Chairs scrape across the hardwood floor and the students walk to the front. I’m here with the students and yet underneath the day there is the low-level hum of anxiety and worry about my family, as if I have my own weather system under my ribs. The boy with the dreadlocks picks up a card and rolls his finger across its edges. “This is my favorite,” he says.
“Good taste,” I tell him.
“Really?” He looks up, happy, like students can be, to know he’s just pleased the teacher.
“Yes, really. It’s part of a full line of cards called Ten Good Ideas.”
The older woman lifts a card with a misspelling—a book signing called a “book singing.”
“What do you do when it gets messed up like this? I mean, it’s all pressed into the paper.”
“We try to make sure that doesn’t happen. But if we do mess up in the beginning phases—and who doesn’t?—we use something called blackout or black patch.”
“Which is?”
“When we place a special tape over the error and mask an area, leaving a window into which another element can be stripped.”
“I’m not sure I understand. Can you explain?” The middle-aged woman—her name is Donna—asks that question.
“Well, I’ll give you an example. Last month, we did a wedding invitation, but I messed it up and put the information from another wedding onto the prototype layout. The client was on her way.”
“And?” Donna asks, leaning forward.
“I had to do something fast, so I covered the original information. I put tape on the prototype plate and repressed the typecast. She never knew. The final copy was perfect.”
I glance up when I’ve finished explaining and catch Gwen’s gaze. Her finger holds a place halfway through her book. Her eyes are wide and knowing, as if I’ve spoken some secret, opened a magic door. Her face is young and smooth, calm with understanding. We move through the rest of the session, which includes pressing the platen over cotton paper. I help students design their own cards until the time is up.
When the class is over and everyone has filed out, I pick up the cards and my leather books. Evening light—my favorite—waves across the hardwood floors like water, an outgoing tide. I gather my things, click off the light, and lock the door. The hallway echoes with our footsteps.
Outside, the gas lamps flicker into the dusk, glad to take over from the sunlight that has outdone them all day. The brick sidewalks, cracked and crooked, unroll along the side of the road. Live oaks, holding their arms above the street like a protective demigod of tiny coarse green leaves, shadow our slow drive through the Savannah streets.
“Were you bored out of your mind?” I ask Gwen, who is quiet and still next to me.
“No. I actually liked it.”
“What? The part where the guy in the back row flirted with you?”
“He was not,” she says, but she laughs. “He didn’t understand the difference between a platen press and a rotary press, and I needed to explain it to him.”
“Explain it, I’m sure.”
“Whatever, Mom. Plus, I learned something new.” She plays with the automatic window and then she says, “Blackout.”
* * *
While Alison Krauss sings “Dimming of the Day,” music floats up into the studio rafters with Saturday’s quiet ending. I wanted to pick up a few loose ends before dinner, and Gwen came with me. I like to think that she wants to be here, that this isn’t just a condition of her “parole,” as she calls it. Then again, I like to think a lot of things.
I’m scrolling through my e-mail and she’s looking through the latest designs. She lifts number nine: Forgive. “You don’t have this design yet?”
“Nope,” I say.
“What about a heart here? That would be good for someone to send when they want to make up with someone or fix things.” She smiles at me a little shyly before continuing. “I don’t mean like a Valentine red heart, but something artsy like Francie draws, something with messy edges and…” Gwen closes her eyes. “I can see it.”
“Here.” I hand her a pad of thick cotton paper and a set of colored pencils.
She yanks her ponytail tighter. The small feather peeks out, wavering against her skin. She absently reaches back to touch it, as if she can feel the quill landing gracefully on the arch of her neck. Gwen is left-handed, like my mother once was, and I watch her fingers grip tightly as she moves the pencil across the page, at first lightly and then pressing harder. Her sketch appears from hand and imagination. I sit back and let time slip away without my clocking of it, without giving notice to its existence at all.
I’m not sure how late it is when we hear the crunch of tires on gravel and Max and Willa enter the studio. “Hey,” Willa calls out, and comes to us, hugging Gwen first. “What are y’all doing?”
I wave my hand in the air, run it over the table. “Working. And you”—I point to Max—“I thought you were out of town.”
“I was. Just got back, and Willa needed a ride to the grocery store.”
“God, I hope they let me drive soon,” she says.
Max glances at the table. “The heart. Did you do that, Gwen?”
She nods.
“That’s really good. It looks like an Ed Hardy tattoo.”
She laughs fully. “Tattoo. That’s a bad word around here.” She feigns a whisper.
Max makes a cute face, somewhere between embarrassed and entertained. “Sorry.”
“But thanks. I’m glad you like it.” Her smile is wider than I’ve seen in months.
Gwen yawns, stretches. “Mom, do you mind if I go back to the house? Dad just texted that he’s home.”
“Go on. I’ll be there in a few minutes.”
“I’m gone, too.” Willa turns to Max. “Thanks. I owe you.”
The silence, which isn’t quiet at all, settles between Max and me. Gravel crunches. A horn honks far off. A crow screeches, its call irritating and high-pitched. He sits with me at the table. “So how did class go?”
“It was great. I always sort of dread doing it and then it all works out great, you know? It’s nice to talk about the basics again. Always a good reminder.”
“You know,” Max says, “I think that after a few more sessions at SCAD, we’ll be able to hold our classes here.”
“Cut out the middleman,” I say. “I like it.”
“Or in this case,” Max says “the middle school.”
I roll my eyes. “Yeah, okay, smarty pants.”
“This will be great visibility for us, Eve.”
“I agree. We’ll be able to grow our customer base with our student base. And maybe we could put in a sort of gift shop—a kiosk or something to sell the cards.”
“I like the way you think, boss.”
We talk this way for a while, back and forth about our grand plans; then we dial it down a little and talk about work and due dates and which machines need repair. That’s when Max smiles, shakes his head at me.
“What?” I ask.
“Even when you’re sitting here with your hands all prim and folded in your lap, serious and focused, I can see that there is a big laugh in the back of your throat ready to break out at any second. I’m always trying to find a way to get it out of you.”
I laugh loudly.
“There, like that.” He touches my arm and then pulls back.
“Not much to laugh about lately.”
I stare at him and that kiss comes back to me in a rush. It unravels something in me. I turn away. Wanting him isn’t just wrong but unethical, ridiculous, and needy, too. A cliché. “I gotta go.”
I leave him sitting there at the table. What else am I to do?
Walking back up the pathway, I find myself on Willa’s front porch, knocking. She doesn’t answer, so I knock again then hear the shuffle of feet, the click of an opening lock, and then she is standing there in her robe, her wet hair dripping onto hardwood floors. “Hey.” She smiles. “You should have just come in. I was in the shower.”
“Did you and Max have fun today?” I’m surprised by how harsh I sound.
Her face closes in, and she walks away from me toward the kitchen. I follow her in silence as she puts a teakettle on the stove, pulls down two cups, and opens a box of chamomile tea bags. “What’s wrong with you, Eve?”
“What?” I settle back onto the counter, my hands behind me, grasping the granite edge.
She turns to me, her face clean and wiped fresh, like the sky after a storm. Her green, green eyes, the ones I’d always wanted as a child, bore into me, hot. “What is wrong with you? I mean, don’t you know what you have?”
Tears spring up. “I know. I know. It’s like there’s something bro—”
“Don’t you dare say ‘broken.’ That’s not what I mean at all.”
“Sorry…”
“You can’t see what’s in front of you. You can’t. I’m the one who’s supposed to be having problems seeing the truth, and here you stand, and you can’t see what’s right in front of you.”
“And what, exactly, is that?”
“You have it all, Eve. And you’re scared to death of not having anything.”
“‘Have it all’?”
“Your work. A beautiful daughter who loves you and doesn’t want to disappoint you. A good man in love with you. These are the things we all want, and you stand there, scared to see anything at all.”
“I know what I have. I know Cooper is a good man.”
“Not Cooper.”
“What are you talking about?” I ask. But I know.
“Max. That’s what I’m talking about. He’s in love with you, Eve. I’ve been hit in the head, but even I can see that.” She rolls her eyes. “God only knows how long he has been, but he’s got it bad.”
“That’s not true,” I say. “It’s not like that. It’s our work.”
“Yes, it is like that. You don’t think I’d want him to look at me the way he looks at you? Don’t you think I’d want him to talk to me with that soft voice? He’s gone.”
I turn away. “Stop.”
“And Cooper. You believe his shit. I don’t get it.”
“What shit?” I bite down hard on the last word just as the teakettle whistles. I jump, knock a mug to the floor, where it shatters. I turn on Willa. “Believe his story? Yes, I do. This situation, Willa, it’s nothing new. You said you wanted to get your life together, but really? And your dreams. Should I just tell Cooper that he’s a liar because you had a weird dream about a dead man? Because you’d heard a woman’s screechy voice before?” I take in a long breath and kick at the remaining pieces of mug on the floor. “Should I break apart an entire family because you can’t remember a night when my husband had to take you home?”
She stares at me. “Yes.”
“What?”
“Open your eyes.”
“I don’t understand why you’re being so mean.” My throat clenches around tears I won’t shed now. Not here.
“I’m not being mean. I know that you and Cooper gave me a place to live and you’ve helped me through this hell. And I will be forever grateful. I will.” She turns off the gas stove and then takes a step closer. “I love you, Eve. I’m not being mean.”
“You’re wrong—about Cooper, about Max. It’s not like … that.”
“Just because you don’t want something to be ‘like that’ doesn’t mean it isn’t. I know my emotions are all over the place and that something weird happened in my hippopotamus or whatever the hell it’s called. I know that these images and songs and dreams are all mixed up in my head.” She hollers the next sentence. “I know all of that.”
I don’t move.
“But,” she says, “I also know when a man is lying and when a man is in love. So you might know the facts, but I know the truth.”
My sister walks away from me and I’m left to marvel at the role reversal that has just taken place. The earth moves. It shifts. It alters completely.
* * *
I was nineteen years old and Max and I were surviving on ramen noodles, caffeine, and cheap boxed wine. We worked through the night on printing projects and laughed about things that were deeply funny then and completely forgettable now. There was only one night when we ended up alone at the studio. We worked until 3:00 A.M. and then collapsed onto the white faux-leather couch, which was covered in greasy spots and ink-stained fingerprints.
“This is a crazy way to live.” I flopped down on the pillows.
“I know,” he said. “But I guess we could quit anytime.”
“I can’t.”
“Obsession is a terrible thing.” He leaned back into the couch, closed his eyes.
“Not in this case,” I said as we reclined quietly on opposite sides of the couch, exhausted. Finally, I spoke up. “I’m hungry.”
“Let’s go get something to eat, then.”
“What’s open at three A.M.?” I asked.
He smiled, propped himself up on one elbow. “My apartment.”
I looked at Max and that smile of his. I saw it all: his messy hair, the two-day stubble and crooked grin, the blue-ringed eyes. And I felt something beneath my ribs, a wanting I’d never felt before. It was something different from merely wanting to touch him. It was different from my adolescent obsession with Caden. It was different from the nervous need with Cooper. It was an open feeling, like water running.
Max slid across the couch and touched my face, his palm on my cheek. Between us, invisibly, stood Cooper and also Max’s live-in girlfriend, Amanda. Cooper and I had been dating for a year by then, and I knew where we were headed. We’d talked about marriage, about family and future. But there I was with Max. I leaned into his palm, closed my eyes. I felt his lips then, on my forehead first. I moved closer and crawled into his lap, my legs wrapped around his waist, my head resting on his shoulder. His hand moved to the back of my neck, pulling me closer, tighter. It was my decision, and even in the exhaustion and confusion, I knew it was. I could lift my head from his shoulder for a kiss or stay tightly where we were and let the moment pass away, fall asleep even.
I chose the kiss. And so did he.
It was dark, so dark, in that room with a single window and a moonless night. What happened unfolded like a slow-motion dream, untethered from real life, high above us. It was in that moment that all we needed to say, all that wouldn’t and couldn’t he spoken, found its expression in our bodies. There was the languid way he removed my T-shirt and how my shorts slid to the floor, the path my hands took under his shirt and then to undo his worn leather belt. Our kisses moved along skin that was warm from the long night of work and the stifling room. We were one in every movement, with every shift of our bodies.
There was nothing else in the world but to make love to him. My body would come undone, disintegrate, if I didn’t. A connection between us, something that had tied us together from the moment we met, was finally able to be expressed in something other than words and laughter.
Eventually, we fell asleep, an old cotton drop cloth covering our bodies. As I slipped into sleep, I understood that Max and I would find a way to be together, that we’d both been avoiding the inevitable even as each of us was committed to someone else. I’d never before felt so at peace—ever.
We were awakened by the buzz of the front door alarm as the owner arrived for the morning’s opening. We stretched and dressed quickly, tripping over equipment and boxes, over our own feet. We laughed and zipped and smiled when the owner entered the back room. We greeted him as if nothing but work had ever happened in that tiny room.
And later, when we stood outside in the harsh sunlight, our separate car keys in our hands, our separate lives waiting, Max pulled me close and the panic came, something hidden far below the surface of the night’s peace. What had I done? I was on the brink of having the life I’d always wanted—Cooper, safety, a house, a home, a normal family. I backed away from Max, from his hand reaching for me.
“Eve,” he said, “are you okay?”
“I don’t think so. Are you?”
“Yes, I am.” He took my hand, kissed the inside of my palm
“I can’t do this. I’ll ruin everything.…” I pulled my hand from his. I know he had more to say; I heard his voice as I ran toward my car, toward the life already set in motion.
I married Cooper. Max lived with Amanda for another few years. Then we worked together again: nothing more, nothing less. Not once have we mentioned that night.
twenty-one
I’ve never been in a therapist’s office before and I don’t know what to do. “Where should we sit?” I ask.
“Wherever you’re comfortable.” Dr. Parker is a petite blonde with horn-rimmed glasses. She smiled as she answered my question, but nothing can undo the tight knot of nervousness under my breastbone.
Gwen and I sit together on the love seat, each of us scooted close to the armrests, a lavender throw pillow between us. The therapist sits in a chair, a yellow pad on her lap. “It’s nice to meet both of you, so please tell me what brings you here. What are your concerns?”
Gwen shrugs, so I speak first. “Gwen had a bad incident with drinking. I’m scared. Something’s going on. What should I call it … some sort of issue? Some sort of hurt? We need help.”
Dr. Parker looks at Gwen. “And what do you think?”
“I think I did something stupid. That’s all. Nothing big that should bring me here.” Gwen twists at the fringe on the throw pillow, glances around the office.
“You don’t agree with your mom that maybe the drinking episode came from an ‘issue,’ as she called it.”
“Whatever.”
That’s my daughter.
“So.” Dr. Parker looks at me. “What do you believe is the hurt that spurred this?”
“My sister and my husband—her dad—were both injured in a car wreck. My sister, Willa, and Gwen are very close and Willa lives in a cottage on our property. This has been really hard for us. Gwen’s boyfriend broke up with her, and her dad and I aren’t getting along the best we ever have. And I think”—I take Gwen’s hand and speak to her—“you are hurting more than I can help. I didn’t bring you here because I think something is wrong with you; I brought you here because I want to help.”
The Stories We Tell Page 21