Portrait of a Love

by Joan Wolf

  God, Isabel thought, watching him. I wish I were a sculptor. “All right,” she said, and with some reluctance got out of bed herself.

  They walked down another path through the pines and came out on a wide and silver beach. The surf rolled in blue splendor and the dead stumps of trees scattered here and there rose in fantastic formation across the wide sweep of sand. It would make a wonderful painting.

  Isabel was very quiet. “It’s marvelous,” she said at last.

  He looked pleased and, without speaking, held out his hand. Isabel put hers in it and together they walked along the water’s edge, talking in the low unhurried voices of perfect intimacy. They walked for almost an hour before they returned to the house for a late dinner, after which they retired immediately to bed.

  * * * *

  They swam together for the first time the following morning. Isabel had bought a flowered maillot suit in Altman’s before she left New York; its deep and dramatic hues suited both her figure and her coloring. Leo wore light blue bathing trunks and she looked appraisingly at his shoulders and arms as they walked down to the beach.

  “I should have thought you’d burn, you’re so fair,” she commented.

  “I watch it the first few times I’m out, and then I’m okay,” he said. He was a beautiful golden color and Isabel smiled ruefully.

  “I have never even had a red nose,” she said. “I start off the summer tanner than most people are by the end of it.”

  “Don’t brag,” he said, and Isabel raised her arm and regarded the smooth olive-toned flesh. She sighed.

  “I’m not. I’ve always wanted to be pale and pretty.”

  “You are neither.”

  “So gallant, Senator,” she murmured.

  “You’re not at all pretty,” he continued peacefully. “You’re beautiful. It’s a very different thing.”

  Isabel grinned. “It’s also in the eye of the beholder, but I thank you, sir. You have redeemed yourself.”

  Reaching the beach, they dropped their towels on the sand and went down to the water’s edge. There was a mild surf and the water was warm.

  Isabel was not a strong swimmer, and she spent most of her time diving through the waves and riding the bigger ones up onto the beach. After playing with her for a while, Leo went out beyond the surf and began to swim. He struck off parallel to the shoreline, and after a few minutes Isabel went back to sit on the beach and watch him. He came out of the water half an hour after she did.

  Handing him a towel, Isabel watched as he toweled his hair dry. His golden-brown flesh was glistening with drops of water, and his breathing was only a little faster than normal. He had swum a very long way down the beach and then back.

  “Did that feel good?” she asked, and he grinned and dropped down beside her.

  “Yep. How about you?”

  “I love the water. I don’t swim very well—I can do about the length of a pool before I poop out-— but I love the surf. When I was a little girl, my folks used to take me to Rockaway on the weekends. We’d make a picnic lunch and take the subway. My father and I would be in the water all day.” Her face was bright with remembrance. “My mother used to call us water rats.”

  She drew her knees up and rested her chin on them. “One summer, when I was ten, we took a bungalow at Breezy Point for two weeks. The beach there is fantastic. Daddy used to say, You can travel the world over, but you’ll never find anything better than the Long Island beaches.” Her face changed, and so did her voice. “Then Mother got sick.”

  “How long was she sick?”

  “Eighteen months. They gave her the works— chemotherapy, radiation. All it did was make her terribly sick. And then she died anyway. Daddy never got over it. Never.”

  “That was his failure, not yours.”

  “I suppose.” She drew in a deep, uneven breath. “I haven’t thought of that vacation at Breezy Point for years.”

  “It isn’t good to remember only the unhappy things,” he said.

  She turned her head so that her cheek rested on her knees and her eyes were looking at him. “No, it isn’t. In fact, it should be the other way around, shouldn’t it?”

  “I reckon it should be, honey.” There was a note of tenderness in his voice. “I reckon it should be.”

  * * * *

  The month of July passed, perfect in sunshine, drenched in love. Isabel painted every morning on the beach, and she knew she was doing the best work of her life. Leo had a veritable library of books and reports he wanted to get through, so he would stretch out next to her in a sand chair, read, and make notes while she painted. After lunch they would swim. Sometimes Leo did chores around the house and sometimes they took the boat out and fished or went over to Island Views to shop or play golf. It was an idyll out of time, and it wasn’t until they were a week into August that Isabel began to think of the future as well as the present.

  Time. It was the snake in the garden, she thought as she sat in a mainland laundromat one hazy August afternoon, watching the clothes going around in the dryer. If only the summer could be like that dryer, she thought, endlessly going around, never forward.

  There was a click and the dryer went off. Isabel sighed. “Nothing’s eternal, I guess,” she said out loud, and went to remove and fold the clothes. She was just finishing when Leo came in. He had been to the supermarket while she did the laundry.

  He carried the basket of clothes out to the car for her and they drove back to where Leo had docked the boat. It was after five by the time they got back to the island and had everything put away in the cabin.

  Leo went out onto the porch to look at the sky.

  “It’s going to storm,” he said to Isabel. “How about a walk before dinner?”

  “Okay,” she replied, and they both left the house and strolled along in companionable silence down to the beach, looking at the gathering clouds in the sky.

  “Do you still have the car keys?” he asked her suddenly. She had been the one to lock up the car before getting into the boat.

  She put her hand into the pocket of her seersucker shorts. “Yes. I do.”

  He put out a hand. “Better give them to me now, while we’re thinking of it. I don’t want to spend another hour searching for them because we’ve both forgotten where they were.”

  Isabel stared at that strong, brown hand. A few lines from Andrew Marvell went through her head like a refrain:

  But at my back I always hear

  Times wingèd chariot hurrying near.

  Quite suddenly she felt the need for action.

  “Try and get them,” she said, and laughing, took off down the beach. She glanced around quickly to see if he was following her and then she raced along the hard-packed sand. It was a full minute before she realized she was running alone. She slowed down a little, stopped, and then turned to look for Leo.

  He stood a hundred yards up the beach from her, hands in the pockets of his summer slacks, staring out at the water. Watching him, Isabel felt her throat constrict painfully.

  He couldn’t catch her. He was one of the fastest running backs ever to play the game of football, and he couldn’t catch her. Damn, thought Isabel violently. Damn, damn, damn. Why did I have to run?

  Very slowly she walked up the beach until she was near enough to see his profile. He looked very calm. His hands, she noticed, were still in his pockets.

  “You’ll get no sympathy from me,” she said fiercely. “None. You did it to yourself.”

  “I know.” He sounded weary. “But strangely enough, that doesn’t make it any better.”

  Abruptly Isabel turned her back on him. After a minute she began to walk very slowly back the way she had come.

  “Isabel.” His hand was on her shoulder, forcing her to turn to face him, revealing to him what she had hoped to conceal: the drenching tears that were pouring uncontrollably down her cheeks.

  “Oh, honey,” he said softly. “Don’t.” And he took her in his arms.

  She turned
in to him and reached her arms around his waist to hold him tight. “Does it still hurt?” she wept into his shoulder.

  “The psychological pain is much worse than the physical,” he said into her hair. “And as you so justly pointed out, the fault is mine alone.”

  In answer she pressed closer to him and shivered. A few fat raindrops fell on their heads. There was the sound of thunder in the air.

  “The storm is starting,” Leo said. “Come on, we’d better get back to the cabin.”

  It was raining hard by the time they reached the house, a heavy tropical rain that soaked them through. They went into the bedroom, and as the storm raged and the thunder crashed, they made love with a passion that was scarcely less wild and primitive than the elements outside.

  At last the thunder and lightning subsided, leaving only the rain. Leo flung open the bedroom windows and the sound and smell of the rain filled the room. Isabel lay back against the pillow and watched him.

  But at my back I always hear— No! she thought. I won’t think about that. I’m only going to think about now.

  Leo came back to the bed and she smiled and held her arms out to him. Lying down beside her, he buried his face in the smooth hollow between her breasts. Isabel ran her hand through the golden tangle of his hair, listening to the rain.

  Nothing can take this away from me, she thought. No matter what happens, I’ll always have the memory of this moment.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Isabel had worked on two oils during the summer and they were almost finished. She also had innumerable sketches for future work in her studio.

  “Summer is almost over,” Leo said to her one day when he returned from a trip to the post office on the mainland. “Tuition bills for September are due.”

  Isabel was cleaning her brushes in the kitchen. Leo watched her from the doorway.

  She cleared her throat. “Whose tuition do you pay? Paige’s?”

  “No. My mother takes care of Paige’s. There are a few other kids I help out. But I don’t want to talk about tuition.”

  Isabel stared down at her brushes. But at my back I always hear ... The famous words rang in her ears and she knew she would have to come to terms with them. “No,” she said, “I suppose not.” She rinsed the brush, put it down to dry, and turned to face Leo.

  “It’s time we talked about the future.” His voice, like his face, was quiet and grave.

  Isabel could feel a hard knot begin to tighten inside her stomach. She swallowed. “The future?”

  “The future.” He remained in the doorway so the width of the kitchen separated them.

  “What do you want to say?”

  “For God’s sake, Isabel!” Her hand briefly touched her forehead and his voice steadied. She could hear the effort he was making to keep calm. “I love you,” he said. “I want you to marry me.”

  “Oh, Leo,” she said. In the afternoon light her face looked pinched and sallow. “I thought we had this out before.”

  “I was hoping,” he said steadily, “that you had changed your mind.”

  “I’m not the sort of wife you need. I wasn’t reared on embassy garden parties and dinner at the White House. I’d only be a liability to you. If you can’t see that, I can.”

  “No, I can’t see that at all. You sailed through Washington like a queen.” His voice changed. “But I don’t give a damn about all that, and you know it. I don’t want a hostess and a dinner date. I want a wife. I want you.”

  Isabel walked past him, out of the kitchen and into the living room, where she stood in front of a large window that looked out toward the water. She remained there, her slim back to Leo. The curve of her slender brown neck as she bent her head, the density of the shining black braid she had wound around her head like a coronet for coolness, entranced him. He could fit his hands around her entire waist, he thought as he watched her. He could make her do as he wanted. For a brief frightening minute Leo had an intimation of brutality totally alien to his nature.

  “I can’t,” said Isabel. She turned to face him. “I just can’t.”

  “You said you loved me.”

  “I do!” There was a glitter in her eyes, and for a moment Leo saw a wild and hunted thing finally brought to bay. “I do love you. I’ll never love anyone else. But I can’t marry you, Leo.”

  “I must be extraordinarily stupid”—the bitterness in his voice was clear—”but I don’t understand.”

  She clasped her hands together in front of her. “Leo,” she said. “I’m an artist. I want to paint. Can’t you understand that?”

  “Yes, I think I’m capable of understanding that. What I cannot understand is why you can’t paint and marry me as well.” Her eyes were dark with distress and his voice deepened, becoming ineffably tender. “Isabel. Honey, I would never stand in the way of your painting. I’ll build you the finest studio any artist ever had. We can move out into the country, to McLean or to Chevy Chase ...”

  She was slowly shaking her head and he stopped speaking. The room was very quiet. “Do you know why there were so few great women artists in the past?” Isabel asked, her eyes on her clasped hands.

  “Why?”

  She raised her eyes to look at him. “Because women married,” she said quietly. “They married and became someone’s wife and someone else’s mother, and all that concentrated energy one needs to expend on art dissipated into something else.” He didn’t answer. “I saw an interview with Katharine Hepburn a while back,” she went on. “She put it very well, I think. You have to make a choice, she said. If you want to succeed as an artist, you must have the courage to stand alone. You can’t have your cake and eat it too.”

  “Very profound.” His eyes were intensely blue and there was a white line around his mouth.

  “I’ve put it badly,” said Isabel. “But what she said is true. One must make a choice. And I know you, Leo. You’d want a family; you should have a family. If ever a man was born to be a father, it’s you. But I wasn’t born to be a mother. Or a wife. I was born to be an artist.”

  “I see.” His voice sounded unusually clipped. “Well, if that is the case, there’s nothing more to say, is there?”

  Isabel took a step toward him. “We don’t have to say good-bye forever. I didn’t mean that.”

  “You mean you are willing to continue to sleep with me, you just don’t want to be my wife.” Isabel halted. “Well, that isn’t good enough for me, Isabel. I’m sorry, but it just isn’t good enough.”

  She could feel herself growing pale. “Oh,” she said. Helplessly, pleadingly, she began, “Leo ...”

  He left the house, closing the door behind him with a gentleness born of violence precariously controlled.

  It was dark when Leo returned. He was calm and polite and pleasant, and it was as though a wall of ice had been erected between them. Isabel served dinner and made conversation. He ate and answered her with unfailing courtesy. He dried the dishes as he had done on every other night of the summer, and then sat down at the desk in the living room to write out checks. When he was addressing envelopes, Isabel spoke.

  “Leo? Please don’t be like this.” She crossed the room to stand in front of him. The lamp on the desk illuminated his hair and face. There were threads of gold spangled across his forehead.

  “How do you want me to be?” he asked patiently.

  “Can’t we at least keep what we had?” she asked, and looked down into his eyes. It was like speaking to a man she hardly knew but with whom she was terribly in love.

  He shrugged. “What did we have, Isabel? It was a nice summer, but now it’s over.”

  He would not be placated. There was nothing she could do. Isabel went to bed and pretended to be asleep when Leo finally came in. She lay awake for a long, long time, listening to his quiet breathing, feeling the loneliness of being shut out from him. She wanted to reach out to him. She wanted to be held by him and loved and comforted. But she couldn’t even touch him. It was like sleeping with a stranger.
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  The following morning she told him she was returning to New York. He helped her pack and drove her to the airport.

  * * * *

  New York. Bob. Her own studio. Her own life.

  September went by, and October. It was all loneliness, bitter, bitter loneliness.

  In November one of the TV stations aired the documentary on Leo. Isabel and Bob watched it together.

  There was Leo as a college junior, so very young looking. There was a shot of his parents in the stands watching a football game, and Isabel saw Mrs. Sinclair next to a big, broad-shouldered, good-looking man. So that was Leo’s father. That was where he got his size, she thought.

  There was a picture of Leo receiving the Heissman Trophy. He looks so young, so golden, she thought. Leo the lion.

  Then there were the pro games. “God,” said Bob, “but he was the best. Look at that, Isabel. Look at him go through that field.”

  “Yes,” Isabel said. “I see.”

  Of course they talked about his knee injuries just as Leo had foreseen. If he was watching, though Isabel doubted that he was, he would be hating every minute.

  Bob turned the set off, sat down, and looked at her.

  “I still can’t understand why he did it,” she said. The last football shot of Leo in obvious agony as he unsuccessfully tried to get to his feet had shaken her badly.

  “You saw how he played, Isabel,” Bob said gently. “Perhaps once in a generation you get a Leo Sinclair.” He paused. “If you developed arthritis in your hands,” he said, “would you continue to paint until you quite literally could no longer move your fingers?”

  Isabel’s eyes were very bright. “Yes,” she said, and finally understood.

  * * * *

  November passed. Isabel worked every day at her studio. She had sold several paintings; her name was beginning to be talked of seriously in art circles. A few dealers were recommending her to their clients as a “good investment.”

  She had an offer for one of the Hampton Island paintings. She refused to sell it and the offer went higher. It was like a dream; last year at this time she would have been thrilled to receive a tenth of what was now being offered.