The Pink Portrait, Ch. Five

Five

I wake up with an inward gasp to the sound of someone rapping on my balcony door. Doing my best to convey annoyance with every movement I make, I get up and trudge over to the door.

“Mattina, sole,” the sliding glass door is barely halfway open before Ales, wearing a sleeveless white blouse over a black tank top and miniskirt, prances into my room and plops herself on my bed.

“Remind me why we’re BFFs again?” I ask groggily.

“Mm, perché io sono sfarzoso,” she flips her red hair and flexes her long flawless legs in an all-too-sexy manner that I have trouble not smiling at.

“I thought I was the gorgeous one,” I raise and lower an eyebrow in what I hope is an equally sexy manner.

“Touché, bellissimo,” she blows me a kiss. “No, I think we’re just BFFs because we met at the right place at the right time.”

She refers to when we first met in kindergarten. I was the first and only person to befriend her at the time when others made fun of her accent. I’ve long since forgotten what words she had difficulty saying, other than my name, but those were a target in her early youth.

I study her face thoughtfully. “You seem a little more cheery than normal today.”

“Sono.”

“May I ask why?” instead of a verbal answer, she tosses me her iPhone. I catch it almost reflexively. I look at the screen. All brightness drains from my eyes. It is a video of me forcing Nigel Payson out of Ales’ house while physically abusing him. The tagline reads, “Paintbrush Swann castrates rapist-quarterback Payson.”

“‘Castrate’?” I repeat. “C’mon, I might have hurt him a bit, but there was no gonadectomy involved.”

“No, but you did pretty much murder his social status and amplify your own.”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you have any idea how many phone calls and text messages I’ve received last night? About you?” I say nothing. “Kieran, you have made a hero out of yourself; half the ladies who have texted or called me have been requesting tips on how to approach you. I guess instead of being a guastafesta, you made it a bit more exciting.”

I moan as I collapse face-first onto my bed. I feel Ales lay down next to me. I twist my head sideway a little to face her. “Why is it a good thing that all of the sudden I am on the top of every girl’s list of guys to seduce before graduation?”

“Well, maybe not every girl, but a substantial number, yes.” Ales sighs as she lays a loving hand on my back. “Oh, miele, I’m not saying that you have to make yourself available to all the girls who want to date or even sleep with you; I’m just letting you know that that incident last night has earned you a certain amount of praise.”

“What earned Kieran a certain amount of praise?”

Ales and I jump as I turn around and face the doorway. Standing there in her robe and nightwear is my mother, Frances, with her hands on her hips.

“Um, nothing much, just…” Mom narrows her icy blue eyes that I inherited at Ales. She swallows hard. “Kieran saved a girl from getting raped last night.”

My mother’s face remains unreadable as she shifts her gaze from Ales and to me. When they land on me, I freeze. She takes an eternity to walk towards me in a gliding, unearthly motion. When she reaches the foot of my bed, I stay silent, fearing the worst.

“Well,” she says, “looks like I have another reason to be proud of you.” I’m stunned. She places her hands around my neck and pulls me into a hug. “Although, I am feeling a little questionable about Ms. Italy’s idea of a ‘good party’.”

We burst out laughing. My mother is the only person in the world that Ales allows to call her that nickname.

“So, Alessandra, are you staying for breakfast?” Mom asks.

“Sí, grazie, Frances,” replies Ales brightly.

“Prego, but the Italian stops there.” Other than “thank you”, “your welcome”, “yes”, “no”, “hello”, and “goodbye”, my mother is a lost cause for the Italian language that I have basically been speaking since I was five.

“Alessandra, were you planning on coming to my appointment?” Mom asks as she shreds a few potatoes in the food processor. She’s referring to her appointment regarding her most recent MRI results.

“Uh, yeah, I need something to do today anyway,” Ales gives me a surreptitious wink. I reach across the table and grasp her hand.

“Thank you,” I mouth.

My best friend just squeezes back. Mom and I have been dreading this day for weeks.

“So what did you guys do last night?” Mom continues.

For the next half hour, Ales and I take turns talking about last night. Ales obviously had a more eventful night than I did. She had to throw out more than a few people. Apparently a fistfight broke out in her kitchen and she pretty chased them out with a meat cleaver…or was it a cast-iron skillet? Either way, Mom is impressed. Not as shocked as when she hears about all the alcohol brought in the house. Ales insists that she was not the provider. I think Mom is just pretending be disapproving. It wouldn’t be the first time. When she finally pulled the plug for the evening, she announced that anybody who was still in the house by the time she reached the count of ten had to stay and help clean up. To her luck, eight people got stuck with cleanup duties.

When it comes my turn, I describe how Ales talked me into dancing. I even tell her how I went to my quiet place when it became too much for me and that that was where the rape incident occurred. I completely leave out all the parts that involved my attention on Pauline.

“Hmm, sounds like you two had a wild evening,” says Mom as she takes a bite of hash brown.

Ales and I exchange a glance.

“I made breakfast; you crazy children are cleaning up.” She gets up and sets her plate in the sink before either of us can protest. “And no rock-paper-scissors.” She heads upstairs.

“Ci va l’idea,” mutters Ales.

We share only a few words as we clean up. Ales knows I am worried about what my mother’s results are going to be. After being diagnosed with breast cancer in January, we have been worried sick. And I was in Norway with a full semester that I still had to finish. It’s debt I could never fully repay when Ales’ parents paid for medical treatment when our insurance turned up invalid.

Out of nowhere, Ales flicks a blob of suds at me as I stick a few plates in the dishwasher. I slowly turn around. She’s smiling broadly while trying to suppress giggles. I take a step towards her. I regard her for a minute. Then I scoop up some suds from the sink and smear them in her hair.

She yelps and throws more suds at me. Soon we are throwing suds at each other and making a mess of ourselves. A bit silly considering we are cleaning dishes. When the sink empties of suds we call a truce.

“Bene, ora perché non si va messo su un po’di vestiti,” suggests Ales, as she wipes down her hair with a clean dishcloth.

“What are you going to do?” I squint as I clean up the suds around the room.

“Mi? Sto per a giocare a Shadow of the Colossus.” She prances out of the kitchen and I watch her beautiful red hair as it swishes from side to side. I shake my head.

“Be ready to leave when my mother and I are,” I call after her. “Or else you have housekeeping duties until we come home.”

“Io non sono la vostra domestica!” she shouts from the other room.

I smirk as I head upstairs. After showering, I shave—something I never do on a regular basis given my sensitive skin. I choose a black button-up shirt with a thin net-like white pattern to go with my jeans. I don’t wear the same boots I wore last night, but I pick my black Gucci cowboy boots with the grey designs on the shafts, which I put my pants over instead of tucking them into the boots.

I go back downstairs and Ales is practically glued to the game she is playing.

“Shall I leave you at my house so that you can enjoy that game?” I ask, watching the screen as the main character battles a colossus.

“No, vengo con tu,” she replies. She shuts off the game without even saving or properly shutting it down. I shouldn’t be surprised; she has played that game more times than I ever did.

I have had many exciting road trips, but this was not one of them. Not a single word is exchanged as we drive to the doctor’s office. We are all wondering the same thing—what are my mother’s test results? Even the hum of Carlyle’s engine, which I always find comforting, isn’t bringing any peace to my mind.

We arrive at the hospital and, I swear, I have been more at ease in the cemetery. The waiting room is not very busy, but I can still feel the despair. People have left this room and come back with the word “terminal”. The placid looks of the ones sitting with us could almost be the subterfuge of a masquerade. I look into their eyes and my pity for them worsens. Like an icy fog, the more I look, the worse for them I feel. Anticipation. Fear. Hope. Those are the things I see.

When my mother’s name is called, she requests I wait for her. I comply—begrudgingly. To pass the time, Ales and I alternate between playing chess on her iPhone and reading. The tension that I think we both feel about what the doctors are going to tell my mother is hanging over us like a horrible storm and chess is just one of those things that helps us both.

I never kept track of our percentage of winnings and losings as we have been playing chess against each other for years, but Ales says that it was fifty-fifty and I believe her. We both have remarkably long term memory, but we don’t remember the same things.

“Scacco,” she says. I inspect the board as she hands me her iPhone. She has placed me in check with a pawn. I can’t take the pawn because it is being protected by one of her knights. I go through my options. I can’t move in front of the pawn because that will land me in check via another pawn. Backwards will put me in check with a rook. There are three more options. I boldly move forward.

Ales places me in check with her white-square bishop. I frown. She should have protected that bishop. I take the bishop with my queen.

“Scacco matto,” I announce in an ominous voice. She snatches her phone and looks at the screen. King stays—check by queen. Can’t go backwards—he’ll fall off the chessboard. Move right—check by pawn on its way to becoming a second queen. Can’t move left—the space is occupied by a rook. Finally, diagonals right and left are both threatened by one of my rooks.

She bites her lip. “Quello era molto intelligente, Swann.”

I laugh a little, but my joy is soon replaced by a the terrible sensation of anticipation. Ales sees my face and offers me her hand. I smile a little and grasp it. I don’t know what I’ll do if Mom’s test results come up positive. The mere thought of it is making me fidget in my chair. Ales grasps my elbow with her other hand and shushes me soothingly. I take a few deep, shuddering breaths as I try to relax.

Right then, the door opens and we simultaneously look to the doorway. My mother’s standing there. I freeze in the chair as she slowly walks towards me. I gaze up into her eyes.

“I…I’m in remission,” she says slowly.

I’m stunned. I am too stunned to even speak. I don’t even notice that Ales had thrown herself on me in a breathtaking hug. Probably since I wasn’t going to do it on my own, Mom walks over and joins in.

“Of course, I have to come back in a month or two for a checkup; I might not stay in remission, but I am right now.”

Tears roll down my eyes.

“Honey, why are you crying?” asks Mom.

“I-I’m just so happy,” this cancer has already cost my mother both of her breasts.

Mom lovingly wipes the tears from my eyes. “I am too.”

“What did I miss?” the three of us turn our heads and I let out a gleeful squeal.

My older sister, Halli, has arrived. We share many features—blue eyes, similar slender body frames, brown hair. That is about it. Unlike me, she doesn’t have to wear glasses and her complexion could put the most exquisite statue in Rome to shame. A white rose, she has been compared to by at least one of her high school sweethearts.

I get up and meet my sister halfway across the room. Our embrace lasts a long time.

“Mom’s in remission,” I breathe happily. Halli breaks away from me just enough to stare at me and then our mother. She gently shoves me aside and hugs her.

I feel my eyes glitter as I gaze at the two people I love most in this world. When my mom breaks free from my sister, Halli turns her attention on Ales, who is respectfully standing aside while we have our family moment.

“Alessandra Neri,” says Halli, regarding my best friend almost critically. “Been keeping my brother out of trouble?”

“Mm, difficotà va e arriva, ma bussola morale di tuo fratello è impeccabile,” Ales replies.

I incline my head. “Oh, grazie, amore.”

“Non accennarla,” Ales winks.

“English!” Halli and my mother yell as one.

“Sorry,” Ales and I say in our respective tongues.

“My best friend was just saying that trouble comes and goes and that she feels I have a good sense of right and wrong.”

Halli squints as she glowers at me and then Ales. Her lip curls into a simper. “I don’t trust you, little brother…but I do trust the Roman.”

It’s my turn to glower as Ales laughs.

“Wait just a minute, sister.” Halli raises her eyebrows expectantly. “I haven’t seen or heard from you in six months.” Her look turns apologetic. “Something is very different about you.”

“Yup,” she places her hands on her hips, like she is expecting me to take a venture at what it is.

“You got a new pet,” really? I want to shout at myself.

“Nope.”

“You’re getting divorced.”

Halli narrows her eyes as she crosses her arms irately.

I try one last time before my sister starts throwing punches. “Are you…pregnant?”

“Bingo!”

I don’t know how she was expecting me to react as I scrutinize her. “You’re sure?”

“Yes,” Halli nods vigorously.

“It’s not another…?” I’m referring to her first two pregnancies. The first ended in miscarriage and the second was a false pregnancy. I didn’t want to see her go through that kind of depression again.

“No,” my sister assures me.

I spread out my arms. Halli giggles and walks into my arms. “I just have to ask, is it Chad’s?”

“I sure hope it is, unless your sister has something to tell me.”

I break from Halli and whip around. “Hey, Chad how’s my brother-in-law?”

Chad, my sister’s towering husband with arms like tree trunks and neatly trimmed goatee, has come also. “He’s okay; his wife is needy and annoying, but he’s okay.”

“Careful, hubby,” Halli warns. “My brother asked if we got divorced.”

Chad rolls his eyes. “You see what I have to deal with every day?”

I shrug. “Well, before you two start tearing out each other’s throats, let’s go have lunch. I’m hungry.” I gently push past everyone and I hear them follow suit.