Warpaint Page 13

  “Is it possible?” She swung her legs out of the sheets and tiptoed to a mirror hung by a beige ribbon on the wall near the stairs.

  “Fuzz?” She gazed at her head. “I have fuzz! I’m fuzzie wuzzie.” Slipping her feet into clogs, she opened the top drawer of her dresser, took out a small wrapped box, then clomped downstairs. Although she’d been protesting for weeks that Christmas felt nightmarish this year, she was glad now that Quiola had decorated the “shed” with armloads of pine and ribbon and lights, mistletoe. Redolent with coffee and the sharp clean fragrance of evergreen, the “shed” seemed like a kid in a new overcoat. C.C. came down the stairs into the morning’s thin light to slip the box she held under the tree. A pinecone snapped in the tiny hearth.

  “Fire’s lovely,” she called into the kitchen.

  “It was an icebox in here when I got up. Coffee?”

  “Love some.” A tiny thump-thump-thump told C.C. that Amelia was coming downstairs after her. The cat skittered past into the kitchen.

  “Your familiar is hungry,” she said.

  “I know.” Quiola came into the living room with two mugs of coffee.

  “Guess what?” said C.C. bending her head. “Look – can you see it? Peach-fuzz.”

  “It’s finally growing back? Hooray!”

  C.C. sat at the table. “I’ll hardly know what to do with it. Hair. Just imagine.”

  “Merry Christmas,” said Quiola, picking up the cat.

  “Merry to you, too. Wonder how long it will take to look like something other than fuzz. Wonder when I should make an appointment at the salon! Oh and Quiola – thanks.”

  “For what? You haven’t opened a single gift yet.”

  “For this – for Christmas. It would have been worse, I think, to skip it.”

  “Your parents always made a big deal of it, and Mother did, too, so it just seemed wrong to let it go.”

  C.C. went to the tree, looked over several boxes, shook one, put it down. “There are so many! I thought you hate to shop.”

  “One’s for Amelia. And that green box arrived from Minnesota.”

  “From Liz? Hell!” C.C. leaned over the box with its jaunty plaid ribbon. “What do you think she’s up to? Always said a gift shouldn’t be an obligation. If obliged, she gives food. Or flowers. Anyway, things that don’t last. That box doesn’t look like either food or a flower.” She glanced out the window just as a pair

  of chickadees landed on the large wooden spool on the back porch to hop about strewn sunflower seeds. “Monks,” she said. “Chickadees. With their brown caps and white cheeks. Do you believe in God?”

  “Whoa – I haven’t had enough coffee yet for a question like that!”

  “Mom and Dad were agnostics. Mom had been, once upon a time, a Quaker.”

  “So?”

  “So I know you’ve said you don’t believe, but I say once a Catholic always a Catholic – isn’t that true?”

  “Maybe. Come on, let me just put on some Judy Garland or something.”

  C.C. sipped her coffee. “I’ve just been thinking – and not about Mom, if that’s what you’re thinking. Mom left a long time ago. I haven’t had her as I knew her for so many years that the woman who died was almost a stranger.”

  “You don’t mean that.”

  “But I do.”

  Quiola sorted through the Christmas CDs, stored in a shoebox only hauled out for the season. “Your mother was dignified.”

  “A Boston Brahmin is always dignified – all that Harvard Yard. Or Radcliffe. She loved Judy Garland,” C.C. added, as the singer’s voice came up over the stereo. “Have yourself a merry little Christmas.”

  “So let’s see what obligation Liz has sent, shall we?”

  C.C. put her coffee mug down and picked up the green box. “All right. I hope this thing isn’t cursed.”

  “Maybe it’s a pearl button.”

  “Why would it be a button?”

  “Open it.”

  “But why would it be a pearl button?”

  “It’s too large. Come on, C.C. Just a joke. Open it.” Quiola sat down next to C.C. on the couch. “Come on, open it.”

  “I don’t get the joke.” She pulled at the ribbon.

  “It’s a line from a poem, a poem about a gift. ‘I would not mind if it were bones, or a pearl button.’”

  “Morbid.”

  “Plath.”

  “As I said, morbid. What is this, a wallet?” She lifted a leather case from the box, and opened it. “Oh no,” said C.C., staring at an old framed, black and white photo, two women with a girl in pigtails.

  “You’re cute as a bug!” said Quiola. “And Liz is so young!”

  “I remember that day. Paul took the picture.” Shutting the leather case, she put the picture aside. “Open something else, Quiola. Quick. Open anything.”

  ♦

  “Hello?” Nancy Davis pushed open the door of Liz’s Montauk studio. “Hello, Liz? Paul?” It was the summer of l944. Nancy, wearing a housedress, no make-up, hair pulled back in a ribbon, walked over the rise to invite her friends down to the farmhouse for breakfast. There was no phone in the studio, and never would be, so if she wanted her friends’ company, she had to take a stroll. During winters, in the city, Paul and Liz rented the floor of an old warehouse, for canvases and sculptures, although Paul was given to slightly more moderate-sized works than Liz, and really didn’t need so much floor-space. Still he liked the expanse, and when he got frustrated he walked the full rectangle of the place, smoking.

  “Anybody home?” called Nancy.

  “Out back,” came Liz’s muffled voice.

  Shutting the slightly warped door firmly behind her, Nancy walked through the length of the house, from studio space, past a tiny half-bath, through the kitchen and out the back door to find Paul and Liz at their easels, each trying a portrait of the other. Walking from easel to easel, shaking her head, Nancy said, “This is crazy.” She put her hands on her hips.

  Liz wiped her brush with an oily rag, and gave Nancy a hug. “Good morning. What brings you up to the lair so early?”

  “Breakfast.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding,” said Paul. He took a drag on his cigarette, let the smoke drift, and stubbed out the butt. “Sweetheart, you’re not going to find a single egg in this place, let alone bread or jam. I think we’ve a couple stale rolls stashed somewhere. If you look hard.”

  “Oh, Paul,” said Nancy. “I meant for you two come over to us.”

  Liz stared at Nancy as if the invitation was a nasty surprise.

  “She’s not a cow, Liz. Why are you giving her the once-over?”

  “Because she’s glowing. Aren’t you, Nance? Don’t tell me, I can see it for myself. You’re pregnant.”

  “Uh-huh.” Blushing to the roots of her wavy hair, she made a coy face. “I’m four months along, so I thought it high time to let you two in on it.”

  “Why, congratulations,” said Paul and hugged Nancy gingerly.

  “She’s not going to break,” said Liz. “If you’re four months or so –”

  “The doctor says November 12, or thereabouts. Oh, dear,” she said, puffing out her breath. “I’m so excited. I mean, I didn’t think Tom and I would do this again. But –” she shrugged. “We told Ted and Charlotte last night.”

  “And how do they feel?” asked Liz.

  “They’re fighting about it already. Ted wants a brother. Charlotte wants a sister.”

  “And what do you want?”

  Nancy laughed. “A healthy baby.”

  “Boy,” said Liz, suddenly and sharp. “It’ll be a boy.”

  “If it is, we’re going to name him Tucker, after his great-grandfather. Tucker Mason Davis. If it’s a girl, Tom wants to name her Nancy, but I don’t, so we’ll see. And we want you to be the godparents. I mean, we’re not religious and I know you two aren’t, but we still want godparents. Will you?”

  “Of course,” said Liz. “So long as I don’t have to take any silly
vow.”

  “Silly vow?” said Paul. “What about ‘to have and to hold, till death do us part’? Is that just a silly vow?”

  “Extremely silly –”

  “Mom! Mom, where are you?”

  “We’re out back, sweetheart. What is that child up to? I told her to start the bacon.”

  C.C. ran, breathless, into the yard. “Mom!”

  “Charlotte Clio, I thought I told you –”

  “Dad’s got the bacon on,” she said, gulping air. “He wanted me to come get you because there’s been a phone call for Mr. Gaines. A lady.”

  “Well,” said Liz, dropping a cloth over her painting. “I didn’t think you knew any ladies, present company excepted.”

  “I don’t.” Paul stood. “Who did we give the Davises’ number to, I wonder?”

  Liz shook her head.

  “Mom? Did you tell them?”

  “Yes, sweetheart. Liz says it will be a boy.”

  “No!” said C.C., stamping her foot. “I want a sister!”

  “We will all just have to wait until November 12, now won’t we? Paul?”

  “What, my love?”

  Liz rolled her eyes. “Go fetch the camera. Let’s have a picture, just us girls.” And as he headed off, Liz called after him, “Before we find out who your mystery lady is!”

  He swatted away the insinuation, while Nancy quickly re-braided one of C.C.’s loosening pigtails. “Honestly,” she said, “I haven’t been out of the house ten minutes, and you are a mess, Charlie. When are you going to learn how to stay tidy? Did Daddy mention this lady’s name?”

  “No.”

  “How odd,” said Liz. “I can’t imagine who would’ve called.”

  Paul, ducking back out of the house with his new Eastman-Kodak Brownie Target-16, said, “All right, girls. Give me a nice pose.”

  Liz, as the tallest, stood in the middle and crouched a bit, so she could put an arm around Nancy’s waist, and hold C.C.’s hand. The child squinted into the sun as her mother laughed. “Do you know how to work that thing?” she asked.

  “’Course I do,” said Paul, peering down the lens. “Smile.”

  Once the picture was taken and the camera stowed away, the group walked back to the farmhouse. As they approached the kitchen door, as the aroma of coffee and bacon drifted to them on the warm summer air, C.C. sprinted and banged through the screen door, over to the stove.

  “Hi Daddy. Can I have a piece?”

  “It’s too hot. Where’s your brother?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, go find him.”

  “Daddy –”

  “Now. Skedaddle.”

  “Darling?” said Nancy, holding the door open for her friends. “Who called?”

  Tom turned around and wiped his hands on his chef’s apron. “Glad you two could make it,” he said. “It was Georgia.”

  Liz pinched Paul’s arm. “Liar,” she said.

  “Ow, stop it. Why would Georgia call here? I didn’t give her this number. Alfred certainly didn’t have it.”

  Tom looked about to see if any children were near. Then he lowered his voice a bit and said, “He’s gone, Paul – very early this morning – a stroke. I think he was at Doctor’s Hospital. Georgia wanted her friends to know before tomorrow’s papers.”

  “Gone? He can’t be. I just saw him in the city last week.”

  “He was eighty-two,” said Liz.

  “He seemed fine to me, the usual Alfred.”

  “Oh, dear,” said Nancy. “How did Georgia sound?”

  “Okay. I took her number, Paul, if you want to phone her back. It’s on my desk in the study.”

  “Yeah, okay, I should do that.” He put a hand to his forehead, and then wandered off for the telephone.

  “The City will seem empty, without him,” said Liz. “Without the gallery.”

  “Maybe Georgia will keep it going?” asked Nancy.

  “I doubt it.” Tom whipped eggs in a bowl. C.C. came in from the hallway, without her brother.

  “Ted doesn’t want to get out of bed.”

  Nancy sighed. “I think Ted resents the idea of another child in the house.”

  “Nonsense,” Tom said. “He’s just being Peck’s bad boy. If you’ll finish scrambling these, I’ll go make our son march.” He held out the bowl while Liz sat down at the kitchen table and asked Nancy, “Do you mind if I pour a cup for myself?”

  “Not at all. You know where the mugs are –”

  “I’ll get it for you,” said C.C.

  “Well,” said Liz. “How lovely of you.”

  At that point, Paul reappeared, hands clasped at the back of his neck. He shook his head, unclasped his hands, looked at Liz and said, “It’s so hard to believe – he was a genius. There isn’t anybody like him, not really.”

  “No,” said Liz. “That’s true.”

  8. Flinch

  Quiola stepped back from her worktable, put two brushes in the mayonnaise jar beside a crumbled pack of Camels. April sunlight filtered through the window as she massaged her stiff neck. The room she’d made her studio was warm, and she was tired. She opened the window, then turned back to her watercolor, whose abstract lines of force and collection meant to convey an impression of her first canter on Splash, a paint and warmblood cross. She’d started dressage lessons at a nearby farm just after Christmas.

  Her cell phone rang. Sighing, she flexed her fingers and picked the phone up off the worktable. “Hello?”

  “It’s for sale! I can’t believe it!” said C.C. “The house! I went for a walk, starting jogging when I saw the realtor’s sign. If it suits me, I’m going to buy it. I’ve already called the realtor. We can see it tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow? When?”

  C.C. coughed so hard she had to put aside the phone to clear her throat. “You have a lesson at ten thirty, so I made the appointment for 3. Give you plenty of time for a ride, a shower, lunch and so on.”

  “Yeah, that should work.” She tucked the phone under her chin, picked up the pack of cigarettes. “How much do you think the place will cost?”

  “In this neighborhood? Five or six hundred thousand – maybe more, depending on what kind of shape its in. I’m just guessing four bedrooms. Maybe.”

  Quiola lit a cigarette, quietly blowing smoke.

  “That’s an odd sound.”

  “My phone’s been acting up. Want to watch my lesson tomorrow, before we see the house? I’m told I’m getting pretty good.”

  “Not really, no. I don’t like horses – big clumsy prey animals that flinch at the drop of a hat? No. I don’t want to see you go ass over tea-kettle.”

  “That sounds like experience.”

  “It was. Dad gave me lessons for my birthday when I was twelve. I only took two. On the second, the horse sent me over his head. I looked like a punching bag for a few weeks. I know you should get right back on, but I didn’t. Horses are just unpredictable.”

  “Oh, phooey. People are unpredictable. Amelia is unpredictable.”

  “Amelia does not weigh over a thousand pounds.”

  “Neither does Splash. He’s big, but not that big.”

  “Okay, nine hundred and ninety pounds. If he throws you, you’ll know it.”

  “Everyone falls. Sooner or later.”

  “And they get hurt. I’ll see you tomorrow, what, around two-thirty?”

  Quiola closed the phone, took another drag, and wondered when C.C. would just come out and say: Why are you doing this to me? Why are you scaring the bullshit out of me? Riding horses, at your age! How could she explain?

  Splash touches the back of my neck when I tack up with his softly blowing nose, taking in my human scent, licking me until it tickles so, I shy away.

  ♦

  “My father,” Liz said, “lived an unflinching life. Most of us flinch.” She stood at the windows overlooking the deck of Treetops beside her grandniece, Sara. “He drew up the plans for Treetops,” she continued, “even made a scale
model, but year after year, the family stayed on the farm, with all its maples, waiting to be tapped, and all the bee-hives waiting to be harvested.”

  “Everyone says he was a hard man.”

  “I used to walk all about those halls of that scale model, through phantom doors – he never even broke ground.” Wrapped in her heaviest flannel bathrobe, Liz gazed through the stand of evergreens, down to the lake’s cold and moody waters.

  Sara, built like her mother but tall as well, put her hand on Liz’s shoulder. “Ready for that bath now, Gran?”

  “Oh, yes.” Liz took Sara’s arm; together they went to the bathroom, where the younger woman began to prepare the bathtub by setting out a jar of salts; the tubs itself was custom made, and let Liz walk into it through a door that would seal and she could sit on a platform rather than try to get all the way down – which she simply could not do.

  “Thank God,” she said, taking off her flannel robe, “Mother took matters into her own hands, and just built this place. It gave her last years some ease.”

  “Yes. I love this house.”

  “I know. That’s why it will be yours, soon.”

  “Gran, please. I hate it when you talk like that.”

  “I’m almost a century old, my dear. Can’t go on forever.”

  “But I don’t want the house. I want you.”

  “My father used to say: ‘Life’s too short to hesitate.’ He knew what he wanted and men admired him because he’d target, zero in, close for the kill and sometimes I’ve wondered whether it wasn’t, in fact, a perverted thing of grace he had. His own artistry, the precision of a big cat.”

  “Come sit.”

  Once Liz was settled, Sara turned on the taps, balancing hot and cold, and water pooled around her great-aunt’s ankles. Scattering a handful of the salts, she swirled the water with her fingertips. “How’s the temperature? Hot enough? Too cold?”

  “You’re such a good girl. I could never be so patient with an old biddy like me. Just let it rise as high as it will go.”

  “Shall I stay or leave until you’re done?”