A Thread So Thin

by Marie Bostwick

  “And, Liza,” she said, beaming as she pointed to the magazine, “this article? Obviously it wasn’t the whole reason they decided to hire me, but it sure didn’t hurt. The Pinkham is tired of playing second fiddle to the Manhattan museums. The board was dead set on hiring someone with solid academic credentials whose name is well known and respected in the New York art world. Having our piece as the lead article in Manhattan Art Monthly definitely helped tip the scales in my direction.”

  I looked down at the magazine still clutched in my hands. The professor was right. Her article—our article—was the first one listed on the cover. I’d been so excited before that I hadn’t even stopped to notice.

  “This is amazing! Ours is the lead story! I can’t believe it!”

  “Believe it,” she said, still grinning. “And I meant what I said at the exhibition opening. I told you if I got the job, I want you to come with me. Well, I got the job.”

  She opened her palms, as if balancing an invisible tray of treats on her hands and offering it to me, waiting to see which one I would choose.

  “There’s an opening for an assistant curator in the decorative arts division. You wouldn’t be working directly for me, but the curator is an older man. He’s good but he’ll probably retire in a few years. If you play your cards right, you could be curator for that whole department in five or six years. It’s a fabulous opportunity, Liza.”

  “But…why would they want someone like me?” The professor had told me about her potential career move that night at the opening of the senior art show, and said that she’d like to take me with her. At the time, I’d been flattered, but I couldn’t believe she was serious. I still couldn’t. “I don’t have any museum experience. I don’t even have an advanced degree.”

  She inclined her head, conceding the point. “That’s so, but the board of the Pinkham is very forward thinking. They’re looking to build a deep field of talent, to find and cultivate the next generation of important voices in the art world. Who better than a young woman who, even before completing her undergraduate work, has already coauthored an article in a major art journal? You’re an artistic wunderkind, Liza. Didn’t you know?” She laughed.

  “Of course,” she said, narrowing her eyes and pinching her fingers together, “it might have helped a little that I said I wouldn’t come unless I could bring in my own team. Just a little. You’re not the only one who’ll be joining me in Chicago. I’m hoping I can lure Randall Tobin to leave his job here and become my new director of development. As well as a few other people.

  “But you’d be the youngest of my hires, and the only one without an advanced degree. Which reminds me—this offer comes with one condition. You’ve got to begin work toward your master’s degree as soon as possible. But don’t worry, your tuition will be paid for by the museum, and the schedule won’t be arduous, just a couple of classes a semester. You can go at night. So? What do you say? Are you on board?”

  She rubbed her hands together, certain she knew my answer. A person would be crazy to turn down an offer like this. Wouldn’t she?

  “Wow. This is…I’m just…well…I’m overwhelmed. After graduation I figured I’d be joining the rest of the starving artists, running a cash register during the day and painting at night. This is such an incredible surprise. I don’t quite know what to say.”

  The professor’s smile faded.

  “I’m not saying no,” I rushed to assure her. “I just want to think it over a little bit. With the wedding coming up, I feel like I ought to…”

  “Oh! The wedding! Oh, of course,” she said, smiling again, as if everything suddenly made sense.

  “I’d forgotten about the wedding,” she said. “Garrett. That’s his name, isn’t it? I always forget that other people aren’t as untethered as I am. That’s fine. Talk it over with Garrett. He works with computers, doesn’t he? He can do that anywhere, I’m sure. And he’ll love Chicago. You both will. So much going on. Vibrant city. Much cheaper than New York. With both of you working, you’ll be able to buy an apartment right away. There’s a great neighborhood right near the museum where they’re rehabbing a lot of wonderful old buildings. You’d be able to walk to work.”

  She laughed again. “Listen to me! I’m getting ahead of myself. You talk it over with Garrett. Take your time. I know you’ve got a lot on your plate with the wedding coming up. I don’t have to know until June anyway,” she said carelessly. “Possibly even later. You’ll have plenty of time to get married, go on your honeymoon, and then move to Chicago by August. And if you did suddenly lose your mind and turn me down, it wouldn’t take me five minutes to find fifty people who’d love to take your place.”

  Her voice dropped to a lower register and her eyes became serious, cautionary. “This is a once-in-a-lifetime chance, Liza. Once in a lifetime.”

  “I realize that, Professor. And I’m so grateful for the opportunity.”

  “Good.” Her face brightened, confident I’d make the right choice. “By the way, congratulations! I heard your piece took second place in the senior exhibit.”

  “Thanks. I was pretty surprised.”

  “Were you? Why? It was an extraordinary piece. Very original. If I’d been judging, you’d have taken first.” She smiled and changed the subject. “After all these weeks of work, I bet you’re ready for spring break. I know I am. You’re going up to New Bern, aren’t you? For your bridal shower, right?”

  “I’m headed out in the morning, along with my roommates. They’re just staying for the shower, though. They’ve got a flight to Acapulco the next morning.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “You’re not going with them? It’s your last chance for an undergraduate fling.”

  I shrugged. “I’m not really the fling type. How about you, Professor? Are you going out of town during the break?”

  “I’d planned on visiting my sister in Tampa, enjoy a little warm weather, but now I’m going to Chicago instead. Must spend some time getting to know the staff, look for an apartment, that sort of thing.”

  Behind me, I heard a door open and the sound of footsteps. Professor Williams raised her eyes, focusing on a spot past my shoulder.

  “Pardon me, Liza. There’s Randall Tobin. I’ve got to talk to him.”

  She started jogging down the hall after Mr. Tobin, her curls bouncing in time with her steps, the sound of her stacked heels echoing through the corridor.

  “Oh, Randall! Randall, wait a minute!”

  “Professor? Thanks.”

  She looked quickly over her shoulder as she tottered away. “You’re welcome!”

  And then, as if already convinced of my decision, she called out, “Congratulations!”

  It should have been an easy decision. For anyone but me, it probably would be. Going back to New Bern didn’t make it any easier.

  Even though I told her the train would be fine, Abigail insisted on sending a car to take me and my roommates/bridesmaids from New York to New Bern.

  When you hear the words “send a car,” what picture appears in your mind? I’d envisioned a basic black sedan—something subtle and serviceable that’ll get you from point A to point B. What Abigail sent instead was a bright yellow stretch Hummer, the kind of ridiculous vehicle gangs of high school juniors pool their money to rent on prom night and then pack into like sardines in a can, which, to my mind, kind of defeats the point of having a car that big.

  It was huge and hideous and blindingly yellow and when I came out the door with my suitcase in hand on Saturday morning, it was parked right in front of my apartment building.

  “You’ve got to be kidding,” I moaned as the driver climbed out to open the door for us.

  Zoe looked at me with eyebrows raised. “Is this it?”

  “Yeah. Sorry.”

  “But what if somebody I know sees me?”

  “Zoe, it’s eight o’clock in the morning on a Saturday. Everyone you know is still asleep. Just get in, all right?”

  Just to be sure, she loo
ked left and right before handing her suitcase to the driver and climbing into the cavernous vehicle.

  Kerry, who was active in the college chapter of Greenpeace, was horrified. “I can’t ride in that! Do you know how many gallons of gas we’ll use getting from New York to New Bern in that?”

  Janelle giggled. “Oh, come on. It’ll be fun.”

  “Do you have any idea the effect this will have on the environment?” Kerry scolded. “We might as well just mow down the rain forest with a bulldozer.”

  “Well”—Janelle shrugged—“later we’ll load it up with old newspapers and cans and drop by the recycling center. That should even things out. Oh, come on. Just get in.”

  It was a long ride to New Bern, and the girls, unaccustomed to rising so early on a Saturday, fell asleep before we even crossed the bridge out of Manhattan. I wished I could do the same.

  I haven’t been sleeping. And when I do sleep, I keep having all these crazy dreams. There’s one where I go to try on the wedding dress only to find it’s become too big, so big that even when I stand on my tiptoes I can’t get my head to come out through the neck and so I’m shrouded in this cocoon of white fabric. I can hear people calling me, Abigail and Garrett and Professor Williams, saying, “Liza? Liza? Are you in there? Liza? Where have you gone?”

  And then there’s the one where that enormous flock of beautiful birds is flying overhead through a bright blue sky, their bodies casting shadows on my face as I look up. Each of the birds is holding a silver thread in its beak, so thin but strong, strong enough to hold my weight…possibly. I hope so. I can’t be sure. I reach up as high as I can, trying to grab on to one of the silver threads, but the minute I feel the strand, pinch it between my fingertips, I see another thread nearby that looks like it might be stronger, more dependable, or another that looks somehow shinier and more appealing than the one I am holding. And so I let go and reach for one, or two, or ten of the other threads, but now my hands feel suddenly weak, unable to take hold of anything. When I look more closely I see that they’re fading away, from fingertips to wrists, fading like a morning mist.

  Weird, huh? I bet a shrink could make a mint of money off me. But, hey, it’s not all bad. The bird dream inspired my entry for the senior art show, the quilt that not only rescued me from the shame of having to enter my pathetic Chagall knockoff, but it took second place, which isn’t the same as winning but it’s pretty darned good. Especially considering the competition and that I pulled the whole thing together in less than a week. See? There are some advantages to sleeplessness.

  Still, I wish I could just pass out like my roommates, let the sound of rubber on asphalt lull me into a deep and dreamless sleep, but it’s no good. They’re out cold and I’m left alone with two empty hours ahead of me and nothing to do but think—something I’ve been trying to avoid for some time.

  In the last three months, my entire world has turned upside down. Before then, I was sure I knew exactly what my post-college future looked like. I’d graduate, move to New Bern, into Abigail and Franklin’s new house, into the suite of rooms—bedroom, bath, and art studio with the wide windows and great sunlight—that Abigail had built just for me.

  I’d paint in the morning, when the light was good, work afternoons at the quilt shop, and at night or on the weekends, except on my Friday quilt circle nights, I’d go out to dinner, or a movie, or on a hike, or whatever with Garrett until, on some distant day in the far-off shadowy future that I didn’t need to worry about for years to come, Garrett and I would get married. After that I’d open a little art gallery on Commerce Street and, in no particular order, Garrett and I would acquire two children, an Irish setter—or maybe a pug, I hadn’t been able to decide—and a house of our own. That was my plan, such as it was.

  I know, I know. It sounds pretty lame to finish college and then move into your old bedroom, but it seemed crazy not to. Even though Abigail’s “downsized” house was less than half the size of her old Proctor Street mansion, it was still big enough to house a small army. And the truth is, I liked the idea of moving back in with Abigail, back to New Bern, to home and a simple, predictable life, a life that doesn’t require too much in the way of commitment on my part—easy, uncomplicated, untethered, as Professor Williams would say.

  Until January, I had my future all worked out. Then Garrett asked me to marry him and complicated everything.

  If I didn’t love him so much I could hate him for that.

  But I do love him. And I don’t want to lose him, so I convinced myself that it’d be all right, that marrying Garrett doesn’t mean changing my plan, just accelerating it a little. I’ve told myself that after the wedding, everything would be fine and life would go on almost like I’d envisioned it.

  But then Abigail got all revved up about the wedding and started turning it into something that was looking more and more like this stretched-out, bright yellow monstrosity I was riding in—enormous and vulgar and more than a little ridiculous. And then Evelyn made me doubt my decision and myself and our friendship and if I could ever be accepted into Garrett’s family. Then Grandma Virginia showed up unannounced, all wrinkles and warm smiles, and Evelyn right behind her, with her family heirlooms and her selfless apologies that made me feel simultaneously loved and unworthy to be loved.

  I don’t understand how this whole family thing is supposed to work. I’m not sure it can, not for long, anyway.

  My father, who doesn’t really deserve that title, gave me my first lesson in the fragility of family units.

  Lesson number two came from my mother. She didn’t want to die of breast cancer but the bottom line is, she did, and that left me completely alone. Well, except for Abigail. But Abigail seems like the kind of family somebody like me would have, you know? Odd. And difficult. And just as damaged as I am, though in different ways.

  She’s mercurial: compassionate and self-effacing one minute, demanding and proud the next. Even so, I love Abigail. She’s the only piece of my mother that I’ve got left. But the thing about Abigail is that you can’t always count on her, so I never have. Do you see what I mean? I can count on not being able to count on her, and I find that comforting because it fits in with everything I’ve always known.

  But these Dixons? They do family differently—like they mean it. They get in your face with their love, they give and forgive as though they expect love to last, and it scares me. Because it can’t last, can it?

  Do you want to hear something crazy? When Evelyn expressed her doubts about me to Garrett, it hurt—I won’t say it didn’t—but at the same time a tiny part of me was relieved. I thought, “Well, at least she knows. And if Evelyn has figured out what a mess I am, then maybe Garrett will, too, before it’s too late.”

  But it’s already too late. I am in love with Garrett.

  Sooner or later, it’s bound to blow up in my face. Part of me would rather it be sooner than later. Except, of course, for that other part, that tiny atom of my being that wants, against all evidence to the contrary, to believe that love can last—even for me. That’s the part of me that, every day, fights down the compulsion to call up Garrett and tell him that I can’t marry him.

  This job offer from Professor Williams would be the perfect excuse.

  I could sit down with Garrett and tell him that I can’t pass this up, that I’m calling off the wedding because this is the chance of a lifetime and I’ve decided I want to move to Chicago and try to become “the wunderkind of the artistic world.”

  And it wouldn’t be an excuse, not entirely, because I would like that. At least, a part of me would.

  After a lifetime of being nobody very special, nobody that anybody cared so very much about, nobody that anybody else had to pay much attention to, I’d like to be…somebody. Somebody who matters.

  I’d like to love and be loved and have it last forever.

  And I’d like to live alone in Abigail’s upstairs rooms and never need anyone.

  And I’d like to wake up every mornin
g for the rest of my life with Garrett lying beside me.

  And I’d like to have children and be their whole world and have them be mine.

  And I’d like to live life free of the weight of anyone’s expectations.

  And I’d like to run away to Paris and never come back.

  And I’d like to come home to New Bern and never leave again.

  And I’d like to move to Chicago and become the youngest curator in the history of the Pinkham Museum and mount exhibitions that will wow the art world.

  And I’d like to be the youngest artist in history to have her own show at the Pinkham and let some other bright young wunderkind mount my exhibition so I can wow the art world.

  But most of all, I’d like to know for sure what I should do. And to know if any of these dreams could ever really come true for somebody like me—somebody who, at the core of her being, knows she really is nobody and is waiting in fear and trembling for the day when everyone else, including Garrett, realizes it too.

  20

  Liza Burgess

  The driver dropped us at Abigail’s front door.

  Franklin, trailed by Tina, the faithful, aging black Labrador, came out to greet us. Franklin hugged me and shook hands with the girls. Tina sniffed the newcomers’ pant legs and then, tail wagging, walked over and leaned against me, urging me to pet her. I patted her on the side, hard, the way she likes it. She thumped her tail against my legs in appreciation.

  “Hey, Tina’s looking very svelte these days.” Tina was a lovable and well-loved dog, as evidenced by the size of her waistline. Franklin adored her and just couldn’t resist giving her a treat whenever she turned her big brown eyes in his direction. But now she was looking decidedly thinner. “Did you put her on a diet or something?”

  “Abigail did. After my heart attack, Abbie said no more pepperoni pizza for me—or Tina. Instead she’s got me eating salad and Tina eating canned green beans, no salt. Tina just loves them. I’d have never believed it, but she does. The second she sees the can, she practically stands on her back legs and dances a jig.”