“Well, aren’t you a vision,” Richard said as she opened the apartment door. He held a Gatorade bottle and coffee. “Glad to see you dressed for the occasion.”
Claire, in the same clothes she’d been wearing when she crawled into bed, ran her hand over her hair, trying to tame its vertical wildness. “What are you doing here?” Her scalp throbbed and she could smell the fermentation on her breath as she spoke. The memory of martinis and Richard’s voice came back to her, making her wonder if there was anything more to the previous night’s story. She surveyed her clothing again.
“You, my friend, were a perfect mess. But I,” he said, holding up his Gatorade hand, “was a perfect gentleman. Scout’s honor.”
She exhaled a mixture of dread and relief.
“So, are you gonna invite me in? I bring a cure for what ails you.”
“Richard, I don’t really want any—”
“Oh, you will.” He ran the coffee under her nose.
She turned around and walked into the kitchen. Richard followed her. “First, the cold stuff. Then coffee.” He placed them on the counter in front of her.
She unscrewed the bottle top. “You’re forever bearing bounty, aren’t you?”
“That’s quite lyrical for a hangover.”
Claire gulped half the bottle. “God, that’s magnificent. Thank you.”
“I thought you might be in bad shape this morning.”
“Can’t imagine why.” She closed her eyes, trying to remember more scraps of the previous evening. “It feels like someone put tiny mittens on my teeth.” She finished the Gatorade and started on the coffee.
Richard sat down at the small dining table and leaned his head back into interlaced fingers. A tolerable amount of morning light peeked through the half-open curtains behind him.
“I’m sorry for rambling on like such an idiot last night. After a certain point, it was just my drinks having another drink. You were really kind to drive me home.” Claire stared across the counter at him, grateful that someone was actually looking after her, and suddenly aware of the gaping lack of human infrastructure in her world. She’d shut out all friends and kept Cora at a three-state distance—Cora, whom she couldn’t sever from her life with a chainsaw, though she’d had fantasies. It was to be all Nicholas and all Michael, all the time. Reparation through insulation.
“Lucky I had a taste for French onion soup.”
“Yes.” She opened the refrigerator and scanned the shelves. Lucky. After a moment she retrieved a plum and set it down on the table in front of Richard. “But you’ve gone above and beyond, coming back this morning. You’re a good friend.”
He placed his hand on her wrist. “Well, friend, I didn’t want you stewing in your despair all day.”
She sat down opposite him. “Oh, I was stewed, all right. And I’m sorry if I was a bit—inelegant.”
“Even drunk and swearing, you were still elegant.” He picked up the fruit and bit into its purple flesh.
She covered her eyes with her hands. “Ugh.”
“How’s the hangover?”
Claire did a brief physical inventory, avoiding her psyche. “Not horrendous, considering. I think the fog’s starting to lift.”
“Excellent. Then we can get going.”
“Going?” She was starting to lose her vague enthusiasm for company.
“We’re taking a little field trip to the Getty.”
She stood, feeling an instant and clobbering head rush. “Richard, I have to get to the hospital. I’m sorry, I really need to see—”
“You will see Nicholas. But I’d recommend a couple hours of fresh air, some exquisite gardens, and Van Gogh’s Irises first. Then we’ll head back to the hospital. After you’re sufficiently . . . aerated.”
Richard looked up at her, and Claire felt his eyes assessing her rumpled clothes, her unwashed face and hair, her wooziness and fragile veneer. Not as Michael might have, but in the nonjudgmental, just-observing-the-state-of-things manner of a journalist. A pal. Her brain ached thinking about Michael, her heart ached for simple companionship. Life, she noted, was becoming more fraught by the day.
He pulled out an LA Times piece on the museum, and placed it on the table. Claire ran her finger over the photo of the grounds and thought about her day at the beach, knowing she was beat. In every sense of the word. “I don’t know. I just feel so wrecked right now.”
“You said you’ve been dying to see it. And you said Nicholas was doing great.”
“Yes, but—”
“Hey, it’ll do us good. Both of us.”
She stared out the window over Richard’s head.
“Hair shirts, pal.” He caught her eye.
“I need to call Nicky. And I’ll need to shower.”
As they strolled the tree-lined walkways en route from the museum courtyard to the central gardens, Claire surveyed the color around her—the vivid pink bougainvillea arbors, the red flowering crape myrtle trees, yellow climbing roses. She breathed in verbena and exhaled her hangover in small puffs. The Technicolor brightness of California hit her, and she realized her steady diet of stark white walls and black moods had not been a healthy one. All black and white, all work and no play—they both had the same psychic effect. She buried thoughts of her marriage, and focused on her surroundings. The Pacific Ocean glimmered like a sapphire in the distance.
“I’m tired of hearing my own voice, Richard. Talk to me. Tell me about you.”
They had reached the gardens, and sat down opposite a pool blanketed by a floating maze of deep orange azaleas.
“About me? I generally like to ask the questions.” Richard rolled up the sleeves of his denim shirt and looked out toward the Santa Monica Mountains. “I’m forty-nine, but think I look a sprightly forty-seven. I love my job at the paper, but it’s just a job, something to keep me in steaks and skis and able to pay tuition.” He paused and ruffled his wavy salt-and-pepper hair. “Though my ski season was cut a bit short this year. I’ve been divorced for three years, and my gorgeous daughter is at Berkeley.” He shifted his gaze to Claire’s face, a question forming on his lips. Just then a group of stilt dancers appeared on the museum terrace above the garden, and Richard directed her attention to the wildly costumed giant human puppets.
Claire watched them move with the awkward, slow motion gait of giraffes, and listened to the giggles of children at the terrace café, their boisterous squeals of delight as the puppet men dipped and danced for the crowd. She grabbed Richard’s arm as a young boy tugged at one of the striped stilt legs, sending the puppet into an unanticipated lurch and totter, and sending the boy’s mother into a wild-armed scolding.
“And in one fell swoop, the circus came to a swift and staggering stop,” Claire said with a dramatic laugh.
Richard raised his eyebrows. “You’re a real wordsmith, eh? That’s supposed to be my department.”
She gazed out at the sea, the city and the museum grounds. “It’s been a week of firsts.”
“What are you talking about, Smitty?”
“Are you giving me a nickname?” she asked, nudging him playfully, and liking the warm familiarity of a sobriquet, since she’d never had one. “You do seem to bring out the hungover poet in me.” She stood and motioned for Richard to follow her around the pool. The sun was behind them, giving the water a honeyed glow. A young woman in large white-rimmed sunglasses and tailored jeans and heels stood behind an easel on the opposite side of the pool, painting, her long blond hair brushing the tops of sculpted breasts with each brushstroke. Claire wondered at her golden, photo-like quality.
“I’d say you don’t see that every day,” Richard said under his voice as they passed the painter. “Except that you do. In LA.”
“This place is a bit unreal, don’t you think? A bit perfect?“
He nodded.
“You didn’t grow up here, did you?”
“Nope. San Francisco. Lived in Boston, Atlanta, and London.”
“I’m a Burling
ame girl, myself. Although Mother always tried to pass it off as the City. And we live in Denver. Nicky, Michael, and I. When we’re home, I mean.”
“You told me last night.”
“Sorry.” Claire cringed and quickened her pace.
“Do you miss it?”
“My life is there.” She looked out at the pool, with its ribbons of orange.
“Even if it doesn’t include your husband?”
Claire halted mid-stride, gravel lodging in her sandals. “Jesus. Did I say that, too?”
“No, but given what you did tell me, it seems not unlikely.”
“Everything doesn’t always have to be so black and white.” Her voice hardened. “Things shift.”
“I’m sorry. I was just restating the facts, ma’am.”
“Well, don’t be so quick to write the obituary on my marriage. In fact, just forget what I said last night. Apparently I already have.” They began walking again, silently, through a cactus garden, stopping for pretzels at a refreshment cart. For a second Claire imagined Michael plastered up against the prickly pins of a saguaro, like Wile E. Coyote, realizing his colossal misjudgment and giving her a second chance at making things right.
“I just don’t want to find you face-first in another martini glass, Smitty.”
“That’s really not my style. I was kind of an accidental drunk last night.”
He smiled softly, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “So, when do you go home?”
“It looks like they’ll be discharging Nicky next week. He’ll move back into the house and do outpatient at Craig.”
“And you?”
“It seems I’ll be getting an apartment.” She turned to him and looked squarely into his face. “Michael’s not mistaken about inflicting our difficulties and stress on Nicholas twenty-four seven. I’ll make it work somehow, and then . . . well, we’ll see,” this last declaration as much a balm on her wavering conviction as it was a promise to herself.
He smiled a sort of placating half smile. “Shall we go see some irises?”
“Yes. And I could use about a gallon of water.”
For two hours Claire was just another tourist in a museum, appreciating the brilliant rendering of flowers and light, the charged glances between two subjects on canvas, and the power and nobility of painting. And for those two sweet hours, the reassuring permanence of art displaced the not-so-beautiful chaos of her world.
“It was spectacular,” Claire said as they approached the nurses’ station on Nicholas’s floor. “Thank you for such a perfect day. And I’m remarkably hangover-free now.” They lingered for a moment at the sitting area, Claire placing her sunglasses in their case as Richard held her bag from the gift shop.
“Transformative, wasn’t it?”
“Didn’t I tell you it would be?” she said, winking. “You look forty-six, by the way.”
Richard handed back her bag. “See you in the cafeteria, Smitty. I still owe you a dinner.” He turned and walked to the elevator.
A framed print of a sunlit wheat field caught her attention, and she took note of her complete lack of stress.
“Claire, where on earth have you been?”
Startled, Claire spun around to see a green pantsuited woman behind her at the nurses’ station. “Good lord, Mother, where did you come from?”
“Why, the City, of course. And who on earth is Smitty?”
In an instant, the heartening powers of an art-filled morning were neutralized. “Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?”
“Because I knew how busy you’ve been. So I made my own arrangements to see my grandson.”
“How long have you been here?” Claire noticed a wrist brace on Cora’s right hand, similar to the one Nicky wore.
“An hour or so. And I can only stay until tomorrow. I’m meeting Carol Morgenstern in Del Mar. But I’ve already had a lovely visit with Nicholas. He tells me he’s going home soon.” She looked over her shoulder and gave a broad smile to the nurses behind the desk. “And Nicky said Michael was already here?”
Claire felt her stomach pitch. “Have you hurt your wrist, Mother?”
“My bag was quite heavy, and all the carrying seemed to inflame it. I asked one of the girls”—again she smiled over toward the nurses’ station—“if she could find some solution for me.” Cora held out her hand, admiring her latest accessory, as Claire tried not to think about what that scene must have entailed. “Just remind me to return it before I leave.” Cora shifted her gaze back to Claire. “Who was that man you were with, Claire? And why did he call you Smitty?”
“His sister’s a patient here.”
“And?”
“And what? We took a little break from the hospital this morning.”
Cora eyed Claire’s museum gift bag. “Now, I understand how difficult this is, dear, and how you might need a break. But you can’t just go off with some man to a museum. Really, Claire, under the circumstances I would think that would be obvious to you.”
“Mother, Richard is a friend. You don’t need to complicate things. Our paths just happened to have crossed.”
“Crossed paths or not, Claire, your only focus right now should be on Nicholas, and trying to repair your marriage. What would Michael think of you spending your morning with this Richard person, after everything that’s happened?”
What would Michael think? “Mother, have you ever felt like you’ve been bitten by a vampire and are walking among the living dead?”
“Of course not, Claire. What a ghastly thought.” Cora’s lips drew tightly downward.
“Then I’m not going to have this conversation with you right now. But rest assured that I know exactly what my focus is.” She spaced her words out deliberately.
Cora stepped forward and wrapped Claire in a hug. “I’m sorry, I know you do, sweetheart. I know you’re doing all the right things to put your life back in order. And I’m so happy to be here.” As they disengaged, Cora eyed Claire’s hair, then reached both hands to Claire’s head and fluffed it and tucked it behind her ears. “Really, dear, if you’re going out . . .”
Claire flicked Cora’s hands away from her face. “Hear this, Mother: I don’t give a shit about my hair. No one in this place does. My hair is irrelevant.”
“Well, at least you might put on some lipstick, dear. You are hardly irrelevant.”
“Why don’t we go see Nicholas? I was just on my way to his room, and I’d like to show him the posters I got for him.”
Claire could hear Cora mumbling irrelevant and Smitty as they walked down the corridor. And she wondered how she was going to muster twenty-four hours’ worth of patience.
“When will you and Michael be taking Nicholas home?” Cora asked as they watched Nick in his afternoon session with the gait specialist.
“About that.” Claire rose from her folding chair and paced the length of the glass partition separating the observation area from the gym, wondering if she was destined to have only unpleasant conversations in this space. “Things didn’t exactly go well with Michael while he was here.”
“What do you mean, not exactly well?”
“He’s flying Nicky home next week.”
“That’s wonderful. And?”
“And Nicky will be doing outpatient therapy at Craig Hospital.”
“Claire, I’m not following—”
“And the living arrangements don’t exactly include me at the moment,” she snapped with the filter-free annoyance of a non-divorceable daughter. “He wants me to get an apartment.”
“What? How on earth does Michael expect to—”
“Just hold off on the tirade. Please.” Claire sank into the chair farthest away from Cora, imagining how gratifying it would be to show her that all of her advice about marital repair had been complete crap. But she knew there would be no victory in that kind of I told you so. Because a small part of her still wanted to believe. And what do you do when you want to hold on to crap, when the crap is your last handful of hope?
She stared up at the ceiling trying to stem the tide of her tears. “Here’s the deal, Mother. Michael said that too much damage has been done, that he can’t face that, or me, night after night. And that it would be damaging to Nicky, too.” As she spoke, all of the emotions she’d shoved behind the Irises and Rembrandts found their way out—slowly at first, and then emphatically like an angry case of food poisoning.
Cora scooted next to Claire and hooked an arm around her.
“I thought we’d have a chance at starting over when Nicky went home,” Claire sobbed into her Mother’s restrained bosom. Cora held Claire in her arms and listened quietly as she unleashed months of grief in between scraps of Michael’s hot dog stand salvo and her disbelief that she would soon be visiting her child at her own house. “I never thought it would come down to this. Even with . . . what I did.” Curling up on Cora’s lap and the two adjacent chairs like a small girl, she fought the image of Andrew’s face. “But the sad truth is that the tension between us really wouldn’t be good for Nicky, and I guess I just need to remove it—remove myself—until I can make some sense of what I’ve done. And until Michael calms down. I don’t want to risk pushing him away any farther.”
“You know, dear,” Cora weighed in after a contemplative pause, her voice soft but deliberate, “if that’s how he needs things to be right now, a temporary separation really might not be the worst thing. Timing is everything, dear, and it would appear that your husband needs some time. I can understand that.” She handed Claire a handkerchief from the sleeve of her pantsuit and propped her back up to sitting. “Time has a way of diminishing pain and anger. And then you’ll be able to work on reuniting your family after Michael has had a chance to”—she paused again—“maybe recover a little of his pride? He’s wounded and afraid. And putting everything with Nicky aside, I’m sure his self-respect has taken a beating too. This separation may be the only way that he can see coming through this with you. A public penance, as it were.” She raised her eyebrows into a perfectly arched schoolteacher’s directive. “You’ll both get there, honey. The interim may just look a little different than you imagined.”
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