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Chelsea

Michael Summerleigh

Part Three - Chelsea Rising

1.

    She visited Charlie just about every week without fail. Took the subway uptown to Woodlawn station and got lost trying to find him on her own the first few times....then began to appreciate the hike into the heart of the cemetery...away from the noise and the smell of diesel...the crowded sidewalks. When the weather was nice she stayed for hours... thinking out loud...telling him about stuff...sketching the seasons as they moved around him...
    Sometimes Jeff would spend an hour with her. Sometimes his daughter Carrie would come along to visit her “Uncle Charlie” and camp out for lunch...or Dory at least once a month to just stand in the quiet with her...dole out Kleenex whenever necessary...
    At home she moved out of her bedroom and into his. Laid awake...slept... dreamed...or maybe he really did lean over her in the darkness...somehow manage to whisper goodnight...kiss her forehead. When it came to Charlie, after the initial crushing sense of loss, she seemed to always feel his presence nearby...a tiny bit of warmth left over from the shower of it he had shown her in life it kept her going whenever she was tired or discouraged...or desperately in need of something to fill up the empty places in his bed...
    Her old room became the studio...the place where all the emotions she was trying to learn about came out on rectangles of canvas...pages stripped from sketch pads...scraps of cloth...anything that came to hand that would provide her with a spontaneous look into her own soul...she wandered into the outpouring of her talent and with school... Dory... her visits to Charlie...started to find her way back into the world on terms she could accept...

***

    Well into her junior year at CU she began a series of paintings...talked the concept over with her instructors and convinced them the experiment was worthy of consideration as the determinant of her final grade for the year. She didn’t need their grades...or even a degree...but it was part of the challenge she had set herself and the promise she had made Charlie...
    She spent almost six weeks on a four-by-six-foot canvas....received incredulous looks from everyone who saw the finished product...the almost featureless dark mass of colour sprawled almost haphazardly over twenty-four square feet of space...then invited them all to Charlie’s apartment to show them what they were really looking at...
    Dory saw it the next day. Chelsea explained where it had come from:
    “...I was listening to one of Charlie’s records...Crosby Stills and Nash...the first one where they’re sitting on this broken down old couch in front of a broken down old house...
    “Did you know the photographer wasn’t happy with the pictures so they went back the next day to shoot some more and the house was gone? In the space of twenty-four hours they just leveled it...tore it down...!
    “Anyway...there’s this song about the darkest hour bein’ the one right before dawn...and then I thought about how people can be looking at the exact same thing but still see something totally different...and how environment can alter perception to make that sort of thing happen.”
    Dory wandered down to the end of the hallway where Chelsea had hung the painting... came back shaking her head...
    Chelsea said, “Okay now go back to about ten feet away and lean against the wall to your right...tell me when you’re ready.”
    Dory called out and Chelsea swept the drapes away from the big picture window in the living room....heard something along the lines of Holy shit! whispered along the shaft of light that bounced down the hall. Wide-eyed Dory came back to the living room.Chelsea grinned.
    “It’s you.”
    Chelsea nodded. “I called it Reaching for a Miracle and painted it so the only way you could see what was really there was if you had the right kind of light on it.”
    “So that faint outline in the dark is your doorway...with just a hint of light in it...and the other one to the left of it is you...your hand...reaching...”
    Chelsea nodded again.
    “D’you like it?”
    Dory got thoughtful. “I don’t know if like is applicable, honey. But it’s amazing. Like trompe l’oeil makes you think you’re seeing something real....”
    “Sort of yeah. I just wondered what would happen if a specific setting was necessary in order to gain the desired effect. I mean...Art is supposed t’be an integral part of Life, right?”
    “So how’d you do with your professors?”
    Chelsea shrugged. “Still waiting t’find out. Mostly I think they think I’m trying to sneak a sludge painting past them.”
    “But you’ve seen that first glimmer of light on your horizon.”
    Chelsea nodded. “I think so...”

2.

    On her twenty-first birthday Dory came into the city for lunch and to spend the afternoon.
    “How’re you doing, honey?”
    “Okay. Mostly great except for the parts that aren’t...but I’m working on them. How’re you guys doing?”
    “We’re doin’ good,” Dory said. “Henry’s been acting a bit strange lately, but I’m not complaining because he’s being really funny and really sweet..like something’s up and he’s trying like hell t’make sure I don’t find out.”
    Chelsea sipped water, hitched back in her chair a little bit as the waiter brought their lunch...Caesar salads and bruschetta.
    “Wow,” she said.
    “Looks good,” Dory said.
    ‘It does...but I was talkin’ about my knees. I’m not used t’lookin’ at them.”
    “You’ve been wearing dresses a lot lately.”
    “Well I’m always scrubby at school...”
    “Nobody here is complaining,” Dory said softly. She dipped her head over each shoulder at the rest of their company on the café’s terrace. “That one’s a beauty... showin’ off the boom-boom just right...”
    Chelsea blew a Marilyn kiss across the table and Dory’s smile melted into something that was half astonishment and half unabashed pleasure.
    “Look at you, Chelsea girl...accepting a compliment without one swear word...”
    “Oh bullshit.”
    “Really.”
    “You said I should stop being angry about guys drooling on their shoes...and just because some of ‘em are jerks isn’t gonna stop me from bein’ a girl.”
    “So...?”
    Chelsea chewed thoughtfully on salad greens, a small slice of grilled chicken.
    “Well you were right,” she said. “I was getting’ pissed off because I was scared...and so I wouldn’t have t’deal with the everyday reality that most of the boys were gonna be boys...that the only thought left in their brains after all the blood went south was the one where they got into my pants. Getting angry all the time just made sure nobody got too close.”
    “And now...?”
    “Now it’s not so bad,” she said, waving her fork in the general direction of somewhere else. “I really have absolutely no desire to punch that douche-bag over by the railing for trying to look up my dress.”
    “Oh Chelsea that’s wonderful!”
    “Anger management, Dory,” she said, spearing another sliver of chicken. “The key to male-female relations. Can we have wine?”

***

    They spent most of the afternoon window-shopping... strolling south on Fifth... reveling in the warm... Chelsea’s newfound sense of balance in perfect harmony with Manhattan making its first big wake-up stretch out of winter...
    “So you’re graduating...June...”
    “Yep.”
    “Excited?”
    “Not so much. I mean...I’m gonna keep doing what I’m doing and havin’ a degree really doesn’t change that at all...but there’s other stuff...”
    “Oh...?”
    “I’m savin’ it, Dory...”
    “Now you’re keeping secrets.”
    Chelsea nodded. “Yep. Secrets. Tough.”
    They stopped on the sidewalk under the arch in Washington Square; Dory, suddenly serious, out to brush blonde curls out of Chelsea’s face.
    “I hate to admit this but I owe Jeff forever for putting you in my life.”
    Chelsea stepped into her arms. “Me too but we can’t ever tell him...”
    They hung onto each other for a while. Chelsea noticed them being noticed by a pair of city guys doing clean-up in the park...said:
    “Oh for god sakes she’s my mom you assholes...”
    And smiled sweetly as they walked past them with a switch of her hips... turned to Dory...
    “See? Not one drop of blood,” she said proudly.
    Dory said, “That’s my girl.”

3.

    “...I should be going, honey. I can still catch a train and get home before Henry.”
    Chelsea shook her head.
    “No you have t’come with me. Henry’s not goin’ home tonight because I said we were gonna have supper at my place.”
    Dory cocked her head to one side.
    “Secrets.”
    Chelsea nodded. “But I wanted t’talk t’you about other stuff first okay?”
    “So we’ll go home and cook and talk?”
    “That’s the plan.”
    “You’re a pretty devious little creature, Sunshine.”
    “But now you’re my mom so you have t’love me anyway.”
    Dory shook her head in resignation and hailed a cab.

4.

    They sliced and diced and chopped things up in Charlie’s kitchen...boogied to an original vinyl Chicago Transit Authority on Charlie’s stereo...changed into comfortable casual and cracked another bottle of red wine. Dory harboured suspicions when it became apparent that five pounds of veal was destined to be the centrepiece of their meal for three but said nothing...just waited for Chelsea to come round to where she needed to be for conversation...
    “What was it like with you and Henry ...the first time...is it okay if I ask?”
    Dory nodded over fresh egg batter and breading for the veal...took her time answering...
    “I was scared to death. Before Henry I’d just been fucking. Suddenly it was something else...and just as suddenly I stopped being afraid. The look in his eyes...I knew it would be all right...and afterwards I cried for an hour...scared him pretty badly but it was because I was...I don’t know...stupid happy...free...
    “Henry was just being Henry...but fucked up Doreen had decided to step off into the deep end of the pool...once and for all decided I wasn’t going to let my fucked up uncle fuck up my life anymore.”
    “It was nice?”
    “Chelsea it was the most beautiful feeling in the world...to be able to trust somebody that much...finally...”
    “Charlie told me it should be that way,” she said wistfully. “I wish he was here...”
    “What’s been goin’ on, honey? Have you been...shit! Listen to me trying to sugar coat this... Have you been trying things on?”
    Chelsea nodded...shrugged...
    “The first time was over a year ago...right after my painting...this guy in one of my classes we got t’talking and he was pretty talented y’know...and a little bit hunky...so we finish up and stop for a coffee and then he asks me if I wanna go back to his place...so we get up and get our coats on and he stops in the bathroom before we head out...then walk down to a loft on Christopher he shares with a bunch of guys...
    “I’m really nervous so I ask him for a glass of wine and he says all he’s got is beer...and since because of you I’m now a snobby West Side bitch I think to myself Oh swell it’s fifteen degrees outside and I’m gonna get smoochie over an ice-cold fuckin’ Coors Light woo hoo...
    “So I hear him poppin’ tabs in the kitchen and after a while he walks out with two poured glasses and that’s when it hits me...the extra long trip to the men’s room... walking into this loft he shares with three other guys and nobody’s home but there’s supper left out on the table...
    “I told him I liked havin’ a slice of lemon or lime in my beer and when he went back into the kitchen to look for it I switched glasses. Then I just waited until he got really dozy... pulled out my Xacto knife ‘cause I’d been cuttin’ mattes that afternoon...
    “Chelsea...!”
    “It’s okay Dory I didn’t do anything but scare him. I guess I just wasn’t payin’ attention ...and it’s not like I was expecting Prince fuckin’ Charming to sweep me off my feet when I’m scared shitless of bein’ swept in the first place. I just told him he had been doin’ all right until he started treating me like a fuck-toy in the bottom of a Cracker Jack box...asked him how many people knew he was plannin’ on havin’ some fun with Chelsea tonight? He couldn’t talk but he didn’t have to. I told him there was no way I was gonna let him do his shit on somebody else...then I called a cab and went home.”
    “Oh honey...”
    Chelsea shrugged “It worked out fine. I called Jeff. He came over and we told the police what happened. Whatever they decided t’do Kurt was gone inside of a week...back to Bumfuck Acres..or wherever....anyway...I made Jeff promise not t’say anything t’you.”
    “We curse a lot more when we talk about stuff like this.”
    “That’s because we’re being defensive.”
    “Y’know you really do scare me sometimes, sweetheart.”
    “Dory I may be a blondie but I got a lot of smart people lookin’ after me...”
    They moved on to the pasta sauce.
    “Anybody else since then?”
    “Two other guys,” she said almost miserably. “They were okay I guess....tryin’ really hard not t’be jerks...and I think I even came once...but there wasn’t any real sparkage...not like what you said with Henry...”
    “Chelsea it doesn’t have t’be that way all the time...even with me and Henry...just liking the guy is okay. And...it’s also supposed t’be fun...”
    “I know that,” she said, making a face. “I guess I keep thinking about what it would have been like with Charlie...somebody who really cares...”
    “Well...eventually you’ll find out...”
    “You keep saying that.”
    “It’s true honey just give it time. You’re lucky enough that there’s always gonna be a line-up so just wait it out and be careful...”
    Dory spooned sauce at her. Chelsea tasted and pointed at oregano.
    “Okay now?”
    “The sauce or me?”
    “Yes. Any other secrets you wanna spill?”
    “Tons...but only one for right now can we leave this stuff for a little bit?”
    They moved into the living room and Dory picked an old live jazzy Ten Years After album out of Charlie’s collection, turned the volume down so they could talk.
    “He never got sucked into the CD thing,” she said. “Never wanted to leave the vinyl behind...stubborn...holding on to all the things that made him happy when he was a kid...”
    Alvin Lee got grooved and the keyboard player comped. They plonked onto the couch and poured wine...
    “Happy Birthday Chelsea. I didn’t buy you anything ‘cause I know you really don’t need or care about the stuff...but I guess that’s just one of the reasons I love you Chelsea girl...if you’re giving anything away on your birthday can I have a corner of your heart... ?”
    “You’ve already been there a while Dory...”

***

    “I’m gonna ask Jeff and Henry to sell this place...or whatever they think is best maybe just hang on to it for anybody that needs a place t’stay. I don’t know. It’s nice when you and Henry come into the city and it’s nice when Carrie comes over...or my friends... but it’s too big...it’s too empty without Charlie I don’t wanna live with his ghost anymore. After I graduate I wanna go someplace where I can just have good memories of him, not sad ones...”
    “Where do you wanna go, Chelse? You can live pretty much anywhere you want to.”
    “I wanna live close t’you and Henry...in the country where it’s quiet. I like the chipmunks and finding foxes when I walk ...will you help find a place...like yours... maybe a little smaller...?”
    Dory nodded. “Honey you know I will...”
    “Is it okay?”
    “It’s better than okay, honey. It would be the best thing ever happened t’me since Henry and what you said five minutes ago.”
    Chelsea beamed...bounced...
    “We gotta get going then Dory. Henry’s not the only one comin’ t’supper...”

5.

    Turned out it it wasn’t just Henry by a long shot. The downstairs intercom keep buzzing and Chelsea just kept hitting the entry lock. First up was Jeremiah Stokes and his wife Corinna. Then their doctor daughter Nkechi, teacher husband James and their little girl Keesha. Carrie Forbes followed, in company with her parents, (no longer an asshole) lawyer Jeff and her mom Sandi. Henry was the last to arrive, wearing an air of smugness that only Chelsea knew would be short-lived.
    They got stupid on veal marsala and salad and pasta and wine. Chelsea looked down the long dining room table at faces belonging to people who had become her family...the very best of the people who had loved her Charlie for a dozen different reasons...who had welcomed her into the Charlie Stinson Fan Club...taken her heart off the street and set in firmly in a place where she could grow and be safe and be loved. Keesha said Happy Birthday in four-year old and gave her a slinky little brown Beanie-Baby ferret. Chelsea wasn’t the only one who cried.
    After all the ice cream and birthday cake, coffee and after-dinner sweets liquid and otherwise, she got serious.
    “I guess you guys are supposed t’give me gifts on my birthday. Thing is you’ve been giving me gifts for over four years now...two years before that when you gave me Charlie without even knowing it...a chance for me to be...I don’t know...normal...”
    She laughed. Looked at all of them laughing back because normal didn’t really apply where Charlie was concerned. In some way she realised he had managed to add something special to all of their lives....his own brand of magic...
    “Anyway...I’m gonna spring surprises on all of you instead...starting with what I told Dory before you guys got here, because nobody else knows about that yet...that I wanna move t’the country after I graduate...be neighbours with her and Henry...
    “So that means him and Jeff have t’decide what’s best for this place...where Charlie took me in and saved me from heaven knows what...whether to hang on to it for whatever or sell it...
    “...Because what nobody knows but me is that last month I sold three paintings for a lot of money...way more than they were worth...and one of the people who bought a painting is a professor at a university in Austria who wants me to visit his house in Vienna this summer and paint a mural in his living room...or whatever they call them there....and also teach a short summer seminar about my Miracle series...
    “Which means maybe I can make a living doing what I love t’do...and I don’t really need all the money that Charlie gave me...”
    Keesha was bored. Came to sit in her lap and put her finger in what was left of Chelsea’s chocolate ice cream.
    “So now everybody gets the surprise where I ask Jeff and Henry to find a way to give it all away.”
    She wiped chocolate off Keesha’s nose so she wouldn’t have to look at them having heart attacks.
    “I’d like for them to find someplace upstate...a big house...with some land around it and room for more stuff t’be built...and to turn everything into somewhere that girls like me can be safe...where they can get away...have people who care looking after them... learn stuff...away from the cities...so they never have t’beg anyone for what they should have at least had a chance t’get on their own...
    “The best part is that if you all think that’s a good idea...then I’d love for Dory to have that place t’do for others what she did for me...and Carrie t’be there with her... Nkechi t’keep us all healthy and James to keep the education thing going...Corinna and me can do all the cooking and Jeremiah can teach everyone how open doors all by themselves...”
    Jeff said, “That’s a tall order...and a lot of money, Chelsea. It can be done but are you sure?”
    She nodded. “Totally,” she said. “I think if we do this Charlie will be really proud of all of us...and that makes me dead sure...
    “And also....because it’s gonna be such a big freakin’ job all of us should go to Europe this summer for a vacation before we start.”

6.

    It was all too perfect. The cool breeze of new summer running through the elm that stood over Charlie’s little headstone...the butterfly that winked gold and black on the daisies she’d laid across it. Not that it would have mattered, but she checked to see if there was anybody nearby before she laid a blanket down over top of him and curled up on it... dozed for a while running through the last six years of her life.
    “So we’re all goin’ tomorrow, Charlie,” she said. “Big adventures. Stuff t’do. I wish you were here...”
    Anybody watching would have seen a stunningly beautiful young blonde woman who had survived a slice of hell crying...and then smiling...and champing at the bit to get on with things. She kissed the polished granite once...
    “Thanks Charlie,” she said. “Thank you so much. You really are gonna be a tough fuckin’ act t’follow.”

7.

    The professor who had purchased Reaching for a Miracle for his wife...commissioned the mural...would sit with her ...spend an hour or two a day talking with her as she worked after her morning class...chalking outlines...examining the possibilities of light and shadow and what she might do with the image of his dream. Sometimes his wife would play the piano... Beethoven sonatas...
    One afternoon one week into the gig in Vienna she got a chance to breathe...could feel the city waiting for her out beyond the bounds of her ridiculously luxurious accommodations...
    She went walking...found a small cafe high up overlooking the river...sat on a terrace watching barges go by...gulls scavenging along the banks...hints of music and traffic and languages she didn’t understand...and a sort-of-maybe uncomfortable feeling that had become a companion almost from the day she arrived.
    She looked around, trying to find whatever it was that was that was monkey-wrenching her peace of mind...scoured her surroundings three times before she figured it out....stood up quickly... defensively...forced herself to relax...move closer because she was scared...
    “You’re in my seminar,” she said quietly. “You’re the guy from England...”
    “I am.”
    “What’re you starin’ at...?”
    She looked down into a pair of eyes she almost recognised. An instant of dismay. A flicker of something that approximated fear...and then something else...
    “Same as in class. You. I’m staring at you.”
    “Well I’m the fucking poster child for that shit so maybe you can tell me why or just quit starin’...it’s rude...”
    “Some of the reasons are pretty obvious....”
    She curled her lip in disgust and started to walk away.
    “...And then there’s this other thing I can’t describe.”
    She stopped...came back to the table and pulled the chair opposite out from under...sat down...draped one leg over the other...folded her hands in her lap...waited...
    “When I was a growing up my mother was big on Fifties and Sixties American pop music. She loved this one song and thought the guy who sang the song was cute. My father thought it was tripe and the guy was a blithering idiot, but he liked my mother well enough that he learned all the words to the song and whenever he’d been a jerk—which was pretty often if you listen to my mother tell the stories—or was hoping to get lucky... he’d sing this song to her...and that’s the best I can do to describe that other thing.”“The story?”
    “The song.”
    “Which was...?”
    “Poetry in Motion.”
    Chelsea smiled.
    “You’re pretty fuckin’ smooth.”
    “Well it’s true.”
    “Then tell me what’s a best-case scenario for you tonight. Where’re you goin’?”
    “I was hoping I could go home with you, or you would go home with me.”
    “Just like that?”
    “Pretty much.”
    “And what d’you figure’s gonna happen after that?”
    “I have no idea. I’m good with anything.”
    Chelsea looked at the eyes again...and the face...
    “You remind of somebody I once knew,” she said. “You remind me of somebody I loved...somebody I still love...who loved me back and never ever asked for anything in return...except maybe poetry.”
    “I’m getting a little bit lost here...”
    “That’s okay. What I’m saying is whatever happens you have an awful lot to live up to...just to walk through my door. I’m never gonna settle for less...and if we do this more then once I’m just warning you...the minute you stop lookin’ at me the way you are now I’ll throw your ass out in the street.”
    The eyes and the face grew thoughtful, but only for moment.
    “I’m good with that too.”
    “What about when I’m hundred years old and all wrinkly?”
    “You’ll probably have the most beautiful wrinkles on the planet.”
    Chelsea stared at him staring at her.
    “Y’know that guy I said you remind me of? He saved my life...or maybe he just gave it back to me so I could do something with it...but he wrote me a story too...gave me a happy ending...”
    She reached across the table and took his hand...turned it over and liked the way he let her do it...patient...trusting...edging towards something without knowing what it might be she got the feeling that Charlie was somewhere close by waiting to kiss her goodnight.
    He asked if he was in her story and she smiled, told him there was really only one way to find out.

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