Nineteen

THE WOMAN IN THE red Donna Karan dress pressed James’s hand tightly. He smiled at her. The last of the clients were leaving; the champagne bottles were empty. “I think it’s what she would have wanted,” he said.

“Of course it is,” the woman told him.

He looked over her shoulder as she took her coat from her husband, at the display behind her. James had counted eight red dots. Eight pieces sold.

“How long, do you think,” the woman asked him, her hand returning to press his forearm, “before Anna begins work again?”

“I can’t say.”

“But soon.” She smiled. “As the injury isn’t too severe.”

“Absolutely,” he lied.

“She’ll be thrilled with tonight.”

“She will indeed.”

“And you have another planned?”

“In New York.”

The woman was rearranging her hair in the reflection of the glass door. “Well, y’know, you have to get right back again,” she said. “I had an accident myself. I broke a bone in my wrist.” And she held the wrist up, obligingly, for him to see. “Here,” she demonstrated. “Two little hairline fractures, but the fuss! You must get right over it. You must tell Anna to ignore it, you know.”

“I will,” he murmured.

They were almost at the door. It opened, and let a wash of hot air into the cooled gallery. The woman turned on the step, and held out her hand. He pressed it to his lips. She gave him an intimate glance, and walked off down the street, her husband two steps behind her.

On another hot evening like this, five years ago, he had knocked on Anna’s door for the first time.

They had made the arrangement a few days before, but she had forgotten that he was coming.

She answered the intercom, but silence met his name.

“James Garrett,” he had repeated.

“Oh!” she said. “Well…you’d better come up.”

The first thing he noticed in the three-room apartment was the child. She was running everywhere, weaving about the room. Anna Russell was standing in the center, under the open skylights which formed half the ceiling; he could see the reflection of her as he glanced upward. She looked smaller than she had in Quincy Market, dwarfed by the scale of the loft space. She wore a blue T-shirt, stained with pastels; a pair of jeans; her feet were bare. Behind her, a large sugar cane paper sheet had been primed, and washed with diluted inks.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I forgot you were coming. What time is it?”

“Just after eight.”

The little girl stopped; then she tilted her head to one side and back again, lifting her arms.

“This is my daughter Rachel,” Anna said.

“Hello, Rachel,” he said.

Anna wiped her hands on the seams of her jeans, and picked Rachel up. “Please sit down,” she said. “I’ll be back in a second.”

“May I look around?” he asked.

“If you like,” she said, over her shoulder.

He watched her go, then walked to the kitchen, and put his bottle of red wine down on the counter.

There were close to thirty paintings leaning haphazardly against the walls. He looked at each one, slowly, appreciatively. Most were acrylics, or mixed media. All were abstracts. He went to the easel, and considered the latest work; there was a photograph pinned to the top left-hand corner: Rachel running through a fountain. He recognized Frog Pond from the Common. Sketches were stapled together alongside the photo: angles of light on the water. On one, he saw the blotchy imprint of Rachel’s palm in green paint.

He turned, and looked more closely at the room.

The half under the skylights was Anna’s working space: there was a plan chest in the center, on which her paints were assembled; paints, and a jumble of magazines, and glass pots, and the discarded nubs of pastels, worn down to the last speck in their paper wrappers.

In the other half of the room was a large red couch, and a red rug over the stripped floorboards. Bookshelves lined one wall, and a TV sat in the far corner, with a small CD player. Dominating the whole of this area, however, was the painting on the wall; not an abstract this time, but a map of the world. Each country was delineated in a different color or shade; rivers snaked luridly across continents; jungles swarmed over Asia and South America. A childish hand had built the bridges of San Francisco, and London, and Paris, and New York in meticulous detail.

From the bathroom, he could hear Anna singing some repetitive refrain to her daughter.

He opened the bottom drawer of the plan chest, and saw pencil drawings, a contrast to the abstracts around him. They were minutely observed studies of leaves and blossom. He bent down and saw their names written in calligraphic script: lacebark, mountain ribbonwood, paper mulberry, Osage orange. He stared for a moment or two at the representation of the common fig, Ficus carica. The fruit was shown cut in half, the outer green flesh concealing the heavily seeded interior, the seeds radiating from the center, pink against the outer rim of pale yellow, like a pursed mouth.

Anna came back into the room, Rachel hooked up onto one hip, now with a towel in her grasp.

“I hope you don’t mind,” he said.

“No,” she replied. But she had flushed, and seemed embarrassed.

“Are they botanical drawings?” he asked.

“Not quite.”

“Recent?”

“No,” she said. She came and closed the drawer.

“I rather like that sort of thing,” he said. “Do you know a book called Women of Flowers’?”

“No,” she murmured.

“The Victorian plant illustrators…and Walter Hood Fitch?”

“Yes,” she said. “I know Fitch.”

Rachel was observing him silently. He was taken aback, for a moment, by the flatness in her expression.

He changed the subject. “Did you sell much in Quincy?” he asked.

She smiled. “Two.”

“And you’re there every month?”

“Yes.”

“Would two be an average day?”

“No,” she said. “Two is a good day.” She shrugged.

“How long have you been selling there?”

“Not long,” she said. “I just moved six months ago, from Ogunquit.”

He looked from her to the child. There was quite a contrast: the little girl looked heavy and was fair; her mother was slight, red-haired, and the hair cut in a close crop, where the little girl’s was long.

“Did you read my prospectus?” he asked. When he had seen her with her paintings, on the pavement outside the market, he had given her a brochure of the gallery. He had been amused, that day, by her reaction. Most of the artists, even the amateurs, knew who he was, but if she had heard of him or the gallery, she had not shown it. Merely thanked him for the prospectus, politely explained the title of each painting, and sat down again on her folding stool, her hands crossed in her lap.

She had gone now to the kitchen, and taken the brochure from a drawer. “I can’t say I’ve ever seen such a thing,” she told him. “It’s like a book.”

He nodded, pleased. “My printing costs are high,” he told her, “but presentation is everything.”

She felt the warmth of the coffee on the stove. “Would you like a drink?” she asked. And she noticed the wine. “Your wine?”

“Thank you.”

She let Rachel down while she opened the bottle. He caught her glancing at him several times, with an expression of bemusement. The child sat on the floor. He felt himself under inspection from two pairs of eyes.

When she handed him the glass, he said, “I would like to show several of your paintings.”

“Not buy,” she said.

“That’s not the way it works.”

“No,” she commented. “Wishful thinking.”

He sipped his wine, and regarded her. He saw that the child had a pencil in one hand; she began drawing circles on her forearm.

“Rachel,” Anna chided.

“It’s quite a map,” he said, nodding at the far wall.

She followed his glance. “Oh, yes,” she answered. “For Rachel.”

There was a silence. He wondered at the extreme indulgence of allowing a child to paint an entire wall.

“This is lovely,” Anna said. She was holding up the wineglass.

“You like it?”

“I do.”

“It’s one of my interests,” he said.

“Drinking wine?”

“Investing in wine.”

She nodded. She was half smiling.

“What else do you invest in?” she asked.

“People like you,” he said.

“Ah.” Gently, she took the pencil from Rachel’s grasp. “I’ve never thought of myself as an investment.”

“Perhaps you’re not interested in an exhibition,” he said. “I’ve known artists who aren’t.”

Anna looked from Rachel to him. “You would exhibit me?”

“Yes. In time.”

“Truly?”

He smiled at her. “Some of the work here is quite salable.”

She got to her feet. “Show me,” she said.

They walked from painting to painting in the studio. He chose according to a theme: the semiabstracts of Boston and New England; the recognizable locations of Nantucket; the Center Methodist Church’s white tower rising above the gray stacked roofs of Provincetown; Nobska Light at Falmouth.

“But these aren’t the best,” she kept saying.

“You would have to trust my judgment,” he told her.

“What about my judgment?” she said.

He considered her. “Show me the best,” he said.

She went away into what he assumed was a bedroom, and brought back three framed pieces. He looked at them carefully, but their color was very high, almost backlit, in shades of orange.

“What does this remind me of,” he wondered.

“Vermont,” she said.

He nodded. “Vermont in the fall. Very Technicolor.”

“You don’t like them,” she said.

“They’re not as commercial as the others.”

“I don’t want to be commercial.”

He smiled. It was an old argument. He fingered the nearest painting, the molding around the frame. “They would need remounting,” he said. “Who did this for you?”

“My mother,” she said.

He managed to say nothing. It struck him as rather comically naïve.

He had finished his glass of wine, and placed it, precisely, on the kitchen counter. “You must trust my judgment,” he repeated.

She was hard to impress, to win over.

He rather liked her for it.

She would not give him the New England pieces at all, because he would not take her favorites. They had parted company that warm July night with perfect politeness. He was not prepared to push her.

As he walked away, he had felt irritated at her obstinacy; then, grudgingly, he admired it. He went back to the market the following week, but she wasn’t there. In fact, she wasn’t there for a month. At the end of August, one lunchtime, he had called at her apartment again.

This time, she was alone. All the loft windows were open. A less humid breeze was blowing. That morning, there had been a squall of rain, and the drops still marked the open windows. She was not working at the easel, but on the floor, printing a pattern on a collage.

“A new departure,” he observed.

“Not really,” she said.

He looked around. “Is your daughter here?”

“No,” she said, “she’s with her grandmother for the week.” She looked at the floor, and paced up and down, judging what she had done that morning. Then she turned away from it. She snatched at a denim jacket that was hanging over a chair. “I was just going out,” she said.

“For lunch?”

“Some groceries. There’s no food in the house.”

“Let me buy you lunch,” he said.

She indicated her clothes: another T-shirt, and a pair of fraying shorts.

“I’ll wait if you want to change,” he said.

She hesitated, the smile twitching at her mouth. “Are you taking me somewhere exotic?” she asked.

“Wherever you like.”

“Is it gentle persuasion?”

“To what purpose?”

“To give you the New Englands.”

“Not at all,” he said. “I have too many paintings and not enough space to show them.”

“I see,” she murmured. “You wouldn’t make an exception, then, to show mine?”

He smiled at her. “Since you won’t give them to me, that is an academic question,” he said.

He took her to Gyuhama.

As they sat down, she said, “I’ve never eaten sushi before.”

“Do you not like seafood?” he asked.

She grinned at him. “Born in Boston, and I don’t like seafood?”

He began to like her. She ate quickly, as if all life were a hurry.

“Tell me about yourself,” he said.

She ate for a second, then tilted her chin. “Twenty-five, single mother.”

“Were you married?” he asked.

“No.”

“So you bring Rachel up alone.”

She eyed him. “And?”

“Nothing at all. Just an inquiry.”

“My mother helps me,” Anna told him. “In fact, we lived with her until a while ago.”

He watched her as she tasted the miso soup. “Rachel is a striking child,” he said.

She looked up. “You think so?”

“Yes.”

She simply nodded.

“Have you always lived in New England?” he asked.

“Most of the time,” she said. “Have you?”

“Yes.”

“But you must travel.”

“Yes. I go to Europe a great deal. London, Paris.”

“London, Paris, New York, and Rome,” she said. “Like the perfume bottles.”

“I’m sorry?”

She smiled. “My mother’s perfume bottles always had those cities on the label. When I was little, I thought I’d travel to all those places.”

“And have you?”

“No,” she said. “But I will.”

“You should,” he told her. “Italy and France, for an artist.”

“I couldn’t afford it just now,” she told him.

The soup was taken away; the treasure boat arrived. She peered down at it, intrigued.

“How do you eat this?” she asked. And, when shown, “What is this? And this?” He explained the dishes to her.

She was rather childlike herself, he decided. Or perhaps that was an illusion. Perhaps it was simply that she seemed to have no idea of herself, no egotism. She was totally unself-conscious.

“If you let me sell your paintings, you might be able to afford a trip,” he pointed out.

She sat back and considered him. “Mr. Garrett,” she said, “if you sold my paintings, I would pay off my credit cards.”

“Are you in debt?” he asked.

She started to laugh. “You sound like an old man.”

“I am an old man,” he said.

The laugh was genuine. “Right,” she murmured. “Right.” Then, “But you’re very formal,” she told him.

“Is that wrong?” he asked.

She rocked her hand from side to side in a maybe-maybe not gesture. “You’re telling me you’re not in debt,” she said.

“I’m not in debt.”

“To anyone? A loan, a mortgage?”

“Nothing,” he said.

“Jesus,” she muttered.

He let this go. After a moment, he said, “Let me help you.”

She shook her head. “More debts, Mr. Garrett.”

“Not a debt,” he said. “A gift.”

Her mouth hung open for a second. “Why would you want to do that?” she asked.

He didn’t answer directly. “Then let me sell your paintings,” he said.

She sighed. “All of them?”

“No,” he said. “I’ll take two.”

“But that’s less than you offered to take a month ago!” she objected.

“And how much did you spend on your credit card this month?” he asked her.

“That’s not fair.”

“I’m not the one with debts,” he said.

By December of that year, by Christmas, she no longer had to worry about her bills. The first exhibition had finished in November. He had sold fourteen pieces.

On the night before Christmas Eve, she walked into the gallery in a heavy wool coat, in which she twirled for him. “Do you like it?”

“Yes.”

“A Christmas present from Ma.”

He had met Grace by then. One afternoon in the summer, they had stopped by his house to pick up a check. He had sold the first two paintings straightaway; four more had followed. One was very large, the first really giant canvas that Anna had attempted. Grace had said very little that afternoon: she was extraordinarily polite toward him—an attitude that he later learned hid her immediate dislike.

That Christmas, the gallery was showing the more figurative paintings that traditionally did well in the festive season. On his urging, Anna had produced four small paintings in oils of winter landscapes. Grace had exclaimed when she had seen them hanging: they were of a house in woodland, with a long sloping drive.

Anna had stood in the gallery, dwarfed by the floor-length black coat. A blue velvet scarf was wound around her neck. He was struck by her heightened color from the cold outside, and the luminosity of her eyes.

Then, it struck him. It struck him like a thunderbolt, and he knew then why he had returned to see her in the loft apartment, and why he had persevered with her, and why he thought of her as so different from the other women who inhabited his life, darkening shadows with their sordid tastes, and their ability to be degraded.

Looking back at him across the gallery now, above the blue velvet of the scarf, were the eyes of his mother’s stainless Madonna.

“I have something for you,” he said suddenly.

He went into the office, and brought out the gift he had bought for some grasping Brahmin wife who kept him secret from her self-satisfied husband. She didn’t matter anymore.

He handed the box to Anna. She opened it slowly, and stared at the gift. She said nothing at all.

“It’s an antique,” he told her.

It was a rather beautiful item. Victorian, in silver, and made in London, it was a neck chain of entwined petals.

“Flowers,” she said.

“I believe they’re lilies,” he told her.

She stood with it in one hand, the other gently touching it. She didn’t look up at him.

“Put it on,” he said. He walked forward.

She was biting her lip, that familiar habit.

“Would you like to put it on?” he asked pointedly.

She closed the lid of the box. “Thank you,” she said. “But I can’t take this.”

He frowned at her expression. “Is something the matter?”

“No, no.”

“I thought you liked silver.”

“Yes,” she said. “I do. It’s lovely. But I can’t possibly take it from you. It’s too expensive.”

“You have a silver bangle…I thought…”

“It’s lovely,” she repeated. She nodded her head once or twice, almost too emphatically.

He had closed his hand over hers, over the proffered box, and pushed it gently back toward her. “You can take it, and you will,” he said. “Or I shall be very offended.”

In March, he arranged the first exhibition in New York. It was not easy to do; the venue was inappropriate at first, and then the replacement was horrendously expensive. But he had the first of the corporate orders for her: a fashion house wanted six of the very spare, almost colorless works.

Anna herself was distracted; Rachel had been recommended for a residential school at Easter. It was a new departure, for Rachel had never left home before, even for a single night, away from her mother or grandmother.

“I don’t know what to do,” Anna had said to him, when he arranged to meet her for lunch. She came into the restaurant looking fragmented and anxious. She went very pale at such times.

“Who suggested the residential course?” he asked. The waiter was hovering, waiting for the order; Anna had not even noticed him.

She fumbled with the menu. “The school,” she said. “It’s highly thought of, this—this—” she searched for the word. “Program.”

“Then take the opportunity,” he suggested.

She stared at him. “You heard what I said?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“A program,” she said. “That’s what they call it. Like machines.”

“I’m sure that’s not the meaning,” he told her.

“Oh,” she remarked. Her hands, and the menu, dropped to the table. “You’re always so sure about everything.”

He asked the waiter to come back.

“You’re annoyed,” he said.

“Life is so simple for you,” she told him.

“Excuse me?”

She waved her hand. “No children. No wife. No partner. No one to please.”

“I only try to advise you…”

“Well, don’t,” she said. “Don’t advise me.” And she got up, and walked away.

The evening before the exhibition, they were due to drive to New York. He was taking her; the car drew up at the curb and she was waiting already outside her apartment, wrapped in the long wool coat and the blue scarf, an overnight bag at her feet.

“You’re prompt,” he remarked, as the driver packed her bag into the trunk. He couldn’t take his eyes off her. She seemed so fragile, so untouched.

“Rachel isn’t here,” she reminded him.

There was silence most of the way; even when they checked in, she barely said a word. They went straight to the gallery, and examined the way the paintings had been hung. For a while, she became coolly businesslike, insisting on two moves. She wanted a duo interchanged, but one was smaller than the other. It created a domino effect, other pieces having to be shifted to accommodate the change in sizes. But she was adamant, standing with her arms crossed, her face set. He couldn’t decide if she were angry or not; she seemed so controlled. The changes took three hours, and it was after eleven o’clock at night when they emerged. All she wanted to do was go back to the hotel.

He walked her to her door, out of politeness. She got out her key, and only then did he see, to his complete surprise, that she was crying.

“What is it?” he asked.

She shook her head, opened the door, and went in without closing it.

He followed her, and saw her sitting on the edge of the bed, looking desolate. She was as thin as a rake, and hollow-eyed.

“Are you ill?” he asked.

He opened the minibar, and poured her a brandy. She took it meekly.

“Is it the show?”

“No.”

“Then what?”

She was silent. She picked up the TV remote, and began to flick through channels at high speed. The colors from the screen chased over her face; then, as quickly as she had picked it up, she switched off the TV again, and threw the remote down. It clattered against the bedside table, and fell to the floor.

“Am I doing anything right?” she asked.

He sat down opposite her. “You paint reasonably well,” he observed.

She glanced up, and gave him a crooked smile.

“You’re dissatisfied,” he said.

“Yes.”

“With the exhibition?”

She shook her head. “No, no.”

“Then it’s Rachel,” he decided.

She was staring at the carpet. “It’s a very curious thing,” she murmured, “intimacy.” She looked up at him. “How can you survive without it?”

She must have gleaned something from his expression.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “That was rude.”

“No,” he told her. “Actually, you’re right. There’s no one I’m close to.”

“Your parents?” she asked.

“They both died in the last three years.”

“I’m sorry,” she repeated.

He leaned forward. “If you don’t feel intimacy with a child like Rachel,” he said, “that is hardly your fault.”

She grimaced. “She shares things in her own way,” she said. She put her face in her hands, and lay back on the bed, palms pressed hard to her eyes. “But I…”

“Is it money?” he asked. “Do you need any more?”

“No,” she said. She began to sob.

“Is there something Rachel needs?” he asked.

“No,” she said. She put down her hands, and immediately replaced them with an arm across her face. “Would you please go?” she said.

“But there’s something else I can help with,” he said. “There must be.” He kneeled down at her side. Almost a supplicant. He lifted down the protecting arm; she stared at him.

“Don’t you know how much I want to help you?” he asked.

“I can do it by myself,” she whispered.

He turned her hand over, and kissed the palm softly.

“You’ve been alone for too long,” he told her. “Too long.”