Katrianna

  

Katrianna stopped in her tracks. 

Evelyn, who’d been walking three feet behind her daughter, stopped with her. She was waiting for the sign. It came about half a minute later. Katrianna pointed with her left index finger to a spot on the sidewalk. Evelyn unslung her backpack, rummaged through one of the outer compartments and fished out a new box of chalk. She opened it, took a few steps to the spot where Katrianna pointed, and spilled them out.

Katrianna looked at the scattered pieces, then at the sidewalk square. She glanced from one to the other a dozen times. It was always a dozen times. Evelyn watched in silence. There was nothing else to do. Katrianna finally knelt beside the chalk, took a piece of Egyptian Blue and started in.

Evelyn took a few steps back and looked around. No one in sight. She took out her cell and pressed for her husband.

“Hey,” he said.

“She’s drawing,” Evelyn said.

“Where?”

“Sidewalk.”

The phone went silent. Sidewalks were complicated.

“Where you at?” he finally asked.

“Taylor Street. Right in the middle of our morning walk.”

“Same place?”

“Well, not the precise same square, but close.”

“What’s she working on?”

Evelyn looked over Katrianna’s shoulder.

“Just started. Lots of blue, so far.”

“The township,” Todd said.  

“Excuse?”

“The township,” Todd said. “I’m gonna have to deal with them again.”

“Maybe they’ll be more agreeable this time.”

Katrianna had completed the first sidewalk drawing about one year ago. It felt like a different life. Since then she’d gone viral on YouTube, triggered a tidal wave of press coverage and sold out her first show at the Atkins/Rothenburg Gallery. The township wouldn’t be nearly as contentious for the second removal. Nothing neutralizes truculence faster than prestige. Prestige and money. 

“Two grand,” Todd said.

“What?”

“Two grand. That’s what I had to pay them to replace the first sidewalk square.”

“How much did we make?”

“On the warrior?”

“The Lenape warrior.”

“Right. Lenape. I’m guessing maybe eight. That neighborhood.”

“There you go.”

“Right. Nice neighborhood. I’ll phone now, get things rolling.”

“Maybe they’ll provide a guard this time,” Evelyn said.

“Want me to find out?” Todd asked, even though he knew the answer.

They’d requested a guard to watch over the Lenape drawing until it was excavated. The township administrator handed them a smudged plastic tarp and two orange traffic cones. 

“There’re your guards,” he’d said.

Evelyn detected a smirk. Todd said he didn’t. Todd was wrong. And Evelyn never forgot a smirk.

“Yes,” Evelyn said. “Find out.”

“Ok,” Todd said. “Let me know when she’s finishing up.”

“It’ll be hours.”

“I know,” Todd said. “Want me to bring you anything?”

“Not for now. We’ve got water and granola.”

They said their goodbyes and Evelyn swiped off her phone. She glanced up at the sky. It was clear and hot. She was glad she’d worn her sun dress and beach hat. They’d keep her reasonably comfortable during the wait. Evelyn looked over Katrianna’s shoulder. She kept going with the Egyptian Blue. 

Evelyn took a step back and looked around. She had only one task for the next several hours: diverting the inevitable selfie-hunters. The sidewalk was empty in front of them. Evelyn looked over her shoulder. She spotted a woman about a block away, walking a dog. She was coming toward them.

Evelyn looked back down. Most of the sidewalk square was blue, but several random spots were left untouched. Katrianna paused to bind her long, black hair with a tortoise shell clip she always carried with her. She also set aside several pieces of chalk from the larger pile. They were all blue: Azure, Bleu de France, Capri, and Royal Blue. She was going for a multi-tone backdrop. A sky. Maybe an ocean.

Katrianna put down the Egyptian Blue and picked up the Bleu de France. Sky, Evelyn thought. I’m betting sky. In another minute she heard the snuffling sounds of a dog. Evelyn turned to see a trim, middle-aged woman sporting the usual suburban-Athleta look: olive green top and black leggings, with a little purse dangling from her shoulder. She was attempting to rein in a miniature schnauzer straining at its harness. It resembled their dog, the recently-departed Alton. Evelyn didn’t want to think about Alton.

The woman gave her a polite nod, then obligingly stepped onto the grass to the right to walk around Katrianna. As she walked by she looked down at the sidewalk, then at Katrianna. Evelyn watched the woman’s expression change. She stopped and shortened the play on the dog’s leash.

“Excuse me? Is that the little girl I read about in the Times?”

“Yes. It is.”

“I was just talking to my husband about her. I knew she lived somewhere close, but I had no idea.”

Evelyn didn’t answer. It was best to keep her responses to a minimum. It reduced the duration of these types of encounters. The dog tried to get to the square, but the woman held tight on the shortened leash. Katrianna didn’t notice them. She wouldn’t notice much of anything for the next several hours. The woman looked down at the drawing, craning her neck.

“What is she drawing?”

“Not sure,” Evelyn said.

“Blue,” the woman said, more to herself than to Evelyn.

The dog lost interest in the sidewalk. He was sniffing the grass.

“How long will it take her?” the woman asked.

“Varies,” Evelyn said. “Hours.”

The women stood in silence, watching Katrianna work the chalk.

“Do you mind?” the woman asked, reaching with her free hand into her little purse, “if I take a picture?”

“Yes.”

“Excuse?”

“Yes. I mind.”

The dog was digging a little hole in the grass.

“I’m not sure I understand?”

“Yes. You do.”

They looked at one another for a moment. The only sound was chalk rubbing on pavement. The woman slowly withdrew her hand from the purse. It was empty. The dog stopped digging, sneezed, then made a final lunge at the sidewalk. The woman tugged back on the leash. The dog yelped. The woman turned slowly and started walking away.

“You have a nice day now,” Evelyn called. The woman didn’t answer.

Katrianna put down a Capri Blue piece of chalk and reached into the pile for the Alizarin Crimson. Her hand went to one of the untouched spots and started filling it in with gently narrowing downward curves. It took on the vague shape of a lightbulb. That’s when Evelyn realized what the drawing was about. Hot air balloons. In another half hour, she knew it was a specific set of hot air balloons. Her phone chimed. It was Todd.

“Hey,” she said.

“Got the guard,” he said.

One smirk avenged, Evelyn thought.

“When?” she asked.

“I told them to check in with you in about an hour or so. How’s it going?”

“It’s going. I think I know what it is.”

“What?”

“Hot air balloons.”

“Nice. Very scenic.”

“Not just balloons. The Jenkinsville balloons.”

Todd didn’t answer. She knew what he was thinking. Another one for the Macabre Series. That’s what they called the creepier works. Katrianna had produced a steady stream of landscapes, still lifes and portraits in a range of styles, from surrealism to expressionism. But the Macabre paintings were firmly anchored in realism. With something else. The first, an oil on canvas, showed a man walking up to the back door of a home in the weak light of dawn. He was tall and thin, dressed in dark green coveralls and a black, backwards baseball cap. Two tattoos were visible on each inner arm: a black switchblade piercing a grinning skull on the left, and a black, upside-down cross on the right. He was carrying what looked like a crowbar in his right hand and walking directly toward the back door of the home. The immaculate peace of daybreak felt irrevocably violated. Nothing had happened, but nothing was the same. Nothing would ever be the same.

“What is it?” Todd had asked.

“A guy, walking up to a house.”

“I know that. But what is it?”

“It looks, I don’t know. Familiar,” Evelyn said.

She placed it the next day. It was the Gilmore incident. There had been a home invasion two weeks ago in a neighboring town called Gilmore. A man had broken in, terrorized two adults and a child, ransacked the home and then set it on fire. Katrianna must have seen the news reports on TV. The man, a long-haul trucker passing through town on his way to Reno, was caught 48 hours later.

The next Macabre was an acrylic showing the interior of a car, from the perspective of the backseat, traveling down a highway. A woman’s left hand can be seen grasping the steering wheel, with the right hand holding a cellphone in mid-text. The rearview mirror frames a little girl’s face. She isn’t looking at the woman, but straight ahead, at the road, her expression showing the first shudder of fear. Todd placed this one, calling up the news story on his cell and wordlessly showing it to Evelyn. Head-on collision on Route 71, a car into a truck. Two fatals.

Even the Lenape warrior had the edgy menace of the Macabre Series, his magisterial pose—right hand on chest, staring straight ahead—eerily transmuted by a hint of blood seeping from his middle and ring fingers, his eyes casting equal measures of grievance and rage.

When they toted the Gilmore drawing into the gallery, the owner, Garrick, stood with them and stared at it in silence for what seemed a long time.

“Something’s in motion,” Todd finally said.

“Slow motion,” Evelyn said.

Garrick said something. Evelyn couldn’t make out the word. She turned to him.

“Dread,” he said. “It’s dread.”

It sold instantly, and for several thousand more than the others.

Katrianna finished shading in the crimson envelope and skirt of the first balloon. She’d return to the wicker baskets, parachute valve cords, propane burners, tanks, and passengers later. They were detail work. She always saved the detail work for last. Katrianna reached for the chalk, selecting red, white, and blue. Evelyn knew what was next. The adjacent balloon. The Alamo balloon. It would have a honey gold background emblazoned with the Texas flag, then below it a panel depicting the Battle of the Alamo.

When it was finished hours later, Katrianna had drawn a splice of flame darting from the fuel line of the red balloon, above the heads of eight passengers. None of them seemed to notice it, but one of the six passengers in the adjacent Alamo balloon did. A woman. She was pointing at it. None of her fellow passengers had yet looked.

Evelyn knew what happened next. She’d seen it on TV. The fire on the red balloon started to spread. The pilot attempted a rapid descent, but lost control. The red balloon collided with the Alamo balloon, which immediately caught fire. Both balloons plummeted to earth. Fourteen fatals. The annual Jenkinsville Balloon Festival had become the Jenkinsville Balloon Disaster.

It was just like the Gilmore invasion and rearview mirror infant. Nothing had happened, but everything had changed, the breadth of an irreparably altered moment preserved in chalk on a square of municipal concrete.

When Katrianna finished, she stood up, stretched, and pointed with a chalk-smeared finger. She wanted to go home.

A week passed. No work. They had to solve the problem.

They were finishing breakfast. Todd kept glancing at his cell phone. He wasn’t looking for texts or missed calls. He was checking the time.

Katrianna always came to breakfast at 9:35 sharp. It never varied, unless she was working on an etching. The etchings were different. They weren’t done in chalk, oils, or acrylic, but in black ballpoint ink. They measured about nine inches in width and five inches tall. She drew them on the north wall of her bedroom, the first only a few inches above the floorboards. It featured the entire family: Todd, Evelyn, Connor, Katrianna, and Alton, their schnauzer-Lab mix.

Todd discovered the initial etching, which appeared about one month after her first major work, the Lenape warrior.

“Look at it,” he said, stooping over and touching it with the tip of his index finger. “It’s so real.”

Evelyn agreed. It was so finely wrought it possessed a three-dimensional quality. But they didn’t know what it meant, until the next one. It appeared six weeks later, on a day Katrianna didn’t come out of her room for breakfast promptly at 9:35. The second etching was an exact duplicate of the original, with one difference: Alton was gone. Katrianna stopped painting. It took Evelyn three days to make the connection.

“Alton,” she said to Todd as they lay in their bed that night.

“What about him?”

“We’ve got to get rid of him.”

“Why the hell would we do that?” Todd asked, propping himself up on his elbow.

“Look at the etchings.”

“What about them?”

“Who’s missing? And what happened? Or, more to the point, what stopped happening?”

It took Todd a few moments to put it together. He took a deep breath, then laid back down in bed next to her.

“What do we tell Connor?” he asked.

Alton was the family pet, but they’d really bought him as a birthday gift for their ten-year-old son.

“We’ll tell him something,” Evelyn said. “Maybe get him a video game.”

“A video game? Are you joking?”

Evelyn didn’t answer. She didn’t have to. The numbers made her case. Todd had been a newspaper ad salesman. Newspaper ads were vanishing. So were newspapers and newspaper ad salesmen. Todd became a consultant. She didn’t know what that meant. Neither did Todd. Evelyn was a realtor, a profession that swung from famine to feast, and then back again. They had a mortgage, student loans, property taxes, and dental bills. The flow of debt never paused long enough for them to catch their breath. Until Katrianna started working. The cash poured in. They created a custodial trust and hired themselves as co-managers. Life was suddenly good. Very good.

Alton went. Connor got the video game.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.”

It was Connor’s voice, drifting in from the living room. He was playing the new game, its cacophony of blasting and bleeping carnage confined to the headset perpetually clamped over his ears.

“How many hours are we allowing?” Todd asked.

“Three,” Evelyn said. “Sometimes four if he presses it.”

Todd looked over at Connor’s abandoned plate. It held a half-eaten banana and a barely touched cheese omelet.

“Kid should eat more,” he said.

“He’ll make up for it at lunch,” Evelyn said.

But she knew Todd wasn’t really concerned about Connor’s appetite. He was trying to distract himself. It was 9:48, and no Katrianna. Todd’s back was turned to the hallway that led to Katrianna’s door. Evelyn could sense him straining not to turn in his chair and look. She had a clear view. The door remained shut. She tried to divert his attention.

“What did Garrick say?”

“About what?”

“The Jenkinsville work.”

The sidewalk drawing had been delivered to the gallery three days ago.  

“The balloons, right,” Todd said. “Talked to him this morning. He said 18.”

“Eighteen? Thought this one would crack 20.”

“Still might,” Todd said, looking down at his phone. It was 9:52. “Hasn’t closed yet. He said to give it a few more days.” He turned his phone so the screen was face down on the table. “Know what else he told me?”

“What?”

“The guy who bought the warrior?”

“The Lenape warrior.”

“Right. Lenape. The guy who bought it for eight just resold it.”

“How much?”

“Twenty-two. Can you believe it?”

“Yes. Her work is appreciating.”

“That fast?”

“Yes. That fast.”

“Feels like we got ripped off.”

“We didn’t. That’s the way it works.”

“So what should we do?”

“Hold out for higher initial prices.”

“Higher. Okay. I’m telling Garrick to push for more on the balloons.”

He turned over his phone, then looked at her.

“It’s 10:00,” he said. His tone was deep and still, like he was delivering a manslaughter verdict.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Connor crooned from the living room.

They heard the sound of a door opening. Todd started to turn but stopped himself. Katrianna was padding down the hall. Evelyn rose, went to the refrigerator, took out a pre-poured highball glass of cranberry juice and put it on Katrianna’s placemat. Katrianna sat, picked up the glass and drank half. She didn’t say anything or look at anyone. She stared straight ahead.

Evelyn was already at the stove, preparing her breakfast: two medium-sized blueberry pancakes, 16 blueberries per cake. Neither parent attempted to initiate a conversation. Katrianna had stopped talking about one year ago, shortly before she began working. They’d taken her to a string of baffled doctors who veiled their ineffectiveness with vague guesses passed off as definitive answers. The first said Katrianna was an Autistic Spectrum Disorder Level 2. The next diagnosed it as modified Landau-Kleffner Syndrome, while the third declared it a hybrid of ASD Level 3 and Rett Syndrome. The final doctor performed a lengthy evaluation, then pronounced: She just doesn’t feel like talking.

Evelyn flipped the second pancake. Her spatula hand was shaking. She waited for it to stop, then put both pancakes on a pale blue dinner plate and brought them to the table. She placed it next to a white paper napkin, plastic knife, and fork. Todd had already retrieved the maple syrup and margarine. The syrup was placed on Katrianna’s left, the margarine on her right. Katrianna picked up the knife and started to slowly coat each pancake with margarine. She did it with precise little strokes, as if she was painting. 

Evelyn and Todd did not sit down. Katrianna liked to eat alone. Todd looked at Evelyn, giving her a slight nod toward the bedroom. There was no getting around it. They both walked quietly down the hall to Katrianna’s bedroom, opened the door, walked in, then shut the door behind them. They looked down at the third etching. Neither said a word. All that could be heard was Connor’s voice from the living room.

“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, yeah, yeah.”

They went about their business for the next few days, managing to avoid the subject. Evelyn updated Katrianna’s Facebook page and Twitter feed, and continued working with a web designer on the launch of an independent site, complete with an electronic payment system for a planned series of limited reproductions. Todd worked with Garrick on the sale of the Jenkinsville balloons, as well as a small backlog of work that Katrianna completed before the latest work stoppage. They included a coastal landscape oil of Ploumanac’h in Brittany, as well as a gloomy, lush pastel of Espiritu Pampa, an Inca ruins in Peru. Todd stopped wondering how she knew about such things. He just went with it.

A week passed. No work. They had to solve the problem. Todd came up with an answer: his older brother, Alex. He was a UPS worker with a wife and two children. They lived in Jenkinsville, the very town that had hosted the balloon disaster. Alex and his wife, Nan, were initially cool to the idea of taking in Connor for the summer, but the mention of money warmed them up considerably.

“So, how do we explain this to Connor?” Todd asked.

“We’ll sell it as a summer outing,” Evelyn offered.

“A summer outing? In a Jenkinsville townhouse?”

Connor reacted to the proposal with outright panic underscored by a tantrum, but the tears dissipated when Evelyn sweetened the pot with a new video game and bumped up his allowable hours to five per day.

“What do we do when the summer ends?” Todd asked.

“We’ll decide that when the summer ends,” Evelyn said.

Katrianna resumed her work two days after Connor’s exit, the first a beautiful still life oil of three Neapolitan mandolins, followed by a charcoal triptych of soaring ferruginous hawks.

The next several weeks kept them busy. They considered offers from competing galleries, as well as a counter-offer from Garrick. Evelyn busied herself coordinating a photo shoot with a national art magazine and vetting a spate of tasteful endorsement proposals from several fine arts companies. They capped off the first month of Connor’s absence by signing a publishing deal for a coffee table book of Katrianna’s art, to be called Kat. The publishing company overnighted the advance a few days later. Evelyn handed Todd the check at breakfast.

“Nice,” he said. 

But he’d barely looked at it. He had other concerns. So did she. It was 9:41, and no Katrianna.

“What were the terms again?” Todd asked.

“Hm?”

“The terms. For the book.”

“Fairly standard,” she said. “Initially 15 percent. Our cut progresses as we hit specific sales levels.”

Todd didn’t answer. He looked at his phone. 9:45. He took a small bite of his omelet. Evelyn felt the need to talk. She thought it might help.

“Contractors are coming today,” she said.

“For the pool?”

“No. They took measurements last week. They’ll start next week. This is for the basement.”

They’d decided to finish the basement with oak paneling and a state-of-the-art entertainment system. Todd also wanted a pool table, and maybe an air hockey game. He glanced at his phone. It was 9:51. He looked up at Evelyn. She could tell he wanted her to keep talking. She was about to launch into a pros-and-con monologue on Garrick’s counter-offer when she heard Katrianna’s door open. Todd couldn’t help himself. He turned. Katrianna came to the table and sat down. Evelyn went to the refrigerator, brought out the cranberry juice and placed it in front of Katrianna. She drank half, then waited. Todd dutifully placed the margarine and syrup in their designated places, then picked up his phone and pretended to scroll through emails.

Evelyn went back to the stove and made the blueberry pancakes. She counted out the 16 blueberries per cake. Both of her hands were shaking. She made them quickly, put them on the pale blue dinner plate and turned toward the table. Katrianna sat at her place, staring straight ahead. Todd was gone. Evelyn placed the plate in front of Katrianna, then quietly exited the kitchen. She walked slowly down the hall toward Katrianna’s bedroom. The door was open. She could see Todd standing inside the room, looking down at the new etching. He was absolutely still, his arms folded across his chest. 

Evelyn stopped about ten feet short of the door. Todd didn’t look her way. He kept his eyes on the etching. Evelyn didn’t move. She wanted a few more moments before everything changed.