by Mary Gorman
“Do you mean it when you say you love them?” Ghoulie asked.
“I mean it at the time.”
“He means it as long as he thinks it’s going to help him get into their pants,” Dave clarified. “But I don’t think it means to him what it means to women.”
Ghoulie nodded sagely. “I think it means a lot to them.”
“But why would the same words mean different things to men than to women?” Kirl insisted.
Ghoulie shrugged. “I guess that they’re just different from us.”
• • •
“So do you want to go?” Presley asked, jarring Denise from her thoughts.
“You really want to go?” Denise asked, feeling somewhat surprised. She wouldn’t have imagined that a visit to an art exhibit — even a visiting exhibit of Rodin’s sculpture at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts — would have been of interest to Presley.
“Sure. The articles in the paper say that it’s great, and he’s one of the few sculptors I actually know anything about. I saw a movie about his mistress about ten years ago. Did you know that she actually created a lot of his works and he got the credit? The pig.”
“Uh, I think that’s still just a theory, Pres. There’s no proof either way,” Denise said. “They definitely influenced each other’s work, though.”
Presley shook her head, setting her lucky dice earrings into motion. “They wouldn’t have put it in the movie if they didn’t think it was so,” she said stubbornly. “It was just so sad.”
“They say that he asked for her at the end of his life,” Denise told her, wondering if the knowledge would soothe Presley at all. “They brought him his wife instead, but he kept saying that she wasn’t the one that he wanted.”
“The pig,” Presley said. “He wasn’t fair to her, either.”
Denise just smiled. She was right, actually. It wasn’t fair. “Do you have a favorite work of his?” she asked, hoping to get Presley off of the gossip and onto the art that they’d be seeing.
“I like them all. Are they all nudes? I think they are. I only remember ever seeing the nudes — The Kiss, The Thinker … ” She looked up at Denise. “What else did he do?”
“Balzac, the Gates of Hell, the Burghers of Ghent … ” Presley’s face was blank. Denise had a sudden thought. “Would you mind if I asked Dave DiSciullo to come with us? We were talking about sculpture at the beach last summer and I think he’d really like it.”
Presley shrugged. “The more, the merrier. Think he’ll come?”
“Hopefully.”
• • •
Dave was thrilled beyond words when Denise asked him to accompany her to the Rodin exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts. He hadn’t made his next move yet — if he didn’t make an overt move toward her, then she couldn’t turn him down — but he was very, very encouraged that things were going well. The day she asked him to go to the Rodin exhibit with her, he felt like he could have leaped to the top of the highest mountain. Of all the men she knew, she wanted to go to the museum with him. Him. It was almost too wonderful to contemplate.
Right up until she’d said, “You don’t mind if Presley comes along with us, do you? She said she wanted to go, too.”
Presley Rosenberg. There, standing between him and Denise in front of some of the most sensual, erotic art of the modern age. It was almost too awful to contemplate.
But what could he say? His choices were clear: either he could bite the bullet and let Presley be included as a third wheel, or he could refuse Denise, missing his chance to be with her and maybe give her the horribly wrong impression that he wasn’t interested in spending any more time with her. He opened his mouth to accept, just as it occurred to him that two could play this “love me, love my friend” game.
“That would be great,” he told her. “Would you mind if I asked my buddy Kirk to come, too? He’d probably like it.” There, he thought, feeling rather proud of himself. At least now he’d have his own third wheel along to run interference with Presley.
Denise seemed surprised, but didn’t hesitate. “Sure,” she said. “If you want.”
“You’ll like Kirk,” he told her. “I’ve known him forever.”
“Is he into art?” she asked.
“To be honest, I haven’t got a clue.”
• • •
To be perfectly honest, Kirk and museums went together about as well as hubcaps and linoleum. They just weren’t even in the same hemisphere. But a friend was a friend and Dave had come through with enough favors for Kirk over the years that it didn’t take much reminding for Dave to call in the debt. Besides, Kirk was curious about the object of Dave’s affection. He wanted to meet this woman for himself, to check her out and see if she was — and this was his exact word — “Daveworthy.”
So it was that Dave and Kirk were loitering on the steps of the Museum of Fine Arts on a windy Saturday afternoon in late November. Kirk, in his black leather bomber jacket, rocked on his heels with his hands in his pockets while Dave craned his neck every few seconds, looking this way and that past the swirling leaves on the sidewalk as they waited for the women to arrive. “So you want me to run interference for you with Presley?” Kirk asked.
Dave glanced back down Huntington Avenue one more time. “That would be awesome. If there’s anything, anything she says that she’s interested in, offer to take her up to look at it. I’ll try to keep Denise focused on something else. We can pick a place to hook up again later.” He looked up at Kirk. “I really appreciate this, buddy.”
“Aw, don’t mention it,” Kirk replied. “It was about time I finally got around to visiting this place, anyway.”
“There they are.” Dave took his hands out of his pockets and stepped forward to meet Denise and Presley, who were walking up the sidewalk toward them. “Hey there,” he called.
Denise and Presley wore identical smiles. “Hey,” Presley called back. “Been waiting long?”
“Just got here,” Dave said, ignoring the chill that had seemingly seeped into his bones while they’d waited. “Presley and Denise, I’d like you to meet my friend, Kirk James. Kirk, I think you’ve probably seen Presley here and there over the years; she mans the reception desk at WMTR, and this is Denise Johnson, our newest deejay.”
Kirk took his hand out of his jacket pocket and extended it to each of the women, smiling what Dave knew Kirk believed was his most charming, ladies’ man smile. Dave had always thought it looked as phony as hell, but Presley and Denise were smiling back. “I think I remember Presley. You’ve gone to some of the station functions as well, haven’t you? The end of summer bashes and some of the concerts?”
Dave had occasionally gotten comp tickets to station sponsored functions — the kind of event that the station staged then gave away tickets to as prizes — and had shared them with Kirk and Ghoulie and Shelby. Presley, always one to socialize, never seemed to miss any station sponsored event.
Presley beamed. “I thought you looked familiar,” she told him.
Kirk turned his eyes to Denise. “It’s nice to meet you. Are you the one whose porch Dave painted?”
Denise grinned back. “That would be me. It’s nice to meet you, Kirk.”
“Nice to meet you, too.”
“Speaking of painting,” Dave interrupted, “shall we go inside? It’s kind of cold out here.”
Denise smiled at him and he felt a warming begin even before they’d moved a step. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s go see some art.”
Presley, as it turned out, was in the same league as Kirk when it came to art appreciation. She either liked a piece, hated it, or didn’t care at all about it, all decided on a single first glance. If she didn’t like a piece, she was ready to move on; if she did, well, then she might linger for all of five seconds before being ready to move on.
Kirk would stand there, staring at a piece while Denise would try to explain what the artist’s intent might have been, but Dave could see a certain glazing over in his eyes that seemed to increase as the lecture went on. It was the same look he’d had in English class in high school.
Dave tried to be more obliging. Art was, after all, important to Denise, and this sort of outing was something that he’d like to do again with her in the future — preferably without their third and fourth wheels tagging along. When Presley would hurry on to the next display and the next, Dave found himself wishing that Kirk would follow along behind her, leaving him with Denise all to himself.
“Oh, here’s one to make you feel all warm and fuzzy,” Presley announced as the quartet approached a large metal sculpture of a fat man with his arms crossed in front of him, one leg stuck out before him as if he were about to stride right off his pedestal.
“I’ve seen this somewhere before,” Kirk blurted out.
Dave’s eyes shot instantly to Kirk, who was peering up intently at it. “You have?”
Kirk was frowning. “Yeah. I don’t know where, but I’ve seen it before.”
Presley read the card. “It says it’s on loan from the Art Institute of Chicago. Have you ever been to Chicago?”
Kirk shook his head. “No. But I’ve definitely seen it somewhere before.” His brows drew closer together as he stared up at the sculpture.
“Ferris Bueller.”
Three sets of eyes turned to look at Denise. “Excuse me?” Kirk asked.
“Ferris Bueller,” she said again. “That’s where you saw it, in the movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. There’s a scene where the three kids are cutting school and they end up in the Chicago Institute of Art. It’s just a quick clip, but they show this piece and then they cut quick to a shot of the three kids all lined up, standing in the exact same pose.” She glanced down and then smiled. “It’s a very effective composition, actually. The three of them stand one in front of the other creating a line that plays off of the wall behind them. It looks way cool.”
Kirk blinked at her, then smiled. “Yeah, that’s it.”
“I don’t remember it,” Presley complained, her painter’s palette earrings shaking their own negative emphasis.
Kirk turned to Presley. “How long ago did you see it?”
Presley frowned, then smiled. “I remember. It was tenth grade. We rented it and went over to Jimmy Driscoll’s house.” Her smile turned into what looked to Dave like a wicked grin. “I remember why I didn’t see it. I was probably necking with Jimmy when it was on.”
Denise rolled her eyes.
“You should rent it again sometime,” Kirk told her. “It’s a good movie.”
“It might be a good movie, but it’s still an ugly statue,” Presley proclaimed, her eyes already skittering away to see what was going to present itself to her next.
She hiked her pocketbook up higher on her shoulder and walked, followed by Kirk. Denise lingered, however, and Dave watched her as she silently studied the piece. He thought that she looked a little wistful as she stared up at it.
“Do you miss it?” he asked quietly.
“Hmmm?” she responded blankly, blinking at him.
“Do you miss studying art?” he clarified.
She smiled. “I tell myself that someday when I’m old, I’ll go back to it, but I’ve got to admit, there aren’t a lot of career opportunities for an art history major.”
“I don’t think you’ve got to worry about that,” he said dryly.
She shook her head. “I guess not. But still, I wish I had at least finished the degree, you know? I’m a college dropout. That’s not something I’m proud of.”
“You dropped out after you got married?”
She nodded. “Jason had finished his studies and was ready to go back to New York. I was his wife. I had to go, you know?” She smiled sadly. “It’s not that I really miss art history. It’s that I miss having chosen to follow his path instead of my own.”
Dave let his eyes drift over Balzac’s frozen image. “You have your own path now,” he told her.
“Yeah,” she agreed. “I do. I just wish I’d done it sooner.” She turned her eyes to him. “How about you. Dave? Do you have any ‘roads not taken’?”
His eyes met hers. “A few, I guess. Things I would change about myself if I could. But my choices were my own, I guess. So I can’t really regret them.”
They started to follow Kirk and Presley to the next exhibit. “I do like this, you know,” she told him. “Being around art.”
“When’s the last time you went to an art museum?”
She shook her head. “Oh, a long time ago. We’d go to gallery openings sometimes, but a day trip to the museum just to look at the art? A couple of years, I guess. They weren’t Jason’s thing.” She glanced ahead at Presley, who was glancing over her shoulder, looking for the two of them to catch up. “I don’t think it’s really Presley’s thing, either.”
Dave smiled. “Yeah, but she’ll probably love the gift shop.”
Denise laughed. “Especially if they have earrings.”
• • •
The four of them stood in silence in front of a small marble statue. It was the unmistakable form of a man and a woman, carved in marble. Both were nude, and on their knees, the woman half reclining as the man leaned forward his mouth just inches from her breast. Even Presley was silent as they stood side by side, contemplating the image.
“Geez,” Kirk muttered at last. “It reminds me of a book I read last week.”
Presley turned to gawk at him. “What kind of stuff do you read?”
“It was called The Bridal Chase,” he replied absently.
“The Bridal Chase?” Presley echoed. “Isn’t that a romance novel?”
Dave arched an eyebrow at Kirk, silently warning him not to spill their secret. If he did, so help him, Dave was going to reveal every single secret he had on Kirk. To Kirk’s mother.
“Yeah,” Kirk replied smoothly. “I do volunteer work, reading books to the blind. I started reading that one last week, but we haven’t finished it yet.” He looked Presley right in the eye. “Have you read it?”
“Yeah, I love Mary Jo MacNeil!” Presley enthused. “She’s one of my favorite writers. After Judy Johnson, of course,” she added with a glance at Denise.
“My mother is a romance writer,” Denise explained.
“Your mother is Judy Johnson?” Kirk asked. “The one who wrote Always and When the Lilacs Bloom?”
Denise was surprised. “Yes, that’s her.”
“Oh, she’s very popular. I’ve read When the Lilacs Bloom twice.” Then he turned to Presley. “Can you tell me how The Bridal Chase ends? I mean, I know that Hope is going to end up with Ryder, but how do they get past her fiancé and the conditions of his father’s will?”
“How far have you gotten in the story?” Presley asked, looking at Kirk with new interest.
“Ryder had just burst into Hope’s room while he was trying to get away from his ex-lover who wanted him back because she found out about his inheritance and was trying to get him to jump her bones and get her pregnant so that he would have to marry her.”
“Oh, so you haven’t gotten to the part where they introduce the nun who used to be a prostitute?”
“No!” Kirk crowed, grabbing Presley’s hand in his excitement.
“Yes!” Presley replied, covering his hand with her own. “You’re still back at the beginning.” She glanced over at the bench in the middle of the gallery, intended for those who wanted to sit in quiet contemplation of the surrounding art. “This is going to take a few minutes.” She looked at Dave and Denise. “Do you mind if Kirk and I go sit down? You don’t really care about this book and we’d just distract you.”
“Uh
, no,” Denise replied. “Not at all. Go right ahead.”
Dave just shrugged and hoped that Denise didn’t see the wink Kirk sent him as he let Presley lead him away to the bench. He turned to Denise and raised his eyebrows helplessly, then, not knowing what else to do, he turned back to the small, erotic sculpture. Denise did likewise. For a long time, neither said anything. Dave shifted uncomfortably. He knew that it was a brilliant piece, but it made him distinctly uncomfortable. He could admire the elegant line and realistic beauty of nudes in art, but this went beyond mere nudes — this was embarrassing. It didn’t quite meet his definition of pornography — the focus was still more on the people than their private parts, but it was undeniably erotic and it made Dave think of things that he was embarrassed to be thinking of in front of Denise. He said nothing, hoping that his face wasn’t turning red. For a very long time, he and Denise stared at the piece, neither one looking at the other, saying nothing.
“I had a professor at the Sorbonne who had a full sized reproduction of this on a little end table in her office,” Denise said at last. “I always tried not to look at it, but it was really hard to ignore. I was never comfortable in her office. Kind of like her choice of this sculpture to display told me more about her than I really wanted to know.” She glanced at Dave, a little apologetically. “I always think of that when I see it now. And of her. And it makes me uncomfortable. Silly, huh?”
Dave breathed a huge sigh of relief. “No. If I was called to her office and saw this sitting there, I’d have probably assumed that she was coming on to me on some level. That may not be a fair assessment,” he added, “but … ”
She smiled a little. “That’s kind of how I felt. Then I’d get weirded out for thinking that. I mean, maybe it was just a French thing, to have large erotic works displayed prominently in your workplace, and so I’d try to be cool about it and ignore it, but it was kind of hard to ignore.”
“And it made you uncomfortable?”
“Yeah.”
He smiled just a little in relief, “Good. I was just feeling like a prude for standing here and wishing that the two of them would go check into a motel somewhere.” He finally turned to face her. “It’s a beautiful piece, but it takes the public display of affection just a little too far.”