Portrait of a Love

by Joan Wolf

  “I’ll put them on my charge,” Mrs. Sinclair said.

  “All right. Then I’ll make the check out to you.”

  “That will be just fine, dear.”

  “Don’t you have a MasterCard or a Visa?” asked Leo. It was the first he had spoken since she had mentioned Bob’s name.

  “No. I learned long ago that if I couldn’t pay cash for it, I couldn’t afford it.”

  He raised a golden eyebrow. “Very wise.” He pushed his chair back and stood up. “Mama will give you my Washington address and phone number so you can make your arrangements.” He looked at his mother. “I’ve got a few calls to make today, Mama. I should be home for dinner.”

  Mrs. Sinclair held up her face for his kiss and smiled at his back as he walked out of the room. Then she turned back to Isabel. “I think we’ll go first to a nice little boutique I know,” she said, and for the next fifteen minutes the two women discussed clothes and acted for all the world as if a man named “Leo Sinclair” did not exist.

  After breakfast Isabel put in a call to New York.

  “Mr. Henderson’s office,” an efficient female voice said when she had gotten the extension she asked for.

  “Hi, Marion, it’s Isabel. Is Bob in?”

  “Isabel.” The woman sounded surprised. “I thought you were in South Carolina.”

  “I am and this call is costing me a fortune.” Isabel had put the charges on her home phone. “Is he there?”

  “Give me your number and I’ll have him call you right back,” Marion said practically.

  “Great,” said Isabel, and gave her the number and promptly hung up. Barrows, Barrows, Dunlop, and Shore could afford the call more than she could, she thought.

  In three minutes the phone rang. She picked it up and said, “Hi, Bob.”

  “Hi yourself. What’s up? You haven’t run into any trouble, have you?”

  “No. In fact, things are looking pretty good. The senator has to go back to Washington and I’m going to do the portrait there. And he’s going to introduce me to some people in the hopes I can drum up some more business.”

  “Hey, Isabel, that sounds great!” Isabel smiled at the genuine enthusiasm in his pleasant tenor voice. “Are you calling to give me your new address?”

  “Yes. Do you have a pen? Okay.” She gave him the address and phone number, then added, “And I want you to send me a couple of dresses, Bob. You know, the ones I bought for the Christmas and the president’s parties last year. The black-and-gold ones.”

  “Oh, yeah. Are they in your closet?”

  “Yes, in the garment bag in the corner.”

  “Okay. How about shoes?”

  “Good thought. Better send me the gold sandals. They’re in one of the shoe boxes in the closet.”

  “Will do.”

  “How are you surviving, Bob? Are you eating properly?”

  He laughed. “I’m eating out. Those TV dinners you left me are wretched.”

  “I know,” she said sympathetically, but didn’t ask him who he was eating out with. She had long ago perfected the art of keeping out of Bob’s private life.

  “I miss you,” he said unexpectedly. “The apartment seems damn empty.”

  “That’s a nice thing to say,” she replied softly.

  “I mean it. Well, I’d better not run up this bill any more or old Barrows will want to know who my client is in South Carolina.”

  “Okay. Take care of yourself. I’ll be home in a few weeks.”

  “Right. And I’ll get these things off to you right away.”

  “Thanks. ‘Bye for now.”

  “Good-bye, Isabel.”

  Isabel hung up the phone and sat staring at it for a few minutes as she visualized the curly brown hair, clear, intelligent hazel eyes, and warm smile of the man who was perhaps the best friend she had ever had. What would he do, she wondered, if she moved out of the apartment? Then, startled by her own thought, she stood up. She had no intention of moving out on Bob. She couldn’t imagine what had even put the thought in her head. She smoothed down her hair and went into the drawing room to wait for Mrs. Sinclair.

  * * * *

  The shopping expedition was a success, and Isabel, to her surprise, enjoyed it very much. She had grown up without knowing the pleasure of shopping for clothes with another woman. She supposed her mother must have taken her shopping when she was younger, but she didn’t remember it much. What she remembered about her mother were the years of sickness. During her teen years, there wasn’t any money for cozy shopping expeditions. All Isabel remembered from those times was the constant battle to get enough money out of her father to pay the rent and utility bills and buy some food before he drank all his salary up in the local bar.

  “This was fun,” she said to Mrs. Sinclair as they sat in a small restaurant sipping tea. “I don’t often shop like this. There’s no occasion to, really. I practically live in jeans and sweaters.”

  “You have the kind of figure that looks marvelous in anything, my dear,” Mrs. Sinclair said with a smile.

  “You’re very kind.” Isabel changed the subject. “Do you want a full-figure portrait of Leo?”

  “I don’t know, Isabel. What do you think?”

  “I think I’d like to do it full-length,” Isabel said slowly. Her eyes were slightly narrowed as she imagined the pose she had in her brain.

  “You must do it as you think best. I’m sure whatever you do will be marvelous.”

  Isabel looked at the older woman a little wryly. “Such absolute confidence makes me a little uneasy, Mrs. Sinclair.”

  “It shouldn’t. And you have a perfect subject for your first big commission, you know.” Mrs. Sinclair looked at her and said comically, “It simply isn’t possible, my dear, to make Leo look bad.”

  Isabel’s face suddenly broke into its magical smile. “And here I was thinking that your confidence was in me.”

  The older woman’s eyes were bright. “I have confidence in you both, my dear. I have confidence in you both.”

  * * * *

  Leo and Isabel left Charleston at seven o’clock the following morning. It was over five hundred miles to Washington and they were going to do it in one day. It was raining.

  Leo said very little as they got onto 95 and started the long drive north. He was driving and his concentration on the road was an almost tangible thing. Isabel leaned back in her seat, eyes half-closed, and drowsed.

  “We’re going to be even later than I thought,” he said after about an hour. “Unless the rain lets up, that is.”

  Isabel sat up straighter. “We’ll drive it in two-hour shifts—that’s the safest way. I was very careful to stop every couple of hours on the way down.”

  “You sound like an advertisement for Triple A.”

  Isabel shrugged. “I don’t do that much driving because a car is only a nuisance in New York. So I suppose I err on the side of caution.”

  He rubbed his head. Even in this gloomy weather his hair looked bright. “I’m sorry, Isabel. Rainy mornings don’t bring out the best in me.”

  She half-smiled. “That’s all right.”

  They drove for perhaps another ten miles. Then Leo said, “Who is Bob?”

  Ah ha, thought Isabel. I knew it was coming.

  “Bob is the fellow I share an apartment with,” she replied calmly. She had answered that same question for the last three years in the same tone.

  “I see. He’s an architect?”

  “Yes. We were at Cooper Union together. He’s enormously talented.”

  “You’ve been together since college, then?”

  “I moved in with him after my father died,” Isabel said shortly.

  Leo nodded, put on his blinker, and moved into the left lane. Once he was around the large moving van that had been disturbing him, he turned to glance at Isabel. “If you want to give me orders to shut up, I will,” he said. “I just realized I must sound like the Grand Inquisitor.”

  The easy smile, the gent
le drawl, disarmed her. “I don’t want to give you orders,” she said, “but I guess I am a little sensitive about my private life. The modern urge to public confession seems to have passed me by completely.”

  “Is there a lot of public confession in New York?” he asked curiously.

  “Psychotherapy has a good deal to answer for, as far as I’m concerned,” Isabel said firmly. “There’s a lot to be said for the old-fashioned virtues of reserve and self-discipline.”

  Someone abruptly pulled into the lane in front of him and Leo tooted his horn in admonition.

  “You’ll like Washington, then,” he said. “It’s a very reserved city, very formal. The mere thought of letting it all hang out would fill any good Washingtonian with horror.”

  “That does sound nice.” Isabel smiled ruefully. “When I think of the number of times I have been forced to listen to the whole sad story of someone’s life, I could weep.”

  “No one talks about their personal lives in Washington. They talk politics.”

  “That will make for a nice change,” said Isabel.

  “Are you interested in politics, Isabel?”

  “My dear Senator”—she turned to regard his profile—”I’m Irish. When I was ten years old, I was reading the editorial page of The New York Times so I’d be able to talk to my father at the dinner table.”

  “You’ll have to switch to the Washington Post for a while.”

  Isabel curled her legs under her and turned in her seat to see him better. “Do they really talk politics all the time?”

  “Pretty much. It’s inevitable, I reckon.”

  “Because that’s what most everyone is involved in?”

  “Not really. One presumes that a group of bankers would have something else to talk about besides banking. It’s the very nature of the kind of entertainment Washington excels in: the formal dinner party. Imagine, there you are, seated between two women whom you scarcely know, and you must spend the first half of the meal talking to the lady on your right and the second half to the lady on your left though you may not have a thing in common with either of them. In other cities this could be very awkward, but in Washington you can always fall back on politics.”

  “Good heavens,” said Isabel. “It sounds rather daunting.”

  “It can be, I reckon, but I love it. You can’t get away with a sloppy thought or an undocumented fact, you know, not even in casual dinner conversation. Someone will infallibly pick you up on it.”

  “You are terrifying me.”

  “Am I?” He glanced her way, a quick flash of blue before his eyes went back to the road. “You should be able to handle it. I was in the library yesterday and I looked up Cooper Union. You didn’t get in there on just your looks.”

  “I was lucky,” she answered. “Like you.”

  “Mmm. Did your father ever get involved in politics, or was he an armchair critic?”

  Isabel then astonished herself. “For the last ten years of his life my father did nothing but drink. The only reason he held down his job at the end was because his friends covered up for him. He didn’t read anything; he just sat at the bar all night.” The bitterness in her voice was audible even to her own ears. She bit her lip. “Sorry, that was unnecessary. And after all I just said about public confessions.”

  “I’m the one whose sorry, honey,” he said gently. “You interest me and so I’ve been houndin’ you with questions. I didn’t mean to rub an unhealed wound.”

  Isabel bent her head. “It is an unhealed wound, I suppose. I used to love him so much, and then he went and did that to himself. I can’t forgive him. I don’t think I ever will.”

  Leo glanced once more at her, at the fine narrow head bent over the tensely clasped hands in her lap. She was taut with stillness, a controlled, intense stillness.

  “Did he begin to drink after your mother died?” he asked softly.

  She nodded mutely and Leo felt a sudden surge of tenderness and pity sweep through him. Poor kid, he thought, she had lost both her parents in one fell swoop.

  “There’s nothing I can say that I’m sure you haven’t heard before,” he said after a minute. “Except that if you can’t forgive him, you really must try to forgive yourself.”

  Her head lifted at his comment. There was such a deep and lonely watchfulness about her, he thought.

  “Do you think so?” Her voice sounded odd, breathless.

  He nodded gravely. “You didn’t fail him. In a case like his, there is quite literally nothing one can do. He had to do it for himself.”

  “That’s what Bob says too,” Isabel mumbled.

  “Bob is right,” Leo replied evenly. “The failure was your father’s, and it was a failure of self-discipline, of hope, of loving you enough.” Leo heard Isabel’s forcible intake of breath as he said the last words.

  “You ought to go into the psychotherapy business yourself,” she said shakily. “You’re damn good at it.”

  He shrugged, his big shoulders moving easily under the tan sweater he was wearing. Isabel was keenly aware of his physical presence, and the feeling was oddly comforting.

  “When I was in college, I worked in the Big Brother program. The boy I was a Big Brother to came from a broken home—his father was an alcoholic.”

  Isabel was silent as she listened to the sound of the rain teeming on the car’s roof. “I see. So you have some firsthand experience.”

  “I’ve seen the havoc that particular illness can wreak on a family, at any rate.” He leaned forward to adjust the defroster. “But Jimmy came through it all right. He was a very self-reliant kid—like you. He’s at Notre Dame right now.” He grinned. “In fact, in the last letter I had from him he told me he had rejoined the Big Brother program, this time on the other end.”

  “You still keep in touch with him?”

  “Sure. He’s a great kid. A wonderful musician.”

  “Not a football player, then?”

  “No. He came once to a Notre Dame game. I think he felt he owed it to me. He was very polite, told me it was ‘interesting.’ “

  “Is Notre Dame the best college for a boy like that?”

  “Probably not.” He put on his blinker and began to pull off into a roadside gas station and cafeteria. “He should be at a good music school, really. But he didn’t want to be too far from his mother. He’s her only child and she isn’t well.” He stopped the car and turned to her. “Let’s get a cup of coffee and then you can take over the wheel.”

  “Fair enough. Do you by any chance have an umbrella?”

  “I do not. On the count of three, we run for it. One—two—three.” The car door slammed and they both dashed, laughing, through the heavy rain to the restaurant door.

  Chapter Five

  They didn’t arrive in Washington until almost midnight. Leo had driven the last five hours. Isabel, exhausted, was only dimly aware of a street lined with trim Federal-style houses as Leo ushered her into the entrance hall of one of them.

  “How nice,” she said feebly, looking around her and blinking in the suddenly soft light.

  He grinned. “You’re groggy. I’ll give you the tour tomorrow.” He lifted her suitcase and tote bag. “Come on, I’ll show you up to your bedroom.”

  “My paints ...”

  “I’ll get them out of the car, don’t worry. Come ‘long now and stop arguing.”

  Isabel laughed and moved toward the stairs. “I can see you had generals for ancestors.”

  “Blood will tell,” he said from behind her. “Second door on the left.”

  Her bedroom was very similar in style to the one she had occupied in Charleston. The Sinclairs, she reflected a little wryly, seemed to be lousy with eighteenth-century furniture.

  Leo put her suitcase down in front of an elegant mahogany highboy. “The bathroom is here,” he said as he opened a door and showed Isabel an incongruously modern facility. “The bed should be made up, I called Mrs. Edwards yesterday to tell her a guest was coming with me.” He twi
tched the spread back and ascertained that there were indeed sheets and blankets on the four-poster. Then he looked at Isabel.

  “All right?” he asked. “Is there anything else you need?”

  She shook her head. “No. Thank you, Leo. Everything is lovely.”

  “Sleep well,” he said, and left the room, closing the door softly behind him.

  Isabel fished her pajamas and toothbrush out of her suitcase, spent three minutes in the bathroom, crawled into bed, and went immediately to sleep.

  The next morning she awoke to sunshine streaming in through the window. After a few lazy minutes in bed, Isabel went into the bathroom, surveyed the modern shower and ample supply of fluffy towels, and quickly got her shampoo from her bag. She finished waking up under a refreshing spray of hot water.

  Half an hour later she went downstairs and peered around for some signs of life.

  “In here, Isabel,” came Leo’s unmistakable voice, and she went through the very elegant and formal dining room to what she supposed would be called a breakfast room. Leo was seated at a painted pine table with a plate of scrambled eggs in front of him. He stood up and smiled at her as she came in. Paige had told Isabel that her brother’s slow, lazy, blue-eyed smile had broken half the female hearts in America. Isabel was quite certain Paige had not exaggerated.

  “Good morning,” he drawled. “Sleep well?”

  “Good morning,” she replied crisply, neglecting to mimic his accent. “Yes, thank you, I slept very well. I was exhausted, though I don’t know why. You did the lion’s share of the driving.”

  “It was a long day,” he said. “Sit down.”

  He gestured to the chair next to his, and as Isabel complied, he called over the half-wall that separated the breakfast room from the kitchen, “Are there any more eggs, Mrs. Edwards?”

  A heavyset black woman came over to the wall opening. “There sure are, Senator.” Her accent was unmistakably Caribbean. “Good morning, miss. What can I get you?”

  “Scrambled eggs will be fine,” said Isabel, as she picked up the coffeepot and poured herself a cup. “I’d like to make a start on the portrait this morning, if that’s all right with you,” she said as she stirred cream and sugar into her coffee.