“Watch my backpack.” Thaw rose to put in the order.
God he looked great! Who the hell had suddenly become his fashion advisor? A flash of jealousy at some unknown other lit through Natalie’s body. He had even had his hair styled! And black socks! Was this Thaw? Was this really the Theodore Horatio Alexander Wamp she had known? Where did they ever come up with those names? Who could ever fit into such a handle. And with a last name like Wamp, no less. She supposed it was no worse than Birnbaum…but it did seem so at times. Thank god she was never going to marry him! Could you imagine. Natalie Wamp. Now Theodore Birnbaum at least had a certain ring to it. She laughed at the thought of it. Then she remembered again that it didn’t matter anymore. She was even getting used to not being with him on weekends. But she was not getting used to having other men kiss her. Putting their arms around her, dancing with her, laughing with her was fine. But it would come. It would come. She’d been through this before when she was younger. Only then she had thought she’d never get over her revulsion for other men. Until Thaw.
“Thaw, take some money,” she scrambled for her bag.
“Next time.”
Natalie relaxed. Let him pay. If nothing else it would save time. She noticed his backpack held a box or large book of some kind, but it had been a hectic morning. Her gaze wandered out to the street where cars drifted one direction and then the other. She straightened her shoulders and played with a lock of her hair, thinking of not much in particular. Just zoning out.
Thaw returned with their lunches, which they both opened immediately. Thaw had a bite of his sandwich and reached for his backpack. “Look, Nat. I know we don’t have much time but I want to show you something Lem did.” He unzipped the backpack and pulled out the album, handing it to Natalie, who made room beside her salad for it. Opening the first page, she stopped and looked Thaw in the eyes for a few seconds, proceeding then to review the full book without comment. She closed it and remained with her eyes fixed on the back cover. Nothing. No comment at all. Finally she made eye contact with him.
“What do you think, Nat?”
Tears brimmed Natalie’s eyes. A few overflowed. She dove for a tissue in her bag, blew her nose, pushed the book back toward Thaw, stabbed a mouthful of salad, and jabbed it between her teeth. She began to chew slowly, sniffled again, blew her nose, wiped her eyes, and looked down at the table again.
Thaw was never ready for her tears. Their appearance usually surprised and confused him. Now a feeling of helplessness settled in the pit of his stomach. “Natalie. Are you all right? Can I help? What’s up? Is it something you can talk about?”
Natalie laughed. Whew! She was back. It was the old Natalie laugh, half at herself, half at the world. He watched her dab her eyes again.
“Oh, Thaw. You know me. I’m just happy. Happy for you. I would like so much for you to be a success. This book is great. Lem did a great job, but your work is wonderful! If only you could get some recognition for it. If only you could begin to have some kind of a reliable income from it.”
“Well, we’ll see, Natalie. I just wanted you to know about it.”
“Look, Thaw. I have to get back. My office buddies are leaving. We’re all in a pinch.”
“Leave it, Natalie. I’ll clean up. And Natalie…Thanks.””
Her blue eyes rose to meet his amber ones. Reaching blindly into her bag for her lipstick, she opened it and followed the shape of her lips with its pink tip. God, they were like moist petals on a spring morning. The moment passed. She gathered her things, leaving quickly, but not before a quick kiss to Thaw’s cheek. He raised his hand to it, only half to clear away any smudge of color she may have left there.
2. A Call
Before Thaw hooked up with Rory and accepted the position as an instructor for Nick-Sue, the struggle to win Natalie had been long and hard with the result that not only had it forced him to dress and present himself somewhat differently and to push himself more assertively into the art scene, it also had affected the subject matter of his paintings. It had all started with his efforts to impress Natalie by capturing her beauty somehow on canvas. To glimpse him in the process, however, requires looking back into the time before he landed the job at Nick-Sue.
On that early fall morning, Thaw had balanced a large sketch pad on a second easel to his left and slightly behind the one on which he was currently painting. On it was a quick but rather sympathetic sketch that he was using as a guide. It was of Natalie, done the previous summer. In it she was represented as he had found her asleep. That day she had curled herself in the only cloth-covered chair in the room to watch him paint. But the heat and the quiet had been too much and she had dozed off. In the sketch she had her right hand against her cheek supporting her head. In contrast to the soft lines of her face and clothes, her slender body’s angularity evidenced itself in the bend of her knees and elbows. She wore a green patterned silky robe he had bought for her, and given the humidity and warmth that day, her hair both fell and sprung outward in red waves and ringlets. She had taken a cooling wash-off and, without makeup, the sprinkling of freckles which Thaw found charming but which Natalie preferred to cover was seen to dot her cheeks and nose. To the beholder she offered a mix of womanly health, angular youth, and childlike abandon and delicacy. Thaw was lost in trying to capture in pencil on the canvas the relative variations of the waves and curls of her hair when the telephone ring jarred him back to reality.
“Hello. Thaw here.”
“Good morning, Theodore. Rory, here. I have your next four pictures framed. You can come see them or pick them up any time.”
“Let’s see. What’s today?” He paused slightly. “I could pick them up Thursday.”
“Sounds good. What did your friends think of the first one?”
“Well, I showed it to Lem. He’s the photographer.”
“What did he think?”
“He said the framing really helped bring out the picture.”
“So he liked my work.”
Thaw had not expected Rory to seek encouragement. He was always so positive. But then Rory was young. And maybe framing was a kind of lonely business. Like painting. Thaw remembered the explicable disarray of the framing area. Maybe framers were as much like artists as they were business men. “He really liked it, Rory. He said it was well done. That I was lucky to have found you.”
Rory’s optimism kicked back in. “Lucky we found each other.”
“I explained it was more that you had found me. He was sure the show would be a success. Said I needed a man who was a businessman as a partner.”
“I like this guy already. What’s his name again?”
“Lem.”
“Lem, huh.” Rory held back a comment that formed at the tip of his tongue about northern nicknames. “Humph.” He paused. “You should bring Lem in some time. Like to meet him. Maybe some other of my clients could use his skills.”
“I’ll mention it to him.”
“Yes. Well, getting back to business, looking at what I have here I figure you should get around $2,500 a painting. Even if you just sold two you would almost cover your costs for the show. What do you think?”
“Sounds a little high to me.”
“You gotta think of it, man. These things are pretty work intensive. Plus you need time to just come up with the ideas. And if you completely finished and sold one painting every two weeks that would be about twenty-five paintings a year. Gross you’d take in $65,000. At $250 per frame you’d need to spend $6,520 dollars on framing alone. Then twenty percent commission or about $13,000 to me. Then you have cost of canvas, paint, transportation, and your share of the advertising. When all is said and done you’d be making at most about $40,000 a year…if you’re lucky and sell a painting every other week. Then again…if we can make you a name, the sky is the limit.”
“I’d be happy with $30,000 a year.”
“That’s the problem with you artists. None of you have a business head. That’s why you need guys
like me. Trust me. If you don’t value your work, who will? I say $2,500 a painting. And it’s a bargain.”
“Some bargain.”
“Look, Thaw. Those rich gals need to be able to go to the hunt club and brag about the bargain they got. They can’t go in and brag…look at the bargain I got…$250.00. No, they have to brag about bargains in thousands…even millions. But you and I are doing the thousands. What do you say?”
“Look, Rory. You’re the business head. I just paint.”
“Sure. What the hell. Why not give it a go?”
“All right. Twenty-five hundred. But some need to be less expensive.”
“And some need to be more expensive.”
“You’re something.”
“Well?”
Thaw laughed. “Yeah. And some need to be more expensive.”
“Now you are talking. So Thursday. See you Thursday.”
“Thursday.”
Spring of 2019 was slow to come with warm days few and far between and little rain. Thaw hoped it would soon be warm enough to sketch outside. Today’s morning chill kept him in the cabin, but he felt that with this canvas, he was onto something. He whistled softly as he began to mix his paints. He would use some darker blue-greens and deep oranges and reds. Then he would fade into the aquas and pinks and the fleshier tones. He would start with the knees and elbows. In that way he would be sure to keep the angularity. Then he’d play around with the colors here and there all over the canvas. Next he’d try for some of the darker hues. Most painters started with the lighter ones, but Thaw had a preference for starting with the darker ones and then fading back into the lighter ones. It was the same with his nature paintings. First he would start the outer area in darker, deeper colors from which he would fade into the softly done center of interest. It was ass-backward, he knew, but for some reason or another it worked best for him to progress in this manner. As if saving what for him was the most difficult for last somehow suited his rhythm and style. Whatever it was he found that with amazing speed Natalie began to almost spring from the canvas. Thaw put down his brush and stepped back for a better look. What he saw encouraged him. He had captured the lines of Natalie’s body nicely as well as some of that fresh attitude that even in sleep he sometimes saw in her face.
Thinking back, Thaw could not remember ever having before completed what might be considered a portrait. Maybe he was onto something new. He hoped so. Newness suggested change and change suggested growth, and to say Thaw was not hell bent on changing and growing this year would have been to not know the bubblings within, the fire in his soul, his determination to measure up. He thought of the pleasure it would bring Lem if the album were to land him a job at Nick-Sue. Even just a part-time one. And he thought of Natalie’s tears on seeing his work represented coherently in the photographs of that same album. And he thought of the difference $40,000 instead of $25,000 would make with Natalie and Natalie’s friends and family. And he thought of the excitement of the possibility of someday showing in Aesopolis. He seemed to feel extra good whenever he donned his new clothes. He thought of the covertly appreciative way in which Natalie had accepted his change in appearance and how he had sensed that the young secretary had mooned not only over his pictures, but also a bit over him and promising to take his class “when he taught one.” His brush sped over the canvas. Its wordless flight blindly but deftly did the bidding of some voice from deep within.
Tufty rose from her place near the door and licked Thaw’s hand. She wanted to go out. Thaw put in a few quick strokes to use up what he had on the brush before he put it down and dropped to his haunches to pet the dog. He smoothed both his hands over the sides of her pretty muzzle, head, and ears. She wagged her tail, which caused her head to also wag a bit. Such a sweet dog. Thaw stood and went to the door. Tufty followed. He opened the door and the dog headed out.
The day was bright, but there was a chill in the air. It felt good after the closed air of the cabin. Thaw stood a while outside where he soaked in the freshness of the day. Re-entering the house he went back to work. He had not yet achieved his purpose for the morning: the first stage of completion of a portrait of Natalie. As he picked up his brush and reached for his palette, she smiled out at him.
Sometimes Thaw felt his pictures painted themselves. He could never really figure out where he got his sense of color and balance or his desire for contrast, sweeping lines and fine detail. He wondered what his dad would say if one day he read Thaw’s name in the local paper: “Hometown Son Makes It Big: Wamp Wamps ’em in Aesopolis,” or some such.
His dad read the local weekly from cover to cover each Wednesday night. Or at least he had for the years Thaw had known him. He doubted he would have changed in the last ten. That was one thing about his dad. He didn’t change.
Thaw’s mother had passed away when Thaw was but a baby. After that, until he was fourteen, he had lived with his father’s mother. But when Thaw was fourteen, she, too, had passed away, so Thaw had gone to live with his father and, of course, Grace.
Grace was older than Dody by a few years and her children were in college by the time Thaw came to live with them. As Dody’s work hours were long and Grace commuted, Thaw went to school, did his chores and then spent his free time walking, sketching and fishing along woodland streams. On rainy days and in early evenings he often sat at the kitchen table and snacked and read or drew. Occasionally he watched TV, the family’s old black lab resting his chin on one of his shoes. But as Dody usually worked late, the only time Thaw had ever really spent with his father was on the weekends when he helped him with “side jobs.”
A soft woof told Thaw that Tufty was back. He let her in and put out some dry food and fresh water for her.
Thaw recalled that his dad was okay to work for: mostly complained about the state of the country, taxes that were too high, roads that needed repair, and about those who did not hold up their part of deals, helpers who showed up late for work, people with whom he contracted who did not pay their bills on time. But his dad rarely had much to say to Thaw beyond stating what his job was for the day. Thaw felt when they had talked, his father was uncomfortable with him. Thaw was by nature taciturn, talking only when he felt he had something to say. Dody, by contrast, talked almost constantly, even responding to his own questions and comments when the listener failed to respond as quickly as suited him.
So far, so good. The contrasts in the picture were working. Natalie’s face glowed softly amidst the darker outer shadows. He touched up the curve of her jaw, softened its line and highlighted slightly the gentle curve of her cheek. He liked the results and hoped Natalie would, too. That is if she ever got to see them.
Thaw believed he was something of a mystery to his father. Why, Thaw had never been able to figure out: everything he did seemed so out in the open. All one had to do was observe him, his pictures, and the titles on the books he read and who he was should have been very clear…even old hat.
Hunger gnawed Thaw back into the present. He left his work and popped some bread into the toaster and opened the refrigerator. There was a tomato and some cold cuts. He grabbed them and the jar of Hellman’s mayo. He looked at the clock. One o’clock. No wonder Tufty waited at the door. That was it for the day. The sun was warm. He left the door open. But even as he prepared his sandwich he continued to review his life.
Thaw had from the beginning believed he would grow up to be an artist. He had heard that artists rarely made much money, so it was for this reason, as well as to please his father, that he had become such a good house painter, carpenter, shingler, wall board taper, and floor installer. By the time he was twenty-one he had helped build several houses, sometimes working with his father, but over time increasingly working with other builders from whom he felt more comfortable accepting money.
When Thaw still lived with his dad and Grace, Dody always avoided commenting on Thaw’s art work beyond enforcing the rule that if Thaw was going to make a mess it had to be either out over the garage
where, in nice weather, Thaw had a kind of a studio, on the old aluminum and plastic table in his room, or outside where it was to be cleaned up when he was done.
Grace, on the other hand, had never failed to mention Thaw’s work to visitors. She’d even bragged about it to her daughters. And, as Thaw had known one of his paintings hung on an office wall where she worked, she had probably bragged about his talents there, too. “No doubt about it. Very likely to be America’s next John Burroughs,” she’d say. “Or a Michelangelo or Gaugin.”
Grace was not the most knowledgeable person in the world when it came to the arts, but somehow she had managed to cull these names from comments and conversations with people who had discussed Thaw’s work in her presence. Most of his paintings had hung in the area above the garage, but a few of his smaller paintings had hung in the living room, and a painting of a bird he had done had hung over the toilet in the bathroom.
It was rare, however, for Grace to take any interest in his specific works. But she was kindly toward them in her attitude and treated them with a general seriousness that Thaw really appreciated. Thaw’s fondness for Grace had grown from the fact that she always treated him well and willingly cooked his meals and washed his clothes. But they rarely had any lengthy conversations, and except for having been to the museum in Bain a few times, art really held little interest for Grace. She did, however, insist on the maintenance in her home of a color scheme of light green, dark green and various shades of maroon. And she did enjoy her collection of nick-knacks, although they seemed to take half of Saturday morning to dust.
Because Grace liked birds, Thaw had painted a small green budgie in an open scene that involved some maroon hollyhocks with dark green leaves. Fitting Grace’s color scheme had required some machinations as Thaw knew that budgies lived in the wild in Australia and were not to be seen in these parts. But as he guessed that hollyhocks grew in Australia as well as in the USA, he combined the two in one painting.
“Oh, Thaw,” Grace had commented on first sight of the finished project. “What a beautiful little bird! You wouldn’t care to have me hang it in the house, would you?”
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