by Betsy Berne
The perpetrator had called yesterday, Monday or whatever day it was. Just as he’d promised. When I answered he identified himself by both his first and last names: Joseph Pendleton. The formality chilled me. Seeing Joseph Pendleton had served its purpose as I’d expected. I wasn’t capable of ruining any perpetrator’s life, insidious charm or no insidious charm—or in the process, a child’s life. It was eerie, his formality. In the same distant tone, he asked how I was. I had enough time to answer okay, but he cut me off before I had time to tell him that I was out of it, that I hadn’t been able to do much lately.
“I’ve been thinking about this problem. I’ve thought about nothing else but this . . . this problem, all weekend, and I can’t go along with it, not only because of—”
“Oh, don’t worry,” I said breezily. I was out of it but the eerie formality jarred me into action. “I’m going to do it Thursday.”
“Do what Thursday?” I’d assumed he’d figured it out in the bar that rainy afternoon, but his voice had a confounded, exasperated edge. “The, um, the abortion.”
“Abortion? What abortion? I thought it was too soon, I thought you were going to—”
“No, I went to the doctor Friday, and I decided. When I saw you, the whole thing and you . . . you weren’t an abstraction anymore, and I knew I couldn’t keep the . . . it.”
There was a silence. “Oh, I see.” He wasn’t accustomed to being caught off guard, and his voice grew even more distant and formal. “If I can be of assistance in any way, please let me know. I insist on paying for half and—”
I cut him off again, breezily. “Oh, that’s okay. I think my insurance will cover it. But thanks. If it doesn’t, that would be helpful.” If he was going to be eerie and formal, then I’d match him syllable for syllable.
“Would you like to get together for a drink before?”
“Oh, it’s in the morning, I don’t think—”
“No, no, some night this week, before Thursday.”
“Oh. Okay. I guess Wednesday night.”
“All right. I’ll call you Wednesday afternoon.”
“I’m really kind of—”
“Look, I’d like to talk more about this, but I’m already late for an important meeting. I’ll call you Wednesday.” And that was it.
Later I replayed this scene, dissecting pauses, interpreting phrases, and I’m surprised I missed the undercurrents. So we don’t do so great on the phone, I’d told myself. So he wasn’t a phone person. Some of us weren’t.
•
I saw them arrive. She strode ahead of him. Purposefully. She was always rushing. His uneven, plodding gait was worse than it had been three sets of hips ago. But my mother looked beautiful in her gangly, no-vanity way. She had lovely bones, and her blond hair had gone white and luminous. He didn’t look too bad either, with his dark craggy face and wise eyes peering and judging from behind the tortoiseshell glasses. He was thinner than ever. The King, who hadn’t arrived yet, referred to him as a “fucking gray pretzel” because in recent years he’d become excessively peculiar about food and was consequently the first seventy-two-year-old anorexic male I’d ever some across. I introduced them to the gallery’s dealer, a nice enough guy, tall, balding, and wisecracking. My mother thanked him effusively for “giving my baby a chance.” My father smiled his Mona Lisa smile, proof that he wasn’t listening, while their pregnant baby cringed. The dealer’s eyes were roaming, understandably so, and a sign in the right direction: the business direction.
I excused the three of us and coaxed my parents into a corner. My mother continued in a raspy whisper. “Thank God you’re not wearing one of your short skirts, honey—I don’t have the strength to worry about your pussy being exposed to the public. The paintings look stunning, and I swear, it’s not because—”
“What’s this other crap?” he interrupted. “They’re copies. What the hell is this? I don’t get it.”
“Honey, don’t worry, we won’t be in your way. Where are your two brothers? He’s not at one of his goddamn gigs, is he? And where’s His Highness—he said he’d bring the kids—I’ve got the fucking GameBoys for them. What time is it? Oh, there’s Perry. Don’t worry, we’ll be out of here in no time. Perry, oh, honey, don’t you look adorable.” Perry was about two hundred pounds into her pregnancy in a lavender floral muumuu and looked awful and miserable. “It looks like it’s due any minute. Honey, you won’t know what’s hit you.” My mother hated all southerners but was fond of Perry because she was one of us, and because she was also unwavering in her appreciation of old people.
My father was parked with my neighbor, who had gallantly shown up before the lights began to dim. Victor had fetched a chair from the dealer’s office for him and stood by, elusive and refined, tracking the feminist-dresses artist, who was wan and Eastern European–looking—his type—and listening to my father. My father was undoubtedly educating the two of them on the perils of HMOs, or something equally urgent, unless my neighbor was prevailing with his ongoing research on the Jewish male. Not too long ago my neighbor had managed to pry more information out of my father about his no-good parents—liars, cheaters, opportunists—in one forty-five-minute lunch than I had in my lifetime.
People in the business, dull and humorless in tight, dark clothing, were swarming the gallery like ants. Two women in pastels toting several shopping bags each were race-walking against the traffic, and I heard one say to the other, “Absorb what you can. We’ll talk about it in the cab on the way to the theater.” I wasn’t sure the business was happening strictly enough. My performance here was high-stakes, and I was not going to let the problem get in the way. I tried to stick with a one-two-three system. I’d begin with a warm hello. Pause a few beats for the obligatory “Congratulations—looks great.” A short, modest thank-you sufficed—there was no need to list the flaws in each painting, my natural reflex. The modest thank-you could serve as a delicate segue into “Excuse me, I’ve got to say hello to so-and-so.” Then, exit with a graceful dip and swivel, and a prayer that there was a so-and-so nearby.
The comment “I’ve never seen you look so good; you’re glowing” by more than a few guests caused a few slipups. A reminder of the glow that was about to be terminated didn’t sit too well with me. I moved back to my paintings to eavesdrop. One prissy, bony dealer sniffed up close to my paintings and turned to say to his companion, “These paintings are well painted. What does that mean?”
That’s when I saw Sam. You couldn’t miss him in his red plaid shirt unbuttoned to expose just enough turquoise silk muscle shirt. He was cozying up to Rachel. He loved nothing better than cozying up and talking dirty to Rachel, who had difficulty containing her repulsion. Rachel had rallied to my cause—after she and I had finally had the denouement we should have had months ago. It was during a “Don’t tell him, keep the kid, you’ll figure it out” discussion and was triggered by what had become my least favorite cliché of them all: “support system.” Every time I heard “But you have a support system,” I flashed to three months after childbirth, by which time “But you have a support system” would have become “but you—kind of—had a support system.” I told her that if she were any indication of this support system, pardon the expression, I was in trouble, since moments after I’d informed her of my situation, she was out the door to a cocktail party.
She’d been utterly faithful ever since and had signed up “to go with me.” My neighbor had offered again but in such a way that I knew he’d rather move back to Brooklyn. He’d been nailed to the cross too many times for the sins of his male brethren. Even my brother had raised a tentative hand, but I couldn’t allow it. He wouldn’t know what to do. He wasn’t accustomed to witnessing loose emotions, especially not mine, and it would be heart-wrenching to watch him struggling. I needed a female, a tough, reliable female like Rachel who would accept any unforeseen loose emotions with aplomb and grace.
The director of the gallery, whom I’d taken to calling Ditzgirl, was gunning for
me, dragging along what appeared to be a very disgruntled collector. She introduced us, and the collector began to grill me. “How does a little girl like you paint these big paintings?” He smiled, and I struggled to reciprocate. “Tell me, what’s behind the work?” he continued. “I don’t believe I know your name.” He addressed Ditzgirl: “Does she have a track record?” She shrugged girlishly. Turning back to me, he asked, “What are you trying to say with the work?”
I was going to try the girlish shrug when Ditzgirl piped up, “She’s been influenced by Dutch still-lifes from the 1700s.”
Thankfully, he ignored her. “Where do you get your ideas?”
My ideas—I was wondering where Ditzgirl got hers. I was grateful to see the King approaching, along with my giant, exuberant sister-in-law and their giant, exuberant kids.
“What is this crap?” he barked. “Your paintings are the only decent things here, and that’s not saying much. Hey, I’m kidding, what’s wrong with you, for Christ’s sake? Sell any yet? Good luck. Hey, where’s that Sam? He owes me some money,” he said largely and loudly.
Ditzgirl’s limp crimson mouth sagged, and the collector turned white as the walls. It wasn’t a good idea to commence with introductions. I tried to steer the family to an area where their loudness and largeness might blend in. But there weren’t many large and loud people in the gallery. It was more of a slender, low-murmuring crowd. Then I saw my mother coming toward us at a high-speed gallop with my father swaying in the rear. My other brother appeared, registered the King’s presence, and took off in the opposite direction. My sister-in-law had the kind of face that could go from exuberant to tense in an instant, and it did so as she watched her son almost knock my father over in his haste to get to my mother and the GameBoys.
“Where’s my GameBoy, Grandma, where’s my GameBoy?” I could hear my nephew from the corner where I’d fled in order to act like I didn’t know them. My other brother was already there acting like he didn’t know them. “You’ll get your goddamn GameBoy. Why the hell you would even want a GameBoy is beyond me. Only ignoramuses play with GameBoys.”
“Grandma called me an ignoramus,” I heard him tell my father. “And she swore, too.”
“Where’s your girlfriend the tramp?” The King had located us. “I bet she’s getting plenty of action. That’s why people join cults.”
“Let’s try to keep the conversation above the waist,” replied my other brother. “We’re in public.” Fortunately, new prey arrived in the form of Sam, and the King was distracted.
Having dispensed of the GameBoys, my parents were ready to get back on the road, and I led them out. The dealer motioned me over and told me that he was so sorry, but he had to go to a benefit down the street, he was late already, he’d tried to get out of it but he couldn’t. He’d speak to me next week, oh, no, not next week but the week after. He had to go to Europe. Oh, maybe it would be the week after that. At any rate we’d talk before the show came down. That was not a good sign. It was only a summer group show, not a top priority, and I understood, but it was not a good sign at all. Even worse, I was going to have to rely solely on Ditzgirl.
Ditzgirl was the kind of gallery director who liked to establish a parent-child relationship with her artists. I had plenty of mother; I didn’t need another, especially one with poor social and cognitive skills. I was willing to excuse the wrong date on the invitation—we all make mistakes. It took some time to cross out each and every one of them with a thick Magic Marker, and it did not look professional, but okay, mistakes happen. So she hung two paintings upside down. Big deal, she wasn’t familiar with the work yet. It took some time to get familiar with the work, and anyone could miss the huge black arrows on the back of the paintings pointing “this side up.” But it did not bode well. And neither did the look on the face of the collector she was still shuttling about.
The crowd was thinning. There was a choice of four or five openings to attend tonight, so it was a hit-and-run deal for people in the business and for the younger artists. The neophytes and the hangers-on no longer provided crowd-fill because they had lost their taste for art openings. Glamour follows big money, and there was no more big money, so things weren’t looking too glamorous. The older artists who had crashed along with the market were too bitter or tired to desert the safety of their studios (or kitchen tables) for an opening. And the artists who’d already hit the jackpot had no reason to attend. But Ditzgirl didn’t show any signs of dimming the lights. She was still going in circles.
I saw Rachel in the corner in an intense discussion with Perry. They were partners in the publishing company and practiced a peculiar dynamic. Rachel played the wise motherly gentile, and Perry played the kooky Jew who was never going to grow up. Perry was assisting Rachel with the dinner party, which meant that she’d plant herself in whatever chair would still handle her girth and hold forth while loyal Rachel slaved. I could predict that she’d hold forth on the indignities and untold sacrifices of pregnancy, childbirth, and motherhood until Rachel, incensed that the indignities and sacrifices weren’t yet hers, exploded. I hoped to miss the explosion.
It was steamy under the lights and even steamier outside. I wanted to get the intimate dinner party over and done with, go home, stand vigil until Thursday, get the termination over and done with, and start all over again.
C H A P T E R
6
RACHEL WAS BETWEEN apartments—she always kept one step ahead of her demons by establishing new residences—so she held the party at an apartment belonging to a friend of mine from another giant-brother-inundated family.
Aaron was a California girl with an East Coast–tainted soul. We made the giant-family connection instantly. We referred to her family as the Addams Family and mine as the Munsters. Aaron had done her time in the art business—as a dealer. She quit soon after having an epiphany, during which she realized that the only good artist was a dead artist. I guess the view wasn’t so great from either angle. Aaron’s apartment was dark and dramatic and tasteful, like her. She had Northern Californian taste, soft sculptural couches in earth colors, king-sized ruby velvet pillows, and low wooden tables covered with candles—she had candles before everybody else did. Her rooms were graciously strewn with ethnic objects and fabrics. It was a far more soothing environment than an incandescent art gallery.
Rachel had outdone herself. The long oak table was artfully laid out and crowded with delicacies. But I couldn’t eat much. I was there, but not really. Or rather I was there but my friends weren’t. I was with ghosts instead: the ghost inside me, the ghost of Joseph Pendleton, and the ghost of Jack, the last-straw death who always turned up at such occasions.
After swigging down two glasses of wine I felt more drowsy than I should have, even with the hormones. I asked Victor whether it would be considered impolite if I lay down for a moment before the salad was served, and he assured me that it wouldn’t. He was a little preoccupied because he was leaving shortly for an assignation with the wan Eastern European breasts-and-dresses artist. I headed toward the bathroom, then took a sharp right up the stairs to the bedroom, where I lay down under an ethnic cashmere throw on the king-sized bed.
My last conversation with Jack, he’d been in a rapidly escalating bad mood and I’d wanted to get off the phone before it was too late. He’d launched into a tirade about the woman in the news who’d lopped off her husband’s penis, and I’d half-listened until he yelled, “How would you like it if I took a chainsaw to someone’s vagina?”
“Well, it was just hanging there,” I’d pointed out.
He’d hung up on me. He was that type. Talk about fury. Jack’s fury was the kind of ethnic fury—Semitic, in this case—that simmers and is usually siphoned out in humor. I didn’t call him back. I had my pride. Two days later his fury imploded and he was dead. Granted, this was an unlikely turn of events, but it made me reevaluate. I could no longer discount unlikely turns of events.
In the aftermath I promised myself that I would n
ever let pride obstruct seeing a wavelength through to its conclusion, whatever kind of conclusion it might be. Death makes you dramatic—and promises to yourself don’t always hold. Jack was trouble, no doubt about it, but a kind of trouble I was familiar with, a kind that could probably have been handled with courage and time, but we didn’t have the time, and who knows if we would have had the courage.
I let my eyes close, and as I began to drift Jack joined me. He sat down on the edge of the bed and began a long grumbly monologue about the dinner party. He was feeling too bitter, too sorry for himself tonight, to be around these people, he told me. What a waste of time—he would rather be home working.
“Stay,” I said. “I’m stuck here. Have pity.”
He sighed and lay down beside me. When I once asked Jack what he meant by a narcissist (the term wasn’t nearly as fashionable then as it is now), he said unapologetically, “You’re looking at one.” But when he said it, his mouth, a thin line of insolence, curved up ever so slightly—never all the way. His eyes smiled all the time though, with sly innuendo when a joke was brewing, right up until the delivery, when they turned opaque—watching for a response. Jack was another case of damaged merchandise. He was almost too good-looking, dark with a stony face, a cool character, but inside he was always quaking, so he was drawn to females who were more screwed-up than he was—tortured actresses, exotic dilettantes. He was also a member of the only-child species, but he didn’t lack fathers; he’d had a surplus, four or five along the way—I can’t remember—only one mother, though, and she was some mother.
For years we’d been strictly social acquaintances. Then, as we found each other more and more often hiding in corners at parties, we developed an antisocial kinship. Often we were the first to arrive in festive living rooms. Later, when we started to see each other alone, Jack would pick me up at least half an hour ahead of time. His punctuality didn’t bother me—on the contrary, I was always ready—but sometimes I teased him. “Do you want me to leave? I could walk around the block a couple of times and then come back,” he’d say, quite sincerely. “See, if I hadn’t gotten out of the house now, I never would have.”
