Beautiful Illusions

by Annie Jocoby

  I held my breath. “Uh, small.”

  At that, he presented a small, perfectly giftwrapped box. I opened it up, feeling apprehensive. I figured that it was not an engagement ring, and I was right. It was a platinum and diamond necklace from Tiffany’s, with matching platinum and diamond earrings.

  They were the most beautiful things I had ever seen.

  I teared up. I’d never seen something like this, let alone think that I’d own something like this. Shaking, I asked him to put the necklace on me, as I put on the earrings.

  “There. You look beautiful.”

  “Thank you. Uh, I don’t know how…”

  “I’m not done yet. What would you like next?”

  “Uh, the next up.”

  At that, he presented me with a large, giftwrapped box. I opened it, and there, inside, were the paintings of me! I was astonished, and genuinely surprised. I figured that he was hiding them away because he didn’t want to admit that he was an exquisite artist. Now I knew that he was just saving them for a gift for me.

  “Where did you get these done?”

  “I did them.”

  My eyes were huge. “Oh my god! These are beautiful!” And they were, even moreso now that they were a gift to me. “I didn’t know that you could paint like that!”

  “Well, I dabble some.”

  “Dabble! These are gorgeous!”

  “I’m glad that you like them.”

  “Like them? I love them!” I grabbed his neck, burying my face in his shoulder. I was sobbing, honestly sobbing.”

  “Hey, hey, hey. What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. It’s just that these paintings of me are so gorgeous and so intimate and personal. So artistic. So made with love.”

  “Well, of course. I love you. I made these paintings when I was away from you, after our fight, but before I went to Beverly Hills. I couldn’t stop thinking about you, so I painted you to help me feel better. It didn’t really work to help me feel better, but it got me back into my art. Before painting these, I hadn’t painted in a long, long time. So it really should be me thanking you. You’re my muse.”

  I cocked my head, and smiled. I silently hoped that there would be no more gifts, but I knew that there were.

  “Why don’t you paint more often?”

  “Well, I have to be inspired. But you make a good point. I used to love to paint and draw with charcoal. I was pretty prolific in college, during my drug days. That work was pretty dark, though. I even had a showing at an art gallery, and everything sold.” He looked pensive. “I was never more proud of myself. Except, of course, when I gave that money to the Humane Society.”

  “Why don’t you do it full time?”

  “I can’t just turn it on and off. I wish that I could. I was driven to art when I was in college because I had to have a way to exorcise my demons. So, I did a lot of drugs and I painted. Two ways to escape. But I haven’t been inspired to art since then, really. Until you.”

  I thought of something. I ran up to the guest bedroom where I spent the night the first night I was here. I motioned him to follow me, which he did.

  I pointed to the magnificent painting above the bed. “This is you, right?”

  He blushed. “Yeah, that’s me. It’s one of my better ones from my early days.”

  I studied it more carefully than before. It was gorgeous - it was a portrait of a beautiful woman’s face that was halfway there. The face was painted in blue, with bright red lipstick. On the other side of the face, the part that wasn’t there, there were words displayed. Random words. The background was a bleeding background of bright purple and orange. I was very drawn to the painting, anyhow, now much moreso since I knew who did it.

  I looked at him. He was standing in the doorway, his hands shoved in his pockets. He was looking at the floor. I took his chin in my hand, and raised his face towards mine. “You are an amazing artist.” Then I kissed him passionately.

  His face was bright scarlet. “I dabble. I’m not as good as-“

  “Shhhh. You’re the best artist I’ve ever known.” The irony – there’s something that he’s insecure about. We had more in common than I thought.

  We went back downstairs, and I held my breath. There was more to come, I knew it. “Ok, now for the next present,” Ryan said. “Here, put on this blindfold.” He wrapped a handkerchief around my eyes. Then he led me by the hand, opening the door that leads to the garage. My heart was pounding, and I was shaking. Please don’t be what I think it is. He took off the blindfold, and there was a brand new Volvo, just like the one that I drove in Los Angeles. Only this one, somehow, had a six-speed manual transmission. As I gaped at the car in shock, Ryan was explaining “I remembered you always said how much you liked the stick, so I had this car custom-made for the six-speed. I hope that you like it. I know that you liked the car in Los Angeles.”

  I couldn’t speak. I wondered what had befallen my jalopy Priscilla, with her side door still dented in. My breath caught. I was rooted to the ground, unable to lift my feet even one inch. I felt some kind of trance envelop me. Inside I was screaming “This is too much! You got him a fucking grind and brew!” Then I realized that I was crying again, sobbing uncontrollably, with Ryan’s arm around me.

  “Shhhh, beautiful, this wasn’t the reaction I thought I would get.”

  By now, I was on the floor of the garage, crying and hyperventilating. There was no way that I could have been prepared for this. Ryan was on the floor next to me, stroking my hair, holding my head tightly to his chest. I was shaking. It was as if all the emotion for the entire seven months that I had known him was coming out of me. Like maybe I was hanging in with everything previously because I had been in shock that a guy like Ryan would love me, the bullied, unpopular girl, and I never thought that it was real. Like he was a fantasy that I had cooked up in my mind. He wasn’t real, he couldn’t possibly be real. Now, he was real, the car was real, everything was real, and I just couldn’t handle it.

  We sat like this on the garage floor for a good half hour. By then I had calmed down.

  “What just happened?”

  “I don’t know. I was overwhelmed, I guess.”

  He looked concerned. “Uh, well, then, maybe I should tell you about the rest of the gifts later.”

  I made a face. “No, no, I’m ok. I love the car. I mean, I really, really love the car.”

  “Ok, then. Here.” He handed me an envelope. I opened it, half knowing what it was. And, it was exactly what I thought it was. A copy of the deed to the house, with my name on it.

  I looked at him. “Uh, Ryan, that is so wonderful. I mean, I know that you want this to be our house. But I have student loans up the wazoo, and the IRS has a lien on all of my property. They both will come after this house.”

  He smiled nervously. “Uh, I know about the student loans, love. And the IRS. And I, uh, took care of them.”

  I narrowed my eyes. How did he know about the loans, and the IRS, and what did he mean “I took care of them?”

  He went on. “Well, I had your background looked into before I put your name on this house. I paid off your loans, and the IRS, as gifts to you.”

  “Oh, hell no. Hell, no. Hell to the fucking no. You didn’t incur those debts, so you’re not going to pay them.” I had to draw a line somewhere.

  “Calm down. Listen, I have a lot of money. Um, I had a trust fund after I left Benjamin, and I invested in tech stocks and sold them before the bubble burst. The fund increased four-fold because of this. I want to do this for you, for us. We don’t need that stuff hanging over our heads as we start our lives together.” He was talking fast. I could tell he was nervous.

  I felt defeated. He did make sense. If we were going to, gulp, get married, I would have my name on the house and having the student loans lurking in the background, accruing interest at the rate of 8%, would not help anybody out. Neither would it be beneficial for the IRS to attach a lien. It was better just to pay the fuckers off, instead of lett
ing them get astronomical, to the point that the house would be in jeopardy because of them.

  Still, it was a blow to my pride. I wished that I could take care of my responsibilities on my own, instead of having the white knight come in and do it for me.

  Finally, I just smiled. “Thank you,” I whispered. What more could I say?

  He smiled back. “You’re welcome. Truly. It was my pleasure to do this for you.”

  “Now, slow down. Tell me about the trust fund.”

  “Okay. Well, as you know, I left the house when I was fourteen.”

  “Yes, yes. Go on.”

  “Benjamin, I guess he felt guilty about what he’d done. He made sure that I was taken care of when I went to live with Nick. So, I was made the beneficiary of a $30 million trust fund.”

  He took a deep breath. “Anyhow, it was the mid 1990s. Tech stocks were just about to take off, but they hadn’t yet. Somehow, Nick’s father knew that these stocks were going to be hot, so he recommended that I invest as much as I could in them. So, I did. I invested about $20 million in some high risk tech stocks. And, I got lucky.”

  “Lucky, how?” I was genuinely interested in this.

  “Well, I got out right when the bubble was about to burst. At the very height of the market, I sold the stocks. They had quadrupled in price by then, and they were about to be worth a fraction of that. I don’t know, it was dumb luck, I guess.”

  “So, the bottom line is…”

  “Well, my trust fund is now up to around $100 million.”

  I nodded my head. As I told Nat and Nate, I knew that Ryan had a very good job, but not a job that would allow him to buy a private plane and a winery. The Cezanne was given to him by Benjamin, and the de Kooning probably was also a gift, so these were explained.

  “So, you see, I have more money than I know what to do with. Plus, I feel that it’s tainted, blood money. Or at least some of it is. Some of it I consider untainted, because it increased by my own initiative.”

  He gazed at me, and grabbed my hand. “I want to do things for you, Iris. Things that you might not be able to do for yourself, just yet. I know that you’ve struggled financially. I don’t want you to ever feel that I am condescending to you, or patronizing, or that I pity you, or any of that. That couldn’t be further from the truth. But I don’t want you to struggle, either. It’s a tricky thing, helping you out so that you can get out of your hole, yet knowing that you need independence. I’m trying to find that line.”

  I could feel the tears again. He was saying all the right things. I didn’t deserve this. I made my mess, I should straighten it out myself.

  Yet, what he was saying made sense as well.

  I smiled weakly, shamefully handing him my meager gift. “Uh, here. Merry Christmas.” I faked a smile. But I couldn’t look him in the eye, I was so ashamed of what I was giving him.

  He opened the carefully wrapped gift. “Great wrapping job, by the way,” he said, smiling. He looked at the grind and brew. He genuinely looked thrilled about it. “This is such a thoughtful gift! Usually I have to grind my coffee beans at the store, and it doesn’t taste as good that way. Now, I can grind them while I brew them.” He kissed me, long, slow and deep. Looking into my eyes he said “Thank you for this. I’ll get a lot of use from this.”

  I couldn’t tell if he was genuinely thrilled, or just trying to make me feel better about the paucity of my gift to him, compared to his gifts to me. I hoped the former, feared the latter.

  “I, uh, bought this at Williams Sonoma. It was one of the higher end models.” I felt that I had to make it known that the grind and brew did not come from Wal-Mart.

  “I’ve been eying this very model at Williams Sonoma for months. It’s really a perfect gift.”

  I had a little something else. “Here,” I said, presenting him with a pound of his favorite coffee, which was dark chocolate flavored.

  “I love this coffee. You've really paid attention.” He kissed me again. “I love you Iris. And I love your gifts.”

  I felt a little relieved, but I still felt that I was having an out of body experience. I was now the proud owner of a brand new Volvo, half of a multi-million dollar house, gorgeous diamond and platinum jewelry, and, most importantly, portraits of myself. Actually, come to think of it, I owned 100% of the house, as did Ryan, because we were joint tenants with the right of survivorship. That means that the house was not severable, and each of us owned the house equally, and each of us owned 100% of the house. It was a popular legal fiction, but it worked.

  All at once, I had a lot of property, and no debt. All at once, I was wealthy myself. To say that it felt weird is an understatement.

  And the day was only beginning.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  We drove in silence to the state mental institution, on our way to see Maggie. I was nervous, not really knowing what to expect. Ryan held my hand tightly.

  “Uh, Iris, I just want you to be prepared. This place is not going to be like the place in Beverly Hills.”

  “Of course. It’s a state hospital. I don’t think that the state can afford to run a place like that place.”

  “Right. Anyhow, it’s not quite a snake pit, but it isn’t a resort, either. It’s somewhere in between.”

  I kinda knew. I had a client once who had a breakdown. Nice guy, but his ex-wife drove him so out of his mind that he threatened to kill her. He ended up in a 48-hour lockup in a place that was not so great. It wasn’t like the mental institutions of the past, where peopl

  e howled and screamed, and convulsed through shock treatment. But people did talk to unseen figures, and, occasionally, there were threats.

  Then again, I had been a public defender for a little while, and once had a guy confess to me that he’d killed his drug partner with a phone, explaining that he had to do it, because she was turning him into the FBI.

  I was prepared for anything.

  We arrived at the state institution. We saw the receptionist, who recognized Ryan immediately. Then she looked at me. I hoped that I looked suitably somber in my Chanel jacket and black dress underneath. The actual jacket was purple and green checked, with fringes and large buttons. It was an earlier gift from Ryan, “just because” – just because my wardrobe sucked. I was like a “before” on a What Not To Wear episode. Now I was a definite “after.”

  For his part, Ryan was dressed in a dark blue pinstriped shirt and typical Italian mega-dollar suit with his Ferragamo shoes. As usual, he looked like he walked off the pages of GQ.

  The receptionist smiled. We no doubt were the best dressed people that ever walked these halls. “Hi, Ryan. And you must be Iris.”

  I was somewhat taken aback. Does everybody in Ryan’s life know about me?

  “Yes, I’m Iris.”

  Ryan said “How is she today?”

  “Great, actually. She’s still lucid.”

  “Wonderful. I hope that there isn’t a relapse.”

  “She hasn’t relapsed in awhile. It seems that the drugs she’s on are really working wonders.”

  Ryan nodded. Then he turned to me. “Uh, make sure there are no metals in your pocket or anything. Take off your watch.”

  I took off my earrings and watch, and threw my keys into a container. Then we walked through a metal detector. The detector went off when I walked through, so I took off my shoes. Sometimes shoes have metal in them. This time, the metal detector did not go off.

  Grabbing my belongings, and putting my shoes back on, I joined Ryan in the elevator. We took the elevator up to the 8 floor, and, clutching my hand, Ryan led me to a shared room that had a divider in between. An ancient television was positioned above the two beds. A fortyish woman lay on the bed, her wrists bound with leather straps. I prayed that this wasn’t Maggie, although I was pretty sure that it wasn’t, as this woman looked nothing like the woman in Ryan’s paintings.

  “Hello, Rosey. Where’s mom?” Ryan asked the woman.

  She looked through us, not seeing us
, yet looked right at us. She didn’t speak.

  Ryan frowned. “Rosey must not be having a great day. Let’s go to the TV room and see what’s happening there.”

  We headed down to the TV room. There was a skinny, red-headed guy with wild hair, shouting at nobody in particular. “Leave me alone!” he shouted, his head shaking wildly. “Mother fucker!” he shrieked, punching the air behind him. Another lady came right up to me. “Roxanne, is that you?” she asked, her hand touching my face. She grabbed my hand. “I’m so happy to see you. I knew that you wouldn’t forget my birthday.” She led me to a chair, and, next to the chair, a fifty-ish, heavy-set man sat in another chair, just staring. “Oh, don’t mind Robert,” said the Roxanne woman. “He doesn’t talk. He hasn’t talked in 20 years.” At that, Robert looked at us, mutely. Then, his eyes got large and he said “Boo!” Then doubled over laughing.

  I took a deep breath. I could feel myself shaking just a little bit. Then I noticed that Ryan was no longer by my side. I looked around, and saw him across the room, with a small, dark-haired woman who looked just like a movie star. I could see where he got his green eyes. She looked over at me, and smiled a perfect smile. She gestured for me to come over.

  But the Roxanne lady, whose name I later learned was Peggy, had a firm grip on my hand. “You can’t leave yet, Roxanne. You just got here. It has been so long.”

  I looked over at the dark-haired lady, obviously Maggie, helplessly. She came over. “Peggy, this isn’t Roxanne. Roxanne is no longer with us. Remember?”

  At that, Peggy looked at me, then got a very faraway look. “Oh, right, right. I’m sorry.” Then she turned away and faced the window, while Robert continued to shriek and laugh, and the red-haired man continued to shout “Goddamn, it, I told you to leave me the fuck alone!”

  At that, Maggie took my hand, and led me back over to where she and Ryan sat. I looked at her close up. She was around 55, couldn’t be much older than that. Or at least she didn’t look it. In fact, she looked ten years younger than that. Her hair was dark, with a just a bit of grey. Her face was remarkably smooth, even though she didn’t weigh 110 lbs. I always heard that, when you get older, you have to choose between your ass and your face – either you are thin and wrinkly, or you are plump and get to keep your youthful face. Maggie had a small ass and a smooth face. Genetics were kind to this family. Her teeth were perfect, like Ryan’s, and her eyes were the same color of mesmerizing green. She was really a lovely woman.