“WELL, I MUST SAY, you always did have a gift for surprise.”
“Trust me, Mark. I didn’t plan it this way. If there was some other alternative …”
“Well, there isn’t. And don’t be ridiculous. I’m delighted to see you.”
“Sure you are. I can see the gnashing of teeth under that big welcoming grin of yours.”
“Here, give me your bag.” Manship snatched the light overnight carryall, nearly yanking her over the threshold. “Go inside by the fire. You’re soaking wet.”
“I didn’t pack a raincoat. This all happened so fast.”
“Bad things generally do.”
She followed him into the living room, her quick, shrewd gaze darting left and right in appraisal. “Looks about the same. You still have those mothy old drapes, I see.”
“And always will, if I can help it.”
She smiled at his annoyance. “Mrs. McCooch taking good care of you?”
“Reliable as clockwork. Still goes home for the weekends.” Manship stood there at the foot of the stairs, holding her bag and looking at a loss. He watched her go to the fire, kicking off her shoes and dropping to her knees on the rug beside it. “A fire. Heavenly.”
“Just drying out the place. We’ve had rain for a week straight.” He started up the stair. “I’m putting you in our—my room. I’ll take the guest room.”
“Absolutely not.” She was on her feet, bounding after him. “Mark—I can’t stay if you do that. The guest room is fine for me. As it is, I feel guilty enough …”
He was about to protest, then shrugged. “Have it your way. Pour yourself a drink. You know where everything is. I’ll be right down.”
Moments later, he was back in the living room. She was seated on a cushion on the floor, sipping a sherry, stretching her legs before the fire. The static electricity of her stockings brushing against each other gave him an oddly arousing sensation.
“When did all this happen?” he asked, pouring himself a sherry. “Was it expected?”
“Oh, yes. He’d been failing for the past year. The doctor told us it could be anytime.”
“You don’t have to believe this. I was fond of your father.” He dropped into the big wing chair opposite her, sliding down into his characteristic tailbone, cross-kneed slouch. “Even though I’m sure he couldn’t abide me.”
“Let’s face it, Mark. You weren’t quite the son-in-law he’d bargained for.”
“I wasn’t a banker, a broker, a world force, if that’s what you mean.”
“None of the above.” She laughed.
“Just an impoverished curator! Have you had supper?”
“Just a doughnut at the airport.”
“You must be starved. There are some eggs. I can throw a salad together.”
“Sounds perfect.”
He started into the kitchen. She followed him through the long, narrow hallway, on past the big swinging kitchen door that made a gulping sound each time it opened or closed.
“This is very kind of you, Mark. I swear I didn’t plan this.”
“How do you plan death? It just comes.”
“If I could’ve gotten a hotel room …”
“Anything even just okay is three hundred dollars a night, and they don’t have the decency to throw in a cup of coffee for that. Ah,” Manship proclaimed, peering into the refrigerator. “You’re in luck. Mrs. McCooch has laid in some fresh raspberries. And there’s a bit of Stilton left over from the other night.”
Her ears pricked. “Did you have guests the other night?”
“Not what you’re thinking. Just Bill Osgood.”
Manship plucked an endive and a cucumber from the vegetable bin.
“He’d be more fun for me than you.” She followed after him with a cruet of oil and vinegar. “He still looking for a new wife?”
“Yes … Well, maybe not a wife, but a full-time sleep-in lady friend. If only he could get the old one out of his hair.”
“She still so ditsy?”
“Yes. Still. Omelette or over easy?”
“Over easy’s fine. I like my yolks runny.”
“I know perfectly well how you like your yolks.” There was an edge to his voice. Their gazes bumped, then held a moment. She looked away first.
“Tell me about your big Botticelli show. There was a cover story in ARTnews.”
“Did you read it?”
“Partially,” she paused, considering. “Typical for them—you know, pompous.”
“In that case, you know more about the show than I do. I didn’t read the story.”
“Sure, sure. If I know you, you probably bought a thousand copies of the magazine and mailed them out all over the country.”
“There’s not much to tell.” He cracked eggs into a sizzling skillet. “It opens on the twenty-second. I’ve been on it for a couple of years.”
“What is this mysterious series of drawings you’ve been running down?”
“Oh, you mean the Chigis? Nothing mysterious about it. They’re just that. A series of sketches—thirteen. Botticelli did them in the 1490s. Preparation for painting the Chigi Madonna. Never before shown. I’ve only been able to find ten.”
“How come?”
“Don’t ask. I’m just about sick of the whole thing by now.” He tossed salt on the gently pulsing yolks. “Speaking of shows, I read about yours in the Times. Pretty fast company for a little girl from Scarsdale.”
“I got lucky, I guess. The Getty was doing a show of female American moderns—O’Keeffe, Frankenthaler, Alice Neel, Susan Rothenberg—you know, the usual suspects.” She went on, animated, much revived from the drowned rat that had washed up on the doorstep shortly before. “They asked me if I wanted to show. I wasn’t sure. I said I’d call back in twenty-four hours. I called Jane out in the Hamptons and asked if I should do it. ‘Of course you should, you idiot’” She rattled on, imitating the throaty locutions of an old artist friend. “Well, you know Jane.”
“So?”
“So I got back to the Getty the next day and said, ‘I’ll be delighted.’”
He set out the eggs and tossed the salad, then sat across from her and watched her devour them—greedily, the way she did everything, as if she didn’t expect to be around long and had no idea where she was going next.
He marveled at how pretty she still was. One of those serendipitously lucky people for whom everything just falls into place, she had looks, talent, opportunities—all with no special effort on her part. Still young, too, just thirty-four, she never took many pains with her looks. It wasn’t typical magazine prettiness, either, but something else—hard to put one’s finger on. She had a long, narrow face, angular, with good bones; a bladelike Roman nose, a straight line down from the forehead with a little break at the bridge; a bony, thrusting chin; a slightly snaggled front tooth; a wide expanse of shrewd, darting eyes that never seemed to rest.
When he first saw her he was a young instructor at the Art Institute; she was five years his junior, a painting student from downtown auditing his course but only sporadically attending it.
She had what was called in those days “attitude,” which was generally held to be a sense of superiority predicated on no visible body of accomplishment. At an earlier time, they’d have called it “brass.”
At the close of the semester, he gave her a C and told her she was wasting time. She apologized for making a nuisance of herself and for having played “the smart-ass brat” (her words), which she freely admitted she’d been playing most of her life and getting away with it.
They started seeing a great deal of each other (not regularly—they both continued to see other people at the same time—but a great deal, nonetheless).
As courtships go, theirs was brief. She’d married him over the strong objections of her parents, who were mercantile and would have preferred someone like-minded. Maeve was, after all, an only child, and since she showed little inclination to take over someday the substantial commercial real estate enterprise the Connells had amassed over the years, the hope was that she’d be clever enough, or at least cooperative enough, to choose a mate who would.
Needless to say, she didn’t, marrying instead the young curator of Renaissance painting. Overeducated, attractive enough, he had some promise—however; unfortunately, the kind that brings great distinction but little in the way of material reward, which was the only kind the Connells understood.
Just months after their marriage, her phenomenal rise began. She started showing in galleries in TriBeCa and SoHo. Almost instantly, she was written about in the right periodicals and journals, and in the sort of glowing terms that older, far more experienced painters would sacrifice a limb to see written about themselves.
In the course of two years, her prices rose exponentially. Shortly, she was installed at the best galleries on Fifty-seventh Street. She was an item in trendy periodicals like New York magazine, as well as such tony ones as ARTnews, where heavy reputations are established. She was by no means yet “major” but highly regarded sources claimed she was well on her way to becoming just that.
At that time, Manship was putting in ten hours a day as a curator at the Metropolitan. At night, he was writing a monograph on Giotto, destined to become a classic in its own right. He was also teaching in whatever spare time he had. He, too, was spoken of as “immensely promising,” but only within narrow curatorial circles and with none of the glittery media fanfare that trumpeted his wife’s accomplishments. He was eclipsed, to say the least.
Far more troubling than the fact of being eclipsed by his wife was the feeling of being consumed by her, which eventually spelled doom to their marriage. Manship was not a particularly envious man. He didn’t begrudge her an inch of the limelight in which she was then basking. He was making his way, too, but in a world far less generous with praise and far more adept at betrayal, and he needed every spare minute of his own time just to keep his back covered.
“You haven’t said a word about Tom.” Manship rose and carried off her empty plates.
“What about him?”
“Is he all right?”
“Well, you know Tom. Just as long as business is fine, he is.”
“And is it?”
She accepted the bowl of raspberries he offered. “Since I haven’t heard anything to the contrary, I presume that it is.”
“And everything is”—he reached for the apposite phrase—“good between you?”
She gaped at him, her mouth full of berries. “Oh, Mark … if that isn’t you to a tee. You’re not really concerned?”
“Why shouldn’t I be? Just because we’re no longer married doesn’t mean I no longer care about you. I just hope everything is … fine.”
At first, she thought he was being sarcastic then realized he was absolutely serious. “That’s sweet of you, Mark. Well, you know, it’s not exactly Romeo and Juliet between Tom and me, if that’s what you mean.”
“What is?”
“But, then again, we’re fond of each other, respect each other’s work, each other’s needs. What can I say? It’s a life. I’m not exactly crazy about Tom’s kids. I’m not overjoyed when they breeze in on us unannounced, fresh from their wanderings, and stay and stay, until Tom gives them each a big check and with the next breeze sends them all packing.”
“And you,” Manship probed. “What about you?”
“What about me?”
“Are you planning to have kids anytime soon?”
“Me?” She threw her head back and hooted at the ceiling. “Oh, Mark.”
“What’s so funny? You’re still young enough. I should think you’d want that.”
“Motherhood?” Surprised by his sudden earnestness, she became that way, too. “I honestly don’t think I’m right for it. It would be unfair.”
“To the child?”
“Of course to the child. And then, what about me?”
“What about you?”
“Well, you know my life, how I am. After my work’s done for the day, there’s not much left over for anyone else.”
She could be, and generally was, brutally frank in her assessment of others. He’d never heard her be so frank about herself. It took him aback, so that he had to cast about for some fresh conversational ploy. “And other than that?”
“Content. I’m content. My work goes well. My health is good.” She’d recovered her poise and once again she was smiling that amused, frankly mocking smile. “There now, are you satisfied?”
In answer, he rose and cleared the dishes. She took up whatever silver and soiled napery remained, then followed him to the sink. “This thing may take a week or two. There’s the funeral and all the arrangements. The lawyers have to do their thing. My first job in the morning is to get myself a hotel room.”
“Don’t be silly. You’ll stay here.”
“I couldn’t possibly. It’s a terrible inconvenience. What with your show coming up and all …”
“Forget the show. It’s no inconvenience. You’ll stay. The matter is settled. I’ll tell Mrs. McCooch to make up the guest room and stock the cupboard for two.”
“Are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure.”
“That’s kind of you, Mark.” She touched his arm lightly. “I’d feel much better about it if you weren’t so angry.”
“Angry? I’m not angry,” he shot back, then laughed at the contradiction between his words and the tone of his voice. “At least, I’m not angry at you.”
“Well, then, what is bothering you?”
“Nothing.” He brooded a moment, then shook his head wearily. “Nothing important.”