854: “I want . . .”
At Home with the Glynns, Chapter 35 begins
35
“I WANT TO TALK TO YOU, PETER,” said Andy, one morning, about a month later. “Come into the studio.”
“Okay,” I said, failing to apply any of the practical lessons of literature.
I followed him into the studio. He shut the door behind me. He locked it. I began to sweat.
“I don’t want us to be disturbed,” he said, “because I have something I want to talk to you about and—well—it isn’t something I want anyone else to hear.”
He began walking around the studio, looking at the floor, as if he would really rather not talk to me at all if he could avoid it. I wondered if the windows were locked.
“Before I talk to you about what I want to talk to you about, I want to talk to you about something else.”
“Okay,” I said.
I began walking around the studio in a manner similar to his, but glancing at the window latches as I passed them.
“I want to talk to you about trust.”
“A lot of these window latches are painted shut,” I said.
“I think there’s trust between us, Peter, trust between you and me. Am I right?”
“This one won’t even budge,” I said, trying one of the latches. “I wonder if the others are like that.” I began inching my way toward the next window.
“Please, Peter,” said Andy. “This isn’t easy for me.”
“Sorry,” I said.
“Am I right?” he asked me. “Is there trust between us? I know that I can speak for myself, that I can say, ‘You can trust me, Peter,’ and know that I mean what I say, but can you?”
“Can I what? Trust you?”
“No. I mean, yes, you can, but can you also say, ‘You can trust me, Andy,’ and know that you mean what you say?”
“Well—” Scratching my head as if in thought, I tried to squeeze past Andy to get to the windows at the far end of the enormous room. He put his hand out to stop me.
“That’s right,” he said, “think before you answer. And remember that trust is a precious thing, Peter. I don’t want you to answer just to please me. I want you to answer with the truth.”
“Sure.”
“Sure what?”
“Sure, you can trust me.” I would have felt that my answer was more convincing if I’d been able to keep myself from looking around at the other windows, so far, so very far, away.
Andy clapped a hand on my shoulder and said, “Good! Good!”
He went to the studio door and unlocked it. I followed him, hoping that, now that he knew he could trust me, he would let me go. Instead, he put his hand out to indicate that I should stay where I was, then put his finger to his lips, opened the door a bit and looked into the hallway, turning this way and that to make sure that no one was outside, listening. He closed the door again. He locked it again.
He turned slowly to look at me, and said, “I don’t want the girls to hear what I have to say to you.”
I began backing toward the windows at the far end of the room, the ones that still held some hope of escape.
“Peter,” he said, “it’s—well—it’s that—that I need your help.”
“What?” I said.
“Come here. I want to show you something.”
He pulled a stool out from under the big table in the center of the studio and beckoned to me. Curiosity drew me to the table. He indicated the stool. I sat. He pulled another stool out from under the table and sat opposite me. There was a period of silence. Andy clasped and unclasped his hands. He shifted and reshifted himself on his stool. I got the impression that he was asking himself again, silently, whether he could trust me.
“You can trust me,” I said.
He grinned, or perhaps he smirked, and he seemed to decide that, yes, he could trust me. He pushed a stack of drawing paper toward me.
“Look through that,” he said, “and tell me what you see.”
[to be continued]
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