Trompe l'Oeil

by Nancy Reisman

  Blue-gray eyes, a way of listening, it seemed, with her body: a stillness when Katy spoke. Though, too, an easy laugh. Originally from New Hampshire, near the coast. A small town. Katy talked. Told her about Blue Rock, the beaches off-hours, off-season, the best places to run. “Maybe with Carrie we’ll do a run sometime,” Josie said.

  Later, Katy returned to the pool, now with Uncle Patrick and Pamela and the girls, and after a time her father. She threw a small beach ball with the girls and James, then floated, a happy, lovely kind of floating: a cornflower-blue sky, near cloudless but for thin silky bands in the north.

  After the party, after she and her father had shepherded Sara and Delia into the car, back into the city to toothbrushing and washing and bed, when the girls were finally asleep, her father asked, “Did you have a nice time?”

  “Yes,” she said. Still happy. Still somehow afloat.

  Her father was smiling, and not falsely; he did have a beautiful smile. “I’m so glad,” he said. “And meeting everyone? How was that?”

  “Fine,” she said. “Totally fine.”

  “And Josie?” he said. “What did you think of her?”

  Perfect, Katy almost said, but his gaze held a giveaway intensity. Had he been talking with Josie at the party? Katy could not remember them together, but she’d been playing badminton and Frisbee; there was the pool; the Sox were on TV. Yet he knew her. And what Katy felt then was a kind of curdling, and heat, at what she could now see as a setup, unfurling backward, and the presumption—correct, wasn’t it?—of how easily duped she could be, how dumbly eager to be liked. When kids acted stupid, Nora called them dumb as lambs; adults were dumb as posts. And Katy? Lamb or post? Imagining Josie’s interest in her for her own sake, even imagining—hadn’t she, just a little?—that Josie might see in her what others did not. Perfect, yes, but it was never Katy they wanted—it was the little girls, or Theo. Or if they’d heard the story, Molly (even dead, Molly claimed attention). Now James. Maybe Katy herself preferred to be duped: maybe she had it coming, knowing better but falling for the ploy.

  “You like her,” Katy said, one stupid fat tear rolling down her cheek.

  “Didn’t you like her?” James said.

  A clogged feeling behind her face began to expand and she walked very quickly to the condo’s guest bathroom and locked the door, then leaned into the wall beside the stack of matching brown-and-beige striped towels and pinched her upper arm until the sting pulsed on its own. Kicked the cabinets open and shut. Under the sink found a box of tampons—not Katy’s brand. Josie’s then? Katy unwrapped one experimentally, whipped it by its white cord against the towel rack, making a dull whap. Against the wood and the porcelain tub, the sound was more satisfying. When she grew bored, she curled up on the bath mat and pulled a dry towel around her and closed her eyes, pretending to be in the bathroom in Blue Rock.

  She didn’t expect her father to call her out of the bathroom, or to try to speak to her from outside the door: only Nora would have. But when she finally emerged, he was still sitting on the sofa with his water glass.

  “I do hope you had a good time,” James said, as if she hadn’t just been whapping the walls of the bathroom.

  Katy pressed her lips and counted. “I’m going to sleep now,” she said. “You are meaner than you think.”

  NO CAFÉ

  Say the Murphys have left the café; or say they never found it. Perhaps they are hiding on the Palatine Hill; perhaps hiding from each other. Or searching for the moment before the moment. It’s a terrible relief to be alone. Separately they all fall under white trucks; separately they lie on city sidewalks reflecting on the sky; separately they retreat into hotel rooms. Bells ring heavily, then quiet.

  The city repeats itself. The Murphys do not speak the language, and are in fact no longer “they”: only the vaguest and most attenuated notion of they or we or us persists, a fading ray aimed back toward a fading concept, sometimes called Molly.

  Say their steps displace small stones, tear bits of fallen leaves—gray chips, gold specks, russet flakes. It’s January. After days of rain, light floods the city. Gardens and paths throughout Rome echo and echo with Murphys.

  NEWS

  James called to tell Nora directly. October, a windy Saturday afternoon. He called, and there was a moment—there often was a moment after long silences between them—before time caught up with her. A moment of hearing his voice and answering in an unguarded way. This could happen when she had been reading or sleeping or alone for a long while. The unexpected voice, the voice of her marriage, warm now, her lack of defense. He’d been dating someone, he said. He said they would be marrying.

  She was in the still, cool kitchen, filling the kettle. Swans on the pond, the pond reflecting the moving pink and violet clouds, swans swimming through the colors’ reflections. She listened. His announcement and patter were rehearsed, though a stranger listening might not think so. He could memorize speeches and deliver them as spontaneous eloquence, something Nora recognized; she wondered if the new woman detected the difference, or would ever detect it. One more bit of intimate knowledge Nora hadn’t lost, one way in which the alien James was not a stranger. A further insult, it seemed, to witness his new life, but she saw no way out. This was why, Nora imagined, parents kidnapped their children and moved to Brazil.

  “We’ll take it slow,” he said. She did not know whether “we” meant James and the woman, or James and Nora, or all three of them. Next summer, he said. Perhaps midsummer.

  “Okay,” she said. “I see,” she said, and more than once repeated. She’d let herself think in the near term only, had veered away from his private life—as long as it was separate from the girls, she’d told him, it was his business. And the kids had said nothing. But now she knew and would have to find space for this knowledge, a way to navigate it daily, with no apparent end. It seemed you could in fact start a second life, if you were James: you could walk away from the prior life, the one that had anchored you so utterly. And if she’d left, before? After Rome there seemed no other path. Before that? Would she have left the children with James? No. She’d have to reel back further, before Theo.

  The girls had met her as a guest of Patrick’s, James told her.

  “Patrick. I see,” she said. So, too, the likely end of her remaining Murphy ties. “Do they know?”

  “Katy,” he said.

  “And Theo?”

  He and Josie had taken Theo to dinner on Theo’s last visit.

  Which explained too why Theo had been so adamant about her private life. Didn’t she want to date? If she met someone, why not? She’d said she had no time. “If it’s what you want, Mom, there’s always time,” he’d said, but no, she’d told him. He could not understand. How tightly scheduled her days, with Delia and Sara and Katy, her job, the house; how catastrophic ordinary car trouble could be. The endless searches for bargains, the errands and repairs packed into the days the girls spent with James. To make him understand she’d have to say too much. “But if it’s what you want,” he repeated. At one of Katy’s games, Theo watched from the sidelines with Nora and the goalie Ellie Burnham’s father, Lloyd, who joked with Nora and Theo and shared a bag of pretzels. When they said good-bye, Lloyd Burnham kissed her cheek—“See you, hon,” he said—and kissed Katy’s cheek, and shook Theo’s hand.

  In the car Theo said, “What about him?” and Katy snorted, “He’s married, Theo. Remember the sail club lady? Ellie’s mom? Didn’t you scrape up one of those boats?”

  “Okay, so not him. Someone else,” Theo said.

  “Get me a new dishwasher,” Nora told him.

  And when Theo brought it up again later, she said no. A vehement no that seemed to take Theo by surprise. They were at the kitchen table drinking tea, and a flat silence hung over the room for a moment before Theo said, “Okay,” and Nora said, “I need to look after the girls. Don’t worry.” But it seemed to Nora that Theo was confusing her with the Nora of the cocktail dresses, or the
one who took him as a small child to cafés; or even the Nora who had rediscovered pleasure with James one last summer. Maybe Theo saw the Nora of that summer or maybe he imagined she could step back into that moment, the inevitable betrayals of the body notwithstanding.

  And perhaps she should be grateful that Theo could not see the hairline fractures that might with one more collision, one more betrayal, become unbreachable fissures. Though Theo no longer lived in Blue Rock; Theo could be wishful; there was plenty Theo didn’t see.

  Nora could not explain herself. The steady small physical attritions were not what kept her alone, but they troubled her more as the plain facts of Josie Brundige’s life unspooled, and Josie herself became a presence: a woman younger by a decade, lovely, her body a lovely body. There was a youthful lushness about Josie, and a surety to her movements Nora could not remember in herself.

  And how was it that the body of another woman could within minutes make one’s own body seem alien? On an ordinary Sunday, she picked up the girls at James’s condo, and Josie was there, just leaving: the passing of ships, a handshake. Josie wore jeans and a sweater, but had the look of a Lord & Taylor ad. The girls called Nora, ran to Nora, she hugged them; Josie left, and the moment ended. James walked Nora and the girls to her car, careful, polite. As she was leaving, he handed her an envelope, a check for house money. As if he were buying peace, or reasserting severance. “Next week,” she said.

  She did not want to imagine James’s desire: she imagined James’s desire. And her own, the idea of being in Josie’s presence, the way one might feel if one were not Nora. What her children might feel? And although Nora knew better, knew that no one escapes loss, Josie in the hallway with her equanimity and her red-gold waves and still-taut curves appeared free, and therefore more haunting. If James had not been in love with Josie, would Nora have seen Josie this way? Maybe not. Or in that moment, seen herself as almost without gender, at least not one she recognized? Strangely exiled, if on a familiar coast.

  ROME

  Pauline Bonaparte

  Antonio Canova (early 19th century)

  GALLERIA BORGHESE

  In this moment, nothing is a problem for Pauline. A woman in her twenties, naked to the hip—high breasts, trim belly, now stretched sideways on a chaise longue, so that to the shoulder her body imitates the shape of the chaise, enunciating the angled curve of her waist. White fabric drapes her hips and thighs, her right leg extending forward, left slightly back, exposing slim calves, shapely ankles and feet, the second toe extending beyond the first. Still her back appears straight as she leans into the pillows, her elbow propped, fingers touching the side of her face. Neck curving upward, she gazes forward as if surveying the room, curls and longer tendrils of hair piled onto her head. A bracelet on her forearm, an apple in her left hand, which rests on her covered left thigh. Her skin is white, luminous, remarkable; she is Pauline and also a Greek goddess, an assessing Venus. Self-possessed, and in that self-possession, that luminous body, undeniably seductive.

  Pauline Borghese, born Pauline Bonaparte, sister to Napoleon. Perhaps she’s contemplating her desires; perhaps her lovers. Her chaise is set in the center of the room: now stationary, it once rotated, the marble Pauline surveying her visitors.

  Reach past the museum rope and one might run a hand along her waist, belly, breasts. Or feel an impulse to lie beside her on the chaise. A wish to fall into her, or to embody her, as Venus, a woman who takes her pleasure; a woman who does not hide her body or desire, who in this vision does not bend to the desires of others, or fear the consequences of exposure. Maybe there’s a dreamy moment when desire rises into the air of the gallery and mixes with the sense of possibility. Maybe a moment others witness.

  A body in stone, a legacy in stone; somehow, also, Canova. It was Pauline’s moment, a body and moment sustainable only in sculpture. And then the moment passed; the later Pauline inhabited another body, tubercular, dead at forty-four. Maybe the late Pauline, the shadow Pauline, is the haunting one. The one who is and is not herself.

  And at what point might desire return to stone, or become stone? A question ribboning one’s wakeful nights. If you asked Nora, she might not answer. She might tell you there are rooms inside your mind. Might point out the light beyond the trees, a line of orange, a milk-blue cloud.

  DRESSES

  An alternate constellation of Murphys, or near-Murphys: James in his khakis and polo shirt, Sara and Delia grade-school girls in sundresses, Katy in shorts and a summer blouse—and Josie, also in a sundress, mint-green fabric, finely ridged. Early June, a Saturday. They strolled the expanse of the Boston Neiman Marcus, past the cosmetics counters, past a glass case of Swiss watches, as if they might have frequented this place together. Say it was there—with all those mirrors, all those glinting vials and chic designs—that they most convincingly appeared as a well-heeled family. Though James did not consider it performance: he’d stepped, he believed, into the life he wanted. His wife—or soon to be. His children. His upcoming wedding (and soon, a move to his new house). He breathed differently now, didn’t he? Still fresh, his gratitude, his happiness, though the balance could later tip—and would, as it sometimes had—from amazement at good fortune to an assumption of just rewards. The day, like the summer ahead, seemed to expand. His family strolled through the Neiman Marcus. They—this other, newly possible they—seemed to belong here (even Katy, her footsteps almost light). Had he taken the girls and Josie to the Public Garden, perhaps the Garden would have been the site of such belonging. Not impossible. But they had come to Neiman Marcus to buy dresses, the collective moment and its associated dreaming inextricable from the fine objects with which one might furnish a life (what James called “living well”).

  For Katy, shopping as if a family was not deliberate pretense, or not all deliberate pretense: more the tug of a vortex. She’d been drawn in the moment Josie stepped into the car and settled in the passenger seat beside James, having first confirmed the three girls’ comfort in back. On the drive to Copley Square, her father narrated as he always had, pointing out landmarks and rehashing local history as he drove, affirming himself as Dad, the girls as his kids. Initially a matter of Josie fitting into the puzzle, wasn’t it? The substitute mother. Maybe this happened more often than Katy recognized, roles switching up? What if the absent Nora and Theo were to stroll Filene’s—or a museum?—flanked by a substitute James, three substitute daughters? Substitutes were imitations. Obviously. But you tumbled into the role anyway.

  In August, Sara and Delia would be bridesmaids. Josie had asked them: they had said yes. She had also asked Katy, and Katy declined (in what was for her a triumph of tact, she had offered no reason). For the girls, Josie had picked out graceful and unfussy dresses: a melting pastel blue, delicately patterned flounces at the bottom of the skirts. Sara tried hers on a bit timidly, Delia with more glee. James kissed them; he twirled them around, called them “gorgeous.” They laughed, even Sara, even Katy. Though she did not laugh when the saleswoman—in a navy suit, silk lemony blouse, curled hair in a style Katy thought of as “wig”—referred to Sara and Delia as Josie’s daughters, to Katy as “the young lady.”

  Other sales staff shared the same language; she was more loosely attached, her place less defined. A niece? Stepdaughter? (Yes and no.) Maybe an au pair? Yet Sara and Delia would be Josie’s. Josie corrected no one. And if the woman had called Katy Josie’s daughter? Would Josie—or Katy herself—have set her straight? Or would she have played the part? Though she was already playing the part, or trying to. They’d all been playing family. But the saleswoman called Katy out. The others could be a family without her.

  Still the phrase: young lady. Still the Neiman Marcus attention. At least, Katy thought, the saleswoman noticed her. The tone—Katy had to admit—had not been snide. “What would you like?” the wig woman asked, as if offering free cake. Against her will, Katy began to relax, and to discover, yes, there was something she wanted. Some magnificent thing. How quickly,
she thought, she could betray her mother.

  Her father put a hand on her shoulder. As if comprehending, he said, “Sweetheart, let’s find something gorgeous for you,” and told the suited wig, “My daughter Katy wants a dress.” So he claimed her, and in that moment attended to her first. (All day, of course, he’d claimed them, herding them and hovering and commenting.) His smallest gestures seemed grand and inclusive, shoring up the deceit of belonging together as well as belonging here. Irresistible assertions, Katy thought, had sped his rise in business.

  “We’ll pick one that matches the bridesmaids’ dresses,” Josie said. “You can always change your mind.”

  And so in the dress department, Josie consulted with the women attending to them. Dresses and more dresses arrived for Katy to try (privately—she was grateful for the dressing room door). Out she walked, and Josie and the saleswomen exclaimed over Katy in each dress, as if she suddenly merited their praise. Her own image surprised her; she did appear as another, more elegant girl. Was that also herself? Pleasure, a subtle glee in trying on the dresses—more betrayal? A thin shadow of doubt hovered, but receded as she marveled at the sheen of a V-necked indigo gown that made her look lovelier than she knew herself to be. Say she could, in this high-end shop, put on a dress and become someone else. She felt a small burst of happiness, pleasure modeling the dress for James, pleasure at his smile, his extravagant praise. Okay then. She would have the dress: she’d be the young lady.

  After the deflating reversion to her usual self—her shorts and cotton blouse from last season—there was still the matter of shoes. In their pastel blue dresses, Sara and Delia had twirled for the mirrors, but they did not last long in stores. Did James remember this? Sara would tire and wander off alone. Delia might disobey, whine, or sulk, or huff off in search of the car. When she was exhausted, Delia’s lips would tremble: she’d fight off tears but demand to call Nora. Katy told Josie, “She’ll lose it if she’s here too long,” and the clerk glanced over at Josie, who nodded almost dismissively. As if it were a familiar risk, Delia in fact her daughter, Josie-as-mother now minding the clock to avert the kind of meltdown she’d witnessed too often. I know, Katy wanted to insist. You don’t know my sisters. But there was heat in Katy’s face now, and she stepped away, telling Sara, “Let’s look for a water fountain.”