Naturally, given their desire for excellence, I thought of you. I am wondering whether you are completely satisfied in your current employment situation. If so, I wish you every success. If not, I would be delighted to hear from you, perhaps to discuss this opportunity further, perhaps to pursue other alternatives.
Sincerely,
Graham Mulvaney
Graham, it seemed, had done rather well for himself since failing Leslie’s course.
She read the email again, glanced over her shoulder, considered what to do. Did they track email in the department? She wouldn’t put it past Dinkelmann to spy on his staff.
But she hadn’t done anything. There was no law—or even a guideline from the dean—prohibiting the receipt of email.
She read the message again, marked it Unread, and shut down her browser. Didn’t they say that something that sounded too good to be true usually was?
Still, she was tempted.
* * *
Sharan came home Monday night to find a box on her porch.
She eyed it warily, because she hadn’t been expecting any deliveries. She finally figured that it must belong to someone else. She was exhausted, having spent the day sticking raffia on to tennis balls to make them look like coconuts. She felt like there was raffia stuck to most of her and really wanted a shower.
The box was in the way.
It was, in fact, addressed to her, so she scooped it up and dumped it into the foyer before heading to the bathroom.
She’d had that shower and a drink, taken a call from a girlfriend who wanted to try a new bar tonight, and was thinking about what to wear when she remembered the box. She got it from the foyer and brought it to the kitchen table.
It was, she noticed, from an art supply store downtown. She had bought stuff there once, in such enormous quantities that they had known her by name. She was pretty sure that the entire staff had turned over a couple of times since she’d last shopped there.
But that old curiosity about art supplies was hard to ignore. Sharan opened the box, not certain what to expect. What she found was two dozen tubes of oil paint and a fistful of sable hair brushes in all different sizes. She inhaled deeply, because the box had been in the sun and the paint was emitting the odor that had been part of her life for so long. She rummaged through the colors, feeling a ripple of that old excitement at the familiar names. Prussian Blue. Burnt Sienna. Red Vermilion. Chrome Yellow.
Rummaging revealed that there, at the bottom of the box, was an envelope. It was probably the bill. Sharan pulled it out, opened it, removed the single sheet inside and blinked in shock.
Sharan:
This can’t begin to thank you, or to apologize the way I should. But I’m wondering whether the problem was that you painted what you thought should be the truth, instead of what you knew the truth to be.
There’s only one way for you to find out. I’ve become convinced that the only way you can fail creatively is to quit, so don’t quit and neither will I.
With luck, I’ll be home for Christmas and will write to you again then.
Your friend,
Matt
She needed another drink to make her tears stop, another hour to mourn what she’d thought Matt was bringing her, that same hour to consider the gift he had left. She emptied the box then, lining up the tubes of paint on the kitchen table, sorting the brushes by size. It didn’t take her long to measure out a sheet of wax paper, to feel that familiar thrill of squeezing raw color out of the tube.
She had to touch it then, had to pick a nice fat clean sable brush and embellish it with color. She held the brush aloft, cerulean blue gleaming wetly on it, and turned to consider the canvases in the dining room. It suddenly seemed very clear that she had nothing to lose and a great deal to gain.
She lifted out the canvas that had once been Pandora’s Redemption, thought about Pandora and love and loss and hope, then touched that loaded brush to the canvas with new confidence in what she had to say.
* * *
The phone rang Monday evening while Leslie was finishing the dishes. She assumed it was for Annette and scooped it up without thinking or putting down the dish towel. “Hello?”
“I have a collect call for Leslie from Matt in New Orleans,” the operator said. “Will you accept the charges?”
Leslie nearly dropped the phone. She’d been so certain that she wouldn’t hear from Matt again. “Of course.”
“Go ahead, please.”
There was only silence on the phone. Well, a kind of silence. It sounded as if someone had dropped the receiver into the street. She could hear traffic and horns, but no voice.
“Hello?” Leslie said, uncertain what was happening.
“Hi,” Matt said with startling vigor. He sounded as if he was right beside her and desperately in need of…something. “I need to ask you a question.”
“Where are you?”
Matt ignored her query. “Would you do me a favor?”
“Depends what it is.”
“Would you go down to the basement right now?”
“Okay,” Leslie agreed hesitantly.
Matt spoke with urgency, as if this was a limited-time offer. “Go down the basement and go behind the furnace, toward that little window that faces the backyard. Push back the acoustic tile that’s right over that window. Go do that and come back to tell me what you’ve found.”
Leslie didn’t dare to speculate. She took the basement stairs two at a time, ran behind the furnace, pushed back the tile and saw nothing at all. She reached up and felt around, disappointment welling within her until her fingers landed on something square.
She grabbed it and lowered it out of the ceiling, staring at the stack of paper in wonder and awe.
It was a book manuscript.
And she could make a pretty good guess as to whose book manuscript it was.
She clutched it to her chest and raced back up the stairs, her heart thundering as if she’d run a marathon. “It’s your book,” she guessed.
“Yeah. Yeah, it is.” She heard his hesitation now and wondered what to make of it. “Okay, here’s the real favor. Would you read it and tell me what you think? Tell me really what you think?”
Leslie sank into a chair. “Are you sure?”
“No. I mean, yes.” Matt cleared his throat and half-laughed. “No one’s read it, Leslie. I want you to be the first.” He paused. “Because I trust you to tell me the truth, instead of what you think I might want to hear.”
Leslie put the book on the counter and pushed it away, not wanting to damage it with the tears that threatened to fall. She kept her hand on top of it, as if it might squirm and run away. She couldn’t say anything.
Matt spoke, his voice rough with emotion. “We started with honesty, Leslie. We started with you telling me the truth and somehow we got lost. But I want to go there again. I want that truth between us again and I want it to start with you telling me the truth about my book.”
“I’m honored.”
“Well, it might stink so don’t be too honored just yet.”
She smiled a little.
“I want an honest opinion, no matter how tough it is.” She heard him summon laughter into his voice. “So, no saying nice things just to have your way with me, you hear?”
She laughed and rubbed her tears away with one hand. “Rats. So much for that plan.”
Matt laughed a little. “Go at it just like you were marking my term paper in Medieval History 101.”
“Okay, I promise.” Leslie could have sworn that there was a golden glow coming out of the phone. Or maybe it was coming out of her. Maybe she was radiating. She was happy enough to do so.
His novel. He trusted her to be the first to read his creation.
She caressed the stack of pages with wonder. He had written a whole book.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
“I’ll thank you after I know for sure that you’ve kept your promise,” he teased.
“I wi
ll,” she whispered and thought for a moment that he was gone.
“Yes,” he said quietly. “I know. I trust you.”
Before she could respond, before she could decide what to respond, he truly was gone. The dial tone droned as Leslie slowly put the receiver back in the cradle.
But she had a precious part of Matt on the counter right in front of her. This was a gift and she didn’t underestimate its importance to either of them.
She hoped like hell that she liked what he had written, that she could understand his accomplishment. She hoped she didn’t disappoint him. She hoped it was all she believed it could be.
There was only one way to find out.
Leslie pulled up a stool to the counter, removed the elastic bands from the bundle of paper and began to read. By the third page, tears were rolling down her cheeks because she knew there’d be no temptation to gloss the truth.
Because the truth was that the book was very, very good.
* * *
One.
One. The smallest whole number. A number of exclusivity: one-way streets, one-sided arguments, and one-track minds. One soul mate. One destined lover.
One night stands.
United we stand and divided we fall. Arriving—or leaving—one by one. Single file. One after the other, until there isn’t a single seat in the house. One for the money. One for the road.
One is a number of achievement as well, of top place or highest honors. We’re number one. To be an ace is to be the best of the best, the numero uno, the one who takes the premier prize.
Ace-y deuce-y one-eyed Jack.
Except there are two of those in the deck. Maybe being the star is harder than anyone would like you to believe.
Prime importance and prime examples, prime authorities—like Leslie on the matter of charivari—the prime of youth or a woman in her prime. Prime numbers and primates—or prime mates, depending how you look at it. But why is Prime the second of the canonical hours used to keep time in the Middle Ages?
Maybe the number one is more complicated than we’d like to believe.
Monochrome, monotheism, monopoly: lots of ways of saying that there can be only one. But does monogamy necessarily lead to monotony?
Monophysite—there’s one for Leslie—a theologian who argues that Christ had one nature; part human and part divine. Two halves making a whole, as opposed to believing He had to be exclusively divine or not. Wasn’t He both alpha and omega?
To achieve anything single-handedly is a great thing, but everything is easier when you don’t walk alone. And the fact is inescapable: one morphs to two with surprising ease.
One is the beginning, alpha…and maybe it’s omega, too. One is a lonely number, or so they say, though every virgin has been taught that one thing leads to another. First, there was Adam, then Eve was wrought of his rib, then they begat enough mortal descendants to populate the world.
One and two have a mystical relationship; they always have. One whole that is wrought of two halves is more than it has any business being. Its total is greater than the sum of its parts, though no one thinker can tell you why.
This mystery is right in our DNA, it’s wired right into the process of our creation. One egg, one sperm unit into one fertilized egg, which then divides into two, just to keep things interesting. Two come together to make one, which divides into two a zillion times—give or take—and ultimately results in one bouncing baby.
One child. One mortal who grows up, falls in love, cleaves partnership to another, and two halves again make a whole.
Until one sperm and one ovum do their dance again.
If that’s not magic, I don’t know what is.
It certainly is the foundation of much religious thought. Two cosmic principles—yin and yang; feminine and masculine, dark and light, negative and positive—unite into one force that governs the fate of mortals and the shape of destiny. The Kabbalah identifies Shekinah as the indwelling one, the female soul of God, the source of wisdom, creativity, and enlightenment, the one force without whom no man (or God) could be complete. Shekinah comes from Shakti, the Tantric name for the mother goddess also called Anima, Sophia, Psyche, Kali Ma, whose primary purpose was to make her counterpart complete.
Many religions, one universal notion: two must become one for either to be complete.
They must unite.
In the unique dance to which only they two know the steps. We can call it fate, destiny, kismet, the pursuit of one true love, but we know it’s the magical mystical union that makes any one of us more than we would be alone.
More than we could be alone.
One is the spark of the divine.
Let’s give it one last chance.
Once more, with feeling.
One more time.
* * *
The time hung heavy on Matt’s hands. He walked the length and breadth of the French Quarter over and over again. He hit every tourist spot, unseeing, and followed a number of tours without hearing what was said. He ate without tasting the food on his fork, though it was probably spectacular, and went through the markets without savoring the scents.
Someone was reading his book.
And not just anyone: Leslie was reading his book.
Matt was terrified—that it was worthless; that it was incomprehensible; that she wouldn’t understand it; that she wouldn’t like it.
That there would be no common ground from which they could go forward.
That the book would prove that they were too far apart to stay together.
That the book would make his worst nightmare come true.
Because, in hindsight, Matt saw that the one thing he had wanted most in the all the world was the one thing for which he had been afraid to ask. Now Leslie was reading his work and his entire future hung in the balance.
He didn’t sleep.
He didn’t really live.
He just marked time until he could get on his booked flight to Boston on Tuesday, get home and find out the truth.
* * *
Leslie, meanwhile, was up reading most of the night. Beverly came and went; Annette came and went; both spoke to her, but Leslie wasn’t entirely sure what they said.
The girls slept in the kitchen for a long time, but eventually even they gave up on Leslie and abandoned her for better sleeping facilities upstairs. They’d slip into Annette’s room, Leslie knew, because their dog beds were there. She didn’t’ doubt that if she peeked into the room in a couple of hours, they’d both be sprawled on Annette’s bed with her.
Tonight she didn’t care. She was lost in a fictional world of Matt’s making, a tale of two brothers as different as chalk and cheese. It was fiction, and yet it was infused with the truth as only Matt could tell it. His own experience made the brothers real, made them living characters who were both noble and flawed. His ability with words brought the crises to a fever pitch, made Leslie laugh, made her cry.
The brothers seemed to be opposites, two very different men in pursuit of similar objectives, two men raised to compete with each other. Yet in the course of their journey, they found a new understanding and compassion for each other, though it was not achieved easily. They wrung each other out, turned things back on themselves, made each other work for a balance and a camaraderie that Leslie knew would sustain them for the rest of their lives.
At four in the morning, Leslie turned the last page, exhausted by the emotional journey she had endured along with the two brothers in the story. She looked around her kitchen, saw the darkness gathered outside the windows, saw that all other windows facing the backyards were shadowed.
The house was silent, only the sound of breathing and the quiet hum of the furnace filling its walls. The streets were quiet outside, all of the town lost in slumber.
How much of this story was owed to Matt’s competition with James over the past two years? How much nuance and detail of that was owed to their upbringing, as the two Coxwell brothers closest in age? How much was owed to Rob
ert Coxwell and his ambitions, either in fiction or in truth? Leslie couldn’t tell. She couldn’t unfurl what she knew to be truth from what she believed to be fiction.
And that was the power of Matt’s book. It could have been all true. It could have been all fiction. But it was powerful in a way that only a work that blended both fiction and truth could be.
It was honest. That realization made her stop and stroke the manuscript, because such honesty could only have come from the Matt she knew and loved. This book was infused with his perceptiveness and his insights and his view of the world.
That was what made it so potent.
And she wasn’t afraid to tell him that particular truth.
* * *
Tuesday was the kind of day that called for the best armor Leslie had. She had a fuchsia La Perla underwire bra that she had bought on an adventurous day and only had worn once. This was its day. It was understated for La Perla, relying upon exquisite cut instead of ornamentation for its star power. There was no lace, but the edges were finished with two narrow lines of silk satin piping, one cream and one a sapphire blue that made the fuchsia zing. There were three scrumptious little freshwater pearls, one at the center front and one each where the strap met the top of the cup.
It was, Leslie recalled once she had it on, the best fitting and most flattering bra she’d ever owned.
The pink twin set was a given, on this day of challenges, though Leslie’s hand faltered slightly when she stepped up to the mirror to put on the pink lipstick.
She looked like a different person, maybe a more interesting person than she was. No, she finally looked like the interesting person she was, instead of a pale substitute.
Annette was right, though: she needed new shoes.
Leslie descended to the kitchen, drawn by the smell of fresh coffee. The girls came trotting to greet her although there was no sign of Beverly “No snowballs this morning,” she told them. “I have to go to work.” Champagne sighed at that and headed back to the dog bed that now occupied the corner of the kitchen floor. Caviar strolled over to sit at Annette’s feet.
Leslie blinked to find her daughter eating Raisin Bran with sliced bananas on top. Annette noticed her glance and waved her spoon in greeting. “You get used to eating sawdust,” she said with a philosophical shrug. “I like the pink a lot.”
One More Time Page 29
