7

Emma’s office at Art & Culture was a narrow rectangular box, with one window overlooking Third Avenue. Hanging on the scuffed gray walls were Emma’s favorite posters: a great O’Keeffe flower, deep and luscious, and a long horizontal Winslow Homer of a young woman reading, stretched out full-length on the grass, and completely absorbed by her book. Emma liked the juxtaposition: the life of the mind, the life of the body.

The small room itself was charmless. The black metal desk was battered, the flimsy metal bookcase stuffed haphazardly with art books and exhibition catalogs. The window was ungenerous, giving onto a small square of revealed sky, cramped by walls of pollution-stained white brick. Emma’s desk, dominated by the computer terminal, was piled with manuscripts. An industrial gray Rolodex sat by a box of Kleenex, a flimsy red stapler and a round Florentine box of paper clips. A pottery mug held a clutch of pencils, pens and a single emery board, worn entirely smooth.

Emma arrived late. The official hours at the magazine were nine-thirty to five-thirty, but most people came in late and stayed later. Emma didn’t like to stay late because of Tess, so she tried to come in early, but that morning everything slowed her up. It’s the mental transactions, not the physical ones, she thought, turning in to the cavernous lobby. It’s not traveling time, it’s talking time that makes me late. I only allow time for what I have to say, never for what anyone else says back. She thought again of Peter’s cold voice, the cabdriver’s fury, of Rachel, Tess. By the time Emma arrived on the seventh floor it was ten of ten.

Emma took off her coat and headed for the coffee machine. She could hear Robert, the editor in chief, talking in a terminatory way to the art editor, whose office was next to Emma’s. “Okay,” he said. “Right. Great.”

But the art editor was trying to keep him. “I also want to talk to you about the June issue,” he said. “The sculpture article.” Emma, who wanted solitude, hoped the art editor would keep Robert with him, and out of her office.

Robert was determined. “Right,” Robert promised, “we need to discuss it. I’ll get back to you,” he said, then Emma heard his footsteps on his way down the hall.

Robert was thin and intense, with small gray eyes, a wide Slavic face and a pointed chin. His graying hair was a springy mass of tight curls. He wore round black-rimmed glasses and bow ties. Every morning, as soon as he arrived at work he took his jacket off and rolled his shirtsleeves up, not the decorous two cuffs’ length, but all the way up over the elbow, as though ready for rigorous and unpredictable tasks.

When Emma returned to her office, Robert was waiting for her.

“Oh, good,” he said, “you’re here.”

“Come in,” Emma said, though he was already in, already sitting on the uncomfortable aluminum-frame chair next to her desk. She wanted her office empty, so Peter could call.

“The Whitney Biennial,” Robert said.

“Oh, God,” Emma said, and sighed. This exhibition was always huge, boisterous and confrontational. “It’s too early in the morning to think about the Biennial.”

“Well, try. Think about who we should get to review it.”

“Hm,” said Emma. She sipped at her coffee, hoping he would leave. “What about Jed Perl?”

“I thought a woman. Think of a woman.”

“Oh,” said Emma. She lifted her mug to her mouth. “All right. Let me think.”

Robert nodded and rose to leave. At the doorway he turned. “D’you think this is sexist?” he asked. “It probably is.”

“No, no,” said Emma. Go, she thought. She didn’t look at the telephone, for fear this would make it ring.

“Margot is always talking about creeping sexism,” Robert said. His wife was a lawyer, and fierce. “Toward women, obviously. I’m trying to avoid it, but doesn’t this seem as though I’m being sexist toward men?”

“You’re not being sexist, you’re being fair,” Emma said. Why didn’t he leave? “This is equal time. I’ll come up with some names.”

“Or do you want to write it yourself?” Robert asked, turning to go.

“God, no,” Emma said, shaking her head. “Whatever you say about that show, you enrage half the people in New York. I don’t want all that ambient hatred.”

“Really?” Robert said, interested. He leaned against the wall. “I like stirring things up. Why do you care if other people disagree with you?”

“I’m a coward,” answered Emma. “I hate having people angry at me.” Will you go, she thought. Go.

Robert shook his head. “Women are peculiar,” he said. “I love controversy. It’s the only way to live.” Emma smiled at him, but did not answer. He smiled back, raised his chin toward the winds of conflict, and left at last.

Emma took a long sip of coffee and set her mug down. She leaned back in her chair, alone, for the first time that day. Solitude, she thought, the greatest luxury. She could now begin to address the day. She would have to think of a woman writer for Robert, though it would do nothing to combat creeping sexism. As long as men were the buyers, the art world would cater to men. She wondered when Peter would call.

She looked at her desk, avoiding the telephone from superstition. It sat beside her left hand. If it rang, she could answer it on the first ring. Her calendar was covered with notes. She scanned it: this week there was an article due, from a notoriously late writer. She would have to start her calls to him. On the first call he would tell her that the article was going very well, and he was almost finished. At the end of the week, on the second call, he would tell her that he still wasn’t quite finished. By the end of the following week she would no longer be able to reach him directly. She would leave messages on his machine, and sometime during the week after that he would leave a message on her machine—in the evening, when he knew she wouldn’t be there—telling her that something had come up, and that he wouldn’t be able to turn the article in on time. She would need to call the gallery, too, at some point, for photographs to accompany the article. She would make none of those calls now, though: she wanted to leave the telephone free.

She thought of Peter, at his office, which she had never seen. She imagined a sleek modern corner room, with plate-glass windows, a big clean desk, a stiff armchair facing it. One wall of legal reference books, in sets, soberly bound. A big potted ficus tree in a corner, tended by a plant person. What was Peter doing, in that office? Was he thinking of her? Why did he not call?

On her desk was the untidy manuscript of an article to be edited. At Art & Culture they used computers themselves, but they still asked for articles in manuscript. “Hard copy,” they called it, slightly self-consciously: jargon from a strange language. It made ordinary pages sound brisk and inflexible, though they were really gentle and compliant. Text on a screen was held at a cold flickering remove, an endless liquid scroll, floating in deep space. Emma wanted actual ink on rustling paper. Real pages were accessible in a way that a machine was not. The computer, with its tiny glowing lights and faint high-pitched hum, was endlessly busy with arcane internal doings. It waited to be interrupted, but it was already going, already occupied. Its indefatigable busyness, its active readiness to do something, in a rapid electronic manner, intruded between the reader and the text. The only action between a reader and a text ought to be the silent absorption of one by the other—the Winslow Homer woman lying on the grass, oblivious. The computer was useless here. Reading text on a computer was like reading a book while sitting in your car with the engine running.

Emma picked up the manuscript. The article was deeply respectful, about an artist who embedded bits of plates in his canvases. Emma, who liked Caravaggio and Thomas Eakins, sighed. The language of modern art was so arcane and insular: no one outside a small circle of New Yorkers would have any idea why this idea—broken crockery—was interesting. It was hard to understand, now, why the avant-garde had wanted to cut themselves off from all but the cognoscenti. Why would you not want to include everyone who was interested in art? Why would you work actively to antagonize your audience?

The telephone rang, and Emma’s hand was on it at once. She let it complete its ring, for dignity, before she picked it up.

“Emma?” It was Francie; Emma braced herself. She hated talking to her sister.

Francie was three years younger than Emma. When the girls were little, Emma had looked after her. Francie had been Emma’s doll. Emma had helped her sister dress in the morning. She brushed her hair, told her stories and taught her to skip and to read. Francie believed everything Emma said. The two girls had shared a bedroom until Emma was thirteen.

On the last night of their shared room, Emma had gone to a school dance. She had brought back contraband from the drugstore, and spent all afternoon getting ready. She washed her hair and cream-rinsed it. She shaved the long slopes of her legs, the awkward hollows of her armpits. She smoothed an herbal mask on her face, letting it cake and dry until her features were white and stiffened, like an African deity. She scrubbed it all off; underneath, her skin was pink and glowing. She leaned close to the mirror and struggled with mascara, dabbing ineptly at the lashes next to her alarmed and fluttering eye. She brushed a tiny drift of rosy brown blusher on her cheekbones. She dipped her finger into the pot of lip gloss and smoothed a shining layer onto her mouth. She arranged her long silky hair on her shoulders.

Francie, awed and excited, lay on her bed and watched, offering opinions. At first Emma talked and laughed, but as the dance drew closer Emma became quieter. When she began getting dressed, Emma changed her mind over and over. The bed, the chair, the rug became layered with discards. Emma felt dread begin to rise within her. She stopped laughing with Francie. Francie was a child, she knew nothing about this dance, the world of Emma’s classmates. She stopped talking to Francie altogether. She settled finally on her clothes, but they were wrong, she hated them: purple striped hip-hugger bell-bottoms, which felt suddenly tight; the burgundy toes of her favorite boots, poking out beneath them, were scuffed. A white turtleneck and her favorite red tunic top, which had a stain on the shoulder. She looked in the mirror and turned away in despair. She saw how she looked: fat and hopelessly stupid, out of step with the rest of the world. Her friends would see at once that she was a fraud and impostor. When Emma turned away, anguished, Francie drew in her breath.

“You look beautiful,” she said solemnly.

Emma, sick with fear, could not answer. Francie’s admiration was proof of how babyish and pathetic she looked. She left, filled with gloom.

Arriving at the dance, Emma felt her throat close with anxiety. The gym was huge and dark, the music pounding. At first she could find no one. Her friends were in drifting groups that dissolved and merged. Their voices were shrill. Emma did not feel like one of them, and she could think of nothing to say. She heard herself laugh too much, and foolishly. The boy she liked, whose name she had written secretly over and over on the soles of her sneakers, did not look at her once. He danced with another girl twice, but spent most of the evening outside with his friends smoking dope.

Halfway through the endless night, Emma went into the ladies’ room. When she came in it fell suddenly silent. Three girls, combing their hair, met each other’s eyes in the mirror. Emma, awkwardly, said “Hi,” and there was a chorus of responses, but they looked at her only for a moment. Emma stood at the sink, letting the water run over her hands, hoping dumbly that something would change, that the world would become kind again. She heard a hissing whisper: “She’s not going. Joanna didn’t invite her.” Emma turned off the faucet and left the room without looking back. She had to wait until the end of the dance; she was part of a car pool. For the rest of the evening the sentence burned inside her. She stood alone, at the edge of the dance floor, or in the shadows just outside the side door of the gym.

At the end of the dance she and four other girls were picked up by someone’s mother. Emma sat in the front with the mother. During the drive the girls didn’t speak to Emma, but when they reached her house they turned suddenly effusive. They called good night in loud bright voices as Emma got out of the car. Emma did not answer. She thanked the mother and turned away toward her house so she would not see the car drive off toward Joanna’s.

When Emma let herself into the front hall she saw Francie, in her nightgown, sitting at the top of the stairs. Francie’s face lit up and she clapped silently. Emma! she mouthed.

Emma said loudly, “You’re supposed to be in bed, Francie.”

“I had a nightmare,” Francie said, defensively, standing up. When Francie woke in the night, Emma had always taken her into bed with her.

Now Emma made a derisive sound in her nose. “I bet,” she said, still loudly. She went into the living room, where her parents were reading. They looked up as Emma came in. Her mother smiled.

“I’m back,” Emma announced curtly.

“Where have you been?” her father asked.

Emma stared angrily.

“You know, Everett, she went to a dance. Did you have a good time, Emma?”

“A dance?” her father said, disapproving. “Dressed like that? You look like a court jester in those silly trousers.”

Emma turned to leave.

“Everett,” said Emma’s mother. “Emma, come back.”

Emma stepped warily into the doorway again.

“I think you look very nice,” her mother said.

“She looks nice except for those silly trousers,” her father said. He stared at her. “And what’s that on your chin?”

Emma put her hand on her chin, scowling. “I don’t know. What?” She lifted her chin. There was a silence. She looked down suspiciously, sideways, at her father. “What is it?”

“Nothing,” he said, looking pleased with himself.

Emma lowered her chin. “What is it?”

“It’s nothing after all,” he said.

“What did you see?” Emma demanded, lowering her chin.

“It was nothing. Just a little roll of flesh, underneath your chin,” he said. “Nothing. It goes away when you lift your jaw.”

Emma turned and left the room. She pushed past Francie, who was hovering anxiously in the hall in her nightgown.

“You are supposed to be in bed,” Emma said furiously to Francie. “Eavesdropper.” As she pounded upstairs Emma yelled down, “I’m not sharing a room anymore with that spoiled brat. I want my own room.”

When Francie came up Emma was already in bed, curled into a tight ball, the light off. Francie opened the door and came inside. She whispered Emma’s name, but Emma lay still and said nothing. Her chin was sunk deep into her neck, her hands were fists. By now the other girls were all at Joanna’s, whom Emma hated. Maybe the boys had gone there, too. Francie got quietly into her bed, pulled up the covers and lay down, her face toward Emma. They had lain like that in their twin beds, facing each other in the dark, night after night, for as long as Francie could remember. In the light from the window they could see faint gleams from each other’s eyes.

“Emma?” Francie whispered.

Emma said nothing.

“Em?” Francie whispered again, quieter.

Emma said nothing. Her eyes were not closed, and she knew Francie could see the gleam. She lay without stirring. She had never been to Joanna’s house. It was in Brookline. They would all be there by now. They would be laughing.

The next day Emma moved into a smaller room down the hall. Her alliance with Francie was over. Emma felt tainted by childhood in Francie’s presence.

Emma had gone docilely to both their mother’s schools: Milton and Smith. But Francie was tumultuously rebellious. She left Milton after ninth grade and went to public high school in Cambridge. Francie grew her hair, smoked a lot of dope and barely graduated. She refused to go to college. She said college was too structured. She wanted to absorb knowledge by living it. Emma told Francie she was ridiculous, and Francie told Emma she was boring. They drew apart. Francie moved to San Francisco, married, had two small children, and divorced. She came back east seldom, and only to see her parents.

“Hi, Francie,” Emma now said. She was tying up the line. What was Peter doing? “You’re up early.”

“I always get up early,” Francie said.

Emma, who doubted this, said nothing.

“Did you get a message that I called?” Francie asked.

“Oh, that’s right, I did,” Emma said guiltily. “On Sunday. Sorry I haven’t called you back. I was going to do it today.” Resenting the guilt, she said briskly, “So, what’s up?”

“I just wanted to tell you about something I’m doing,” said Francie.

“What’s that?” Emma said.

“It’s like a series of seminars,” Francie said. “I’m going to be giving them back east, this summer.”

“Seminars?” Emma said. She thought of European history; the politics of slavery. “On what?”

“On evolving. The success of the self. You know. Awareness. It’s a whole program.”

“Oh,” Emma said, in a different tone.

“It’s a really interesting series,” Francie said. “It’s really amazing.”

“Great,” said Emma. “Have you taken it yourself?”

“Yeah,” said Francie. “At this institute out here.”

“And where are you going to give it here?”

“Well, that’s what I thought you might help me with,” Francie said. “It’s a fantastic series, an amazing bargain. The whole series, five seminars of four hours each, is only two hundred and eighty dollars.”

“Amazing,” said Emma.

“Yeah, isn’t it? But I need a place to give them,” said Francie. “The institute here doesn’t really have a base in New York yet.”

“I don’t really know of a place,” Emma said.

“I thought maybe your apartment,” Francie said smoothly.

“It’s tiny,” Emma said. “It wouldn’t be any good.”

There was a pause.

“There wouldn’t be very many people at one time, Emma,” Francie said. “It’s a very peaceful series. You know, I mean there’s no arguing, or anything like that. It’s self-awareness.”

“My apartment is tiny,” Emma repeated. “I’ve moved, you know. There’s really no room.”

There was another pause. “So, you won’t help us,” Francie said.

“Francie, this isn’t fair,” Emma said.

“It’s really simple,” Francie said. “You have the chance to help or not to help.”

“Francie, you’re asking me to give up my apartment for your business scheme.”

“It’s self-awareness, Emma, it’s not business.”

“Where am I supposed to live? Where is Rachel supposed to spend the day? Or the evenings? My apartment is where I live. Why should you ask me to turn it over to you?”

Francie sighed. “Thanks, Emma.”

“Francie,” said Emma.

There was a long silence.

“I knew you wouldn’t be able to see this,” said Francie.

“It’s not a question of seeing it. You’re trying to impose on me.”

“People in New York are so resistant to these ideas. It’s really interesting,” said Francie.

“I’m not resistant to the idea of the seminar. I’m resistant to giving up my apartment.”

“So, if we find a place will you take the seminar?”

Emma shut her eyes in irritation. “Francie, I have my own life. If I want to take a seminar, you have to trust me, I’ll sign up for it on my own.”

“It’s self-awareness, Emma. Everyone needs it.”

“That’s your view, Francie.”

“Do you think you’re so evolved that you don’t need it?”

Emma shook her head. “I am what I am. I’m not asking you to decide how evolved I am, okay? What about the parents?”

“What about them?”

“Why don’t you give your seminars in Cambridge, at their house?”

“Are you out of your mind?”

“Well, it’s not fair to ask me to give up my apartment, Francie, so don’t do it.”

“I’ll give you the series for nothing,” Francie said. “It’s self-awareness, okay? If you change your mind, call me back. Just let me know.”

“I’m not going to change my mind,” said Emma crossly.

“You know,” said Francie, now coaxingly, “you’re my only sister. I feel really responsible for you.”

“Francie, look. I’m not going to change my mind.”

“It’s okay,” said Francie. “You can call any hour of the day or night. This is something you need. Trust me. This kind of knowledge is important. I know you think it isn’t, I know you think only the conventional academic stuff is important, but I want you to try to open your mind. I know it will be hard for you, but I want you to try.”

“Francie, how would you feel if I started telling you that you should go to college?”

Francie laughed indulgently. “Trust me, Emma,” she said. “You can call any time.”

Emma hung up and stared at her computer screen. What was the point, she thought, in being good, in doing what was expected of you?

One summer afternoon, when Emma was nine and Francie six, they had gone into an old-fashioned general store in Cape Cod. Their father was buying the paper. The pinewood floor was dark and oil soaked, soft beneath their bare feet. Emma held Francie’s hand, showing her the things on the shelves, saying the names. “Shoe polish, Francie,” she said, “Cordovan.” At the counter, a stranger was buying an ice cream cone. Francie told Emma she wanted one and Emma told her no. Francie turned loud and fretful. She tugged at Emma’s shorts.

“I want ice cream,” Francie said over and over. She stamped her small feet, then squatted on the floor in a rage.

Emma bent over her. “Francie,” she said. “Not between meals. It’s not allowed.” Francie wailed louder, and when their father turned, with his paper, she was howling.

“What is it?” he asked, frowning.

“She wants an ice cream cone. I told her she couldn’t because it was between meals, but she’s still complaining,” Emma reported virtuously.

“She can have an ice cream cone.” Their father looked down at them, towering, perfidious. “What kind do you want, Francie? What flavor?”

Emma still remembered the sense of outrage, vast, irredeemable. The law being so casually flouted, the ground sinking beneath her feet. On the way home Francie sat beside her in the backseat of the car, licking the melting drips of strawberry. She eyed Emma, wary but triumphant. Emma had refused her own cone, on principle. Someone had to teach Francie about the rigors of the world; clearly their parents would not.

Now Emma stared at her manuscript, angry at Francie.

The telephone on her desk rang again. It was Francie again, she knew.

“Hello?” It was Peter.

“Hello,” Emma said, flustered.

“Do you have a minute?” Peter asked. His voice was gentle.

“Yes,” said Emma. She leaned toward the desk, turning her back to the door.

“I’m sorry about this morning,” he said. “I don’t know why I got so angry.”

“Oh,” said Emma. “Thank you.”

“I overreacted. I didn’t want you to leave,” he said.

“You made that clear,” said Emma. “I felt so miserable. I kept hoping and hoping you’d come out and find me.”

“I’m sorry,” he repeated. “I don’t know why I got so angry. I know you want to see Tess.”

“I’m caught in the middle,” Emma said. “I don’t want to leave either, but when I start thinking about Tess, I get frantic. It makes me feel as though I have to take sides with one of you against the other. I hate it.”

“I shouldn’t have tried to make you stay. It’s not fair.”

“Thank you,” said Emma.

“What do you think about moving in together?”

There was silence.

“I love you,” Peter said.

Emma felt tears, unexpected, rise behind her lids.

She was unprepared for this. The idea seemed charged with risk. She had only just begun to feel peaceful on her own. Her habits were becoming her own; she turned the light off when she pleased. Silence was hers to break or stretch. She was wary of any male presence, demanding, intrusive, ready to impose itself. His ideas would become part of everything. He would be there in her rooms, all the time. He would have the right to her bedroom, his heavy wool suits would hang in her closet. What if Rachel quit? And would he love Tess?

“You don’t have to answer now,” Peter said. “But think about it. I think it would be easier for you. It’d be easier for both of us. The way it is now, you’re pulled in two.”

It was true that Peter was kind, and he slept all night with his arms around her. Still she said nothing.

“Is there anything else?” he asked. “I hear you hesitating. What is it?”

“Tess,” said Emma.

“One thing I don’t like, now,” Peter said, his voice gentler still, “is that I get to see her so little.”

“Really?” Emma asked, amazed.

“Really,” Peter said.

“And Amanda?”

“Will be a part of it too.”

Emma looked out the window. Across the street the white brick building had been cut diagonally in half by the slanting morning sun, the lower part drenched in somber shadow. The upper stories rose in a series of receding steps. These airy, outdoor stairs were fiery with sun, brilliant and angular against the deep sky.

“My sister Francie just called me,” Emma said. “She wants me to give up my apartment so she can give seminars in it, on self-awareness.”

“Tell her your apartment is full,” said Peter. “Tell her you’ve moved in your own private instructor.”

Emma laughed. It was a relief, talking to Peter. She felt such trust in him. And he pressed on, which she admired. Besides, he was part of her life already. She wanted to wake up with him in the mornings, drift into sleep beside him. Remembering his touch on her throat she closed her eyes for a second, slipping into that steamy bath.

She looked out again at the fiery stairs leading upward. There was always a reason to hang back, to refuse, to disengage. There would always be drawbacks, problems. Independence would blur easily into loneliness. It was brave to be independent, braver still to engage.