“Whew,” Jana exclaimed as they walked out the revolving doors to the street.
“I have a little time before I’m due back at the office. Why don’t we get some coffee?” Bill suggested. His “have to talk to members of the board” was, as Jana and Natalie realized, an excuse; obviously, they were the ones he wanted to talk with. They headed for that same coffee shop where Jana and Natalie had bumped into Ed ten months ago.
“I’d venture to say we got off lucky,” Bill said as they sat down. “We realized that, even at best, we might have to make slight compromises, and this one’s about as harmless as they come.”
“Tell that to Matt Fillmore,” Jana responded.
“I will, if you want me to,” Bill offered, gracious as usual.
Feeling Natalie glaring at her, Jana shook the knots from her neck and apologized. “I didn’t mean to be so glib about it, I’m just not looking forward to Matt’s reaction. Thanks for your offer, but I’m the curator, it’s my job to tell him.”
“We can both tell him, if you want. I’ve worked with him on other projects, and I know him socially, so I might be a little better at presenting the corporate view.”
“You’ll be a lot better at presenting the corporate view,” Jana laughed.
Bill agreed to call Matt and set up a meeting as soon as he could. “Also, remember something—the very fact that Matt’s willing to have his work included in this exhibition to begin with suggests that, even though he might be critical of APL’s actions, he’s willing to enter into a dialogue.”
“I’ll keep than in mind when we talk to him,” Jana promised. Leave it to Bill to be rational.
Friday’s luncheon meeting was supposed to include Natalie, but some last-minute problems came up that Natalie had to attend to, so Jana was left on her own to meet with Bill and Matt. She’d been introduced to Matt at a few openings, but the only times they’d talked had been on the phone since they’d started working on the exhibition. “He’s always seemed pleasant enough,” she told herself as she headed for the restaurant. Even after six years working as a curator, she was still a bit in awe of big-name artists whose work she respected.
She also hadn’t remembered how tall Matt was—over six feet, with a very firm handshake. Nervously, she sat down. Thankfully, Bill and Matt had a lot to say to each other, and Bill was as adept as ever at conversation. Drawing Jana in, they chatted about reasonably safe topics such as Reagan’s recent cutbacks in Medicare and support for the arts. “Art’s been running into more and more problems of late,” Jana said, sensing her opening.
The lead-in was stronger than she’d anticipated. Conversation halted, and she felt Matt’s intense eyes staring her down. “Such as?” he asked.
“Such as APL wasn’t exactly delighted with your Power and Light piece.”
Matt gave a slight laugh. “I wasn’t exactly intending to delight them. I did that work especially for the exhibition.”
“I figured as much. It’s an extremely strong piece,” Jana hastened to add.
“But they want it out of the show, right? Well, no way. Take that out, you can take all my work out.”
“As a matter of fact, we’ve convinced them that censorship wouldn’t be in anyone’s best interests, including theirs,” Bill said, not batting an eyelash.
“I’m still hearing a but at the end of that sentence.”
“Free speech means free speech for everyone, including Big Business,” Jana said, echoing Frank’s words. “APL wants to be certain viewers are also presented with their point of view.” She passed Matt the envelope. “In the catalog, and on a plaque at the exhibition,” she added while he was reading it.
“Sort of lessens the effect, don’t you think?” he asked sarcastically.
“Not really. If anything, giving their point of view might even heighten the controversy, draw more attention to your work.”
“To my work, or to the political statement?”
“Why did you do the drawing in the first place if it wasn’t to make the statement?” Jana asked.
“Touché,” Matt said dryly. Then he suggested he might want to add his own statement.
“That drawing seems statement enough, and its power comes from letting viewers make up their own minds,” Jana said. Natalie might have come up with a comment such as “art enlightens, it doesn’t preach,” but Jana had never been forced to sit through the art history and art appreciation courses that Natalie and most other people had suffered in their younger days.
“Besides, the eye absorbs quicker than the mind,” Bill added. “Many people will respond to the image and pay no attention whatever to the text.”
Matt asked for a few days to think it over.
“We promised APL we’d get back to them by the end of the week, and Jana also has to get working on the catalog copy,” Bill said. “Actually, we’ve been in negotiations concerning your drawing since before the holidays. Everyone was hoping we’d win unconditional acceptance, which is why we didn’t tell you about it before.”
Matt let his eyes rest between his two companions. Then he read the statement again. “Do you fight this hard for all your artists?” he asked, casting an almost sheepish smile in Jana’s direction. He wasn’t giving in, he wasn’t saying the words Yes, I’ll remain in the show, but he’d obviously intended that smile to speak for him.
“Only the artists I think are worth it,” Jana laughed, taking a bite of food for the first time in the past fifteen minutes. She was almost beginning to enjoy this expensive lunch.
With the major task of the past three months successfully accomplished, Jana could finally devote her attention to preparing for the show at the Walker. Ten days later, already March and starting to get warm outside, she stood in the center of her studio, giving the “city life” paintings one last look before crating them. The last time these paintings had been spread out before her eyes was in August, when they were photographed for slides submitted to DCA. Jana counted on her fingers: September, October, November, December, January, February, March—seven months. It felt more like seven years. The shadow of the dead body in the corner of Mulberry Street could be easily mistaken for a photographic reproduction, yet she distinctly recalled thinking at the time it had broken new ground.
Three years ago, when she’d begun work on these paintings, she and Gary had long talks about photo-realism. Gary had pointed out the individuality of her focus: “If ten artists paint the same street at the same time of day, they’ll all focus on something different. Your talent lies in your ability to pick out the inconsequential fragment that no one else pays attention to.” And Jana had chalked up those “inconsequential fragments” to the hours on end that she had spent walking around the city with a camera, using the lens as a tool for keeping the object close yet distant. She’d described the snapshots tacked on her easel as a device for making the transformative process easier.
“Transformed into what?” she asked herself now. Transformation couldn’t be summoned, it happened when she wasn’t looking, and it stemmed from an inward focus, not an outward one. Its roots were in abstraction, even when the final image was immediately recognizable. She recalled the process of painting that first successful self-portrait last August. She’d begun by drawing a bathing cap for the skull, put a smudge on her cheek, and ended by painting heavy, crisscrossed lines weighing the mind down. The original attempt to capture her inner beauty had provided, instead, a portrait of the mind blocking radiance. And she’d gone on from there in more recent paintings, often emerging with surreal, unpredictable imagery—a hand on a shoulder appeared half-bone, half-crab claw, made more haunting by the shoulder and the arm being separated from the bodies that sustained them; a jumble of lines over a breast became recognizable as the halter top of a floral bathing suit, two flowers picked off.
The paintings spread out before her seemed stagnant by comparison, but she tried to work up the excitement again by seeing them with Gary’s eye. In two weeks she’d be shipping herself off to Minnea
polis, and if she didn’t have faith in her paintings, she could hardly expect other people to appreciate them.
It was after two o’clock, and the trucker would be here at four—she’d better get moving. Once the paintings were safely packed, she could stare at the impersonal wood and pretend the crates contained her newer works. But those paintings weren’t ready to show yet, either; she was still in the process of developing the new theme and the formal shifts that went along with it. Hammering the lid on the final crate, Jana wondered what Gary would say when he saw her new work. Before she realized what was happening, she found herself wondering what she’d be painting now if she’d been more in tune with her body years ago, if she and Gary had ended up as lovers.
The crates were gone and Jana stared around a room that seemed to have doubled in size. Only then did she realize how much she’d been thinking of Gary today. What Ed would think of either the new work or the old hadn’t entered her thoughts. Ever since losing her virginity, she’d felt almost estranged from this man who’d played such a huge role in her life. “My trip to Minneapolis will do us both good,” she told herself. “Besides, if Ed wanted, he could go with me.” She recalled her comment, last summer when they’d flirted dangerously, about how she’d sneak him into her room at Yaddo. She had to laugh at herself—she was acting as if she were the only player in this drama, as if Ed were some stuffed animal she could cram into her suitcase.
It would be no trouble to sneak Leroy into her hotel room, would it? She walked over and opened the closet door—she hadn’t realized how much junk she’d been piling in here; Leroy had been pushed to the back. Mice had gotten in again, and the insulation they’d dug out of the walls was all over his mane and tail. She didn’t want to touch him, let alone sleep with him.
She wondered if the cleaners would accept stuffed animals, then had second thoughts about the way they handled things: last week a blouse had been returned to her missing a shoulder pad, and over the past few months she could remember two or three melted buttons. She also couldn’t: bring herself to walk in and say I’d like my lion cleaned, or I’d like my daughter’s lion cleaned. But maybe the self service places … She stuffed him headfirst into a shopping bag and took him to the laundromat on Third Avenue.
Her plans were for Leroy to go in the dry cleaning machine, but there was a big sign saying NO STUFFED ANIMALS, and attendants seemed to be peeking out from every crevice. Hesitantly, she looked around—the two dozen free washers all had a post or wringer in the center, Leroy would be pulled limb from limb. Finally, she spotted a double-load front-loading washer against the back wall.
She sat Leroy in the center, set it on cold water, gentle cycle, dumped in one of those double-load boxes of Tide, no bleach. She put in six quarters, pressed the button. The machine began to fill with water. Leroy sank comfortably down in it, his head bobbing just above the rising tide. Then the detergent came in; he was in a bubble bath. Now he spun slowly, head over heels. Stopped. Was he too heavy for the machine? She was about to see if she could pry the door open when he started spinning again, the other way this time, building up speed.
It was like watching a child at an amusement park. She’d spotted a popcorn machine at the front of the store, and she treated herself, like at the movies. When she got back to the machine Leroy was spinning so fast she couldn’t see him. He was a yellow blur, like those sheep blurred just before she fell asleep some nights. Jana placed a piece of popcorn between her front teeth and clamped shut on it.
A half hour later all the motors and lights went off. She pulled Leroy out and set him in a laundry cart. His fur was glowing. She reached over and pulled a few pieces of stuffing out of his mane, examined his body, found two little holes, pinpricks, one on each side of his neck. She hesitated for a minute. She shouldn’t take him home wet. He’d survived the washer; she supposed a little hot air wouldn’t harm him.
Once he was in the dryer, she could watch him changing positions, hear his large black plastic eyes knocking against the window. His mouth kept falling open as if trying to catch hold of the pink fabric softener cloth she’d thrown in with him. When the machine stopped he ended up cradled between two side spokes, legs crossed—a pipe in his mouth would complete the picture of old-fashioned comfort.
She took him out and set him back in the shopping bag. Wait a second—on the way over he’d filled the entire bag; now he shifted loosely to one side. Could dirt have taken up that much room? She pulled his head up and watched his neck flop over the side. She pulled out one arm; it too flopped limply. He couldn’t have lost that much stuffing. Or could he? She went back and checked the washer, reached her hand in to see if there were piles of stuffing she hadn’t seen, but came up empty.
She took Leroy home, propped him up on the bed, then called Marilyn. If anyone would know about crafts and fabrics, it would be Marilyn.
“He was probably stuffed with foam,” Marilyn said. “Foam dries out, especially in the heat of a dryer. That’s why foam pillows have to continually be replaced. There was an advantage to those old feather pillows our grandmothers used.”
Jana asked what she could do now, and Marilyn suggested she get some shredded foam from a crafts store and restuff him. “Or if you can wait a few weeks, till I’m done with this wallpaper book I’m working on, I’ll help you,” Marilyn offered.
Jana mentioned having to leave for Minneapolis, and working on the exhibition full time when she returned. “If I don’t get it done right away, it might have to wait forever. But thanks anyway.”
She ran over to a crafts store, bought two bags of foam, gold thread to stitch up his holes with, and a brown paisley ribbon to tie around his neck. She perched on the edge of the bed and held him on her lap. She took her nail scissors and enlarged the holes at his neck, stuffed two handfuls of foam in each side. No, that was too much. She took some out, sewed up the holes, then kneaded his neck to try to even out his stuffing. Next she slit a hole in the seam at the top of one arm, stuffed it with foam, sewed it up, and kneaded. She repeated the process with the other arm, then both legs. She’d used up both bags of foam, and could have used even more, but it was after six and the store would probably be closed, so she made do.
She leaned Leroy’s back against the headboard, crossed his legs. Wherever she placed him, it looked as if he belonged there. He seemed delighted to be home and in his own bed again, and they’d both been through the wringer already today—she didn’t have the heart to bundle him back up and whisk him off to Minneapolis.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Five Long Nights Alone
JANA RAISED a sleepy head from the pillow. “Oh good, you’re awake,” Ed said. “Are you certain you don’t want me to call in late and drive you to the airport?”
“I’m positive. The last thing I need is to get stuck in traffic and miss the plane—cabbies know how to handle rush hour.”
“Have it your way.” Ed bent to kiss her. “Break a leg.”
“Thanks.” Jana moved over to his side of the bed, hoping to fall back to sleep enveloped in his leftover warmth, but she was too restless. She got up a little after eight, unpacked her suitcase to be sure she had everything she needed, then packed it again. She was taking Ed’s garment bag on this trip, not her mother’s suitcase—easier to keep things pressed without folding them. She put on the same gray tapestry jacket she’d worn that first day with Ed, hoping it would bring her luck. The show might be poorly reviewed, but at least Ed loved her—as she headed for the airport, that almost seemed enough.
The plane took off forty-five minutes late, but picked up time en route. Keeping her seatbelt fastened, Jana thought about Ed most of the trip. She was still thinking of Ed as she walked into the terminal and a small, heavyset woman in her early twenties accosted her. “Are you Miss Replansky?” she asked. “You look just like your photograph in our files. I’m Sharon, from Walker’s internship program. Steve Whitman’s busy with last-minute arrangements—he asked me to pick you up.”
Her stories of pulling apart daisies at Yaddo might have inspired the note, but Ed had been looking for an excuse to buy her flowers as long as they’d known each other. He’d intended to give her a Christmas plant, but she’d stopped his hand on their way to the florist’s. “Don’t, please. It won’t live,” she’d insisted. No plants ever grew for her. She stared at the huge, cultivated petals of these daisies, so straight and sparkling they looked waxed—they would be awfully hard to kill in five days, and after she left no one had to know what became of them.
“Ed’s a thousand miles away,” she silently reminded herself. “If I’m going to make a good impression here, I’d better concentrate on being the artist again. I should be making small talk with Sharon, not thinking of Ed.”
“They started hanging the show yesterday,” Sharon explained as they headed for the museum. “Dave Phillips flew in from Chicago last night.” Richard Calpis, the other artist, would be arriving from San Francisco that evening.
“Good,” Jana thought. “I wasn’t the first artist to arrive.” When she curated shows, one of the worst scenarios was an out-of-town artist who had nothing better to do than supervise the hanging. Flying in early was a mark of the amateur. She recalled her first one-woman show: Buffalo, 1972. The show opened on a Thursday. Instead of shipping the paintings, Jana rented a car and drove them up on Monday, then stayed in a hotel until after the opening. Five nights in the hotel, plus the car rental, cost nearly $500. In those days her rent was $185 a month, and some months she had difficulty scraping that much together. The money would be well spent if she could be certain her work was displayed correctly, she thought. But what did she do when she got to the gallery? Stood back and watched the paintings go up, feeling out of place and afraid to open her mouth. Those days were only laughable in retrospect.
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