Always the Last to Know

by Kristan Higgins

  I tried to get an agent and absorbed their feedback—nice color palette but the content is a bit too familiar . . . once you’ve honed your eye . . . not taking new clients at this time . . . have you considered taking an art class? I had taken four years of art classes, for crying out loud! I could teach art classes! I had a double degree, thank you very much.

  That was okay, though. Content too familiar . . . I could use that. Every failure, I told myself, was a step closer to success, even if it didn’t feel that way.

  I lugged my portfolio to the galleries who would see me, and sent countless e-mails to those who wouldn’t. I was suckered into paying hundreds of dollars to be featured in a show for a week . . . the “gallery” a former garage that still stank of diesel, the promised opening consisting of cheap wine in plastic cups, with not even a dozen people attending. I entered contests, paying the fees with my hard-earned waitressing money, never once placing. But I tried to learn and absorb from every experience. New York was a harsh teacher, but the best teacher, too.

  Months passed. A year. Noah came to visit twice, and I went home to Stoningham to see my parents and nieces from time to time. We were still together. We talked on the phone almost every day. Then less. Then a little less.

  My art school friends started leaving the city . . . It was so expensive, so competitive. Only Aneni stayed—even Zach, my professor’s favorite student, left for Cincinnati and a job at an advertising company. So much for your wunderkind, I wanted to say.

  Aneni, she of the amazing and bizarre animal drawings, was our school’s pride and joy. She was showing at all the hot places and guest lectured at the Art Students League. Every time she had an opening, I was invited, and she hugged me and introduced me around to her friends, gallery owners, critics. Once in a while, someone would say, “Send me your info” or “Stay in touch,” but it never leveraged into anything.

  Aneni . . . she had a true gift. You could see it a mile away, because her paintings were like nothing I’d ever seen before. I was so happy for her, because she was incredibly nice, but I couldn’t lie. I was also jealous. Really, really jealous. How had she done it? Her viewpoint was so clear, her drawings incredibly precise, beautiful and odd. Was it because she was from Zimbabwe that she had such a different point of view? Why did I have to grow up in Connecticut, a state no one (except Noah—and my mother) took seriously?

  Of course, I tried to figure out what my art was missing. I knew I could be better, clearer, more. As the months passed, I stayed resolutely openhearted. I took classes when I could afford them, listened to my teachers and tried, so hard, to be better. I pored over the great works at MoMA, the Guggenheim, the Met, the Frick, the Whitney. I went to galleries and studied the paint strokes, the textures, the voices.

  I still loved painting with all my heart. It was more like painting didn’t love me. Or the art world didn’t. I’d stare into gallery windows and think, Is that piece really so special, or did someone just anoint it? And if it was anointed, how could I get some of that holy oil, hm?

  Then one of my professors sent me a link to a teaching job at St. Catherine’s, a small Catholic elementary school in the Bronx. I applied, and the rather terrifying nun, Sister Mary, seemed to like me. I was good with kids for the same reason I didn’t seem to burn for them—to me, they were entertaining little aliens. Wanting kids never felt as real to me as painting did. I knew what I wanted there. Kids? They were . . . nice. Fun. Kinda cute.

  At any rate, I took the job. I had a solid education, appreciated health care and didn’t mind the tiny paycheck, since waitressing was pretty lucrative.

  Carter, who taught third grade, took me under his wing, and suddenly, I had new friends, not in the art world. Normal people, many of whom had been at St. Cath’s for decades and had children older than I was. There was a handful of us in our twenties and thirties.

  The job was nice. The art room was bright and cheery, and I got hugged a lot.

  Noah was furious. If I could teach in the Bronx, why not Stoningham? He saw it as a betrayal, and we stopped speaking for a while. Fine. The way he seemed to be watching and waiting for me to give up made me want to kick him, anyway. Then he sent me a card with a bluebird on the front. Inside, he’d written, “I still love you.” Nothing else.

  I made him a pastel, one of those easy skyscapes that virtually anyone could draw, and wrote on the back, “I still love you, too.”

  So we weren’t quite apart, even if we weren’t together.

  When we saw each other the next time I went to Stoningham, we were practically strangers.

  “How’s teaching?” he asked as we sat in his mother’s kitchen.

  “It’s really nice.” It was so strange to feel awkward around him, of all people on earth. We seemed to be having trouble making eye contact.

  “Painting going okay?” he asked.

  “Yep.” I didn’t tell him about the galleries and rejections and meh feedback, not wanting to give him ammo in his argument for me to come back home. “How’s carpentry going?”

  “Good.”

  “Great.”

  We’d never been like this before. He drove me to New London to get the train, and when I got my ticket, he kissed me, hard and fierce and beautiful, and if we’d kissed like that when we first saw each other, maybe things would’ve been different.

  I still waitressed downtown. I grew to hate Mala, who never even tried to be nice. I cleaned up after Sarah, who was a pig but pleasant. I painted and critiqued my own work and painted more, still not able to pinpoint what I was trying to accomplish with my work, other than make somebody see its value.

  But something started to happen. Two years out of college, no longer shielded by my student status, I was becoming a New Yorker. I knew which subways to take, which street would be clogged with tourists, how to avoid the Yankees fans swarming to the stadium for a day game. I didn’t worry about what to wear and knew which boutiques were cool and cheap. I painted all summer, and my work was getting better. I even sold a few pieces at those studio open houses where you paid to play.

  Then one of the moms at St. Catherine’s approached me. She was an interior decorator and wondered if I’d do pieces on commission to match the rooms she was doing. It was too hard, she said, to find art that matched exactly right. Maybe she could give me some paint colors and fabric swatches, and I could make something that would fit on the wall she had in mind?

  I didn’t hesitate in saying yes. Why the hell not? Would Aneni? Never.

  My first piece for Janice, the decorator mom, was a ten-by-five-foot painting for over a couch. “Here’s the couch fabric, and the throw pillows,” she said, handing me swatches of fabric. “Make it with some texture in it, swirly, you know? Like that one with the stars in it by the dude who cut off his ear? Super! Oh, and sign it. My client will love having an original piece.”

  So I made it—an oil painting in sage, apricot and lavender with swirly brushstrokes (like Van Gogh, you betcha). Was it a complete sellout? Yes, it was. Did I earn five hundred bucks? Yes, I did.

  Janice was thrilled. She came back to me again, and then again, and then it became part of her selling point: original artwork made just for your house. It gave me an idea, and I contacted half a dozen more decorators. Selling out, with the emphasis on sell. I was loyal to Janice and kept my prices low, but I asked for triple that with the other folks, and they didn’t blink. Apparently, some artists were quite fussy about being told what to do and how to do it. Not me.

  Later that year, I quit my waitressing job (which never did produce any contacts) and ditched the horrible little apartment in Hell’s Kitchen, Mad Mala and Sloppy Sarah. Juliet alerted me to a “motivated seller” with a place in Times Square (the worst neighborhood in all five boroughs to any true New Yorker). But the apartment was affordable, and nicer than I could’ve gotten in any other neighborhood. Juliet loaned me the money for a dow
n payment (we artists had no pride), and just like that, I had a one-bedroom place of my own, lit up at night by the garish lights of enormous, flashing advertisements.

  I still tried to paint more than just the couch paintings, as I took to calling them. I still took the occasional class, still entered contests with influential judges, still sent e-mails to those galleries that could make a career. I was still young. But however mundane, I was also selling art . . . made, alas, to match comforters or bathroom tile. Between that and teaching the little darlings at St. Catherine’s, I was making a living. At painting. Not a lot of people could say that. Not even Zach of Cincinnati.

  Besides, it would make another great story, I told myself. Philip Glass had once been a cabdriver. Kurt Vonnegut had sold cars. David Sedaris had been an elf at Macy’s. Oprah Winfrey had worked at a grocery store.

  “This is an early Sadie Frost!” someone might brag someday of my couch paintings. That purple-and-blue horror I’d done to cover a sixty-inch flat-screen TV? It might sell for millions.

  Noah still came to visit, but I could sense his heart hardening toward me. It almost felt like he wanted me to fail. He viewed my apartment as proof I didn’t want to get married, but for crying out loud, we were twenty-four years old. I didn’t want to get married! Not now! I was getting tired of his broody bullshit. He was an artist, too, though he hated when I said it. Only in bed did we recapture that beautiful, fierce glow and remember why we were together.

  I settled into this new phase of my adulthood, one in which I could pay my bills and go out for dinner once in a while, get cable, if not HBO. Carter lived on the Upper West Side (family money) and he and I hung out a lot. One of Janice’s clients asked to take me to coffee to thank me for her “stunning” watercolor, and we started going to yoga classes together. Alexa, the sixth-grade math teacher, and I both loved to wander through the New York Botanical Garden, which wasn’t far from St. Catherine’s.

  I made good use of the city, believe me . . . I went to author readings at the 92nd Street Y and student recitals at Juilliard. My father came to visit, the only other person in our family who loved New York—not even Juliet, the architect, enjoyed being here. But Dad loved it. He thought my apartment was perfect, and loved walking as much as I did. We went out for dinner to my favorite little Italian place in the Village, and then meandered through Washington Square Park, where some kid from NYU was doing ballet while her friend played the violin. Sometimes, Dad would even stay over, insisting on sleeping on the pullout couch rather than taking my bed. “It’s fun, sugarplum,” he said, and we talked and talked.

  He understood my ambition. “I wanted to be a writer,” he told me once. “Law school was supposed to be temporary. But then, you know . . . we moved to Stoningham, and your mom loved it so much, and then Juliet came along. It never seemed like the right time to quit my job and try to write a novel.”

  “You could still do it, Dad!” I said. “There’s no age limit. You’re retired now! You should start tomorrow!”

  “Well . . . I don’t know about that. I think the urge is gone now. Besides, your mother thinks I’m enough of an annoyance without me talking about a crime novel.”

  “She’d probably love for you to have a hobby.” And get out of her space, I thought. But she wasn’t exactly the encouraging type (unless your name was Juliet Elizabeth Frost).

  “Well. I’m very proud of you, Sadie. Not everyone is brave enough to go for it, and here you are. My fierce little girl, making it in the Big Apple.”

  No one else felt that way. No one had said they were proud of me in a long, long time. Noah used to, but not anymore, not if it meant me staying here. Our love for each other was becoming a clenched fist of frustration and uncertainty.

  Love is not all you need. Don’t believe that lie.

  On my twenty-fifth birthday, Noah called. “I need to see you,” he said, and it didn’t sound promising. We weren’t a couple, not really, not in his eyes, and yet we weren’t not a couple. I gathered we were about to come to a conclusion.

  When I saw him in Grand Central Station, my old love for him hit me like a wave, tumbling me in its force. I still loved him. I’d always love him. And when he saw me, his face softened just a little, an almost smile there on his lips. He never could grow a proper beard, but he looked sixteen if he shaved, and it was so . . . so endearing. My heart glowed that scarlet color that only Noah could bring.

  “Hey, stranger,” I said, and gave him a big hug. We hadn’t seen each other in months, and he seemed bigger—broader shoulders, more muscle, and there was a sudden lump in my throat at the idea that my wild boy was now a man.

  He wanted to go to a nearby restaurant and “get this out of the way.”

  “Sure thing,” I said, nervousness and irritability fluttering in my stomach. I took him to a tourist-trap Irish pub just across the street, and we ordered beers and burgers. He could barely look at me.

  So there was someone else, I guessed, and for a minute, I had to bend my head so I wouldn’t cry.

  “How’ve you been?” I asked, my voice a little rough.

  “I want you to marry me,” he said.

  My head jerked back up. Not what I expected.

  He was scowling.

  “I want you to marry me and come home. I love you. I’ve never loved anyone but you, Sadie. But I’m not waiting anymore.”

  “This sounds vaguely like a threat, not a proposal,” I said.

  He didn’t answer. The waitress brought us our beers and wisely slipped away.

  “Sadie . . .” He looked away. “Do you still want to get married?”

  I sat back in the red booth, choosing my words carefully. “I don’t want to be with anyone but you, Noah. I love you. But I’m not sure I want the same life you do. You always had our future mapped out, and there doesn’t seem to be any room for compromise.”

  “I did compromise! I lived here for four months.”

  “And you hated it, just like you promised you would.”

  “I can’t help that. You’re the one who sent me away.” He glowered.

  “I didn’t send you away, Noah. I put you out of your misery.”

  The waitress brought us our burgers. “Enjoy,” she said. We ignored her.

  “Stoningham sucks the life out of some people,” I said. “I know you’re not one of them, but I am.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “Thank you for being so understanding.”

  He scowled.

  I rolled my eyes.

  “Are you happy, Sadie?” he asked.

  “Yes. Mostly.” Content, maybe. Climbing my way to happiness.

  “Because from here, it looks like you’re killing time. Being a teacher, doing those paintings you hate, listening to sirens and car horns all day, taking your life into your hands every time you cross the street. You gave it a shot. It didn’t work. Come home and be with me.”

  My jaw clenched. “Wow. So now that I’ve failed—at least the way you define it—I should come home and marry you and get pregnant.”

  He leaned forward. “I love you. Doesn’t that matter at all? Because to me, that’s everything.”

  “It doesn’t sound like everything. It sounds like everything you want, with no room for me. Why can’t we be together, me in the city, you in Stoningham? Lots of people have long-distance relationships.”

  “You can’t raise a family that way!”

  “So that’s it? Your way, or nothing?”

  “What would I tell our kids? Mommy doesn’t love you enough to live with you?”

  “I don’t see me having kids anytime soon, Noah. And certainly not because you bullied me into it.”

  We glared at each other over our cooling burgers.

  “So you’re saying no, is that it?” he asked. “Because I’d like an answer. The waiting period is over, and I’m
not gonna chase after you all my life.”

  “This is a very hostile marriage proposal.”

  “Don’t make jokes, Sadie. Give me an answer. Will you marry me?”

  There was no right answer I could give.

  “I’m so sorry, Noah,” I whispered. “I love you with all my heart, but I don’t want that life right now.”

  His face didn’t change. He just looked at me with those dark, dark eyes, then glanced away and swallowed. Twice. He pulled out his wallet and put two twenties on the table. Then he left me at the table with our untouched burgers and unfinished beers.

  Sitting there in that pub, I think I knew. A love like that didn’t come along every day. No other man was going to light my heart up in shades of red so beautiful it hurt. I loved Noah, loved his gentleness and kind heart, how hard he worked. I loved his smile, his mouth, the way he looked on the water with the wind blowing in his tangled hair. I knew that being with someone who thought you were the most wonderful, precious thing in the world didn’t happen very often, and maybe would never happen again.

  But I wasn’t going to marry a man who’d proposed via ultimatum.

  * * *

  — —

  Three years after I’d turned Noah down in that stupid Irish pub, he got engaged.

  My sister told me about it. We were having a perfectly nice, perfectly bland chat about her perfect life when she said, “Hey, by the way, Noah’s getting married. Gillian something. You guys were pretty hot and heavy, weren’t you?”

  I didn’t answer.

  Noah was getting married. To someone who was not me. Married. As in living together. Sleeping together, waking up together, eating together, and probably having kids together.

  My sister’s words sat in my stomach like stones. “That’s nice,” I said belatedly, but Jules was already talking about the perfect vacation she’d be taking.