Jack hadn’t looked through her work. He hadn’t been in her studio other than to check the fax machine, and then he had walked in and out without seeing a thing. It was deliberate. He knew that. The why of it, like the why of not calling Jill at least once a day, wasn’t clear.
So he stated the obvious. “We have a shot at having a show if she wakes up. If she doesn’t … ” He waggled his hand.
“How many pieces are done?”
“I’m not sure. I didn’t count.”
“Maybe I should take a look.”
“Nah. There’s no need for you to drive all the way down.” There was the possessiveness again. The man might be benign enough, but Jack didn’t want him in Rachel’s house. “I’ll do the counting tomorrow, when I’m not worried about getting the girls to school. Will you be at the gallery this weekend?”
“Sunday, from twelve to five.”
“I’ll stop in.” He put out his hand. “Thanks for stopping by. We really appreciate it.”
Ben shook his hand. He looked back at Rachel as though wanting to say something, thought twice, and quietly left.
JACK actually dozed off sitting in the chair by Rachel’s bed. One minute he put his head down beside her hand, the next he woke up with a jolt.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.”
He looked groggily at the woman who had arrived. She wasn’t a natural beauty. Her nose was too long, her face too narrow, her silver hair too thin. But she was put together nicely, wearing a silk tunic and slim pants, and there was a gentleness to her. There was also a wonderful smell. It appeared to come from the large, zippered container she held.
She felt familiar, soothing.
He stood. “I’ve met you, haven’t I?”
Her eyes smiled. “I’m Faye Lieberman. I’ve been by before. Rachel and I are in book group together.”
“Ah. Faye of the beautiful blue flowers,” he said. “You’re one of the golfers.”
She blushed. “Well, I’m not very good at it, but my husband wanted to retire here to play, so I figured that if I didn’t learn, I’d be bored silly.” She set the zippered container on the tray table. “This is dinner. There should be leftovers for the weekend. I figured you could use a little something homemade by now. Heating instructions are inside.”
“Bless you,” he said. They could indeed use a little something homemade. He was touched. “That’s very sweet of you.”
“It’s nothing. How’s Rachel?”
“Lying here listening, but not saying a word.”
Faye went to the bed rail and touched Rachel’s arm. “I’m here, Rachel. I brought food for your family. Not exactly chicken soup. Jack, here, needs something more solid. At least, that’s what my Bill always says. Chicken soup is for children and invalids. We know better, though, don’t we?” She glanced at Jack. “Rachel made my chicken soup recipe once a week through much of the winter. Not that it gets very cold here. I kind of miss that, the change of seasons.”
“Where are you from?”
“Originally New England. Then D.C. My husband was with the State Department.” To Rachel, she said, “He signed up for your investment course.”
“Rachel’s investment course?”
Faye smiled and moved a hand to erase the misconception. “Rachel took it and liked it. We figured it would give Bill something to do. We’d like to invest a little money for our grandchildren. Right now, college seems a long way off, but it isn’t getting cheaper. How are the girls?”
The girls! Jack shot a look at his watch. “Waiting to be picked up at school as we speak.” He squeezed Faye’s shoulder and eyed the zippered bag. “They’ll be thrilled. It’s been take-in all week. You’re a good soul to remember us.”
She waved off his praise. “It’s in the genes. This is what Jewish mothers do best. Enjoy.”
THEY did that—all five of them. Samantha had invited Lydia and Shelly to stay overnight in Big Sur, a fact that Jack didn’t learn until the two additional girls were jammed into the BMW, at which point it seemed more of an effort to say no and pry them out.
Maybe Katherine was right. A bigger car would help. Still, it seemed premature.
The insulated bag held chicken in a wine-and-tomato sauce, with carrots and potatoes. To a person, they ate well and with good humor. Samantha and her friends alternately tossed their hair behind one shoulder or another and chatted about everyone and everything that came to mind. Hope, with her own hair in a scrunchy at her nape and Guinevere on her lap, listened to them with something like awe, and Jack wasn’t much different. Samantha and company moved from topic to topic in stream-of-consciousness style and had an opinion on just about everything. Jack was intrigued by the sheer stamina of their mouths.
It wasn’t until the next morning, though, that he understood the deeper implication of the sleepover. “Of course, they’re coming shopping with me,” Samantha said when Jack had the temerity to suggest that he drop the two girls at their homes on the way. “That’s the whole point! I can’t pick out a dress myself, and you’re not a woman. If Mom can’t be here, I want my friends.”
He wanted to say, No way! I have my hands full with my own two kids. I don’t need two extras. Besides, I can’t bring an army to the ICU—not to mention that they can hardly all fit in my car!
He also wanted to say, What is that under your eyes? Since when do you wear eyeliner? Does your mother know about that?
But he didn’t want Samantha growing grumpy again, not when they were beginning to get along. So he bit down both thoughts.
They hit Saks. They hit Benetton. By the time they hit the three other specialty stores, he was regretting his decision. Had it been just Samantha and he, she would have found something at the first store, and they would have been long since done. Hope was getting antsy. He was getting antsy.
“One more stop,” he informed them when they were standing on the street corner, debating which way to go. “The next place is it. So think hard. There was a perfectly good dress back at Saks.”
The girls held a prolonged three-way summit. When they finally agreed to return there, Jack exchanged a smug look with Hope. The smugness disappeared when the dress Samantha carried to the cash register wasn’t the baby blue one he had meant. This one was short, slim, and black.
“Uh, Sam, isn’t that one a little too … much?”
“Too much how?”
“Sophisticated?”
“I’m fifteen.”
“You look about twenty-two in that dress.”
“That’s the point,” she said with a sudden broad smile.
That smile did something to Jack. It gave him a glimpse of the beautiful young woman she was quickly becoming. He felt a jolt inside, a startling burst of pleasure and pride, followed closely by fear. Fifteen was nearing the age of consent. Was he ready for that? No. Could he prevent it? No.
“Would your mother like this dress?” he asked, suspecting that the Rachel who loved color and flow would have her qualms.
“She would love it,” Sam said and, with another of those killer smiles, held out a hand for his credit card.
JACK gave serious thought to getting that new car during the ride from Carmel to Monterey. Lydia and Shelly insisted that they wanted to see Rachel, so five of them piled in again, but the dress was the final straw. For an itty-bitty thing, it caused a huge stir. Samantha wanted it hung. When there was no room for that, she decided that it should lie flat, but there was even less room for that. Jack, who knew something about fabrics, finally informed her that she could ball the thing up and it would bounce right back into shape without a wrinkle, especially once she had it on, it was that tight. That set her off. She finally agreed to drape it over the seat, but she wasn’t happy with him, which meant that all his efforts to please had gone for naught. He would have given his right arm just then for a Cherokee.
Buying a car was something big, though. It was a major expense—and, yes, Rachel would need something new, but even if sh
e was awake when they got to the hospital, she wouldn’t be driving for a while, and then she would want to pick out her own car. He had done it for her once before, and wasn’t making the same mistake twice.
They had been married for seven years. Her red VW was far older than that and had died and been revived more than once. It was still chugging along, but it badly needed a new radiator. Thinking to surprise her, now that he was finally making good money, Jack drove it off one morning under the guise of doing repairs and returned home with a Volvo. She had been heartsick. It was one of the first all-out, top-of-the-lungs arguments they’d had—or one of the last? He couldn’t recall. Arguing wasn’t their style. And she had calmed down. Rachel wasn’t one to beat a dead horse. The VW was gone. The Volvo was theirs. The dignity of her surrender had made him feel worse.
He hadn’t thought about that argument in years, had always chalked it up to a case of principle and pride on Rachel’s part, the feminist in her wanting to make her own decisions. At the time, his star was rising fast. Hers was on hold while she raised the kids. She had a right to be feeling defensive.
Only, she hadn’t said that she wanted to make her own decisions. She had said that she wanted them to make decisions together. She had said that that was what couples did, and didn’t he want her input?
Well, he did. She should have known that. But before long she was starting to make more of her own decisions, all without consulting him. She claimed he was out of town. He suspected it was tit for tat on an ongoing scale.
All of which had nothing to do with the present. He asked her about a new car. She didn’t answer. So the decision was his. And he wasn’t rushing out to buy.
He could lease one, he supposed. But even that was a lengthy commitment. After all, he was only filling in until Rachel woke up.
Better to wait.
JACK lingered with Rachel. He moved her hands around his, lacing their fingers, spooning their fists. He brushed her hair. He studied her face.
The girls knew their way around the hospital well enough to take themselves to the cafeteria for cold drinks, a while later for lunch, a while after that for frozen yogurt. Lydia’s mother came to visit and left with Lydia and Shelly. A refreshingly docile Katherine came and went, as did Charlie with the pink streak in her hair, Jan with the no-nonsense manicure, the mommy’s beeper, and a golfer’s tan, and a nondescript Nellie and Tom.
When others were in the room, Jack backed off. He didn’t know these people. They were part of the life that Rachel had made without him. Oh, they were cordial. They introduced themselves and said kind things about the girls. But the situation was as awkward for them as it was for him. He was the bad guy in a room full of good guys.
Still, he outstayed them all. He helped the weekend nurse bathe Rachel and exercise her limbs. When her lips looked dry, he got Vaseline from the nurses’ station. When her head looked uncomfortably angled, he propped it with pillows.
“When are we leaving, Daddy?” Hope asked every hour or so. Her cat was with Duncan. She wanted to get her.
Jack understood that; still, he put it off. He told himself that since the weekend staff didn’t know Rachel, he could help out, but there was more to it. He felt better when he was with her, felt that his being there was a good thing in a bad time. He felt decent being with her, felt calmer. There wasn’t any static here. There were no choices to make. All that was asked of him was to be, to talk, to assist. It was life at its primal best.
But Samantha was due at another friend’s for a birthday overnight, and Hope, who kept trying to bury herself in a book, was giving him the most beseeching little looks, so he finally trundled them off.
RACHEL’S studio waited.
After dropping Hope at Duncan’s, Jack drove back to the little local market for groceries. He put the leftovers of Faye’s chicken into the oven. He put a load of laundry in the washing machine. He sat out under the redwoods, breathing woodsy air. The midday warmth had ebbed. It was a clear, cool, sweetly fragrant late afternoon.
Hope joined him, and they sat together for a while. He ran his hand along Guinevere’s back, feeling warmth and weakness. He prayed that Hope was right, that the cat wasn’t suffering. He knew Hope was.
Rachel’s studio waited.
Jack put dinner on the table and took his time eating. Between bites, he asked Hope about school, about her friends, about the book she was reading. He told her he was proud of the way she was taking care of Guinevere, and when she burst into tears, he leaned over her chair and wrapped his arms around her. She still smelled of little girl, all warm and sweaty. He knew it wouldn’t be long before she would be wanting short, skinny black dresses, too. For now, though, she was all innocence.
He wanted to say something about the cat, but he couldn’t think of anything to make her feel better. So he just held her. It seemed fine.
When her tears slowed, he said, “Hey. Want to give me a hand?”
“W-with what?” she asked against his arm.
“Mom’s paintings. We have to see what’s what, so we can tell ole Ben what to do about a show. I’ve been putting off going in there.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. I guess because I’ve always liked her work.”
“So why don’t you want to look at it?”
“I do.” He realized that didn’t jibe with what he had said before. “But her work always gets to me.”
“Makes you sad?”
“Not sad.”
“Happy?”
“It makes me … feel.”
Hope looked up at him, her eyes wet but wide. “She was doing sea otters on Monday. They are—so—neat. They’re still on the easel. Want to see?”
She was beautiful from the inside out, his youngest daughter. Sweet, sensitive. Too often dominated by her older sister, but not tonight. Tonight she was the little girl who used to crawl into his lap and make him feel like a million bucks.
He smiled. “If you take me.”
THEY spent an hour in the studio. Then Hope went to her room to read, and Jack spread the contents of his portfolio on the kitchen table to work. He had barely taken a look at what was there when he turned around and went back to the studio.
Rachel had made things easy. Tacked to her board was a list of the paintings that she had planned to include in the show. The pieces she had been working on just prior to the accident stood closest to the easel. Other pieces stood in clearly marked stacks. He had gone through them with Hope as a buffer. She saw subject matter and felt mood, but was most concerned about telling Jack little stories that went with each. He let her talk, pleased to see her focused on something other than the cat.
Now he went through the pieces, studying each one, moving on, then back. Rachel painted wildlife. In addition to the sea otters so graphically depicted, there were gray whales and Arctic wolves, egrets, quail, and loon. There were deer in snow and deer in high grass. There was a meadow of butterflies, and a rattlesnake so well camouflaged that a casual viewer would miss it. There was a coyote, looking Jack in the eye with such a vivid mix of fear and warning that he nearly backed off.
This was why he had put off seeing Rachel’s work. He had always found it strong to the point of being intimidating. Whether she used oils, watercolors, acrylics, or pastels, she caught something so real and direct that he felt it—a look, a mood, a need. There was no mystery to why her following was growing. In a state and age where environmental concerns were rising, she captured the vulnerability of the wild.
Take the rattlesnake. There might well have been a caption below it that said the damned thing wanted nothing more than to fade into the woodwork and that it wouldn’t harm a thing unless it feared harm to itself.
Powerful stuff to create with just the stroke of a brush or palette knife. He could never do anything like that, didn’t have the vision or the skill. She was far more talented than he.
He suspected that that was why he had pursued architecture. True, he had been on that track b
efore meeting Rachel. But they’d had such fun with each other that for a short time he had toyed with the idea of spending a lifetime painting with her. He hadn’t, ostensibly because one of them needed to earn money. Deep down inside, though, he knew that his work would always be inferior to hers.
Still, they had had fun.
He went through her pieces again. Eleven paintings were done and ready to frame. Seven, including the otters, were finished except for the background, which held sketchy forms but no more. Field sketches and photographs were affixed to the back of each piece.
His best guess? She would need a week and a half to finish the seven. And the framing? The moldings were stacked in long strips by the baseboard. She had picked a wide wood frame, so simple and natural that it would enhance rather than compete. Pushing it, she could do the framing in several days.
Two weeks of work for a show two weeks away. It would have been a cinch, if the artist weren’t in a coma.
HE had planned to tell Ben Wolfe exactly that at the gallery Sunday afternoon, but before he could say a word, Ben led him into an adjoining room. Three paintings, framed much as Rachel planned to frame the rest, hung in an alcove. Ceiling spots hit each canvas in such a way that the subject was perfectly lit and riveting. Ben knew his stuff.
“We had four,” he explained, seeming taller and stronger on his own turf. “One of them sold last week. Another of the four isn’t for sale at all. Rachel won’t let it go. Not that I blame her. I’d hold on to it, too, if it were mine. It’s my all-time favorite.” He was looking at the one he meant, but Jack had already picked it out. A layman might not have caught the difference between the three. Not only wasn’t he a layman, but he was personally involved.
The painting that Ben loved, that Rachel refused to sell, was one that she and Jack had done together. The subject was a pair of bobcat pups on a fallen log, the background a meadow surrounded by trees. They had come on the scene during a busman’s weekend hiking through—yes—the same Santa Lucias that Rachel now called home. She had done the pups, he the background.
The pups were more vivid now than he remembered them being. She might have touched them up, but the background was exactly as it had been—all his.
Coast Road Page 14
