Franklin has opened a virtual folder called NFP DOCS, which contains pdf files of forms related to obtaining not-for-profit status. Franklin clicks on Mission Statement, a one-page draft of a proposal to create a residential and social-services center for homeless boys….Ideally, we want to repurpose a large (industrial?) building in a high-needs neighborhood. (U of AZ collaboration??) We would engage a local architecture firm to gut and retrofit (etc. etc.). A garden space, preferably enclosed, is essential….
“Did he write this?” Tommy cannot imagine Morty using the word retrofit.
“I gave him some advice,” says Franklin. “I thought he could…explore it. See what his intentions would entail, practically speaking.”
Tommy notices his evasiveness. “You knew more about all this than you are letting on.”
Franklin turns in his chair. “Two months ago, he dropped by my office and said he wanted to talk. I’m paraphrasing by a long shot, but he told me he’d decided that if he was going to be remembered for something, put on some kind of Mount Rushmore, he’d rather have it be for ‘doing good’ than ‘being good.’ For making things happen, not just making things up. He seemed agitated. It wasn’t my job to ask why.”
“Morty made lots of things happen. Good things.” She needs to think about this before she can say anything more to Franklin. Morty was upset. He was unreasonably upset. But she did not expect him to act on it—not on a scale like this. She says, “Let’s get started on these files.”
Together they read, Tommy aware of Franklin’s citrus cologne, the comforting heat of his body through his pale-green cotton shirtsleeve; for the moment, she isn’t alone in this mess. She never noticed before that Franklin is left-handed—which surprises her, considering that he’s eaten with them on and off for five years. For a decade before that, it was Bruce, who bequeathed his boutique firm to Franklin when he retired. It’s still small, its clients entirely local—Morty the whale among the minnows (or maybe not, considering the rumored ballooning of wealth behind Orne’s hedges). Morty defected from his large, multipartnered big-city firm after having a ten-minute conversation with a total stranger, in the Orne village drugstore, about how to find decent firewood. The stranger was Bruce.
Franklin slides the open file up and aside on the screen, opens two more, one a scanned letter from a child-welfare agency in Phoenix, the other a letter from the director of Eagle Rest, the resort (once rugged, now refined) where Morty and his mother lived when their names were still Frieda and Mordecai Levy. Both letters are dated about a month ago. One pledges counsel and assistance, the other money (though neither writer gives specifics).
“All of this,” says Tommy, “is…it’s just that he told me nothing.” In the letter attached to the will, one of the dictates that makes her heart sink is the paragraph that directs her to auction off my collections and to sell and widely disperse my work as necessary with the express intent of funding the Mort Lear Foundation and the social service facility, as described below, that I would like to call Ivo’s House (unless some fat-cat do-gooder offers a hefty sum to attach his or her name).
“I’m sorry.”
Franklin is in his late fifties or early sixties. Like Bruce before him, he’s been a frequent adviser to Morty. Tommy knows, from joining the two men during the meetings that turned into meals, that Franklin has two grown sons, both married. He’s been divorced from their mother since the boys were in their teens. Is he attractive? she wonders as they breathe quietly side by side, taking in the documents and their contents. She has never looked at him like that before; why now? Now that Morty is gone, will she begin to think of herself—or worry that others see her—as a spinster? Does anybody think in those terms anymore?
“I knew this was why he established the new trust,” Franklin says. “And, of course, the new will. I told him I thought he should look into it further before putting it down on parchment. But that was Morty: seize an idea first—run with it—then do the research later. I’m sure you know that much.”
Tommy thinks of Ivo, heading into the forest without his mother’s permission (not that his mother is around to ask). “Do you think…he was doing this rationally?”
Franklin hesitates. “Are you asking me if he was in his right mind?”
“I don’t suppose you’d answer that.”
“Not my job, assessing people’s mental fitness.” He smiles at Tommy, meeting her eyes over the glint of his reading glasses. “But I had no reason to think he wasn’t. I did offer to talk to a law school classmate who helps bankroll safe houses for teens in trouble. He pointed me to the director of a place in Portland. We had a brief conversation, and I passed the woman’s number to Morty. That’s a kind of mecca for runaways. The railyards…There’s a whole subculture of kids on their own. You can imagine what goes on, what they resort to.”
“Oh God,” says Tommy. “I don’t want to.”
“Nobody does, right? So it’s heroic when somebody wants to do something about it other than put them in juvy. You have to guess that Morty was thinking about his ‘legacy.’ ”
And, Tommy thinks, about what might have happened to him if his mother hadn’t found out what her son was enduring—or hadn’t chosen to sacrifice their security to take him far away. Morty’s books are filled with boys out in the world on their own, some by choice, others by chance. And when they’re not alone in the world, they’re often alone in the sanctuary of their imagination.
As for Morty’s “legacy,” what she won’t be telling Franklin about—why bother?—is the tantrum Morty had (and it really was a tantrum, belligerent and shrill) when he found out that the children’s wing of the book museum had been reconceived to give as much weight and stature to the work of Stuart Scheinman, a man Morty regarded as a “closeted Nazi” and a “barely literate comic-strip dweeb.” This was, no coincidence, not long after Stuart won a MacArthur.
At too many recent book festivals, Tommy saw Morty eye the much longer lines of fans waiting to have a signed Shine. Not that Morty’s star had fallen, but Stuart’s ascendance looked as steep and sure as the takeoff of a jumbo jet, and he cultivated a physical presence that led critics to call him “one of a kind” or “an off-the-grid visionary” or even “a hip-hop Shakespeare for Generation Tattoo, the last remaining hope for the future of the book.” There was also no denying that Shine’s characters, though they occupied a narrow range of experience (street smart, tough, rebellious to the core, frequently even homeless), were varied in their ethnicity, earning him praise for, as one reviewer put it, “addressing a refreshingly diverse audience, a pomo-punkster-grunge fantasy rainbow.”
“Oh for God’s sake, let’s all sacrifice a few goats at the shrine of political correctness” was Morty’s reaction.
“Stuart didn’t write that review,” said Tommy.
“But I’m sure he’s crowing all over town about it,” Morty fumed.
Whenever Shine’s name came up, or whenever he and Morty were at the same literary function, Tommy could feel the tension in Morty, as if he were a boy whose girl had been stolen, as if he were literally itching for a fight.
The crowning insult (in Morty’s eyes) was when Stuart, at one of those festivals, had bid him farewell with “See you at the next one, pops!” Tommy had no luck persuading Morty that Stu meant it fondly, even ironically; that he was, underneath his blowhard shtick, a well-meaning guy.
“Right. And Hitler loved dogs!” bellowed Morty.
Tommy knew better than to argue with Morty when he worked himself into a humorless lather, but she had never seen him so vitriolic about a fellow author. “I suggest you keep associations like that to yourself,” she said. “I mean, not from me, but from…you know, friends of yours who might not feel the same way.”
“I’m no poker player,” he said curtly.
“Yes, but you garden,” said Tommy.
“What the hell does that mean?”
Tommy said, “You have faith in the seasons. That what goes around comes around—what
’s properly planted and tended will always steal the show.” She had no idea where this came from, but it seemed to appease Morty.
“Tommy,” he said, “will you marry me?”
Morty had begun to issue these mock proposals after Soren died. Tommy didn’t find them as endearing as he might have assumed, but she let them go. (She had, at some point, become a master of letting things go.)
Tommy pushes back from the computer. “Want a sandwich, Franklin?”
“In fact, I do,” he says heartily.
“What I don’t get,” she says as they leave the studio, “is how he ever thought I’d be up to this.”
Franklin holds open the door to the kitchen. “Not to insult you, but he didn’t. His long-term plan was to set it all up for you—with my help—letting you bask in the glow of his goodwill from the grave.”
“He told you that?”
“Well, it’s what I told him he’d have to do. Or we’d have to do.” Clearly reading her expression, he says, “You know he loved you. Like a daughter.”
Franklin can’t know, and wouldn’t understand, how this wounds her. Was she, after all, as Soren had mocked her, Lear’s “little Cordelia”?
—
“Two nights,” says Nick. “Maybe three. I’ll put the driver at a B and B in the village, so I have him on call. The place is a trove of—”
“Three nights?” says Silas. “Andrew wants you out there the minute your cummerbund hits the floor on Monday morning. He thinks you’re avoiding him. They’re working out the kid’s schedule, and Andrew wants the two of you to meet.”
“Avoiding Andrew? Rubbish. I do know what’s good for me, Si.” Why does Nick go on the defensive like this? Why does he so easily, instantly feel like a child when others question his judgment? Literally, it might be true that he’s avoiding Andrew—just putting him off a bit—but to a worthy end! Yet stating his plan out loud does make it sound like a private folly, absurd and self-indulgent.
Nick and Silas sit in a corner booth of the hotel bar, its twilight halogens obscurative enough that Nick, who faces the wall, feels relatively safe from intrepid fans, at least till the two of them go their separate ways for dinner. He’s made no concrete plans, and right now he’s tempted just to eat in his room, though it makes him feel like a social refugee. Friday night alone in front of the telly? He needs to ring Tomasina from somewhere quiet, somewhere he won’t be interrupted. He promised he would ring her as soon as he confirmed dates with his manager. And then there’s the e-valanche, the digging out from under the messages that pour through the pipeline every time he clicks on the envelope icon. Sometimes he feels like the Sorcerer’s Apprentice, heaving buckets of water against a flood. Most of the e-mails are from his agent in London, who needs answers yesterday on the Stoppard (a dream, but the schedule’s pretty impossible) and the Edinburgh Hamlet (he could go down like a minor Titanic on that one)—and by the way, isn’t it beyond high time he employ a personal assistant? (Since the Kendra flame-out, he’s felt the need, however irrational, to handle his private life as independently as he possibly can.)
“Look. Here’s a plan: I head to L.A. first thing Monday, then make a quick turnaround for a weekend at Lear’s. You’ll know exactly where to find me.”
“And if the wrong person peeks through a hedge, so will the rest of the world.”
“It’s not like I’m made of bone china,” says Nick. “Or like I’m Tom Cruise.”
“Lord, let’s hope not.” Silas glances at his phone, frowns, and pushes it away.
“I’ll keep the room here. In case I have to flee.”
“I suppose you’re a grown-up.”
“Some people think so.” Nick winks at his manager.
“An incredibly stubborn grown-up.”
Evidently not enough of a grown-up, thinks Nick, to employ a manager who wouldn’t dare talk to him like that. Or who wouldn’t dare answer his buzzing phone—not that he doesn’t have other clients to deal with.
Silas gestures that this is a call he has to take and carries his phone away from the booth, into the alcove by the coat check. Nick signals the waiter through the thickening crowd of weekend celebrants. Maybe it really is time for that personal assistant, someone as devoted to Nick as Tomasina Daulair was to Mort Lear.
Tomasina—he’s simply started to use her first name, cheeky though it may be—has agreed to let him stay at the house for a couple of nights. Nick persuaded her that to know Mort Lear well enough—now absent the chance to spend a few hours with him in person—and to portray him more than superficially, Nick needs (or would dearly love) to spend two or three days among the man’s belongings, eating off his dishes, paging through his books, greeting the day as he had done. He promised to “keep a low profile,” to provide for himself, to observe any boundaries she sets.
She seemed skeptical (in point of fact, she looked briefly as if her heart had stopped), but when he described his intensive correspondence with Lear, told her some of the stories they had shared (the innocent ones), she went silent for quite a few long seconds. They were standing in the studio, where she had shown him Lear’s collection of Alice in Wonderland novelties (and that rather lasciviously illustrated antique vessel), and finally she said, “I had no idea.”
Nick said, “That we connected?”
“That you were writing to each other.”
“Well…I suppose it just…you know, to be honest? It surprised me. I can’t claim that we became friends—that would be an exaggeration—but I was devastated when I heard the news. It felt…personal. Does that sound ridiculous?”
Again he seemed to have robbed her of words. Much as the silence tempted piercing, he waited.
“I’ll think about it, and I’ll phone you this evening,” she said. “Though you probably won’t give me your number, will you?” She smiled slyly.
“You bloody bet I will,” he said.
She rang him while he was still in the car returning to the city. “I may be out of my mind,” she said, “but this is what Morty would have wanted. And I have to warn you, nobody but you. Same as today. I won’t have people tramping through the bushes again. And don’t let your director think that I would ever—”
“I am perfectly clear on all that,” said Nick. “Crystal clear. Thank you.”
Silas returns to the table. “Sorry. Misha. Listen—you’re sure about this?”
“Sure as rain and fog,” says Nick. “And I’ll catch up with Andrew tonight.”
“I’ll have Linda book your flights. Out Monday, back Thursday?” Silas slides his card into the wallet containing the check.
“Brilliant. Thank you.”
“But while you’re out there—at Lear’s—you’ll stay in touch?”
“Goes without saying,” says Nick, and once again he feels as if decades have slipped from his age. His mother has given him permission to venture alone, just a few blocks, to buy himself a sweet. A kind son, an attentive son, he offers to buy her one, too. No, she says; she’s watching her figure. She denied herself so much—and, in the end, for what?
—
From the moment Colorquake won the Caldecott—an event that took place entirely outside Tommy’s narrow adolescent consciousness—Mort Lear became a revered and envied figure in the domain of children’s books. More than that, however, the sudden prestige of his book (and all the intellectual suppositions flocking around it like crows or gulls, a lot of inconsequential flap and clamor) seemed to empower that entire domain, as if authors who wrote for children had been a small army lying dormant, waiting for their moment to conquer the world’s attention.
Well, perhaps that would be an overstatement, but when Tommy started to work for Morty, she sometimes spent her idle time browsing through the file folders (everything stored on paper back then) in which he had saved the numerous clippings, citations, fan letters, and invitations that filled his mailbox daily following the publication of Colorquake. That first year, he had been invited to give commencement spee
ches at half a dozen institutions (accepting none, though later he would learn to tolerate wearing a robe and mortarboard over a suit in the heat of early summer). He had been invited to visit teachers’ colleges in Australia and Poland; he had been offered the use of a summer house on Lake Geneva. That was, she sleuthed between the lines, the year of the wealthy boyfriend on Mykonos. She has never seen pictures—surely there were pictures, perhaps torn to shreds in jealousy or rage?—but she knows his name was Panos. The one other souvenir of that liaison is a far less valuable cultural artifact, hanging in the back of the pantry: a facsimile icon of Saint Phanourios (his name printed, in English, on the back). It’s a tourist keepsake, but Morty did not like the idea of discarding a saint, no matter how cheap his incarnation. “He’s one of those guys you pray to when you’ve lost stuff—your car keys, your contact lenses, your faith in humanity—and God knows what would happen if you tossed him out or gave him away. You just might lose everything.”
Morty’s success was the most dangerous kind, he liked to say, because it was intoxicatingly sudden and fierce. “The kind of success that causes spiritual nosebleeds,” he said at one dinner party during the Soren years. “The kind that bucks you off and breaks your bones.”
But he was old enough to stay on that horse, to breathe at that altitude. He spent the first windfall on his duplex in the Village. He learned how to tell the useful invitations from the frivolous, how to say no cheerfully enough that he would not make enemies but firmly enough to make it clear that he understood the value of time.
When Morty wrote Tommy her first paycheck, which he did in her presence, ripping it from a black ledger he pulled from a desk drawer, she noticed right away the name of a major investment bank embossed on the cover. But in most ways, even if he bought his shirts at Paul Stuart and ate twice a week at Raoul’s, he was still the sneaker-shod beatnik artist she’d met when she was twelve, the man to whom she had given a brave if ingenuous scold about the importance of telling children the hard truths they need to know. (He would tease her about that for years.) Once, hanging her coat in his closet, she spotted the paisley jacket. Sun had faded the fabric across the shoulders. He no longer wore it, and one day it simply wasn’t there anymore.