Lesson In Red

by Maria Hummel

  It had sneaked up on us slowly. I was an eager, naïve college graduate who still wore wrinkly batik and drank chamomile tea from mason jars. Jay was in his forties, bearded and with a head of wavy gray hair that made him handsomer than he had probably been as a younger man. Distinguished. Always in crisp cotton and polished shoes. He had a New York accent that bored into his words, which were witty and emphatic.

  In my first weeks, all I did was show up at Jay’s rented office in Winooski and type up his interview transcripts for the day. I don’t think I struck Jay as anything more than a dutiful rube, but he had no one else to talk to, so gradually we began to bond over our loud next-door office neighbors, a husband-and-wife team who were operating a dying nonprofit and a dying marriage at the same time. Jay was married, too, with one son, and he seemed to get a grim amusement from the couple’s shouting matches. But he never confessed anything personal, and I never pressed him. Instead, our conversations evolved from mutual eyerolls and quips at the couple’s spats into deep probes into the communities he was studying—and I helped him. I know I did. I helped him understand my impoverished rural neighbors and their choices. Jay was from a suburb of New York—to him, the desperation in the country was an abstraction that could be shaped to fit a theory. To me, it was many individuals’ hopes shattered, for different reasons. I challenged him to get to know us better.

  Our dialogues became heated, flirtatious, and though we stayed on opposite sides of the room, seated at our cruddy rented desks, I could feel us connecting in ways I had never connected with anyone, not even the two-year boyfriend I’d just broken up with. I felt larger, expanded and buoyed by Jay’s attention, and when he left the room, I missed who I was when he’d been in it. I began to think about Jay all the time, to joke with him in my head, to wonder what he’d thought of my last remark. He thought of me, too. When I left on a family vacation for a week, I returned to my apartment mailbox stuffed with a copy of his most recent book, just published, a postcard inside. “Maggie: I miss you inordinately,” he wrote. “Please come home soon.” I never said anything about the postcard, and I don’t think he wanted me to, but I told him later that I loved the book. It was true. That summer, even Jay’s sentences had a sensual effect on me—they were so exact, so introspective. Jay was no hack; he was a reporter who could make you feel like you were there.

  Bit by bit, Jay also worked on me to push a source, another young woman, to open up. Nikki was a dealer’s ex-girlfriend, a bashful, acne-pitted blonde with a dancer’s body. I knew her from a restaurant where we both worked. (Jay didn’t pay me enough to live on, so I supplemented with a few dinner shifts.) I had heard Nikki brag about her leather jacket’s expensive price tag, then watched her sell it cheap to another waitress a few months later.

  “Tell her how important she is,” Jay counseled me, pacing our office with long strides. “Has she got a younger sibling?”

  Nikki had two nieces and a nephew.

  “Tell her she’s making their future better. Ask her to remember how Vermont was when she was a kid.”

  In fact, Nikki’s childhood with a single mother had been poor and hard, but that’s how we hooked her eventually. Nikki loved her mother, was intensely loyal to her. And her mother had begun taking pain pills, then selling a few, then taking more.

  I told Jay that I didn’t want to keep pestering Nikki, in case what she said would incriminate her mom.

  “Come on, Maggie. What kind of mother is she on drugs? She’s killing herself,” Jay said impatiently. “This book could get help for people like her. We’re sounding the alarm in a national way. Funding and programs will follow.”

  Under pressure, I finally arranged for Nikki to meet us both, and for Jay to question her. First, he warned her for her safety and flattered her for her courage. I watched him work, also in his thrall: the wise, renowned, handsome author and the country girls. Nikki flushed and bit her nails, but she didn’t leave.

  “They’re going to come after me,” she said when she explained the dimensions of the drug ring and their use of snowmobile trails to ferry the drugs. “But I don’t care. I just want my mom back.”

  When Nikki was found dead, and her mother lost her only daughter, Jay told me we’d be safer if we stayed apart. He then retreated to New York. My tutelage with him abruptly ended in a few strained e-mails. I moved home and started applying for teaching jobs in Asia, feeling dazed and grim, older than my age, and also like a child who had damaged herself playing with dangerous toys. After a couple of months, Jay returned to Vermont to tie up loose ends. He wrote that he knew I was angry and sad about Nikki, but he insisted on seeing me. I don’t like how this ended, he wrote me. Any of it. I agreed to meet for lunch. Jay chose a dim, romantic alley restaurant, and, hating myself a little, I dressed like it was a date.

  He was waiting at the table when I walked in, and his face brightened forcefully at the sight of me but then darkened when he saw my expression. For the first twenty minutes, it was a one-way interview. Familiar ground for Jay Eastman, famous reporter. What was I doing now. How would I like moving to a hot country like Thailand after growing up in freezing Vermont. Was I learning the language. It was a tonal language, hard to pronounce, wasn’t it. Jay had wanted to see me, but now that I was in front of him, his damage was evident. He speared his salad and gulped his drink. He was racing to be done.

  “How’s the book?” I said finally.

  “It’s coming together.” Jay set down his club sandwich and apologized to me again for what happened to our young source. “It wasn’t your fault. Ever,” he said, his usually strident voice humble and broken. “You were working for me, and I’m sorry, okay? I’m so desperately sorry that this occurred.” He also told me the police had subpoenaed him, but they wouldn’t subpoena me because he had erased my tapes with Nikki and shredded all my notes. “I don’t want you victimized by some idiotic law,” he said. “It could put you in danger, not to mention ruin your career.”

  Jay looked middle-aged to me that day. Worn and paternal. And, for the first time, flawed. I didn’t want to see it. As I sat across from him in the flattering light, I longed for the old flirtatious, conspiring Jay, the one who felt something more for me than just gratitude and protectiveness. I wanted the brilliant, powerful Jay I’d adored, who’d adored me back, when we both believed in our story, and in each other. The desire wove through my body like a steel fiber, so that when we rose after lunch and walked down the restaurant’s alleyway toward the street, I was so tense, I sprang. I pulled Jay toward me and I threw my arms around him and kissed him on the lips.

  He gave a little grunt of surprise. He didn’t kiss me back, but his hands found their way to my waist, and for a moment we hung there, bodies pressed tight, the kiss finished but our eyes locked, staring into each other’s.

  He murmured my name and let me go. We strolled to the street together. He fumbled for conversation again, but I had nothing to say. I had said it with the kiss and the look.

  It’s still one of the most intimate moments of my life.

  We parted at my car, and I never saw Jay Eastman again. To this day, I am sure that if we had met at night for drinks, if I had kissed Jay in our office instead of the alley, if I’d had my own place nearby to lead him to, my own bed, or if he’d been younger or more willing to take what I’d offered—then we would have slept together. It is just as possible as the alternative: the single kiss. Sex would have thrown my life into worse confusion. But I am haunted by what might have been, by the certitude that if I went back to that moment in the alley, I would still want it, the carnal release.

  16

  THE CREW MUST HAVE BEEN working all night. When I entered the Westing, I regretted that I hadn’t gotten to watch them. The edifice was real now, an architecture to step into, to train the eye upward, toward the skylights. The columns rose into arches of shoes that extended to the ceiling, not in an exact string but in an arrangement that ribboned and dangled, exposing the sharp grace of the high
heel, the loafer’s comfort, the sturdy boot.

  The scents of sweat, leather, and rubber had intensified, blending into something arid and sweet. The light in the gallery was alternately broken and open. Mundane, ethereal.

  I didn’t know how they’d done it, but the feeling of cathedral had arrived.

  The students were so absorbed in stringing shoes that they were indifferent to my awe, and I watched them for a moment, knowing what I now knew, having stood in the empty room where Brenae had died. This was my last day as gallerina. While I was watching the crew make Hal look magnificent, Janis was calling her contacts at LAAC, spreading news that would bring him down as their director. By the time Shoe Cathedral opened, Hal might be out of a job, and the students would have lost their mentor. The truth would come out about Erik; the crew would disband. And this week—when they made something powerful and memorable together, despite their tensions—would become a ruin.

  Pearson noticed me staring and gestured at me to walk inside the structure. As I did, my eyes landed on laces, straps, stilettoes, open gaps for sun. I wanted to sit down, to be still and low, with my chin raised. A supplicant.

  “You should put a bench in here,” I said. “Has Hal seen this?”

  “He was here all night,” said Pearson.

  He moved aside, and I spotted the smashed column behind him, the gouged and flattened shapes. It stood just to the left of the apse. It undermined the flow of the architecture, and suggested collapse. Involuntarily I stepped back from it, but I couldn’t tear my gaze away.

  “This is unbelievable. Did any of you sleep?” I said.

  My praise made Erik cast a wincing smile in my direction. “Not much,” he said.

  “Have you seen the espadrilles?” Layla asked Zania, and Zania pointed across the room. “Excuse me,” Layla said, deliberately bumping me from her path.

  “I think Nelson left you some work,” Pearson said to me.

  I took the hint and walked to my desk, now piled with stacks of paper, folders. There was a note: Please collate media packets by 11:00 a.m. Thanks.

  Nelson’s handwriting was cramped and dark, as if he pressed the pen hard. Its introverted appearance didn’t quite match the tan, lean man who had reached so casually into Layla’s blouse and cupped her breast. I made neat work of the packets, tapping the papers so their corners and sides aligned before I slid them into folders. All the overblown praise in the press release seemed merited now. Why did this make me wistful? I should be glad that Hal would resign, that Erik would be exposed. It was a victory, but some essential part of the battle remained unfought.

  My phone buzzed. Yegina. I stepped outside to answer.

  “How’s gallerina life?”

  The day after I heard about Janis’s cancer, I had e-mailed Yegina, telling her what I knew, and saying that I’d decided to take the gallerina gig after all. Yegina had apologized for not informing me about Janis sooner. I’ve only known a week, but I couldn’t betray her trust. I hope you understand. I understood. It was an unspoken rule that Janis traded in everyone’s secrets, but no one knew hers.

  “I can’t get into details,” I said, “but our fearless leader is arming herself with scandalous information to do a behind-the-scenes takedown.”

  “Is she?” Yegina said thoughtfully. “That doesn’t sound like her.”

  “She wants to save the institution—well, both institutions—but not the man. Things were getting really heated up downtown, and she thought she had to act fast.”

  There was a silence. “Interesting. But then how would you write about Brenae? If it’s all behind the scenes?”

  “That’s the complicated part. I’ll have to tell you more after it’s done. How’s the conference today?”

  “I just got to the main building. Hiro flew to D.C. this morning to meet me, and then he asked me to marry him,” she announced. “I didn’t say yes.”

  “You didn’t?”

  “He was so sweet about it.” She sounded overwhelmed. “He told me that in Japanese conjunctions don’t work exactly the same as in English, that Hiro and Yegina wouldn’t have an and between them, we’d just be HiroYegina, and that’s what he wants to be in any language, and then he rambled on about unity and proportion in symphonies and trees. I kind of lost him there, but he was so sweet, and I told him I’d have to think about it.” She paused. “I feel awful.”

  Yegina’s feelings about marriage were like a burn victim’s about fire. After a long, painful divorce from Chad the jobless sitar player, she’d never wanted to get hitched again. But I also knew how much Hiro meant to her, how calming his influence had been on her usually frenetic existence. He liked taking care of my friend. He had fixed all her broken window screens. He had bought her a high-end blender. He made a killer cheesecake, Yegina’s favorite dessert. I couldn’t think of anything negative about Hiro, except that his proposal was a pretty fast move for someone who liked cultivating hundred-year-old shrubbery for a hobby. He and Yegina had only been dating six months.

  “Don’t feel awful,” I said. “He should know you’re coming to weddings from a different point of view.”

  “But that’s the problem,” said Yegina. “If I explain my objections to marriage, he’ll probably agree with me. He won’t want to get married. And then we never will.”

  “So say maybe,” I said, glancing back into the gallery. The students were clustered, talking. What conversation was I missing?

  “I wish,” Yegina said glumly. “I’m not ready to make this decision. We were just supposed to have a sexy week together in the capital, and now there’s this huge weight on us. Do I send him home?”

  “Ask for time,” I said. “Tell him you need a week to soul-search.”

  Yegina made a doubtful grunt. “I need a year,” she said. “I know he wants kids. That was a discernible section of the tree speech.” She hesitated. “There’s something else. It’s also complicated.”

  “It might need to wait, then,” I said. “I’ve got to go back.”

  “It might not happen anyway. We’ll talk later,” she said, and then her voice retreated.

  I hung up, suppressing a surge of nerves. It wasn’t jealousy I felt. More like homesickness. Homesickness for a simpler time. A year ago, Yegina and I had been in the same place—heartbroken over crappy relationships, devoted to our jobs at a struggling museum and to our friendship. A grueling day at work meant we had to jump on the DASH and get mochi in Little Tokyo; a lonely night meant we’d meet for a silent movie on Fairfax. There were so many city pleasures to explore, to escape into, and put off the future for another day. But marriage and kids for her. A possible new career for me. The old days weren’t coming back.

  My black dress brushed the windowsill on the way back into the gallery, streaking it with dust. I rubbed the cloth, then grabbed for the door handle, but a hand reached ahead of me.

  “After you,” said a male voice. I look up into the close-shaven face of Nelson de Wilde.

  “THE SHOEMAKER’S ELVES,” NELSON MUTTERED as he observed the installation. If he was pleased, he didn’t show it. He didn’t look angry, either, just focused, as if he could let everything else fall away when he examined art. He thrust his hands in his pockets, peering at every inch of it.

  Pearson, Erik, and Zania kept working. Layla slumped, stood erect, then wandered deep into a corner.

  Nelson didn’t acknowledge her. Instead he approached the desk, checking through the folders I’d made. “Any other calls?” he said in a low, intimate tone, as if he were speaking only to me.

  “Uh, to the gallery? No.”

  Nelson watched me now, for another long moment, appraising. It wasn’t like the way Ray and Alicia looked at people. They were sneaky and guarded about how sharply they observed you. Nelson turned on the full spotlight of his attention, and he seemed, with each passing moment, to be building a case study of who I was. After a while, he nodded and gave me a smile that was somehow also sexual, and not quite in a cheeky or predat
ory way, but just acknowledging his approval of me. It happened so fast, and with such possessiveness.

  “I need you to keep Hal on task today,” he said, running his fingers lightly on my desk. “He tends to let his interviews run over. We have five in a row this afternoon.”

  “Absolutely,” I said. I felt like my friend Kaye when I said it—Kaye, who, until her doula phase, had made six figures as a personal assistant to Hollywood executives. Absolutely was one of Kaye’s signature words—formal, flowing, with a touch of confidence. Fleetingly I wished I looked more like her now, perennially beautiful and pleasant, an impulse that surprised me. Two interactions, and Nelson had effortlessly manipulated me into a servile box. I didn’t like it at all.

  “Thirty minutes for each. Tops,” said Nelson.

  When our eyes met this time, I kept my own gaze deliberately blank, and Nelson kept staring until I had to blink.

  “Got it.” I tidied the already tidy folders on the desk.

  Nelson turned to speak to the students. “This is very good. It’s coming together magnificently,” he said. “You can stop work at noon and be off until three, all right? You need a break.”

  “You should take a lunch break, too,” he ordered me. “Be back at one, please.”

  I checked my watch. It was eleven thirty. Did Nelson mean I should leave now? He gave me a forceful little nod. He meant now.

  “Does that work for you?” he said.

  “Absolutely,” I said again, and grabbed my phone, my purse. I could feel his eyes on me as I stalked to the door.

  IN MY LAPTOP IN MY silent apartment, the DVD spun and began to play. Handheld nighttime footage of young people unspooled. They chatted and laughed outside galleries, on the LAAC campus, on sidewalks I didn’t recognize. The cinematography wasn’t as good as that in Packing. Brenae hadn’t paid much attention to lighting or composition, and Hal was right, without Brenae herself in frame, defiant and charismatic, stealing the show, it lacked a certain flair. Perhaps she’d wanted to be as invisible as possible. This video was about everyone else.