by Hal Bodner
“Couldn’t content yourself with a nice still life, huh? A basket of apples and a bowl of goldfish?”
Nadine grinned, something rare for her, and Alex correctly interpreted it as her really, really liking the piece. Hesitantly, he grinned back.
But suddenly, Nadine was all brittle business. “How soon can we expect more?”
“More?”
Nadine looked at him like he had rocks in his head. “I’ll want twelve...no, make it fifteen. I’ll talk to your publicist about it. Sean can come up with something. I’m thinking maybe we can promote it as an entirely new thing for you. Picasso had his Blue period, right?”
“Nadine, I’m hardly Picasso!”
“True. You’re too close to realism.”
“I meant...”
“I know what you meant,” she snapped. “How many times do I have to warn you not to sell yourself short? Do you know how many artists would kill to be in your position? To get the prices you command? Kiddo, you’ve got to stop thinking of yourself as a dabbler and come to terms with the reality that you are a major artistic voice in contemporary impressionism.”
It was an old argument with her, and one Alex didn’t fancy having again.
“No one, I’m telling you,” she said, “no one had the courage to work backwards like you did. Before Alex Restin came along, the impressionists – well, the decent ones anyway – would have had heart attacks at the way you inject elements of strict realism into your work. This flower here...”
Her finger hovered over a single sprig of morning glory which Alex had rendered in exquisite detail, bursting in crystal clarity from its fellows rendered in a more abstract style.
“Or the line of the boy’s forearm and hand. What is that he’s holding? A map?”
Alex shrugged. He had no idea what he’d intended the torn piece of parchment to be. He knew only that while he was working, something inside him was adamant it had to be there.
“The rubble from this broken vase on the ground. The way you can see the bits and pieces from it scattered in the weeds.” She shook her head. “The thing about a Restin, kiddo, is the remarkable way you include elements of strict realism that somehow heightens the whole impressionist thing in the rest of the work. Lord save me from amateur painters who do the crappy things with the faces and hands coming out of the clouds and such! You do it with these tiny details that seem to make no sense why you chose ’em, and yet somehow they do.”
She rubbed her hands together eagerly. “I’m gonna list it in the mid-six figures and see how it goes. Standard commission for the gallery. I promised Wannamaker dibs on anything I felt was truly spectacular, so if he wants it, I may cut him a little break. You okay with that?”
She didn’t wait for a response before motioning one of her assistants to take the painting into the back room to prepare it for exhibition.
“You have any thoughts on the frame?”
“Something really simple,” Alex suggested. “Or super ornate. D’you still have the one with all the vines worked into the wood? Might be a nice set-off for the garden theme. Just nothing halfway. I think it’s gotta be full throttle one way or the other.”
Nadine nodded, her eyes lingering on the canvas as it was carried away.
“So, March? April, maybe right after Easter? Or should we wait a month so they all get their tax refunds and are eager to spend ’em?”
“Huh?”
She was losing patience with his obtuseness. “For the showing, Alex. For the showing. Fifteen? Maybe a half-dozen in the new style? Most of them should be your tried-and-true, but try to inject some small elements of what’s to come so the critics have something to write about. Progression of style, artistic maturity and all that crap. They just love to be able to impress themselves with the notion that they saw what was coming before the artist did himself. And, maybe you might do one without the pee-pees and butts?”
“There are no pee-pees or butts in this one.” Alex said.
“Don’t get your nylons in an uproar. I’m just saying, do you know how much we could get for an Alex Restin without even partial nudity? I’m talking shirts here, kid.”
“It’s not what I do. How much more than six figures could you possibly need? You can’t spend the money you already have.” As far as Alex was concerned, the matter was closed.
“Painters!” Nadine threw up her hands in disgust, but from knowing her as long as he had, Alex could tell she was doing it more for the dramatic effect than out of any real pique.
“You want tea?”
Alex grinned weakly. The offer of tea indicated Nadine was finished with the business aspects of their relationship and was about to launch into her preferred profession of trying to micromanage his personal life.
“Only if you have something other than that herbal crap you drink.”
“Very expensive herbal crap,” she corrected. “Come on back to the office and we can put our feet up and shmooze.”
For the next five minutes or so, she busied herself running distilled water through the coffee maker and rummaging through one of the cabinets along the office wall and pulling out boxes of tea. Alex insisted on smelling each one until he found a blend less revolting than the ones Nadine preferred. He expected tea to taste like tea and not like someone had just boiled the trimmings from mowing a lawn.
“You go to see Tony today?” she asked once they were settled with their mugs. She pushed a tray of Danish butter cookies across the desk, indicating he should take one, but her question made any appetite he might have had flee.
“Last night.”
She looked at him expectantly and he sighed. “No change, Nadine. The doctors tell me it could go on like this for a while. He’ll either start to come out of it or...”
She shook her head. “How does a healthy young guy like Tony end up completely paralyzed in less than a week, I ask you? Something’s not right with that.” She leaned forward and pointed one arthritic finger at Alex’s chest. “You tell those damned doctors that Nadine said so, you hear? With all the advances in modern medicine, you’d think those quacks could give him an injection or a pill or something...”
It was a familiar tirade and, as usual, Alex’s soul winced at every word.
“It’s some kind of new, mutated virus, Nadine. The regular kind always attacks healthy young men and no one knows why. They think it’s a variant of whatever that guy who wrote Slaughterhouse Five had. Vonnegut.”
“I don’t read,” came Nadine’s flat reply. “Except the trade journals.”
“They don’t even have an actual name for it. They call it acute inflammatory polyneuropathy.” He’d long since memorized the technical term, and though the doctors had explained it to him dozens of times, he still had trouble understanding what it meant, and even more difficulty applying all the ramifications of the disease to Tony’s condition. “But they’re always warning me that they’re not sure. Guess they’re worried about getting sued, huh?” He grinned weakly. “Bottom line is they don’t quite know what Tony has.”
“They got medicines for AIDS,” she shot back. “Why not this?”
Alex shrugged tiredly. “Not enough money for research? Not enough people get it? They just discovered it? Damned if I know. We have to keep his body going artificially and see if he comes out of it.”
“Just like that?” She snapped her fingers sarcastically, clearly meaning she thought the notion was ludicrous.
“Just like that. Joey Caprese took charge, since he and Tony go way back. He thinks that’s the way it’ll work. The Vonnegut disease – the one they already know about –comes on without much warning and leaves the same way. Joey’s hoping this thing follows the same path. Two weeks from now, another six months, two years from now. Nobody can predict when. The longer it takes, the longer he’ll have to be in therapy learning how to walk and stuff, learning how to breathe again.”
“You up for that?” She was concerned, but as a mark of the depth of her affection for Tony,
there was also a note of her daring him to say he wasn’t. “Hospital beds in the house? Nurses around all the time? Strangers coming and going in white lab coats? Cleaning up after him when he can’t use a bedpan?”
“I don’t know.” Alex was quietly miserable. “I just don’t know. But I do know I’m gonna try.”
She patted his knee. “That’s all anyone can ask, kiddo. You know I’ll help however I can.”
Alex didn’t doubt it. If the virus could be personified and made human-sized, he’d bet every last tube of paint that Nadine could harangue and bully it into submission. She shifted uncomfortably in her chair and studiously avoided meeting his eyes with her next question.
“What’s the risk that when he comes out of it, he’ll be...? I mean, he’s in a coma, right? What about brain damage?”
“It’s an induced coma,” he corrected. “Not the normal way they treat this, but because he’s got this weird type, they thought putting him out completely would be best. Brain damage?” He spread his hands to show how helpless he felt. “Again, I just don’t know.”
“Work, Alex. Work will keep you sane, stop you from falling apart. Help you get rid of some of the...” She pounded one fist against her own chest, lacking adequate words to show what she meant. “It’s not the money. Hell, you’re right. Neither of us does this because we need more money. We do it for love. I do what I do because I’m crazy for talent – makes me positively wet. You do it because you’re driven. I keep telling you all the great ones are, kiddo. So if it helps you to cope, I’ll just bite my tongue and sell ’em. Even with the pee-pees and butts.”
“I appreciate it.”
“Soo...” She seemed to hesitate, then typically barged right in. “How are you handling...you know? Six months is a long time to go without.”
Ten over-lacquered fingernails fluttered on her thighs on either side of her crotch.
“Nadine!”
“Don’t jump down my throat. It’s a healthy, normal question.” Her jaw thrust out, belligerent and defensive. “You’re a virile young man, Alex. You have needs. Hell, no one knows better than me how you used to fill those needs before Tony came along – or how often. You’re an artist; you need human contact. Rosy Palm and her five friends are not gonna cut it for you.”
“Jesus, Nadine.” Alex was more flustered than he could remember being in a long time. “I’m not comfortable discussing this with someone old enough to be my mother.”
“More like your grandmother,” she said, grinning. “Seriously, what are you doing for extracurricular? You talk to your therapist about it? I’ll bet you she agrees with me, doesn’t she?”
Reluctantly, Alex nodded. Nadine continued her interrogation relentlessly.
“Corey helping out?”
“Once,” Alex confessed, blushing. “But mostly, I’m not in the mood. No drive. Not with Tony...”
“This is about you, not Tony. Tony’s not missing anything at the moment.”
“Well,” he began, hesitantly. “There are these guys...”
“Guys? As in guy plural?” Now it was Nadine’s turn to be shocked.
“Thirteen of them, actually.” Alex was quite enjoying her discomfort as her penciled-in eyebrows rose a good inch.
“Thirteen?”
Oddly, it wasn’t as difficult as he’d feared it would be to discuss the Zodiac men. Perhaps it was because of the almost familial relationship he had with Nadine. Or perhaps it was because she was female.
“They’re stunningly beautiful. All of them. They’re living with me, in fact.”
He thought the gallery owner might choke on her tea.
“You’re putting me on, right?”
“No,” Alex began, and then decided to save her from the stroke it looked like she was about to have. “And yes.”
He drew the pause out as long as he could, luxuriating in her expectant silence. When Nadine wanted information, it was rare she kept quiet and waited for an answer. Usually she bullied and shouted until she got it.
“The new condo is on the top corner of a building that used to be a library,” he began, once he’d organized his thoughts and decided how he felt most comfortable describing the statues.
“Yeah, yeah. I know that.”
“The main living part is a huge round room with a sort of cupola on top, or a belfry kind of thing. It has a skylight on one side and gigantic windows starting about seven feet from the floor and going up to the bottom of the dome. Between them, are twelve pedestals with...” His memory roved over the details of the men and, wiser after his incident in the ICU, he made sure he held the large mug of tea Nadine had given him was in a strategic position, blocking her view of his crotch.
“With...?” she prompted.
“Art.”
“Art?” From her tone, it was clear Nadine had expected a racier response. “Sculpture, I’m assuming?” She rarely dealt in anything other than paintings and had occasionally offended bothersome sculptors by referring to them as “chipper shredders.”
“Like you’ve never seen.”
Alex leaned forward in his chair. He didn’t know why he’d been so affected by the statues’ presence, but if anyone could understand how deeply he’d been touched by their beauty, it would be Nadine. Yet somehow he found himself reluctant at the thought of inviting her over to examine them for herself. It was almost as if to allow someone who was not as young, as beautiful, and as male as they were would somehow sully and cheapen Alex’s experience. He needed to satisfy her curiosity but not make her want to actually see them.
“The Zodiac. I guess you could call them gargoyles because they’re not all entirely human. Life-sized and incredibly beautiful. Let’s see...Pisces is a merman and Sagittarius, of course, is a centaur.”
“I’m Scorpio,” Nadine told him unnecessarily. God help any of her artists who forgot to make a big deal out of her birthday each November.
“Tattoos,” Alex said dreamily. “A guy maybe my age. Great shape like a gymnast. Covered with these amazing carved tattoos. I haven’t had time to go out and buy a ladder yet so I can get up there and see ’em up close but, the one in the center of his chest is big enough to make out from the floor. It’s a scorpion. And the claws...” Alex held his hands to his own chest to demonstrate. “The claws sort of pinch at each nipple and the tail and the stinger kind of rise up to his throat.”
“Ouch. Sorry I asked.” Nadine crossed her hands on her breast like she was protecting them and made an exaggerated grimace. “My ex-husband was Cancer.”
“Armor. One of those shoulder-plate things on one side. The other has a – what would you call it? A greave? – running up the biceps. His thighs are encased in something similar and, I think, he’s got a sword in one hand.” Alex couldn’t help his flush of arousal at the thought of the metaphoric sword, clearly visible through the sculpted fine mesh of a chain mail loin cloth, that Cancer gripped tightly in his other unencumbered hand.
“I’ve never seen anything like them,” he added. “Though the sculptor was working in the classical style, with all the detail on the dicks and the homo-eroticism, they strike me as being remarkably contemporary work. I checked with the real-estate agent and he can’t find out anything about their origins. The library records were stored in the basement and lost in a fire just before the condo conversion. I’m hoping there’s some kind of artist’s mark on the bases. Gotta remind myself to pick up that ladder.”
“This is your sex life?” Again, it was clear she was more than a little worried about his mental state. “I’ve heard of wanting a stiffie before, but this is ridiculous.”
“It’s better than renting porn.” Alex shrugged. “There’s this amazing vibrancy about them. It’s almost like they are a second away from coming down off the wall and...well, in my...er...fantasies, they do.”
“Hire a hooker.” The advice came in a no-nonsense, practical tone.
“Not my style.”
“Take advantage of Corey, then.”
“Yeah, about ten inches if I read the bathroom walls right.”
“Nadine!”
“Sorry.” She didn’t even have the decency to look embarrassed. “I always distrusted guys who feel they need to stuff socks down the front of their pants.”
“Trust me. It’s real. No socks.”
“Stop,” she said, deadpan. “You’re gonna give me a hot flash.” She paused to take a sip of now tepid tea and made a face at the lack of heat. “Seriously, kiddo. I’m not advising an affair or anything. I know Tony’s gonna be fine, just fine. But, in the meantime, you’ve gotta do something to release all that pent-up...stuff. If not for your sanity, then do it for the sake of the art. You know you don’t work so well when you’re not getting it on a regular basis. Jeez, I remember those three pieces you did when the two of you were on your little honeymoon. I still think they’re some of the best things you ever painted.”
“I’m fine.” Alex stood up to leave. All this talk about the stone men made him eager to get back to them. “Don’t worry about me. I’ve got my gargoyles and my imagination.” He grinned. “That’s more than enough for anyone, right?”
* * * *
The sun had long passed the point where the northern light, so highly prized by most painters, had ceased to illuminate the condo. For Alex, this was not the disadvantage it would at first seem; his paintings had always been created with the idea that they would be best viewed in a muted, indirect light to heighten their dream-like quality. It was one of the many innovations Alex Restin was known for.
Boxes and small crates still littered the huge expanse of the main living area, which also contained Alex and Tony’s bed, carefully placed directly under the center skylight. Alex hoped that once Tony recovered and could be brought home, they would be able to spend long, sultry nights making love under the tender gaze of stars through the paneled glass panes. It was something he longed for but, over the past few days, had begun to doubt would ever happen. The real-estate agent had assumed Alex would use the deep recessed alcove located off the living room as their bedroom, but instead, Alex had decided it should be reserved as Tony’s home office. Besides, the master bathroom had been installed on the other side of the open central space and was much more conveniently located to the area under the skylight. What would eventually be the office was next to what Alex thought might have once been a wet bar. There was a sink, cabinets and a large mirror, but no toilet, bath or shower and, from the center of the living room, it was fully exposed.