Read Loving Frank for Free Online

THAT SUMMER, when Frank took office space downtown in the Fine Arts Building, their trysts became easier. Mamah used the excuse of a Wednesday-afternoon class to get out of the house. She took the train into Chicago, walked to Michigan Avenue, and went up in the elevator to the tenth floor. Once, as she hurried down the hallway hoping not to meet anyone, the door across from Frank’s opened, and she caught a glimpse of Lorado Taft chiseling in his studio. Mamah knew the famous sculptor was a longtime friend of Frank and Catherine. He had looked up from his work that day, caught her eye, and smiled in a disturbing, knowing sort of way. Burning with embarrassment, Mamah slipped into Frank’s office, sank down on a chair, bent over, and put her face in her lap. After that, she wore a large bonnet with a scarf over its crown and tied under her chin, as if she’d just stepped out of an automobile.
    Another time, as she emerged from the elevator, she spotted a neighbor, one of his old clients, standing in the hall at the door of Frank’s office, taking his leave. She bent her head so her hat hid her face, then walked down the steps to the floor below. Standing there in the stairwell, waiting, she could hear some would-be Paderewski pounding out a piano concerto. From another room, a teacher’s voice called out positions above the soft thud of ballet slippers.
    Her own heart was thudding by the time she returned to the tenth floor. When she was safe inside his office, he locked the door and pulled the shades down over his windows. They picked up the thread of their almost-life together then, opening up to each other in the darkened room.
    They longed to be out in the world, taking it in together. Early in the summer, when they were being extra cautious, they arranged to arrive separately at a downtown nickelodeon where a Tom Mix movie was showing. Sitting a couple of rows from him, she could hear Frank’s deep laugh explode throughout the movie, and that sent her into gales. Frank left before she did. The plan was for her to walk to the corner so he could pick her up there. When she got out on the street, she noticed that an enterprising vendor had set up a display of cowboy hats right outside the theater. She stopped and impulsively picked out a wide-brimmed tan hat.
    “That’s your B.O.P. Stetson, ma’am,” the man said, “the best. Stands for ‘Boss of the Plains.’”
    She laughed. “Perfect.”
    “It’ll run you more,” the vendor cautioned. “It’s twelve dollars.”
    “I’ll take it.” She stuffed money into his hand.
    Frank swooped up moments later in his yellow car and could barely conceal his delight. He put on the hat and drove them to the north side, to a tiny German restaurant. What a sight he made, dressed in a duster that hung down to his high boot heels, with the Stetson perched above his driving goggles.
    Settled in a booth, she found he wanted to relive each scene from the film. She was amused by how boyish he was, sitting there with the big hat next to him, nearly in convulsions over the memory of desperadoes falling off their horses as Tom Mix chased them down.
             
    SOMETIMES THEY DROVE OUT into the country, the yellow car ripping at terrifying speeds over rutted roads. They stopped along the way for whatever the stands were selling—strawberries, cantaloupe. Frank had a blanket in the car that he spread out, then he took off his shoes and wiggled his toes. “God, that feels good,” he said every single time he stripped off his socks.
    He loved Whitman. He would lie on his stomach and read
Leaves of Grass
to her. There were long stretches, though, when they didn’t talk, just sat near each other. They could have hummed, she thought, and understood each other perfectly.
    One day, after they had finished eating, Frank cleaned his hands in ditch water near where they sat, then produced from the car a portfolio full of Japanese woodblock prints. He spread the prints out