Learning to See

by Elise Hooper

  Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a frayed spot developing on the knee of my trousers. I glanced at my reflection in the dark window. Had I brushed my hair at all that day? When was the last time I’d sat back with a cigarette, listened to music, and watched people dance? It was true, I was working almost all the time.

  “Fine. Let’s go.”

  Surprised, he stopped chewing. “Really? You’ll come?”

  “I’ll call Ah-yee to watch Dan and get ready while you eat.”

  A FINE RAIN shimmered in the air as we approached the old barn Anne Brigman had converted into a studio. When she decided to move to Southern California a couple of years earlier, she gave the space to Willard Van Dyke. The barn was built around several trees. Their boughs poked through the ceiling. A pale blue shower curtain hung at a crooked angle in an attempt to try to keep the rain out. Judging by the raucous sounds already roaring from the party, I estimated everyone to be several drinks deep into Willard’s famous five-star punch.

  The party annoyed me from the moment I walked in. A rumba pulsed from the Victrola in the corner. The room was packed. I’d only taken a couple of steps into the scrum when someone spilled a cup of sangria on my sleeve. Dismayed, I looked at the dark red stain spreading over my arm, ruining the shirt. No one apologized.

  Conversation was impossible over the music. Maybe it was just as well. What did I have to say? I’ve been crazed keeping up with my clients and washing diapers and scraping off dirty dishes? I tried to imagine how Ansel Adams would respond to that and almost laughed. While everyone clustered around Maynard, I wandered through the crowd and found Imogen, feeling grateful as she pulled me into a knot of conversation. Ed Weston stood next to her, pontificating on his favorite topic: the soul of photography. That he wore a batik turban made it difficult for me to take him seriously. His lover, Sonya, her wide-set dark eyes half closed, leaned against his shoulder, clapping along to the music, but her timing was off. It took all my willpower not to hold her hands together for a moment to get her on beat with the music. She opened her eyes fully and took me in. “Well, look who’s here. You’ve managed to pry yourself away from all of your fancy-pants clients in Pacific Heights for a night?”

  The rest of the circle laughed and I smiled along, but reconsidered giving her a good smack under the guise of helping her get on tempo.

  “Now, now,” chided Imogen, “I’d say Dorothea’s the hardest-working woman in San Francisco.”

  “Sure, sure, gotta keep up with market demands,” said Ed, giving me a brief once-over. “I heard Maynard’s trip east was a bust. Those heels should have more respect for us out here.” His gaze circled the crowd as heads nodded along to his tirade. Imogen held my hand tightly but she couldn’t resist weighing in. I sighed and looked around as they griped about Stieglitz’s control over the East Coast’s art market.

  My head ached, my lower back throbbed. How much time had passed? An hour? Two hours? How was it possible to feel so alone in such a packed crowd? I needed to go home to relieve Ah-yee. I looked around for Maynard, but couldn’t find him anywhere. When I started asking people if they’d seen him, they averted their eyes, mumbled responses, and laughed nervously. Everyone appeared to step out of my way.

  I found Ansel outside playing horseshoes with Willard.

  “Have either of you seen Maynard?” I asked.

  They both continued staring at their target, deep in concentration, horseshoes in hand, and shook their heads.

  “It’s gotten late. I’ve got to get home to my baby.” My voice sounded shrill, but I didn’t care. Suddenly, I hated everyone.

  Ansel gave a wild toss to his horseshoe and howled when it curved far to the right, away from the target. “Dammit, I’m terrible at this blasted game.” He swayed, eyes unfocused. “I need to hightail it back to the city too. Come on, Dorrie, you can hitch a ride home with me. Maynard can make his own way back.”

  “Are you too tight to drive?” I asked.

  “Nah, I did my usual trick of swilling olive oil to coat my gut before I started drinking.”

  “You ass, that only helps with tomorrow’s hangover,” Willard said, elbowing him in the side.

  “Shut up, I’m fine.” Ansel pulled his car keys from his pocket and held them up, nodding at me. The thinning hair atop his head stuck out in all directions. He looked anything but fine, but I felt desperate to get away from there.

  My face burned as I gathered my purse and linen jacket and met him at the front door to leave. Where the hell was my husband? Was relief stamped across everyone’s faces as I said goodbye? I couldn’t tell. On the walk to the car, I was thankful for the darkness, for it hid my eyes filling with tears. Ansel’s tireless energy usually exhausted me, but on that night, I was also grateful for his boundless stamina. Always a big talker, he nattered on from the moment he revved the engine and squealed the tires away from the curb at Willard’s to when he pulled alongside the gate in front of our cottage and I spilled out. When I ducked down next to the passenger window to thank him, he gave me a smile filled with pity. My shame, a molten heat shifting and swirling inside me during our drive, solidified into anger like a rock lodged underneath my rib cage.

  All night long sleep eluded me. Maynard never came home. At one point, I went into Dan’s room and sat next to his crib, trying to calm my nerves by watching the rhythmic rise and fall of his chest. He slept with arms outstretched above his head in a pose of complete surrender. How had we produced this perfect little creation? When gray light appeared in the window and Dan awoke, I fed him oatmeal before placing him in his buggy outside the door of the kitchen. I knew exactly where I needed to go. Down the sidewalk we went, the buggy’s wheels creaking along the concrete, my calves and thighs burning from exertion as we rushed downhill toward Cow Hollow. Fatigue weighted my eyes and the pale glare of morning left me dazed, but exercise stirred my blood, made the cogs of my brain start turning.

  I am a fool. Maynard was running around with other women and barely covering his tracks. How long had this been going on? My hands were cold on the handle of the buggy, my knuckles white. By the time I reached Fronsie’s door, nothing but fury fueled me.

  She blinked in surprise when she opened the door. “Well, I expected the milkman, but you’re a much better arrival. Want some breakfast?” I shook my head. Just seeing this woman, my dear friend after all of these years, almost brought me to tears. She nodded and ushered me through her house, past the kitchen table still set with the remains of breakfast, to the grassy backyard where her two daughters sat in front of three shallow tin baking pans filled with water. I plunked Dan down with the girls and watched the toddlers dip their chubby fingers in the water and splutter with enjoyment. An intense expression of concentration settled on the face of Fronsie’s four-year-old daughter, Louise. She picked up a measuring cup, filled it with water, then poured it into another measuring cup. Water spilled over the sides, but she seemed not to mind. Jack poked his head out the kitchen door.

  “Fron . . .” He blinked when he saw me. “Oh, Dorothea,” he said, reaching to the loose end of the necktie draped over his shoulder to arrange himself. He lifted his wrist to look at his watch. “Sorry, am I running late?”

  “No, it’s early. Sorry to show up like this,” I said, rubbing at my eyes. The smell of coffee drifted out from the open kitchen door. Without thinking, I took a gusty inhalation.

  “Want some?” Fronsie said, gesturing back at the house.

  I smiled weakly as she turned to go back into the kitchen.

  When she rejoined me outside after a quiet conference with Jack, I accepted the outstretched coffee gratefully. The mug burned my palms, but in a good way. My stiff fingers wrapped around it, happy to absorb the heat. I felt her waiting for me to say something, but I blew on the surface of my drink, watching the liquid ripple, before saying, “Maynard’s having an affair. Maybe more than one. It could be a dozen. I don’t even know.”

  Fron smoothed down her apron and glanced
at me. “Does he know you’re onto him?”

  “At this point, how could he not? I went to a party with him last night and he vanished and never came home. It’s like he wants me to know.”

  “You look exhausted.”

  “I didn’t sleep a wink.” My voice shook, my head felt fuzzy, and bile rose in my throat. Without a word, I pushed my coffee mug toward Fron and ran inside to the washroom.

  I leaned over the toilet, retching. Once finished, I stood and dabbed at my mouth with some bath tissue. My wan face stared out at me from the gilt-edged mirror. Red-rimmed eyes, my complexion the color of dirty bed linens—I knew what this meant all too well. I did some counting on my fingers before opening up the washroom door and trailing my palm along the wall to steady myself as I headed back outside. Taking a deep breath, I stepped down onto the flagstone patio and resumed my spot next to Fronsie, still watching the children.

  She raised her eyebrows. “You all right?”

  “I’m pregnant again,” I answered.

  Fron raised her eyebrows.

  I pulled a bobby pin out of my hair and stabbed it into a new spot, wincing as the metal hit my scalp. “This marriage will not be a failure. I need to get my husband back. I’ve got to fight for this, Fron.”

  “Of course you do,” she replied, a sad smile on her face. “You never give up on anything.”

  MAYNARD ARRIVED HOME later that evening to find his favorite dinner, pork chops and baked beans, waiting for him on the table. A sheepish look slid over his face as he took a seat. “Bender sold three of my canvases today,” he said, eyeing me for any sign he was in the doghouse.

  I smiled and congratulated him as I took a seat across from him. I knew about the sold paintings already. Earlier at Fron’s, I’d cleaned myself up and left Dan with her so I could make several house calls to three of my favorite, most trustworthy clients. Each woman had assured me she had a blank space on her wall that would look much better with one of Maynard’s paintings on it. From my spot across the table, I studied him. Bags hung under his dark eyes, his cheeks looked thin, his color sallow. I thought back to the lanky, golden-skinned man who built us a blazing fire and then recited poetry to me at our little miner’s camp in Sonoma. This was the same man, I reminded myself. I couldn’t allow myself to be weak and give up on him. From the other room, Dan chortled to himself. I placed a hand on my belly while reaching for Maynard’s with the other. When I told him about the new baby, he squeezed his eyes closed for a moment.

  “Dor, you know my pops died in an asylum.”

  Confused, I shook my head.

  He nodded. “Yep, cracked right up. Who knows why?” He shook his head, staring off at a spot on the wall. “But I’m not going to be that man. I haven’t done right by Consie, but I’ll be a better father to our children. I promise.” He placed his hand atop mine upon my belly. I exhaled and squeezed his hands.

  OUR SECOND SON arrived on a morning in June made gloomy with drizzle. When I called Maynard in Arizona, where he was working on a mural commission, he gave a loud whoop into the phone and suggested the baby be named John Good news Dixon. I agreed. Good news was exactly what we needed. I tucked my new rosy baby under my chin and smiled. We were getting a fresh start.

  Chapter 16

  Good news was short-lived in 1929. A few months after John’s first birthday, the stock market crashed. New York City, where it all began, felt very far away from the diapers, bills, appointments, and making of meals that marked my days. Sure, the newspapers blared headlines with big, bold type describing how millions of dollars were lost, but we all thought it was limited to the East Coast. And really, how do millions of dollars simply disappear? The whole thing defied any sort of logic. At first. But then little things started creeping into our daily lives, making it all more real. Clients began canceling portrait appointments. Not many initially. Most were the type of people who could withstand some economic uncertainty. But requests for Maynard’s art dried up overnight. Galleries called off exhibits; museum curators decided not to acquire new work; builders backed out of new projects left and right; and most of his mural commissions were abandoned. Little did we know that of the hundred canvases he would paint over the next several years, only a few would sell.

  Maynard tried to recalibrate his expectations. He entered a competition to paint a mural for the San Francisco Stock Exchange Building and then headed to the Tehachapi Mountains to paint for several months, leaving me to hold down the fort with two small children. When he returned, he was outraged to learn that his friend Ralph Stackpole had awarded the commission to Diego Rivera, the renowned Mexican muralist.

  “Rivera’s a goddamned Communist, for Chrissake,” Maynard fumed as he stormed around the living room of our new, larger house down the hill from our old bungalow. “And he’s mocked our financial institutions. Why in the world would they give the commission to him?”

  “Seems to me you’ve done your own fair share of criticizing the city’s ‘money boys’ over the years.” I shook my head in annoyance, thinking of all the times Maynard complained about my clients. “Maybe you shouldn’t have gotten so hot under the collar and quit the Bohemian Club. You’d still be sitting tight with that crowd.”

  He glared at me. “A man’s got to hold to his principles.”

  “True, but a man’s got to be willing to own up to the cost of sticking to those principles.”

  He snorted. “Those fat cats talk a big game about being good Americans. Well, if they were such good Americans, they wouldn’t have given the damned job to a foreigner.”

  “A travesty,” I said, my indignation tepid.

  “Don’t you even care? He stands to make four thousand dollars from this mural.”

  Four thousand dollars. Maynard sure knew how to get my attention. I couldn’t even allow myself to think about how we could use that money. Suddenly John weighed a thousand pounds in my arms. He had a tooth coming in and had kept me up much of the night crying and fussing. I’d brought the boys to Fronsie’s in the morning before hurrying to a couple of portrait appointments. Now a throbbing headache, made sharper by Maynard’s anger, twitched behind my eyes. Dan came running through the room wielding a stick, pretending it was a gun.

  “Pow!” he yelled, taking aim with his stick at a line of glass bottles on the windowsill and pretending to shoot. “Pow, pow, pow, pow!” He spun around and the backside of his stick knocked a stack of books off a chair onto the floor. The loud thud startled John. He began to wail.

  Maynard stopped his circling the room and bent down, his knees cracking. He looked Dan in the eye. “Hey, pard, slow down in here. You gotta be more careful.” He took the stick from Dan, inspected it, and raised it to his eye as if looking through a scope. “Is this the business end of this rifle?”

  “Yes, sir,” Dan said, nodding, a smile dawning across his small face.

  “This is a fine weapon you got here. If you go outside and set up some targets, I’ll come out to join you for a few shots.” He looked over at me and winked. “I might pretend one of them is Stackpole; the damned phony wouldn’t know great art if it came up and bit him in the ankle.”

  I nodded, rubbing at John’s back, trying to quiet him. It felt like grains of sand lined the insides of my eyelids, and a twinge of nausea clung to me from the lack of sleep.

  “You know the worst part about it all? The biggest insult is that I’m going to have to see Rivera every goddamned day while he’s here because Stackpole’s loaning him his studio down the hall from me.” Maynard sighed and scanned the back window to watch Dan in the yard. As he started to walk out of the room, he turned. “Every time I have to take a piss, I’ll have to pass that goddamned Mexican.”

  With Maynard out of the room, it felt like a storm had passed. The air became lighter. John drooped, asleep in my arms. I rocked him back and forth, thinking about Rivera. Even with the big flap over the Stock Exchange commission, everyone seemed in agreement that he was one of the finest artists in the world.
Maybe having him in the studio next door to Maynard’s wouldn’t be such a bad thing.

  RIVERA AND HIS young bride, a shy woman named Frida Kahlo, arrived in the city to begin his commission. Like bees drawn to a picnic, San Francisco society swarmed the couple with invitations, all eager to fete the famous painter.

  Maynard came home one evening after spending his day at the studio and threw our front door open with such venom that the doorknob gashed a hole in the wall. “I knew it. He’s a know-it-all,” he huffed. “He must have wasted an hour of my time telling me that California’s got everything an artist needs to make it and we don’t have any excuses for mediocrity. As if I don’t know that. Hell, that’s what I’ve been saying for the last twenty years.” He threw his black Stetson at the wall and tugged his fingers through his hair, then sighed and shook his head. “I don’t even know how he hauls his fat ass up those narrow stairs.”

  A week later, we received an invitation to have dinner with Rivera and his wife at Ben and Betsy Blumberg’s, a family I’d long done portrait work for. Fronsie was busy so we found ourselves without anyone available to watch the boys. I called Betsy and explained the jam we were in.

  “Bring them,” she said. “The boys can join our girls upstairs with the nanny. The more the merrier.”

  I accepted her generous offer. How nice it would be to have a nanny. Especially one who viewed adding two more children to her charge as a merry turn of events.

  We arrived early to the party. A maid took our coats and Betsy, slim and elegant in a bias-cut Vionnet dress, ushered us upstairs to a spacious high-ceilinged apartment she called the nursery. The slump in everyone’s fortunes seemed not to extend to the Blumbergs. The nanny, a young uniformed Scottish girl with lustrous russet hair, greeted us with a warm hello. Dan took one look at her sparkling, citrine-colored eyes and wordlessly pushed himself onto her lap, handing her a book to read without taking his eyes from her face.