True Colors

by Judith Arnold

  ***

  Stan Weisner seemed delighted to see Max hovering in the open doorway to his office. “Finally, you’re going to take me out to dinner,” Max’s old professor said, his mane of curls shimmering like polished silver springs in the glare of the fluorescent fixture in the ceiling—a fixture that reminded Max of the equally harsh lighting in that room Emma was so thrilled about turning into a studio.

  Max had found Stan at his desk, finishing up some work before he left campus for the evening. After apologizing for having passed on dinner the other night, Max had insisted on taking Stan out tonight. Stan had phoned his wife to inform her of his dinner plans, and he was beaming when he hung up the phone. “She’s thrilled,” he said. “If I went home for dinner, she’d have to prepare a real meal. Instead, she’ll just open a can of something and read a book while she eats. Should I let El Presidente know you’re back in town? We could stop at his house for a drink if you’d like.”

  Max didn’t want to socialize with the university’s president. He didn’t want to be fawned over and thanked for his generosity. What he really wanted to do was hole up in his room at the Hyatt Regency, just a few blocks up Memorial Drive from the campus, and lose himself in a bottle of vodka. Russian psychotherapy, his father used to call it.

  But he owed Stan a better visit than the one they’d had a few days ago, when Max had wound up taking over Stan’s comp-sci class and then had raced back to Brogan’s Point to see Emma. And he owed himself the opportunity to think about something—someone­­—other than her.

  She’d been right to blow up at him, even if she’d blown up at him for the wrong reason. She didn’t know the right reason. She didn’t know that he hadn’t come clean with her, that he hadn’t told her who he truly was, that he hadn’t revealed to her how insignificant the house and her meager rental payments were to him. He hadn’t trusted her enough to tell her. He owned that mistake.

  She’d made it clear, when she’d stormed out of the Faulk Street Tavern, that she was in no mood to repair their barely begun, terribly fragile relationship. Perhaps he should have chased after her, imposed himself on her, forced her to listen…to what? His confession about having more money than any human being could ever possibly spend in a lifetime? His explanation that he’d shifted most of that money to his foundation—and still had more than he needed to live in luxury for the next hundred years? His revelation that the last woman he’d loved had left him when he told her he’d used most of his fortune to set up a foundation instead of spending it on her?

  Emma didn’t lust after his money. She didn’t even know about his money. He’d learned not to discuss his wealth, certainly not with anyone he knew as little as he knew Emma.

  Yet when he looked at her, when he touched her, when he kissed her…he felt a deeper knowing. Like that enchanting song, he felt that he saw her true colors. Those true colors implied that Emma was the sort of person who would like him not more but less, once she knew how rich he was.

  That didn’t compute. People loved money. They loved wealth, and luxury, and not having to scrimp and scrape to get by. They loved not having to worry about finding an affordable place to live and work. Why should Max believe Emma was different?

  It was the song he didn’t trust—not Emma but the song, which had given him the absurd belief that he could see something in Emma that probably wasn’t there.

  If he didn’t trust her, he didn’t trust himself even more. He’d misread Vanessa so utterly, why should he assume he’d suddenly developed the ability to comprehend women’s minds and souls?

  He and Stan strolled up Mass Avenue, chatting about Stan’s students, his final stretch of classes before the exam period began, his usual gripes concerning the challenges of securing grants to fund his research. They paused at each restaurant they encountered, scrutinizing the posted menus and peering inside. Eateries Max remembered from his student days, when he’d had no money to dine out, looked less tempting today than they had when they’d been beyond his reach. Now, no restaurant in the entire country was beyond his reach.

  Eventually, he and Stan found a menu that appealed to them. Fortunately, the restaurant was able to seat them without a reservation.

  “Enough about me,” Stan declared, once the beers they’d ordered had been delivered to their table. “What’s going on with you? Still enjoying being the richest man on the planet?”

  “No,” Max said, not having to think. He wasn’t the richest man on the planet, not by a long shot. And since he’d divested himself of so much of his wealth when he’d established the foundation, he technically wasn’t as rich as most people assumed he was. But he was rich. And at the moment, he didn’t enjoy it.

  Stan chuckled. “Fund my research,” he joked. “Let me lighten your load.”

  “Submit something to Janet,” Max suggested. “As a rule, we don’t fund university research, but for you I could make an exception.”

  “Nah, that’s all right.” Stan waved his hand as if erasing Max’s words from the air between them. “I’ll get my funding on my own. We don’t want people accusing you of playing favorites with your foundation. And here we are, talking about me instead of you again.” Stan drank some more beer and leaned back in his chair. “Tell me why a guy who should be on top of the world looks like he’s on his way home from a funeral.”

  Max managed a chuckle. “Do I look that bad?”

  “On a ten-point glum scale, I’d score you at least a nine. I thought this was supposed to be an easy trip for you. Divest yourself of some real estate, visit your old stomping grounds, let MIT throw rose petals at your feet, and humor your old honors advisor.” He leaned forward, suddenly frowning. “You didn’t come back east for a funeral, did you?”

  “No. No, I’m fine.” The waitress returned to their table, and Max gave the menu a perfunctory glance before ordering a steak. He had no appetite, but he had to eat.

  Once the waitress had gathered their menus and departed, Stan studied Max more closely in the muted lighting of the restaurant. “So, what’s the problem? Anything I can help you with?”

  “I doubt it,” Max said, realizing as soon as he’d spoken that his words implied there was a problem. Not a major disclosure; Stan had already figured out as much.

  A weighted silence stretched between them, lasting until the waitress returned with their salads. Max knew he had to say something. Stan was his friend. During the four years Max had been at MIT, Stan had been practically a father figure. Max had confided in him about his money woes—back then, he’d been juggling a scholarship, a loan and two jobs, both tutoring fellow students and washing dishes in one of the campus refectories. When one of his roommates started self-medicating his depression with copious amounts of pot and booze, Max had asked Stan for guidance. When Max’s mother had been diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer, Stan had offered him reassurances, steered him to useful medical websites, and given him enough money to buy a bus ticket to New York so he could see her after her surgery.

  He hadn’t confided in Stan about girlfriend woes, because he hadn’t had many girlfriends as an undergraduate. MIT’s computer science department hadn’t been overflowing with female students when he’d been there. He’d dated a Wellesley student for a while, and he’d been quite infatuated with a Smith girl who’d decided, after a few months, that her two-hour drives to Cambridge to visit him were wearing her out. But while he’d been passionate about his research, he’d never actually been in love with a woman. Not until Vanessa.

  He wasn’t in love with Emma, either. The very idea was preposterous.

  “Here’s the thing,” he said, unsure of what he was going to say until the words flowed past his lips and into the air. “There’s a jukebox in Brogan’s Point.”

  “A jukebox.” Stan accepted Max’s statement with a curious nod. “I haven’t seen one of those in ages.”

  “This one looks like an antique, something you’d see in a black-and-white movie from decades ago. It plays old
songs.” Max shook his head, aware of how strange he must sound to Stan. “I think it put a spell on me.”

  Stan erupted in laughter. “Like Voodoo? Come on, Max. You’re a rational guy.”

  “Some things defy rationality.” Max shrugged. “The jukebox played this song, and the next thing I knew, this woman and I… Well. It’s stupid. I don’t want to go into it.”

  “What song?” Stan grinned mischievously. “Maybe it’ll work on my wife.”

  “No. Really. It’s silly.”

  “What was that really hot disco song? ‘Love to Love You, Baby.’ Oh, man.” Stan’s smile softened, growing nostalgic. “Very erotic. Or ‘When a Man Loves a Woman.’ The original version. Percy Sledge.”

  “‘True Colors,’” Max told him.

  “What? Wasn’t that song used in a commercial? I sort of remember—cameras, or film, something like that.”

  “It must have been a long time ago,” Max said. “Do cameras still use film?”

  “So, tell me about this spell.”

  “I’m embarrassed,” Max admitted. “I’m a scientist. I believe in facts, data. Things I can see.”

  “And yet,” Stan argued, “music can put a spell on people. I don’t know about a camera commercial, but some music…a Bach fugue, for instance. It’s mathematical, but also emotional. Or Debussy. You listen to Clair de Lune and you can actually see the reflection of a full moon in a pond. Or Percy Sledge singing, ‘When a Man Loves a Woman.’ My wife used to throw herself at me when she heard that song. I ought to dig out the CD and see if it still has that effect on her.” He paused to butter a hunk of bread and take a bite. “‘True Colors.’ Okay. What did this spell make you do with the woman?”

  Fall for her. Fall and fall and fall, like Alice tumbling down the rabbit hole. A whimsical fantasy story to go with the whimsical fantasy that hearing a pretty pop tune in the presence of Emma Glendon could turn his soul inside out and upside down.

  “She’s an artist,” he said. “A painter. We have nothing in common.”

  Stan dismissed this with a snort.

  “I offered to help her out a little, financially. She was insulted. She acted as if she thought I was trying to buy her.”

  “She sounds like she’s got integrity. See? You and she have that much in common.”

  “I have no integrity,” Max muttered. He’d treated her like a recalcitrant tenant, and then like a hot mama. He’d had sex with her for no better reason than that he’d wanted to and she’d made herself available. He’d refused to tell her the truth about himself.

  “Don’t get all Russian on me,” Stan chided. “I know pessimism and depression are part of your ethnic make-up, but you’ve been in the U.S. since you were old enough to stop sucking your thumb. Russian gloom doesn’t suit you.”

  Max sighed. “Maybe she’s just too good for me.”

  “That I can believe,” Stan teased, then turned as the waitress approached with their entrees. “Ah, steak. If that doesn’t dispel your mood, Mahk-SEEM, then I’m shipping you back to St. Petersburg.”

  The steak, along with a second beer, did cheer Max a bit. Or maybe it was simply Stan’s jovial personality. When they parted ways at the Kendall Square T stop, Stan to head for home, Max contemplated returning to Brogan’s Point. By now, the Hyatt ought to be used to his making reservations and then not keeping them.

  But as he strolled to the hotel overlooking the Charles River, he thought better of returning to Brogan’s Point tonight. Stan had nearly convinced him that there was nothing crazy about being bewitched by a song—even a song used as the soundtrack for a TV commercial about photographic film—and that a healthy, red-blooded man couldn’t be blamed for jumping the bones of a gorgeous, red-haired painter.

  Not jumping her bones. Making love to her.

  That was the catch, the thing that brought his spirits back down. He and Emma had made love. Kissing her, filling her, coming inside her—it had meant something.

  He should have told her the truth about himself. Instead, he’d more or less thrown money at her.

  He couldn’t go back to Brogan’s Point, not until he was ready to come clean with her. Maybe she would love him because he was rich and she would appreciate access to his money. Maybe she would hate him because he could buy and sell her a million times over.

  Lose-lose.

  It would probably be best just to fly back to San Francisco, forget about the house, forget about Emma. Forget about a shimmering song that claimed to be about seeing the truth but had in fact lured him down a blind alley.