Lainie points to the two white sheets across the large canvases on the right side of the studio. “Well, I’m about to uncover my latest work. What I’d like to show at any venue that you’re able to finesse, Jess. The hospital benefit, the library fund-raiser. My first choice would be the Arts Council.…”
The Arts Council is the most prestigious, most bona fide exhibit hall. She is no fool. “Let’s see, Lainie.”
She pulls the sheets away to reveal three panels. She’s completed the first and half of the second. They are staggering and unique—gateways to the harbors, water as a life force. The swamps and marshes of the first painting, the piers and boats, catamarans and Jet Skiers of the second. Everything is framed in heavy rotted wood with eccentric sea life attached. Beyond anything she has shown in the city—those delicate portraits of fog over the bayou.
“I’ve never seen paintings like these.… Both you and Matilde are so gifted.…” Freaks that you are in other parts of life, I think.
I stand close to the canvases, I stand away. In either case, there is an agitation told through women painted beneath what rivals a Turner sky. Kara Walker and Barbara Kruger in terms of scale. Suddenly I’m not doing a favor, I’m discovering a talent, I’m bringing the talent to Elliot. She deserves a solo show. Who is to scoff at the irony—that my good deed goes rewarded and my desire for her husband is separate.
“Okay if I take some photos?” I start focusing my iPhone.
“What for?”
“The Arts Council. I’d like to submit a proposal. Perhaps a one-person show if you’re able to finish.” I point to the panels. “Then produce three or four smaller works by end of March.” I take a few pictures.
“Jess, I’m very … superstitious about photos being shown at the stage I’m in. I haven’t shown these canvases to anyone yet. Not even my sometimes dealer. Charles has seen what you’ve seen.… That’s as far as I’ve taken it.… Would you mind waiting? I will commit to the spring. What date are you thinking? I will have the new canvases by then and I’d love a one-person show.… I’ll deliver photos of everything.” She spreads her hands. “In a few weeks. Meanwhile … I’m beyond thrilled. I can’t thank you enough.”
My altruism is exhausting, my patience thin. “Fine, Lainie,” I agree. My Longchamp scarf has gotten crinkled beneath my purse somehow, very unlike me and slightly annoying. I remind myself that I’ve entered the world according to Lainie, one where nothing is exactly what I expect.
“I’ll take it up with the committee based on my viewing today, Lainie. I’m fairly confident it will happen for you. If anyone presses for photos, I’ll placate them.…”
Lainie smiles. “Jess. I’m so excited about the offer. Something special … incredible. I won’t disappoint you, I promise.”
She comes toward me and I flinch. Up close there is the essence of her hair, her body. We are standing face-to-face, a close-up. I pull my coat around me and bend the collar toward my face.
“The weather has turned cold. Mid-November has never been so chilly.”
God forgive me that Charles flutters through my mind, Charles’s warmth against me.
“Yes, almost winter. A favorite season. I miss the waterfront in winter.… There is a melancholia about it.…” Lainie says.
“What water in winter? Do you mean down the Shore?” Why are we talking about the beach? I suppose there is little else to discuss. She doesn’t seem to have anything left in her that would spur her on to a designer bag sale at Bloomingdale’s or a Sunday afternoon en famille at the Elliot triplex, watching the latest Iron Man. The ordinary is slipping away. I glance at her paintings again.
“The water in winter? It could be anywhere.…” Lainie says. “I mean, it starts in Cape May.…”
Time to dodge her dramatic gestures. “Okay, I’m off then, Lainie.”
“Let me see you out.”
We take the steps of the slightly grand stairway. The house, although not elegant, suffices as a rental. Lainie seems content while I suspect that Charles, given his druthers, would prefer a more palatial home with a perfectly majestic vestibule.
“Jess, would you want a Kind bar? I’m about to have one before I go back to painting. No time for lunch with pickup for the twins starting at three thirty.”
“A Kind bar?” I follow her into the kitchen. Mrs. Higgins is measuring flour into a bowl and boiling chicken.
“Hello, Mrs. Howard,” she says. Then she drops carrots and celery into the boiling pot. “Chicken pot pie for dinner tonight.”
“Delicious.” Not that I would serve such a caloric dish. “Is that a favorite of yours, Lainie?”
“Tom loves it,” she says.
Lainie, at the cupboard, reaches for two bars from a box. A paradigm of how the mothers in New York City conduct themselves.
I shake my head. No protein bar for me, who knows what the ingredients are. “I’ll let myself out.”
Lainie remains on cloud nine over the plan. “Okay, Jess. I’ll text my husband and tell him the good news. I’ll sing your praises.”
Husband. Coming from her, the word cuts through me. I remind myself I too have a husband. Who doesn’t?
When I shut my car door, I check my text messages and with a rush of excitement I read the first one—from Charles. Rendezvous? Name it.
PART SEVEN
Lainie
TWENTY-ONE
Ever since Mrs. Higgins came to live with us two months ago, I have devoted more and more time to my art. I’m structuring my triptych, each of the three canvases meant as a scene of the beach, framed in dried seaweed and sea creatures from my salvaged Trespassing: Driftwood. I’ve overscaled the women. Some are in black coats, others are dressed for summer although there is a prevailing bleakness, winter. My intention is a battle between the women and the jetty, a way for the viewer to hear the wind, to find fragments among the whole shells.
Before dinnertime Matilde studies for a math quiz in the studio, half observing me. “What about the third canvas?” Matilde asks.
“Oh, Matilde, you keep asking. I love your instincts, that you already know what I’m after … more bleak skies.…”
Matilde puts down her math notes and stands before the canvas. “Yeah, well, the ocean will be stormy, darker than the first two canvases. There will be children, right?”
“Yes, in the distance, coming from the dunes toward the women.”
“The children will want sunshine,” says Matilde.
“Of course, my darling girl.” Although I’ve taught my children that it would be agony to always be in sunlight.
“Those summers in Cape May when you make us sit in the shade, Mom? Isn’t it because selkies go underwater except for a few times a year when they sunbathe on the rocks?”
“Too much sun is not good for anyone, Matilde. That’s why I insist on some shade.”
“Aren’t the women in the first part of the triptych really selkies, Mom? Selkies who are too far ashore with too much beach between them and the water—so they worry about where they belong?”
“Matilde,” I sigh, knowing she wants more from me, evidence that selkie blood runs hot while mother/wife blood runs cold. “Lately I’ve been painting furiously, as if there’s a shortage of time.”
“I know, Mom. Now that we have an old biddy nanny you hardly come into the kitchen or family room. Claire notices that you don’t tell stories, and last night I was the one to read a bedtime book to her.”
“A temporary situation.” I glide my right hand across the pasted shells and splintered wood.
“Remember when the twins were jumping the waves at Sunset Beach when they were about four, Mom? You said you’d capture it … paint it. But the twins aren’t in any of these pictures. What happened?”
“Matilde … it’s as if I’m not choosing my own pictures.…”
Matilde nods. “Okay, but the twins will be in my set of three pictures.”
“Matilde, you’re very gifted. What more would I ask than fo
r you to be sketching and painting?”
I open my supply cabinet and hand Matilde a brand-new set of Prismacolor graphite pencils. “These are the best.”
Matilde balks. “I’m not sure, Mom.”
“You are ready, Matilde. Decide, my darling girl, on your technique. Once you are convinced, the work will flow.” I lift a large sketchbook from under the drawing board.
“How did you get that? How did you get my art from school?”
“Ms. Lacey called last week and told me your good news, Matilde. That your work has been selected for the Christmas display for the junior high. I decided to meet her and that’s when she gave me these. They’re exceptional, Matilde.… I hear they are the best in the class. I can’t wait to show your father.”
“Show me what?” Charles asks as he once again materializes from behind the slightly open door—a cardinal sin. Both Matilde and I jump.
“Charles, you’re home.” I walk to him and we exchange a small dry kiss.
“Indeed, I am!”
“You’re chipper,” I notice.
“That too!”
“Well, look at these—by Matilde. Her art has been selected.…” I hold up Matilde’s two sketches and she frowns at me. Perhaps she isn’t fond of how we bond over our children’s achievements.
For a millisecond Charles seems puzzled. “Great,” he says in a perfunctory way. “Matilde, shouldn’t you be starting dinner with your brothers and sister downstairs?”
There is that shadow over the room, the same feeling as when the sun goes down and the afterglow has burned out. “Matilde, we’ll talk more about your art … other art … later. After dinner,” I say.
She walks out and pulls the door tightly closed.
* * *
Charles pushes me against the wall and starts kissing my neck; his hands travel up and down my body.
“Charles, what has happened to you today? Weren’t you in the city for a luncheon? Did you eat oysters?”
“I did. I was there for a preliminary meeting for those of us going to the OMTEC convention, Lainie. Hadn’t I told you? Enough surgeons showed up, I’ll say that. Yes, oysters, a half dozen to be exact.” He holds my hands up over my head and rubs into me. At first I’m silent, holding my breath, and then I start to laugh. “Ah, that trilling laugh of yours, Lainie … It’s been ages.…”
“Charles! Charles!”
“Ah, more of that laugh of yours.” Charles puts his mouth on my ear. “Do you know that you’re squealing, Lainie?” he whispers. “Like those annoying little dogs squeal if you accidentally step on their toes in the elevator of our old building?”
I laugh again. Charles goes to the cupboard and opens the bottom drawer, where there is an old quilt I sometimes use to cover my work. He spreads it on the floor and he picks me up, carrying me to the middle of the quilt. We start to kiss passionately. Our faces are an inch apart; his eyes are exquisite, I could dive into them.
“Charles … how very … unmarried.” We kiss more and he yanks off my jeans and panties. Charles is inside me and we’re on our own raft on a river that only he and I share.
Faintly, in the background, Jack is yelling, “Scum bag, scum bag, scum bag” from the family room and no one is stopping him. Where is Mrs. Higgins? Where is Matilde?
“Charles?”
“I don’t care.” He pins my arms down and keeps moving inside me.
Jack won’t stop screaming.
“Charles?”
He pulls out and sighs. As he hoists up his pants I hear footsteps scurrying away. I look at Charles, who doesn’t seem to have noticed. Matilde! Matilde, whom I’ve always trusted. Charles walks to the door but there is no one there. Jack’s screams have stopped.
“Where were we?” Charles unzips his fly and heads toward me, as sexy as in the old days, the pre-children days.
TWENTY-TWO
When Tom and Matilde were younger, before the twins were born, Thanksgiving was my favorite holiday. Charles and I would take them to the Macy’s parade along Central Park West and Charles would place Tom on his shoulders. Not so Matilde, who resisted and only chose to be held in our arms. After the twins were born, no one was lifted and the older children took turns pushing the double stroller along the sidelines or we stood together with the other families, watching the floats. Our first year in Elliot will mark the first year that we won’t be going to the parade.
In my unending quest to keep the city as part of our lives, we are in the midst of our second “discussion” on the matter. A talk that takes place with all of us piled into the family room before the twins’ bedtime, the Sunday night before the holiday.
“Why don’t we drive in early in the morning to see the start of the parade, Charles?” I say. “Or we can go the night before, when they inflate the balloons.”
“Not the best idea, Lainie. I vote that we skip a hellish ride to the city—especially when we have a big day this year. I’d prefer to be in Elliot the night before, and surely the morning of Thanksgiving is nonnegotiable with the invitation that we’ve accepted.”
“What does Thanksgiving at the Howards’ have to do with it?” I ask, knowing that fussing makes it worse. “Why can’t we drive at off-hours in a reverse commute—for the children to still have this in their lives, Charles, to have continuity?”
“The traffic, Lainie. That’s why.” The children are restless and out of the corner of my eye I catch Jack playing with Matilde’s mini iPad.
“The Wednesday, beginning at noon if not earlier, is one of the most heavily trafficked days of the year,” says Charles.
“Let’s take the train,” I persist.
“The train?”
“A few of us could go. The girls and I?”
“Another divided family event.” Charles is annoyed. A flash of pity and sadness flows through me. Once the feeling starts, it’s a form of swimming downstream. I nod, knowing that my recovery will be slow.
“We should bake a pie or two for Jess and William the night before.” Charles moves right along. “A family project in our Elliot kitchen.”
“What do you think, Mom?” asks Matilde. “Apple pie or pecan?”
“Either way.” I stare at the gloaming through the windows, a suburban midnight that starts when the sun goes down. With my canvases I own the picture, while in real life the hours skim beyond me, jumbled.
“If only we were going to the beach house on Friday, even Saturday,” I beseech Charles once we are alone in the bedroom. “Charles, I’m homesick for Riverside Drive—yams and brussels sprouts that Candy made, her tasteless gravy.”
Charles shakes his head and I know it’s a done deal but I can’t let go.
The holiday at Jess’s will be more tolerable if you would change your mind. I might remind him of that, of how it is for me, how the necessary mitigated by the sublime is a form of survival.
“Charles, we live nearer to Cape May, we are already in New Jersey. Okay, we’ll skip the parade. Then let’s drive down the Shore on Friday, as a compromise.”
“If Mrs. Higgins will join us, we’ll go. Only with Mrs. Higgins.”
“Mrs. Higgins has three grandchildren, Charles. You must know since she describes her granddaughter, who is Claire and Jack’s age, whenever she has the chance. She is with them over the holiday weekend. Besides, we don’t really need Mrs. Higgins.”
“Another time, Lainie, I promise. Besides, you have paintings that are due. Wouldn’t you rather paint in your studio than have us freeze our asses off, bored to tears, for some vista in Cape May?”
I remember a year ago when we were in Cape May, climbing the dunes, trotting toward the bird sanctuary—the only ones near the water’s edge. Charles beside me, if not convinced of the poignancy of being there. Tom carried Claire, who buried her head in his chest to duck the wind. Charles carried Jack. Matilde faced me while I prayed that we would never be anywhere else for years on end, the six of us.
For the first and only time since we moved, I sta
rt to cry in unflattering gulps and wails.
“Lainie, please, please, I’ve already promised.” Charles is at our closed bedroom door. “Do you hear someone?”
I shake my head.
“Are you sure?” Charles pounces on the door handle and swings the door open. “Who is out there? Tom? Matilde?”
“No one is by the door, Charles.” I blow my nose. Yet the thought of Matilde eavesdropping washes over me. I sense that snooping around has become a pastime of hers recently.
After that I stop crying. Charles walks into the master bathroom and back to the chaise with dental floss in his hand.
* * *
“Is that what you’re wearing?” Charles asks me the next afternoon.
“What do you mean, Charles?” I manage to get a gold dangle earring into my left earlobe by tilting my head while up close to the mirror. I open a mascara with a wand to serum my eyelashes before elongating them. Matilde bought the mascara for me on my birthday in the summer. Maybe it’s a bit dried out, although it has never been used—my lashes aren’t any longer or thicker. I shake out my hair, which is piled up in a tortoiseshell clip, and start brushing. If Charles is taking note of my effort, he doesn’t seem pleased.
“Beautiful for a funeral, Lainie,” he says. “Black on black—your skirt, sweater, boots? Nothing to lift it up?”
“Well, if clothes are a form of costume, please note I’m in a designer skirt and sweater, bought at—”
“I don’t doubt that you care, Lainie, but it seems to me that you have more variety in your wardrobe. Thanksgiving today is as important as a hospital dinner, a dinner with a drug company, a business trip.”
I turn to face him as he paces the length of the bedroom, more dapper than usual. Not that he isn’t always dapper with his lean build, his height and broad shoulders. Charles looks like a swimmer, someone who could swim the Raritan River easily and win. If he swam. When I’m kind I describe him as a “weak swimmer.”
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