Painted Moon

by Karin Kallmaker

  Leah felt as though Constance had dashed her with icy water. "Is she alone?"

  Constance frowned. "Jackie's with her."

  "Does she like it, can you tell?"

  "Go see for yourself," Constance said. "Hell, woman, show some spine."

  Leah peeked through the doorway separating Painted Moon from Yes. Jackie's face was animated with eagerness and flushed with a delicate pink as she pointed at the canvases. A woman with salt-and-pepper hair stood next to her and listened. That must he Jellica, Leah thought.

  An art critic descended on them, but after a minute Jellica linked her arm with Jackie's and moved to the last canvas. Leah didn't think her heart could beat any faster. They would be coming in to see Yes any minute.

  "It all comes back to me so vividly," Jackie said. "You would have loved the powder. And the quiet."

  The man standing next to them cleared his throat. "Would you say this is a metaphor for winter?"

  Jackie frowned at him. He was tiresome and his grunge-beatnik attire looked pretentious on someone pushing fifty.

  Her mother said drily, "It can hardly be a metaphor for the obvious subject matter. Jackie, her eyes opened innocently wide, said, “Perhaps it is a metaphor for weather." She felt her mother tremble with a smothered laugh.

  "Ah, yes, I see what you mean," the man said. "I would be most interested to know your reaction to the other series."

  Jackie stared at him blankly.

  "In the next room. It is remarkably different. Almost hard to believe it's the same artist. Looking at this series one would never suspect... well, as I said, I would be interested in your reaction."

  Jackie surreptitiously glanced around for any sign of Leah as she followed her mother into the second room. The canvases here were arranged so they had to be viewed individually.

  Jellica came to a sudden stop in front of the first one. Jackie closed her eyes for a moment, then studied the painting again. As her mother was saying, it was striking. The bend of the knee into the swell of thigh, the curving line of hip. It was sensuous. She puzzled for a moment as to why, then it came to her. It was the angle — until recently Jackie wouldn't have recognized it. The painting captured what you would see if you were looking down a woman's body with your cheek a few inches above her stomach. She had seen Leah from that angle. Her fingers had been teasing Leah. Leah's hips had been moving —

  Her cheeks grew warm with the memory. Her heart thudded against her ribs. Leah had captured a moment of complete intimacy without any explicit body parts and yet the woman in the painting seethed with sex. She was undoubtedly created out of passion.

  Looking at the painting, Jackie understood better why Leah still felt longing for Sharla. Until now she had been a vague figure in Jackie's mind.

  "I can hardly wait to see more," her mother said.

  Her heart slowly breaking, Jackie dreaded the next picture.

  At the third canvas, Jackie gasped, staggering back from it, stunned at the sight of a braid woven into the canvas. Her mother looked at the painting, then at Jackie's hair, then back at the painting.

  Jackie hovered between emotional states, so flabbergasted she didn't know where to land. This luxurious sweep of shoulder and ribs and delicate point of elbow — that couldn't be how Leah saw her! She wasn't — she didn't look like that. So —

  The man who had been dogging their heels said, "You wouldn't be the model, would you?"

  Leah heard the question and groaned to herself. She should have realized! Everyone would take one look at Jackie's braid and know she was the model. Jackie's face was stained with red and Jellica looked — murderous. She wilted into Constance. "I'm getting out of here."

  "You can't," Constance hissed.

  "If I stay there'll be a scene and you don't want that." Without waiting for Connie's answer, Leah slunk from the room. She had thought she would show Jackie how much she loved her. Instead, she'd given Jackie ample reason to hate her.

  Jackie swallowed noisily and decided to ignore the question. She pushed ahead to the last canvas. People were making room for her. They were staring. They all knew it was her. They all knew — or suspected with good reason—that she had had an affair with Leah Beck.

  They all knew she was a lesbian. In a flash she remembered Sharla's gravestone, the word sinner and she felt naked. She studied the last canvas — her braid coming undone, her breast, her shoulder.

  She clenched her fists and her embarrassment exploded into fiery anger. She would find Leah Beck and — and there wouldn't be anything left when she was done.

  Jackie spun on her heel and marched out of the room.

  "Petit cherie" her mother called. Jackie stopped and let her mother catch up to her. "What does it mean?"

  "I don't know," Jackie said. "I can't — I need some time." She was so angry she thought she would burst into tears.

  "I can find my way back to the hotel," her mother said, with a sympathetically angry light in her eye. "Call me tomorrow morning?"

  Jackie nodded. She escaped into the night and walked numbly down to Market Street. That it was eight blocks hardly penetrated. She automatically descended into the Muni station and waited twenty long minutes for her streetcar. The three blocks from her stop to the apartment were a blur and when she finally sat down in her darkened apartment, she couldn't remember climbing the stairs.

  15

  Leah opened the door with trepidation. If she were to do a portrait of Jellica Frakes at that moment, she would simply sketch a glacier. A steel glacier.

  "How did you find me?" Leah realized after she spoke that the question had a furtive ring to it. As though Jellica had a right to be hunting her down.

  "The gallery owner didn't really want to give me your address but I insisted. The cab driver had a map."

  Leah couldn't blame Constance. She had the feeling that few people held out when Jeltica Frakes insisted on something.

  "Having come this far, I'd like to come in," Jellica said.

  Leah stood aside and told Butch to go outside. Butch, after an unusually docile sniff at the visitor, complied.

  Leah had hardly had time to steady her own nerves and come to grips with what she had done to Jackie by exhibiting Yea. She put her hands in the pockets of her blazer and faced Jellica across the living room.

  After a long, steady look, Jellica said, "I thought I would try to talk to you as a peer and a fellow artist. But — well, artistic ethics pales as an issue right now. You have hurt my daughter. She didn't deserve that."

  "I know," Leah mumbled miserably. "I didn't mean to hurt her. It was the last thing I wanted to do."

  Jellica continued as though Leah hadn't spoken. "How dare you play with Jackie like that? Do you enjoy torture? Are you proud of the public humiliation she suffered?"

  Jellica's voice rose and Leah withered under the force of it. She wanted to crawl back to the cabin and rot there. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I wanted to show her how I felt."

  "You showed her. You showed the world. I wish I could say the paintings were terrible, but they're pure genius. If it weren't Jackie I would have been the loudest with praise." Jellica's voice trembled. "You could have at least warned her. Did she mean so little to you? It’s not that I am shocked or troubled by her being sexual. But now the whole world knows how and with whom and she had no preparation. Mon dieu! How can you paint like that and be so insensitive?"

  Leah pressed a hand to her mouth and dropped into the nearest chair. "You didn't get it then? Dear God. She didn't either." Her eyes brimmed over, but she ignored the tears.

  "Speaking purely as her mother, I warn you. Grovel, beg, do whatever it takes to help her recover from you or I will find every way possible to make your life hell."

  Leah believed it. But she felt a spark of resentment. "I've said I was sorry. I'm — stunned about the way things turned out. I meant it to be different, but... some genius. I wanted to convey something very simple and she didn't get it. Neither did you."

  Leah
blinked away the tears and met Jellica's deep hazel gaze with a proud lift to her chin. "I love Jackie. I'm in love with her. I couldn't find the words — I didn't think she'd believe me unless I showed her somehow."

  Jellica stared for a moment, then shook her head slightly. "With love must come respect and trust. Why didn't you respect her enough to show her the series before anyone else saw it, and trust that she would have understood. You can paint what you like, but you have a strange way of showing your love."

  "Yes, I realize that now. Not that that gets me off the hook." Leah let her gaze drop. "I don't understand. She was all I thought about while I was working on them. Every color, brush stroke, every canvas..." A stray thought nagged at her and she groaned. "I'm a fool! I held back one of the canvases because I wanted to keep her anonymous." She laughed bitterly. "That failed completely. Everything failed." She hurried out the back door and into her workshop. She lifted the dust cover from Jackie Saying Yes and studied it.

  Jellica was so right. The other four canvases were just the body. This canvas had Jackie's face, her eyes. This canvas completed the person and the five canvases together completed the message.

  She carried it back to the house. She set the canvas down and turned to Jellica. "I hope when you see this you'll understand—"

  Jackie stood next to her mother and her expression said she did not nor did she want to understand anything.

  "You should have told me. Warned me. Showed them to me." Jackie folded her arms across her chest. "I felt like a fool. I felt like everyone was laughing at me because they knew you were conducting research in bed while I thought there was more to it." She looked acutely embarrassed by her mother's presence.

  Jellica had stepped forward and was gazing at the canvas Leah had leaned against a chair. Leah heard Jellica's breath catch, but Jackie didn't glance up.

  "Jackie, I'm so sorry," Leah said softly. "I just wanted — I'm trying — damn!" She covered her eyes with her hands. "Like a two-year old. I can't talk!"

  Jellica said, "I think I'll find myself a glass of water."

  "I don’t know why I’m finding this so hard."

  Leah cleared her throat. "It wasn't this way with Shark."

  "Do you do that deliberately?"

  "Do what?"

  "Sharla. Talk about her." Jackie's eyes were a snapping black. Leah could sense her fury.

  "I can't help it. She was a big part of my life."

  "I know that." Jackie squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, then opened them again, revealing a glimmer of tears. "Don't you think I know that? She doesn't have to be less. I just wanted a place of my own."

  "You have... a place," Leah said.

  Jackie flicked a glance at the canvas. "Not there."

  "What about here?" Leah put her hand on her heart. "I never meant to hurt you. I should have warned you. I didn't know how to tell you. I didn't think you'd believe that I'd had enough time to fall in love with you. I wanted to show you. I—" Leah ran out of words. She knew she wasn't making sense. Helplessly, she waved a hand at the canvas.

  Jackie didn't look at the painting. She stepped closer and said with the barest hint of a smile, "Do you believe you deserve happiness?"

  "No," Leah said. "I don't deserve it. I don't deserve you." She spread her hands. "I had the love of my life. I still love her. It doesn't go away just because she's not here."

  Jackie's voice was soft. "Can I fit in somewhere?"

  "Everywhere." Leah smiled softly. "She left a lot of empty places. I made some more. And you fill them all up."

  Jackie's lower lip trembled, then her chin lifted.

  "I thought — I thought I could be second best. But I can't."

  "You aren't. You're first. But I have to be honest. She will always be with me."

  "I know. You can talk about her. You don't have to choose between your past and our future. In the here and now I —"

  "I love you."

  "—love you."

  They shared a smile and then wrapped each other in welcoming arms.

  "I've seen enough of the kitchen," a voice said. "Can I assume everything has been resolved satisfactorily?"

  Jackie stepped away from Leah and cleared her throat. "We've come to an understanding."

  "Good. I want to go to the hotel. It's been a very long day and I was supposed to call Eliza the moment I arrived."

  Jackie fished in her pocket and came up with her keys. "The car's all yours."

  Jellica turned to Leah with a wry grin. "How do you do. I've looked forward to meeting you for years. Somehow we skipped right over that part, didn't we?" She laughed and Leah recognized the joy of life Jellica had passed onto Jackie.

  "I have been following your work for years," Leah said as soberly as she could manage. "It's an honor to meet you at last."

  "Would you like to come to dinner tomorrow night? To celebrate your... oh dear. Would this be considered an ... engagement?"

  "Mom..."

  "Yes," Leah said. "We were very bad at going steady, so I think we should just go to the next level and try harder."

  "Good. We can talk about china patterns."

  "Mom!"

  Jellica laughed. "I'm teasing." She held out a hand to Leah, who grasped it firmly. "We can talk about your new career as a lesbian artist. You're going to get pigeonholed, you know."

  "I know," Leah said, and inside, she felt braced for the challenge.

  When Jackie's car had disappeared down the street, they returned to the living room, arms comfortably wrapped around each other's waist. Butch scampered in and settled onto her bed with a contented sigh.

  Leah squeezed Jackie. "Look at the painting now. If you want me to I'll go and get the others and burn them."

  "Don't be silly." Jackie let go of Leah and knelt in front of the canvas. After a minute she stood up again. "It isn't me. I don't look like that."

  "You do."

  "No —I'm not that — I'm not attractive like that. The paintings at the gallery, they weren't me either."

  "That's how I see you." Leah put her arms around Jackie's shoulders.

  "Artistic license."

  "No." Leah shook Jackie gently. "That's how I see you. If you don't believe it, then you don't believe I love you."

  Jackie looked up, her eyes shining.

  "Ladies, you've got to be grim. Really grim."

  "I can't be grim," Jackie said. "I'm a fully licensed architect recognized by the State of California as of today's mail."

  Leah squeezed Jackie's shoulder. She whispered, "What do you think he'd do if I used this pitchfork on him?"

  Jackie snickered.

  "Grim, think horrible thoughts, ladies!"

  Jackie frowned hard. Leah thought it adorable.

  "Hold that!" The photographer excitedly snapped several shots. "Work with me. Frowning's good. You just got audited by the IRS. Oh, that's very good. Okay. Let's do some standard shots in your living room."

  Leah gratefully put the pitchfork aside and helped Jackie unknot her apron. It had seemed a clever idea — the photographer's suggestion — to stand in front of her workshop in the same poses and general appearance as the dour husband and wife of Grant Wood's American Gothic, but standing stock still holding a pitchfork with the light in her eyes had been a trial. The photographer's endless good cheer was also a trial.

  "Come on, cover girl," Jackie said, pulling Leah after her.

  They settled on the couch, with Jackie leaning her head on Leah's shoulder.

  "Tip your head back. Now, ladies, get ready to smile."

  "Something just occurred to me." Jackie glanced up at Leah then looked back at the camera. "Millions of people are going to see us cuddling in this picture. Do you suppose Sharla's parents will see it? Do you think it will change their mind in the slightest?"

  "I want to see big smiles, neon smiles. Ladies? Smile!"

  Leah chuckled. "I'm pretty sure they don't subscribe to Vanity Fair. And they won't change. But maybe someone else will. I tel
l myself that every time a critic dwells on my 'lifestyle' more than my art."

  "Magic smiles! Give it to me! You can do better than that."

  Jackie laughed as though she couldn't help herself. Leah swiftly lowered her head and kissed her, then they both faced the photographer again.

  "That's it! You're beautiful!"