Objects of My Affection

by Jill Smolinski

  That’s when I see it in the mirror’s reflection.

  Woman, Freshly Tossed.

  It’s hanging directly across from the toilet, partially obscured by a shelf containing towels, spare toilet paper, and magazines. Hesitating only briefly—do I dare reveal to Marva that her life’s greatest work is on display in a bathroom?—I open the door and start shouting for her, claiming that I need her help.

  She approaches in the manner one might a car they suspect contains a decomposing body. “I’m not good with sick people,” she says grimly. “You should ask that Lynette gal.”

  I beckon her inside. “There’s something here you need to see.” I’m too emotionally exhausted to even hope to fawn over her brilliance the way Daniel would have, but I’m also not about to leave her alone in the bathroom for what may turn out to be a huge disappointment. There are razors in here.

  As soon as I click the door shut, she sees it and then softly laughs. “How very apropos.”

  Setting the carpeted toilet seat down for her, I say, “You wanted to see it. Make yourself comfortable.”

  She sits down. The space between the toilet and the painting is so small that she has to tip her head up to get a good look. “So there she is.”

  I lean against the sink and decide to take on the elephant in the bathroom. “Sorry it’s in such an awful place. That must be infuriating.”

  “On the contrary, I find it rather amusing.”

  Though I don’t believe her, we’ve come all this way for her to visit it, so I shut up and let her do so. Her eyes flicker over the painting, and I wonder what she sees. That is, besides the obvious. Like all of Marva’s paintings, the colors in Woman, Freshly Tossed are bright, the lines bold. The image is simple: a nude woman in blue tones leaning against a bed, behind her a ghostlike image of a man. Then there’s some squiggly stuff. It’s powerful, although seeing it in person, I’m surprised everybody says it’s so sexy. It strikes me more as melancholy, although that could be attributed to my current state of mind.

  Eventually, Marva breathes out a sigh, still looking at the painting. “You couldn’t go away, could you. You had to drag me through it one more time, didn’t you.”

  Is she talking to me? “Are you talking to me?”

  My voice pulls her from her reverie. “I’m not sure who I’m talking to.” She pushes on her thighs to stand. “The lucky news is, you’re the only one that responded. I’m not quite as crazy as rumor would have.”

  “You’re not crazy,” I say, trying to rally with at least some gushing. “Except in the way that brilliant people are, but that’s allowed. That painting shows what you’re capable of, that’s for sure. It’s amazing. Of course you know that, but I’m telling you in case you forgot. About how amazing your painting is, and, by extension, how amazing you are.”

  She doesn’t say anything, but opens the medicine cabinet and starts rifling through. “God bless Lynette,” she says, pulling out a plastic prescription bottle. “There’s enough here to take down a dinosaur. Can’t say as how I’d blame her. I’d need a lifetime supply of painkillers, too, if I had to live with that man.”

  Pills! Why didn’t I check for pills! I’m a fool. I bring a suicidal woman into a bathroom chock-full of narcotics.

  “Marva … don’t …”

  “She won’t miss them,” she says, struggling with unscrewing the childproof cap. “I’ll be long gone before she even comes in here.”

  Oh, no … long gone. “I can’t let you do it. You mean too much to the world. If you don’t care about yourself, think of your son.”

  “What are you carrying on about?” She pops off the cap and shakes some pills into the palm of her hand.

  I snatch the container away. “Marva, don’t do it. Give me those in your hand. I’m prepared to call a paramedic, and—let me assure you—getting your stomach pumped is not a pleasant experience.”

  “Please,” she says drily, “I used to take these by the truckload with no ill effect.” She opens her palm, where I see only two pills before she swallows them back dry.

  Well, this is awkward. “You’re only taking two? What are those?”

  “Valium—the generic. I’d like to nap on the way home. Now do you want to explain what this fit was about?”

  “I know about your suicide plans. I accidentally saw your notes in the book.” The words come out in a rush before I lose my courage to say them. “We were hoping that seeing your painting today would remind you about why you should live. Only we figured it’d be properly displayed in some mansion, and now I’m afraid we’ve made things worse.”

  “I see,” she says in measured tones. “Does Will know?”

  “Yes.” She shoots me a murderous glance, and I exclaim, “I had to tell him! He’s worried, Marva. We both are. It may seem that ending your life is the answer to your problems, but it’s not.”

  “And how is it you’ve got the answer to my problems when you haven’t the faintest notion what my problems might be?”

  I open my mouth to rebut, but she shushes me. “Here I was believing that we’d come to an understanding, but you’re still busy playing out all your busybody, fix-it schemes on me.”

  “That’s not it at all, I’m only trying to—”

  “Well, don’t. Don’t try to do anything other than what I’ve hired you for, which is to clean out my home. Otherwise, you may quickly find yourself without even that job to do—if you catch my drift.”

  “Marva, this is your life you’re talking about throwing away. I can’t sit back and pretend I don’t know.”

  “Of course you can,” she says, gingerly retrieving the pill container from my hand and placing it back in the medicine cabinet. “In fact, I’d imagine you’re quite skilled at it.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “A son with a drug problem, living with you right under your roof? I believe you know precisely what I mean.”

  “That’s low,” I say, my voice quavering.

  “I’m not saying it to be cruel—simply to point out your abilities to carry on in spite of tragedy unfolding all around you,” she says, her hand on the doorknob. “Frankly, I find it to be an admirable quality that you possess. And I suggest that if you want to continue working for me, you use it.”

  Marva leaves the bathroom without another look at the painting, and I take a moment to pee before we hit the road. I have every intention of curling up in the back of the SUV and sleeping all the way home, so I don’t want a full bladder waking me up from blissful escape. On my way out, I pass Gil, who is sitting at his desk in the den. I’m in a lousy enough mood to hold up my hands and say, “See? I’m not stealing any towels.”

  “Yeah, I’m a son of a bitch,” he says matter-of-factly. “But you try living with a woman who trusts every door-to-door salesman and preacher and lying nut job that she comes across.”

  Being the third among his categories, I almost feel sorry for the guy for a moment. Then it occurs to me I can at least walk out of here with the answer to one of the questions plaguing me.

  “That painting in your bathroom, it’s interesting. Where’d you get it?”

  “Funny story.” Gil seems less cranky than he did earlier, perhaps owing to the beer he’s holding. “Years ago, back about ’94 I’d guess, I get this call from a fellow I sometimes do work for. Got my own plumbing business. My buddy, he manages this apartment building—real swank place. One of the tenants got busted for dealing cocaine, so my bud’s got to clear out the apartment, right? And the toilet’s all backed up, right? So I go to snake it, and that thing’s so full of pills and plastic baggies and syringes and whatnot, I had to take apart half the pipes to get everything out. Asshole that lived there must’ve tried flushing a million bucks’ worth of drugs before the cops got him.”

  “And he paid you with the painting?”

  “He threw it in on top of my fee. I told him I liked it, and he said take it then—that’s one less thing I got to toss in the trash.”<
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  I cringe at the thought of Marva’s painting getting thrown away—although that’s not much worse than where it is now. “That’s nice he gave you a painting you liked.”

  “Oh, I don’t like it. The thing’s uglier than my sister. But it might be worth something. I asked for the leather couch first, but he said no. Figured nobody’d want the painting so that’s why I snagged it.”

  “If you hate it so much, why do you have it hanging up?”

  He takes a swig of his beer. “Because my wife hates it more. A man’s home is his castle. I should at least get to decide what goes in the room with the throne.”

  I leave him yukking it up at his own joke and pass Marva, who is pressing several $100 bills into a stunned Lynette’s hand, claiming it’s a location fee that she gets even though we can’t shoot. “Don’t feel you have to tell your husband about this,” Marva says. “Every woman needs a little mad money.”

  Daniel is behind the wheel as I crawl into the back of the SUV. He tips his head toward Marva outside. “She told me she saw it. In the bathroom. Those people don’t have a clue what they have. She could’ve bought the painting off them for next to nothing.”

  “She doesn’t want it.”

  “It’s a waste.” He’s staring straight ahead and starts the engine as Marva approaches the vehicle. “It’s all a damned waste.”

  chapter sixteen

  Sometimes the clutter gets to be too much, and you need help. There’s no shame in that. The only shame is if you don’t take the help that’s being offered.

  —Organize Me! welcome letter

  Three days later, Niko is passing me carrying yet another handful of bulging trash bags to his truck. “Whatever you did to her on that trip, she can’t get rid of stuff fast enough now.” He’s slightly damp from the on-and-off rain, which makes his hair curl slightly by his neck and his clothes cling to him in a way that looks mighty fetching. “This is my third haul to storage today. We may finish this job yet.”

  It’s true—as much as I feared that seeing her painting might have depressed her, if anything Marva seems galvanized by the experience. It’s starting to seem we might actually meet the deadline. For once, instead of expending my energy fighting Marva, I’m organizing and packing and doing what I was brought in to do. I’ve scheduled the yard sale for Saturday—only five days from now—and then after that I have one more week to finish the rest of the job. Amazingly, I’ve talked Will into bringing in Organize Me! to run the yard sale. Sure, they’re the enemy, but I’m willing to wave a white flag if it means I don’t have to price twenty thousand items myself. This morning I met them in the storage unit to go over the job. Niko drove me there, then laughed at me when I gasped at the sheer volume of merchandise. He’s been seeing the place fill up day by day, whereas this was my first visit—guess I wasn’t fully prepared to witness what had once been stacked to the ceiling in Marva’s house now stretched out on tables across a cavernous floor. Once buyers are unleashed into the place, it’s going to be madness. The furniture section alone is several normal household’s worth; there are enough chairs to pack an entire living room with nothing but chairs.

  Turns out, insulted though I may have been by what Marva said, she was spot-on about my ability to pretend nothing’s wrong. I’m pushing forward on the job with an almost manic energy, even though once I’m done, another item will be checked off her bucket list. I can’t even claim ignorance. I’m fully aware that I’m helping Marva take one more step toward killing herself—possibly the final step.

  I am, however, also stupid enough to believe I can still stop her somehow, even though I no longer have Daniel by my side to plot and scheme with me. (He sent a curt text the day after our road trip to say he assumed his services were no longer required, which they aren’t. I texted him back saying that I’d still give him the memorabilia items that were to be his payment, as we’d agreed. Then I applied the time formula for getting over a breakup: six months of grieving for every year together. Since we kissed for about a minute, I gave myself thirty seconds to pout about how I’d foolishly brought him into my life again, and then it was time to move on.)

  Anyway, I don’t need Daniel’s help. I have an idea or two of my own on how to handle Marva. Okay, an idea. One. It’s better than none.

  I grab my keys, leave Niko with instructions on what to do next, then spend my afternoon at an art store buying supplies. (Now I understand where the term starving artist comes from—I could have bought a month’s groceries for what I’m paying for a few blank canvases, paints, and brushes. It didn’t help that I had to ask for the top-of-the-line items, but how could I possibly inspire Marva with the cheap junk that I can really afford?) Yes, somewhere between stumbling groggily from the SUV Friday night and reporting in to work Saturday morning, it dawned on me that Daniel has had me going about this all wrong. Marva doesn’t need to be reminded of how she used to love to paint—she needs to understand that the passion for painting is still in her. All she needs is a bit of prompting to rediscover the great artist she still is—and I seem to be the only one willing to give her said prompt.

  I’m in Marva’s office, arranging paints on a table and propping a blank canvas on one of several easels I found in the house, when she walks in. “What’s this?” she says, eyeing the canvas with about as much enthusiasm as one might a basket of dirty laundry.

  “Surprise!” I paste on a grin while bracing myself for what I can already tell is going to be a tough sale. “It’s an early birthday present. We haven’t come across your personal art supplies yet in our cleaning, but I didn’t want you to have to go any longer without.” Holding up a hand, as if her only objection is going to be the quality of what I’ve brought her, I add, “Now, you undoubtedly have a preference as to the types of paints and brushes you like, so this is only to get you started.”

  I once made the mistake of giving Ash clothes for his birthday when he was little—his face looked quite similar to how Marva’s does right now.

  “You shouldn’t have,” she says.

  “My pleasure!”

  It quickly becomes evident this “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy we’ve established goes both ways: She’s aware of what I’m doing here, yet to say so would be to bring up the taboo subject of her suicide plans.

  Finally she says, “You forget that you have me very busy going through my belongings. I hardly have time to sleep, let alone pick up a paintbrush. I’m afraid you’ve wasted your money.”

  “Marva, you’re an artist, and far be it from me to allow my duties here to stand in the way of your artistry. Of course you need your tools. Frankly, I’m astounded you’ve managed this long without them. Imagine a pilot without a plane! Or … or …”

  “I get the analogy,” she says. “You needn’t strive for another. But this pilot”—she points to herself—“is perfectly content to walk.” Picking up a stack of papers, she turns to leave. “I’ll be in my bedroom if you need me.”

  “And I’ll leave this here, in case you find yourself with the urge to paint.”

  “I won’t.”

  “You might.”

  “It will just be in your way.”

  “I don’t mind.”

  “Fine then,” she says. “Suit yourself.”

  It’s Tuesday afternoon when the call finally comes.

  I’m splayed on a floor rug in an upstairs room doing my best impression of making a snow angel for the simple reason that I can. There’s finally enough room! In just days, we’ve cleared out the entire upstairs, leaving only the most basic furniture and decor (although the Easter-bonnet collection somehow survived the cut and fills an entire closet). The upstairs rooms can serve as guest rooms as soon as Mei-Hua does a thorough cleaning, which is sorely needed. It’s astounding how filthy a room can get even when it’s only being used for storage. It’s as if Marva’s stuff somehow got together to breed more tiny stuff that can only be cleared away with a broom, a bucket of Pine-Sol, and a lot of elbow grease
.

  “Guess I’m the only one who’s bothering to work around here,” Niko says with a smirk. He’s changing a wall sconce and wearing the hell out of a pair of Levi’s, so I’ve been enjoying a view of more than just an empty room. In our catch-up chat this morning, Heather suggested that the best way to get over one man is to get under another. As I recall, I had quite a lot of fun beneath this particular man not that long ago—and that was with clothes on. So imagine if … Mmm, I’m in the midst of imagining when my phone rings from where it’s lying on a dresser.

  “I need to get that,” I say. As I do every time it rings, I silently pray that it’s Mary Beth with more news about Ash. So far the poor person on the other end has been treated to my obvious disappointment when it isn’t.

  Niko reaches for my phone. “You’re looking too comfortable down there. I’ll grab it for you.”

  Assuming he’s going to hand it to me, I’m startled when he instead flips it open and answers, “Lucy’s phone.” After a moment, he holds it away from his ear. “You willing to take a collect call?”

  “Yes!” Without asking from whom—who else but my son would call collect?—I snatch the phone from Niko’s hands saying, “Yes, yes, I accept,” and am galloping down the stairs so I can talk in private. An operator asks for my credit card information, followed by a click-click as the call goes through.

  “Hello? Ash?”

  “Hey, Mom, it’s me.”

  “Hey me.” My tone is so casual you’d never guess I’m pacing nervously in a tiny clearing in the living room like a duck in a shooting gallery. Mackenlively’s advice careens through my head. Get Ash to reveal where he is. Don’t give him cash unless it’s to wire to an address. No yelling or lecturing or anything that will scare him off. Hearing Ash’s voice at least assuages my most nagging concern: Was Mary Beth wrong and my son is dead? “I’m glad you called,” I say. “I was upset when I heard you left the Willows.”