Bad Timing

by Betsy Berne

  I was crushed like a teenager. “You’ve been away too long—you’ve forgotten what those concerts are like.”

  “Okay, I guess I don’t go see as much music anymore, but come on, they sounded like a bunch of old geezers up there.”

  “Guess I’m a more loyal fan,” I said blithely.

  “It was pathetic.”

  “Guess I’m a more loyal fan,” I repeated.

  “No, you’re indiscriminate. That’s all, you’re no longer capable of discriminating.” He couldn’t help smiling, and I couldn’t either. Our system of checks and balances had kicked into gear, smoothly bypassing any discussion of the more delicate aspects of that evening. When we went into the studio, he didn’t say much. He usually said just enough. He didn’t say he saw wombs or eggs—Rachel always saw wombs or eggs. He didn’t say he saw scary faces—Aaron insisted on scary faces. Or penises—my neighbor was adamant about penises. As was my father, who also pointed out internal organs I didn’t know existed, with great excitement, extrapolating with medical terminology I couldn’t pronounce. Joseph Pendleton didn’t need to tell me what he saw. Instead he turned to me in the way that always made me look away, and I turned off the bright lights in a hurry, a signal toward the couch, where words could mean anything. I never knew how much time we had, so I was always in a hurry. He slowed me down with a powerful tenderness.

  “What were you thinking?” he whispered. “Just then.”

  “Nothing.”

  “Don’t say nothing, it wasn’t nothing.”

  “Maybe it was. I try not to think when I’m with you.”

  He became less tender and less lazy, and I became more so, until we both lay sweaty and tired. I whispered into his cheek that I’d followed orders, and while he didn’t exactly tense up, his reply was less husky and more considered.

  “So what did you tell them?”

  “I said it was practically over and I didn’t want to talk about it anymore.”

  “They believed you?”

  “Why wouldn’t they?”

  I got up to open the fire-escape door. It felt so close inside. I shut off the air conditioner and struggled to open whatever windows weren’t stuck permanently shut. He watched me.

  “So what’s the latest on the show?”

  “Two paintings on reserve; I think one will sell. He’s in Europe hustling the secondary market—you know, the summer—so Ditzgirl’s in charge. I sure wouldn’t buy a painting from her.”

  “Maybe I’ll buy something, but wouldn’t I get a better deal direct from the studio? What about that drawing over there? How much?”

  “Which one?” There was a whole wall of drawings, not all of them mine.

  “Um . . . the one on the far right.” He smiled to himself. “That’s yours, isn’t it?”

  “You lucked out.” I couldn’t keep a straight face, either. “I’ll think about it and let you know. Hey, I listened to one of your records tonight. I took it from my brother the other day.”

  “You’re sure it was mine?”

  “Pretty sure. I think it was the live one in Stockholm, or was it Copenhagen? I never look at titles. I liked it, I thought—”

  He interrupted. “Did I tell you about the club I opened in Paris? Well, it’s just starting to get somewhere. There’ve been some happening gigs, with guys who can play, you know. There’s no money in it yet, but it’s cool. I hired this stiff to run it so I don’t have to deal with too much. No one knows I’m behind it.” He turned abruptly to give me the warning look.

  I ignored it. Joseph Pendleton was more comfortable when I played the bad girl sharing duplicity—the good girl was getting under his skin. His duplicity was instinctive, and usually I excused it because he would never have what I took for granted—the privilege of not living on a daily diet of digesting rude insults and spitting back polite lies. I knew he trusted me as much as he probably trusted anyone—almost as well as I knew the last thing he wanted was the grim responsibility of my trust reciprocated.

  “You know, I think my brother . . .”

  “Yeah, last winter, his trio. They weren’t too bad.”

  “Not too bad? You’re not allowed to insult my family.”

  He pulled me back. “You’re too easy to tease. It’s cute. You’re still a baby.”

  “No I’m not.” Flushed, I continued. “So why did you come back?”

  “My son.” He cackled derisively. “He hated it—he was eleven years old—a New York eleven, not a Paris eleven—and I knew how that felt . . .” Proper names for present-day intimates were not allowed—and allowed only occasionally for spirits from the past. Proper names risked upsetting the increasingly precarious system of checks and balances.

  “I went there originally because my mother died,” he continued. “I had to take care of things, and I finished, so—”

  “Oh, I didn’t know . . .”

  “See, there are still some things you don’t know about me. Yeah, I could breathe in Paris; this city can strangle you, it’s so fucking tight.”

  “This dealer from Paris just offered me a show.”

  “Who?”

  “David Mendelsohn.”

  “I’ve never heard of him.”

  “Well, he hasn’t been around long. He came over the other night. It was fun. We had a good studio visit.”

  “He came over here? Most of the paintings are at the gallery, aren’t they? Are you sure he’s interested in the art?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. He’s a kid. Well, it was a little weird. We thought he was gay at first, but it turns out he’s not. Oh, he wouldn’t be interested in me.”

  “Why wouldn’t he be interested in you?”

  I was mute.

  “Don’t pull that—answer me.”

  “Anyway, he is smart and I think he might actually have integrity. I mean, it always seems that way at first . . .”

  “Whatever integrity means. You didn’t answer my question.”

  “You do so know what integrity means.”

  “You still didn’t answer my question.” When I didn’t say anything, he spoke softly. “Hey, I don’t know what you’re thinking. I’m not one of your brothers. Come on, you should know not to listen to me by now. A show in Paris—that’s great! You should be excited.”

  “I’m trying not to be. It’s safer.”

  “I have to go to Paris next week.”

  “Oh.”

  “Why don’t you come along?”

  “Huh?”

  “It’s only for a few days. I have some things to take care of.”

  “Okay, yeah, I mean I’d love to go, but I have to be back by next Sunday. I have to go to Florida.”

  “Florida in the summer?”

  “Family.”

  “Your parents—they must be pretty out there . . . to come up with you, I mean.”

  “Well . . .”

  “In a good way, naturally.”

  “Naturally.”

  “We’d have you back by Sunday. We’ll talk more about it later.”

  We’ll talk more about it later could mean anything.

  “It’s getting really late,” I said. “You should probably go.”

  “I know,” he said, but he didn’t get up and it gave me courage.

  “Joseph?”

  “Yes?”

  “I always think it’s the last time, every time I see you,” I whispered to his back. “It’s not you, anything you’ve done, it’s just me, and experiences, the accumulation of the years.”

  He whipped his head around, and his eyes were small and cold. “Why would you say something like that?”

  “I don’t know, it just feels that way. Circumstances, fate, the past. You can’t intellectualize all your emotions. At least I can’t.”

  He shot up. “You’re being ridiculous. Christ, you’re so melodramatic. What do you think is going to happen? I’m not going to die!” He started walking toward the kitchen.

  “I told you, it’s not you—don’t ta
ke it so personally!”

  He turned around. “What am I supposed to take personally? Is our . . . is this, are we something to take personally?”

  “I’m not sure yet.”

  “Don’t start that! Tell me, what do you take personally?”

  “I guess I’m not sure about that either.”

  He shrugged, half smiling to himself, but his eyes remained small and cold, and he strutted toward the door while I trailed behind. Usually we’d stand there for a few minutes, I’d say good-bye—never good night—a few times as I pushed him out the door and he’d kiss me. Tonight there was barely time for one good-bye and no time for a kiss.

  Even with the windows open, it still felt close inside, so I climbed out to the fire escape. I looked around, but I didn’t see him. He must have gone the other way. The corner was quiet, almost peaceful. I think I saw Victor hunkered down at one of the establishments across the street, engrossed in a big, thick book. At least it looked like Victor, and who else would be sitting at a bar engrossed in a big, thick book? The evening had been so lovely—until one of us had the foresight to stab the lovely evening in its dark, unlovely heart before it became too lovely, and the other had the good sense to oblige.

  I shivered; it was almost chilly. The weather had gone awry somewhere along the way, just as our fail-safe system had. I wasn’t exactly sure when or how. Just as I wasn’t exactly sure when or how Joseph Pendleton had been twisted and turned around—or if it went straight to his core. My soft spot had been gripped by this puzzle from the start, and quite often it skewed reason.

  •

  In the morning, on the way to a meeting at the cosmetics company, I ran into a friend with her baby. It was one of my favorite neighborhood babies—it was dark-haired, and I was sick of blond babies. Even my niece and nephew had the nerve to be blond, and how much could you take? I listened while the friend rambled on about how exhausted she was—the baby had kept her up all night. I didn’t tell her that a baby had kept me up all night, too.

  C H A P T E R

  13

  “THE CASTING CALL says real people—it sounds so simple, doesn’t it?” The head honcho spoke in a rapid upper-class drone, low and whiny, and her frequent sighs were accompanied by a couple of slender figures running through sleek beige hair. Her face was sleek and beige, too—I had to squint to detect crow’s feet—and she wore a matching sleek beige suit. “Well, it’s not. We’ve seen some twenty girls, and, oh, I don’t know how many guys. How many guys, Janet?” Janet, her secretary—no, her assistant—seemed a little too eager to please, judging by the beads of sweat on her forehead.

  “They all start to look alike,” she continued. “You know what I mean? We need two girls. One has got to be blond—not a Connecticut blonde or a feminist blonde—an Ohio blonde, a blonde with some padding, just a few extra pounds in the right places, you know, a blonde bordering on mousy. But not mousy. For the second girl, we’re going to need an ethnic. When I say ethnic, I mean ethnic but not ethnic. Let’s be honest. Dark hair but the skin—we’re going to want to go dark but not too dark. What I’d like to call a tint as opposed to a hue, you know—a lip gloss as opposed to a lipstick.” She flashed an in-the-know smile.

  I was able to respond only with a weak grin, but the filmmakers managed something a little more substantial. “The girl from Barbados, she was almost there—she had good hair, good teeth, good muscle tone. You know what I mean—and she had curves. But the voice, my God, the voice. Ethnic can be exotic, but please—not immigrant.” She paused. “Now I think we’re onto something. We’ve got a lead on an Asian—mixed parentage, you know—not too Oriental. This girl can pass for just about anything; she’s got some range. And she’s educated, so the voice doesn’t present a problem—you get the picture. To tell you the truth, it’s the blonde that’s keeping me up at night. We can’t afford to alienate the fat girl changing diapers in Queens.”

  The conference room gleamed whiter, shinier than I’d remembered. I was afraid to lift my coffee cup to my lips, lest a dribble sully a white surface. My eyes drifted to the walls. The paintings were part of one of the most important corporate art collections in the city. Primarily white or beige, they were each rationed a portion of color—circles, squares, stripes, an occasional scribble. I had some paintings in important corporate collections, and I had a feeling they were not hanging in a conference room, more likely they were stacked in cool, stark storage rooms.

  When the head honcho paused, Janet, who exhibited a distinctly ethnic pallor, took up the slack eagerly: “You know, seriously, I think, like, our real challenge lies with the guys—you know, whether to go ethnic or not. You don’t want to end up with one of those guys who wear the baggy jeans and that weird headgear. I mean, I guess they’re real, but yuck.” She wrinkled her long, distinctly ethnic nose in disgust. “You know the kind when they come near you on the street, like you’re just praying to God, they’re not going to pull out a gun. I think, you know, like it would be in our best interests to go with, like, regular guys.”

  There is a thin line between “acceptable” and “unacceptable” bigotry, especially in cosmopolitan beige-and-white circles, but even the head honcho could see that Janet had crossed it. She interrupted hastily: “Why don’t I show you a promo film we did a few years ago? It’ll give you an idea of what we’re about, get us on the same track. We want the laughs, but we also need the tears. No tears coursing down cheeks, God forbid—but tears in the eyes, you know, welling up in the eyes.”

  We were discussing a five-minute history of a cosmetics company here. It shouldn’t be dull, that was understood, but to evoke tears? I studied the promo film for clues. It was white, too, spotted with all kinds of females in tints, not hues, all speaking in educated voices, one big happy family of females, diving into aquamarine swimming pools with big white splashes, dwarfed behind blond wood desks with big white smiles, leaning against sparkling white sinks clutching clean, plump babies. My eyes remained dry, but the filmmakers’ faces had become solemn. The Brit broke the hush.

  “I was very moved,” he spoke slowly and carefully. “To be frank I wasn’t expecting it. I quite liked it. It was quite brilliant, wasn’t it? I’m thinking I’d like to work primarily with water in our film. I think water as a sort of key element could cover all the bases. Water dripping, sort of bubbling, streaming. Quite modern, really. Clean, fresh, cool, crisp. Very minimalist, isn’t it . . . and abstract . . . sort of . . . but concise.”

  I scrutinized the Brit, trying to figure out whether he could possibly mean what he was saying, while simultaneously trying to imagine what kind of script would include water dripping, streaming, and bubbling. Some cold coffee dribbled down my chin—it was inevitable—and when I turned to grope for a napkin I saw her. She’d slipped in unobtrusively. She seemed taller. Talk about sleek. I lurched back in my chair and choked on the rest of the coffee, which caused an even more conspicuous chin dribble. Up close, she didn’t look much older than me. She was as sharp and angular as he was, with eyes that were large and expressionless, eyes that were directed decidedly outward. The coughing spasm that followed my initial choking episode was brief but audible.

  “Are you okay?” the Brit whispered. “Do you need some water?”

  “No, no, fine, fine,” I wheezed, gesturing with my hands. “Just went down the wrong hole.”

  She was charming. She engaged in a short personal chat with each of us. When it was my turn, she looked me up and down appraisingly but so skillfully that a less wary target would hardly have noticed.

  “You look like you’ve had a great summer,” she remarked. “What a gorgeous tan!” Oh, sin of sins, the tan! I’d dressed so carefully this morning, choosing a pair of long pants and a prim jacket, in an evidently useless ploy to cover the scandalous tan, which was now deepened by a head-to-toe blush. I uttered some disavowals in conjunction with pointed references to the company’s high-quality self-tanning products. She responded favorably: “So tell me about
yourself.”

  I sallied forth with a recitation of my writing credentials, and again, she went for it. The filmmakers looked relieved. “Oh, who do you work with? I may know your editor. I’ve worked with fashion magazines in some capacity or another for years, although I’ve been overseas for the past several.”

  “Well, there’s a high turnover, as you’re probably aware,” I began, and she laughed, a deep, throaty, and, well, charming laugh, so I told her my editor’s name.

  “Oh, she’s wonderful. I know her well. Well, not all that well, but as well as can be expected when you work out at the same gym. I guess that is pretty well, isn’t it?” Another throaty laugh escaped, and everybody joined in—almost everybody. I was too busy studying her to join in. Judging by the shape she was in, she knew my good friend the beauty editor quite well. And spiked heels during the day—that indicated a formidable capacity for pain. “I understand you’re a painter?”

  “Well, yes, I guess you could—”

  “That’s fabulous! Do you show?”

  “Yeah, in fact, I’m in a group show now downtown.”

  “How absolutely remarkable! So you have both verbal and visual skills. How unique. You must be either very levelheaded or virtually insane, to be able to deal with both worlds. I know the art world very well. You see, my husband collects. Maybe you know him? Joseph Pendleton.”

  “Hmmm . . . I’ve heard the name.”

  “Of course—Joseph Pendleton!” Saved by the Brit. “I used to see him play when I was just a kid. He was quite brilliant! I was into that sort of thing in the seventies—he played a lot in London. Or was it the early eighties?”

  “Well, he’s not playing or doing much collecting these days. You know, family life—”

  “Oh, sure.” I smiled.

  “Anyway, my husband, he’s into photography primarily, or I’d send him right down. Not that I want to tempt him.”

  “Oh, well . . .” I shrugged.

  “At any rate, I imagine we know a lot of people in common.”