8
Thread: Fine cord of two or more filaments twisted together.
Alex stood by the window staring out at the whiteness. It was a week after Christmas. New Castle was covered with snow. There had been no wind in the night and the change in weather had crept up on the town unexpectedly, silently, more like a snowfall in a dream, making one wonder at daybreak if the newly white world was truly real. The morning was still. The bird feeder dangling on a wire between two trees was empty. He was sipping his first coffee of the day when Lacey came into the kitchen. She reached for a mug on the open shelves near the stove.
“Let me get your coffee, Chief,” Alex said.
“I’ll do it.”
He pulled the pot from the heating base and took the mug from her. “You go sit. I’ll get you some milk.”
“Fine,” she said.
“Did you sleep okay?”
She nodded, took a seat by the window, and stared into the garden. Alex placed her coffee in front of her and sat beside her. He liked the early morning when they could be alone together.
“I thought I’d make pancakes after the girls wake up,” he said.
“That could be hours.”
“I’ll fix you something now.” He moved to get up. “Do you want eggs or an English muffin?”
She reached for his arm and pressed it. “Nothing.”
“You’re sure?” he asked, hoping for a smile.
“I’m fine.” She looked away.
Alex thought Lacey looked pale this morning. The sun wasn’t out, but the sky was opalescent, like the interior of a shell. He squinted in the brightness near the window and glanced at his wife. She was thinner.
He was trying hard to keep things going as normally as possible. At night when they retreated to their bedroom, Lacey still barely spoke at all, claiming exhaustion. Alex was afraid to say anything, not wanting to upset her. He didn’t want to increase her worries by sharing his own. It was as if the calm they were trying to hold on to was extremely fragile, a brittle icicle that could suddenly snap and crash to the ground.
“Are you feeling okay?” he asked.
“Because I want to eat later you think . . . I’m sick?” She gave him a quick glance.
“I’m only worried you might be coming down with something. Toni’s been complaining of a sore throat. There’s a lot going around. You need to take care not to get overtired—”
“Stop,” she interrupted. “You’ve got to stop this. I feel your eyes . . . b-boring into me . . . watching me . . . like I might . . .” Lacey leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes.
“I just worry.... Sorry. I can’t help it.” Alex lifted his coffee. It was now cold. He carried it to the sink and poured it down the drain. He refilled his cup, emptying the pot. He would make more later.
“You haven’t been . . . working much,” Lacey said.
Alex stood very still, as if he’d been caught doing something wrong. He took a breath and went back to the table, pulled out his chair. “I’ve been talking with a potential client,” he said. He sat and told Lacey about the new client in Chicago.
“When?” she asked.
“When do I have to tell them?”
“When would you start . . . start the job?”
“I’m not going to take it.”
“What do you mean?”
“This assignment is huge. I’d be gone a lot. It might take months, maybe half a year.”
“Take it,” she said, shoving her coffee away. The light brown liquid sloshed out onto the table.
“Let me get a paper towel,” he said.
Lacey reached for a cloth napkin in the center of the table and began to blot the mess with quick, impatient gestures. Alex went to the counter and ripped off a stream of paper towels. He balled them up and shoved them in Lacey’s direction. She shook her head and pushed the napkin over the coffee, leaving the towels to slowly unfurl. The cloth in her hand was stained brown.
“I don’t want to be away that much,” Alex continued.
“I don’t mind.”
“Well, I mind.”
“Alex. I’m not sick. Not now.” She let go of the napkin and grabbed his wrist, squeezing tight. “Yes. One day it might get worse.” She gripped harder. “Now, we need to live our regular lives.” She withdrew her hand and brought both hands to her face. “If you want to help me,” she continued, “you have to treat me . . . like you used to.”
“Come on, Chief,” he said softly and patiently, as if he were speaking to a child. “I can’t leave you to cope alone. The girls don’t know what’s going on. They can’t help.”
“You’ve got to . . . take that job.”
“You’ve got to be honest with the girls,” he said. “You’re keeping everything in. I know it’s hard for you to talk. I mean . . .”
“It’s the way I want it.”
“Well, it’s not the way I want it.” He pushed back his chair and stood. “We’ve always been open with the kids. We need to share this with them. This has to do with our family and you won’t let me say anything.”
“Alex, this is my problem. I will decide.”
He felt pressure building in his chest and tried to speak calmly. “Why do you think you have the right to decide everything?”
“I don’t.”
“Oh, come on, Lacey.” He started to walk back and forth, punctuating each statement with a wave of his arm. “You said that Cornell has the best science program, so of course Wink should go to Cornell. In your opinion Columbia is best for journalism, so Toni should go there. So what if Wink might want a smaller college? So what if Toni wants to stay near her boyfriend? Can’t I decide to pass on a job so I can be near my family? You won’t let me do what I think is best for you.”
“Shhh. Not so loud.” Lacey pressed her hands to her temples.
Alex felt as if he might explode. He sat down again and crossed his arms on his chest.
Months ago, in the car while listening to a Schubert symphony, he had thought of how that experience was like being with Lacey. The pleasure of familiarity mixing with desire, like the harmonies themselves, was a gift. Knowing that the warmth, the richness of all this beauty was his, like a light shining inside of him, had made him swell with gratitude. What had changed since then?
Lacey rested her hands on the table and spoke calmly. “You’ve got to take that job.” That one sentence flowed easily off her tongue.
He looked over at his wife. “There you go again—always telling us what to do. You’re always calling the shots.” Alex couldn’t calm down. He felt pushed to the edge.
“That’s not true,” she said tersely.
The sound of a toilet flushing came from upstairs. Lacey reached over and rested her hand on his shoulder. “Okay. I know I can be hardheaded.” She tilted her head and her mouth softened. “A little stubborn?”
He nodded and said nothing. Sometimes stubborn was good. In his second semester of business school he’d had a terrible time with a statistics course. He had wanted to drop out of school, thinking he might actually flunk. Instead, Lacey had tracked down a tutor for him and sat beside him while he worked the problems over and over until they made sense.
She’d been vigilant with the girls about homework, too, but she made it fun—making games of spelling lists and creating imaginary quiz shows when they had social studies tests. She soothed them by making hot chocolate and whipped cream, or fixing bowls of popcorn when they had an extra-hard day at school. No one was more encouraging or loving and willing to celebrate each success.
“You know we need the money.” Her voice became placating.
“We’ll manage. I’ve got some local proposals in the works.”
“Nothing right away?”
“No.”
“Then go ahead . . . with Chicago. More than anything I want our lives . . .” She paused. Her lips trembled and she pressed them closed. She sighed deeply. “As long as we can, I want our lives to be normal.”
“Okay,” he said. “Fine.” He felt his anger ease a bit.
Footsteps on the stairs echoed from the hall. Alex stood and shoved back his chair. “Anybody for pancakes?” he called into the void.
January. A tight, wet cold had settled into the city. Margot wished for snow, thinking the weather would improve after a storm, as if some precipitation would offer a release from winter’s nasty grip. The gallery was closed for the first two weeks of the month. Tomorrow, Monday, she would go in to help hang the next show, the work of a printmaker from Germany. She was not looking forward to it. The works on paper were dark and turgid and had to be handled with great care due to the handmade paper and organic inks.
Oliver had spent all of Saturday with her, but today he had awakened with that distant expression that meant he was thinking about his paintings. He had spent hours studying the illustrations from the book of Greek myths and a few days before he had picked up a copy of Edith Hamilton’s Mythology, a book he said he hadn’t looked at since high school.
Besides the beautiful illustrations in the book Margot had given him, Oliver seemed taken with the stories themselves. He talked about the ancient gods and goddesses and told her a myth about two sisters, Procne and Philomena. Procne’s husband, Tereus, was happy with her for a while, but when her sister, Philomena, came to visit, Tereus raped his sister-in-law. To keep her from telling what had happened, he cut out her tongue and threw her in a dungeon. While she was imprisoned she wove a robe for her sister telling of her ordeal. As if suddenly realizing how this story of a mute sister weaving was too close to home, Oliver had quickly launched into the tale of the young Phaeton driving the chariot too close to the sun.
Once Oliver had gone to his studio on Sunday afternoon, Margot went back to her old apartment. After sharpening her pencils she set up a still-life arrangement and spent the afternoon drawing it from multiple angles. Margot was still dragging her heels about putting the apartment back on the rental market. She’d told Oliver she was going to give it a good cleaning and then decide if she needed to repaint.
Today her pencil had felt good in her hand, as if she was regaining her old dexterity for putting line on paper. When the light dwindled and she had to turn on a lamp, she realized that when she was immersed in her drawing she thought of nothing else. While working she forgot about Lacey’s illness entirely. She even forgot about Oliver.
Now at home, she decided to surprise Oliver with a nice dinner. His marriage proposal rose up in her mind from time to time, along with a sense of guilt about putting him off. She was relieved he hadn’t pushed her further. Feeling suddenly industrious, she chopped green peppers and onions for turkey chili. While not a natural cook, Margot had half a dozen dishes in her repertoire, most of which Lacey had taught her. Oliver jokingly called them her sloppy suppers: a beef stew that cooked for five hours and dirtied only one pot, a vegetable soup with pasta, a spaghetti sauce, a shrimp gumbo she’d copied out of an airline magazine, and her grandmother Winkler’s recipe for corn chowder. Winter was her cooking season, as none of these dishes was well suited for hot weather. Oliver was good at assembling salads from odds and ends at the deli, and with that, and the infinite variety of take-out options, they managed.
Margot and Oliver had eased into their living arrangement gradually. There was no one day when she had decided to move in with him, no specific discussions: “Let’s give it a try. Maybe this is a good first step?” In the early days of their relationship they had gone back and forth between their two apartments, but as Oliver’s place was far more spacious, she ended up staying more and more often with him. Her belongings, her clothes, her favorite books, the jade plant she had tended since college, had slowly crossed the park and taken up residence on Riverside Drive, a migration that seemed to work for both of them. The few times that Oliver had broached the topic of their future, Margot had said there was no need for talk. What would happen would happen.
When she had been with Oliver for almost a year, Carl, her boss, had asked if she’d be willing to sublet her furnished place to a friend of his for a few months. After that, through word of mouth, she had kept her apartment rented most of the time. Technically subletting was against the co-op rules, but if you kept the arrangements quiet and the renters didn’t cause problems, the other tenants turned a blind eye.
Since Margot had returned from Thanksgiving, she’d crossed the park frequently, making her way to her old address. She had never forgotten when Lacey stayed with her there after Teddy had left. Lacey had taken charge of everything: changing the locks, hanging curtains to make the place cozier, stocking the fridge, buying flowers, making Margot feel once again safe and secure, creating a sense of home. Now, as then, Margot was grateful to Grandmother Winkler for ensuring that she had a place to live. In some ways, going to her old apartment was like going to her own studio where she could forget everything and work. She was considering buying some new paints now that her drawing was going better.
Margot added the ground turkey to the sizzling onions and peppers. The smell of the browning meat filled the kitchen. The exhaust fan roared above, doing little to draw out the smoke. She used a wooden spoon to move the ingredients around the pan. Granny Winkler’s kitchen had always smelled of good cooking—roasting meats, baking bread, Margot’s favorite ginger cookies just out of the oven and cooling on the counter. Margot wished now that she had paid more attention and really learned how to cook. When the meat was nearly browned she added the chili powder and cumin. Oliver liked his food with a bit of heat.
A second later he grabbed her from behind. “You scared me to death,” she said, dropping the spoon and turning to him with delight. “I was literally just thinking of you.”
He kissed her neck and seemed to breathe her in along with the scent of the food. His mouth was warm, his coat still cold from the night air. “Great news, Mags.” He kissed her mouth this time.
“Well, tell me. Stop grinning like you’ve just won the lottery.”
“I’ve been on the phone with the Croft Gallery. They’re sounding serious now. Jack Wallace, the owner, and his partner, the guy who actually runs it, want me to come and see the space.”
“They want to represent you?”
“It’s not definite yet.” He stepped away and took off his coat, then got a beer from the fridge. “It sounded like it, though. He kept saying that my work would show well there. They’ve got my digital images and they’re really enthusiastic. Jack saw the work I sent out to the guy in LA last year.”
Margot turned down the burner. It was time to add the canned tomatoes. “That does sound promising,” she said.
“How about a long weekend in San Francisco at the end of the month?”
“Both of us?” A small part of her wondered if this was too good to be true. Oliver had pretty much given up on showing at that gallery. Maybe the busy holiday period had kept the curators from getting in touch before now.
“Of course. Come on, Margot. We need a vacation. Just you and me. Away from everything.”
She didn’t disagree. Oliver had been upset when Carl Van Engen hadn’t sold his large painting by the end of the last show. The art market was slow, and she knew his sales were down to nothing. Margot hadn’t seen Oliver so happy in a long time. She was pleased for him. And yet . . .
She thought about calling Lacey later to share the news. That morning Lacey had phoned to tell Margot about the storm in New Castle. Margot hadn’t noticed any further problems with her sister’s speech. She had almost seemed like her old self.
“I’d love a trip to San Francisco,” Margot said. “What’s the weather like in January?”
“Nothing worse than this,” he said.
Two days later, a second snowstorm followed the first. Alex sat at his desk in his home office, leaned back in his chair, and stared out the window. The sky had turned a hard, dull gray. Alex had never minded winter. He liked rising to the challenge of the weather. On stormy mornings he enjoyed being the first out, clearing the walk, shoveling from the garage door to the street. Others might complain of being stuck inside on the rare days when the weather made it impossible to travel or when school was canceled, but he thought there was something rare and old-fashioned about gathering around the fire on a late afternoon after an unexpected day of being at home. After sledding or building snow forts, his daughters would have pink cheeks from the cold. When the sky grew dark and Lacey closed the curtains to the rest of the world, an intense feeling of privacy seemed to cloak their family, inside and safe from the cruel weather. Often on cold nights, while he was falling asleep, his mind would drift to memories of summer. After long New England winters, summer came each year like a gift.
It was impossible to think about summer without thinking of Bow Lake. Alex, Lacey, and Margot had gone there year after year since childhood. Summer was what brought them together. The New Hampshire lake was home to the cottages, known as “camps,” which remained in the same families for generations, though once Alex’s father had died, the George family had decided to let their place go. During their growing-up years Lacey and Margot stayed with their grandmother Winkler, and Alex’s mother spent the entire summer at their camp next door with Alex and his brother. His dad came up to be with the family on weekends.
Alex had few memories of Lacey when they were small, though certainly they had played together. He could conjure up vague images of a bigger girl in pigtails running with a group of children. Lacey was always the pied piper, leading the younger ones on hikes through the woods, organizing a puppet theater or putting on actual plays, setting up relay races in a neighbor’s field. Eventually, she left Bow Lake for six weeks at a time to attend sleepaway camp in Maine, where her grandmother had gone as a girl.
He remembered more clearly the summers when they grew older. One particular day with Lacey was still vivid. He was fifteen and had finally started to grow. It seemed as if overnight he had reached nearly six feet. At last Lacey, a year older, was shorter than he was.
That late August afternoon they swam out to the raft together. Her arms, smooth and tanned, cut through the water in what appeared to be an effortless crawl. His own body, long, skinny, and awkward, thrashed alongside her, working hard to keep up. She climbed the ladder and the water streamed off her as she stood. Her hair was slicked to her head and down the length of her back like the pelt of a seal.
Alex clambered up next to her, grinning foolishly, trying to keep his focus on her face. Her skin sparkled with wetness. His eyes wanted all of her. They both smelled of the lake, mossy and clean. The sun sparkled on the water, and he remembered thinking it was as if he were seeing her for the first time.
On that one perfect afternoon they stood bobbing on the raft out in the lake with the breeze cooling their skin for what might have been only a few minutes. Alex had no memory of what they might have said. What he would never forget was the sun, the feeling of goose bumps forming on his skin, the blue lake, the sky without a cloud, the sweetness of Lacey’s laugh, her eyes looking into his. Had he ever been alone with her before? He remembered wishing that instead of rocking and swaying on the raft, they were on a desert island, or better yet, set adrift in a small boat headed out to sea.
Lacey may have challenged him to race back to the dock. He may have said, “Sure, but you’ll win.” She may have answered, “Don’t worry. You’ll win when it matters.” Or had he invented that?
All these years later, Lacey and Alex were still together and on an island, New Castle, set adrift in the snow on a January afternoon. Alex had decided to accept the contract with the company in Chicago. Lacey was right. They should try to keep their lives normal. He had made the call. That was the easy part.
Still, the thought of spending so much time far from home made him uneasy. How many years would they have together living like a regular family? The girls would be leaving for college in the fall. Alex felt he was cheating his daughters by not letting them in on the knowledge that their lives would change dramatically over the next few years. He remembered Hugh’s urging him to talk to Margot about convincing Lacey to tell the girls about her illness. Would Margot think it was right to accept Lacey’s wish to keep her illness a secret?
From upstairs he heard the distant sound of Lacey’s loom clanging and thumping, periodically filling the silent house. He got up from his chair. The winter day suddenly felt confining, bearing down on him like a low-pressure weather system. He wanted to talk to someone. He’d given up on Lacey. Her mind was made up and any further discussion would only lead to another argument. Hugh had a point. Why not call Margot? She, too, was threatened by the eventual loss of her sister. Surely she would understand what he was going through, how hard it was to keep withholding the truth. He would ask her what she thought. Just thinking about confiding in Margot made him feel less alone.
Oliver closed the door to his studio. His work this week was going well. Margot was meeting him at Nice Matin, a French-style bistro, for dinner. She had sounded exhausted when he called to make this plan. Mario had been helping her hang the new show and the artist was being difficult—insisting that the pieces be presented in a certain order that didn’t work in the space. Besides that, she reported that Carl wasn’t happy with the catalog copy and it was already overdue at the printer. He and Margot were leaving for San Francisco that weekend. He had found inexpensive last-minute tickets from an online travel site.
When he reached the restaurant there was a line where the hostess stood, but he spotted Margot at a table for two in the back near the window. She wore the gray sweater he liked with the scooped neck, and the necklace he had given her glimmered at her throat. Oliver loved the curve of her neck and the vulnerable whiteness of her skin. He made his way to her table, knowing just how she would lift her head, a scant tilt to the left, and exactly how her lips would part in a combination of pleasure and wonder to see him suddenly there. Margot sometimes had a way of appearing lost in thought. He found this vaguely secretive look appealing.
The tables in the restaurant were spaced close together. Twice he excused himself after hitting the back of a chair with his backpack or bumping the edge of a table as he crossed the room toward her.
“Hey, Mags,” he said. “Sorry I’m late.”
She wasn’t smiling, but did not appear to be annoyed. He bent to kiss her and tried to ease into the fragile-looking café-style chair opposite her. The chair, the tile floor, and the floor-to-ceiling windows that opened to the street in summer were not well suited to this cold January night. Most people’s coats, draped over the backs of the chairs, made the close seating even tighter.
He picked up the menu that rested at his place. “Red wine okay?”
Margot nodded and Oliver signaled the server, a young woman with short dark hair who looked as if she could be French. He ordered a bottle of Côtes du Rhône and the server, sounding like she’d grown up in Brooklyn, reported that they were out of the braised beef. Oliver and Margot came often to this restaurant and they were familiar with the menu. Without hesitating, she chose lamb chops and he asked for the steak.
“You look like you had a good day,” she said when they were alone.
“It was hard to stop tonight.”
“We didn’t have to meet for dinner. I would have been okay on my own.”
“I could have painted all night, but this old body can’t take any more. I needed a break.”
“Stop saying you’re old,” she said with a touch of a smile.
“Too old to stay on my feet all night with a brush in my hand.”
The server appeared with their wine. Margot leaned away from the table to allow the uncorking, the ritual tasting and nodding of acceptance. They lifted their glasses and sipped.
“Sorry you’ve had a rough day,” he said.
“I think I’ve fixed the catalog. The artist is finally happy, so Carl’s relieved.”
“I’m glad,” he said. “Won’t it be great to get away?”
Margot swirled the wine in her glass, then set it down. “Oliver, Alex called me.”
“Is everything okay?” He reached for Margot’s hand.
Oliver tended to forget about Lacey, but he knew Margot worried all the time about her sister. Ever since Thanksgiving, Margot had seemed more preoccupied. He would catch her standing by the window, but her gaze would be inward, oblivious to the view of the river, and her mouth pinched shut. It was as if a part of her was back in New Castle, trying to figure out what she could do for Lacey or how to find some way to help. Her concern was understandable, but Oliver couldn’t help feeling uneasy. Lacey was bound to get worse. It was only a matter of time.
He was working again on the painting of the man and the dog in Riverside Park. The colors in the sky itself were still a challenge, but the canvas was beginning to take on a feeling of foreboding. The water in the background had become more abstract. While he worked he kept thinking about Pandora’s box, how until opened, the box kept all the trouble inside. The illustration of that myth in the book that Lacey had given him for Christmas continued to haunt him. It struck him how the energy, the forces that were about to be unleashed in the myth, was emerging in the movement of the water in his painting.
“Oliver, where are you?” Margot asked.
“Sorry. Why did Alex call?”
“He’s going to Chicago next Monday. He’s starting a new job that will keep him there most of the winter. He wants me to come to New Castle to persuade Lacey to talk to the girls about her condition.”
“Why tell them now? You told me Lacey felt strongly about keeping it from them until later.”
“Alex is having a hard time with that. He’s really torn up about it. By not letting them know, he feels like he’s cheating them. He hates lying.” Margot’s eyes were sad, but Oliver could tell she was making an effort to stay in control.
“Can’t you just call her?”
“The phone is hard for her. He thinks having me there is really important.”
“Can’t Alex work this out with his wife? It’s their problem.”
“Oliver, once the girls know, they’re going to be devastated. Toni had another fight about Ryan. Toni told Alex that her mom was so furious she couldn’t even talk, as if she were cracking up. Alex feels as if he’s living a lie. And it’s my problem too.”
“Fine,” Oliver said, reaching for his glass.
“He wants me to come this weekend.”
“Margot, we’re going to San Francisco.”
“Couldn’t we go the following weekend?”
“All the arrangements have been made. The tickets are nonrefundable. I can’t change them now. More than that, I’ve set it all up. These are businesspeople. I don’t want to blow this chance. If I put them off, who knows what might happen.”
“I’m sorry,” Margot said. “Really, I am. If you can’t get credit for my ticket, I’ll reimburse you.”
“It’s not the money. Why can’t you go to New Hampshire when we get back?”
“Alex has to be in Chicago this Monday. The opening meetings with the board have been set. I have to go this weekend when the girls are out of school.”
“So you’re not coming with me?”
“You know there’s so little I can do. This is one time when maybe I can be of some help.” Margot looked away from him as if embarrassed. “I’m sorry. Really, I am.”
Oliver was speechless. What could he say? How could he argue?
“I know the trip to San Francisco is important to you,” she said. “I feel torn. I’ve been agonizing over this all day.”
“I guess I can’t change your mind.”
“Please, understand just this once I need to be with my family.” She reached for her water and took a sip.
The people at the table behind him stood to leave, pushing at the back of his chair.
“Sorry about that,” a jovial blonde said.
Oliver nodded. The server arrived with their dinners. “So, that’s it, I guess.” Oliver cut into his steak. The knife hit the bone, causing the meat to slide across his plate, smearing the neatly piped mound of root vegetables.
Margot’s hands remained in her lap. “Oliver, I’m sorry.” “Aren’t you going to eat?”
She let out a breath and picked up her fork. “This is a hard time for me. For my family.”
“Let’s not talk about it. Okay?” Oliver resumed eating. Her family. He wished she’d stop saying that. How did he fit in? He was her lover, but clearly not part of her family. He swallowed, nearly choking on the steak, and reached for the wine bottle.
Margot savored the silence in the gallery. She and Mario had finished hanging the new show yesterday and she had come in this morning to proof the labels and double-check the accuracy of the price list. Mario was in the back office sending out a second round of electronic reminders to their clients. He was much better at the computer tasks than she was. At twenty-eight, he was completely tuned in to the Internet world, keeping up with multiple blogs, tweets, and the social networks of the art world. Together, they made a good team.
Carl had been pleased with Margot’s placement of the pieces, and she had to admit that this show had come out better than she’d expected. Carl, as owner and director of the Van Engen Gallery, decided which artists he would show, but increasingly he took Margot with him to the artists’ studios to help choose the actual paintings to exhibit. He valued her judgment in selecting what would look best on the gallery walls.
When she had first taken the job at the Van Engen Gallery, she had been a typical “gallery girl”—answering the phone, sitting at the front desk, responding to inquiries. She had no real authority. After the first few months, Carl had noticed her ability when she innocently suggested that a particular painting would have more of an impact if it were placed on the far wall, giving the viewer more distance. A client purchased the canvas that very afternoon. From then on, she had taken a greater role in setting up the exhibitions. Carl also turned over the catalog work to her, and her salary increased along with her responsibilities.
Mario, now the young assistant, had taken on Margot’s former duties. Margot was leaving at noon today. She was going to take a cab to Oliver’s studio so they could travel together to the airport. She kept telling herself that going to New Hampshire was the right thing to do. In fact, Lacey had been pleased when Margot called asking to come for this quick visit before life got too hectic in the spring. That night Mario would be there for the opening of the exhibit, and Margot knew she could count on him to oversee the caterer and manage the event. He had taken over for her several times before. Mario’s position was part-time, and he was glad to have any additional hours at the gallery to earn extra money. He was a painter, too, with a studio in Brooklyn. Sometimes Margot wondered if every other person in New York was an artist.
“Lookin’ good, I’d say.” Mario emerged from the office and smiled. “Boss seems pleased.”
“Yeah, Carl really likes it.” She stepped away from one of the smaller paintings. She hadn’t immediately taken to the dark smudgelike images, but when placed on the white walls with a suitable distance between them, they began to take on an almost ghostlike presence. She had placed the calmer, more spare works early in the progression, slowly building to the last three paintings on the rear wall of the gallery.
Mario came up beside her. He was small and slight, not much taller than she was. “So do they speak to you?” He was wearing his daily uniform of black jeans and a white shirt. At gallery openings he dressed completely in black. When she first met him, he had explained he never wore color; color was for his own art. He painted huge geometric canvases in brilliant hues, the shades of jelly beans.
She laughed. “Not exactly. But a few of these manage to take me away.”
“Meaning?” He put his hands on his hips and appeared to study the picture in front of them.
Margot read the label. It was called The Deep. The dusky, complex swirls, darkest at the center, reminded her of the surface of the water at Bow Lake during a storm. “When I look at it long enough,” she said, “it’s like my mind goes somewhere else.”
“Somewhere good?” He was looking at her now.
“Sometimes,” she said, then frowned. “Sometimes not.”
“I think all art is telling us a kind of story.” He turned to the next painting. “With the abstract pieces, it’s just harder to read.”
“I think I’d agree with that.” She remembered Lacey telling her how women were among the earliest storytellers, weaving their narratives into cloth long before the invention of paper or books.
Mario looked at his watch. “You’d better take off. You never know what traffic will be like.”
“Gosh, it’s later than I thought.” Her stomach tightened. “I lose track of time in here.” She glanced out the front window. The sky was gray. Had they predicted snow?
Oliver had been moody and temperamental all week and she didn’t blame him. She knew it wasn’t fair to have canceled her trip at the last minute. She remembered his excitement about California and his delight in planning their vacation.
She felt awful. She didn’t want to disappoint Oliver, but Alex had asked for her help. She felt pulled in both directions—yet this was for her family. The girls needed to know what was going on with Lacey. Unfortunately, the timing was terrible. She couldn’t be in two places at once.
“You okay?” Mario asked.
“Sure,” she said, going in search of her coat and overnight bag. Her stomach churned, making her think again of the murky water during storms at Bow Lake.
“Don’t worry about a thing,” Mario called after her.
Margot stepped into the street, more anxious than ever. There wasn’t a taxi in sight.