“Thanks, Jolene.”
Marshall resumed eating. “Well, you’re probably getting tired of East Acton. I don’t blame you. Young people are used to a lot more excitement. I’m sure Jolene and I aren’t much fun for you.”
“That’s not true. I’m very happy here, actually.”
“Good.” He reached over and patted her arm paternalistically.
For a while, the only sounds in the dining room were those of forks and knives, scraping china, water being poured into glasses, and the occasional smacking of Marshall’s lips.
Hannah broke the silence. “I almost came by to see you for a reason. I dropped by the Partners in Parenthood office.”
“Whatever for?” asked Jolene.
“I haven’t seen Mrs. Greene since I started showing. But when I got there—”
Marshall finished the sentence. “The office was closed.”
His response caught Hannah by surprise. “You know?”
“Yes. She’s not using that office any more. She’s working out of her home now. Isn’t that right, Jolene? Mrs. Greene is working out of her home these days.”
“Now that you mention it, I remember her saying something to that effect.”
“I think she decided the overhead was too much,” Marshall continued. “She’s absolutely right, of course. Rents in Boston are astronomical. It is a waste of good money. So many of those services work out of homes. So it’s probably a wise decision for her. I thought I told you.”
“Maybe. I guess I forgot.”
“Well, that’s the story. The rent was ridiculous.”
“Like the cost of everything else,” concurred Jolene. “I hardly dare tell you the price of this lamb! Did you want to see Mrs. Greene about anything specific?”
“What? No, it was just a visit. Since I was there…”
Jolene got up from her chair and started clearing plates. “So how was the shopping? Did you find what you were looking for in Boston?”
Hannah handed her plate to the woman. “No, the day ended up being pretty much for nothing.”
1:22
The next morning when Hannah came down to the kitchen, there was no sign of Jolene or Marshall, other than dirty breakfast dishes in the sink. She was grateful not to have to make small talk. Jolene’s mother-hen routine was getting to be overbearing, and even Marshall, commonsensical Marshall, had irritated her last night with his reasonableness.
She barely had time to wonder where they were, when voices coming from Jolene’s studio supplied the answer.
The mini-van had been backed up to the door of the studio. Marshall and Jolene were loading up the vehicle with paintings for Jolene’s show and there was considerable discussion of how best to accomplish the task.
“Slide the canvases, Marshall, don’t drop them. How often do I have to tell you?”
“Will you calm down? I am sliding them.”
Hannah took that as a cue to retreat to her room. All she needed this morning was to get caught up in the logistics of transporting fine art.
For the next hour, the maneuvers continued unabated, Jolene’s admonitions to “be gentle,” “watch where you’re going” and “mind the door” multiplying by the minute. The woman was more high-strung than ever. Hannah tried to lose herself in a book and had very nearly succeeded when the loudest shriek of all jerked her upright in her chair.
“Marshall! Marshall! Get out here immediately. Oh, my God. Oh, my God!”
Hannah rushed to her bedroom window, fully expecting to see one of Jolene’s paintings face down in the gravel or impaled on a tree branch, not that anyone would be able to tell the difference. What she saw, instead, was the woman herself collapsed on her hands and knees on the lawn, huddled over an object entirely too small to be a canvas. Marshall came quickly to her side.
“Look! Dead! It’s dead!” Sobbing, Jolene sat up and clasped her arms around her husband’s waist, allowing Hannah to make out the source of her distress. In the grass before her lay a dead sparrow.
“Why did it die, Marshall?” the woman moaned. “Why? This is supposed to be a sanctuary.”
“It’s all right, Jolene. Everything dies sooner or later.”
“But not here! Nothing should be dying here.” The continuing shudder of her shoulders indicated that Jolene refused to be consoled. “What does this mean, Marshall?”
“It means nothing,” he insisted. As he lifted his wife off the ground, he glanced up, spotting Hannah in the bedroom window.
“Let’s get you a cup of tea,” he said to his wife, who allowed herself to be led meekly toward the house.
Just before going in the kitchen door, he added, “You’re just nervous about your show. There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s normal. Everything’s perfectly normal.”
Hannah felt the words were being spoken as much for her benefit, as for Jolene’s.
1:23
The Prism Gallery was located on the second floor of a renovated townhouse on Newbury Street, above a trendy bath and toiletries shop. There was no elevator, but a poster on an easel in the entryway pointed to the staircase.
“Visions and Vistas”
New Work by Jolene Whitfield
September 2 – 25
The opening was scheduled for 5 p.m., but when Hannah and Marshall arrived shortly after the hour (Jolene had been at the gallery all afternoon, tending to last minute details), several dozen people were already there, mingling loudly. A bartender served white wine and soft drinks from a table in the corner, while a waiter circulated with a tray of hors d’oeuvres.
Not certain how she was supposed to behave, Hannah hung back at the doorway. She put churches and museums – and by extension, art galleries - in the same category of places where people showed their respect by keeping their voices low and their attitude reverential. But this was more like a fancy cocktail party with people laughing and chatting loudly.
“Don’t be intimidated,” said Marshall, sensing her nervousness. “Everybody here’s a friend and supporter of Jolene’s. The critics come later.”
Hannah ran her eyes quickly over the crowd and spotted Dr. Johanson among the guests. The woman, standing next to him, looked familiar, too, but it wasn’t until the woman turned sideways that Hannah realized it was the receptionist in the doctor’s office, who had traded her white uniform for a black dress, cut rather daringly low in the front. At least she would know a couple of people tonight.
“Let me tell Jolene we’ve arrived,” said Marshall. “Can I get you a soft drink?”
“Not yet, thanks,” Hannah said. “Maybe I’ll look at some of the paintings first.” If she kept to the edges of the room, she thought, maybe she would feel less conspicuous.
More than a dozen large pictures hung from the gallery walls. If anything, they struck Hannah as even more bewildering here than they did in the studio in Acton. In Acton, she could accept them as Jolene’s strange hobby. But here people were studying them closely, nodding knowingly, making appreciative remarks. So obviously they really did stand for something.
Hannah edged closer to a one, which was divided into four unequal sections by a thick brown line that ran from top to bottom and, about a third of the way down, by a second line that ran from left to right. An incision two feet long had been made in the center of the canvas with a dull knife. Jolene had stitched the incision together with packing twine, but the stitches were rudimentary and left the viewer with the impression that the two edges were pulling apart. This, Hannah surmised, had to be one of the “wounds” that Jolene inflicted on her canvases and then took great pains to heal.
A spongy-like material gave texture to the lower areas of the canvas. But what puzzled Hannah most was the streaking. Jolene appeared to have deliberately spilled reddish-brown water along the top of the canvas and then let it trickle down in rivulets.
Hannah tried to remember what Jolene had once told her – a painting meant what you wanted it to mean – but she had no idea of what this one was tryin
g to say. It wasn’t pretty in the least. You wouldn’t want to wake up in the morning and have a painting like this staring you in the face, she thought.
She approached the identifying label to the right, hoping for a clue. “Renewal,” it read. No help there.
She moved on to the next painting, identified as “Cathedral.” A muscular man in a tight black t-shirt and – yes, Hannah was not imagining things – blue-tinted hair, was already examining it with his companion, a thin, myopic man with jug ears, who could have been an accountant. The two men gave her a furtive glance, then moved away, leaving her to contemplate the canvas by herself.
It consisted largely of shards of colored glass, embedded in thick gobs of black paint. Hannah was hard put to see the cathedral in question, unless it was one that had been destroyed by a bomb or a fire. There was definitely a feeling of violence about the work, as if Jolene were taking out all her aggressions on the canvas. Well, Hannah had seen her at work!
“Say ‘hello’ to Yvette.”
The high-pitched voice came from behind her. Hannah turned around to see a small, wrinkled woman in a purple turban. A carpetbag was slung over her bony shoulder.
“I beg your pardon?”
The woman shifted the carpetbag, so Hannah could peer into it. Peeking out through sprays of white and black hair was a tiny Shih Tzuh.
“Normally, she growls at strangers. But she absolutely insists on meeting you.”
Hannah reached over and tentatively petted the dog, which responded by licking her hand.
“You see? You see?” trilled the woman ecstatically. “Yvette recognized you immediately as a very special person. Didn’t you, pumpkins?”
“She’s very friendly.”
“Oh, not always. When I first got her, she barely spoke to me. Took months for her to come out of her shell. And until his dying day, she never acknowledged my late husband, God rest his soul. Would you like to hold her?”
“That’s all right. I don’t want to bother her.”
She looked over the woman’s shoulder, wishing Marshall would come back. The gallery had filled up and the decibel level had risen accordingly. Hannah glimpsed Jolene at the center of an admiring throng and waved at her, but before Jolene could wave back, several new admirers besieged her. Her paintings were clearly a runaway success.
“You wouldn’t be bothering Yvette at all,” the woman with the turban insisted. “On the contrary. If you could hold her for a minute, we would both consider it quite an honor.”
Just as she began to scoop the dog out of the carpet bag, an elegantly groomed woman with pearl earrings swooped in front of her and clasped Hannah by the hands. “I was hoping you’d be here tonight!” Then turning to the woman with the dog, Letitia Greene said, “You don’t mind if I interrupt, do you?”
“Well, I was just about to let——”
“It’s just that Hannah and I haven’t seen one another in ages! And I’ve got so much to tell! Let’s see if we can’t find a quiet place to talk, Hannah.”
The dog went back into the carpetbag.
“It was very nice meeting you and Evelyn…I mean, Yvette,” Hannah said over her shoulder, as Letitia dragged her toward the back of the gallery and a smaller exhibition room, where the crowds, for the moment, were less dense.
People moved aside to let them pass, smiling as they did. That was one advantage to being pregnant, at least, Hannah thought. You never had to push. A path just sort of opened up automatically for you.
“Thanks, for rescuing me, Letitia.”
“I owe you one,” Letitia replied. “When Jolene told me you went all the way to Boston to see me, I felt so guilty. It just reminded me how much I’ve missed you. I’ve been impossibly busy. Oh, I know, I know. That’s no excuse. I’m not pretending it is. One must make time for those one loves.”
Still clasping Hannah’s hand, she took a step backwards and looked her up and down appraisingly. “Heavens to Betsy, what do we have here? Only the prettiest pregnant woman ever! You’re absolutely radiant, Hannah!”
“Thanks. Once the nausea passes——”
Letitia Greene held up a hand. “Say no more! Nothing worse! Some of my clients swear they’ll never touch food again. But you’re eating, I hope?”
“Lots.”
“Me, too. Unfortunately, I don’t have your excuse.” Letitia Greene rolled her eyes in mock exasperation and laughed. “Isn’t this exciting, by the way! Jolene’s work is stunning.”
“It’s…different, that’s for sure.”
“They’re going to make such splendid parents. Imagine! A business executive for a father, an artist for a mother. And a stay-at-home mother, too! That’s always best for the child, a full time mother on the premises. That’s why I closed the office on Revere Street by the way. I mean, there really was no reason I couldn’t do the work out of our home.”
She shrugged, as if the conclusion were self-evident. “That fancy office was just an extravagance. ‘You’re not a business woman,’ my husband said. ‘You’re just helping people.’ And he was 100 percent right. Clients don’t mind coming to the house at all. In fact, my house is the last thing they’re thinking about. It’s the service they come for. They want a family. I could be living in a trailer for all it matters to them. Well, live and learn. Speaking of family…”
She opened her purse and flipped through the pictures, until she found the one she was searching for. “You remember my son, Rickey. This is the latest snapshot of him. His eighth birthday.”
“He’s going to be a handsome young man.”
“Growing more like his father every day! The best part is I am there for him, when he gets home from school. If a meeting runs late or I have a last-minute appointment, it doesn’t matter. I’m home already. Oh, I’m all for women working. Some have no choice. But we don’t go through all this rigmarole just to turn our children over to day care, do we? Baby sitters are fine in their place, but there’s no substitute for a round-the-clock mother. Like Jolene will be. Listen to me, going on and on…Tell me, how are you, Hannah?”
“Tired, sometimes. But, uh, basically good.”
“And the Whitfields?”
“They’ve been very attentive.”
“My intuition told me it would be a perfect match. Everyone working toward a common goal. Children are what it’s all about. Was there any reason you wanted to see me, when you came into Boston the other day?”
“Oh, um, nothing important. I just happened to be there. I came by to say hello.”
Letitia Greene heaved a huge sigh, contentment suffused with relief. “Well, hello. Hello to you now! Incidentally, I had an inkling you might be here tonight so I brought you your September check. ‘Special delivery for Miss Hannah Manning.’ You’ll notice the old address is still on it. I haven’t had a chance to get the new ones printed. But I’m sure the bank will honor it just the same. I haven’t gone broke yet!”
She let out another peal of laughter, as Hannah slipped the check into her pocket.
“These paintings! Let me show you my absolute favorite. It’s called ‘Herald.’ Of course, I have no idea what the title means, but the blues in it are divine.”
Taking Hannah’s hand again, Letitia started back into the other room. People stepped back politely, opening a path again, when all of a sudden a woman emerged from the crowd and blocked their way. Hannah recognized her from someplace. Then it clicked. The braids piled on her head! She’d seen her the other day in Boston Common, pushing a baby carriage.
“Look at you! Just look at you!” the woman squealed, her eyes shining. “May I?”
“I’m sorry?” Hannah said.
“You don’t mind, do you? Just for a second.” She extended both of her hands toward Hannah’s stomach, as if she were about to caress it.
“Not now,” Jolene snapped. The woman froze, her hands suspended in mid-air.
What was it tonight? Hannah asked herself. Everybody was treating her as if she were some rare specimen.
This is what Jolene must have meant about the liberties people took with pregnant women. Even total strangers seemed to have a proprietary interest in you.
From the other room came the tinkle of a glass being struck with a knife. Conversation subsided and a voice, announced, “Quiet, please. I would like to propose the toast.” It was Dr. Johanson.
“Come, Hannah. We want to hear this.” Expertly, Letitia maneuvered the two of them through the room, until they stood at Dr. Johanson’s side.
“I think you will agree with me that tonight is very special achievement,” he said, raising his voice so it carried to the back of the gallery. “All this beauty put on display for us to see. Is truly honor and privilege to be here. So I ask that you join with me to thank the person, who has brought it about. As we say in my country, ‘The orchard which is tended with the most care brings forth the sweetest fruits at harvest time.’ Is correct word in English, orchard, yes?”
The man with blue-tinted hair assured him it was.
“Good! Then raise up your glasses, ladies and gentlemen, as I raise mine, to a remarkable visionary and the keeper of the orchard, Jolene Whitfield.”
“Aren’t you glad you’re here?” whispered Letitia Greene into Hannah’s ear. “Moments like these don’t happen often in a lifetime. We must cherish them.”
“When did you close the office, Letitia?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Your office in Boston. When did you close it?”
“I can’t remember off-hand. What’s today?”
“The second.”
“Of course, it is. Fall’s right around the corner. So it had to be, um, a month ago yesterday.”
“A month?”
“Yes. Shhh. Jolene’s about to speak.”
Red with excitement, Jolene stepped in front of the crowd, as applause and cheers erupted like firecrackers. “I can’t begin to tell you how much it means to me that you all here,” she said when the noise had finally died down. Her eyes glistened with emotion. “So many friends. So many supporters! So many very special people to thank.”
The Surrogate, The Sudarium Trilogy - Book one Page 11
