Painting Naked (Macmillan New Writing)

by Maggie Dana

  “—but illustrations, by themselves, aren’t enough,” Joel says. “They need more—a toy or a book. A puzzle.”

  “Toys?” Lizzie says.

  Joel nods. “We make a few educational ones.” He hesitates. “Sorry, Jill. It’s a tough market. Let me know if you and Claudia come up with something unique. Something that’ll grab parents by the pocketbook.”

  The next day, I call Claudia to brainstorm about squirrels and she ends up solving the problem of where Colin and I will stay while I’m in England.

  “You can have my cottage for a week,” she says, “if you’ll give Sophie and me a couple of beds at the beginning of July.”

  “It’s a deal,” I say. “How long can you stay?”

  “Just a few days,” Claudia replies. “Then we’re off to Hawaii. Ian will be on location and Sophie’s agreed to join him on the condition I go with her. Silly girl. She’d have a lot more fun if I wasn’t breathing down her neck.”

  “But your cottage?” I hesitate. “Where will you be while—?”

  “Don’t worry,” Claudia says. “I won’t be breathing down your neck, either. I’ll be in London with Sophie.”

  Does she need more tests? “You’re okay, I mean, you’re not—”

  She laughs. “I’ll be taking an art course. At Kew. Botanical illustration.”

  * * *

  I sneak off to the mall. Alone. Without telling Lizzie. She’ll kill me if she finds out, but I don’t think I can cope with her well intentioned advice while trying on underwear. I haven’t told her, or anyone else, about Colin and me … the way we are now. Lizzie just doesn’t get it. She’s never had to fend for herself. Not really. Not the way I have. Fergus has always been there for her, even after she kicked him out and had her fling with Trevor.

  I love her to bits, but she’s got a blind spot over my need for Colin. Not the physical need, which she thoroughly approves of, but my need for someone who shares a big part of my past. Lizzie still has friends she went to high school with, grade school even. She gets to attend reunions and reminisce with people who knew her as a tall skinny kid with knobby knees and flat feet. She has a history here. Mine, what’s left of it, is back in England. My school doesn’t even exist any more, so tracing former classmates is next to impossible despite all those online reunion sites.

  Lizzie’s still teasing me about being Colin’s mistress. The other day she got carried away and called me his concubine. I laughed louder than she did because it really is too funny.

  I’m going to marry him.

  Sweet Jilly … I should never have let you go. I should’ve written from Scotland. I know now you’d have understood how desperate I was. This time, I’m strong enough and wise enough (I hope) to pull us both through the rough bits. It won’t be easy. It’ll take time for me to end my life here and begin a new one with you. I’ve never felt this close to anyone before. There has always been a gap not filled. With you, there is no gap. I am free to be me.

  A spasm of guilt brings me up short. What will happen to Shelby? Colin owns the lodge, but he and Shelby share the business. Maybe Diana has a share, too. I’m sure it’ll be messy and as bad as getting a divorce. He’s dreading it. I worry Shelby will figure it out before he gets up the courage to tell her. Or worse, somebody else will tell her, the way my gynecologist told me.

  Seventeen years ago.

  * * *

  Two weeks after my annual physical, Mary Jane Mason called to schedule a follow-up visit. “Nothing serious,” my doctor said in her sing-song voice. “But it does need attention. Oh, and bring your husband as well.”

  Richard refused to go. No way was he going to set foot in a doctor’s office that dealt with female plumbing. His words, not mine.

  So I lay on the examining table with my feet in the stirrups, trying not to panic while Mary Jane told me the lab had found suspicious cells in my pap smear.

  “What sort of cells?” Cancer? Oh, shit! I’ve got cervical cancer. My father died of cancer.

  “Neisseria gonorrhoeae.” Mary Jane told me to relax while she took another smear. “Just to be on the safe side.”

  Did she say gonorrhea?

  “Sometimes the lab makes a mistake,” Mary Jane said, stripping off her gloves. “More often than they like to admit, but since it’s easy to solve this particular problem, I’m going to give you a jab of penicillin. Hop off the table and bend over.”

  After massaging my sore rump, I climbed into my clothes, and met Mary Jane in her tiny office next door. I loved this about her. She always talked to you afterward, when you were dressed and not lying half naked with your tender parts exposed.

  “Why didn’t Richard come with you?” she said. “This won’t work if he doesn’t get a shot as well, unless, of course, you’re planning to avoid sex with him from now on.” Mary Jane gave me a look that suggested I just might want to consider this a viable option.

  I sat there, trembling, trying to digest it all, while she scribbled something on a prescription pad, slipped it into an envelope, and handed it to me. “Give this to your husband. He can take it to his own doctor and get a jab.”

  Jab?

  I wanted to run him through with a sword. I wanted to slice his balls off and stuff them in his mouth. I wanted to …

  Gonorrhea.

  Oh, God!

  I wobbled to my feet, gripped the chair till my head stopped spinning, and thanked my doctor. Then I paid her bill, in full, at the front desk. No way would I let this monstrosity go through our insurance.

  Our insurance. Our life. Our kids.

  I raced for the bathroom and threw up in the sink. How could he do this? To me? To the family? I needed revenge—right now—so I sat on the toilet and peed away the last bit of feeling I had for my husband, wiped myself clean, and flushed.

  That bastard. That fucking bastard. Not only had he violated our marriage, he’d compromised my health.

  Richard didn’t see it that way.

  “You slut,” he said, after opening the envelope.

  I backed away. “What?”

  “I knew I should’ve stuck around the day your friend’s brother came to visit. What’s her name? The one you grew up with?”

  “Sophie?”

  “Yeah, her. And her fucking brother.”

  “Hugh? What about Hugh?” Two months ago, he’d stopped by to visit on his way to Silicon Valley for some sort of computer seminar. I begged Richard to stay, but he refused and went off to play golf. Hugh and I fed the kids at McDonald’s then took them to the park.

  “He’s the one,” Richard said, flecks of spit flying from his mouth. One landed on my cheek. I was too stunned to wipe it off.

  “Hugh?”

  “Yes, that filthy lout. Did you have fun with him? Did you do all the stuff you won’t do with me?” Richard thrust his face at me. Red. Sweating. Pulsating.

  “Didyoudidyoudidyoudidyou?”

  “Hugh?” I said again, stupidly. “He’s like my own brother, I mean that’d be in—”

  Crack!

  At first, I didn’t feel a thing. Not even shock. Then it dawned on me that Richard must’ve hit me because my face hurt like hell and he wasn’t there any more. Just an angry space. The garage door clanked open. Richard’s car roared into life. Tires squealed and gravel crunched.

  Then silence. Blessed silence.

  I put ice on my jaw, checked on the boys to make sure they hadn’t heard this latest horror, and gathered up fresh sheets for the bed in my guest room. I didn’t want to sleep in my own bed.

  Ever again.

  We were divorced six months later and I didn’t tell my lawyer about the gonorrhea because I didn’t want it dragged into court where it would only hurt my sons.

  * * *

  Slipping into Victoria’s Secret, I pull satin bras and lace panties from shelves while shop assistants with smooth hair and long legs exchange glances and hide their smiles behind well-manicured hands. I guess it’s not often they see middle-aged women i
n here trying on silk teddies and camisoles.

  I take my delicious loot into a dressing room and twirl in front of its three-way mirror. I run my hands up and down my body. I’ve lost weight. I’m firmer. Will Colin notice? I whisk one bra off and try another. Too much me. Not enough bra. Need a bit more support. Underwire, maybe? Ouch, this one’s too tight. How about a soft cup bra that does up in the front? That ought to liven things up a bit. I lean forward and pour myself into it. Stand up, slouch a little. Hands on hips. Pout lips and look sexy. Try not to laugh. Does it have matching panties?

  I shimmy into slips with spaghetti straps and pull on nightgowns a mere whisper of silk. That emerald robe will do me just fine. I wrap it around me and imagine Colin taking it off, slipping one shoulder out, then the other, untying the belt, tying me up with it. I wonder if he’d go for that?

  Holy shit! What am I thinking? What’s happening to me?

  My lovely Jilly … The magic, the physical longing is getting harder to bear. I’m amazed this can happen at our age! I want to hold you, touch you, kiss you, caress your soft skin, talk with you, make you laugh and tremble, and more besides. At night I curl up in the cocoon of my mind and long for our next time together. Why is May so far away?

  What shall I buy him? A velvet smoking jacket? Too expensive. How about briefs? Those I can afford.

  I leave Victoria with a bag full of her secrets and head for the men’s department at Macy’s, but the window display at Frederic’s of Hollywood sidetracks me.

  Do people really buy this stuff?

  Crotchless panties, brassieres with tassels and cutouts for nipples? Leather girdles, spiked collars, velvet chains?

  Fur handcuffs?

  Oh, God, I’m not cut out for this. Neither is my relationships with Colin, so I scurry next door and plunge into the comforting world of men’s underwear. Jockey shorts, pocket t-shirts. Terrycloth robes. I poke through packets of Y-fronts and racks of boxers. I want something soft, sensuous. An assistant offers help. I blush and tell him I’m browsing.

  I grab two pairs of Calvin Klein briefs.

  These’ll do. He won’t be wearing them for long anyway.

  * * *

  Like a kid waiting for Christmas, I mark the days off my calendar. May first arrives, along with Claudia’s squirrels twisting ribbons around a maypole. The rites of Spring.

  Sexual awakening?

  Well, that shoots my concentration. Might as well go and help Lizzie sort donations for her college’s fund-raising auction.

  Her kitchen table is groaning with books. Moldy encyclopedias, how-to-manuals, paperback romances, and hardcovers—thrillers and spy novels mostly. I pick one off a pile. Red and black dust jacket, man in trench coat, collar turned up. Trilby. No cigarette.

  Lizzie whips it away. “I was looking for that. It’s a first edition, autographed.”

  “Paul Lamont,” I say, impressed. This guy is Lizzie’s absolute favorite author. “Who donated it?”

  “We don’t know. The book just showed up last week.” She nods toward the scraggy-looking moose head propped against her fridge. One of its antlers is missing. “Unfortunately, so did that.”

  I shudder. “Who on earth would buy it?”

  “Fergus, probably.” Lizzie slides the Paul Lamont thriller into a plastic bag. “This one needs to be kept safe.” She opens a drawer and slips her treasure inside. “Any news on Claudia’s squirrels?”

  I pull the latest from my totebag. “Would you give this to Joel?”

  “Maypoles?” Lizzie says. “Isn’t that a pagan festival?”

  “Probably.”

  “She’ll be painting druid squirrels at Stonehenge next,” Lizzie says. “When are you seeing her?”

  “As soon as I get there. I’m spending the first weekend in London with her and Sophie.”

  “Need a ride to the airport?” Lizzie consults her calendar, then yanks it off the fridge and drops it beside Claudia’s drawing. “I don’t have any meetings that day.”

  “I’m all set,” I say. “But thanks.”

  She turns back to her fridge, barely visible beneath shopping lists, empty seed packets, business cards, recipes, take-out menus, and kids’ artwork, and I wonder why everyone, myself included, feels compelled to keep their lives stuck to the front of a kitchen appliance.

  Lizzie begins to sort hers out.

  I glance at her calendar, then at Claudia’s artwork, back to Lizzie’s calendar again, narrowing my gaze until one is superimposed on the other. Dates merge with squirrels and a maypole. What was it Lizzie just said? Something about druids and Stonehenge?

  Calendars and clocks. Keeping track of time.

  It all clicks into place.

  “Jill, say something.” Lizzie is staring at me.

  “You’re a genius.” I stand up. “I need to go home.”

  “But you just arrived.” Lizzie shifts the moose to one side. “This probably has fleas.”

  “Then you’ll have to charge more.” I grab my bag. “Lizzie, I really have to leave. If I don’t get my ideas into the computer, right now, they’ll jump ship.”

  Lizzie picks up her calendar. “Is it something I said?”

  “I’ll explain later.” I slip out the back door.

  The minute I get home, I ring Claudia and badger her into five more drawings. “Thanksgiving, Halloween, something for June.”

  “Weddings? Graduation?”

  “Yes, and a snowman or sledding for January.” I grope for inspiration. “Fireworks for July.”

  There’s a significant pause. “A calendar?”

  I glance at mine. Ten days and I’ll be in London. Is that enough time for sketches, diagrams, a prototype of some sort?

  “Yes,” I say.

  “But I’ve already made calendars.” Claudia sounds disappointed.

  “Not this kind.”

  After I finish the mock-up, I clear my desk of the most important work, tell my clients I’ll be gone for two weeks, and make decisions about packing. Jeans, sweaters, shorts. Maybe a bathing suit. I slip into my green silk robe, revel in its luxurious softness, and hold up my left hand. Yes, that’s what I want. A socking great emerald surrounded by diamonds.

  With this ring …

  I fold the robe and wrap it in tissue with my lingerie and tuck it into my suitcase with a sachet of lavender. Then I coax Zachary into his cat carrier and take him to Happy Tails.

  “We had one here just like him a few months back,” the kennel manager says. “He’s an Abyssinian, isn’t he?”

  “Yes, but he’s never been in a kennel before, and—”

  “Don’t worry. He’ll soon get used to it. They all do.”

  I’m loathe to leave him, alone in a cage with his straw hat and a bowl of food he’ll probably despise. I feel weepy, so I go and see Lizzie to say goodbye to her, too.

  “I feel like I’ve just abandoned a child.”

  “You have,” she says.

  I sniff. “He’ll hate me for this.”

  “He’ll probably move out permanently.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  “You sure you don’t need a ride to the airport?” she asks.

  “I’m leaving the car in long-term parking. Don’t want to drag you out at the crack of dawn.”

  She laughs. “When’s the last time you saw a sunrise?”

  “When I stayed up all night fixing that job for Elaine.”

  Lizzie lets out a long sigh. “What are you going to do about her?”

  “I’d tell you, but it might incriminate me.”

  “Don’t do anything rash,” Lizzie says, folding her arms. “You need her business, even though I keep telling you to dump her and find other clients.”

  I give her a hug. “I’ll miss you.”

  “Me too,” Lizzie says, hugging me back. “Maybe I’ll go to the kennel and hang out with your cat.”

  Chapter 20

  London

  May 2011

  “What, exactly, is it?”
Sophie asks when I pull my creation from its nest of styrofoam peanuts. Luckily, the carton had fitted into the airplane’s overhead rack. I shudder to think what would’ve happened if it had been slung in the cargo hold.

  “A calendar box?” Claudia says.

  “An interactive, multifunctional calendar box,” I say, showing them how it works. I lift flaps and slide tabs in and out. They were a bugger to make. Gave me a whole new appreciation for kids’ activity books. I spin it around. “See, it’s got twelve sides. One for each month.”

  “Kind of like a pentagon,” Sophie says.

  “Or a double hexagon,” I say.

  Claudia nods. “Ingenious, and I love it.”

  Armed with staplers, glue guns, and sticky tape we spend all weekend revising my prototype and adding Claudia’s new illustrations until late Sunday night when I’m satisfied we have something viable to show Joel’s marketing boys. Claudia thanks me and goes to bed, Sophie folds herself into the wing chair, and I collapse on the couch.

  Sophie scowls at her hands. “I have terminal paper cuts.”

  “And I overdosed on glue.”

  “Will this make any money?” she asks.

  “Joel says the card and toy business is incredibly tough.”

  “But if it does,” Sophie goes on, “how are you and Mum going to split the proceeds?”

  “It’s all hers. She’s done most of the work.”

  “But you’re the one with brilliant ideas, Jill.”

  “Come on, Sophie. All I did was—”

  “But suppose it makes a fortune?”

  When Sophie forms a set of opinions, she’s slow to change them. “I keep telling you. I don’t want—”

  “Jill, you’ve got to think of yourself as well as my mum.”

  “This is for her,” I say, remembering the countless hours I spent in Claudia’s kitchen. “To thank her for being the mother I never had. I’ve always wanted to do something special for her. This is my chance. Don’t bugger it up, okay?”