Life Drawing: A Novel

by Robin Black

  “I love you, Owen,” I said instead.

  “And I love you, Augusta Edelman. Gussie. Gus. I always have, you know. And I always will.”

  I couldn’t remember the last time we had fallen asleep in an embrace. I couldn’t imagine why we’d ever stopped.

  The phone didn’t ring that night.

  It rang early in the morning, waking us. “It’s Nora,” Owen said, peering at the display. “Do I answer? How do I explain answering her mother’s phone at seven a.m.?”

  “Let it go. She can call her back. It’s too weird.” I sat up. “But that was it, right? There weren’t any other calls?”

  He shook his head. Alison’s phone stopped chirping. “Nope.”

  “Any theories?” I asked.

  “Nope.”

  “Maybe he knew she was here?”

  “Whoever he is,” Owen said. “If there is a he.”

  “Maybe it was just, you know, one of those weird things. And it’s over.”

  “Maybe.”

  “You don’t really think she was lying?” I asked. “Do you really?”

  “Let’s just hope that’s the end of the whole thing.”

  In the kitchen, Alison, already dressed, looked confused to hear there had been no calls.

  “Except Nora,” I said, handing her the phone. “About fifteen minutes ago. I think she left a message. It made the message noise.”

  I started the coffee, my back to her, as she listened. I took three mugs down from the cabinet.

  “Paul was jailed last night,” she said. I turned around. “Drunk driving. Nora had to bail him out.”

  Owen walked in just then. I repeated what Alison had said.

  “Well, that makes things pretty clear,” he said. “Mystery solved. Now you just have to decide what to do.”

  “I have to call Nora back. Before anything.” She left the room.

  Owen and I looked at each other. “What the fuck?” I said. “Who the fuck does that?”

  “There’s a lot going on there,” Owen said. “I don’t think we know the half.”

  I poured him a cup of coffee. “What a mess. And for the record I never believed she was lying.”

  “Oh, come on, Gus. Half an hour ago, we both thought she might be. I still don’t know. We only have her word on what Nora said.”

  Alison came back before I had to respond. “Nora wants to stay with him for a while. He’s home. I tried to talk her out of it, but she feels like she can help him and there’s only so much I can do about that. The calls will stop, though. He won’t do it with her in the house.”

  “Did you tell her what’s been going on?”

  She nodded. “I tried to stop her. But I can’t. She’s an adult. Or anyway, that’s her view. And it’s … oh, it’s all mixed up for her with that bloody religious crap. I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be so contemptuous, I try not to be. But this is when all that starts really angering me. And the boy, the big Christian influence, was such a nothing. The whole thing is just unimaginable.”

  “I’m sorry.” I threw Owen a meaningful look: See? She couldn’t possibly sound more sincere.

  “Well, maybe God can explain why Paul decided to start harassing me now,” she said.

  “Went off his meds?” I put a cup of coffee in front of her. “I’m really sorry.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry too. My guess is that my moving away made him feel like he had to up the ante to pull me back in.” She laughed. “Now you know what a decade or two of self-help books does to your brain. Bloody hell. I’m so sorry to you both for dragging all of this … all of this mess into your lives. I know the whole point of you being here is that the worries of the big bad world are far away and now I’ve introduced all this family melodrama.”

  It was Owen’s turn to look meaningfully at me.

  “Don’t even think about it,” I said. “This isn’t going to go on for long.”

  “Okay,” Owen said. “I’m out to the barn. He’s spent one night in jail. I don’t know the man, but my guess is he won’t want another.”

  Alison looked up at him. “You’re right. I hadn’t thought of that. Let’s not waste more time on him. I vote we all get back to work.”

  “Meeting adjourned,” Owen said.

  “Meeting adjourned,” I said.

  “Meeting adjourned,” Alison said.

  Alison and Owen left together, so I didn’t have a chance to speak to Owen alone right away. I could have followed him to the barn but could too easily imagine Alison seeing me and concluding that we were hurrying to talk about her behind her back—which was exactly what we would be doing. So I waited until noon, when he turned up in my studio.

  “Okay, my doubter, what do you think now?” I asked.

  “I think fences make good neighbors.”

  “No. Really.”

  He sighed. “Really? I think she has an abusive former husband and a freight train’s worth of baggage. And I don’t hate her, whatever you believe. I even feel bad for her. But I often wish she’d never moved in next door. And I don’t think that makes me unfair or unreasonably suspicious.”

  “No,” I said. “I don’t think that it does.”

  He walked over to the picture of Jackie playing chess. He spent maybe a minute looking at it, then moved to look at the drawing of the boys in the kitchen eating eggs. “So this is the big project,” he said. “It’s interesting stuff, Gus.”

  It was the first time he’d seemed to think so. The first time he’d looked long enough to express an opinion. “Thanks,” I said.

  He nodded toward the sketch of Oliver Farley sitting on our front steps. “I particularly like this one. Or anyway, I like that there’s one outside the house. Makes them all breathe a bit.”

  “I think there’ll be more. I have in mind a few boys swimming in the pond.”

  “The detail, as always, is stunning, Gus. Not the people yet, obviously. But I assume …”

  “No, not yet.”

  “That’s new for you. Figures. Such distinct ones, anyway.”

  “I think they’ll come last,” I said. “I’m creating context.” It was a line I had used to myself more than once.

  He touched my back, just for a moment, a bye for now caress. He said he thought he was going to wash up for lunch if I was ready for a break. I told him that I was.

  We ate deviled eggs he’d made, and a salad I threw together. I asked him if he wanted a beer and he said he thought he’d better not.

  We sat for a few minutes, eating, before I asked, “When were you going to tell me?”

  He made a questioning face.

  “You’re writing again. Aren’t you? When were you planning to tell me?”

  He smiled—a grin, really, those craggy lines that bracketed his lips, deepening, curving. “When have I ever had to tell you anything like that? Don’t you think I know you can tell? When have we ever had to tell each other those things? Anyway, you know how it is, you’re afraid of jinxing it …”

  “What happened?”

  “Jesus, if I knew that … I don’t even want to ask. I don’t really want to talk about it all. Not out loud. Let’s just see if it can hold on for a bit. You know how it is. The universe decides to take pity …”

  I nodded. I understood. After a bit he asked me if I had been in touch with the owner of the gallery in Philadelphia where I’d last been included in a group show. “She’s going to be awfully interested,” he said. “Knowing Clarice, she’ll probably need smelling salts when she sees how good this stuff is.”

  “Really? You really think so?” I was surprised he seemed so sure.

  “Oh, come on, Gussie. You know how good it is. You don’t need me to critique your work for you.”

  But I had, for weeks and weeks and weeks.

  “I don’t suppose you’ll tell me what you’re working on?”

  “Not yet. In a while. If it sticks.”

  I nodded and I said, “I understand,” and we went on to talk of other things.

>   After lunch, I felt something absent for so long that the sensation came as a surprise and an unexpected gift. I had known I would feel relief that Owen was back engaged in his work. But I hadn’t remembered the electricity that would be running between us, a rope of the stuff from my bright, sunny studio to his dusky, cool barn.

  13

  Maybe it was feeling that connection to Owen again that gave me the courage to take on the task I had been putting off for weeks: painting the boys themselves.

  From the first, it wasn’t work I enjoyed. I could never lose myself in it—because there I was at every turn being uncooperative, unskilled, inept. There I was with that strange disconnect I rarely otherwise felt between my intentions and my execution, with that heaviness in my hand, that stiffness to my lines. And there were the resulting figures, too—not people, not really, but more like paintings of soldier figurines.

  “Ugh,” I would say out loud, several times a day, as I stepped back to look.

  Owen insisted they were better than I thought. Now that he was back at work and the subject no longer taboo, I could worry it through with him. “I don’t see it, Gussie,” he would say. “I think they look fine.” And for a few minutes I’d be reassured; but not for long.

  I was fretting over this, two weeks or so into this big push, when I answered my cell without looking at the number and heard the unmistakable cry of “Augie!”

  “Laine.” I instinctively turned my back to the window, to the barn. She asked right away how I was doing and I gave her a brief answer, knowing the call had to be short, hoping Owen wouldn’t happen to wander in; but also feeling a guilty elation at the sound of her voice. It had been ages, maybe years. She told me just a little about a new studio class she’d started and made a few humorous remarks about her teacher. And then she said, “So, here’s the big surprise. I’m actually about ten minutes from your house … I was driving home for the weekend, Mom is having a giant fiftieth birthday party thing and I just thought I would take a detour. I hope it’s okay. Do you know it’s like a century since I saw you?”

  “I can’t believe it,” I said. “You’re here?”

  “I am! Surprise!”

  She had no reason to know this was a problem, and I couldn’t think of a way to tell her no. I couldn’t think at all. For a second I imagined saying I would have to meet her at a restaurant, but nothing coherent came to my panicked mind.

  “It’s okay though, right? I mean, I won’t stay long if you’re working or whatever. But truly I just want a tiny look at you. I promise not to stay. I can’t anyway. Mom’s thing is like in five hours. I just need a glimpse of you.”

  I had no plausible excuse. “Circle the area for fifteen or twenty minutes if you don’t mind. I need to get dressed, things like that. We’re hermits here, you know.”

  She laughed. “Sorry about the bad impulse control, Augie.” It was the same phrase Nora had used about her trip to see Owen in the barn. Generational code for bad judgment? “I’ll give you a half hour,” she said. “I could use a cup of coffee anyway.”

  As I walked the flagstone path to the barn, I thought of bolting, cutting her off at the driveway somehow, but I could feel the danger of that. It was one thing not to bring up our occasional contact, quite another to deceive Owen so elaborately about her coming to our home.

  I didn’t knock, a return to the old ways now that he was writing again. “Hey,” I said, and he looked over.

  “Hey, back. What’s up?”

  I shrugged. “Nothing terrible. Just … I just got a call from Laine. You know. Laine.” It was shocking how rapidly his features fell, his eyes seemed to harden. “I’m really sorry. I … She’s in the neighborhood.”

  “The neighborhood? Gus, we don’t have a neighborhood.”

  “The area. I had no idea. She was driving close by, and she wants to see me. She’s … she’s impulsive, you know. She doesn’t mean …”

  “Whatever, Gus.” He turned back to his computer. “Just let me know when she’s gone.”

  “It won’t be a long visit. I’m really sorry.”

  “Just let me know when she’s gone,” he said again.

  “I will.” I began to walk away, then stopped. “I’m not in touch with him at all. Not since his call years ago. In case you’re wondering. She …”

  “I wasn’t wondering, Gus. I just want to get back to work.”

  “Okay,” I said, and then, “Thanks.”

  In the few minutes I had, I went upstairs and into the bathroom, where I studied my face. What would she report to Bill? Augie looks good. Older, but maybe like she’s been working out. She’s awfully tanned.

  I brushed my hair, then braided it. I thought about Alison and how she would have put on makeup, been sure she was wearing her lipstick. But I couldn’t, even if I’d wanted to. The last thing Owen needed was any evidence that I was trying to doll myself up for Laine—and for any descriptions she might bring home.

  Plumper than I’d ever seen her, and prettier too, Laine leapt from her VW bug and gave me the sort of hug I hadn’t had from anyone in years. I thought she might lift me off my feet and spin us both around. “My God, Augie! I can’t believe I’m really seeing you!”

  “Laine, you look amazing!” I took a step back. Her hair, dyed purplish black, was cut into a pageboy with bangs, all very 1920s, complete with the dark red lipstick she wore. The piercings on her nose, cheek, eyebrow, lower lip, once heavy steel, now glistened with tiny gems, as though she’d been sprinkled with fairy dust. Her eyes were rimmed in heavy black makeup and she wore a short, shapeless black dress, black tights, military boots—the perennial art student uniform—and a green army coat over that.

  “Come inside,” I said. “What can I give you to drink? Or eat?” I made the offer instinctively, not thinking how it might extend her stay.

  “Nothing. I really can’t. Mom is expecting me. She’ll kill me if I’m late. God, I love it here,” she said as we stepped into the kitchen. “No wonder you ran away. I can’t believe I’ve never come before. This is like some kind of paradise, isn’t it?”

  “Sometimes,” I said. “Depending on how the work is going. Paradise. Hell. You know how it is. But yes, I feel lucky. We both do.”

  “Is Owen around? I haven’t seen him in years and years.”

  “He’s … he’s out doing some errands. That’s what you get for surprising people.”

  “My bad.” She smiled, then pointed through the door to the living room. “Can I …? I’ve been so curious about this place.”

  “Of course. Come on, I’ll give you the grand tour.”

  We started upstairs.

  I watched her do exactly what I had done my first time there: she walked through each room to its window and looked outside. “Oh, wow. You have a pond. Can you swim in it?”

  “Someone could swim in it. I’m not much for swimming.”

  “I would swim in it every day.”

  “Not in October, you wouldn’t.”

  “No, but summertime. Summertime it would be amazing.”

  When we stepped into the bedroom, I tried to squelch thoughts of how Owen would hate having Bill’s child there. “Anyway,” I said, hurrying us through, “the studio is the most interesting room. Let’s head back down.”

  “It’s really all perfect, Augie. And it’s weirdly like I imagined it would be. A real farmhouse.”

  “Minus the farm. Can you imagine me tending cows?”

  “Oh, you’d find a way. And I’d come help.”

  The biggest change I saw was how happy she seemed. Not just no longer miserable, or even pretty much okay, but positively glowing.

  “You really seem great,” I said, in the living room. “It makes me very happy, Laine.”

  She’d stopped in front of the painting over the mantel. “I never saw this, did I?”

  “No. I painted that … you were in school by then … I think,” I added, as though I didn’t know exactly when I had painted it and that she had been
in her second year at NYU, still sending me bulletins more or less weekly about her daily life.

  “The light,” she said. “It’s so you. Dad used to call it ‘Augie light,’ remember?”

  “It’s not one of my favorites. It’s …” I barreled past the emotions crackling in me. “Owen loves it. That’s why it’s there.”

  “I think it’s kind of great.”

  “Well, thank you. Anyway, the studio is through here …”

  I gave her free rein, encouraged her to move the pictures around, leaf through my sketches. What did I want from Laine’s perusal of my work? I wanted her to love everything, of course. I wanted her to reaffirm what Owen had been saying, quell the doubts that I still felt.

  To get a clean read on her response, I hadn’t told her a thing about the project. She was close to silent for many minutes, just making little sounds in reaction as she looked. Huh and a very quiet oh. I sat at my desk and doodled until finally, I said, “Okay, so let’s pretend it’s a critique. What do you think?”

  There was a pause before she answered. “It’s interesting. I mean, I don’t exactly get it, but it’s this house, obviously. Right?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Huh.” She looked around a little more. “I’m … I like them. The details are just insanely good. But I don’t really understand. They’re soldiers from long ago, right? I just … I don’t think of you as someone with that kind of … I guess I feel like I’m missing something here. And I don’t really think of you doing, I don’t know, antiwar art. Is it? I mean, that would be cool, but …”

  As she spoke I realized that something had been nagging at me for weeks. How much were the paintings dependent on the story behind them? Did they stand alone or did they need me beside them explaining about the house and the bathroom rehab and the wall?

  “Why antiwar?” I asked. “What makes you think it’s anything critical like that?”

  “Because they’re dead, Augie. Aren’t they? The boys are all dead.”

  Over the next half hour, I forgot about Owen and Bill, both evaporating as I explained to Laine that she wasn’t wrong, but that she also was wrong—or maybe I was. I told her the story of the bathroom and the papers. I showed her a couple of the obituaries. “But I don’t want them to look dead in the paintings,” I said. “That isn’t intentional. That’s … well, like I said. Not intentional.”