The Riverhouse

by G. Norman Lippert

  By Shane Bellamy

  Oil on Canvas

  “Yeah,” Shane said slowly.

  “What?” Christiana said, looking down at the card. “I spell your name wrong?”

  Shane caught a whiff of perfume and shampoo as she leaned in next to him. “No,” he said, a little sheepishly. “It’s nothing. Really.”

  “What, what?” she said, sounding almost frantic.

  Shane realized that she was extremely nervous. He laughed. “It really is nothing. It doesn’t even matter, really. A quirk. In my mind, the title is all one word. Riverhouse. That’s all. I should have been more specific if it really mattered, which it doesn’t. I just… didn’t recognize it at first.”

  “You want me to change it? I can make another one. Still have the marker in my purse.”

  “What I want,” Shane said, touching her lightly on the elbow, “is for you to try to relax. You’re making me nervous already.”

  Christiana looked up at him for a moment, her eyes tense, and then she sighed and slumped. “I can’t help it. I am a little nervous. Does it show that much?”

  “It shows,” Shane said, shrugging. “But only because the show hasn’t officially started yet. By the time people start arriving, you’ll be fine. That’s how it always is, right? You’re only nervous until the curtain goes up. After that, instinct just takes over.”

  “Is that right?” Christiana said, glancing up at Shane again. “I wouldn’t know. I’ve always been the one in the audience, never the one behind the curtain. I’m a pretty tough critic, too.”

  “I can tell,” Shane replied, nodding. “Go grab a champagne. You’ll feel a little better.”

  “I can’t drink before the show. My stomach’s too rumbly. Afterwards, it’ll be a different story. Talk to me then.”

  Shane nodded. “You’ll be fine. If the people around the table are any indication, this is going to be a true art show. Don’t worry.”

  “I hope you’re right,” Christiana said, laughing a little. “I’ve juried this thing as well as I know how to. I turned away more people than I wanted to this time, just to make sure. Frankly, I’m still trying to figure out how this whole business works. Morrie’s been a little help, but…” She gestured vaguely at the hall, at the crowd of artists gathered around the table, as if to say how much help could any one person be?

  Greenfeld appeared at the lobby entrance of the hall, carrying a large white sign and an easel awkwardly under his arm. Christiana saw him and hurried over. A moment later, once the sign was erected, Shane drifted over to read it.

  Introspection and Abstraction:

  Microscopic Views of a Telescopic World

  Various Artists and Media,

  presented by Christiana V. Corsica and

  Greenfeld Media Management, LLC

  A woman meandered into the hall, looking from face to face, and then brightened as she saw Greenfeld. She approached, smiling and holding out her hand. Greenfeld took it and bowed theatrically, despite the fact that the woman was already at least two inches taller than him. She looked slightly older than Shane; pretty, but painfully skinny, with dramatic tortoise-shell glasses, short blond hair and a long, narrow nose. Christiana watched Greenfeld’s handshake and bow with a strained, plastic smile, and Shane guessed that the newcomer was the arts columnist from the Post Dispatch.

  The blond woman shook Christiana’s hand next and then looked around, still smiling a brilliant white smile. Shane couldn’t help thinking that that smile looked a little predatory, but decided he was just responding to stereotype. The woman was probably perfectly pleasant, even if her grin did look like something from an old Vincent Price movie.

  He dismissed the scene by the entrance and wandered over to the table, looking for some champagne, looking to give his hands something to do. After all, he was a little nervous as well.

  Eventually, people began to drift into the hall, usually in twos and threes, chatting in low voices. Christiana and Greenfeld met all of them near the sign, smiling, pointing out the refreshments, laughing lightly.

  To Shane, the whole thing looked a little forced, but that was probably because he knew how nervous Christiana was, knew how important this show apparently was to her. He couldn’t guess what Greenfeld’s stake in it was. The two of them made a fairly attractive couple, standing there together by the lobby entrance. Most of the people who came in probably thought their hosts were a couple, and yet Shane felt fairly confident that Christiana, at least, didn’t see Greenfeld as a romantic possibility. Greenfeld, for his part, seemed to play it up. He curled his arm lightly around her waist, leading her toward the door as another group arrived.

  What had Christiana said when he’d first met her? That Greenfeld kept her around “mostly for the scenery”? Shane guessed that Greenfeld had made his attraction to Christiana fairly obvious, and that she, in the interest of keeping her position and getting his professional help, had politely pretended not to notice. Or was that just wishful thinking on Shane’s part? He turned away again, realizing with some dismay that he was watching the two of them a little too closely, with something akin to jealousy. Feeling a little ridiculous and foolish, he turned his attention to the crowd milling nearby.

  One of the artists, a gangly man with comically thick glasses and a shock of Andy Warhol-like white hair, was looking openly at Shane, his expression severe. Shane looked back at him, surprised, and then shrugged and waved. The man didn’t reciprocate, but he did shift his gaze away, suddenly, as if he’d been caught doing something naughty.

  “Is this yours?” a nearby female voice asked. Shane glanced aside and saw an older woman in a black sweater and pearls looking at him out of the corner of her eyes. Her face was turned toward his painting.

  “Yes, it is,” Shane replied quickly. “I’m Shane Bellamy.”

  “Apparently,” she said, dismissively. “It’s hideous.”

  Shane didn’t know how to respond. He looked at the painting, then back at the woman. She took a breath.

  “How much?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “How much? What’s the selling price?”

  “Oh,” Shane said, taken aback. “I’m not entirely sure. Miss Corsica is sort of in charge of—”

  “Are you the artist or not?” the older woman snapped. “How much are you asking for it? I’d like to buy it.”

  Shane smiled, unsure if he should be offended or amused. “I thought you said it was hideous?”

  “You heard me correctly. You agreed, or else you’d have argued with me. Therefore, you’ll be happy to unload it. How much?”

  “I… can we talk afterwards? I really just don’t know. This is my first showing.”

  The woman studied Shane severely, her eyes squinting in nets of fine wrinkles. “Mr. Bellamy, I don’t plan to stay for the entire show. I am happy to write you a check right now.”

  “How much?” another voice asked, startling Shane. He turned. It was the other artist, the one with the white Andy Warhol hair. He peered at the older woman, and then shifted his gaze to Shane, his eyes huge behind his glasses.

  “He hasn’t yet said,” the woman answered.

  Shane laughed and shook his head. “Look, I’m not trying to be difficult. I’m a commercial artist in real life. I have agencies that usually price my work for me. I have no idea how to do it myself. After the show—”

  “You’re a commercial artist?” the white-haired man interrupted. “And you painted this? Who’d you paint it for?”

  “No one. This one was just for me.”

  “What was your motivation, if you don’t mind my asking?” This came from a third voice. Shane looked and saw the skinny woman with the dramatic tortoiseshell glasses, the newspaper columnist. She looked at him with an expectant smile, even more shark-like than her earlier grin. Shane felt his cheeks redden.

  “I… you know. It just…” he stammered, looking back at the painting. The sight of it calmed him a little. He took a breath and ordered hi
s thoughts. “It came to me when I was on a bike ride. That’s all. It… sort of followed me home.”

  “Look Mom,” the columnist said, amused, “It followed me home. Can I paint it? Please?”

  “Is it a real house?” The white-haired artist asked, his face stony.

  The old woman clucked her tongue. “This is an art show. Is anything real?”

  Shane smiled. “It’s based on a house that used to be near my home. It’s been torn down now.”

  The old woman looked at him sharply. “Where do you live?”

  “In the river valley, south of the city. Between Bastion Falls and Kirkwood.”

  The woman nodded to herself. “It’s the Wilhelm house. I knew it looked familiar.”

  “The Gustav Wilhelm residence?” the columnist asked, glancing between Shane and the old woman.

  “Not really,” Shane said quickly. “It was torn down. This is just… how it might have looked. A long time ago.”

  “‘Might have looked’ nothing,” the old woman said, raising a pair of glasses on a fine chain around her neck, peering at the painting through them. “It’s like a photograph. Granted, a photograph somebody drug through an abattoir. All those awful colors and overlying shapes. I’d never have recognized it under all of that, but now that I know…”

  Shane was simultaneously intrigued and hesitant. “You knew the house?”

  She glanced up at him. “I was there once or twice, when I was a girl. My mother was an artist, a friend of Mrs. Wilhelm, who painted as well. The house was not a nice place. It was beautiful, of course, but creepy, especially by that time. In a way, it was just the opposite of your painting, here. Your painting is creepy on top, but underneath the hideous part, it’s beautiful, too. Like a sunrise reflected in a dead man’s eyes. You see that, don’t you?”

  “I may quote you on that, Mrs. Grand,” the columnist said, producing a small pad of paper from her bag. “You must spend all day thinking up things like that.”

  “It’s called inspiration, dear,” the old woman said indulgently. “Look it up.”

  The artist with the Andy Warhol hair drifted away, called back to his own work as a small crowd gathered there. The columnist stepped forward in his place, reaching to shake Shane’s hand.

  “Penn Oliver, Mr. Bellamy” she announced. “I write for the Post Dispatch. You’ve caught Mrs. Grand’s eye, which is no small feat. Frankly, I just follow her around and look at whatever she looks at. Saves me a lot of time and effort.”

  “You give yourself too little credit,” Mrs. Grand said, obviously meaning just the opposite. She turned to Shane again. “Mr. Bellamy, may I assume that Ms. Corsica is your representative?”

  “I guess you may,” Shane replied, glancing across the hall to where Christiana stood by the entry, nodding, deep in conversation. “After all, this is her show.”

  The woman nodded curtly and drifted on.

  “That’s quite an accomplishment,” the blond woman, Penn, said, watching the older woman walk away. “Is this really your first showing?”

  Shane sighed. “It is. I’ve been painting for years. Just not quite like this.”

  “Well, Dolores Grand likes your work, which means something. Congratulations.”

  “She said it was hideous.”

  Penn looked at Shane closely. “And that disappoints you?”

  “Well, it wasn’t what I was intending, exactly.”

  “What were you intending?”

  Shane shrugged and shook his head, smiling sheepishly. “Are these typical art column questions?”

  Penn smiled as well and stuffed her notepad back into her bag. “Sorry. Yes, I guess they are. You shouldn’t be disappointed. Art is meant to illicit a reaction. On the canvas, good or bad is entirely subjective. Yours at least gets the conversation going. That’s the point, right?”

  “You’re the writer. I’ll take your word for it,” Shane said. “I just painted it the way it came into my mind.”

  Penn studied the painting again for a moment, frowning. Shane noticed that most people seemed to frown when they looked at Riverhouse, even if they were just passing, letting their eyes roam randomly over the collected works. Without looking up, Penn asked, “Who’s the woman in the foreground?”

  “I don’t really know,” Shane lied. “Just a focal point. Human interest.”

  “Who’s she looking at?”

  Shane furrowed his brow and peered down at the painting. “It’s funny you should ask. Morrie asked the same question.”

  “So why’s it funny?” Penn prodded, smiling a little crookedly.

  “Well, because I didn’t mean to paint her looking at anyone. She was just supposed to be resting, sitting in the sun. But people seem to see her as watching, looking for someone. I don’t have any guesses about who it might be.”

  Penn nodded. “Some paintings just seem to have a life of their own, don’t they? Are the rest of your works like this?”

  Shane shook his head. “Not really. That was sort of a one-time thing, I think. I am painting another work for myself, but it’s… different.”

  “Then can I assume you’ll be appearing in more of Ms. Corsica’s shows?”

  “Maybe,” Shane said, hedging. “I don’t know.”

  “I hope so,” Penn announced, nodding to herself and turning back to Shane. “Anyway, it was good to meet you, Mr. Bellamy. It’s nice to meet an artist who doesn’t know why he makes what he makes.”

  Shane blinked, but Penn laughed and touched his arm lightly. “That’s high praise, if you ask me. Most artists try too hard, that’s all. You, though, you’ve tapped into something. You’re letting the picture tell its own story. I’m willing to bet that’s what Dolores Grand noticed about your work. Like she said, her mother was a painter, and pretty well known amongst the local scene, at least back in the day. She taught at the Sam Fox School of Design at Washington University. I saw her speak once, a few years before she died. She said that the best artist was the one who offered the least interference. Does that make sense to you?”

  Shane thought about it and nodded. “Yeah. I guess it does.”

  “Most of the rest of these people don’t get that. Frankly, I don’t get it either. But I can see the difference in the works of those who do. You’re a bit of a curiosity, Mr. Bellamy.”

  “Oh?” Shane said, raising his eyebrows. “Just because I painted a somewhat strange picture of a house?”

  “Yes,” Penn nodded, smiling enigmatically. “But not just because of that. Here.” She reached into her bag and produced a small white card. “Call me if you plan to be in any more shows. If you want, I’ll email you a preview of the column. It’ll probably run next Wednesday.”

  “Thanks,” Shane said, taking the card. He glanced at it. It was very plain, containing only her name, the name of the newspaper, and her telephone number and email address. Apparently, her given name was Penelope. Shane produced his wallet and slipped the card into one of the inner pockets. When he looked up again, Penn had moved on already, following the trail of Mrs. Grand.

  “Well, you did say to sell it,” Christiana said, swirling her wine, watching it in its glass.

  Shane shook his head in wonder. “I guess I did. I just didn’t expect it to happen so fast, or for so much. How’d you know how to price it?”

  Christiana sat her wine glass on the bar and shrugged languidly. To Shane, she looked like a cat preening on a windowsill. All around, the little bar droned and murmured, dark and crowded. He touched his own wine where it sat near his elbow but didn’t pick it up.

  “Do you remember a year or so ago,” Christiana said, as if she was changing the subject. “When the market started to go all to hell and everyone was scrambling around trying to figure out where all their money went?”

  “For a little while I was one of them,” Shane nodded. “Although, I admit, it ended up being the least of my concerns. Most people got hit a lot harder than me.”

  “Hmm. Well, fortunately, I was
fine,” she said. “For once, it was a good thing not to have socked away for the future. My parents got whacked pretty hard, though. They’re still reeling, although like most people they’re right back at the grind again, plodding on.”

  “You think that’s a mistake?”

  She shrugged again, as if it didn’t really matter what she thought. “The point is, my parents’ accountant tried to explain what happened to them in the beginning. My father told me what he said. He said that the money they thought they had was never really there at all. All their stocks and stuff, it was always just potential money, waiting to happen. He said that everyone had been trading on that potential money for so long that they’d forgotten that it wasn’t real money at all. When the potential dropped out, everyone thought they’d lost actual dollars. Understanding the difference between real money and potential money was the key to getting back on their feet, the accountant said.”

  Shane nodded slowly. Talking about money usually made his eyes glaze over, but Christiana managed to keep his interest. “Makes sense, I guess.”

  “Yeah,” she said, looking at him. “I suspect it would, because you work in the world of potential money every day. That’s the point. I understood what that accountant told my father, because art is one of the best examples of potential money. It’s right up there with Beanie Babies and… and, you know, anything people collect not so much for the love of the thing, but because there’s this group of other people who are collecting the same thing, and it’s like a big competition. A ‘he who dies with the most toys’ contest. Sorry, the wine went straight to my head already. I need something to eat.” She rummaged in her bag for a moment and produced a half-eaten energy bar still in its wrapper. Shane watched her take a bite. She looked up at him again. “Does that make sense?”

  “Sure,” Shane replied, glancing over her shape where she sat on the barstool next to him. “You’re slight. Alcohol doesn’t have very far to go.”

  “No, silly,” she said, smiling suddenly. Her dark eyes twinkled. “I mean about the idea of art as potential money. Like a Beanie Baby, or… oh, what were those things everyone collected when we were kids?”