by Various
I’m being an idiot. I can’t help but believe Monet wants my attention, here and now.
I focus on one of the many paintings of the garden in front of Monet’s home in Giverny. For some reason it isn’t the sensuously colored flowers that tug at me. It’s the beaten, dirt pathway between the rows of verdant growth. The heaped earth that once supported Monet’s own feet.
What does that ground feel like? Is it soft? Does the earth there smell like my own sad little garden out back?
I press my hand to the image and breathe, wishing I could feel the air of France in my lungs. Would I soak in some of Monet’s greatness, the enigma of him, if I stood in his footsteps? I like to think so.
Smiling, I turn the page and dive deeper into the world of art, a world away, a world my soul longs to breathe in.
A half hour of pale green waterlilies, deep azure ponds, and shadowed haystacks later, David walks into the closet wearing a tux and a face like a silent movie star. He doesn’t raise an eyebrow or say a word. He just gives me that damned look, the one with the mouth tilt and the tightened jaw that clearly states: You are exhaustingly disappointing to me. It’s too bad. He is really a fine-looking man with a sexy brain. But it isn’t enough to forgive the way he picked apart my dreams over the years.
I shut the book and stand, enjoying the weight of Monet’s life in my hands. “Don’t give me that look. I’ll come down, David. No one will even notice I’m late.”
“You’re the hostess, Mia. They’ll notice.”
They. Not I. If it wasn’t for how it made him appear in front of the other politicians and social climbers, my husband wouldn’t care in the least if I came down for dinner or not. At least the truth doesn’t sting like it used to. Anything we had between us faded eight, no, nine years ago. I remember the exact moment I learned we weren’t Georgia O’Keefe and Alfred Stieglitz, that we were just two formerly infatuated people with very little in common.
Nine years ago, I asked, “We’ll take the later train home, all right?” It was the day I figured out the tragedy that was our relationship.
We were in New York City for a charity event and decided to spend the last of the trip in Central Park, him soaking up sun while I painted.
“The late train will be packed.” He sniffed one of my paints, then capped it. “There will be tourists all over. Let’s go now. We’ve had a great day.” Glancing at the light greens and deep browns of my canvas, he added, “Mia. You don’t seriously need another painting of trees and people, do you? You’ve never even sold one of your pieces. And it’s not like our back room isn’t full of them.”
And then he laughed.
It still makes me sick to remember the sound. Like it was plain silly to even consider worrying about the thing that made me happiest in life. That day, I left the painting in the park. Just left it there.
I haven’t painted since.
But it wasn’t the horrible things he’d said nor his condescending laugh that cinched the whole thing. It was the fact that we never fought about it. He never says a word about that day and neither do I.
Now, I consider returning the Monet book to its hiding spot, but instead I set it on the bench in the far-too-large closet’s center. “Henri won’t fail to impress the glittering masses.” David always makes sure our cook holds complete control in times like this. Wouldn’t want Mia sneaking in something interesting like, God forbid, a twenties-style cocktail in place of the boring-as-shit Chardonnay.
I slip off my loose sweater and don a frilly camisole I actually don’t hate before getting into a dress I definitely do. My sling purse doesn’t match at all, but I don’t feel like switching out. I’ll just tuck it away somewhere in the hallway.
David and I met at a gallery opening. I was studying the brushstrokes of a new artist out of Brooklyn when he slid up beside me, silent and smelling like a hotel pool. The chlorine was so strong, I coughed.
He hissed and grimaced. “Sorry. My nephew talked me into swimming at the Y to broaden my horizons. I didn’t realize the experience would make me late to this and also repugnant to women.”
The pool story worked, and I held out my hand to shake his. “I’m Mia. Art history fanatic with the nose of a bloodhound.”
“That is unfortunate. Should I scurry away then? Or could I interest you in a lively discussion about why art is the only eternal industry in the history of our great world?”
That day, I asked him to stay. We spent the next week tangled in long talks, heated debates, and bouts of ferocious kissing.
We were two different people back then.
David returns from the master bath, adjusting his monogrammed gold cuff links. “Honestly, Mia. What is it with you?” His gaze roams over my dress. “Why can’t you just quit trying to be something you aren’t?”
My mouth opens and closes. “It’s just a dress. It’s not a statement.”
“Didn’t you buy something new last week?” He rifles through my side of the closet, his hair going askew.
“That was a scarf. And I bought it for you.”
One you’ll never wear. One I bought for the man I thought I’d married. The David I met at the gallery would’ve worn it to broaden his horizons. Where did that David go?
Anger and disappointment roll through me in successive waves.
I point at his tux. “Can’t say I’m thrilled with your duds. Black again? How droll.”
The David from the art gallery would make a joke here or twist my phrase into an interesting question. Now his arguments are simply that. Arguments.
I turn from his confused face and head out of our room and down the wide, curving stairs, admiring the glittering patterns the chandelier paints on the wall. I could study the rainbow array of light all night, but I have guests to greet. Guests I didn’t invite. These people with their political gossip and backstabbing ways aren’t my friends. No, I left my friends when I linked up with whip-smart David. Well, I wanted a challenge, and I got one. But living a challenge from day to day is so vastly different from enjoying a challenge on a date once a week. It’s exhausting and sad.
I should’ve left for Mexico last week. Yes, Mexico. It would’ve made this evening and Monet that much easier to handle. On Wednesday, I had this wild moment on my way to a mammogram—the glamorous forty-year-old’s life—and the airport’s exit shouted at me. It was so big and green, and it just tugged all of my attention off the road ahead of me.
Suddenly, my hands turned the wheel, my foot shoved the gas pedal, and I found myself standing at the Delta kiosk, dreaming of margaritas, sand between my toes, and a nice little sunburn. But I had no passport with me that day. The real world sliced through my dream of an unplanned vacation.
Shaking my head at myself, I left the busy airport behind a van of church kids who probably still had dreams they thought would actually come true. As I drove to my appointment and prepped for the severe scowl I would get from the nurse because I was very late, my mind whirled at what I’d almost done. I almost left for another country without even telling David.
The second I got home, I went straight to my jewelry drawer, found my passport, and stowed it in my purse. Of course, I wasn’t going to Mexico. I didn’t even really want to go to Mexico. But I loved the idea that I could go, and go far, if I really needed to.
David whisks past me on the stairs, unaware of the trip I almost took or what is simmering inside my brain. He doesn’t pause to take my arm like he used to. One hand smooths his hair and the other checks his phone.
I honestly would love a good fight with him.
Right now.
Not just an argument. A fight to shake this thing up, to change something. Perhaps I could start in on him right after the appetizers. A good left hook. That would be amusing. I laugh to myself, imagining David’s shocked face.
He rounds the corner, his voice booming a Welcome! into t
he parlor.
I trail him, a shadow of the woman he married.
Two
“Mia! We are so glad you invited us.” Dressed in an ebony suit with a deep V-neck, Viviane Hausman extends a manicured set of long fingers in my general direction.
I’m not sure which is louder, her voice or the irony behind her warm greeting. The woman knows very well I had nothing to do with who was invited to this party. Or any party. She is David’s PR person, and she sends out every invitation to every event at our house. She also happens to be unhappily married to a Supreme Court judge. I’m completely sure David thought we should be best pals simply because of our shared affinity toward animals. Never mind I like sketching wild horses out west and she bets on the brightest at the races. It has nothing at all to do with her husband and his position. Definitely not.
“Good evening, Vivi.” I take the glass of gross Chardonnay she’s offering, then sip it. My tongue cringes, but I take a second gulp. “How has your week been?”
“Pathetic,” she says.
“Do tell.”
“I had everything arranged. The right hotel. The parties. We were supposed to go to the Preakness.” She drinks half of her glass of wine. “Instead, I had to dine with a diplomat from some country no one has ever heard of.”
I smile. “We can’t always get what we want.”
Her gaze flattens. “Please don’t tell me you’re quoting the Rolling Stones at a dinner party.”
Making a zipping motion over my lips, I leave Vivi and grab a shrimp from one of the many silver trays set around the painfully beige room. Beige is fine. Beige is great. Why can’t I just like beige? Because beige sucks. Yes. I am an asshole. Pretentious and judgmental as the rest of them. There is no doubt I’m the square peg in this round hole.
Everyone around me talks politics for what feels like two hundred years. They’re all laughing politely and doing all the right things. David’s grin is real. I remember that grin. It used to appear when I entered a room. That feels like a dream from someone else’s life.
————
We were happy for a while. For the first year of our marriage, I taught a watercolor class to the kids at an after-school program down the road. Afterward, David and I met for drinks. Every Thursday. It seemed like a new tradition I could count on. Sometimes we did shots and watched a hockey game. Sadly, the next day was always full of David explaining why we wouldn’t be able to do that ever again if he was going to make it to the top. I laughed. The top of what, was my question. To me, enjoying a night out with a man smarter than most and cute as hell was pretty pinnacle.
Another voice, this one coming from Rob, Vivi’s husband, sounds over my shoulder and shoves the memories away. “Mia Dufraine. You look lovely tonight.”
Quickly swallowing my shrimp instead of savoring it like I want to, I face the judge. I feel off-center, like a crooked painting hanging a bit too far to the left. Judge Rob is a contradiction. He looks about one hundred years old, but he moves and speaks like a man my own age. I fidget with my wedding ring. The skin underneath always itches.
“Thank you, Rob. How are your kids these days?”
His two eldest are firmly established in Washington. I haven’t heard anything about the youngest in a while. Vivi told me he’d switched majors for the ninth time. I ran into him—Hensley was his name—at a bar downtown once. He was just barely old enough to be in the place, but he seemed at home with friends at his elbows and a good bourbon in his hand. We talked for a few about the dog painting on the wall above the pool table. I laughed hard at his joke about the similarities between a bar’s displayed artwork and its patrons’ cologne intensity.
Rob’s jaw tightens. “Hensley is a bit of a…firecracker.”
“I gathered that from the jumping-into-the-pool-off-the-balcony story Vivi told me.” Hensley was definitely the only person in their family that I could conceivably talk to without hating every single second of the conversation.
“I wish Vivi wouldn’t indulge him. She does, you know. Gave him plane tickets to California. Said he needed a vacation to set his mind right.”
“Maybe Vivi is on to something.”
Rob’s eyes flash. Judges, from my experience, only enjoy complete and total admiration and obedience from us lesser folk. “She is not. He’ll be out there doing yoga or God knows what. Smoking weed and being a waste of space. He’d better learn to listen to his father, or he’ll find himself without the funds to pay for that apartment he so enjoys.”
“So you’re bribing him to do what you want him to?”
“I will rein him in.” Rob starts off angry, but his face smooths, and he settles on a simpering smile that turns my stomach. “For his own good.”
“Good luck with that.” I down the wine and grab another shrimp.
“You don’t understand. You don’t have children. I sent him money to pay for everything he needs, and he hasn’t even cashed it. I wouldn’t be surprised if he wrecked his car just for attention.”
A crash echoes from the kitchen.
David immediately apologizes for the racket. “Our chef must be drumming up something truly amazing in there.” His smile is awkward, and I wish he’d grow some balls and not worry so much about impressing everyone. Especially this bunch of crooks and liars.
I joke about David’s crew, but really, I shouldn’t. It isn’t a laughing matter. They are truly foul representations of humankind. I know for a fact the congressman smoking the cigar next to Vivi had a man falsely accused of laundering money just to get his name off the next ballot. And I’m almost certain Vivi herself was involved in Susan’s suicide five years back. Journalists don’t last long when they don’t color within Vivi and Rob’s lines. David hasn’t committed any crimes with his own hands. But he certainly isn’t innocent. He held back information during the investigation into Susan’s death, for one. I’m not sure what he knows, but he definitely has more damning information on Rob’s activities during that week than he lets on. There is no way he remains clueless.
This is a room of criminals pretending to be the good guys, and it turns my stomach. If I brought it up to David, he’d laugh. He’d say I was being ridiculous and I had some kind of conspiracy complex. The phone number to his shrink would show up on my nightstand. I’d bet on it.
A second, louder crash sounds from the kitchen.
“I’ll take care of it.” I hope Henri and his minions are okay in there. I head toward the kitchen’s white door beyond the stretch of this room and the next, glad for a reason to get away from Rob.
As my hand touches the door, Vivi’s voice leaks into my ears, barely audible from the other room. “Watch out, David. Your introverted other half might just decide to stay in there all night.”
I freeze, waiting for David’s response. Will he argue that? Will he make a joke? What does he want—for me to stay or for me to disappear? A memory of his pool smell and laugh the night we met drags over my mind. My heart quivers, and I hate that a tiny part of me still cares.
His words blend like paint on bad paper. “She is a senator’s wife. She knows how to handle herself.”
A senator’s wife. That’s all I am. Not an artist. Not a woman with her own goals. Not a person at all. I’m simply David’s wife in David’s house in David’s life.
A life I hate.
I study my hand, pressed against the kitchen door. Clean nails and a big diamond ring. It isn’t the ring David talked about when we grew serious about our relationship and started talking about engagement. He mentioned his great-grandmother’s ring, the one with the small ruby and the silver scrollwork. No, a store-bought ring better suited a senator’s wife, so that’s the ring choking my manicured finger. I’d be so much happier if garden dirt darkened my cuticles and bits of bright green paint colored the place where the hulking diamond sits. I’ve become someone I don’t like and don’t know.<
br />
A curious feeling uncurls in my chest. I have no name for it. Not yet.
Three
The scent of sweet onions bubbling in butter welcomes me into the kitchen and does its level best to push David’s words from my head.
“Everyone okay in here?”
“Just a little butterfingers,” Henri says, laughing. “All is well, Madame.”
A puddle of that onion wonderfulness glistens around the island’s wooden legs, near a fallen skillet. Henri and two of his assistants wipe the floor with large blue washcloths I didn’t even know we owned.
“Need another hand?” I nab one of the cloths and bend to begin cleaning.
Henri touches my arm gently. His eyes are soft and kind. It’s not a come-on. It’s just nice. “No, no, no, Madame. We have it under control. You go enjoy your party.”
“All right. But I am good for more than just standing around drinking wine.”
“Oh, I know, I know. You should share your talent with the world, Madame. Why don’t you teach those art classes anymore?”
My cheeks go red as Henri’s minions incline their heads to listen in.
“Too many charity events and dinners. I don’t have the time.” That isn’t the real reason. David didn’t like it. Little by little, he painted those Thursdays black with scheduled soirées, meetings, and anything he deemed a step toward that mysterious “top” he droned on about.
Henri nods. “Bien sûr. You are an important part of the senator’s team, oui?”
I close my eyes, wishing I was anything but.
A shout punches through the partially open window near the side door.
Setting the cloth on the marble countertop, I go to see what’s happening in the driveway. David’s driveway. I’d never choose such an entrance—a giant fountain and two sweeping lanes lined in flowering bushes. I prefer stone drives and ancient oaks.
Another shout and raised voices tell me the excitement isn’t from a trust fund kid buzzing past the house on a new motorcycle.
