From: bewalton17@aol.com (BEWalton17)
Newsgroups: alt.tv.quantum-leap.creative
Subject: QL: The Enemy (Chapter 17)
Date: 2 Dec 1998 05:15:20 GMT
Message-ID: <19981202001520.27332.00000955@ng-fc2.aol.com>





                        CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
     It had started with a grey wash.
     She hadn't planned to do any painting today, just to set to
work on the prelim sketches for a painting of the little girl she'd
seen last night, but when she'd gone to move Nate's easel out of
the way, the small box of watercolors (with the ever-present cheap
plastic brush) had caught her eye.  Without any thought for what
she was doing, she fixed a large sheet of rag paper to her own
easel, and washed it in varying shades of grey, switching to her
own watercolors only when it became apparent that the child's set
didn't have the nuances -- or the volume -- that she would need.
     She almost never used watercolors, preferring the rich,
sensuous feel of oil or gouache under her hands, but she didn't
falter with them as shape after shape came from the end of her
brush, a tidal wave of images, blurring into each other as the
color seeped through the paper.  She would go back later, perhaps,
with a charcoal pencil to suggest edges here and there, but the
painting was coming too fast and too hard to stop for such a thing. 
Maybe it would end up only a prelim for an oil, but Ruthie didn't
think so.
     When she stopped painting, it was nearly one o'clock.  She'd
taken a step back from her easel, then turned away.  It was a
bitter, horrible painting, and she'd wanted nothing to do with it.
     She was on the phone with an art dealer when Albert and Nate
got home.  Somewhere in the course of the conversation, she had
forgotten the woman's name and place of business.  She was faking
it as best she could.
     " ...and so, there *has* been a renewed interest in your local
work, particularly your river ward paintings from the early '60s."
     Ruthie shook her head.  "All of those were sold years ago." 
It was a lie, but just a little one.  All of them that she intended
to sell were sold.  The others, mostly of Albert, were in a storage
bin downtown.  She'd sent one to Beth Calavicci shortly after
Albert's plane had gone down, and she supposed that Beth might even
still have it, but that didn't count.
     "And you haven't done any since?"
     "No," she said, looking across her studio at the dreary gray
paper that was drying on her easel.  It was the first time she'd
painted the Lower West Side in years, and she had no intention of
bringing it to any more attention than it deserved -- which was
none.  "Since when are the galleries interested in recent stuff,
anyway?  Doesn't it have to age a little bit?"
     "Well... "
     "Or were you planning on passing something later off as one of
the originals?"
     "Of course not -- "
     "Uh-huh," Ruthie said, and hung up.  She didn't really think
the dealer was planning to do something underhanded -- at least she
didn't *think* she thought so -- but it had provided a perfectly
good, if not reasonable, excuse to get off the phone.  Maybe she
even still had time to rip the damned thing to shreds.
     But when she turned around, she found Albert standing in the
doorway, Nate balanced easily in the crook of one arm.  "You okay?"
he asked.
     "Yeah... I'm fine.  You're home earlier than I expected you."
     Albert shrugged.  "Well, we were driving around, and we
thought maybe we'd swing back here, and tear you away from your
turpentine for a couple of hours."
     "Please, Mama-leh," Nate said, begging her with his eyes, and
Ruthie realized that he probably never remembered a day that he'd
spent with both of his parents, alone.  
     She went to them, and kissed Nate's forehead.  "I guess I
can't say no to both of you."  
     Nate smiled brightly.
     "_Mishpocheh?_" Albert said, and held out his hand.
     Ruthie twined her fingers through his and pressed their palms
together.  "Better believe it."  Albert lifted her hand to his lips
and kissed it, then let go.
     She looked down at her paint-stained clothes.  "Well, let me
clean up before we go... wherever we're going."
     She dashed up to the bathroom and scrubbed the paint off her
hands and arms, then changed into a decent pair of slacks and a
clean blouse, figuring it would be non-descript enough to fit in
wherever Albert had in mind.  When she came downstairs, Nate was
watching MTV and dancing (he just did a funny little step that
looked like John Travolta having a temper tantrum, but he seemed to
have fun with it); Albert was standing by her studio door with the
remote in his hand and one eye on the television.  The other eye
kept drifting over to the fresh painting.  Ruthie wished again that
she'd disposed of it before he got in.  He noticed her, and shook
his head and turned off the T.V.  "You know," he said, "suddenly,
I've got this urge to go over to the Lake shore, eat someplace
obnoxiously expensive, and -- "
     " -- pretend you never set foot on the Lower West Side?" she
finished.
     "No.  Just celebrate getting the hell out of there.  What are
you doing, painting that trash, anyway?"
     Ruthie shrugged.
     Nate looked up curiously.  "What's the Lower West Side?"
     "No place I want you going," Ruthie answered.
     He pointed at the easel.  "Is it the gray place?"
     "Yeah," Albert said.  "It is."
     "Is it a bad place?"
     "Places aren't bad by themselves," Ruthie told him.  "But they
can be dangerous, if you don't know them."
     "'If you don't know them' nothing, Ru.  *That* place is hell
on Earth even if you know it like the back of your hand."
     Nate looked back and forth between them, clearly trying to
decide who to believe.  Ruthie put a hand on his shoulder.  "It's
where your father and I were kids.  That's all you've got to know."
     "Okay."
     Albert sighed.  "Come on.  Let's get out of here."
                               ***
     "Shall we try it again?" Albert asked, easing the car to a
stop in front of the surf-and-turf place he'd brought them to on
Sunday.
     Ruthie smiled.  "If we don't, it'll turn into a jinx.  And it
can hardly get worse, right?"
     "That's the spirit."
     They were met at the door by a hostess who led them quickly to
a booth in the back corner.  Ruthie caught a glimpse of Sunday's
waitress at another table, and wondered if she'd let out a quiet
warning about potentially volatile customers.  Ruthie slid into the
seat against the back wall, beside her purse and everyone's coats;
Nate and Albert sat across from her.  The hostess handed them
menus, poured glasses of ice water, and left them.
     Nate opened his menu ostentatiously, and began reading it
slowly.  Albert turned it to the children's page without comment,
and didn't offer to read it for him.  Albert's theory on parenting
had always been, if he doesn't ask for help, let him nut it out on
his own.  Ruthie privately thought it a fine theory, but found it
nearly impossible to implement herself.  When she saw him
struggling with something, every instinct in her body and soul told
her to lend a hand.
     That's the difference between Mama and Pop, Albert had told
her when Nate was two.  He'd smirked.  At least as far as the kid
knows, right?
     Surprisingly, Sid had agreed with this when she'd told him. 
Being an extremely gentle man with a degree in child psychology,
she'd expected him to say that Albert had been raising Nate all
wrong, and that Nate would grow up feeling put upon and unloved by
his distant father.  She'd even been ready to go to bat in her ex-
husband's defense.  Instead, Sid said that part of a father's role
was getting a child to stretch his limits, and, as long as it
didn't go overboard, it was a healthy system.  He was concerned
that too many parents were taking an over-nurturant approach to
child-rearing, and afraid of what the results of that might be.  A
gentle touch with no expectations, he said, was as bad as any
loveless series of commands.
     Behind them, the hostess led another group to a booth.  It
seemed to be three businessmen.  The one directly in Ruthie's view,
the one who shared the back of his bench with Albert and Nate, had
a yarmulke pinned to his head.  The hostess handed them their
menus.
     "Excuse me, Miss," the man in the yarmulke said.  "Do you have
a kosher menu?"
     "No, sir, I'm sorry.  We don't."
     He sighed.  "Then perhaps I could just have a garden salad, on
a paper plate if you have one."
     The hostess smiled nervously.  "I'll ask my manager."  She
walked away.
     "Ruthie?"
     She looked up sharply.  "What?"
     "Is everything okay?"
     "Sure.  Why wouldn't it be?"
     "You see anything that looks good?" Albert asked.
     Ruthie looked at her menu.  Shrimp, lobster, tenderloin cuts
of beef... everything looked good, and she wanted none of it.
     Oh, good Lord, woman.  Are you going to let one guy in a cheap
yarmulke guilt you out of a perfectly decent lunch with your
family?
     "I think I'll have the lobster tail," she said, ignoring the
fluttery feeling in her stomach.  "We can make it Dutch treat, if
you want."
     "I don't do Dutch treat."
     "You want me to order something else?"
     "No.  Order what you want to order.  I wouldn't take you to a
restaurant where I couldn't afford everything on the menu, Ru.  You
should know that by now."
     The hostess returned to the other table.  "I'm sorry, sir,"
she said.  "We don't have any paper plates.  Are you sure that a
regular plate wouldn't be alright?  We wash them thoroughly, of
course."
     "I'm sure you do, but that's not the point of it.  I don't
think I'll starve if I skip lunch today."  He apparently smiled at
her (Ruthie couldn't see his face), since she offered an insecure
grin that seemed like a response before she took his companions'
orders.
     Nate put his menu on the table, and leaned over toward Ruthie. 
"Can I have this?"  He pointed to a picture of a cheeseburger and
fries.  "It's called the 'Ameri-kid Plate,'" he informed her, proud
to have been able to sound out a nonsense word.  "Isn't that dumb?"
     "Yes, honey.  It's pretty dumb."
     "Can I have it?"
     "Ask your father.  It's his dime."
     "Pop?"
     "Like I told your mama, you can order whatever you want."
     "Then I want that."
     "You got it, kiddo."
     Ruthie sighed.  "I guess maybe I'll just have the grilled
pike."
     "You don't have to do that, Ru, I told you -- "
     "It's not that.  It's a... well, let's call it a compromise,
okay?"
     "A compromise?  With who?"
     "With me."
     Albert shook his head, exasperated.  "One of these days, Ru,
I *am* going to get you into the twentieth century, if I have to
drag you kicking and screaming."
     "No!" Nate said emphatically, eyes wide.  "That would hurt
her, Pop."
     Albert smiled.  "You're a good kid, Nate.  You know that?"
     Ruthie touched Nate's hand.  "Your father didn't mean it for
real, Nate.  It's just a figure of speech."  Nate blushed and
looked down at the table.  She touched his chin and looked him in
the eye.  "But thank you for being a gentleman."
     He smiled.
     The waitress came for their orders, apologizing for the delay
with a helpless (and somewhat conspiratorial) glance at the other
table.
     Ruthie ordered a garden salad.
                               ***
     When the door opened, Sid was expecting to see Donna Eleyse
come through it.
     Once she'd finished wringing his brain for any scraps of
memory that might be useful to her husband, they'd settled into a
long and pleasant argument about the ultimate meaning of the
serpent in the story of Eden, and he'd been looking forward to
continuing it.  The only grownups he had regular contact with were
Ruthie and a few other teachers at the school.  Ruthie was often
shy about discussing religious issues with him; her ultra-Orthodox
upbringing interfered with the way she approached talking to men
about such things (at least Jewish men; she didn't seem to have the
same problem with Gentiles, with whom she seemed to feel that, as
long as she was breaking most of the rules already, why not break
some more?), no matter how heatedly she refuted the charge.  The
teachers suffered from the same malady he did:  they could tell you
every detail of the last episode of _Sesame Street_, but got a sort
of glazed look in their eyes whenever a subject unrelated to small
children came up.  Molly called it the "housewife syndrome" because
housebound mothers with no company except their children and the
television or radio seemed to develop it even more readily than
elementary school teachers.
     So when Al Calavicci came through the door, he was
disappointed before he was surprised, and surprised before he was
concerned.
     But all of it passed quickly, in only a heartbeat.  He'd been
here several days, and Calavicci hadn't come back since the first. 
Either something was wrong at home, or something was about to come
to a head.  Whichever it was, pleasant conversations on any subject
were shoved unceremoniously to the back of his mind.
     "How you doing, Weiss?"
     "What's going on?"
     Calavicci sat down on the edge of the reflecting pool.  "I
need to talk to you.  It's important."
     "I didn't figure you came to talk about the weather."  Sid
slid off the glass table and went to the small pool.  He sat on the
opposite edge, and looked down at the stranger's reflection.  "Now
are you going to tell me what's going on?  Donna said it was about
Nate."
     "Donna said more than she should've."  He sighed.  "I guess it
doesn't matter.  You're a bright enough guy to know that if you
remember any of this, you can't talk about it."
     "So, what, are you here to give me a security lecture?"
     Calavicci looked up sharply, and Sid understood suddenly that
the man was nearer the edge than he'd been in a long while.  "I'm
here because I want to know why Someone Up There thinks you ought
to raise my family," he said.  "Can you tell me that, Weiss?"
     "I don't even know what you're talking about."
     He closed his eyes slowly, then opened them again.  "I'm about
to trust my family to you, Sid.  I need you to tell me that it's
not going to be a bigger mistake than I already made."
     The first question that came into Sid's mind was Which
mistake?  But the question could be taken badly, and Calavicci was
agitated; Sid didn't think it was the time to ask *any* questions
that could be interpreted wrong.  He didn't like Ruthie's ex, but
it was only because he *was* her ex.  The man didn't deserve to be
going through whatever it was he was being put through.  "I love
Ruthie and Nate," Sid said.  "I wouldn't let anything happen to
them.  But they *are* your family.  You don't have to give that up
because Ruthie remarried."
     "That's not why."
     "Then tell me."
     "I'm *asking* you."
     "I don't know."
     "I don't either."  He stood, and laced his fingers behind his
head.  "They can give me all the scenarios, all the numbers.  They
can tell me what will happen if I *don't* go through with this. 
But nobody can tell me *why.*"
     "Tell me what, then."
     The other man turned, and spoke blankly.  "Nate's going to die
if I don't get out of his life, Sid."
     Sid didn't know what to say, or even if there *was* something
to say that would make that reasonable, blank, horrible sentence
disappear.
     "It's true," Calavicci said.  "He wasn't in my life this time
around, and he can't be if we save his life.  And if I don't hurt
him, he'll try to be.  And if he tries to be, he'll die."  He
sighed.  "And what I need you to tell me, Sid, is will you be there
for him when that happens?"
     "Of course I will, but -- "
     "And you'll make sure that he grows up... good?"
     For the first time since he'd met Al, Sid's heart went out to
him entirely.  The man who was standing before him now wasn't the
cocky half-child who'd played on Ruthie's emotions for decades. 
This man was Nate's father and Ruthie's friend, the man who would
die for the people he loved... or, more importantly, live for them,
no matter what it cost.  "Nate's already a good kid," he said.  "I
don't think I could change that if I wanted to.  You've given him
a head start."
     "Promise."
     "I promise."
     "And Ruthie... if I let go of her, you won't let her drop, no
matter how mad you get at her?"
     "I don't stay with Ruthie because I think she'd fall over if
I let go.  I stay with her because I love her.  And I *do* love
her, whatever she's done."
     "That's good."  He sat down.  "But you may as well know, she's
going to be angry at you when you go back.  We're not talking about
a little mood swing, Sid, we're talking about something bone deep. 
Will you hold on until she works through it?"
     Sid looked down at the reflection, then back up at Al.  "What
is your friend going to do in my name?"
     "He's going to do the one thing that you could've done
differently before.  The thing you should've done in the first
place.  The thing that only Ruthie's husband *could* do."
     "What?"
     "He's going to read me holy hell, and get me out of the middle
of your marriage."
     "And Ruthie will see it as an attack on you, and blame me for
driving you away from Nate."
     "Probably."
     "And from her."
     Calavicci started to protest this, but stopped.
     "That's a pretty big part of her childhood," Sid said.  "She
won't let it disappear without a fight.  And she'll try to shake me
every step of the way, if she's angry."
     "I know."
     "But I won't let her do it."
     Calavicci nodded, and stood up to leave.  He opened the door,
but didn't go through it.  "That's why, you know."
     "What is?"
     "Ruthie and I were kids together.  Maybe we made it possible
to get through childhood for each other.  But we never let each
other finish growing up.  Maybe there's a place for that kind of
relationship.  Maybe it -- "  He shrugged.  "I don't know, maybe
it's what makes us tick at work, even what makes us come out here,
dig a hole in the ground, and build all these toys.  But that kid
can't raise a kid.  Especially not alone."
     The door shut behind him, leaving Sid in silence.



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Barbara