Valeria Vose

by Alice Bingham Gorman

  Joan Malcolm’s big question concerned whether she should sell the house in Chickasaw Gardens and move away. To Mallie’s immense surprise, she discovered that her mother had never really felt at home in Memphis. Rightly or wrongly, her mother believed that most of her friends were really Sam Malcolm’s friends.

  From Mallie’s earliest childhood memories, her parents had always been social, their weekends spent entertaining or going out with friends. They were invited to every important social event. It had never occurred to Mallie that her mother did not love her life in Memphis. “I’ve always felt like a foreigner here,” her mother confessed in one of their many conversations about her future.

  One consideration was for Joan to buy a place in her childhood home of Chicago. Her sister and only a few of her childhood friends were still living there. Also, her mother was well aware that Chicago had changed a great deal since she was first married and moved to Memphis. She knew she would not be going back to the place of her childhood. Whatever choice she made, she would still spend most of the winter in their condo in Vero Beach. There were many other widows and she had lots of new friends. She could have a bridge game there every day. Her married friends assured her they would include her in their dinner parties.

  The more Joan and Mallie talked, the more her mother became convinced that she could live in Vero Beach full-time, and travel during the worst summer months. She could always visit Kye in New York. She loved going to the theater and shopping in the city. And, of course, she would go to Atlanta to see Anne and her family. Her only reason for coming back to Memphis, Joan made clear, would be to see Mallie and the boys.

  One morning Mallie sat up in bed from her predawn musings, alert with the awareness that she had been spending all her energy worrying over her mother’s life changes, denying her own. Her divorce would be final by the end of November. She had not come to grips with any concrete plans for what to do with herself—with her life—as a single woman. Like bingo balls rolling around in a wire basket, the possibilities had been tumbling over each other, occasionally spitting out the same bold message: Make a decision based on something that will enhance your life.

  Every practical bone in her body told her that she needed to get a job, although she had the problem of no college degree and no work experience. There was no way she could find anything beyond an hourly wage position, and there was none she could imagine “enhancing her life.” Before she went to England, she had briefly discussed with her father the possibility of returning to art school, and he had agreed to pay her tuition—if that was what she really wanted to do. She thought of her primary school teacher’s comments.

  “A natural talent,” Mrs. Mackenzie had repeatedly told her parents in fifth grade. “Your daughter is very gifted. You should send her to the Saturday school at the Art Academy.”

  Mr. Dooley, Mallie’s studio art instructor at Sweet Briar, had written an effusive letter to her parents about her artistic growth in Italy. “She has a wonderful life as an artist ahead, if that’s what she wants—and if she will apply herself to it.”

  Mallie had so many regrets. She had refused to go to the Saturday school. She had chosen to go to the movies on Saturday with her friends instead. Only in college—and particularly in Italy—had the desire to make art lodged itself in her psyche. The pleasure had very little to do with the experience of standing in a room and looking with pride at one of her finished paintings. It was the process that thrilled her—the smell of the paint, the feeling of the brush in her hand, the emergence of something that had never existed before, the creation of images on paper or canvas that had come from her imagination and her hand. She wondered how it was that she had given up her art so easily. Larry never asked her to give it up. He even offered to buy her new brushes and canvas when they were first married. But, somehow, she couldn’t justify giving herself to painting as she had in Italy. Her role as a wife and a mother, and as a community volunteer in Memphis, gave her the feeling that she was doing what she was supposed to be doing with her life. It was what her mother and her grandmothers had done with their lives, what all her friends did. Never mind that her thoughts wandered miles away from the bridge table or that she could not concentrate on her friends’ problems with getting proper domestic help.

  From the first time she told Tom about her student days as an artist—her love of the creative process—he had supported finding a way for her to take it up again. When she mentioned going back to school, maybe for a master’s degree, he encouraged her.

  “Most people would give anything on earth to have an artistic talent,” he said. “Talent is God-given. Using it—being successful at it—is up to human motivation and persistence.”

  Mallie was motivated. She knew she could be persistent. But she had no way of paying for school. Her father had assured her he would pay for it, but he was gone. It took all of her courage to sit down with her mother and explain why she wanted to go to art school—the concept of doing something that would enhance her life. Whether her arguments appealed to Joan Malcolm or her mother was simply using her psychic powers to discern what was best for her daughter, Joan listened and then said, “I think that’s exactly what you should do.” She agreed to pay Mallie’s tuition for as long as it would take to get her master’s degree.

  Chapter Forty

  The next day Mallie left her afternoon appointment with Tom at St. Michael’s, riding high on the confidence he always gave her. She drove straight to the Memphis Academy of Art in Overton Park and left her car next to the curb in front of the building she had always loved. She sat for a moment, contemplating the award-winning Japanese design and the long, wide set of steps up to the entrance. How many times through the years she had entered that building, going to a board meeting or an exhibition.

  It was time for her to resign from the board of directors. She would be a student and since her father’s death, she no longer represented the same potential for fundraising. Even if the president of the board urged her to stay, she knew she needed to resign.

  This time she was entering the building to become a student. As far-fetched as it seemed, maybe someday she would even have an exhibition of her own work hanging on the great white walls surrounding the center atrium.

  As she stood next to the receptionist’s desk going over the registration form—she had already read it many times—she felt awkward. Returning students milled around the main floor in their cut-off jeans and ragged T-shirts with slogans: “Fear No Art” and “Artists Do It Better.” One pale, dark-haired girl wore a black T-shirt that sported the bold, white letters: “A Man is to a Woman as a Fish is to a Bicycle.” Mallie wondered if the girl knew that was a feminist slogan coined by some Australian woman years ago. She had learned about it at the Princeton reunion.

  Many of the girls wore no makeup and had hair that appeared not to have been washed in a month. Mostly long, stringy hair or ponytails. Obviously years younger than she was, the girls ignored her as if she were an insurance salesman, or, perhaps, a matronly board member—which she was.

  “It’s too late to register for this semester, Mallie,” the receptionist said. “Classes have actually already begun.”

  Mallie slumped in disappointment. She should have known better. She knew that most of the public schools in Memphis started at the end of August, but her boys had not yet started at Holy Trinity. Sammy had not gone back to St. George’s. She had imagined that the Art Academy would be on the same schedule as the private schools. She should have paid closer attention. There had been too many things going on in her life.

  “Why don’t you sign up for one of the night classes,” the woman behind the desk said. “Those classes are starting up next week—and they’re taught by the same faculty members as the day classes. The only difference is you would get no college credit and there are mostly adults in the class.” She handed Mallie the schedule.

  A question immediately arose. What would she do about Troy and David? They would be at home at
night. She couldn’t go to school and leave them alone. She needed to be there to fix dinner and help with homework. In spite of her reservations, she glanced quickly at the schedule.

  There was a basic drawing class taught by Bailey Smith, one of the most admired artists in Memphis and a revered faculty member. It was held on Wednesday nights from six to nine. That was a possibility. Wednesday was Larry’s night to take the boys to his house for dinner. They never got home before nine. She felt a little snobbish about the idea of a basic drawing class. She was long past the basics. Still, that class might make sense. She had lost confidence in herself as an artist and she was certain that Bailey Smith would be a good teacher. His class might be the best way of getting back to work. Drawing, after all, was the underpinning for painting.

  “Is Bailey Smith’s Wednesday night class full?” she asked.

  “It’s always full,” the receptionist said, “but I’ll put you in it anyway—if that’s the one you want. Someone in the night classes is always absent for one reason or another. Bailey won’t mind.”

  “Would I have to pay today?” Mallie was embarrassed to ask. She would have to get the money from her mother. She was trying to be careful and not overdraw her bank account.

  “No, no,” the woman said. “It just has to be paid before you start next week.”

  Mallie was sure she could manage that. When she signed the form, she smiled. This was the first step into her new life.

  Chapter Forty-one

  “I can teach you to draw,” Bailey Smith said in his opening remarks on the first night of his basic drawing class. “I can’t teach you to be an artist.”

  He stood next to a blackboard, his long, lanky figure looming above his desk, one hand holding a newly sharpened yellow pencil, the other tucked loosely into the pocket of his worn khaki pants. In the stark basement room, Bailey Smith looked like an English don, his clothes clean and un-fussed, a lock of gray hair drooping over his forehead, his dark eyes impenetrable under thick horned-rim glasses.

  He was a familiar sight to Mallie, although she had never had a conversation with him. He came to every art opening at the Academy. All of the exhibiting artists were either one of Bailey’s contemporaries or one of his students. Unlike many artists who were also teachers and some of whom held jealousies, hidden or not so hidden, Bailey was known and loved for his generous encouragement to everyone.

  Mallie was familiar with his work, although she didn’t pretend to understand it. Non-objective was the term always applied to his painting. Sometimes, the term was expressionistic. His latest works seemed to have gone back to the figure. They were large colorful paintings with a strong architectural structure.

  “Drawing is the closest you’ll ever get to the mind of an artist,” Bailey continued. “It’s the first tangible mark of an artist’s vision. That vision may change as it develops into a more finished drawing, or as it progresses into painting or sculpture—or some other form. But drawing is the core.”

  He seemed both earnest and at ease with his lecture. He had obviously given it many times before.

  “Since the early sixties, most students have bypassed drawing to go directly into whatever they intend to do. They say they don’t need to take the time to draw. The truth is they don’t know how to draw. They don’t want to take the time to learn. They want to build a building without studying engineering or architecture. They don’t want anything that might resemble ‘technique’ to interfere with the emotion they want to express. They don’t want any rules.”

  Bailey held a pencil up in the air as if it were a work of art itself. “My belief is that even if an artist never picks up a pencil again, he or she must first understand the construction of art. If you understand what the rules are and why they exist, you’re free to break them. Eventually, if you’re any good, it’s important to break the rules and make your own.”

  He heaved a sigh and lowered his pencil. His eyes searched the room as if to see if anyone were listening—if his theory mattered to anyone.

  For a second, Mallie thought his eyes connected with hers. She nodded, wanting to communicate her agreement with him. Internally, she said, Yes, yes, you’re right. That was the way I was taught nearly twenty years ago. But she hoped she wouldn’t give away her age and have to explain the gap between her college years and her return to school.

  “So, let’s take a break to go to the store for pencils and a large pad of paper,” Bailey said. “Tell them you’re in my class and they’ll know what to sell you. We’ll start again in about fifteen minutes.”

  It was a warm September night. Mallie had worn her old jeans and a cap-sleeved black T-shirt, hoping to blend in with the other fifteen or so other students. She stood near the back of the line at the Art Academy store, casually observing the group. Both men and women, all adults, none of them familiar to her. That suited her fine. She wanted to be anonymous. She wanted the experience to be hers alone without the complications of any other persons. No possibility of relationships.

  For a few seconds she felt as if nearly eighteen years had vanished from her life, as if she were beginning again exactly where she had left off in Italy—not thinking about anyone but herself. At that point in her life, however, she knew that she had a marriage ahead of her—and children. She was so in love with Larry and she so wanted to have his children that she was willing to give up anything. This time around, she had no idea what might be ahead of her. She had Tom Matthews and she had her boys—and she was going to have her art again. At least for now, that would be enough.

  When they took their seats, Bailey began an explanation of simple line drawing. He used straight lines to divide up the picture plane. “Take a direct line point to point,” he said. “Go beyond the boundaries of the paper to see where the shapes connect.”

  Mallie made a mess of her paper in the beginning. She tore off the first sheet. She listened as he continued to talk about organic shapes: curvilinear, irregular, freeform, biomorphic. As she began each new page—two, three, four sheets—she loved the feeling of swirling her pencil, making organic, amoebic shapes on the paper. The two hours of class disappeared in seconds.

  The following Wednesday Bailey began his weekly routine of setting up a series of objects in a still life composition, both geometric and organic shapes, as well as some type of soft, folded material. Usually there were three or four settings in a single night. With each one, he taught new principles. He began with the principle of perspective by first using a grid and showing his students how to create the illusion of space: an object becomes half its size every twenty feet. He explained the principles of line, shape, texture, and volume.

  Mallie felt that her memory was coming alive as he talked. Her drawings improved with each new still life setting. She loved gesture drawing—quick statements of form and general character.

  Gradually, Bailey introduced the class to nuances: shading and cross-hatching, all the principles familiar to Mallie.

  “You’ve obviously done this before,” Bailey said to Mallie one night, as he walked behind the students, checking their work. Smiling, he added, “That’s a very good drawing.”

  Mallie was thrilled with his praise. In three weeks of classes, he had not spoken individually to her. She thanked him, knowing that her still life was good. Drawing in the class had been similar to getting back on a horse after falling. Feeling fearful and awkward at first, she had stayed with it, and the process had started to become instinctive again. Suddenly, she wanted to blurt out her whole life story to Bailey, tell him about her love of painting, her student semester in Italy, her marriage, her children, her divorce, her father’s death, everything. Stop, she told herself.

  “Thank you,” she said without looking at him for more than a second. “It’s been a long time coming.”

  He patted her shoulder. “Well, keep it up,” he said and moved on to the next student.

  Mallie could hardly wait to tell Tom about her class each week. For the first time since sh
e’d begun seeing him in his study, she felt as if she were bringing something positive for him to enjoy with her, rather than something negative for him to fix. Her decision was made. She would apply for regular admission as a full-time painting student in the winter semester.

  Chapter Forty-two

  “Getting blood out of a turnip” was the analogy that John Bradford, Mallie’s lawyer, used to describe his chore of working out a financial settlement with Larry on her behalf. There was just not much there to divide.

  Larry had no savings account. His inheritance from his grandfather, the portfolio of stocks and bonds that he had proudly offered to show Mallie’s father when he asked for her hand in marriage, had vanished. Sam Malcolm had waved off the idea of checking Larry’s net worth, telling him that all he cared about was his prospective son-in-law’s love and commitment to his daughter. As long as Larry worked hard, the rest would take care of itself, her father had said.

  Mallie was certain that her father had counted on Larry’s advancement at Malcolm Brothers to take care of all their financial needs. He could not have anticipated the problems he created by his determination to put Larry through all the tedious steps that he himself had gone through himself in learning to run the company.

  The company had been very different—a small, regional hardware business—when Sam Malcolm started to work. Through the years he had helped it to grow into a national operation with distribution points as far away as California. Mallie’s father insisted that Larry make sales calls in person every week to every small store all over the country that carried Malcolm Brothers products. He purposefully paid very little attention to him—an attempt to appear free from showing any favoritism toward his son-in-law. He also kept Larry’s salary lower than any other salesman.

  To Larry, his father-in-law’s plan for him had been ridiculous—like teaching someone to run an airline by sweeping the hangar floor. The meager pay had forced him to spend his own capital, month after month, year after year, slowly leaching it away.