The Yellow Braid

by Karen Coccioli

  “Cool,” she said and took one of the shirts Nina offered.

  “Where are we supposed to change?” Livia asked, her voice soured by her aunt’s intrusion.

  “Use the bathroom inside,” Nina said. “I think we should shoot along the pier. Rocks, this time, not sand. Plus, the shacks on the far shore add an interesting backdrop.”

  Livia swatted her T-shirt on the tabletop as she got up. She approached the shop door and read loudly, “‘Bathrooms are for customers only.’”

  Nina sighed. “You are a customer and you’re only changing your top, for God’s sake. They intend that sign to prevent the general public from going in and out with dripping bathing suits. Now get a move on.”

  The girls came out of the shop in a few minutes and walked with Caro and Nina to the pier. Twenty minutes later, frustrated by her aunt’s poking and prodding, Livia complained, “You’re making this into a formal shoot.”

  Nina ignored Livia and said to Beatrice, “Stay just like that,” as she moved Beatrice into profile on a driftwood log so that she was gazing at Livia with her arm around Livia’s shoulders and her hand in her friend’s lap. To her niece she barked, “Stop squirming.”

  “Did you hear what I said?” Livia shot back.

  Nina homed in on Beatrice. “Are you having fun?”

  “A blast. No one ever takes my picture except my mom.”

  “I’m cold,” Livia said.

  Nina cupped Livia’s chin, squeezing it meanly. “Did you hear that? Be cooperative.”

  Nina shot a dozen pictures. After reviewing them, she groaned in dissatisfaction. With the camera suspended by a wide strap around her neck, she fiddled with their positions until at last she breathed out a confident, “Yes” and made one last set of adjustments.

  The girls sat side by side, facing forward except for their heads, which Nina tilted so that their temples touched. She placed Beatrice’s right hand on Livia’s thigh and Livia’s left hand on Beatrice’s thigh. Their opposite hands hung parallel to their bodies.

  “Perfect,” Nina breathed, capturing what appeared to be a human study in light and dark: Livia’s goldenness contrasted with Beatrice’s coffee coloring; Livia’s delicacy compared to Beatrice’s coarseness; Livia’s sullenness versus Beatrice’s lightness.

  As a writer, Caro often saw her poetic images in her mind before she gave them form on paper. Like performance art, they were organic manifestations of the work.

  As much as Livia loathed the camera, her body responded favorably, seeming to seek out the lens, tracking it with elegant but subtle movements. Even the small gestures—the lowering of her eyes, a barely perceptible movement of her lips, a forward bend in the shoulders—bore an unconscious coquetry.

  Caro wrapped her arms around herself, a defense against the dropping temperature of the salty air that sank into her bones. Once before, Caro had felt chilled to her inner depths, scuba diving in a quarry known for its whirlpools of icy water that ran in from the Allegheny Mountains and could freeze a human in seconds.

  Caro had relied on expert aquatic navigation to negotiate her way around the whirlpools and find the safety of shore. Nonetheless, afterwards she felt that somehow she had tricked Mother Nature in spite of her skill because the odds were that she should not have made it out without incident.

  That afternoon in Sag Harbor, with Livia the singular subject of her focus, Caro was ill-equipped to stave off the dangers of nature and she knew that sooner or later she would drown in the whirlpools of her own desires—although she doubted those waters would be cold.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Time to plant tears, says the almanac. The grandmother sings to the marvelous stove and the child draws another inscrutable house. ~Elizabeth Bishop

  Sometimes Caro envisioned Nina and Tommy’s reactions should they discover her feelings toward their niece. She imagined Nina screaming, ‘pervert,’ and Tommy raising his hand to slap her. During those times, Caro felt the sweat slither down her back before she was able to erase the images from her mind.

  Caro and Livia were in the sunroom, their favorite place of study. Caro had turned off her cell phone and had drawn the drapes and shutters. Tommy was at the salon and Nina was in East Hampton for Premier Living Magazine, shooting a spread on Martha Stewart.

  Livia read from Elizabeth Bishop’s The Collected Prose. She loved the story called “The Country Mouse,” an autobiographical sketch of the events following Bishop’s father’s death and her mother’s being committed to an insane asylum. Reading the rags-to-riches tale, Livia cried at the part where the five-year-old Elizabeth is taken from the nurturing Nova Scotia home of her maternal grandparents to board the train that takes her to Boston to live under the supervision of her father’s austere, wealthy parents.

  Caro chose the collection thinking that Livia would probably react emotionally. Bishop’s plight was so comparable to Livia’s own situation, left (as it were) on her aunt’s doorstep to spend the summer. Caro hoped that reading about Bishop’s pain would help Livia find expression for her own hurt.

  Livia read aloud from the story, “‘I had been brought back unconsulted and against my wishes to the house my father had been born in, to be saved from a life of poverty and provincialism, bare feet, suet puddings, unsanitary school slates, perhaps even the inverted Rest of my mother’s family.’ What are the inverted Rest?” she asked Caro.

  “Reading, writing, and arithmetic without the w in writing or the a in arithmetic.”

  “Do you think she still would’ve been a famous poet if she had stayed in Nova Scotia with the poor family?”

  “It’s hard to know, isn’t it? There are many writers who never had a day of formal education. Ernest Hemingway is a famous example. From high school he went to work as a reporter for a Kansas City newspaper and then served in the ambulance corps as soon as the World War broke out.”

  Livia put her book down. “Mom already has my college picked out for me.”

  “Where?”

  “Vassar. She started but never finished because she married Dad. Anyway, I want to go to NYU like Aunt Nina. She took me in May during their film festival. We sat in Washington Square watching the mimes juggling and musicians strumming their banjos and guitars. There was a clown on stilts and I threw coins in a performer’s hat after he played “Annie” on his harmonica for me.” Livia ended her story with a small sigh, her eyes shining with the memory of it.

  The doorbell rang and Caro’s frustration came out in an expletive under her breath. It was Tommy.

  “What’s up?”

  He peered into the interior past Caro, and seeing Livia on the floor motioned for Caro to step outside. He produced a negative between his thumb and index finger. “Do you know about this?”

  Caro held the negative up to the light. It was of Livia and Beatrice. Beatrice wore a tank top and jean shorts and knelt in back of Livia, who sat back on her heels, her head leaning against Beatrice’s chest. Livia wore a white, ruffled cotton skirt and a garland of white flowers. Beatrice’s hands rested on the flowers that covered Livia’s breasts.

  Caro shook her head. “I’ve never seen this one.”

  Tommy plucked the negative from her. “Do you know where she is?” he asked. He was glaring; he seemed to mean Nina.

  “In East Hampton on a Martha Stewart interview—”

  “That’s strange.” Tommy’s voice smacked of sarcasm. “I got a call from the editor of the magazine, yelling because the replacement Nina arranged for never showed and Stewart is furious at being stood up.”

  “She never meant to do the shoot?” Caro asked.

  “Would seem not. She’s not answering her cell. Do you have any idea where she might’ve gone?”

  “No,” Caro said, but she suspected Nina had gone to New York to meet with John Straub, the director of the National Center for Photography, regarding the exhibition.

  Tommy slackened his shoulders in an effort to compose himself. “I would be worried that someth
ing happened to her had I not found this on the floor outside her darkroom.”

  “Is there anything I can do?”

  “Do you mind keeping Livia overnight? I’m assuming Nina will get home at some point and I don’t want Livia hearing us argue over her. She’s at the center of what’s between me and Nina. By the same token, it’s not about her at all.”

  “Not to worry. I’d love to have her,” Caro said.

  Tommy followed Caro back inside. “Hey you, you feel like camping here tonight? Your aunt and I are going out and won’t be home until late.”

  “Fine with me,” Livia said, and sidled up to Caro. “We’ll have a movie marathon?”

  “Anything,” Caro replied and meant it from a place in her heart no one before had touched.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Hands off! I do not molest what I photograph, I do not meddle and I do not arrange. ~Dorothea Lange

  Nina’s olive skin coloring and black garments were a vivid contrast to the chalk white and glass walls in the exhibition hall. She stood rigid, an outward show of the nervous tension that rocked her stomach as she watched the maintenance crew hang her collection: eighteen fourteen-by-twenty-inch photographs suspended on a partition hanging by chain links from the high, domed ceiling. In an area that favored overly large works, the modest dimensions, coupled with the intimate subject matter, provided their own drama.

  Before today, she’d been so sure of her work, so trusting about her success. Now, seen against the backdrop of the other exhibitors, her confidence drained, and for the first time Nina really pondered how she’d cope with failure.

  John Straub came up behind her. “It’s nerve-wracking I know,” he said. “It helps to keep in mind that you got this far. It’s trite to say, but that in itself is impressive,” he added with an encouraging smile.

  “Thank you,” Nina said. “Is it also trite to say that I have a lot at stake?”

  “I have heard that once or twice. In your case, your work is good and it’s controversial. Should be a winning combo. Critics love controversy because it gives them a heap of journalistic fodder.”

  After John left, Nina remained staring up at a black and white representation of Livia kneeling inside a hand-drawn circle on the smooth sand of an outgoing tide. Her hair clung to her shoulders and upper arms in knotty, wet strips, like seaweed. Her eyes reflected the recession of the shadowy swells as she pointed to a place on the horizon beyond the boundary she’d inscribed in the sand.

  ***

  That night Nina pleaded with Tommy. “I’m not a bad person. And there’s nothing immoral about those photographs. They’re beautiful. They’re art. For the first time in my life I’ve produced genuine art. If you saw how other people view them, you’d understand.”

  Normally slow to anger, Tommy didn’t know how to control the frenzy that rocked his insides. “You’re suggesting that I go to the exhibition, knowing how I feel. That takes balls, Nina. Real balls.”

  “Yes, go for me.” Nina looked him in the eye and defied him.

  “You’re cocksure of yourself because John Straub is in love with your work. Fuck! All the goddamn critics probably will be, for Christ’s sake! Now tell me. Where does your love for me come into this—for my opinion, for Livia?”

  “If you gave any thought to Livia you’d attend the opening. And as for your opinion, it doesn’t count. This isn’t about you. That’s what you don’t get.”

  “No, that’s what you don’t get,” he said and stomped out, leaving the front door swinging open behind him.

  Minutes later Nina heard his car skid out of the driveway. She ran up to her bedroom where the quietest cry came out of her, a muffled yelp. On her nightstand was a photo taken at the New York Botanical Garden. Tommy, Livia, and herself wore silly grins, trying to hold back from laughing at the couple who took the photo: a bulging, burly man who wore a hearing aid and his short, effeminate, overbearing partner who yelled instructions that went unheard.

  Nina’s body sagged. Only with great effort did she remove her shoes and slide fully dressed into the dark security of the bedcovers where she consoled herself in a low, broken voice. “I haven’t done anything wrong.”

  ***

  When Tommy returned home he stood for long minutes staring at his sleeping wife. He remembered another time, thirteen years ago that he had watched her in repose. It was the night she’d told him she was pregnant. They’d been married for six years, and both were nearing forty. They’d been trying to have a baby since their honeymoon.

  Unable to sleep, he had sat on the chaise lounge opposite their bed, which had a view into what would be the nursery, and mentally decorated the room in green and pink.

  Inexplicably, he’d imagined a daughter. He’d promised himself he’d be a good father, loving and attentive, as his dad had been to him, and had pictured himself rocking his infant girl after a midnight feeding.

  Nina, on the other hand, had gone past wanting to be a mother. During their years of trying to get pregnant, she’d fought depression by putting all of her energy into her career, and with her first exhibition just months away, she’d said to him, “No way, I want a baby. It’s too late for that.”

  “Please think about it at least,” Tommy had begged. “It’s not too old having kids at our age.”

  Two days later, without further discussion, Nina had the abortion. When she told him, he’d packed a suitcase and left, but only for a week. In spite of her betrayal, he still loved her and somehow managed to stuff his wounded feelings into the far reaches of his psyche.

  Until now. Livia was the same age his daughter would have been. He loved Livia, and thinking about her in terms of the child he’d never had brought both a renewed anger at Nina and an acute urge to protect Livia, emotions that upended his normal sense of fairness and logic.

  When he stormed out, he’d driven to a local hangout, prepared to let a couple of martinis dull his temper. But he wasn’t a drinker and instead headed for the town beach where he sat on a picnic table and gave himself over to the anesthetizing music of the surf and the quiet radiance from a half-moon.

  What he concluded was that he couldn’t know for sure what side of right or wrong he was on anymore. In addition, that morning after Nina told her niece about the exhibition, elaborating on where and when it was going to be held, Livia had sought her uncle out.

  “I’m not sure I’ll be there,” he’d said to her.

  “But why? Please, Uncle Tommy, you have to. I don’t want to talk to a lot of people if you’re not going to be there with me.”

  “Maybe,” was all he could say, and then felt his heart sink when she turned away, clearly disappointed.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  There came a time when the risk to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom. ~Anais Nin

  On Friday night the exhibition previewed for news media, critics, and a short list of invited guests. As John Straub predicted, Nina’s collection caused a range of uproar that at one end hailed her as “Manhattan art scene’s best-kept secret” to her detractors, one of whom, after a Q & A session, labeled her a “picture-taking deviant in a skirt.”

  “How do you explain your use of nudity?” the critic asked, his voice sharp.

  Nina took a thoughtful pause before she replied. “There is no nudity,” she said.

  “Excuse me,” he retorted. “What about “Summer Flowers” or “Innocence?”

  “In the first photograph, she’s wearing shorts and a garland around her neck. In the latter, her back is turned and she has on a sarong. There is nothing more immoral in any of my photographs than what most of you here with children have in your family albums.”

  “How would you know?” a woman asked. “Your bio states you have no children.”

  Nina reached for composure. “I was a child with a family who took pictures. It’s the perspective you’re viewing from, and the intention you’re looking at them with, that determines what you see.”
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br />   Forty-five minutes later, Nina left the conference room, exhausted, with the other five exhibitors, and relieved that Tommy hadn’t been there to hear the backlash. He’d offered to take her and she’d declined, knowing that his attendance at the formal opening the next day would be tense enough.

  ***

  On Saturday afternoon Tommy escorted Nina, Livia, and Caro up the steps of the National Center for Photography. The doors were just opening. Tommy led Livia through, glimpsing the banner that advertised the artists included in the “Changing Faces of Youth” exhibition. Caro hung back with Nina.

  The photo of Nina reflected the uncharacteristic seriousness and steadfastness with which she had pursued her ambition of producing work worthy enough to be hung among the likes of Sally Mann and Annie Leibovitz. Her facial expression hinted at her inexperience with being in the limelight: her eyes wide, her cheeks slightly flushed at the curve of the bone.

  Caro took Nina’s arm as they negotiated the growing crowd of guests headed for the Rockefeller Room where the exhibition was staged. Nina’s series was thematically grouped under three titles: “On the Seashore,” “Two Friends,” and “Growing Up.”

  Almost immediately a small crowd clustered around Nina, pushing Caro to the outer edges of the circle. She welcomed the opportunity to be out of Nina’s spotlight and move within sight and earshot of Livia and Beatrice, who’d come with her mother. She homed in on Livia, who kept shaking her head in disgruntlement.

  “What’s your problem,” Beatrice said to her friend.

  “I don’t want to be here with all these people staring at us. Think they’d never seen pictures of girls before,” Livia groused.