“You, too,” he told her. It was automatic, though it came from the pit of his stomach.
“So, I guess we’ll want to think about more work on the painting.” She winked.
“No, I finished it.” He nearly choked on the words.
“Well, just—let me know.” She turned and strolled toward her car, the purse draped over her shoulder.
VIII
That evening at the restaurant he went through the long minutes smiling and nodding, and seeming himself, and was surprised that he could manage it.
When he got back to the apartment he sat staring at the painting—his work. He could not go to sleep, could not concentrate. He watched TV and drank some of the whiskey, and then had coffee, looking at the painting from every angle. He felt no sense of her as being like a drug. She was the drug, the addicting difficulty itself. He could not unthink, unsee, unremember everything that had passed between them. It all played across his mind like a mural in hell.
He stared at the painting, the depiction, and thought about how she was the fullest delineation of his most secret yearning heart. He couldn’t sleep.
At dawn, he called the number. No answer. He took a long walk, down to Otherlands, and sat watching happy people talking and laughing and eating. The day was already too warm. He ordered a black coffee and granola, but finished neither. Twice more he tried to call. Nothing. Back at the apartment, he brought out another primed canvas and started to paint. He had no idea of anything but was simply making strokes with the brush in the array of colors. An exercise in manipulating the shades of light and shapes of color, and very quickly it ended, ran out, like a strand of thought. He put it aside. And got another frame and started something else. There was the hoped-for show to think about.
He spent the day working, sketches, arrangements of lines and light—he had always preferred portraits, and occasionally scenes, busy and bright and full of mottled sun and shade as Renoir’s Luncheon of the Boating Party. But these were simply different gradations of form and tint, abstract and pointless, too. All that day he kept trying to call her, and all that day he got nothing but the steady rattle on the other end.
He called in sick at the restaurant.
On Monday the restaurant was closed, and he spent the whole day painting, eating little, drinking small half shots from the bottle of whiskey. He wasn’t tasting it. It was merely to calm himself, get his hands steady. Now and then he gazed at Alexa in her square of canvas, that exquisite shape, the lush pelagic color of the eyes, the voluptuousness of the mouth, the immaculate lines of the neck and shoulders and breasts, the little blond triangle, the perfect skin.
Tuesday morning the man in the Memphis Redbirds cap came to collect the painting. He held out a check for a thousand dollars.
“It’s supposed to be fifteen hundred,” Shumaker said. “And it’s still not finished.”
“Right. This is for the painting in its unfinished state.”
“I can’t let it go for that.”
“Mr. Lessing thought you might feel that way. I’m authorized to give you another hundred. But I’m leaving here this morning with the painting.” The look in the deep-socketed eyes, under the bill of the cap, was determined and unfriendly, and calmly fierce.
Shumaker stepped back from the door and let him enter. There wasn’t anything else to do. It would be useless to get beat up for it. They walked over together and stood looking at the painting. “Jesus. What do you call it?”
“I don’t have any name for it. Her name.”
“She sure is a looker.”
Shumaker was silent.
“You got something to put it in?”
“Yes.”
When it was safely crated and put away in the backseat of the car, the man tipped the cap and said, “Do you want that other hundred?”
Shumaker took it. “Will you see Mr. Lessing’s wife today?”
The other smiled. “They’re off somewhere overseas again. They left yesterday.”
“Oh.”
He watched the man drive away, then went back into the apartment and drank some more of the whiskey. His heart hurt—a slow, pulsing, heavy stone in the middle of his chest. He couldn’t breathe out fully. There was the rest of the day to do, and he lacked the strength to draw air into his lungs. He thought of dying. Every motion took an effort.
At last, he drove to his parents’ house and went in. No one was home. He was home. He walked from room to room, and for a time he sat in front of the television. He even slept a little. He had an unpleasant dream, not quite at the level of nightmare: some form of string or cord that he had swallowed somehow and could not remove from his mouth, and in the dream he kept pulling on it and watching it pile up at his feet. Awakening from this, he stood and looked around himself and felt vaguely sick. He was moving groggily through the foyer on his way out, when his father arrived from an afternoon meeting. “What brings you here?”
“I don’t know. Just felt like it.”
“Where’s your girl.”
“She’s not a girl, Dad.”
“You know what I meant. Don’t be so damn particular.”
“She’s gone. Sonya’s gone, too. They’re both gone.”
“You all right?”
“I guess.”
The professor watched him for a few moments. “Did you finish the painting?”
“It’s—there’s some things I wanted to do with it. But a guy came and took it away.”
“Well. Good.”
They were silent, neither of them moving.
“Like to’ve seen it.”
“It’s a good painting,” Shumaker said. “Anyway.”
“Maybe old man Lessing’ll want to show it off somewhere.”
There was a pause.
“I’m sure it is good, Son.”
“They’re married now, Dad. They got married overseas.”
“No kidding.”
“The captain of a ship they were on.”
After a brief pause, the professor said, “Jesus Christ.”
They were still standing in the hall when Lena arrived. She had two bags of groceries. “Well,” she said. “You two. Want to lend me a hand here?”
They took the bags from her and went into the kitchen. There was a half-eaten apple on the counter and some slices of mango on the cutting board, where she had been preparing something. “Are you staying?” she said, taking the groceries out of the bag and putting them away—milk, bread, mixed greens, broccoli. The paper bags rattled. The refrigerator door made its little sucking sound when she opened it. Everything was itself. It all made him eerily dizzy. He thought of the concussion.
“You all right?” his father asked again.
The young man nodded absently. “Gotta go to work at the restaurant.”
“You don’t look all right,” Lena said. “Somebody let me in on it, please.”
“Both girls—uh, both women are apparently gone.”
“Well, I know the one is. I saw a piece in the Appeal this morning about Buddy Lessing being in the Loire Valley for the summer with his new wife.”
“I’ve gotta go,” Shumaker said.
“Stay for dinner,” said his mother.
He walked over and kissed her cheek, then patted his father’s shoulder, and made his way out. He drove to the restaurant and spent his work time concentrating on being polite and thorough, doing what was required, being good. He even thought of it that way. It was as if there were something he had to mollify, something in the surrounding air. At the end of the night he drove to the apartment and let himself in. There wasn’t much to eat. He made a peanut-butter sandwich and sat eating it without much pleasure, drinking more of the whiskey. Half a cocktail glass of it this time. He looked at all the paintings he had begun and abandoned. It was difficult to imagine where he might go, or how it would be if he got past this empty feeling. Finally he tried to sleep, and couldn’t. The hours of the night stretched before him like a vast expanse across which he ha
d to pass, inch by inch, nothing changing, the light not coming, the clock hands still as painted ones.
When he noticed the sunlight pouring in through the window in the door, he realized that he must have drifted a little.
And there, in the window of the door, was Sonya.
IX
He nearly ducked away. She just stood there looking at him through the glass. Finally he moved to the door and opened it.
“Hi,” she said.
He stepped out and closed the door behind him, thinking—before he remembered that the painting was no longer there—that he must not let her see it. He could not return her gaze. “How’ve you been?” he asked, and was appalled at the absurdity of the question.
“How do you think I’ve been?”
“Sorry.” This seemed absurd, too.
“You look bad. Is it the—the injury?”
“Didn’t sleep too well. Not the injury—no.”
She appeared to gather herself, took a breath. “Well, I’m here because my mother insists I do it before I go home.”
“You’re—” Suddenly he didn’t want to lose her, and he almost blurted it out. He saw the intricate foliate green of her irises, the clear sparkle of them in the early morning light, and his whole mind seemed to falter. Everything was roiling inside him, and she stood there not seeing it. “Back to LA?”
“You’ve guessed it,” she said, with a fleeting smile.
In the long silence that followed, a bird repeated a two-note song three times: pee-wit, pee-wit, pee-wit. When abruptly she moved toward him, he started to recoil, and there was a pause, a moment of shared embarrassment, of being unpleasantly reminded of the reason for such a reaction. She kissed his cheek lightly and stood back. “I’m—I’m really sorry for hitting you—for hurting—injuring you. I apologize—there.”
“No need,” he got out, and then wanted to say more. Except that he had no breath.
“But—well, you never should’ve waited to tell me like that.”
“No, I know.” He wanted to tell her again that it had been his father’s insistence. He thought of Memphis in May.
“That hurt me—very badly.”
“God, I’m so sorry. I know.”
“Well, of course that wasn’t the real hurt.”
“I’m sorry for all of it. Everything. I can’t tell you.”
“The real hurt was that you—that we—”
“I understand. I know.” The words were rushed and full of a tone of avoidance now. Hearing himself, he wanted to reach over and take her hand. “I didn’t mean—I—I never—”
Her expression grew dreamy. “I was so happy coming back—so happy.” Her eyes welled up. “Do you remember when I came out of the mist—” She sniffled, wiped her eyes with the backs of her hands. “Well, that’s pointless.”
“And we—we sat in the car and put those stories on the people going by—”
“Yes,” she said. “Oh, I know. Yes.”
“Please,” he began. “I wish none of this—I wish it hadn’t—”
“Oh,” she said. “Well, you know, me too. Anyway, I’m sorry I hit you.” Abruptly she strode toward the car.
“I didn’t mean us,” he called after her.
She stopped and turned. “That’s good to know.”
“I wish things were different.”
She gazed at him for a long, silent few moments. And he had a kind of premonitory rush of knowing that no matter where he would travel or whom he would come to know in his life, or what he would come to do, he would always carry the regret for this. He thought of the painting and wished it destroyed. He had gotten so much of everything wrong.
“Sonya,” he said. “I’m stupid. I was so stupid. I—I can’t figure it out. I don’t know what happened to me.”
She nodded, sighing, as if agreeing to something quite simple concerning them both. “You got hit over the head.”
Crying silently, watching her go, he gathered his breath and called, “Come back? Please?”
Again she stopped and faced him. “Can’t,” she sobbed, her lips trembling, tears streaming down her face. “Just—can’t. It’s all—all gone now. Our marvelous love.” She went to the car, hurrying a little, as if fearing that her strength would not carry her far enough. Getting in, with a little struggle, and without looking back at him, she pulled the door shut and started the engine, which chugged and seemed about to stall, but then caught, and roared. She put both hands on the wheel, a tight grip, and drove out of his life forever.
THE SAME PEOPLE
Near twilight of a day in June. The veranda of a resort hotel on the Inishowen Peninsula overlooking Lough Foyle in County Donegal. Though it’s well past nine o’clock in the evening, plenty of sunlight still bathes the tops of the far, low hills on the other side of the expanse of mostly calm water. From the wide veranda, with its tables set for dinner, you can see breezes blowing across the water’s surface. Two people, a man and a woman in their late seventies, move with a slow, wobbly, careful gait, as if the ground beneath them were shifting, across to a small, square table along the railing. She uses a cane, and he holds one of her arms. She wears a dark blue dress and thick-soled black shoes, and he has a white sport coat on, and tan slacks. The coat seems too loose fitting for him, and the cuffs of the slacks bunch in folds on the tops of his brown loafers. When she’s seated and he has taken his place across from her—moving slowly enough for one to see that he, too, even without a cane, is very shaky on his feet—they look out at the lake, hills, and sky. They seem, for the moment, content.
Near them a young couple sits with a toddler, who sings to himself and runs from one side of the patio to the other. The young couple sip cold beer. The woman calls to the toddler, a boy with bright red hair and fat little stubby doll-like arms and legs. “Come here. Come here. Stay away from the railing.”
The boy becomes noisier, and the elderly couple watch him. He’s not listening to his mother, who keeps telling him not to climb on the railing. He’s in no danger of falling through, but his mother is clearly nervous about it anyway. She gets up and hurries over to him, lifts him, and carries him, his fat legs kicking, back to their table.
“Energetic young fellow,” the old man says to her.
“Yes,” she says. “Sometimes I don’t know what to do.”
“Such pretty red hair,” the old woman tells her.
“My hair used to be that color,” the old man says.
The waiter comes to their table, puts menus down, and asks if they would like something to drink. “Can we see the wine list?” the old man asks.
“Yes, of course. Sorry.”
The waiter walks off. The man reaches into his jacket pocket and brings out a small camera. He holds it up, adjusts the focus, and takes a picture of his wife. He puts it down in his lap and says, “Smile? Please?” His tone is that of a person asking two polite questions for which he expects no answer.
She gives a happy smile, but her eyes show no mirth.
He looks through the lens again, pauses, and snaps the picture. Then he puts the camera back into his coat pocket.
The toddler walks to their table and stands staring.
“Hello,” the old man says to him.
“I’m James,” the child says. “I don’t like it here.”
“But it’s such a pretty place. Why don’t you like it?”
“You have brown shoes.”
“Yes, I do. Very good—you know your colors.”
“I don’t like brown.”
“I don’t either.”
“Then why’re you wearing brown?”
“James,” the boy’s mother says. “Come here. Stop bothering those nice people.”
“You have a stick,” the boy says to the old woman.
“Yes. It’s called a cane.”
“Are you very bad?”
“Well, I don’t know—do you think so?”
“You have a stick.”
The boy’s parents rise from
their table, holding their beers, and move to the railing, the boy’s mother calling to him. “James. Come here.”
He waits for a little while, then reaches over and runs his fingers down the shaft of the cane, as if wanting to challenge the adults with his bravery, and his refusal to listen to his mother.
“James!” his mother says. And with a little yell, he turns and runs to her.
“Never cease to be amazed at the frank gaze of a child,” the old man says to the boy’s mother.
She seems not to know quite how to take the remark. She smiles politely and nods. The little boy runs off in the other direction, and she puts her glass of beer down and follows.
“James,” the boy’s father says without conviction, swallowing his own beer and leaning on the railing.
The old man brings the camera out and takes another picture and then puts it back.
“Would you say I look to be at peace with things?” his wife asks.
“Please,” he says.
“I wish we’d had children,” she says, low.
He doesn’t answer right away. His gaze is direct. He seems to be considering. But then he simply stares off. “The light stays so long in these northern latitudes.”
“I wish it especially now,” she says.
They’re quiet again, watching the gulls sail and dip above the minutely rippling surface of the water below.
The waiter brings the wine list and waits for a moment. The old man takes a while reading over the choices, and so the waiter moves away, over to the young couple, who are finished with their beers. The woman has lifted the little boy and carries him toward the entrance to the dining room. The man settles with the waiter and waves politely at the old couple as he turns to follow his wife and son.
“Americans?” the old man asks the waiter.
“Yes, sir,” the waiter tells him. “From New York, they said.”
“They seem like nice people.”
The waiter makes a sound of polite agreement that isn’t quite a word. He stands there while the old man goes down the list of wines. In the next instant the woman coughs, deep. She fishes a handkerchief out of her purse and holds it tight to her mouth. The waiter sees blood there, and moves off. She wipes her lips, folds the handkerchief tightly, and puts it back in her purse. “Is it all right?” she says to her husband.
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