Staying Cool

by Catherine Todd

  It isn’t Michael. It’s Scott.

  I awoke from my dream with a flicker of physical need I hadn’t felt in some time. My subconscious had obviously been having a very busy night of it. I didn’t need Dr. Freud to interpret, either.

  It was what I wanted, but it scared me, too.

  Despite the previous day’s gastronomic excesses, I was unexpectedly hungry. I threw off the covers and slipped on a silk robe. It was going to be a warm day, and the material felt cool and light against my skin. I went down to the kitchen barefoot and took down the box of oatmeal. I boiled the water and added the cereal and cooked it, stirring away the lumps. Then I put it into a bowl and sat down to eat it.

  I didn’t want it.

  I looked at it. It was the color of fresh cement, and about as tasty. I didn’t like oatmeal. I’d been eating it almost every day, summer and winter, for several years. The ritual had gotten me up and going in the morning. Michael had liked it, so I’d fixed it for the two of us, and after he died, I just kept right on eating it. I stared at it for another minute, and then I dumped the contents of the bowl down the sink.

  As long as I was dealing in symbols, I might as well go all the way. I looked through the recesses of my cupboard and pulled out a bag of dried chiles from a cooking class I’d taken several years before. I extracted a habanero, a chile from the Yucatan and arguably the hottest on earth. I reconstituted it in some hot water in the microwave, and while it was soaking, I made an omelet of two eggs. Then I chopped up part of the habanero and added it to some fresh salsa from the refrigerator and poured the whole thing over the eggs.

  The first bite scorched me all the way down. It brought tears to my eyes.

  It felt good.

  Since it was Sunday, I had all day to work on the problem of the “putative statue,” as Scott had phrased it. I got out every art magazine, catalogue, and file I possessed in search of Ramon’s Puffing Odalisque. I had better hopes of finding it than you might imagine; something about it tugged at my memory, and a reclining nude of outsized proportions with a nicotine habit was definitely not run-of-the-mill. The cigarette alone would eliminate centuries of art history from the search. It seemed very likely that if the statue was a valuable artwork, it would have to turn up sooner or later.

  The search took a lot longer than it might have because I kept getting sidetracked by all the wonderful pictures I had in my files and catalogues. I’d forgotten about some of the things that were in there, and in addition to the entertainment factor, I ended up making notes about possible additions for my collecting clientele. By late afternoon, I had acquired several pages’ worth, and a forest of Post-its were affixed to dozens of glossy pages. I almost forgot what I was looking for, until I came across it in an old Christie’s auction catalogue.

  If you’ve never seen such a catalogue, you’d think it was a softcover coffee-table book. The artworks are beautifully photographed, enticing absentee bidders as well as providing a review for clients physically present. The provenance, date of execution, and estimated selling price are also given. I kept a number of back years of catalogues in my area of specialty, Latin America. It helped track price range and customer preferences, and it gave clients an idea of the market. Besides, some of the works would undoubtedly come on the market again.

  I found a big beautiful bronze of a woman smoking by Fernando Botero in a catalogue from about three years back. The lines weren’t exactly the same as the ones Ramon had described, but the exuberant flesh and brown patina sounded right on target. I liked it; it had a sense of humor. Unfortunately, this sculpture was far too big to have been on anyone’s desk or shelf. It was at least fifty inches long and definitely unliftable. Still, sometimes artists cast small models of works that ultimately became bigger pieces. In the morning, I would make a color copy of the page and send it to Ramon for his input.

  I was elated by my discovery, but I didn’t have anyone to share it with. Andy was still in Big Bear. I left a message on Scott’s voice mail, telling him that I thought I had a possible identification on the statue. I celebrated with a carton of nonfat yogurt, but that wasn’t enough. I felt restless and excited and also worried about what would happen if I could never convince officialdom that Ramon was innocent, so I did something else I hadn’t done in years. I got out my watercolors. Messing around with paints always calmed me and helped me think.

  I laid out the paper and the water and sponges and tubes of paint on the table in front of me. My brushes had been very good once, but I’d neglected to take care of them when I’d stopped painting, and now they were ruined. Still, they would do until I could replace them with something better.

  I kept sketching female figures of ample proportions. It might have been a kind of penance for the Basque food orgy, or maybe it was just the example of the Botero. I did sketch after sketch, but I couldn’t come up with anything I wanted to turn into a painting. I considered giving one to Mark, as a joke. A new twist on refrigerator art, a guaranteed appetite suppressant. I tapped my pencil on the pad, suddenly alert. My brain was trying to tell me something, and it wasn’t just that I secretly craved the return of the Rubenesque ideal.

  Boteros. I knew why I kept thinking about them. I’d seen another one recently, at Bruce and Julia Livingston’s house in Manhattan Beach. A very valuable painting of another bountiful nude.

  Julia had given it to Bruce as a wedding present.

  Art.

  Art is a fertile field for shenanigans, Scott had said. Nobody really knows how much it’s worth, and it travels all over the world.

  I held the pencil poised over the pad and sat thinking. It was late enough in the day so that the Sunday crowds had already left the beach, and I could almost hear the surf pounding against the sand and the breakwater. I drew a woman’s face on the figure. It wasn’t anyone I knew.

  I’d told Scott that Mark had a patient who was worried that the husband she’d met through the service had married her only for her money. He’d deceived her about his own fortune, she said.

  If you concentrated, you could hear the suck of the waves going out. I loved the sound, but you could hear it best in the still part of the night. It was hard to hear it now. I put a shadow around the face, so that it was half in darkness, half in light.

  Anyone with money would protect herself with a prenuptial agreement, Scott had reminded me.

  Swish, sigh. Concentrate. I ran the side of the pencil along the top of the hipline, so that the figure stood out in relief from the page.

  Patrice Nugent had the impression that men had paid to meet her because she was a well-known model. Mira Jensen had been introduced to Jordan by Natasha Ivanova.

  The bell on the buoy clanged. I put down the pencil. I wouldn’t finish a painting of this sketch, not now.

  I had a theory.

  What if people (men, mostly, but let’s be scrupulously fair) whose ambitions were larger than their bankrolls were being set up by Ivanova Associates with the pigeon of their dreams? Let’s say Ms. Pigeon and Mr. X are introduced, and Ms. P assumes that, either owing to the highly touted exclusivity of the service or because they have met at some toffish function hosted by Natasha, Mr. X has all the right upper-crust credentials. Ms. P and Mr. X agree to wed and draw up a reasonable prenuptial agreement. Ms. P feels protected, but Mr. X is safe only as long as his beloved doesn’t discover that he isn’t really as top-drawer as he let on.

  The art could be a way of getting around the prenuptial, and a sort of insurance policy in case (as seems likely under the circumstances) things didn’t work out. Let’s say the couple agrees to start collecting, and the obliging Natasha Ivanova helps them out. She buys the art, and Ms. P (now Mrs. X) pays for it. Maybe Mrs. X even makes a gift of a particularly valuable art work to Mr. X. If Natasha and Mr. X decide to deceive Mrs. X, they can inflate the reported costs by vast sums. Maybe they tell Mrs. X they have purchased art for “investment” and simply pocket the money. Mr. X can salt away a tidy nest egg against the D
readful Day of Discovery, and Natasha gets a cut of the deal. Maybe, in addition, she was laundering money for the Russian Mafia, too. The possibilities were starting to sound like a John le Carré novel.

  Maybe something went wrong with the scheme, and Natasha got killed because of her part in it. The answer was probably in the missing files, but if there had been anything incriminating there, it was undoubtedly gone for good.

  I knew what Scott would say when I told him. No evidence, not even a shred. But he’d told me himself that it was the story that counted, and now at least I had a good one.

  Now all I had to do was prove it.

  Scott called me at 8:30 the next morning. “You found something?” he asked me.

  There was nothing even remotely erotic about the inquiry, but hearing his voice warmed me anyway. “I think so,” I told him. “I also did some thinking about the case. I’ve got some new ideas.” I wanted to sound very confident and serene, not like some fourteen-year-old in a hormonal flap.

  “You work fast.” I hoped I wasn’t imagining the admiring tone.

  “I’m on a tear,” I told him. “Want to hear my theory?”

  He laughed. “Much more than I want to meet my next appointment, who’s scheduled to walk through the door in about thirty seconds.” He hesitated. “I’d like a rain check, though. Could you have dinner with me tonight?”

  “Where?” I asked. So much for playing hard-to-get. There was hardly any point, anyway. I’d already made it clear that I didn’t have a crowded social calendar. What should I do—invent a PTA meeting at the community college?

  “I’ll cook,” he said.

  “You cook?”

  “With a little help from Bristol Farms.” I could hear the smile in his voice. Bristol Farms was a truly magnificent grocer’s, the Fortnum and Mason of the South Bay. “Are we on?”

  “If you promise not to offer me any second helpings,” I told him. “My arteries are still recovering from the Basque attack. Can I bring anything?”

  “Just your notes. This will give us a chance to go over what we’ve got without being interrupted.”

  “Fine,” I told him. He gave me his address and hung up.

  I didn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed that Scott’s invitation had a decidedly businesslike overtone. “Bring your notes” would hardly seem to suggest a state of carnal expectation. The truth is, I felt relieved and disappointed.

  I hadn’t been so stirred by a man since Michael. The chemistry was there, but I wasn’t sure I was ready to do anything about it. My head was warning me to take it slow. Start with the quiet notes, Michael used to say. It was too soon for Beethoven chords. Besides, Cynthia had told me that women were always throwing themselves at Scott, and he might already have someone. I thought he’d opened up to me on our trip to Tehachapi, but maybe he was just being kind. I was so out of practice, I could be reading the signals all wrong.

  Two steps forward, one step back.

  You might think that anyone advancing by millimeters on the dating front and wrestling with relationship angst would not have agreed to meet a man at his house for dinner, but I figured there wasn’t a lot of room for revelry, anyway, if Scott’s elderly father was going to be joining us. Besides, we didn’t have a relationship. Not officially. Not yet.

  I’d just have to wait and see what happened. Cynthia had told me that the key to writing a good story was to let the circumstances dictate the ideas, rather than trying to impose a set of prearranged plans on the circumstances. A smart woman, Cynthia, for all her irritating ways.

  Since I couldn’t do anything about my love life, at least I could get going on my quest. I’d mapped out my strategy the night before. The first order of business was dispatching a picture of the Botero to Ramon. I marked the page so I could make the color copy and send it by overnight delivery from the local mailbox store. I wondered who signed for deliveries at a prison and made a note to remember to waive the signature requirement.

  The phone rang when my hand was literally on the door handle, but I couldn’t justify not answering it, so I went over to the machine to listen.

  It was my mother. I hadn’t been sure she still realized how to dial my number. She sounded agitated, but then she always did.

  “Hello? Hello?” she whispered into the phone.

  I picked up the receiver. “Mom? It’s me, Ellen. I’m here.”

  “Keep quiet,” she hissed. “He’ll hear you.”

  “Who, Mom? What’s wrong? Tell me.”

  “He’s here,” she said, in the same sibilant whisper. “Right now. In the other room.”

  “Who? Who’s there?”

  “Your father,” she said in an irritated tone, as if it were obvious. “I told you, he keeps calling. Now he’s here.” Her voice rose to a wail. “He’s going to steal my baby,” she said.

  “Mom, listen to me. Where’s Lili?”

  “With him. They’re in this together, I told you. I have to go,” she said. “I have to hide.”

  “Mom—”

  She hung up.

  25

  All the way over to her apartment, I was praying that this was just another hallucination, or that she’d somehow fixated on the meter reader or the pizza delivery boy. In the back of my mind, I couldn’t banish the fear that my mother was being threatened by whoever had broken into my apartment as another way to get at me. If anyone harmed her or Lili, I’d never forgive myself. I rolled through three stop signs, watching for police.

  When I arrived, the door to her apartment was standing open. I could hear the TV set going on ultra-high volume in the background. Lili came out to meet me, her eyes wide. It was clear that something had happened.

  “Elena,” she said.

  I started to brush past her into the room. “Lili, did you call the police?”

  I stopped short in the doorway. Someone was standing in the living room.

  “They’re already here,” said my brother.

  “I’m so sorry,” Tommy—Tom—said a while later, when we had sat down outside in the complex’s patio area. “I had no idea she was that far gone.” My mother had been lured away from reality again and was now calmly watching protozoan activity at a normal decibel level on the Environment Channel. “Lili—is that her name?—heard her talking to you and tried to call you back, but you’d already left.” He seemed to be in a state of shock.

  “I’m sorry, too.” I was. He’d finally made an overture and had discovered he’d done it too late. Whatever he’d been expecting, it wasn’t that there wouldn’t be enough left of our mother to hate. Or to forgive.

  “You warned me, and when I called I could tell she was a little confused, but I still didn’t realize—”

  “You called?”

  He looked sheepish. “A couple of times.” He pressed his lips together. “I still don’t know if I can forgive her, Ellen, but it seemed, well, stupid I guess, to keep pretending she doesn’t exist.” He shrugged. “Dorie thought I should come. Probably I shouldn’t have surprised her, but I had to see somebody in Torrance later this morning, so I thought…”

  I understood completely. If he’d waited to call in advance, he never could have brought himself to admit that he wanted to see her. It had had to be a spur-of-the-moment thing.

  “I doubt if it would have made any difference,” I told him truthfully. “Her short-term memory is shot. Besides, all along she’s thought you were my—our—father.”

  “No shit. Is that it? She kept saying I couldn’t ‘steal the baby.’” He looked away.

  “I’m sorry, Tom,” I said again. “You must look like him a little.”

  He turned toward me. “Don’t you know?”

  I shook my head. “She didn’t keep any pictures of him around.” I took a breath. “It wasn’t a happy childhood, Tommy. She couldn’t forgive him, and probably she couldn’t forgive herself, either. She’s always been not there, if you know what I mean, even before her mind went.”

  He looked
at me. “That must have been hard for you,” he said.

  “Well, it wasn’t exactly your All-American family unit. You know, summer camping trips in the RV with Fido in the backseat.” I stopped attempting to joke about it. “She just…closed herself off. I think she’d been hurt so much, that was the only way she could deal with it. I did something similar after Michael died, so I should be more understanding, I guess. After…you left, she just couldn’t function, at least not as a mother. She broke down, so I didn’t. I didn’t have the choice. Somebody had to hold it all together.”

  “Jesus,” he said. “Didn’t you ever have any fun?”

  I had opened my mouth to say “Not much,” when I experienced a flash of memory: my mother, dragging me through the shopping center in search of the perfect prom dress at a price she could afford. We went into store after store, exploiting her connections and her encyclopedic knowledge of the mall’s merchandise. When we finally found one I adored—in pale blue satin, with little ribbon roses at the waist—she fought a fierce battle of wills with the store manager to negotiate a reduction in the price. I was so embarrassed, but she didn’t seem to notice. Afterward, triumphant, eyes shining, she bought me an ice cream cone at Thrifty’s to celebrate. Her good mood lasted all the way home.

  Okay, so it wasn’t exactly a Norman Rockwell moment. It wasn’t all that much fun for me, either, because I had been morbidly sensitive about our relative poverty. But I could see that I’d gotten so caught up in judging her that I wasn’t giving her credit for saying “I care about you” in the only way she could. She’d had to invent her own way to raise the child she had left, and she’d done her best. So maybe she wasn’t Harriet Nelson. That didn’t mean she hadn’t tried.

  “It was okay, I guess,” I told my brother. “I’m not asking for sympathy. The only thing I really regret is that I missed out on what you had.”