ever want to mention this but I look totally fat in the jeans I love the most. And for good measure she says, “And I hope you stay in Florida and never come back.”

When I go out into the living room, to my surprise, Patrick is sitting there, scrolling through his phone. We haven’t been talking, except for me to tell him about my father, which I managed to do in three short sentences before I turned on my heel and left the room. And now I say to him that he has his work cut out for him, keeping Fritzie.

“Does anyone really think I can do this?” he says, without looking at me.

“Who knows? You’ll probably do better than I do with her,” I say. “At least she won’t tell you that you look fat in your jeans.”

“Yeah, well. We’ll see how it goes when I’m the only one she has left,” he says.

It makes my heart hurt to look at him. And when I get back, I’m going to have to start planning for a life without him living here. Eventually it will be just me in this big old brownstone—and what then? Maybe I’ll start renting out the apartments again—his studio and the basement. Get some new people. Invite some chaos in.

But no mental picture comes to mind.

My future feels blank. A scary, lonely blank canvas.

The next day Patrick rouses himself enough to be able to kiss me on the cheek, and he tells me that he’s sorry about my dad and that I shouldn’t worry about anything back here, and he’ll call if he has any questions about the care and feeding of Fritzie. But I know he won’t, so I tell him what she likes to take for school lunch and that he does not have to tolerate her walking backward on the low stone walls on the way to the bus stop, and also that he should call Maybelle if he has any questions about school. Ariana is also a very helpful person. For good measure, I tell him a parenting tip I’ve picked up on the playground: children kind of like it when you tell them no. Something about how it makes them feel more secure.

And then he hugs and kisses my mom, while I go upstairs to give the sullen and furious Fritzie a hug, and then the Uber is here, and it’s time to go to Florida.

Patrick walks us out to the curb, carrying my mother’s bags. “Call me and let me know how your father’s doing,” he says to me, and he gives me a limp hug.

“This is not the way I wanted to leave here,” says my mom as we climb into the car.

“Me neither,” I say, and I get a chill at how final everything sounds.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

PATRICK

The first thing that Fritzie does on Patrick’s watch is go into the bathroom and cut off most of her hair.

She comes into the living room afterward nonchalantly, as if she’d always had hair that looked like patches of it had been unevenly chewed by raccoons to within an inch of her scalp. She goes over to where Bedford is lying on the floor and lies down on top of him, humming.

Patrick, who has not been able to settle into doing anything in the half hour since Marnie and Millie left, has basically been pacing around the apartment, straightening the artwork on the wall, thinking about how much work he should do now that he’s officially back to being an artist, and also wondering what the hell is wrong with him that he doesn’t want to do any of it. He flops down onto the couch to contemplate the ceiling and find out if it has any answers for him, and that’s when he looks over at her.

At first he wants to burst out laughing, but then he realizes the true weirdness of the situation. Marnie has been gone for exactly thirty-five minutes and Fritzie already looks like a cross between a prisoner of war and Sinéad O’Connor. This is obviously a cry for help, and it’s obviously outside of anything he knows how to handle.

“Fritzie?” he says mildly. “What have you done to your hair?”

“It’s art, Patrick,” she says. “I arted my hair. I’m surprised you don’t know that. You’re an artist, aren’t you?”

Okay. So it’s art. Fine. Statement hair. But oh God.

He supposes there’s no point in yelling or getting hysterical. What’s done is done. He’ll have to watch her more carefully, that’s all he can do, before she decides to art anything else. Add it to the list of things he can’t fix.

This may be when he realizes something fundamental to his life in the near future: he must go it alone. He knows that Marnie would say that Ariana would be willing to help him out and that he should avail himself of her kindness and smarts. But he is not going to do it. He steels his jaw and makes up his mind to endure. He has plenty of practice at enduring, and endure he will.

They are at loose ends all day. He thinks he should clean out his studio a bit, but when he goes in there, he can’t bear to tackle any of it. The sun coming through the windows is watery and noncommittal, and the studio is cold and he doesn’t feel like making a fire in the fireplace. He doesn’t feel like doing anything.

He wanders back into the apartment. He should probably return to sleeping over here now, now that he’s in charge of Fritzie. The bedroom he and Marnie share, when he goes in there, feels off-limits somehow, like it’s not his place anymore. The bed’s unmade, which makes sense. Marnie’s way of letting him know he should change the sheets. That’s exactly the project he should take on now. Forward motion. He strips the sheets off and then the pillowcases. For a moment he is stopped dead in his tracks when he discovers that Marnie’s pillow smells like her, the way her hair smells when she’s lying next to him—kind of a floral scent, and something else that’s just her. He’d know it anywhere.

o;That’s why I do my little things.”

Sunday, 1:10 p.m. Delta from JFK. Only fifty million dollars. Sixty million if you want to check a bag. My mother is going to need to do that, but I probably don’t.

“Let me see what you’re doing,” she says.

“Here, you can sit on my lap. See? I press this button here, and then it already has my mother’s credit card information because she recently flew here . . . and . . .”

“So your mom is paying?”

“Yep. She’s nice that way. So I press this, and voilà! We’re reserved.”

She hits me on the arm five times.

“Why do you always hit me?”

“It brings you good luck.”

“Wait. Your hitting me brings me good luck? I think it brings me bruises.”

“Nope.” She smiles self-consciously. “I do that to bring you good luck for flying in the airplane. And last night I jumped on the bed five times so Patrick would have a good show. And sometimes I jump off the couch three times to help Ariana with her videos.”

“Ah, Fritzie, Fritzie, Fritzie, I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I’m going to miss you when I’m gone. But it’s only for a few days. You know that, right?” I hope it’s only a few days. I probably shouldn’t have said that, setting up expectations.

“I know.”

“And you’ll help Patrick take care of you?”

She nods and looks down at her hands.

Later, as I’m tucking her in bed after a tiresome argument about her theory that you can actually damage yourself by washing your hair two times in one week, she bursts into tears and clings to me, and tells me that my mom is nicer to her than I am, and that she hates the way I cook eggs, and that she didn’t ever want to mention this but I look totally fat in the jeans I love the most. And for good measure she says, “And I hope you stay in Florida and never come back.”

When I go out into the living room, to my surprise, Patrick is sitting there, scrolling through his phone. We haven’t been talking, except for me to tell him about my father, which I managed to do in three short sentences before I turned on my heel and left the room. And now I say to him that he has his work cut out for him, keeping Fritzie.

“Does anyone really think I can do this?” he says, without looking at me.

“Who knows? You’ll probably do better than I do with her,” I say. “At least she won’t tell you that you look fat in your jeans.”

“Yeah, well. We’ll see how it goes when I’m the only one she has left,” he says.

It makes my heart hurt to look at him. And when I get back, I’m going to have to start planning for a life without him living here. Eventually it will be just me in this big old brownstone—and what then? Maybe I’ll start renting out the apartments again—his studio and the basement. Get some new people. Invite some chaos in.

But no mental picture comes to mind.

My future feels blank. A scary, lonely blank canvas.

The next day Patrick rouses himself enough to be able to kiss me on the cheek, and he tells me that he’s sorry about my dad and that I shouldn’t worry about anything back here, and he’ll call if he has any questions about the care and feeding of Fritzie. But I know he won’t, so I tell him what she likes to take for school lunch and that he does not have to tolerate her walking backward on the low stone walls on the way to the bus stop, and also that he should call Maybelle if he has any questions about school. Ariana is also a very helpful person. For good measure, I tell him a parenting tip I’ve picked up on the playground: children kind of like it when you tell them no. Something about how it makes them feel more secure.

And then he hugs and kisses my mom, while I go upstairs to give the sullen and furious Fritzie a hug, and then the Uber is here, and it’s time to go to Florida.

Patrick walks us out to the curb, carrying my mother’s bags. “Call me and let me know how your father’s doing,” he says to me, and he gives me a limp hug.

“This is not the way I wanted to leave here,” says my mom as we climb into the car.

“Me neither,” I say, and I get a chill at how final everything sounds.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

PATRICK

The first thing that Fritzie does on Patrick’s watch is go into the bathroom and cut off most of her hair.

She comes into the living room afterward nonchalantly, as if she’d always had hair that looked like patches of it had been unevenly chewed by raccoons to within an inch of her scalp. She goes over to where Bedford is lying on the floor and lies down on top of him, humming.

Patrick, who has not been able to settle into doing anything in the half hour since Marnie and Millie left, has basically been pacing around the apartment, straightening the artwork on the wall, thinking about how much work he should do now that he’s officially back to being an artist, and also wondering what the hell is wrong with him that he doesn’t want to do any of it. He flops down onto the couch to contemplate the ceiling and find out if it has any answers for him, and that’s when he looks over at her.

At first he wants to burst out laughing, but then he realizes the true weirdness of the situation. Marnie has been gone for exactly thirty-five minutes and Fritzie already looks like a cross between a prisoner of war and Sinéad O’Connor. This is obviously a cry for help, and it’s obviously outside of anything he knows how to handle.

“Fritzie?” he says mildly. “What have you done to your hair?”

“It’s art, Patrick,” she says. “I arted my hair. I’m surprised you don’t know that. You’re an artist, aren’t you?”

Okay. So it’s art. Fine. Statement hair. But oh God.

He supposes there’s no point in yelling or getting hysterical. What’s done is done. He’ll have to watch her more carefully, that’s all he can do, before she decides to art anything else. Add it to the list of things he can’t fix.

This may be when he realizes something fundamental to his life in the near future: he must go it alone. He knows that Marnie would say that Ariana would be willing to help him out and that he should avail himself of her kindness and smarts. But he is not going to do it. He steels his jaw and makes up his mind to endure. He has plenty of practice at enduring, and endure he will.

They are at loose ends all day. He thinks he should clean out his studio a bit, but when he goes in there, he can’t bear to tackle any of it. The sun coming through the windows is watery and noncommittal, and the studio is cold and he doesn’t feel like making a fire in the fireplace. He doesn’t feel like doing anything.

He wanders back into the apartment. He should probably return to sleeping over here now, now that he’s in charge of Fritzie. The bedroom he and Marnie share, when he goes in there, feels off-limits somehow, like it’s not his place anymore. The bed’s unmade, which makes sense. Marnie’s way of letting him know he should change the sheets. That’s exactly the project he should take on now. Forward motion. He strips the sheets off and then the pillowcases. For a moment he is stopped dead in his tracks when he discovers that Marnie’s pillow smells like her, the way her hair smells when she’s lying next to him—kind of a floral scent, and something else that’s just her. He’d know it anywhere.

Source: www.allfreenovel.com