Terminal House
Page 10
“Yes, at Dalhousie.”
The kid was blushing now, skittish as hell, but it didn’t matter. Ely wasn’t interested in shooting her yet, couldn’t even see her in the viewfinder. She said, “Roxanne, honey, shift this way a bit now, would you, please?” Pointing left with her thumb, watching for Ben in the viewfinder. He was standing by the east wall with that stupid grin on his face, dressed in his usual attire, blue jeans and a plaid shirt, sandals over black socks, thin hair a mess. Jesus Christ, Ely thought, will these old hippies never grow up? She said, “Okay, kiddo, right there,” as Ben appeared in the viewfinder. “Perfect.” She grabbed about a dozen shots of the man, taking her time, catching subtle shifts in his mood as he watched Roxanne strike different poses, the girl having fun now.
When she had what she wanted, Ely detached the cut-out lens and said to Roxanne, “Okay, kiddo, now grab that stool over there and sit your butt down.” Roxanne did, and Ely saw how she was going to paint her. “Good. Now turn your head. Other way. Excellent.” She shot a bunch of variations, then rested the camera in her lap. “Okay, gang, I need you out of here. I want to finish my eagle while I still have the light.” She said, “Roxanne, I’m going to need you back here tomorrow after your shift. I’ll sit you down, get a few quick sketches done, then you can be on your way. If the weekend works for you, we’ll get started on the painting.”
Roxanne thanked her, Ben grinned, and Ely cringed inside. She was getting ready to shatter a dear friend’s heart…but it had to be done.
When her guests were at the door, Ely shouted, “And Hunter. Stay the hell home, you hear? I want to do my best work for your friend, and I can’t do that with you gawking over my shoulder the entire time.”
* * *
The next afternoon, as planned, Ely sat Roxanne in the warm light of the west-facing windows and sketched her in charcoal, changing her position for each of three drawings. Roxanne felt awkward at first, being stared at like that, but Ely was so interesting and funny, she quickly relaxed. Thinking it was the right thing to do, she tried to sit statue-still while Ely worked and Ely kept making jokes about it, saying things like, “Will you for God’s sake loosen up, child? It’s a sketch, not a firing squad.” Or, “Are your ears cold, girlie? ‘Cause if they’re not, I need you to drop those shoulders.”
Roxanne was amazed at how fast the woman worked—three sketches in an hour-and-a-half—and how little it seemed to matter how carefully she held a pose. Once Ely’d made her feel at home, she’d laughed and fidgeted the entire time. And when she saw the finished sketches, she could hardly believe her eyes. “Ely, these are incredible. I’d love to get them framed for Gram.”
Ely said, “These are just roughs, honey,” and fanned them out on the coffee table. “To get an idea how we’re going to sit you. Which one’s your favorite?”
Roxanne studied each of them in turn, then touched the second in the series, a charcoal snapshot of herself on a high wooden stool, legs crossed, face angled toward the windows. She said, “I love them all—but this one’s my favorite.”
Ely smiled. “Me, too, kiddo. You’ve got a good eye.” She scooped up the sketch and clipped it to the easel. “You like surprises?”
“Good ones, yeah.”
“There’s a twenty-dollar bill on the kitchen counter. I want you to run down to the boutique and get us each one of those delicious Häagen-Dazs treats. The salted caramel ones on a stick.”
Roxanne laughed. “Did Ben get you started on those?”
“Other way around. Now scoot. Give me half an hour.”
* * *
Ely was just finishing up when Roxanne tapped at the apartment door. Ely hollered, “One sec,” and draped a sheet over the sketch. Then she said, “Okay,” and Roxanne breezed in with a frozen treat in her hand. Ely said, “Get that out of the box for me, would you, sweetheart?”
Roxanne opened the cardboard package and handed the snack to Ely, who dove right in, saying, “Where’s yours?”
Roxanne gave her a guilty grin. “I couldn’t wait.”
Ely belted out that big laugh of hers, then tugged the sheet off the easel. When Roxanne saw what she’d done, she gave the artist a huge hug.
“Oh, Ely, that’s perfect.”
Ben was in the sketch now, standing next to Roxanne, the angle of her head giving the impression she was turning to face him, happy he was there.
“Ely, you are so sneaky. How did you pull this off?”
Ely showed her the cheater lens. “Neat, huh?”
“Very.”
Ely said, “What day is it, kitten?”
“Friday.”
“Are we good to go for the weekend?”
Roxanne nodded. “I’m a free agent.”
“Tomorrow morning, then. Ten o’clock?”
“I’ll be here. What should I wear?”
“Whatever your heart desires. But colors, so the old man doesn’t make you look drab. I should paint him in the buff for giving me such a hard time.”
Roxanne laughed. “I think he’s just shy. I’m sure he’s going to love it when it’s done.”
Ely did her best to smile, thinking, That’s not really the reaction I’m going for, and accepted the girl’s warm peck on the cheek.
* * *
Roxanne left Ely’s apartment and thumbed the elevator call button. She couldn’t remember feeling so excited. Ely was like some mythic sorceress, her ability to capture a person’s essence almost magical in its purity. She’d sensed Ely’s power even before she set eyes on the woman that first day with Ben, hearing her big voice bellow, “It’s open,” and then walking down that long corridor to the studio, the walls adorned with the most amazing portraits she’d ever seen, some of them dating as far back as the fifties. Women, mostly—one holding a wine glass, another laughing, still another on the verge of tears—but a few men too, some of them nude. Each suspended in a moment that wasn’t always flattering, but sparkled with authenticity. Something about the process—sitting still like that, those keen eyes peering inside you, the artist’s probing questions teasing away the mask—made it impossible to disguise what was in your secret heart.
She couldn’t wait to see what Ely found inside of her. Pain, she was certain, her grandfather so recently passed, her and Gram facing some tough decisions about the future. Love. Hope. Fear. Joy at having these wonderful people come into her life when she needed them most: Ben, Ely, even Ben’s kooky high school buddies. It made her grateful she’d been raised by her grandparents, the experience teaching her that old folks weren’t simply spent husks waiting to die, but loving, vibrant, intelligent human beings with so much to offer anyone perceptive enough to see it. In high school, she’d ended friendships with some of her peers because of their short-sighted attitudes, a couple of them coming right out and saying how creepy it must’ve been being raised by her grandparents. Thinking about it now, she realized she had more meaningful relationships with residents here at the Center than she did with people her own age.
The elevator arrived and Roxanne stepped aboard. Facing the control panel, she considered stopping off on nine to visit Ben. But Gram would be expecting her, and she decided to look in on him Monday after her shift.
* * *
Roxanne said, “So how did you and Ben meet?”
Ely eyed her around the edge of the canvas. There was a smudge of arterial-red oil paint on her nose, almost shocking in the Saturday morning sunlight, and Roxanne wondered if she should say something about it. But over the course of the forty or so minutes she’d been posing, she’d gotten the sense that Ely had slipped into a sort of waking trance, those sharp eyes ticking back and forth between canvas and subject, and she didn’t want to risk breaking the spell. Ely had told her from the outset talking was fine, even a certain amount of movement. But she decided to hold her tongue. Besides, it was kind of funny, this incredibly talented artist peering at her with laser-like intensity over her horn rims—with a big smear of clown paint on her nose.
“What about his art?”
Ely cackled again. “Found his pecker and lost interest. Endless parade of wide-eyed hippie chicks. We had the place on the lake finished by then, and I’d pick him up whenever I was in town, him and his latest squeeze. The kid was some kind of magician, getting a new one to fall for him every few weeks.” She laughed. “Free love.”
Roxanne said, “I never would’ve guessed. He told me he never married. Just buried himself in the work and lost track of time. Shame. He would’ve made a great dad.”
Ely put the brush down and Roxanne could see the trance was broken. “I think you’re right,” the artist said—with a trace of melancholy, Roxanne thought. “He would’ve made a wonderful dad.”
“Did he ever come close?”
“To marriage? No. To loving someone enough to marry her? Hell yes, and then some. But it didn’t work out.”
“How come?”
“They were young. And Ben was…damaged.”
Roxanne said, “What do you mean?”
“Dismal family life. You know. Angry, distant father. Violent man. Used his fists on Ben and the mother. Poor kid. I guess he thought that was what love was and decided never to trust it.”
“What was she like?”
“His mother?”
“No, the girl. The one he fell in love with.”
Ely thought, A lot like you. “Sweet as hell. Tall. Beautiful. Very mature. But it got so Ben couldn’t stand to have her out of his sight. They were kids, mind you—sixteen, seventeen when they met—and ‘love’ at that age is madness to begin with. But he got crazy jealous if she even glanced at another boy. And he kept coming up with different ways to make her prove her feelings for him, causing all kinds of upset. Wore the girl out. When she finally broke it off, I thought he was actually going to die of a broken heart.”
“What about all those other girls?”
Ely laughed, a blunt, humorless sound. “Playthings. They came after. More than a few fell for him pretty hard. Sweet girls, too, some of them. But it was just never the same for him after that first one. I sketched them together once; I may still have it around here somewhere. Anyway, I think he decided losing his girl was some kind of karmic payback—for what I don’t know—and he withdrew. He was in med school by then and just gave himself to the work.”
Roxanne said, “That is so sad.”
“It’s just life, kitten.” Ely stretched now, saying, “Okay, enough of this nonsense. Let’s get you back in position.” Roxanne resumed her pose and Ely said, “Turn your hips a little to the right—there, that’s it. Now relax.”
They were quiet for a while now, the only sounds the dab and whisk of the artist’s brush, and the muted chatter of a radio in another room.
As the minutes ticked past, Roxanne found herself drifting into a trancelike state of her own, her thoughts turning to Russ now. How right they were for each other. Last night had been Gram’s bridge night, and because she owned a car, it fell to her to pick up some of her fellow players. Taking advantage of the empty house, Roxanne had invited Russ over for dinner. She’d planned on making spaghetti, but Russ had shown up a half hour early with two big bags of takeout from Al’s. Seafood this time. Atlantic salmon and pan-seared tilapia, with sautéed mussels and crab-stuffed mushrooms for appetizers.
She smiled to herself now, remembering their first kiss and how delicious it had been, in spite of tasting like a tide pool…
Ely was saying something now, and Roxanne tuned her in.
* * *
Ely said, “Okay, darlin’, I need a break.” She’d been puzzling over how best to tell Roxanne about Ben’s disease, and decided the kindest approach would be to just come straight out with it. The kid deserved to know. She said, “My back’s killing me.”
Roxanne said, “Sure,” and hopped off the stool.
Watching her move, Ely said, “If I tried a stunt like that, I’d shatter like a clay pot.”
“I hope I’m half as spry as you when I’m eighty,” Roxanne said, stretching her long body, “never mind a hundred-and-two.”
Laughing, Ely backed her chair away from the easel. She said, “Why don’t you sit at the table and I’ll fix us some tea.”
Roxanne was on her feet in a flash. “You relax. I’ve got this.”
Ely watched her scoot into the kitchen, then parked her chair at the dinner table. Roxanne joined her a few minutes later with the tea. Ely took a sip and told her it was delicious. Then she said, “There’s something I want to talk to you about, sweetie. It’s kind of delicate, so I want you to bear with me. I’ve known Ben for a long time, and I love him like a son. And I know you care about him too.”
“I do. Very much.”
Ely nodded. “Now please, don’t take this the wrong way, but I can see Ben has become a kind of substitute for your grandfather, and—”
“That’s true, Ely. I was just thinking about that this morning.”
“And I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that. It’s perfectly natural. But here’s the thing. I think—no, I’m quite certain—Ben’s doing the same thing with you.”
Roxanne said, “How so?” then appeared stricken, saying, “Oh, God, he didn’t have a child who died, did he?”
“No, nothing like that. It’s complicated. When he’s in his right mind, you’re like the child he never had. You bring out a paternal instinct in the man that’s wonderful to see. In that way, you’re filling a hole in his life he didn’t even realize existed, and he loves you for it.”
Roxanne smiled. Then the smile faltered. “But when he’s not in his right mind…”
“That’s when it gets complicated.”
“But it hasn’t been that long since the doctor made him stop taking the pills that were messing him up. Maybe he just needs a little more time—”
Ely silenced her with an upraised hand, saying, “I’m going to tell you something now, Roxanne. Something I should probably keep to myself. But I like you, and I think you deserve to know. Ben’s problem isn’t his pills.” She touched her temple with a bent finger. “It’s up here.”
“What do you mean?”
Ely said, “Ben has Alzheimer’s disease,” and instantly regretted it. Tears sprang to Roxanne’s eyes, and she seemed to shrink inside her skin. Ely took her hand. “But it’s early on yet, honey, so most of the time he’s fine.”
“But he invented a drug that treats the disease, right? If he takes it, he’ll be fine. Right? Isn’t he taking it?”
“He tried to, but he’s deathly allergic. If he’d been alone when he swallowed that capsule, he’d be dead now.”
Roxanne only stared at her, shell-shocked.
Ely said, “I’m telling you this because I don’t want to see you get hurt.” Roxanne gave her an ironic look, blowing air through her nose, and Ely said, “I realize this part’s hurtful. It tore me up when he told me. But if you want to continue spending time with him, you need to know what you’re up against.”
* * *
It took Ely three days to finish the painting: one more sitting with Roxanne on Sunday, then day and night from memory and the photographs, pushing the oils as fast as they’d go. When it was done, she called Ben and told him she needed to see him right away.
* * *
They were in Ely’s studio, Ben on the couch, Ely by her cloth-shrouded eas
el, hunched in her motorized chair. Ben was a smart guy, and since he seemed in his right mind at the moment, Ely decided to confront him head on.
“Can’t you see what you’re doing here, Hunter? You’re four times the kid’s age and you’re behaving like she’s your girlfriend.”
Infuriated, Ben got to his feet, saying, “This bullshit again? From you? You must’ve been talking to those idiots Quinn and Wilder. Because what you’re saying is absurd. I know I’m not her boyfriend, Ely. Jesus, I can’t believe this shit—”
“Just listen to me, would you? I saw how you behaved around girls when you were a teenager, many times, so I know what I’m talking about. She loves you, there’s no question about that. But as a friend, goddammit…and as a stand in for her grandfather. I’m not saying that part of it’s healthy, but it is understandable. You just sort of stepped into his shoes. A wise old guy who loves her and gives her guidance.”
“I get that, Ely, and I’m okay with it. I couldn’t be happier, in fact. But this other nonsense, what you’re suggesting—to be frank, it’s the product of a sick mind.”
“I agree with you, Ben. It is the product of a sick mind. Yours.”
“You’re not suggesting I’d ever—”
“Not for a second. I’m not talking about that kind of sick. I know you’d never lay a hand on her.” Though she hadn’t been certain until she’d spoken to Roxanne. “I can see it’s not about that.” She angled the easel to face him now, tugging off the screening cloth. Ben glanced at the painting beneath it and averted his gaze, cheeks flushing crimson. Ely said, “I want you to look at this, Hunter.”
He kept his eyes averted. “I saw it. I asked you to paint her, not both of—”
“Look at the fucking painting.”
Ben did, and Ely saw bewilderment narrow his gaze. He shrugged, saying, “What’s your point?” But he looked away again.
“My point—look at the painting, Ben.” He did. “My point,” Ely said, tapping the canvas with a blunt fingernail, “is this is not how you see yourself when you’re with the girl. It’s not all the time. Just when you’re having one of your spells. But it’s often enough to hurt and confuse her.”