by Lisa Henry
“You have a daughter?” Marianne asked.
A sudden silence seemed to settle over the table, and Elliott caught the glance that passed between John and Paula.
“My adopted daughter.” Colonel Brandon’s tone was brusque. “Eliza. She goes to Hofstra.”
“Another soda water?” Paula asked brightly, nudging the bottle toward Colonel Brandon.
Marianne leaned around Paula to continue the conversation. “If you’re in New York when the exhibit’s on, you’ll have to come and see it. We’d love to have some people there who aren’t just the usual arrogant assholes who go to these things.”
“Hey!” Odette snorted. “Those are my valued clients you’re talking about.”
“Oh, please,” Marianne said. “You call them arrogant assholes.”
“That’s true.” Odette laughed. “I sell art to people who don’t even look at it. They buy it because it’s an investment, not because it speaks to them. And then they go and hang it in their million-dollar house, where they also keep furniture they’re too afraid to sit on and bottles of wine they can never open. These people are so fixated on things appreciating in value that they never let themselves experience them. What’s the point of a vase you’re never going to put flowers in, or a Queen Anne chair you can’t just plant your ass on?”
Elliott thought of Norland Park. He thought of the old piano stool Henry had used as a table. He thought of the chipped china they used at every meal, and of teacups with delicate floral patterns that were used to mix paints. He thought of the old silver coffeepot Abby had used as a watering can for her herb garden. In another branch of the Family those things might have been locked up in glass-fronted cabinets, to be looked at and admired but never touched. Of course Cynthia and Aldous and Great Uncle Montgomery had been horrified, like a visit to Norland Park had been a front-row seat to the Vandals’ sacking of Rome.
“Life is for living, Elliott,” Henry had said. “Every part of it.”
And eggshell china was for mixing paints in.
He felt the familiar ache of his grief, and drew a slow, deep breath as he looked out over the lake.
Miss you, Dad.
***
Odette was staying at the three-star motel on the outskirts of town. There was a cell phone repair shop on one side of the hotel, and a landscaping supplies place on the other. Elliott was willing to bet Odette had never stayed somewhere where the rooms opened directly into the parking lot before.
“You will come, won’t you?” she asked him as they pulled in.
“To New York?” Elliott chewed his bottom lip for a moment. “I mean, yeah, Mom seems to really like the idea.”
“She does. She knows I won’t fuck Henry’s legacy over. But I want you on board with this, Elliott. I want this to be something you do for yourself, not just for Abby or Marianne.”
Elliott glanced at her, and then away.
“Yes, you are that transparent.” Odette snorted. “You always were a good kid, Elliott. Do you remember when I came out to visit you guys years ago and your parents took us to that awful beach for a picnic?”
Elliott laughed. Everything without climate control was awful to Odette. “Yeah.”
“You must have been ten or eleven. And it started to rain, and Henry said, ‘Oh! Did Elliott bring the umbrellas?’ Ten years old and you were the fucking parent.”
“I remember that,” Elliott said, staring out the windshield at the deserted parking lot.
“Meanwhile, Marianne was lying on her stomach in the shallows, splashing around like a crazy thing.” Odette huffed out a quiet laugh. “Because it was already raining and she couldn’t get more wet.”
“She had a point,” Elliott said softly. He turned his head to look at Odette.
“That Brandon woman.” Odette raised her eyebrows. “She has a very obvious and painful crush on your sister.”
Elliott smiled slightly. “Everyone who meets her has a very obvious and painful crush on Marianne.”
“And what about you? Who in the world has a crush on Elliott?”
Elliott hesitated for a moment, shoving down a flash of unnamable emotion at the thought of Ned, and then shrugged. “Nobody I know of.”
Odette raised her eyebrows. “There’s more to that story, isn’t there?” She patted him on the arm. “Never mind. Come to New York, and I’ll find you someone to take your mind off it.”
“I’ll come to New York,” Elliott said, “but not because I need you to find me a boyfriend.”
“Who was talking about a boyfriend? I was talking about getting you laid, Elliott, not married.”
“I’m good, thanks,” Elliott said wryly. “In fact, I’ll only come to New York if you promise not to pimp me out.”
“Sweetheart.” Odette tilted her head to look at him on an angle. “With that pretty face, you’d make us both a fortune.”
Elliott snorted. “Get out of the car, Odette, or I’ll drive you back into town.”
Odette opened the door and stepped outside, laughing. “See you in New York, sweetheart!”
“Yeah,” Elliott said. “See you there.”
She waved at him in the rearview as he drove out of the motel parking lot and turned back toward Barton Lake.
The Blue Leaf Gallery was located on Green Street, SoHo, between Prince and Spring Streets, in a building with a cast-iron exterior typical of the neighborhood. It had been there in one form or another since the 1960s. Odette had taken over in the early nineties, and had resisted moving to Chelsea like a wave of other galleries had. Elliott had first visited as a child, his patience rewarded with a promise of going to the nearest bookstore once Henry and Odette had finished talking business. To amuse himself in the meantime, Elliott had looked at all the paintings and artworks in the gallery and, when that no longer held his attention, had attempted to count the bricks in the whitewashed walls.
He felt a sense of something a little like homecoming as he pushed open the door and was greeted with a burst of warm air that overwhelmed the chill in the air outside. Fall in New York; Elliott had forgotten how stealthily sharp the air could be. He stepped inside, his backpack on his shoulder, with Marianne following.
The gallery was much like Elliott remembered. White walls, spotlights, paintings and sculptures. It was a familiar space, even though all the art was new since Elliott had been here last, and comforting.
“Hello!” A young man, slim-hipped and platinum blond, stepped briskly toward them with a bright smile on his face. He was wearing skinny jeans so dark they looked almost black, boots with Cuban heels, and a dress shirt that clung to the planes of his torso. “Can I help you? Oh! Wait! Are you Elliott and Marianne?”
“Hi.” Elliott extended his hand. “That’s us.”
The young man’s smile vanished abruptly. “Omigosh! You were supposed to send Odette your arrival time so I could arrange a car!”
“It was fine,” Elliott said. “We got the bus to Jackson Heights, and then the subway.”
The young man pressed his hand to his chest. “Odette is going to flay me alive!” He shuddered, but then his smile was back. “I’m Lucien, by the way, Odette’s assistant. I’m so glad to meet you. We just got the last box of your father’s papers in last week, but we didn’t open anything yet. Odette thought it was best to wait for you.”
Elliott exhaled. “Oh, okay.”
Lucien studied him closely. “Or . . . or I could go through them first if it’s something you’re not ready to do?”
Elliott felt a rush of gratitude. He looked to Marianne.
“That’s so sweet,” she said, “but Elliott and I want to do it.”
“Okay,” Lucien said. “Totally understandable. Everything’s upstairs for you to get started on whenever you like.” His eyes widened. “Oh, wow, where are my manners? Obviously first you need to freshen up, and then we’re going to go to lunch. How does that sound?”
“Lunch?” Marianne asked hopefully.
“Odette’s upt
own at a meeting.” Lucien dug into the pocket of his skinny jeans and tugged out a card. “But look who has the company credit card! And, I mean, I could take you to a restaurant, but meanwhile the deli on the next block has the most a-maz-ing sandwiches. Seriously, the best. I mean, I know you’re living in California now, but you still do carbs, right?”
“Oh, we still do carbs,” Marianne assured him. “All the carbs.”
Lucien leaned in toward her, eyes wide, as though he were about to impart a great secret. “We are going to be best friends!”
Marianne laughed, delighted.
“But first let’s get you upstairs.” Lucien crossed over to his desk—an antique piece still very much in use—and opened the drawer, then returned with a set of keys. “Okay, so this one’s for the gallery, and this one’s for the apartment. I’ll show you how to work the alarm later, in case you’re coming and going after hours.”
He led them toward the old service elevator behind the desk and pulled the cage open.
The gallery itself was two floors. Odette also owned a loft apartment on the third floor, which she accessed via the service elevator, and a smaller apartment beside that which she often rented to her artists in residence. Odette had a long history of supporting the artists who supported her.
As the rattling elevator took them upward, Lucien continued to talk. “So there’s a bodega two blocks south of here that’s open pretty much around the clock. We can pick you up some groceries after lunch, or you can just eat out if you want.” He patted his flat abdomen. “I know where all the best food trucks are. Look at what they’ve done to me!”
“You’re completely gorgeous,” Marianne said earnestly.
Lucien laughed, color rising in his cheeks. “I wasn’t fishing, I promise, but you are so sweet!”
The elevator stopped on the third floor, and Lucien opened the cage. “You guys have stayed here before, right?”
“Actually, no,” Elliott said. The elevator opened onto a small foyer with two doors that led off it. Elliott nodded toward the door on the right. “We’ve been to Odette’s place before, but we’ve never stayed.”
“Oh.” Lucien flicked through the keys. “Well, it’s a studio apartment, sorry, which means one of you has the couch.”
“That would be me,” Marianne said.
Oh, thank God. Elliott was tired of sleeping on a couch.
Marianne threw him a knowing look as Lucien opened the door and they followed him inside. The apartment was small, and furnished sparsely but with great care. The furniture and fixtures were sleek and modern, but Elliott liked that the bones of the place were old. Uneven brickwork, an arch that might have been open once but was now a wall, and high ceilings.
Lucien passed the keys to Marianne. “Okay, so I’ll see you downstairs when you’re ready for lunch!”
Elliott poked around the apartment. He set his backpack on the bed and helped Marianne investigate how easy it would be to fold out the couch. Then he checked the mini fridge in the corner, and the small bathroom.
“God,” Marianne said from the main room. “Can you believe we came all this way and Jack’s not even here?”
Elliott opened and closed the small vanity under the sink. He hummed sympathetically. To say that Marianne had been looking forward to seeing Jack again was an understatement, but the timing hadn’t worked out. Jack was out of town, doing something with some law firm. Some internship or something. Marianne had been vague on the details.
“Maybe I could go visit him in Chicago,” she said. “Surprise him one weekend.”
“Maybe.” Elliott stepped outside again. “Do you want the first sh—”
“Yes!” Marianne exclaimed, rushing past him and slamming the bathroom door shut. “Lucien seems nice!” she called from behind the door.
“Uh-huh.” Elliott crossed over to the window and tugged it open. The air outside was cool, and Elliott leaned out the window. A rickety-looking fire escape clung to the side of the building. Cars inched down the street, and pedestrians darted between them. Across the street, in a building that mirrored this one, a woman was sitting on the fire escape with a cigarette in one hand and a phone in the other.
There was something soothing about the rhythm of a city. Something comforting in the vastness of it. The anonymity. Nobody here knew he was a Dashwood. Nobody here cared. In Barton Lake, Elliott could see a shift when people looked at him, like he was something they couldn’t puzzle out: A Dashwood? Waiting tables?
Elliott didn’t care that he was waiting tables. He just didn’t want to have to explain why he was doing it. Not when the story started with him holding Henry’s hand. Not when it started with a broken promise.
“John, promise me that you’ll look after your brother and your sisters.”
Elliott didn’t want to pick that scab open every day.
Anonymity felt good.
He went and sat on the bed and waited for Marianne to finish in the shower. He left the window open so that the sounds of the city drifted inside.
***
Lucien was absolutely right about the deli. The sandwiches were amazing. Elliott had already eaten most of his by the time they walked back to the gallery.
“So, you guys are going to be here for a few weeks at least, right?” Lucien asked, holding the door of the gallery open for them. “Because we have got to go out at least once.”
“Elliott is allergic to fun,” Marianne said with a sly smile, elbowing him in the ribs. “But yes, that’s definitely a thing we have to do.”
“I hate clubbing,” Elliott said.
“Have you ever been clubbing?” Marianne asked him.
“No. But I hate crowds, and loud music, and staying up too late.”
Marianne rolled her eyes. “Lucien, have you met Elliott? He’s a middle-aged man trapped in this twink’s body.”
Lucien laughed, his perfect teeth gleaming. “Oh! No, Elliott, really, you’ll like the place I’ve got in mind. It’s a small place, and they do live music and poetry slams, and it’s full of hipsters and scene kids, plus there’s an awesome taqueria right next door. And I promise to have you home before you turn into a pumpkin.”
“Maybe,” Elliott said warily. “I don’t know if it’s really my sort of thing.”
“Elliott!” Marianne wormed into the space under his arm and hugged him. “Please!”
Marianne’s tone was light and teasing, but her gaze held real concern. She worried about him, Elliott knew. She worried that looking after their dad during his illness, and now the rest of them, had somehow stolen something from him. Some intangible experience of youth that he should feel cheated about, but he didn’t. He loved his family. Whatever sacrifices he’d made . . . They weren’t obligations. They weren’t a weight. Maybe they would have been to Marianne, but not to Elliott.
They ate their lunch at Lucien’s desk while he talked about the place he wanted to take them to, and a few other things in the neighborhood they might want to do. Then he talked about the project.
“So, we got a bunch of boxes of your father’s things last week,” he said with a tiny grimace that might have been an acknowledgment of their grief or, just as likely, an acknowledgment of the hell they must have gone through dealing with the Family. Elliott was half-surprised they hadn’t just tossed everything in the trash. “There are a lot of papers in there, and photographs, and diaries. That sort of thing. What Odette wants you guys to do is go through and find the stuff that will show people where Henry got his inspiration from.”
“Pot, mostly,” Marianne said.
“You joke,” Lucien said, “but I think I saw a roach clip in there somewhere.”
“Honestly, that’s just as likely to be Mom’s.” Marianne finished her sandwich and stretched. “Okay, I’m ready to take a look. Elliott?”
“Sure,” Elliott said, forcing his uncertainty away. “Let’s get started.”
***
The second floor of the gallery was closed to the public. It wa
s a wide, open area with polished floorboards, white brick walls, and empty hooks. A stack of at least eight large boxes dominated the middle of the floor.
“I’m told this is basically everything from your father’s studio that wasn’t related to finances and stuff.” Lucien trailed his fingers along the top of one box. “Odette hasn’t talked much about what happened, but I’m really sorry you never got the chance to do this the proper way.”
“There’s a proper way?” Elliott asked quietly.
Lucien smiled slightly. “I don’t know. Maybe?”
Marianne ripped the tape off the first box—a dry, rasping sound. She opened the box and reached inside. “Oh,” she said, surprised, withdrawing an item. “This is going to be messy.”
She wasn’t talking about the dust.
She turned and showed Elliott what she’d taken out of the box. A framed photograph. Elliott with a gap-toothed smile. Marianne beaming beside him, her pigtails lopsided. Greta, wearing only a diaper, standing between them, her mouth open and most of her spitty fist jammed inside.
“Oh.” A sudden wave of grief and homesickness hit Elliott.
Lucien put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed. “You know what? I’m going to leave you guys to it. But I’ll be right downstairs if you need anything. Kleenex. Chocolate. Hard liquor.”
Elliott smiled despite himself. “Thanks.”
Lucien left them to it, and Elliott and Marianne ripped open the other boxes. There was no order to it. There was no plan. They dug in. Pulled out papers and diaries. Some they flicked through. Others they set aside for later. There were a few more photographs, portfolios of sketches, newspaper clippings that had obviously caught Henry’s eye at one time. There were finger paintings and crayon drawings that they’d made for him. Thumbprint people he’d shown them how to create. Elliott wondered what those would look like next to Henry’s actual works. He wondered if people would frown when they saw them, and ask themselves what they were doing in an exhibit, or if they would think of their own families and smile.
