“God had other plans.”
“Van’s a restaurateur now,” Richard offered by way of explanation.
“I prefer ‘entrepreneur,’ ” Van said. “Health-conscious burgers. Called Honest Burger. Started as one, got a dozen now.”
“He’smintingcash,” Scotty said.
“I will be, once the sale closes,” Van added. “Everyone cross your fingers. I’m ready for retirement.”
“Me, too,” Scotty said with a wink that was lost on me but, apparently, not the group—there was a pointed glare from Richard.
“I thought you were rethinking the sale, Van?” he asked. “Just last week you said you were going to tell the corporate guys to take a hike.”
Van frowned. Talk of the sale had clearly soured his mood. “Brooks and I were talking on the flight over here. He raised some good points. Can we change the subject now?”
“So what do you do, Frankie?” Scotty asked me.
“She’s a painter who went to NYU and then the New School for an MFA,” Brooks said, turning to eye me, then smiling with that disconcerting awkwardness of his. I must have looked like a deer in headlights. “I looked you up. Only outside addition to the crew and all that.”
“How did you even know who was coming, Brooks?” Scotty asked, which was exactly what I was wondering. “I didn’t see a list of who was going to be on the trip.”
“I asked True Altitude for one.”
“Don’t take it personally, Frankie. Brooks has a thing for research and facts,” Richard said. “That’s how he got his nickname.”
“Come on, now.” Brooks laughed. “This is never going to stop, is it? Why am I the only one with a nickname?”
“What’s his—can I…?”
“Encyclopedia Brown.” Brooks sighed. “I guess it could be worse.”
“So much worse,” Richard said.
I wished I’d thought of asking for a trip list. Would I have signed on with this group, knowing I was the only woman and only outsider? Probably not.
“Didn’t you have a background check done on your freshman-year roommate?” Van asked.
“And it turned out he’d been in a mental hospital for trying to poison his roommate in boarding school!”
“Thatwascrazy,” Richard offered. “I wonder where that guy is now?”
“In jail, probably,” Brooks said, then turned back to me. “I was just curious—I hope you don’t mind.”
“Of course not.” Though Ididfind it a bit disconcerting.
“Is Frankie short for something?” Brooks went on. “It’s an unusual name.”
“Now you’re insulting her name, Brooks?” Scotty asked. “Encyclopedia, take the freak pants off!”
They all laughed now, including Brooks. I did, too.
“Nope, just Frankie,” I said, then offered the explanation I’d given hundreds of times in my life. “It’s a family name.”
Which was true, in a way. Frankie was the name of the man my mother had been sleeping with, dating, pursuing—her view on it changed from day to day—right before she met my father. According to my mom, in the years after my father left us, Frankie had been her one true love. She’d just never told my father, to protect his feelings. I was never exactly sure why my feelings should not have been protected, too. Still, I loved my mother. She’d nearly killed herself to take care of me—working two jobs as a nail tech and a housekeeper—and she had a huge heart. She just tended to offer it to the wrong people. She wasalways,always telling me to “use what God gave you” to find a husband to take care of me as fast as possible. And I would have sworn I was never listening. But I think maybe a part of me was listening. Part of me had memorized every word. But she had no advice for me anymore. It had been years since she could even recognize me, her mind so lost to Alzheimer’s.
“Hey, Richard, remember when you took all those art classes?” Van said. “Maybe you could give Frankie here a run for her money.”
“Ah, the drawings.” Scotty laughed. “Fruit bowl after fruit bowl after fruit bowl.”
