With or Without You

by Alison Tyler

  Anthony whistled appreciatively and then began sliding each page into a separate clear plastic envelope and sealing the tops firmly. ‘Trying to protect it from the elements,’ he explained, although I knew what he was doing. ‘I think the pages are made of papyrus. That’s what it feels like, anyway. Must have been doing some trading with the Egyptians. But whatever it is, it’s older than old. Who are you going to give the manuscript to?’

  He continued to house the pages in safe surroundings, but he looked up at me when I didn’t immediately answer. I stared back at him, totally disregarding his question and fixating instead on the colour of his eyes. Even through the thick glasses, they were hypnotising. Anthony has bottle-green eyes, and they seemed to gleam beneath the fluorescent lights. His eyes are a different colour to Nora’s, darker and deeper, like still water in a lake. Nora’s change colour with her moods, turning a light blue, a pale grey, a soft minty green. Anthony’s didn’t look as if they would go any colour but darker. I wondered if I’d have the chance to experiment, to find out how they’d look when he was happy, how they’d look when he was intent and how they’d look when he was lost in the midst of a climax, with me astride him.

  I could practically feel it, the way my body would fit on top of his. He’d look up at me, his glasses off, his eyes so dark they were almost black. He would reach one hand up and trace the outline of my lips, then slide two fingers into my mouth and let me suck on them.

  Oh, Lord. I really was turning into Nora. A sex queen. Would I have a billboard out on Sunset of my own one day, like Nora in her pink fedora?

  ‘I mean, which museum?’ Anthony asked when I remained silent. I willed the dirty thoughts to leave my head. Maybe instead of asking him to be my private translator, I should have just gotten it over with and asked him to fuck me. Would he turn me down? Or would he tell me to lock the door, push me up against the back of it, slide one hand up under my skirt until the fabric rippled at the waist. ‘Will you try to keep them here?’ he asked next, prompting me.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ I said, finally, my voice unbelievably steady in relation to what I was actually thinking about. ‘I want to know what the papers say first.’ I knew this wasn’t rational, knew that I sounded like a child, but I couldn’t help myself. It was true.

  ‘You can’t keep them for yourself,’ Anthony insisted, as if I were insane. ‘They belong in a museum. Or a library. There will probably be a fight for them between Greece and Los Angeles, if I know anything about how the museums work these days.’ He indicated a newspaper clipping posted on his bulletin board. ‘You’re following the fight for the art stolen by Nazis, aren’t you? The descendants want it back. The European museums say that it’s been theirs for so long, they now own it. Does time really create ownership? If someone stole a car, but kept it hidden for twenty years, would the car then be owned by the thief or should it go back to the original purchaser?’

  ‘Then we won’t tell anyone right away,’ I said, my voice dipping into a conspiratorial tone, which wasn’t like me at all. ‘You do what you can with them. I’m going to cruise the Net to see if I can locate any other ancient Greek historians.’

  ‘I may have just turned forty, but I’m not all that ancient,’ Anthony said quickly, ‘except, I suppose, by LA standards.’

  He was smiling at me now. I watched as he pushed a lock of wayward hair away from his glasses and, for an instant, I could see what he must have looked like as a kid. Then, with an impatient gesture, he took off the thick frames, set them on his desk, and ran one hand over the bridge of his nose. With glasses on, Anthony looks like what he is: a studious translator of ancient literature. With the glasses off and face tilted upwards towards me, the seriousness faded away. He looked a bit like Superman, or like Clark Kent, still in the ‘before’ role: before the crises started, before the glasses were tossed in a corner as he prepared to go off and save the world. I suddenly understood why Nora had called Anthony the James Bond of the museum.

  They shouldn’t allow smart people to be so sexy, I thought. It simply isn’t fair.

  Every time I looked into his eyes I forgot what I was about to say. It took me a few seconds to regain my composure, then I said, trying to joke with him, ‘You’re not ancient at all, just terribly knowledgeable.’ I found myself stroking Anthony’s ego without thinking, used to wheedling Byron in this same way, manoeuvring in a slightly underhanded fashion to get what I wanted. It didn’t seem to have much effect on Anthony. At least, not until I added, ‘And if you can translate at least a page for me by dinner time, I’ll take you out to eat. You name the place.’

  That got his attention, and he slid his glasses back on and made a dismissive gesture with his hand, one I had seen him use often with other museum workers who were bothering him.

  The gesture meant that he had already started working and would like to be left in peace. I was quick to oblige. As I closed the door behind me, Anthony called out, ‘I’ll have something for you by five, Eleanor.’ A pause, then, ‘Don’t be late.’

  ThePinkFedora.blogspot.com

  It’s the day. The DAY. THE DAY!

  Or the night, rather.

  Come join the fun as we whittle down the contestants for the new reality show to be filmed entirely at the Pink Fedora. Fifty contestants will be trying their hand Cocktail-style behind the bar, hoping to be one of the lucky twelve who will appear on the Bijoux Network’s soon-to-be-runaway hit: You Can Leave Your Hat On.

  Come judge for yourself as the beaux and belles of the bar mix drinks, tell tall tales, and light the night on fire. (At least, if their pouring any Flaming Mimis. Don’t worry, Fire Chief, we’ve got our extinguishers at the ready.)

  Wear a leopard-print fedora for a free first drink.

  Wear all leopard print (and I mean all, from head to toe, knickers included, and you know I’ll be checking) and you get in on me.

  Blog, baby, blog.

  Kisses,

  Nora

  Quote for the Day: As Grace Slick said, ‘Reporting I’m drunk is like saying there was a Tuesday last week.’

  Chapter Eight

  I couldn’t work. This had nothing to do with my slowly dissipating hangover and everything to do with my wickedly thriving sex drive.

  ‘Shake out of it,’ I told myself. ‘You’ve got papers to read.’

  But my body rebelled. All I wanted to do was kick back in my chair, put my feet up on my desk, and fantasise about Anthony, handsome Anthony, pushing me up against the wall of his office. Anthony telling me what he was going to do to me a second before he actually did it. ‘Unbutton your pants and unzip the fly, I’m going to take them off you, Eleanor. And then I’m going to slide your panties down your legs, and you’re going to step out of them.’ I could practically feel the rich black fabric slipping down my thighs. ‘Oh, God, you’re wet. What a bad girl. Did you get this wet just thinking about us fucking? Or have you been engaging in naughty thoughts all morning when you should have been working?’ Once again, I told myself to stop it. ‘Control yourself, Eleanor,’ I whispered. ‘He’s only translating. This isn’t going to be a date.’

  With a false show of enthusiasm that I didn’t actually feel, I spread out all of the research I’d done so far for the newest ARTSI show, then stacked the resources I still had yet to peruse. I made neat piles, and then reshuffled the pages, making sure that the edges lined up, losing myself in unnecessary tasks rather than forcing myself to focus.

  Usually, I would be excited to see all the work that lay before me. My job electrifies me, even after all these years. The thought of learning something new, of discovering information about the art world, invigorates me – it opens me up.

  Now, I felt nothing. I took a large sip of coffee, and realised that was not entirely true. I felt exhausted. Every part of me felt tired at the thought of skimming through all of those pages. I have never lost my quest for learning about art in the most minute detail. But today, my mind remained consumed by two concepts: what Anthony w
ould discover about the text I’d given him, and what Anthony might be like at dinner.

  I paced around my office until my feet started to hurt, and then I sat back down at my desk and stared into my now-empty coffee cup. Had I imbibed too much caffeine this morning, or not quite enough?

  The pious angel on one of my resource books held an expression that seemed to mock me. I pushed that heavy heavenly tome aside, only to be greeted with another image, this one featuring several angels, all with their halos outlined in shimmering gilded foil. I flipped the book face down, as if that would somehow shield me from their grace. But there was no hiding the fact – my own halo was askew.

  The new ARTSI show focused on angels featured in sculpture, paintings, illuminated manuscripts and Bibles. The installation was called ‘Everywhere, Angel!’ For several weeks, the project had consumed all of my work time and energy. I nudged the top book open and was instantly greeted by a celestial army of angels, all with golden hair, like Gwen’s. I felt myself grow cold. Had Byron taken advantage of my preoccupation with religious iconography in order to spend more time with Gwen? And why did I even care? I didn’t want Byron. I didn’t want to answer his phone calls, return his text messages or spend even one more second thinking about him.

  Refocused, I grabbed one of my folders and flipped it open.

  My assignment on the show was to research early writings about angels – in song, poetry, and text. I would have enjoyed writing about angels in paintings, but one of my fellow co-workers had snagged that choice job.

  On my desk were printouts of the internet research I’d done thus far. I had spent hours reading about the way people have described angels in text throughout the centuries, learning when halos were first introduced and discovering the rationale behind choosing that symbol to equal heavenly purity. I’d been surprised to discover that the halo appeared in both Christian and Buddhist traditions. All my mental images were of Christian paintings. I paged through one of my folders, flipping to the different items that I’d flagged to include in the brochure accompanying the show. The halo first appeared in ancient Greek and Roman art, but was incorporated into Christian art by the fourth century. There are assorted types of halos and each one has a different meaning – kind of like Nora’s fedora code.

  The show was to cross the ages – from ancient to modern. As a nod to the present culture, there would be music playing on the headsets in between a vocal reading of the history. I was thrilled that I’d been allowed to hand-select the music. At first, I’d thought of only playing angel-themed music: ‘Calling All Angels’ by Train; Roxy Music’s ‘Angel Eyes’. But then, in a wave of inspiration, I’d gotten the idea to play devil-themed music instead. Nora liked the concept, once I’d explained it to her. She’d been so supportive that she’d even taught me how to use iTunes.

  Instead of pouring through the books I’d borrowed from our research department’s voluminous library, I wound up spending the entire day listening to different music on iTunes and thinking about Anthony. The fact that I was searching for devil-themed music set the mood for how I felt. I selected the Stones’ ‘Sympathy for the Devil’ and Nick Cave’s ‘Up Jumped the Devil’, INXS’s ‘Devil Inside’, ‘Devil with a Blue Dress On’ by Mitch Ryder, Elvis’ ‘(You’re the) Devil in Disguise’ (which also features angels), and Dave Matthews’ ‘Some Devil’. I also chose the Squirrel Nut Zippers’ ‘Hell’ to end the show.

  Our permissions department would have to contact the correct companies to secure the rights to use the songs during the show, but that wasn’t my concern. At the moment, I was able to lose myself in the music and my thoughts about Anthony.

  We had collaborated on projects several times before. My favourite had been for an installation called ‘FREE!’ The artist, Nina Morgan, had created an entire household using only items that she had found by the side of the road, objects mysteriously left behind by their owners. Some items had been cast-offs or giveaways, with hand-lettered signs stating FREE to let people know that the pieces were available for the taking. Others were things the artist had found in the trash or at the dump. In my opinion, the best part of the installation was the row of shoes beneath the bed in the bedroom. Who hasn’t seen shoes by the side of the road and wondered where the owners were and how the owners had gotten home? Barefoot?

  ‘FREE!’ had been written up in several big newspapers. Most of the critics focused on the fact that at the end of the installation, all of the items were actually free to the audience. Anyone could take the raspberry-red couch, the Kenmore washing machine, the coffee table. The artist had refurbished all of the items in the show, so that they were truly in good-working condition. Some of the pieces were amazing. There was an old-fashioned record player with a stack of vinyl albums by its side and a mirror surrounded by gilded golden lilies. The art on the walls was excellent – Miss Morgan had haunted the alleys behind several studios in town, plucking cast-off canvases, half-finished works that had, for some reason, won displeasure of the artist.

  The attention to minute detail in this installation was impressive. On the bedside table stood a water-filled carafe. On the nightstand was a hairbrush, a paperback novel, a framed photograph and a pair of reading glasses. The dining table was set with mismatched dishes. Half-burned candles stood in ornate holders. Magazines stood neatly in a rack by the sofa – a copy of Playboy magazine actually peeked out from beneath the mattress in the bedroom.

  Anthony had worked on that show with me, translating the text I wrote for the brochure into four different languages. His words, and mine, were recorded and played on headsets that could be worn throughout the show. I’d told Nora about Anthony back then, had talked so much about him that she’d figured out I was nursing a crush. Guilt had made me fearful of being myself around him. I’d played the role of the uptight researcher – something that comes naturally to me – while Nora coached me to relax, coached to no avail.

  Things are never truly what they seem, I realised now. How could I be so fiercely angry at Byron, when I’d had fantasies myself? Because Byron had acted on his and I’d stamped mine down to dust. Are all relationships so precariously built? An ever-changing teeter-totter of power, of reigning in one’s true desires. I’d thought that safety and companionship were the ultimate trade-in for lust and excitement.

  But although Anthony and I had occasionally collaborated, I’d never allowed there to be a time when there’d just been the two of us together, we were always part of a larger group. Plus, being a good girl, I had worked hard not to let my true feelings colour the relationship. I had never let myself do more than fantasise about him, except for one simple kiss beneath the mistletoe at the museum Christmas party the previous December. Or maybe it hadn’t been quite so simple.

  ‘Harmless,’ I’d lied to Nora afterwards. ‘Totally and completely harmless.’

  Nora, who had been my guest at the party, a twelfth-hour fill-in for Byron who had decided at the last minute to attend his own Christmas party at Hawthorne, Fox, and Hawthorne, had seen the kiss and called it for what it was: ‘Unbelievably sexy,’ she’d countered. ‘You should have seen yourself, you should have demanded an out-of-body experience so you could have watched the way he held you, his hand at the small of your back, his eyes open, your eyes closed.’

  ‘Why did he have his eyes open?’ I asked, even though Nora would have no real way of answering the query.

  ‘Because he wanted to look at you.’

  I felt myself grow warm all over at the thought, but I didn’t want to admit that to her. Instead, I turned the discussion around, ‘Who would have guessed someone as cut-throat as you could be such a romantic?’

  But Nora wouldn’t let it go. ‘Are the security cameras on? We could go upstairs and ask them to give you a playback. Then you can see for real what I’m talking about!’

  ‘Don’t you think that might raise some eyebrows?’ I asked, not wanting to admit that the idea held some appeal. ‘The security guard calls my boss and tell
s him that I want to, what – playback a kiss?’

  I couldn’t even finish out the scenario, but I’d enjoyed hearing about the kiss as seen by Nora, because it had happened too fast to dissect. It was like taking a ride on one of the old wooden roller coasters at the Santa Cruz boardwalk. I’d known I had loved it, but couldn’t remember all of the individual details. All the twists and turns, the dips and rises. When I pictured the kiss, trying my best to remember every part, I instantly thought of champagne, the smell of Anthony’s spicy cologne, the jingling noises of the band playing speeded-up jazz versions of Christmas carols. All blurred together.

  I also thought of the way that one of his hands had swept casually down my back, to give me a light little spank on the rear. Hardly a spank, but just enough somehow to let me know that where sex was concerned, Anthony would take the upper hand. My legs had felt weak at the thought.

  I’d wanted to melt into him at that kiss – and now, alone in my office, painfully aware of how many hours I had until five o’clock, I played out the kiss in my mind as Nora had described it. I painted a mental vision with as much detail as possible, recalling the outfit Anthony had worn. At work, he dresses in a style I would consider casual hip, meaning that most of the time he looks something like a college professor during office hours. And on Christmas Eve he hadn’t given into the desire of many men in our department to dust off a rarely worn suit and tie. Instead, Anthony had worn faded khakis, engineer boots and a tan suede jacket over a pale-green shirt. I’d felt the soft suede with my fingertips as I’d leaned forwards for the kiss.