“I’m sure that’s not true,” said Norman.
“Shut up, Norman,” I said.
“Be nice,” said Mr. H.
“I don’t have to be nice to him.”
“No,” said Whitman, “You don’t have to do anything but take advantage of an old man.”
“At least I’m not a thief.”
The limo careened around a corner.
“A thief?” said Mr. H. and Norman together looking at Whitman.
There was a retching noise and Beethoven threw up. Miss Kesstle started to cry.
“Oh, fuck,” said the driver, looking in the rear-view mirror.
We were silent the rest of the way.
Later that night I was in the laundry room putting Beethoven’s blanket in the washer. The blanket looked and smelled disgusting. Beethoven had continued to throw up for the rest of the ride and in the vet’s office. Miss Kesstle had continued to cry.
“What are you doing with that blanket? Throwing it out?” Gladys hovered halfway down the stairway.
“It’s a washing machine. You put the dirty clothes in, add soap, and turn it on. It adds water and swishes the clothes around and they come out clean.
“No.”
“Yup. The miracles of modern technology. Washing machines and drive-thru donut shops.”
“The time I wasted scrubbing Jack’s drawers. What’s a donut? How do you drive through it?”
“Oh, God. Scrubbing underwear and no donuts, how did people manage to get up every morning?”
I added several cups of detergent and a splash of bleach to the washer.
“Are you coming down?” I asked.
“Basements make me a little nervous. But it doesn’t seem too bad down here.” She floated down the rest of the stairs and watched me turn on the washing machine.
“Were you ever happy here with Jack?” I asked.
“We didn’t live in this house first. We lived in a little farmhouse right here on this land. I tried to do the right thing in that little house, you know — be a good wife. I tried to learn to bake and sew, and I raised chickens. That’s still the old coop in the yard. I liked the chickens but that was about it. Jack tried at first too. He’d buy me the nicest things he could afford and tried to be patient with my lack of domestic talents. On our first anniversary, I begged him to take me to a variety and dancing vaudeville show at the Palace Theatre. The theatre had just been built and they said it was one of the finest in Canada. He grumbled about the waste of money but after I begged and cried, he finally bought us two tickets. I thought I would enjoy it, but it was terrible. I sat there in the audience wearing my farmer’s-wife best cotton dress and watched all of them onstage in their gorgeous costumes doing what I dreamed of doing.
“The final number on the program was a lady dancer named Olga Dobie. She wore a midnight blue beaded gown and headdress, and danced in her bare feet while two dark-skinned men played drums. She was fantastic, otherworldly. When she finished the applause went on and on. I sat with my hands in my lap unable to clap; I was frozen with envy and self-pity. Jack stood. ‘There you go,’ he said. ‘Happy now?’ The next day I got up early and went to the Grand Hotel. If the performers had stayed overnight in town, I knew they would be there. They were in the dining room, Olga sipping tea, seated between the two drummers. I went right up to the table, introduced myself, and burst into tears. Between my sobbing and the garbled story I got out about being a dancer, then getting married, I think (them being naturally dramatic types) they thought I was being held against my will by my evil husband. I went from the hotel to the bank and took out all the money I could. I told the banker that Jack and I expected a shipment of furniture from down East. I got on the train with them and I left, ran away. I suppose the troupe-master thought I couldn’t do the company any harm, I was young and pretty, and I could dance. I went back to Toronto with them. I thought Jack would let me go, that he’d be happy to find himself a new proper wife. I was wrong.”
“Did you get to dance in Toronto?”
Gladys smiled, the pleasure lighting up her blue eyes. “Oh, I did. It was the most wonderful thing, all of it, the aching feet, the practices, fittings, and the nights out after rehearsals. We were practicing for another tour, this one down into the States. The director told me I’d be a main dancer in no time. But within a month, I wasn’t feeling too well. I threw up constantly and lived on saltines. I thought it was the excitement of dancing every night. The tour began in a week, but I was exhausted. I’d go right to bed after the performances and sleep all morning until rehearsals. I couldn’t see how the rest of them did it. I was a farm girl, used to hard work and long hours and there I was, weak like a baby.”
“Oh, no. Pregnant?”
Gladys nodded.
“Was it Jack’s?”
“I hadn’t had relations with anyone else. The troupe members were discouraged from getting together, though what went on with Olga and her drummers was common knowledge. I wrote my mother. I was scared. She told Jack. He showed up at my room about a week later. He was like ice. He only spoke to me once. He asked, ‘Is it mine?’ I nodded and burst into tears and he started to pack my things. I went with him. Back to the farmhouse. I didn’t know what else to do. The troupe had been kind to me, but there would be no work for a pregnant dancer. Maybe if I knew how to sew or something, I could have stayed on, helped with the costumes, but I’d never learned how properly.”
“Did you have your baby?”
“I did.” She seemed to be wavering, like a bad television signal.
“Was it a boy or girl?”
“It was a — a boy.”
“Gladys?” She flickered on and off. “Are you okay? You don’t have to talk about it. It’ll be all right.”
She fizzled out and was gone. Poor old thing. I was supposed to be figuring out a way to give her some peace and instead I was wandering around making bad dinners and being rude to ex-boyfriends. I needed to start working on it. I tried to think like Nancy Drew. I needed clues. Or a hypothesis. Or a hunch. I searched my mind. I didn’t seem to have any of them.
Norman came down the stairs, ducking at the lowest part. I edged away from him. The laundry room was small and I felt (for lack of a better euphemism) friendly and Norman’s proximity made me bite my lips. Part of me wanted him to take me in his arms and kiss me. Yeah, then sweep me away across a rainswept moor. Idiot.
“So, you had fun out with Whitman?”
“Not really.”
“You didn’t?” He smiled. “He’s quite handsome, don’t you think?”
“Do you want me to fix you up with him?”
“No, thanks. Do you ever miss me, Frieda?”
“No.”
“Never?”
“I don’t see what there is for us to gain by this conversation.”
“Honesty?” Norman hoisted himself up and sat on top of the dryer.
“I’m not sure honesty is always a bonus in conversation.” I tried to edge past him and made the mistake of looking right at him. Aiheeee. The sad tadpole eyes, the ones that made me feel like either flipping him into the mud to watch him wriggle, or scooping him up and taking him home in a bucket. I quickly looked away, focusing on the row of laundry products on the shelf behind him. Shirley must have been quite the washer-woman: bluing, washing soda, stain removers, jugs of softener, and handwashing liquid. I’d only recently advanced to fabric softener sheets myself.
“What is bluing used for?” I asked him.
His eyes widened and then he ignored me. “I’m feeling terrible about what happened in Kentucky. It was presumptuous of me to build that studio. I thought it would make you happy. I wanted you to paint. You should paint.”
“Who are you to tell me what I should or shouldn’t do?”
“Why is it so arbitrary for you?” he asked. “Look at you with Miss Kesstle tonight and you won’t give me the time of day.”
“I gave you almost a year.”
“It wasn’t e
nough.”
“It was for me.” I squeezed past his legs and made my exit. He didn’t follow. Halfway up the stairs I turned to look at him; he had his hands over his face and was shaking his head.
Mr. H. and Whitman sat at the kitchen table eating bowls of reheated chili in silence.
“This is good chili,” said Mr. H. “Where’s Norman?”
“Downstairs, hanging himself with the dirty laundry, I suppose.” I got a fork and bowl and sat down.
I’d spent two weeks with Norman in Vancouver. Lady March had gone to Galliano Island for a spiritual retreat. Norman sublet an apartment on the bay for three weeks. The ceilings in the apartment were twelve feet high, the floors gleaming hardwood. There were two fireplaces with mantels, sleek Deco furniture in shades of grey and pale blue, and long lilac silk curtains on the ocean-view windows puddled on the floors. It was the kind of place I’d imagined myself in as a famous artist throwing cocktail parties and entertaining patrons, certainly finer than anything Professor Gimlet would ever attain. Norman and I stayed in bed almost the whole day, dressed for supper, then walked by the ocean. Norman had started an art collection after his father died, trying to make sure that something would be left behind in the March name other than Victorian nudie photos. We went to galleries together; I played art critic and advised him on his purchases.
He offered to leave me alone if I wanted to paint. I told him I was taking a break, that I needed to replenish my vessel of creativity. I didn’t want to tell him that I had serious doubts about my talent. Did Real Artists have doubts? Would he want me if I were nothing but a clerk from his store? I also didn’t tell him the real reason I’d left art school. I wanted him to believe that he had rescued me, that he was the first white knight whose horse I’d jumped on. I didn’t want him to know that several other knights had already unceremoniously dumped me into the muck. Who wanted to rescue a soiled maiden? The life was so wonderful, the food so good, and Norman so sweet I didn’t want it to end.
When Lady March returned, she stayed at a hotel a few blocks away. We met her for lunch.
“Frieda!” she said as we sat down. “I’m so glad to see you again. How is your search for the truth?”
The truth? I was living in a fairytale. “I’m not sure. How was the retreat?”
“Marvelous. We had a drumming circle and a bonfire every night on the beach — completely hedonistic. I slept in a bunk above a fascinating young man who could tell your future by the folds in your ears. What have you two been up to?”
I blushed.
Norman said, “Frieda should come back to Kentucky with us, shouldn’t she, Mother? See the sights.” He turned to me. “You could go riding. We have a wonderful stable of horses.”
“Oh, no,” I said, “I don’t do horses. They’re far too large and inscrutable.”
“Are you sure?” asked Lady March. “We could get you some of those nice leather chaps, the ones that the city cowboys use when they miss their horses.” She smiled.
I laughed. “No, thanks. I hope you noticed that I have my shirt on the right way around this time.”
“I did. Where’s the champagne? Here’s to the Canadian invasion of Kentucky by Frieda-With-Her-Shirt-On-Right.”
So, it was decided. Away I went to Kentucky.
Norman and Lady March lived in an incredible old mansion, like something from Gone With the Wind, grand staircases, big white columns, and perfectly green lawns. I walked around muttering I don’t know nothin’ ’bout birthin’ no babies, Miss Scarlett.
Though Lady Alvena March appeared to be what I’d normally term a flake, obsessed as she was with all her new age theories, I liked her. Her first husband had been Sir Browne, a baronet in the United Kingdom. It wasn’t a royal title, but one that had been conferred on some long-dead commoner ancestor of his. Lady March was quite in the dark about the whole baronet thing; all she knew was that if they’d had a son, he would have been able to carry on the title. They hadn’t had a son or a daughter either; according to Alvena, Sir Browne had been unable to “do the deed.” He’d died of a heart attack while skiing in St. Moritz and had left her with a title and a gazillion dollars. I wondered at her keeping the title, but apparently, the “Lady” gave her name auspicious numerology. She’d married Norman’s father, Stephen March, on one of his trips to England. The porno shop occupation hadn’t bothered her; she’d found it refreshing to find a man able not only to have sex, but to make money from it. The exploitation of the women hadn’t occurred to her until I asked her about it one day.
“Don’t they enjoy it?” she asked.
“Some might, but some are just desperate.”
“For what?”
“Money, fame, drugs, or some are bullied into it.”
“Which ones?”
“I don’t know.”
She’d had a long talk with Norman after and he’d been pissed off at me. He did, after all, have a promise to keep to his father. Mr. March died when Norman was twenty-two and left Lady March another gazillion dollars and all the businesses to Norman.
Norman took me to meet all his friends. He introduced me as “Frieda Zweig, my girlfriend, the Artist.” He bought me beautiful dresses, shoes, and purses. He would mention my painting from time to time, but I made excuses ranging from being in new surroundings that I needed time to process through my artistic consciousness to having my period and being too bloated to paint.
After a few weeks, I mentioned going back to Winnipeg. I thought I should at least broach the subject in case he was secretly waiting for me to leave. We were sitting in the library, cherry panelling in glowing brown-red, leather club chairs, and an oriental carpet in scarlet and gold. There were bowls of fruit and vases of flowers on the coffee tables. The whole interior of the house was a still life painter’s wet dream.
“Why?” said Norman. He stood by the bar, pouring us drinks: afternoon sherry as usual into little sparkling glasses. Horrid-tasting stuff, like fermented saskatoon syrup, but very cool to have an afternoon sherry.
“Well,” I said, “there’s my dieffenbachia.”
“Who’s that?”
“My houseplant.”
“I’ll buy you a new one. Stay.”
“You mean stay? Like move in?”
He came, sat in the club chair across from me, and handed me my sherry. “Like move in.”
“What about all my stuff?”
“I’ll hire movers. They’ll do it all for you. Did you leave a key with anyone?”
“No, but there’s one under the rock shaped like a manatee by the back door.”
“There you go. It’s as good as done. Cheers.”
“Cheers.” I lifted my glass, swallowed a small sip, and tried not to grimace.
On an afternoon trip into town, I wandered into an agricultural fair and was smitten by the careworn faces of the livestock keepers. Finally, tentatively, after a month of being in Kentucky, I started to paint again. A new style pulled at my fingers and niggled at the back of my mind, but I didn’t quite have it yet. I wanted modern folk art, like the portraits of wealthy children holding their cats and dogs from the mid-1800s, crossed with the look of Warhol silkscreens. I began with a portrait of a man who kept fancy chickens, with his green tweed cap, weathered hands, and one of his fancy chickens in his lap.
It was hard. Hard to keep going, hard not to just stop again when I felt I couldn’t get it, couldn’t reach what I was trying to do. Norman would show up at the door and see me with my head in my hands. “You’ve been working too hard, let’s go for a picnic.” Instead of staying with it, I’d leave, go down to the river, sit on the grass, eat chicken breasts, and sip champagne in the sun.
When I wandered about, more inside the canvas than in the real world, frowning at people I didn’t even really see, he’d take me shopping and I’d forget there was something else I should be thinking about.
Not two weeks after Norman first noticed I was working again, he invited the local artists’ league ove
r for tea. A troupe of ladies in floaty afternoon dresses and one man in a corduroy jacket with leather patches on the elbows showed up. They were horrifying. I couldn’t think of a thing to say. I crumbled my biscuit in my desert plate as they discussed the merits of realism and denounced every artist since Rembrandt. One of them had recently been on a trip to New Mexico and the conversation turned to Georgia O’Keeffe. Now, I thought, I can participate.
“Oh, her flowers,” said one.
“Her poppies.” They gave a collective sigh.
I said, “Did you know that Georgia said that she hated flowers and only painted them because they were cheaper than models and didn’t move?”
They looked at me. I smiled. “Did you see her cow’s skull series?”
They shook their heads. “I love her attitude,” I said. “I once read that she said, ‘I can’t live where I want to. I can’t go where I want to go. I can’t do what I want to. I can’t even say what I want to. I decided I was a very stupid fool not to at least paint as I wanted to.’ Isn’t that brilliant? A very stupid fool.”
“I suppose,” said the man, Geoff, I think his name was, “that you’re one of those feminist revisionists who wants to rewrite art history.”
“No, I just thought it was a good quote. I don’t even know what a feminist revisionist is. And,” I said, crushing my biscuit into tiny crumbs and letting them fall from my fingers onto the table, “I don’t care.”
Geoff sniffed.
As they left, one of them patted me on the shoulder. “Not everything is political, you know, dear. You should just try to enjoy things as they are.”
One whispered to another, as they gathered their handbags, “Someone should have told Norman before he started adding artists to his collection that they can be temperamental.”
The next time Norman invited them, he insisted I show them some of my work. He convinced me that they would relax and be more “congenial” once I’d shown them what talent I had. I didn’t feel ready to show anything yet. I was in that in-between space, reaching for something new and better but I hadn’t reached it yet, and I’d left my old proficiency behind. I shouldn’t have shown it. I would have been better off showing them a collection of paint-by-numbers. But I did.
Dance, Gladys, Dance Page 12