The appointment itself was shockingly unhelpful. As far as Becky could tell, no one could give her any sort of guidance on what to expect or when to expect it. This time, for the first time, she took the brochure titled “Area Facilities for Long Term Care.”
Now, in the west parking lot of UIUC’s campus, her father safely deposited at the barbershop in the hospital’s lobby where he’d get a shave and a nice long cut, Becky folded the pages in half and wedged them into her purse. The Datsun ticked for another minute, engine cooling, while she sat there casting into the future. There were savings to get her father through a year or maybe two at one of those places. That was if they sold the farmhouse and the business, which had dwindled steadily since his decline. If only one of those doctors would be straight about how long they expected him to live!
Becky got out of the car and began to walk, fast, without a direction. The campus courtyard stretched wide from one tan cement building to another, paved pathways crisscrossing all over like a corn maze without the corn. She slowed to match the tempo of the enrolled students, wishing she had some books to carry.
“Oh my goodness, Becky Farwell?”
Becky froze. Sarah Meakins, wide-eyed with friendly delight. Shit. How could she not have guessed this would happen? There must be at least a dozen Pierson High grads at UIUC.
Pleasantries gave way to Sarah’s recounting Becky’s high school career to her unimpressed friend. “We called her ‘Baby’—remember that, Becky? Because no one had ever taken pre-calc as a freshman before.”
“Are you a transfer?” Sarah’s friend asked. She was pulling crumbs off a muffin wrapped in a paper napkin and eating them one by one.
“No, I—”
“Oh, Becky’s holding down the fort at home.” Sarah turned to Becky. “My mom told me you’re working in Town Hall!”
“I deferred Notre Dame.” Becky blinked as a ray of sun bounced off a roof’s corner right at her eyes. “And Case Western.” This was true, and the offer of a full ride at Case had particularly stung. “I also got in to U. Michigan, Northwestern, U. Chicago, Carleton . . .”
Sarah’s friend stopped picking at the muffin.
“Well . . . that’s great, Becky.” Sarah spoke slowly, half-smiling.
“Though I’ll probably go to Johns Hopkins. Quality-wise, it might as well be an Ivy, but with more scholarships. They said I’d probably qualify for the business school by next year, depending on how many credits they offer.”
Now Sarah and her friend were silent. They exchanged a quick glance.
But Becky couldn’t stop. “Johns Hopkins is in Baltimore, though. And when Georgetown brought me out they made a good case for why you’d want to be in a major city like DC, not plunked down in some farm town, ha, for college.” None of that was true, but Becky could have gone on for hours.
Wow, Sarah’s friend mouthed. She took a real bite of muffin and stepped back on the path.
Sarah reached out to touch Becky’s forearm, a light tap. “Say hello to your dad.”
Then they were gone, bookbags jouncing, heads close together, moving into the massed line of other students.
Becky burst into tears. First for her own stupidity and humiliation and then—so dumb, so hopeless—for the stupidity and humiliation of crying. Head down, she pushed into the nearest building, ignoring the die-cut school of art on its glass door.
Becky spent several minutes in the ladies’ room, and when she reemerged her blouse was retucked, her red-blond hair reclipped into its tortoiseshell barrette, and a new slick frost of lip color drew attention to the set of her slight angry smile. As she marched toward the door, intent on getting back to her father and the hell out of UIUC, a tubby man with a crew cut materialized behind the desk in the cool rotunda and called out, “Brochures are up here.”
Becky came forward and took one. “The Space of Place: Regional Artists on the Meaning of Home.”
“Are you a first year? This is our gallery area, where—”
“Yeah, okay, thanks.” Now she had to take a look around.
At first, Becky made dutiful circles in the small white-walled rooms. Nodded occasionally, although she was the only visitor: very nice, yes, interesting. Would her father be done with the hot-towel shave? He loved to be tipped back in the chair and they’d let him stay that way, angled toward the TV, until she returned. She thought about whether they’d need gas for the ride back—$3.50 a gallon, Jesus—and how much deposit was required by the nursing homes listed on that folded sheet in her purse. Were fees like that negotiable? Was there a payment plan?
And then a visceral urge to back up cut through her mental calculations. Becky reversed past the last three paintings until she came to a stop in front of a framed picture in oil, hung at her exact eye level. She inched closer.
Hadn’t she seen a painting before? Well, of course. The junior year spring trip into Chicago, which had included a stop at the Art Institute, the still lifes rotating through Barner’s Restaurant on Second, where she and her father went regularly for meat-and-three on either Wednesday or Thursday, depending on when they had ham loaf. (Barner’s still lifes were sourced from the manager’s mother’s home for the elderly, which put out residents’ depictions of a bowl and fruit—same bowl, different fruit—each week on Visitor’s Day, priced to sell.)
I’ve seen paintings before, Becky argued to herself. But it didn’t feel true, compared to being in the presence of this painting, the physical result of however many possible permutations of pigment and brushstroke and horsehair and vision and canvas and flaking nail-joined wood. Five minutes passed. Fifteen. Her arches ached, her purse was on the floor. She reached out and unhooked the piece from its hanger and for a brief moment studied it in her arms, the shortened plane of its image a whole new—
“Whoa, whoa.” The man from the desk was at her side, gently but immediately taking the painting away, his face dark with displeasure.
Becky was caught off guard. “You can’t hold them?”
“No, you can’t ‘hold’ them. Christ.”
Well, she hadn’t known. “All right, I’m sorry.” Her impulse had been only to more closely examine it, the way you picked up a single high-heeled pump off the shelf at Rudy’s. “It’s for sale, isn’t it? Wait—why is it for sale? This is a museum.”
“Yes, but we include gallery sales in our rotating exhibit twice a year. If you want, you can sign up for our newsletter.” Still holding the frame to his chest, the man nodded toward the front desk.
“Can I . . . Please. Just a bit closer?” Becky held up her hands and then clasped them behind her back.
A flash of amusement, then the man extended his arms. Becky hung her face over the painting as if steaming her pores. The man started talking, although she wished he wouldn’t, about the deceased artist, his stellar career that flew under the radar, his influences included Hopper, of course, but also the modern gestural work of . . .
Becky tried to memorize every inch of the canvas, knowing with a sick sadness that her time was running out. She had to get back to her father.
At last, having finished his spiel, the man carefully rehung the painting. Tactfully stepped back—but not far—so Becky could pick up her purse and leave.