She paints until she feels the siren song of the bottle of chilled white wine in the fridge, the glass or two in the late afternoon, which feels both like a complete indulgence and a necessity, for it is then that she finally begins to let go and makes her daily call to Henry, hoping that for once it will not go unanswered. Her calls are bordering on harassment now, since she has not talked to him since the drive home from Vermont. It has been two weeks.
Her heart sinks as once again it goes directly to voice mail.
The following morning, she wakes to driving rain, so instead of taking her walk, she finds herself in the small downtown and then in the independent bookstore on the main street. She has a vague idea of wanting something new to read, a rainy-day book to make her forget what she cannot stop thinking about, which is Henry, whom she is suddenly worried about—what if he stepped off a curb and got struck by a speeding taxi and is in a hospital or, worse, dead? Would anyone have any reason to reach out to tell her?
And while thinking this, Margot finds herself browsing the magazine rack and her eye is drawn to a copy of Art in New England.
Margot opens it and is leafing through when a full-page ad catches her eye. The image is of a woman painting in front of an easel, but the words say “The National Association of Schools of Art and Design is pleased to offer portfolio day, August 4, New York University, New York City. Meet with over thirty graduates of fine arts programs.”
That afternoon she returns home, and with a driving rain smashing against the windows, she lines up all the paintings she has done over the past two years against the white wall in her dining room.
Oh God, Margot thinks, looking them over, they all suck, don’t they? Then she remembers something Henry used to say about not self-editing and that the real courage lies in taking what you have created and spinning it out into the world, letting it speak for itself and knowing that no matter how good you think it is, some will hate it even if others love it. And that none of that matters, when you get right down to it, for you have to learn to separate yourself from the work, even if your soon-to-be ex-husband thinks you are painting vaginas, which you are certainly not.
Margot gets her camera. Methodically she takes photos of every one of her paintings. Later, after she receives the prints, she chooses twenty of them, the ones she admires the most, the paintings that she believes speak most to what she is trying to do, which even for her is hard to try to explain. It is almost as if the paintings represent particular emotions she felt at a specific time, and their abstractness contributes to this idea. Margot goes with her gut and then mounts them carefully on black-matted paper, loving this part of it, the labor of the installation.
On a sunny and mild August morning, Margot takes the train into the city. As the train rocks back and forth on the tracks, she sits looking placidly out the window, clutching her carefully crafted portfolio tightly in her hands, as if someone might try to steal it from her. It is late morning and the train is half empty, most of the commuters having already arrived at Grand Central hours before. Nevertheless, there is a mix of men in suits going into work late and women ten years younger than she with bored children. Across from her is an old woman with a run in her stockings, gripping the metal pole in front of her with her small hands. Margot moves her eyes from the woman’s legs up to her face and is startled to see the woman staring back at her, grimacing, as if she is in pain. Margot quickly looks away and wonders if she wears a similar look.
Is she a fool? Oh, maybe she should just get off at Harrison, the next stop, and turn around and go home. But then Margot steels herself. No, she must do this.
Soon she is out in the city and walking with the portfolio under her arm, and it feels good to walk, the sense of purpose. She stops once to check her phone to make sure she has the address right. The event is at NYU, some art auditorium, and it is not lost on her that the university is where Henry works, though she also knows it is a huge place.
As she enters the auditorium, the sea of people threatens to overwhelm her and she suddenly feels dizzy, and it takes all of her focus to move over to the registration table on her left and stand in line. Looking around at the other artists also holding similar portfolios, Margot thinks she has made a huge mistake. They are all half her age at least, and she looks like someone’s mother. A boy in front of her with giant tribal hoops exploding through his earlobes turns around to look at her, and on his shoulder is a rat. At first she thinks it must be fake, but then it turns its narrow face toward Margot and she takes a quick step backward, causing people behind her to laugh.
Margot takes a deep breath, and in a moment the line deposits her at the registration table.
“Margot Baldwin,” she says, and then corrects herself, remembering that now she is using her maiden name. “Fuller. Margot Fuller.”
Soon she is drifting through the crowd to the tables with the big numbers above them, young people all around her moving like sheep through the large, well-lit room. Minutes later, she is sitting across from two men, one bald, with a huge gray beard, and the other slender and clean-shaven, with blocky black glasses.
“Show us what you have,” the bearded one says.
Margot opens the portfolio in front of them. She slowly goes through it.
Blocky Glasses says, “It’s very interesting what you are doing. All this play. The way you use light. Let me ask you something. You ever think of taking it off the wall?”
Margot feels like she should know what this means, but she doesn’t. “I’m sorry?”
“You know, an installation. Greater dimensionality. Perhaps even something time based. Painting is so … well, you know.”
“Yes,” she says, though she has no idea.
It is at her third critique, this time in front of a woman with long gray hair from a school in Vermont, that she finally feels comfortable.
“Oh, I like what you are doing,” the woman says.
“Really?”
“Yes. There is such intentionality here. And confidence. You can just see it in the brushstrokes. Would you describe yourself as methodical?”
Margot nods. “I think so.”
“I want to see what you do when you let go,” the woman tells her. “The talent is obvious. But the work feels constrained to me. If you were to work with me, I would want you to reach deeper, and I think there is the potential for real power.”
An hour later, Margot walks out into the bright sunshine. It is indescribable how she feels, like layers of an onion have been peeled away from her and she is both suddenly raw and very much alive. She wants a drink. This has been a triumph in her opinion, a significant one, and she wants to share it with someone.
Henry, she thinks, I need to see Henry. And she stops on the street then and Googles him with her phone, looking for where his office might be, for could he be there? She is already at NYU.
And then she is walking several blocks to Green Street, and the miracle that is the phone tells her exactly where to go, and soon she is right in front of the town house that houses NYU’s creative writing program. Inside the doorway, there is a directory, and she sees that his office is on the second floor. The place seems mostly empty, apart from a few voices she can hear somewhere on the first floor, and Margot bounds up the carpeted stairs.
She is in a narrow hallway that curves around to the right and she follows it, and the third door is marked HENRY GOLD. The door is closed and the white erasable board on it contains a note in Henry’s handwriting: I might or might not be back.
“Are you looking for Henry?” a voice says suddenly, and Margot turns and sees a slender black man with big red glasses on.
“Yes,” Margot says.
The man looks her quickly up and down. “Are you a friend?”
“Yes,” Margot says, and she doesn’t like this question, as if he knows something terrible and is about to tell her. Henry’s note has unnerved her, though it could be entirely innocent, couldn’t it? The kind of thing Henry would write as a jo
ke?
“Oh,” the man says, looking over at the note. “He hasn’t come here in weeks. I was thinking of trying Ruth, his ex-wife, later to see if she had heard from him. I was starting to get worried. It’s not like him. I mean, he disappears up to Vermont, but he always tells us. Were you supposed to meet him here?”
“No,” says Margot. “He wasn’t … He wasn’t expecting me. I hope he’s okay.”
“I’m sure he is,” the man says.
“Okay,” Margot says, and then adds, “Thank you.”
Back out in the sunshine, Margot is in a panic. She looks up the narrow street for a moment and tries to collect herself. Where is the best place to get a cab uptown? Before she can think, she is running toward Houston Street, and when she reaches a corner, a yellow cab streams by and she raises her hand. And, thank God, he stops.
“Ninety-second and West End,” she says. “And hurry. Please.”
“West Side Highway?” the man asks.
“Yes,” Margot says. “Please.”
They go down a maze of side streets, and at one point the car has to stop dead because a truck in front of them is being unloaded and is blocking the entire street. Morbid images enter her mind: Henry all alone. Henry taking a handful of pills and swallowing them with a stiff drink, Henry doing the unthinkable, the poet choosing to leave this world dramatically. She thinks she might be sick.
Then they are moving again, and once they hit the highway, it is wide open at midday and they are speeding, with the Hudson on her left, past the giant aircraft carrier, and she catches glimpses of midtown through the cross streets, and then they are turning onto Ninety-second, and she thrusts a ten and a twenty at the driver when he pulls over, and he says, “Need change?” but Margot is already out the door.
Margot runs up the sidewalk, and right before she reaches Henry’s building, she sees a man coming out of it and she says, “Wait,” and he stops and looks at her, this middle-aged woman running madly at him.
He is around her age, tall, wearing a suit, his hair full and silver. “You okay?” he asks.
“Can you let me in the building?” Margot says breathlessly. “I’m worried about my friend.”
“Who’s your friend?”
“Henry Gold.”
“I know Henry. The teacher.”
“Is he okay?”
“I think so. I don’t know. Haven’t seen him, to tell you the truth.”
“Can you let me in? Please?”
Margot sees the man considering. He has kind eyes. He is looking at her as if trying to assess if she is insane. A moment later, he says, “You can buzz his apartment.”
“Please just let me in,” Margot says. “I’ve known Henry a long time.”
“All right,” the man says.
Margot is through the lobby and into the elevator and then riding it up to the fourteenth floor. The old box creaks as it goes, settling and then moving again, and her stomach sinks as it slowly lurches, until finally it opens and she is down the hallway to his door.
There is a buzzer, but Margot knocks loudly. “Henry,” she says, “Henry, open the door; it’s Margot.”
Margot knocks again, this time frantically. “Henry, please. If you’re in there, let me in in, please.”
And then she hears a click and the door opens. Henry stands in front of her. He is a mess, his hair unkempt, jeans and a T-shirt on, barefoot, but more than that, there is the look in his eyes, slightly wild and manic, like he has been sleeping outside.
“Oh, Henry,” Margot says. “I was worried. You wouldn’t answer. I went to your office and I saw your note and I didn’t know…”
Henry shrugs. “I’ve been working.”
Henry turns his back to her and drifts back into the small apartment. Margot follows him, shutting the door behind her, and she is hit immediately by the overwhelming smell of Chinese food. The countertop that separates the little galley kitchen from the living room is littered with takeout containers, dozens of them, some stacked on top of each other, others still open. There are clothes on the floor. The lone window, straight ahead and looking west toward the river between buildings, has a visible covering of dust that diffuses the sunlight.
“When’s the last time you were outside?” Margot asks.
Henry smiles wanly. “I have no idea. Days? Sorry about the mess. I’ve been writing.”
“I didn’t think you would let me in,” Margot says.
Henry ignores this. He goes over to the small desk near the window. It is covered with papers. He picks one up off the top and takes it over to where Margot stands, the few feet she has walked since he opened the door. He motions to the brown couch to her left, a coffee table in front of it.
“Sit down,” he says. Margot can feel the energy washing off of him.
She does as Henry asks. She sits on the couch. He looms above her and then thrusts the single sheet of paper into her hands. Margot looks up at him.
“Read it,” Henry says. “Please.”
“Okay.”
Margot looks down at the paper.
Native Son, 2012
You come to me fully born
Like something out of mythology
Not a child or the infant you once must have been
Rather like the story Aristophanes told to Plato
A child of the sun, of course
Separated from me at birth
Clutching your mother’s rib in your tiny fist
Raising it in the air as a man
And wondering if you will know me when you see me
Broken twins, the two of us
Love palpable and scouring the plains
And the forests
And the cities of dreams
Until that final day
When I look into your unchanging eyes
And see myself.
When Margot looks up, she is weeping. Henry has his back to her, having moved to the window, but then he turns toward her and strides back.
“It’s beautiful,” she says. “I am so sorry.”
“I know.”
“It’s really beautiful.”
“I’m going to have a drink. You want one?”
“What time is it?” Margot asks.
“Does it matter?”
“I guess not.”
Henry pads into the kitchen. Margot hears the sound of glasses, ice, the pop of a bottle releasing its suction. A moment later, Henry is back with a glass, which he hands to her.
“Vodka,” he says. “Sorry. All I have left.”
Henry sits down next to her on the couch. Margot sips the vodka. At least it’s cold. For a moment, they don’t say anything.
“I saw him, you know,” Henry says.
“Who?”
“Alex.”
“Wait. What? Where?”
“Don’t worry, I didn’t say anything to him. I just wanted to see him.”
“Where?”
“At the Flatiron. I waited for him to come out. I just needed to see him with my own eyes.”
“Oh my God, Henry,” Margot says.
Henry shrugs. Margot looks over at him. His eyes are wet and his face looks so drawn, like that of someone who has been through an exhaustive medical procedure.
“I am so sorry,” Margot says.
“I know,” says Henry.
“What did you think?”
“He’s more beautiful than I could ever put into words.”
Margot looks away and she starts to cry. She doesn’t want to look at Henry now, for the guilt is more than she can bear. She cries. And Henry doesn’t say anything else. They sit in silence. Margot looks around the small, sad apartment. The air is close and there is the slightly sweet, slightly acrid smell of all the Chinese food. Then Margot cannot help it: Between the tears, she starts to laugh. At first it’s just a giggle and then she is laughing.
“What?” Henry says.
“This place is so fucking gross,” she says, laughing. “It’s worse than anything in co
llege.”
Henry looks around and nods. The look on his face is almost prideful.
“Yes, it is,” he says, and now they are both laughing, and suddenly a siren wails outside, the city sound she has never gotten used to, and at once they both look toward the window and then back at each other.
Henry, 2012
His collection comes out in October, his first in more than a dozen years. His editor at Wesleyan University Press rushes it to publication because, after reading it, she thinks it could compete for the major prizes.
“We’re going to submit it to everyone, Henry,” she says. “It’s that important. Pulitzer. Everyone. I can’t tell how you excited we all are.”
On a cool early-fall night, Henry drives north to Middletown, where the English Department at Wesleyan has invited him to do a reading, and the press is throwing him a book party after.
Getting dressed earlier for it, he put on his jeans and his white shirt and threw a tweed blazer over it and then slipped on brown wing tips. He had this moment of awareness looking at himself in the mirror, a shard of memory of him a lifetime ago in his baseball uniform, and thinking, That is how it is now. We all still wear uniforms. Behold, everyone, the academic poet.
An hour later, Henry stands backstage, behind a curtain with two members of the English faculty. On the stage now, a student is reading, a young Indian girl he met briefly before she went onstage. She was selected to read before he does. Unlike his own experience at Bannister many years ago, she was remarkably self-assured when he met her. She seemed pleased to meet him but was far from intimidated or nervous about having to go out first. From here, he can hear the sound of her voice, capable and with perfect, clear diction, though her words come to him in snatches.
“You ready, Henry?” his editor, Suzanne, asks.
“Sure.”
Suzanne goes out first and Henry opens the curtain slightly from the side so he can hear her. He hears his name: “Henry Gold.” He hears: “Yale Younger Poet. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Iowa Review,” and on and on. “He holds the Wilhelm Chair in Poetry at New York University. Please join me in welcoming … Henry Gold.”
If I Forget You Page 17