“Thank you.” Carla smiled again. Teresa had seen that smile many times before. It rarely failed. “I don’t suppose you’d like to come out for the party? The more the merrier.”
“I don’t think that would be possible.”
“Too bad,” Carla said. “Well, if you change your mind, Teresa has my number. Bye now.” Carla vanished from the screen and Ian’s face filled it once again.
Teresa laughed. “Carla never changes.”
“I don’t understand,” Ian said.
“She was flirting with you,” Teresa said.
“I don’t understand.”
“Oh, come on, Ian. She invited you to the party because she thinks you’re cute. She wanted you to smile and flirt back a little.”
“How do you flirt?”
“I don’t know. You smile, you tell jokes, you talk about this and that. It’s not so much what you say, it’s what’s going on under the surface that really matters.”
“When you and I joke, are we flirting?”
Teresa hesitated for a moment, feeling suddenly uncomfortable. “I guess maybe sometimes we are. Sometimes, I guess I forget that you’re a… that you’re just a…” She couldn’t find the right word.
“An artificial intelligence,” Ian said.
“Yeah. I guess I—I think of you as a friend, Ian. Sometimes people flirt with their friends.”
“I understand. I’m glad we’re friends.”
“Yeah.” She studied his face, looking for flaws in the animation. She found none. She had grown used to seeing him as a person, and she could see him no other way. That was what Jeff had wanted. “Look—I’d better give Carla a call.”
She dialed Carla and her friend answered on the fourth ring. Carla was wearing an old purple sweatshirt and sitting in a white wicker chair. Before Teresa could say anything, Carla was talking.
“Well, I was wondering when you’d call back. So, who was that guy who answered the phone?”
Teresa considered telling Carla the truth, but she somehow didn’t want to explain Ian. “That’s Ian. He’s a friend of Jeff’s. He’s taking care of stuff around the house while I work on that piece for Santa Fe. The deadline’s coming up, you know.”
“A friend of Jeff’s, huh.”
“Yeah—and a friend of mine.”
Carla shook her head. “Jeff’s a trusting soul.”
“What do you mean?”
“Leaving you alone with Ian all day?” Carla shook her head. “He’s the type that’ll steal your heart, all right.”
Teresa shook her head. The conversation made her uncomfortable. “Not Ian.”
“What, is he gay or something?”
She shook her head again, “No, just”—she considered the word carefully—”unavailable. Besides, I just got back from my honeymoon, and—”
“—and Jeff is working late every night,” Carla interrupted. “You sounded pretty miserable in your last letter. No offense, Teresa, but it was grim. And face it—Ian’s just your type. I can recognize ‘em a mile off. More your type than Jeff is.”
“Hey, I’m a married woman now.”
“You’re married, but you’re not dead. And Ian’s awfully cute.”
Teresa knew that Carla was giving her the chance to complain about Jeff and talk about Ian, but she ignored the bait. She wanted Carla to drop the subject. “Things weren’t going very well on the sculpture when I sent that last letter. It’s going better now.”
“Is Jeff home yet?”
“No, he’s still at work. They’re in some crucial phase of the project, and he hasn’t been around much lately.”
“And you don’t mind that?”
“Not really.” Teresa realized that, for the first time in a while, she wasn’t upset when Jeff stayed late at work. It wasn’t like she was alone all the time.
Carla stared at Teresa in a moment of rare silence. Then she said, “So —are you coming out here for the party?”
“I’d like to, but I don’t know if Jeff can spare the time.”
“Come without him then. Fly in for the weekend—you deserve some time off. Come out and stay with me.”
“I guess I could use a break.”
“Great—I’ll count on it.”
“It’ll be good to see you,” Teresa said. “So tell me about what’s been happening out there. What are people working on?” Teresa relaxed and listened to Carla talk about the doings of mutual friends. It would be good to get away for a while, she thought. She wasn’t quite sure what she wanted to get away from, but she pushed away the question and focused on Carla.
* * * *
For most of a day, Teresa made minor adjustments in the sculpture: tightening a metal plate that didn’t sound quite right, changing the slope of a track by a tiny amount. She was killing time and she knew it, but she couldn’t figure out what else to do. The sculpture sounded fine—it echoed the rainstorm, a metallic version of rain on sand. That was the sound she had wanted, but now she found herself vaguely dissatisfied. The more she listened, the less she liked it.
Eventually, she stopped trying to figure out what was bothering her and started working on all the little jobs that she had been avoiding. She added six lifters and a motor to the sculpture’s base, then positioned the foot of each track so that eight balls ended up at each of the six lifters.
After two days, the new parts were installed and ready to go. She loaded the balls into the lifters, turned on the motor, and watched as the lifters rose slowly up the side of the sculpture. When they reached the top, the lifters tipped forward and released the balls into their starting positions, and the sculpture began to play. She sat beside it and listened as the sounds washed over her studio.
That night, Jeff got home from work around nine. She hadn’t seen much of him lately: he had been staying late at work and leaving the house in the morning before she was awake. She told herself that she hadn’t had a chance to mention Carla’s party to him, but she knew that she hadn’t really wanted to. She was sure that he wouldn’t be interested in going. But that evening she couldn’t put it off any longer, and she told him about the invitation. To her surprise, Jeff was willing to take the time off work to go to the party.
They flew into San Francisco Airport on Friday night, rented a car, and drove directly out to the Headlands Art Center. On the plane, she found herself feeling awkward with him. He had been home so little lately that it was like traveling with a stranger. She couldn’t shake the feeling.
The party at the Headlands was just like old times—an assortment of artists and would-be artists, a cooler filled with beer, California jug wine served in paper cups, chips dumped hastily into bowls from the potter’s studio downstairs, guacamole dip from the burrito place near Carla’s apartment. Just like old times.
She mingled with the crowd, telling friends what she’d been doing, describing the piece she was working on for Santa Fe. As she talked about her work, she grew more and more excited about it, her own interest reawakened by the support of her friends. Ned, a fellow sculptor, listened to her description of the pivoting hands. She hadn’t been entirely happy with the pivoting mechanism. On a napkin, he sketched a few ideas that might solve the problem. She sat in a corner with Brenda, a musician, and talked about the overall shape of the composition.
Eventually, she retreated to the rickety wooden fire escape that Carla had dubbed the smoking porch. From there she could hear the crash of the surf over the party music. Through the window, she could look in to the party. Jeff was sitting in the far corner with a couple of men she knew vaguely. They both worked with synthesizers and computer music. The three men seemed to be having an animated conversation.
“Getting a breath of fresh air?” Carla said from the doorway. “Mind if I keep you company for a while?” She stepped onto the porch and closed the door lightly behind her.
Teresa shrugged. “I may not be very good company, I’m afraid.”
“Yeah? What’s going on?”
“It’s just strange coming back. I realized how much I miss having you folks around. I’ve been feeling pretty isolated, I guess.”
“You should get in touch with some artists out in Flagstaff. That’s only about an hour away from your place, isn’t it?”
She thought about the gallery opening. “Yeah. I guess that might help.”
“Yeah, but that’s not the real problem, is it?” Carla studied Teresa’s face. “Something going on between you and Jeff?”
Teresa shrugged. “It’s more like nothing’s going on. At first, he didn’t have time for me. Now it seems like I don’t have much to say to him.”
“Is something going on with this Ian guy?”
“No, nothing’s going on.”
Carla studied her. “Look, I recognize all the signals. You may not be sleeping with him, but something’s going on.” Carla leaned on the railing, looking toward the beach. “Jeff’s never around, so you’ve been spending time with this cute guy. He’s unavailable—but you hang out together. You talk and you flirt, and now you’ve suddenly realized that you’re infatuated with him, and you don’t know what to do about it.” Carla glanced at her. “Oh, don’t bother to deny it. I know how you operate, and you’re feeling guilty.” She waited for a moment. “Am I close?”
Teresa leaned on the railing beside Carla. “Maybe. It’s hard to say.”
“So, what are you going to do about it?”
“I don’t know.”
“What about Jeff?”
“What about Jeff? I don’t know what’s going on with him. He’s all caught up in his work; he doesn’t seem to care anymore.”
“Well I’ll bet he doesn’t know what’s going on with you.”
Teresa started to deny it, then stopped herself. “Maybe not.”
“Count on it. You’re really good at shutting people out when you don’t want to deal with them.”
“I am?”
Carla shook her head. “Hey, think about it this way—would we be having this conversation if I hadn’t started it?”
“Probably not,” Teresa admitted.
“Definitely not.” Carla put her arm around Teresa’s shoulders. “It’s okay—you just need a little pushing, that’s all. And Jeff may not know how.”
Teresa stared out at the dark beach, avoiding her friend’s eyes.
The door to the studio opened and the noise of the party poured out. “Carla,” a man called. “I’ve been looking all over for you.”
Carla dragged Teresa back into the party, and for a while she drank wine and pretended to have a good time. The party ended at around two, and Jeff drove the rental car back to Carla’s apartment. Carla was a little drunk and a little high. She rode in the back seat, humming along to the tunes on the radio. Teresa felt depressingly sober, despite the wine she had drunk.
At the apartment, Carla unfolded the sofa bed and then went to her room. As Teresa was undressing, she caught Jeff watching her intently. “What’s up?” she asked him.
He shrugged. “I was going to ask you the same thing. Is something wrong?”
She kept her face carefully neutral. What could she say? She didn’t know how to talk to him, she didn’t know where to start. She felt shut out of his life and divorced from her own. It all sounded like accusations, and she didn’t want to get into it. “I’m fine,” she said. “Just tired, I guess.”
“You’ve been working hard. But it seems like your work is going better, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, I guess so.” She shook her head. “I just don’t want to talk right now, okay?”
“Fine.” He turned away. “If that’s what you want.”
It was what she wanted, but she found herself wide awake, lying beside Jeff and listening to his rhythmic breathing. Though she was tired, she couldn’t drift off to sleep. She got out of bed and went to the kitchen. Carla’s light was out. Teresa sat at the kitchen table and then, on a whim, picked up the phone and dialed home.
When Ian’s face appeared on the screen, she immediately felt better. “Hi, Ian,” she said. “I just called to see how you were doing. I missed talking with you.”
“It’s nice to hear from you. I missed you, too.”
“Sure you did.”
He studied her calmly. “I did. You’re the most important person in my life. When you’re not here, there’s an empty place.”
“Thanks.”
Ian smiled. “My pleasure. Did you have fun at the party?”
“Yeah, I guess. I realized how much I missed my friends out here. It was great to talk to some other artists about my work. I wish I knew more artists out in Arizona.”
Ian hesitated. “There’s an artists’ cooperative in the Flagstaff area. I have the address on file.”
Teresa grinned. “Sometimes I think you have everything on file. I’ll take a look when I get back. But not right now. Right now, I just want to talk. Heard any new jokes lately?”
They didn’t really talk about anything important—they just chatted about this and that—but she felt better by the time she hung up.
Jeff was lying still when she came back to bed. She sat on the edge of the fold-out couch, ready to slip under the covers.
“Who were you talking to on the phone?” he asked her softly.
She froze. Light from a street lamp filtered through the curtains. His features were smudges of shadow, unreadable in the dim light. “I thought you were asleep.”
“I’ve been awake for a while now. I felt you get up, and I couldn’t go back to sleep.” He sat up in bed, and the shadows on his face shifted. He was silent for a moment, and then he spoke. “We’ve got to talk.”
“About what?” she said, keeping her tone light.
He was quiet, and she wanted to run away. “I’ve been leaving you alone too much,” he said. “Because I wasn’t there when you needed me, you found someone else.” It was a simple statement of fact, not an accusation. “You’re seeing someone.”
“No, I’m not,” she said. She turned away from him, folding her arms protectively across her chest.
“You’re in love with someone else.”
She tried to feel angry with him, indignant at his accusations, but the anger wouldn’t come.
“I’ve been so caught up in my own work that it took me a while to notice, but these days, when I talk to you, you’re thinking of someone else. You get up at night and don’t come back to bed until morning. You’ve got secrets—sometimes I’m afraid to ask you the simplest question. When I do ask—about your work, about your day—you answer in a word or two, and I’m afraid to ask again. We used to talk about your work —but you don’t want to anymore.”
She wished she felt angry. Anger would protect her from the great sadness that threatened to overwhelm her.
“Who is it?” he asked.
She shook her head. “No one.”
He waited, watching her face. “Someone you met at that gallery opening,” he said. She didn’t respond. “I don’t have to know,” he said at last. “But you have to tell me—are you leaving me?” He put his hands gently on her shoulders. She tensed at his touch. “Talk to me, Teresa.”
She would not look at him. “I don’t know. I don’t think so. No—no, I’m not leaving.”
He put his arms around her. “I don’t want to lose you. You have to talk to me. Please.”
“I can’t talk about it,” she said. “I don’t—” Her voice broke.
“Do you still love me?”
She could feel the beating of his heart as he embraced her, the warmth of his body against hers. “Sometimes,” she said. “But sometimes…” She put her hand to her face, trying to hide her tears. She did not want to cry. “Sometimes, I feel like you don’t even see me. I feel like I’m not even there. You think you can go away when you want and come back when you want, and I’d still be there, just waiting. You can’t do that. I need…” She shook her head, upset by the burst of words. She had lost control. Her protection was gone. He could see how weak a
nd stupid she really was. She had always known that it was dangerous to reveal herself.
“I’m sorry, Teresa. I’m sorry I wasn’t there when you needed me.” He rubbed her shoulders gently. “I screwed up. But you have to tell me what’s going on. You can’t just clam up and expect me to figure it out. It doesn’t work that way.”
“I’m sorry too,” she said. She felt his body pressed against her. It seemed like a long time since he had held her close. She shivered in his embrace.
He stopped rubbing her shoulders. “You’re cold—I can feel you shaking. Come on—get under the covers.”
Full Spectrum 3 - [Anthology] Page 12