But I’m trying to look at the proof, and the proof is in his words. The proof is that he’s here. And for a handful of seconds I consider what could become of that.
The considering doesn’t go too far before I remember that the vulnerability he’s offering has to be met in kind for it to work.
And I can’t be that naked, in any sense of the word. Not for Hendrix. Not for anyone.
I pull my hand away abruptly. “I’m sorry, I don’t feel the same.” The bitter taste of deceit returns. Before I’m tempted to wash it down with truth, I stand. “I think it would be best that we call it a night.”
I’m heading out the door before he can stop me, confident that he won’t follow. He knows there’s no use chasing after the animal he’s after. He knows it’s best to lie in wait.
Outside, I pull up the Uber app as soon as I realize that catching a taxi in this part of town on a Saturday night is not happening. Car ordered, I lean against the stone exterior of the pub and will myself not to cry.
Next thing I know, Hendrix is standing next to me. Because I’m not an animal, I’m a woman, and why would he stay in the pub when the bill was already paid and I’d left?
And if he was the type of man to follow me to London, he certainly wouldn’t be the type of man to leave me brooding in peace.
I sigh when I see him, a big, desperate, anguished sigh. “I can’t,” I say. Because I can’t. I can’t anything with him. I can’t even with myself.
“I know,” he says calmly. “So let me.” With his hands in his pockets, he steps in, so close that I can’t look in his eyes. So close that we’re almost touching. It feels like we’re touching, even though there’s not a part of me in contact with him. “I know you don’t mean what you said in there. I know that you feel something. And I know that, for whatever reason, you aren’t able to let that keep you from walking away right now.”
His tone is patient. His words, given as a gift, not to persuade but to soothe. And the electricity bouncing between us...would it send mixed messages if I let him take me in the alley for a quickie?
It’s sad that that’s where my mind goes, when sex is already part of my routine and what he’s offering is something so much more uncommon in my life. Happiness. Not the daily small joys I have naturally with Freddie, but the kind that come from being chosen. Is that why I run from it? Because it’s too foreign? Too unknown?
Probably that, and also it’s hard to trust something so intangible. Sex is easy in comparison. It’s concrete. It has a clear objective. It has a clear end.
Of course, with what he’s said, with the declaration of his interest, sex can’t just be sex anymore. It will forever after be more.
So I bite my lip so I don’t suggest it. I breathe in his scent, a mix of sandalwood and musk. I take a snapshot for my memory book. I don’t lean forward to press my forehead against his chin. When he speaks again, I listen.
“I need you to know that I’m here,” he says. “Afraid because of how much I want you. Willing to wait for any scrap of you that you’re able to give. If this is all I get, if this is all I ever get, it will still have been worth it.”
He goes then, walking in the direction of the tube, without so much as the barest brush of his body against mine.
I watch him leave, my heart heavy and full, the camera behind my eyes click, click, clicking until he’s just a blur disappearing in the distance.
Chapter Seven
Proportion: Refers to the harmonious relation of parts to each other or to the whole. - MoMA Glossary of Art Terms
“You said we’d go swimming.” Fred tugs at my arm as he attempts to pull me in the direction he believes goes to his uncle’s house.
“We will go swimming,” I promise. Edward has a pool on his ground level, and though he’s still in the States, we often slip over to use it. I’ll only don a costume if we’re alone, and Freddie’s much too young to be swimming without someone ready to jump in after him if need be so my brother’s mansion across from Regent’s has become our swim spot. I’ve even taken to leaving our costumes there to make the journey less of a hassle.
Though I do intend to keep the Sunday plans I made with my son, there’s another thing on my agenda as well. “Remember I said we were going to the park first?”
“But this is the boring part of the park.” He kicks at the walk with the toe of his shoe. I’m lucky this is his version of a tantrum, he’s such a well-behaved kid. “Do we have to look at weird art again?”
That was my bad. The last event I dragged him to at this park was the Frieze art fair. I learned too late that he’d been maybe a little too young to fully appreciate it. I’m hoping today’s art will be of more interest to him. “It’s a little weird,” I confess. “I think it will be fun too.”
He frowns as he kicks the walk again. “But will it be as fun as swimming?”
Swimming, for him, involves splashing half the water out of the pool, shrieking in glee, and heaving toys to and fro until he’s exhausted. This won’t involve any of those things. I consider lying, but I’ve committed to a parenting style that embraces honesty as much as possible, so I toss the idea aside and settle for the truth. “Probably not quite as fun. We won’t stay long, okay?”
He heaves a sigh that seems awfully large for his little body. “Okay.”
I survey the horizon, pinpointing my destination. With a twinge of guilt, I tow him toward the performers ahead of us. I haven’t been completely transparent, hiding my motives for this part of our trek. What am I supposed to tell a six-year-old boy, though, when I can’t fully explain my reasons even to myself?
I should take that as a sign that this particular adventure is better avoided, but here we are, my child and me with my multitudes standing in front of the living statue competition against all better reasoning.
Fortunately, Fred is mesmerized. “Are they…?” He’s hesitant to make his guess out loud, understandably since the performers are that good. “Are those real people?”
“They are. Isn’t it incredible?” Together we walk closer toward one of the “statues,” a man covered head to toe in bronze seated on a park bench and frozen in a pose. He’s so still, it takes me a minute to discern he’s actually breathing.
Fred clings next to me, suddenly intimidated. “He doesn’t get to move at all?”
“Well, he won’t stay like that forever, but he’ll certainly stay for long enough that it grows uncomfortable. Can you imagine sitting that still?”
There’s a part of me that can imagine it. The part of me that finds discomfort so familiar it’s become a friend. I can imagine the tingle of a limb beginning to fall asleep, the buzz of nerves turning into spikes of pain before finally, finally, there’s the welcome numb.
It’s worth the ache, in my opinion, to reach that finish line. A reward few can understand.
I’m sure Fred does not have that goal in mind when he says, “I bet I could do it!”
“You think you could?” He couldn’t sit still for even half a minute, but I’m a mother who encourages even the boldest of dreams. “Maybe we should paint you up and let you try it?”
“I’ll try it now.” His trepidation gone, he runs to the empty seat next to the bronze man and attempts to replicate his pose. His little face alternates between imitating the bronze man’s seriousness and a pleased smile with himself.
I bite back a laugh, wishing I’d brought my camera. I try not to take it out with us too often on our days together. This time is for him, and it’s hard to stay present in that when my mind is consumed with the business of making art.
Right now, though, I want to capture the image for the moment, not the craft. Remembering my mobile, I dig it from my purse and snap a pic on the rarely used camera app, impressed that Freddie has managed to hold the position this long.
“He’s a natural,” a familiar voice says at my side and like a pleasant breeze on a humid day, I feel a sudden relief.
Trying not to smile too widely, I p
eer over at Hendrix. “I suppose he is. It’s come as a surprise.”
Just then, Freddie begins to fidget. Just wrinkling his nose, twice, three times, as though it needs to be itched. “Perhaps I spoke too soon.”
Hendrix chuckles, the camera slung across his chest bouncing with the movement. “He seems to really be struggling there. Poor guy.”
“You’re doing great, Fred! Bravo!”
My encouragement draws a grin on my son’s face, wide and toothy. “Told you I could do it!” Then he’s up and running toward one of the other living statues. He clearly considers himself their newest coworker and I could watch this all day.
As I follow after him, without discussion, Hendrix does too, matching my stride.
I curse myself for being as thrilled as I am for his company. “Fancy seeing you here,” I say when I can’t think of anything else and the need to speak to him feels like a butterfly cupped in my hands, its wings beating desperately to escape.
“Yes. Quite a coincidence.”
I roll my eyes. At him. At me. No coincidence at all, actually, since the assignment I gave class the day before was to get some shots of the competition today. The statues are perfect models, their stillness removes variables and allows the photographer to focus on other elements—the light, the angle, the story. Also, the performers already expect to be photographed so there isn’t the ethics issue of taking pictures without permission, a debate many of my peers have had about snapping pics of people in the park.
“The exhibit goes on all day,” I protest. “I could have missed you.” It is honestly a stroke of luck that we happen to be here at the same time as he is. I’d tried to be, of course, but I had little hope that it would actually occur.
If I believed in that sort of thing, I might think the universe is trying to tell me something.
“You wouldn’t have missed me,” he says, and suddenly I know he’s been looking for me. That he likely arrived just as the event opened and planned to stay until it closed for just the shot at an encounter.
That patience of his. It unravels me.
Why am I here, why am I here, why am I here? When I told him this isn’t what I want. When I insisted to myself that this isn’t what I need. Maybe my truest addiction all along was to feeling the happiness he draws out in our talks.
I dragged my child into this tangled mess. How fucked up am I?
Though my selfish reasons for being here seem to be an accidental score because Fred is having a “dynamite” time running from statue to statue, posing next to them. He pretends to raise a gun with the green army men. At the group of golden cowboys, he adopts a tilt to his posture that allows him to fit right in. When he gets to the woman made up to look like a bronze replication of the queen, he bows deeply before her, his small legs teetering in the position.
He’s so funny and so fast flitting from one scene to the next that I hardly have time to recover. At one point, I have to bend over to contain the fit of laughter.
When I’m able to stand again, I wipe tears from my eyes and catch Hendrix beaming at me. He’s been laughing along with me, and it felt so natural, I forgot that it’s not. Forgot that few people ever see me like this, loose and uninhibited.
It makes me feel captured, in a way. I resent him for it, for witnessing this part of me.
But also it makes me want him to see more.
Fred runs back to me, his eyes wild with excitement. “Mummy! Did you see the mermaid?”
I glance around until I spot the woman dressed and painted in green sitting on top of a rock, her mermaid tail dangling down the side. “I see her now. Is she your favorite?”
“So far!” He abruptly settles his elation when he spots Hendrix at my side. “Hello,” he says, not the least withdrawn like I am. “I’m Fred. You can call me Freddie.”
Hendrix looks to me, and I nod. “What a very adult introduction. Better than what I could have offered myself. I’m Hendrix. You can call me whatever you like, I’ll probably answer.”
“He talks funny,” Fred whispers loudly.
“He does, doesn’t he? American dialects are the silliest.”
My child beams like we’ve shared a joke, then addresses Hendrix once again. “Are you Mummy’s friend?”
God, the rippling of my insides makes me feel like I’m on the Eye instead of feet flat on the ground. It feels so big, this introduction. A monumental moment between the three of us. And inappropriate since I have no intentions of keeping Hendrix in my life. Irresponsible too. What kind of mixed messages am I giving the man? What kind of mixed message am I giving my son?
But if I were to keep Hendrix…
I don’t even know how to fantasize that without an understanding of how he’d fit into my full life when the biggest portion of my life is Fred.
Again the man looks at me. I don’t venture an answer, intrigued with what he’ll say on his own.
“I’m a student in her class,” Hendrix says, a safe answer that I should let stand.
But I’m an idiot of a creature so I amend. “He’s in my class, but yes, Fred. Hendrix is a friend.”
Hendrix’s eyes light and his lips curl up as though he’s won a grand prize.
Has he?
No, he hasn’t. It’s just a fact. We knew each other before he enrolled in my class. He’s not just a student.
If we’re actually accounting for facts, of course, he’s not just a friend, either.
“I don’t know many of Mummy’s friends,” Fred says thoughtfully. “Do you have a kid too?”
It’s the natural assumption. Most of the people he has met as “Mummy’s friends” were really arranged playdates with mothers who had children Fred’s age.
Hendrix squats down so he’s eye-to-eye with my son. “I don’t. Sort of unfortunate because I always wanted kids.”
“Why don’t you have one then?”
The questions of children.
It reminds me of the encouragement Hendrix gave the night before, suggesting that it wasn’t too late for me to have more. Had I imagined that he was suggesting the possibility of fathering them?
Hendrix shrugs. “Good question. I’ll get on that.”
Fred nods his head like it’s a done deal. “You can pretend I’m your kid for today,” he suggests.
Hendrix looks up at me. “I’m not sure how your mother would feel about that.”
My chest tightens and releases. Tightens again, and I’m not sure if it’s a good feeling or a bad one. Not sure if it’s okay to let my child play out this whim or if it’ll do long-term damage.
But oh, what a delicious whim it is. A fantasy I’ll play over and over, having a partner in loving my son. Someone to share the wonder and joy of watching this little miracle discover the world. A partner who loves me just as devotedly. Who wants to discover the world with me.
I don’t have to respond, thankfully, because Fred shrugs it off like it’s no big deal, and then is instantly distracted by a wizard statue in the distance.
“Stay within sight,” I shout as he runs off ahead of us.
“I’m sorry about that,” Hendrix says. “I hope it didn’t make you too uncomfortable.”
I shake my head, trying to adopt the same nonchalance as Fred. “Not your fault. He’s just starting to realize he doesn’t have a dad, and I think it fascinates him that there are men who might want to be one.” I barely let a beat go by before adding, “And don’t ask about his father, please. He passed away before Fred was born, and that’s all I like to say about that.”
“Understood.” He’s quiet now as we walk. I’ve ruined the mood. Which is probably for the best since I’m not trying to form any attachments between us.
Any more attachments between us.
Still, I can’t help being sour over it. I’m so busy brooding, in fact, that it’s Hendrix who has to point it out. “Look,” he says. His face says that he’s charmed by something. I know that because I’ve seen him look at me in the same way.
I
follow his gaze and see Freddie standing in front of the gray-stone colored wizard, his expression full of wonder.
Quickly and with stealth, Hendrix approaches them, taking the lens off his camera and bringing it to his eye as he does. I creep behind him with equal excitement, hoping he caught the picture I’m seeing in my own head.
“Let me see,” I say eagerly when he pauses his clicking to look at the screen. He hands over the camera willingly.
The photos are good. They’re really good. Much better than the shots he took in class yesterday. These aren’t missing what those lacked.
Still.
“May I?”
He understands me immediately, taking the sling off his shoulder so I can use the camera. Slowly, hoping that Freddie stays exactly as he is, I crouch down and manually adjust the focus. I only click three times, but when I stand up again, I have exactly the shot I envisioned—Freddie looking up at the wizard with awe, taken from his height so that the wizard appears as looming to the observer as he does to the child.
“That’s it,” Hendrix says as he peers over my shoulder. “That’s the shot.”
It’s twenty-two degrees, and I’m warm under my long-sleeve floral wrap dress, but I shiver at his words. Just like I’ve never had a partner parent, I’ve never had a partner in my other aspects of creation.
I hadn’t ever imagined how much I might want them.
“Look at the witch!” Freddie is off again, running toward a bronze woman with snakes for hair.
“She’s Medusa,” I correct, handing back the camera to its owner. I start in the direction Freddie headed, then stop with a frown.
Hendrix stops with me, slinging the camera over his shoulder. “What’s—?” He catches sight of what caught my eye, or rather who caught my eye. “I didn’t come with her,” he says, seeming to know how much I want to hear it.
He probably didn’t. Kaila with an i had the same assignment that Hendrix did. Of course there was every chance she’d be here, too.
I force a smile and wave at my other student, grateful that she’s too consumed with her photography to do anything more than wave back.
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