Tips for Living

by Renee Shafransky

  “The property is great for a painter. There’s a gigantic art studio—the developer’s wife made pottery. I took those photos of her with her weird, misshapen urns. Remember? We ran them in Lifestyles? I call dibs on the feature story if I’m right,” Lizzie said.

  “I don’t fucking believe this,” I said, gawking at his name.

  After I told her and Ben about my marriage and how it ended, Lizzie looked distressed and began fingering a tassel on her scarf.

  “God, Nora, that’s a terrible story. I mean, where was the birth control?” Her hand flew to her mouth. “Sorry.”

  “It’s okay, Lizzie. Believe me, you’re not the first person to ask about that.”

  She looked at me dolefully. “How long were you married?”

  “We lived together for years. But we’d only been married thirteen months.”

  “Do you think getting married freaked him out? Is that why he messed around?”

  I wanted to say, Don’t worry, your fiancé is not Hugh. But I was embarrassed to be sharing any of this, especially in front of Ben, who was at his desk listening intently, rubbing his chin and frowning.

  I shrugged. “I’d really appreciate it if both of you would keep this information to yourselves. Please, don’t tell anyone.”

  “I won’t say a word,” Lizzie said, crossing her heart.

  Ben had an unusually emotional reaction. He apologized vehemently on behalf of his gender. “I’m sorry that happened to you, Nora. Men who behave like that make me ashamed of my sex.” Given Ben’s usual terse self, I was even more astonished he made it a point to say something nice again before the day’s end: “You deserved a lot better, Nora. A whole lot better.”

  I could barely concentrate the rest of the afternoon. I was supposed to be working on my feature, “Canines for Heroes,” about a pet adoption program designed to help Iraq War veterans recover from PTSD. Struggling to formulate questions for an interview with one of the vets, all I could come up with was a preliminary, “Have you ever owned a dog before?” Instead, I began playing the virtual slot machines on slotsofvegas.com, scoring $63,235. My highest total yet. I wished the games were real and legal, because my nest egg was gone. A small-town reporter’s salary wasn’t going to replenish it.

  By six o’clock, everyone else in the Courier office had left for the day. It was a quiet time, good for taking another crack at the interview questions. Just as I reopened the work file, I heard the door to the street close. Seconds later, Al Rudinsky appeared. A sweet bear of a man with a buzz cut, Al was wearing his royal-blue Tidy Pools coveralls, and they were caked with mud. He stood in the office doorway wiping his dirty work boots on the mat. His meaty neck and broad forehead were streaked with grime and sweat.

  “Am I too late? Did I miss the deadline? I brought cash.” He gave me an anxious smile.

  Al was married to Sinead, one of my Pilates classmates—Sinead O’Halloran-Rudinsky. Their Irish-Polish union produced four kids, and Al was always low on money. In fact, he was months behind on payments for his ads. Ben had reluctantly put him on notice. No more credit. This was the last day to buy space in the Summer Lawn and Garden insert, an important advertising platform for Al’s Tidy Pools, Irrigation and Landscaping Service.

  “The ad department is gone for the day,” I said, indicating the closed door to the back office where our accounting and advertising staff work. “Everyone is. But I’ll make sure Ben gets your money. He might be okay with extending the deadline since you brought in your payment today.” I smiled at him. “In fact, I’ll lobby for it.”

  Al crossed the floor in his bowlegged stride and handed me a manila envelope with his big, dirty hand. He looked down at the mud he’d tracked in, chagrined.

  “Sorry, I tried to get it all off.”

  “It’s all right, Al. No big deal. I’ll sweep it up later.”

  He bent down and began to scoop up the clumps of wet earth with his bare hands.

  “Can you tell Ben I’m sorry, I really meant to get here earlier? I had a rush job out at Pequod Point,” he said, straightening up.

  I drew back. My antennae went up. Could he mean Hugh and Helene’s house?

  “Oh? What job was that?”

  He shoved the dirt into his coverall pocket and wiped his hands on his thighs. “Biggest property I handle. New owners moved in today, and they want everything done yesterday. Had to get the pool cleaned, replace the filter motor and dig out a busted sprinkler line. Four thirty came around, I told them I had to make an important delivery and I’d come back to finish,” he said, indicating the envelope, “but the lady of the house insisted I stay or not come back at all.”

  I sat up in my chair and frowned, unable to hold my tongue. “That wasn’t very nice.”

  Al nodded in agreement. “Summer People. But the husband is an interesting guy. An artist. I’ve done jobs for some artists out here in the summers before. They like the light.” He spotted another clump of mud on the floor, snatched it up and pocketed it. “Saw him unwrapping paintings in his studio while I worked on the pool. He’s painted lots of pictures of himself with his wife. One of them was pretty wild—with him naked, curled around her when she was pregnant.” He shrugged. “Guess she inspires him.”

  “Sounds like it,” I snapped.

  Fortunately, Al didn’t seem to notice.

  “You know, I used to do some drawing. I drove in at night to take classes at the Brooklyn Museum. This is before Sinead and the kids. No time now,” he said wistfully. “Well, I’d better get home. Thanks for putting in a word with Ben.” He headed out, stopped at the door and turned back for a second. “Really sorry about the floor, Nora.”

  A kind of compulsion came over me. It grew worse by the hour. I had to see what Hugh’s $2.5 million life with Helene was like. I waited until eleven o’clock. Then I drove to the Dune Golf Club and parked.

  I wasn’t frightened of running into anyone. The club closed after sunset. Even trespassing hunters didn’t start stalking deer until October. I trekked under a full moon so bright there was no need for a flashlight.

  The turnoff to the duck blind was easy to locate, marked on either side by large, gray rocks. I knew the spot would have at least a partial view of Pequod Point. The last time Grace and I hiked to the blind, we could see a house under construction across the water. I tramped down there, pushed open the door and sat on the wooden bench inside.

  The house on the opposite shore was less than seventy-five yards ahead as the duck flies. Probably a five-minute slog through the seagrass along the inlet’s shaggy coastline, or on higher ground, a two-minute run. The view was even better than I expected—an almost-clear sight line over the top of the grass. I could only make out the parts that were lit, but with Aunt Lada’s glasses, they were visible in detail. On two sides, towering walls made of glass revealed an open-plan kitchen, dining and living room area with a mammoth stone fireplace. A de Kooning hung over the mantel, a Rauschenberg on the adjacent wall. Even with moving boxes all over the room, it was easy to see this was a spectacular home.

  It was cool that May night. Hugh reclined on the couch in jeans and a sweatshirt. Helene came out of the kitchen carrying two glasses of wine. She wore shorts and what I recognized as one of Hugh’s flannel plaid shirts. She sat down and snuggled against him as they sipped their wine in front of the fire. Watching him wrap his leg around hers, I felt a tug in my chest. I knew the warmth and firmness of his thigh. For the first time in years, I let myself miss Hugh’s touch. He rolled over and kissed her, and I remembered his salty taste. The light flick of his tongue. The way he liked to blow softly on the back of my neck. My heart ached so badly, I thought I might be having a heart attack. He fondled Helene’s breast, and I couldn’t look away. Was I that masochistic? Would I actually stay and watch them make love?

  Their daughter saved me from myself. Callie staggered into the living room in her pink pajamas, rubbing her eyes, apparently unable to sleep. Built long and lean like her father, she had H
ugh’s dark curls. I couldn’t distinguish her features under her mass of hair, but I was sure she must be beautiful because both her parents were. Helene pulled her close. I watched her stroke Callie’s head and comfort her, and as I did, I wept. I dropped Aunt Lada’s glasses and doubled over, hugging myself, wailing, rolling on the blind’s dirty floor like I was possessed.

  “How could you give her my child?” I gasped.

  I cried so much I was sure there was no feeling left.

  At last I’m done, I thought. I’m cured.

  From the New York Journal

  Picks of the Week: Hugh Walker’s

  Scenes from a Marriage

  By Davis Kimmerle

  Hugh Walker’s show at the Abbas Masout Gallery is nothing short of a revelation. Walker has taken artistic risks before, for better and worse. His early self-portraits, works like Self-Portrait with Monkeys, an homage to Frida Kahlo, were bold but essentially derivative. His New York Portraits delivered both originality and a distinctive style. With The Nora Series—self-portraits that included his ex-wife, Nora Glasser—we saw a major American artist heading into his prime. But in Scenes from a Marriage, his first show since last year’s very public divorce, Walker has succeeded in securing his place in the pantheon as a mature artist capable of depth and pathos.

  The front room of the exhibition offers the prosaic Self-Portrait with Nora Making Coffee, Self-Portrait with Nora Bathing and other tranquil, domestic scenes. From there, Walker delves into the darker aspects of his personal life. Self-Portrait with Nora in Cell is a frightening, claustrophobic image of his former muse beside the artist in a shadowy, tunnel-like space. In another powerful, untitled work, Nora is depicted, disturbingly, as part mythical beast looming threateningly over the sleeping artist in their marital bed.

  The back room of the gallery introduces Walker’s new source of inspiration by way of homage to Ono and Lennon. The jubilant Self-Portrait with Pregnant Helene (interestingly, not for sale) has an entire wall to itself. Hanging opposite is the show’s pièce de résistance: the artist sketching Nora, who lies curled on the floor of his studio, having discovered the fact of his mistress’s pregnancy. Walker titled it Self-Portrait with Nora, Knowing.

  Walker manages to capture the deep psychological pain and turmoil that comes when a marriage unravels, as well as the hope new love can inspire, all while pushing the aesthetic boundaries of the self-portrait form. This is a masterful show. Don’t miss it.

  Chapter Three

  Two dark blue Crown Victorias with county police seals were parked in front of the garage. Alongside them, a white county coroner’s “Crime Scene Section” van. Aunt Lada’s opera glasses provided a fragmented view of the entire spread in a series of close-ups that I could piece together for the bigger picture. Panning from left to right, I came across one of Pequod’s police officers standing guard in the driveway. He looked like Lt. Crawley but it was hard to tell if it was him for sure. He had the hood on his yellow slicker drawn up.

  Crawley knew me from my weekly drop-ins to the station. Editing the police reports for the Courier’s Police Blotter was part of my job. When I picked them up at the precinct, I’d usually find him reading the sports pages and resenting the interruption. Besides Crawley, I counted eight county officers in gray Stetsons and black rain gear patrolling the woods that shielded Hugh’s estate from the road. Without a doubt, this was a murder scene.

  Rain pelted the roof of the blind as I continued to scan, hands shaking from the cold and jiggling the opera glasses so that everything blurred. I should leave immediately. Since that May night, I promised myself I’d never play Peeping Tom again. What more could I actually learn out here? I should hike out and drive home right now, or head for a bar. Instead I wrapped the army blanket around my shoulders more tightly and tried to steady my hands as I examined the scene.

  Not even this ugly weather could diminish the grandeur of the house and property. The operatic great room’s glass walls shot up to the treetops, offering dramatic, one-hundred-eighty-degree views of the secluded woods and cove. The other walls were constructed of large stones and trimmed with honey-colored timber that blended in naturally with the landscape. At the far wall, I could see a hallway that led to the rest of the house. The place was so large, there must be rooms and rooms and rooms back there. A separate three-car garage was situated to the left. A slice of another glass-and-wood building was visible on the right behind the main structure, past the pool. Hugh’s studio, I surmised. It was built to take advantage of the views as well.

  A tall, bald man in a brown tweed sports coat and a tie gestured animatedly in the center of the great room while talking on his cell. He must be the lead county homicide detective. Around him, figures wearing hooded white jumpsuits and blue plastic gloves crawled on the floor marking, measuring and putting random items in Ziploc bags. I knew this to be forensics procedure, but it looked like performance art.

  As I panned back to the fireplace, a white light suddenly exploded in my eyes. I dropped the glasses and blinked at the orange balloons floating on my retinas. They faded quickly, but bursts of light continued to strobe across the choppy waters. Camera flashes. The police were taking pictures of the crime scene.

  I picked up the glasses and peered through them again just in time to catch the bright red of an ambulance rolling up the drive. Who needed an ambulance? The news hadn’t mentioned any other victims who’d survived. And if there were survivors, why were the EMTs arriving so late? It took a moment before I grasped that the ambulance must have come at the county coroner’s request. To cart Hugh and Helene away for autopsies. I shuddered at the thought.

  With a little maneuvering, the vehicle turned and backed up to the house, revealing a Pequod Volunteer Ambulance insignia on the side. The driver’s door opened and an unmistakable head of thick, snowy hair appeared. Grace’s husband, Mac, had gone gray at twenty-five. “He thinks of emergency calls as a vacation,” Grace had said when Mac first signed on for the ambulance team. After leaving his job on Wall Street to move to Pequod, he began day-trading from home. Mac has attention deficit disorder, and like many people with the affliction, he gets calm and laser focused in high-stress situations. That’s why he’s drawn to trading and EMT work.

  Mac climbed out of the ambulance and drew his hood up against the rain. Another man came around from the passenger side to join him. Al Rudinsky. I knew Al volunteered with the ambulance corps, but I don’t think I’d ever seen him out of his bright blue Tidy Pool coveralls. Like Mac, he wore jeans and a red crew windbreaker.

  A third man in the same outfit clambered out of the double doors in the back. I was surprised to see Kelly’s husband, Stokes. When had Stokes joined the ambulance corps? I wouldn’t have expected him to give up his bowling time.

  “He’s dreamed of running an alley ever since his first bowling party at ten,” Kelly told me the morning I interviewed the couple for my piece on Van Winkle Lanes’ reopening. “He’s a maniac about bowling,” she said of her athletic but baby-faced husband, who barely said a word. “He practices every day. At least three hours. Even when he isn’t competing.” I remember thinking that could explain his freakishly overdeveloped right arm.

  Now Stokes was using his considerable upper-body strength to unload gurneys. The front door of the house opened and the tweedy detective appeared, giving the men a thumbs-up. Mac pushed the first gurney in alone while Stokes and Al waited, hunched over the second. When Mac was fully inside, the other two shoved their gurney across the threshold. But Stokes let go. He allowed Al to continue wheeling the equipment into the house while he stood in the rain like a statue. Why had Stokes stopped? Was he afraid of what he would see inside?

  I tried to keep the violent images at bay by picturing Hugh at work in his old studio. I knew that scene so well, I could create it easily in my mind. Hugh wearing jeans and a faded blue plaid shirt with the sleeves rolled up. Three buttons open at the top, soft brown chest hair peeking out. Paint stains on his
calloused hands. The boyish nape of his neck as he looked down at his palette to mix more paint. I could almost smell the turpentine. I suddenly missed being in the studio with him, posing for his paintings and sketches while he played Bach CDs on his ancient, paint-splattered boom box. I missed being his muse. I missed his making tea for us when we took breaks. He’d show me the new work, excited. When had I made him claustrophobic? He never told me he felt like that. I had to learn it from a critic’s review of a painting I never saw.

  Stokes finally moved. He reached inside his windbreaker pocket, pulled out a pack of American Spirits and went to stand under an eave at the side of the house. Stokes smoked? That was odd. With Kelly such a health-conscious type, not to mention pregnant, she couldn’t approve. Maybe she didn’t know? I watched him light the cigarette, toss the match and take a long draw, as if it were the deepest breath he’d taken in years. As he exhaled, something caught his attention and his head jerked to the left. I followed his sight line.

  Two jumpsuited men had come out of the house carrying what was obviously a large painting wrapped in clear, heavy plastic. Was it the de Kooning or the Rauschenberg? Or could it be one of Hugh’s paintings? And why were the police removing it?

  The men walked it slowly and carefully down the path past Stokes. When they reached the crime scene van, the man holding the bottom of the painting used one hand to slide the van’s side door open. They both tilted the canvas and began brushing rainwater off the plastic before loading it in. The covering fell away and I recoiled instantly. Before they could put it back on, I saw Hugh’s Self Portrait with Pregnant Helene with two large, vicious gashes sliced into the canvas: one in the vicinity of Hugh’s heart and the other across Helene’s belly.

  A shiver ran through me as I lowered the glasses, like dark tar seeping through my veins. Even at this distance, I could sense the rage in the gesture, the ferocious need to destroy. It was a horrible feeling. And how crazy was it that whoever committed the crime had the identical impulse I’d had?