The Riverhouse

by G. Norman Lippert

  “What?” she said from directly behind him.

  Shane startled violently, barking a hoarse bellow of shock and spinning so quickly on his heels that he nearly fell on top of her. She screamed in surprise at his surprise, dancing backwards away from him and nearly dropping the bottle of wine in her hands.

  “What the hell!” she cried, her eyes wide but already beginning to laugh. “Don’t do that! What’s wrong with you?”

  Shane moved forward, taking the bottle from her hands and touching her shoulder, flush with relief. He drew her into his arms and began to laugh weakly.

  “Sorry, Chris. I didn’t know where you’d gone. You just disappeared. I was… worried, I guess.”

  “I was in the basement, you big dope,” she said against his shoulder. “Getting a bottle of wine. Excuse me for living. Do I need to get a permission slip next time?”

  “Maybe you do,” he said, letting her go and looking down at her. Her cheeks were red. She seemed caught between annoyance and amusement.

  “So why so jumpy?” she asked, looking up at him critically. “I mean, apart from the usual?”

  Shane shrugged and shook his head. “What’s the occasion?” he asked, raising the wine bottle in his hand and nodding toward it.

  Christiana sighed her characteristic businesslike sigh, taking the bottle away from him. “Well, I’ll have you know that your girlfriend has been asked to host a new gallery showing, this time on the main floor of the Art Museum, not in some little side hall. I got a call today from an organization called the American Aesthetic Underground. They want me to host their annual Women in the Arts exhibit. It’s bigger than anything I’ve ever done so far, but I didn’t tell them that, of course. Apparently, they read Penn Oliver’s review of my last show and figured I had the know-how and connections to make it happen. I’m sure it doesn’t hurt that I wear a skirt to work, but I’m willing to take every break I can get.”

  “I’ve never seen you wear a skirt to work,” Shane said, following her into the kitchen. She ignored him, flipping on the overhead light.

  “So tell: what’s got you so antsy?” she asked, setting the wine bottle on the counter and picking up her Coke. “Besides the obvious, of course. Something to do with that painting in the sunroom? Is that why you moved it?”

  Shane shook his head and leaned against the counter. He didn’t want to worry Christiana any more than she already was, and he didn’t want to taint her good fortune with any more otherworldly weirdness. He shrugged.

  “I don’t know,” he said a little lamely. “I just… I like it in there. It was… in the way upstairs.”

  To Shane’s surprise and dismay, Christiana shuddered. “‘Riverhouse’ I can deal with,” she said, “But that Marlena painting creeps me out. Sorry. Maybe it’s just the story you told me about her, but I don’t think that’s it entirely.” She shook herself and looked up at him. “Whatever. Time to talk dinner. If it was up to me, I’d just drink your wine all night—my stomach’s already in knots about this new show—but I think I used up all my ‘get out of a hangover free’ cards when I was in college. You got any more of those pork steaks in the freezer?”

  Shane nodded, smiled, and crossed to the refrigerator.

  Behind him, Christiana took a sip of her Coke and then said, “You know what I first thought when I got here and saw that painting in the sunroom?”

  “What’s that?” Shane said, opening the freezer compartment and peering inside.

  “I thought you’d moved her into there because of what you said about the sunroom, about how her ghost doesn't seem to be able to get in there. I had this crazy notion that you were trying to… sort of, put her to sleep or something. Like maybe the sunroom was some kind of dead zone for her.”

  Shane nodded as he closed the freezer. “I guess that would make sense, wouldn’t it?”

  He was thinking of the Sleepwalker, thinking about how he’d worried that if Marlena found him painting it, she’d be upset—maybe even dangerously furious. He thought of the weird force that had held the Sleepwalker up in front of him, forcing him to really look at it.

  Maybe Christiana’s theory was partly right. Maybe locking Marlena’s portrait up in the sunroom, instead of leaving it upstairs, within sight of the Sleepwalker, was a way of keeping the secret just a bit longer, a way to keep her from interfering, just long enough to finish the new painting. It did make a certain, strange kind of sense. Moving Marlena into the sunroom was a pretty good idea.

  It just hadn’t been his.

  Three hours later, the two of them were sitting on the patio, him in one of the deck chairs, her on his lap. A thick blanket was wrapped around both of them, warming them against the October cool. Wind sang a whispering chorus in the trees. Lost in the darkness below the bluff, frogs called to each other over the river.

  Christiana sighed deeply and pulled the blanket tighter around her. “So you think I can pull it off?”

  “What? The gallery show? The Women in the Arts thing?”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  Shane thought about it, and then nodded. “I think so. It’s what you’ve been waiting for.”

  “But there will be so much more to manage this time. And without any help from Morrie. I mean, I’m glad to do it on my own. I just didn’t expect it to happen this soon.”

  “Will Morrie be mad?”

  Christiana arched her eyebrows in the darkness, as if she hadn’t even considered such a thing. After a moment, she shook her head. “No. Morrie’s not like that. He may try to angle his way in somehow, but more out of habit than anything else. He’ll be fine.”

  “So what are you worried about?”

  She shrugged. “It’s just going to be a lot to manage. All those artists vying for space, but waiting until the last possible moment to send me their bios and titles. Getting the right kind of museum space so that it feels cozy and roomy at the same time. Making sure all the art gets safely delivered and set up, especially the heavy stuff, the sculptures. And what about the installment pieces? One of them is comprised almost entirely of broken glass. Do I need insurance? What if somebody gets hurt? What if Dolores Grand shows up and scoffs at the whole thing, says it’s all just a bunch of pretentious, melodramatic claptrap? Penn Oliver will probably quote her in her review. Worst of all, what if they’re right?”

  Shane shook his head, blinking. “So what if all of that happens? You can manage it. You’re smart and quick-witted, and most of all, you love this. You love art. What’s the worst that can happen?”

  Christiana slumped on his lap. She extricated her hand from the blanket and reached for her wine glass on the nearby table. It was nearly empty. She stared into it disconsolately, and then set it back down on the table. “I have a cousin who wrote a book,” she said, laughing a little. “I bet you didn’t know that about me. One of my cousins is an author. Sounds impressive, doesn’t it?”

  Shane shrugged and nodded a little. “I suppose. Your cousin’s not John Grisham is he?”

  She laughed. “Not quite. It was just a computer book, one of those Idiot’s Guide type of things. It was all about how to sell stuff on eBay. And it’s a she, actually. My cousin Rachel. She lives in Alaska with her Air Force husband. She had a lot of time to hone her computer skills, him being gone so much and it being dark there so much of the year. The point is, the book was all about what she loves doing. She got really good at online auctions, at selling this, buying that, and selling it all over again. She started doing it for her friends, and found out it was a real talent. It’s all about how she takes the pictures, and writes the descriptions, and sets the initial price. For some reason or other, she’s totally into it, and better yet, she’s a natural at it. So she wrote her book, got it published through one of those Complete Dummy’s Guide publishing houses, and the next thing she knew she was seeing her name on a cover at Barnes and Nobles.”

  Shane shook his head wonderingly. “That’s pretty amazing. Good for cousin Rachel.”

  �
�It is good for her,” Christiana agreed. “But that’s not the reason I brought it up. I only mention it because I saw her last year, at a family reunion over in Chicago. Rachel came with her husband, and she had a copy of the book with her. Everybody passed it around, ooh-ing and ahh-ing over it, but otherwise not really knowing what to say about it. When it finally got to the end of the table where my parents were sitting, my dad just held it in his hands, glanced at the cover, flipped it over, and then hefted it, as if its worth was based on how much it weighed. And he said to my cousin, ‘Not bad. So what do you get, two, three bucks per copy?’”

  Christiana stopped and shook her head curtly. “That’s it. That’s all that mattered to him. It didn’t matter that Rachel had found a way to make a living doing something that she loved to do, or that she’d even found something she loved to do. You know how rare that is? To find that one thing that lights you up inside, that thrills you and inspires you? Let me tell you, it’s pretty damn rare. But that didn’t matter to dad. All that mattered to him was the bottom line. How much money did it make? If it made her a lot, it was a worthwhile thing for her to do. If it didn’t… well, then what was the point? And you could tell by the way he barely glanced at the cover—just flipped it over to look for the price—you could tell that he thought there wasn’t any point in it otherwise.”

  “Sounds a bit like my dad, I guess,” Shane said thoughtfully. “Maybe a bit like everybody’s dad.”

  Christiana leaned back against him, her lips pressed together tightly. After a moment she went on. “My parents were paying for my college. They were paying for my apartment, for my car, my insurance, everything. But the point is, what they were really paying for was a lawyer daughter. That’s what they wanted. That’s what they still want. Dad especially. When I told him I was quitting school to get into art representation, it was like telling him I was getting into making lesbian pornos. Frankly he probably would have preferred that. I mean, at least lesbian porn makes money.”

  “You can’t really mean that,” Shane said.

  She sighed. “I wish I was joking. Maybe I am, but only a little.” She stopped, shaking her head slowly. They sat together in silence for several minutes, listening to the gusts of wind in the trees, the throbbing calls of the frogs down by the river. It still hadn’t rained, although Shane could feel it in the air, cool and misty, smelling of moss. Finally, Christiana went on.

  “My dad is waiting for me to fail. And he’s patient, damn him. It isn’t enough that I’ve found the thing I love. It isn’t enough that it makes me happy. Those things don’t even come into the equation for him. All that matters is that I’m not yet a success at it. Do you know why you were the first person I thought of calling when I got off the phone with the people at the AAU? Because deep down I know that if I call my parents to share that kind of news, they won’t celebrate with me. They won’t even say congratulations. They’ll ask how much the event pays. And I’ll have to tell them that it pays virtually nothing. I’ll have to spend all my time explaining to them that it’s all about getting my name out there, developing a reputation, making contacts.

  “You’d think they’d understand that, because that’s how one gets started as a lawyer, too, doing pro-bono work in the hope of getting attached to something big, something noteworthy. But they won’t understand it in terms of what I’ve chosen to do, the life I’ve decided to live. But that’s not even the main point. That’s not the biggest reason it didn’t even occur to me to call my parents. The biggest reason is that if I call and tell them about it, then they’ll know about it. And if they know about it, and it turns out to be a failure, they’ll never let me forget it. They’ll use it as a lever on me, pushing me back into the world they designed for me, patiently and constantly, one little comment at a time, like Chinese water torture. You asked me what’s the worst that can happen? That’s the worst that can happen.”

  Shane frowned. “What, that your parents use one little failure as a lever on you, trying to force you back into what they want you to do?”

  She shook her head. “No, not just that. The worst that can happen is that they’ll succeed. The worst is that they might be right. Maybe I am going to be a failure at this. Then what?”

  Shane laughed, softly at first, and then a bit louder. Christiana sat up and looked at him suspiciously, one eyebrow raised. “Are you laughing at me?”

  “No,” Shane said, shaking his head, still smiling. “Not at all. But is that it? Is that what this is all about?”

  “What?”

  “Fear of being a failure. Is that what’s at the bottom of all of this?”

  She lowered her brow. “You make it sound like it’s no big deal. This is only my life I’m talking about.”

  “No,” Shane replied, growing serious. “It’s only your life as an art representative we’re talking about. What, you think that’s all you are in the whole world?”

  “Go on,” she said, her eyes narrowed.

  “I think you are very good at what you do. I think you have a passion for it, and your passion makes you a perfectionist, which can stress you out and make your life pretty hard every now and then, but it also makes you very good at your work. In short, I think you will be a smashing success. But just for the sake of argument, let’s say you aren’t. Let’s say you fail spectacularly and discover—who’d a-thunk it?—that art representation is a terrible fit for you. Does that mean the only road left for you is going back to law school?”

  Christiana merely stared at him, her expression tense, but listening. He went on. “There’s value in learning what you don’t want to do, you know. More importantly, there are a thousand more—a million more roads you can try out afterward. You can live your entire life and never run out of options, never fail so many times at the things you like to do that you have to turn back to the one you hate. And most important of all, none of those things that you choose to do with yourself, whether it be art representation, or becoming an agent like Morrie, or, I don’t know, going to truck driving school and hitting the open road in a big rig, none of those things are you. They are just what you do. Failing at them doesn’t make you a failure. It just makes you bold enough to try, and to be willing to try again.”

  Christiana was still frowning at him, her face only inches from his in the chilly darkness. Shane considered kissing her, but decided it might not be exactly appropriate in the moment. Finally, she looked away and leaned against him again.

  “So if I’m not what I do,” she asked slowly, “then what am I? Don’t answer that.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because even though you might think you have the answer, I think it’ll just be a bunch of flattering happy crappy. No offense. It may even all be true, and some other time I’ll really want to hear all of it, so keep it in mind, all right? But if the things you say are true at all, then I think I need to figure out the answer to that question on my own. Would you agree?”

  Shane nodded thoughtfully. “And what about your dad?”

  “The less he has to do with that question, the better.”

  Shane shifted slightly on the deck chair, wrapping his arms around her on his lap. “Maybe,” he said tentatively, “just maybe it’s time you at least considered setting your compass by someone other than your father.”

  She nodded. “Like myself, you mean?”

  He bobbed his head noncommittally. “Yeeaah… I was actually thinking of me. But that works, too.”

  She grinned and poked him in the stomach with her elbow. “You think you’re up to that kind if task? You planning on being around long enough to make it worth my while?”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” he said, stroking the hair at her temple. “And if I do, I’m planning on asking you to come along with me. What do you say to that?”

  She nodded playfully, her eyes twinkling as she looked back at him. After a moment she turned and settled against him once more, leaning her head back onto his shoulder. It was a very dark night, with lo
w clouds obscuring the stars, blotting out the moon. The tops of the trees across the river were barely visible against the sky.

  “I have an idea.” Christiana said quietly. “For our little problem. Your ‘other woman’.”

  Shane blinked up at the clouds. “Marlena? I thought you didn’t really believe all of that?”

  She shrugged lightly. “I didn’t say I didn’t believe your story. I said I was fifty-fifty. The point is, you believe in her. That makes her something that we have to deal with before… well, before we go anywhere else together. If you know what I mean.”

  Shane knew what she meant. He nodded. She felt it and went on. “You asked me what you do with a jealous ghost. I thought you were joking at first, but then I gave it some thought. I mean, if she’s real, then she’s a woman, and if she’s a woman—especially the kind of woman you described to me—then maybe you deal with her the way you’d deal with any jealous ex. Maybe we just go talk to her. More importantly, maybe I go talk to her. I’m the one she has the problem with, after all. We could go down to the site of the old Riverhouse and just, sort of, make a statement. Maybe I’d tell her that I respect her, and don’t mean to take anything away from her. Maybe if I talk to her, woman to woman…”

  Shane felt a chill falling over him. He shook his head, firmly. “We can’t do that, Chris.”

  “Why not? I mean, whether she’s real or just in your head, maybe that’s the best way to mollify her. Jealousy is really only about feeling slighted, about being rejected for someone else. But if we talk to her, we could tell her that none of those things even come into it. She’s a ghost, right? It has nothing to do with who’s better or more desirable. Frankly, I probably wouldn’t have held a candle to her in her prime. It just has to do with who’s still alive. Right? She’d understand that, I bet. Maybe she’d even, you know, give us her blessing.”

  Shane pushed Christiana upright, turning her to look at him. “Look, I can’t explain it, but I just don’t think it would work. I don’t know how I know, I just do. She’s not… rational, anymore. I mean, no matter how you look at it, how can a ghost be sane? I don’t think she realizes the difference between what’s happening now and what happened back then. I don’t think time means anything to you once you’re dead. I appreciate that you thought about it, and I am amazed and impressed that you’d even consider it. But no. I can handle it. I don’t want you any more involved than you already are. I don’t want you going down there. All right?”