Circle of Three (21 page)

I winced. Sore subject. Mama got her women’s club to start a petition drive against the ark on the grounds that public property can’t be used for religious purposes. “What do you think Eldon thinks about all the publicity the Arkists are getting?” I asked Jess instead of answering.

“Does your mother know you come here, Carrie?”

“Not—yes—well, no—”I stopped, rueful and defensive. “She knows I want to help.”

He smiled.

“I’ll tell her tonight,” I said recklessly. “I have to call her anyway about the weekend. I’ll make a
point
of mentioning it. That I come here as often as I can—which isn’t that often anyway.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why tell her?”

I lifted my arms and let them drop. “Why did you ask me?”

“No reason. Curious.”

We stared at each other, me anxious, him amused. Maybe; I really couldn’t tell what Jess’s smile meant, I just knew I didn’t like it.

“I’m not afraid of what my mother thinks. I’m not eighteen, you know.” Just saying it made me feel like a child.

He said, “That’s good”—but now there was nothing he could say that didn’t sound like tolerance or sarcasm or condescension. Or baiting. He knew it, too. He kept smiling.

“Oh, good-bye. I’m leaving.”

“’Night,” he called as I strode away. “I’ll be here on Wednesday, Carrie. I’ll make a
point
of it.”

Oh, now he was mocking me? I got in my car with jerky, frustrated movements, and drove too fast down his rough,
stony driveway. Why was it any of his business what I’d told my mother? And why was I angry? I didn’t know, but it felt good. Inappropriate, unwarranted, and fine. It felt like just the ticket. I hoped he was mad, too.
About time
.

We’d been through a lot together, but the one thing we’d never been with each other was angry. Why was that? In twelfth grade, when I wouldn’t sleep with him, he was understanding and I was guilty. When I wouldn’t marry him, he was sad and I was guilty. When we were together after the reunion and I let him down again, he was numb and I was guilty.

I hated this pattern. I’d have enjoyed a good fight, a yelling match, maybe some pushing and shoving. “You hurt me!” he could say, and I could shout back, “I know! How do you think that makes me feel!”

I wasn’t myself anymore. I felt as if I were on a drug; a good drug for once, but still a new and unfamiliar one. I couldn’t stand confrontation, I’d never liked mixing it up with people—but I would really have enjoyed starting a fight with Jess. I thought that was a good sign. It might mean we’d turned a corner.

Either that or I’d entered the perimenopause.

S
PRING’S HERE.
M
OM
let me skip school on Friday, and the three of us, me, her, and Gram, drove up to D.C. for the weekend. I got to drive, but only as far as Gainesville, because after that comes I-66 and then—gasp!—the Beltway, and God knows I’d have killed us all if I’d been the one driving on—faint!—the Beltway. So Mom and I had to switch around in the front seat while Gram ran into the ladies’ room at the Exxon and peed for like the fourth time since we left home. I wonder if she’s got something wrong with her, but she says no, she’s always like this.

It was fun driving up, actually. I’ve done a lot of stuff with my mom and my grandmother before, but this was the first time I ever felt like I was one of them, not a little girl among the grown-ups. Like we were three women going on an adventure together. Part of it was because Gram said things in the car she usually waits until I’m not around to say, things I don’t even necessarily want to hear, like how this trip was the longest time she’d been away from home in two years because Grampa never wants to go anywhere. And how what she thought would be their nice retirement, traveling around and doing things together, etc., etc., was apparently just a dream and is never going to happen. She didn’t laugh or make it a joke, either, the way she usually does. Her voice
got high and thin, and nobody said anything for a long time, and then I heard her blow her nose, and that was the end of that.

Mom looked miserable. I wonder what she’d have said if I hadn’t been there. I mean, it was her own father Gram was dissing. It’s true Grampa can be sort of a drag, and I can see how being married to him would bring you down sometimes, especially if you wanted somebody who’d talk to you. But I never liked it when Mom used to say bad things about Dad. She didn’t do it very often (and now she never does, just the opposite, I never even knew she liked him so much), and even then it was only little things, like how he left his beard hairs in the sink or he was too negative or he didn’t try hard enough to be sociable to their friends. I hated it, though, and I’d leave the room when she started, I’d never stick around and sympathize, even if I could see her point. I didn’t know who I was supposed to be being loyal to, her or him. When they’d fight, I’d get scared and think, what if this argument keeps going and going and doesn’t stop, what if it goes on to its natural conclusion and they decide they don’t like each other and split up? So I’d always leave, get the hell out, and try to think about something else. When I’d come back things would be okay again, silent but okay. She’d be depressed and he’d be in his office with the door closed, but at least the fight would be over.

So anyway, the trip up was pretty nice, especially when I was driving, and the hotel we checked into was incredible. It was on Massachusetts Avenue, and you could look down and see Dupont Circle from our eighth-floor windows. We had a suite; Mom and I were sleeping in the king-size bed in the bedroom and Gram got the pull-out sofa bed in the parlor. I hoped she didn’t snore.

We spent all Friday afternoon looking at artwork. We took the subway to the Mall and went to the National Gallery. First we went to the East Building, which is all modern art, then the West Building, which is old art. I like both, but Mom prefers the modern and Gram only likes classical. My
favorite of everything I saw was this special exhibit in the East Building by Monet, who is my favorite painter, who did gorgeous pictures of gardens, wheat fields, seascapes, and of course water lilies. He painted his wife, Camille, too. The info in the brochure said he cheated on her and had a child with some other man’s wife two years before Camille died. After you find out something like that, it’s hard to know how to feel about the person you used to like. For a while, like ten minutes, I didn’t care for Monet’s paintings as much as before, but then I got over it. “Artistic license,” Gram said. “Men will be men.” I wonder if Grampa ever cheated on her. I doubt it, not with a person, anyway. Maybe with a book.

Now that Mom thinks she’s an artist again, she’s gotten kind of obnoxious. We were looking at this painting by Monet called
The Highway Bridge at Argenteuil
, which is basically a river with a sailboat on the left and a bridge on the right. Well, imagine my surprise when she says to me and Gram, but loud enough for anybody else around to hear, that the dominant link between the four basic forms is the bridge, and isn’t it neat the way the sailboat’s mast joins the water, the sky, and the far shore, so your eye glides effortlessly—she really said “effortlessly”—across the canvas and into the depth of the picture and back to the surface, a constant interplay of lines and forms. She actually said “interplay.”

So I said, “You know, saying ‘form’ is kind of like having an English accent, it makes people automatically think you’re smart. Right, Mom? As soon as you say ‘form,’ you sound like you know what you’re talking about, when really it doesn’t mean anything. Thing, it means thing—why don’t you just say the
thing
in the picture, why do you have to say
form
?”

She looked surprised. I must’ve sounded a little hostile. She started to push my bangs out of my face, but I backed out of reach. I
hate
when she does that. She said, “Well, but form is really more like a relationship than a thing. It’s what
organizes
things. It dictates the content, like a sonnet or a ballet or—a rock-and-roll song.” Oh, thank you for coming
down to my level. “Form is really things in relation to other things, and art is the search for form. Which, if you think about it, is another way of saying it’s a search for yourself. Art makes form out of chaos—or it finds form
in
chaos. What art is, is making form out of formlessness—”

I walked away.

But then when we were in the West Building looking at these gorgeous Turner seascapes, I couldn’t help myself. I said, thinking this would get her—should’ve known—“I don’t get why people paint at all anymore anyway. I mean, what’s the point after they invented the camera, you know? Why bother?”

She tried to look really patient and like that wasn’t the stupidest thing she’d ever heard. “Well, but think about it. If fifty people painted the same landscape, you’d get fifty different landscapes—or nudes, or vases. You don’t paint to make a replica of the thing you’re painting—”

“Sure you do.”

“No, you don’t, you paint it to share the special way you see it with the rest of the world. It’s an
expression
.”

“Of yourself.”

“Yes.”

“That sounds pretty egotistical.”

“Self-expression? No, it’s natural, it’s—it’s imperative, it’s what we—”

“I think it’s pretty selfish. Look what
I
painted, look how I made this building so abstract you can’t even tell it’s a building, stupid you.” Meanwhile, I didn’t really believe any of this, I just sort of couldn’t stop.

“There’s nothing selfish about self-expression,” she says, starting to get impatient. “If anything, art brings you closer to other people. When you’re painting—or whatever, writing a song—there’s a feeling you get that you’re part of things. You belong, you participate. It’s like—it’s almost like euphoria. It’s the opposite of being alone. Rollo May says creativity brings us relief from our alienation, and I think it’s true—I know for me it’s—”

“So when you’re making a giant squid out of Styrofoam in Jess’s barn for the crazy people, you’re, like, ecstatic? That’s way cool, Mom, it’s really great that you’re not lonely when you’re painting aardvarks, that’s just a real relief to me personally.” And I walked off to look at the Courbets by myself. I don’t even know why I was so mad, I just was.

After the museum, we went back to the hotel to change clothes, then we had dinner early in a café in Foggy Bottom so we could be near the Kennedy Center when our play started. Gram picked it, and it probably sounded like a nice play for us in the one-sentence review they do every other Sunday in the
Times Dispatch
. It probably said something like, “A mother and her daughter discover the true meaning of family in this heartfelt drama of pain and redemption.” They just forgot to mention the heartfelt drama is set in Bosnia and the mother and daughter discover the true meaning of family when the mother shoots the daughter so the evil soldiers can’t rape and mutilate her. God! We walked out like zombies! Everybody did! And if there was any redemption, I must’ve blinked and missed it, because all I saw was the pain.

In the cab on the way home, Mom goes, “Well,
that
was cheerful,” and Gram gets huffy, pretending she’d liked it and saying life isn’t
The Sound of Music
all the time and once in a while it’s good to see how lucky we are compared to people in other lands, blah blah, etc., etc. There was this horrible scene in the play when they were starving and they had to eat a rat, an actual RAT (!!), and so I said to Gram, “Yes, and I myself have a much deeper appreciation for Mom’s cooking now.” Mom let out this snort, and Gram tried not to laugh, but she couldn’t help it, and pretty soon we were snickering in this sort of guilty, embarrassed, but really gleeful way about the very worst things that happened in the play. I was worried the cab driver would think we were fiends or morons or something, but he never looked at us.

Then I couldn’t sleep. Mom stayed up late talking to
Gram in the parlor. So much for being one of the grown-ups. No, I couldn’t stay up and watch Conan O’Brien. No, we couldn’t order room service, no, I couldn’t eat the macadamia nuts in the honor bar. No, we couldn’t buy a futon, no, I couldn’t have a leather jacket, no, we couldn’t go to Georgetown tomorrow. That’s the only place I really wanted to go, but no, we can’t go there. There’s no subway stop, plus nowadays it’s full of riffraff.

This would’ve been such a great trip if only I’d gone with anybody besides my mother and my grandmother.

I was wrong—what a day Saturday turned out to be! First thing, Mom got a call from her old college pal who lives in Maryland, finally returning
her
call and saying yes, she could have lunch with her today, how about at the Lord & Taylor in Chevy Chase. So we three spent the morning shopping at Filene’s Basement on Connecticut Avenue (I got two pairs of leggings, this really cool sweater, blue with one red stripe across the front, I wore it right out of the store, and some underwear), and then Mom left to go meet her friend. Now it’s just me and Gram. The plan was to walk around downtown, have lunch someplace, maybe get in the tour line at the White House, see Lafayette Square, see the Corcoran, etc., etc. Like, boring boring boring, but you do it because you’re with your grandmother and everything is her treat.

So we’re sitting on a bench on K Street, getting organized, getting our bearings, and Gram goes, “Do you really want to go to Georgetown?” I’m like totally crazed, but I say very coolly, “Oh, I don’t know, I guess it’s pretty far. I don’t even know how we’d get there. You don’t want to go, do you?” Gram can be strict and kind of scary sometimes. She scowls, looks me right in the eye, and goes, “Ruth. Do you or do you not want to go to Georgetown with me. Right now.” I swallow and say, “Oh, Gram, that would be so great.” She stands up, sticks her arm out, a cab screeches over, and off we go to Georgetown!

It is the coolest place! If I can’t go to school there, I would
very much like to live there. Over a shop or a gallery. I could live on the second or third floor over one of the really funky art galleries and get a job. I’d wear Steve Maddens and a long black skirt and a black sweater. The gallery would have high white or beige walls and be quiet as a library, and I would explain the paintings to good-looking rich people, earn huge commissions, and live in a loft and take lovers. This is a daydream, but it’s not impossible.

So, Georgetown. We had to walk pretty slowly because Gram had on the wrong shoes and the brick sidewalks are rough and uneven. She says, before we even get out of the cab, “Put your purse strap around your neck and hold it tight at all times,” like every other person we see is definitely a mugger. It’s so ridiculous, I am
never
going to be like that when I get old, suspicious and distrustful and always scared, I’d rather get robbed than go through life with that attitude. Mostly we just walked around M Street and Wisconsin Avenue, looking at the people and the stores. The thing about Georgetown is that at first it’s almost depressing, you’re like, I’ll never be this cool, I’ll never be this rich, I’ll never be rich enough to be this cool. You’re embarrassed by yourself. But then that starts to wear off and you get used to it or something and it’s not so bad, although still you have this, like, yearning inside, you’re wishing so hard you belonged and you know you don’t. Sometimes I feel like my head will blow up if I don’t grow up soon, if I don’t get out of this life soon. This awful life, which is like being in prison or locked in a little dark room and nothing’s happening, NOTHING, except that I’m ridiculous and everybody is laughing at me, or they would be if they could see inside my head.

Anyway. We went in a store that sells nothing but kites. We went in a store that sells nothing but maps. Clayborne is so lame. God. We have a few cute shops near the college, like the Book Stop and Pearl’s Jewels and the candle store, but compared to Georgetown they’re just cheap imitations. I really think I need a leather coat. Black or brown, I can’t decide. Black. (Krystal wouldn’t like it, though, she won’t
even wear leather shoes, she won’t even drink milk or eat cottage cheese because it comes from a cow.) We went in a store that sells nothing but hats, and Gram said I could get one. So I got a cloche hat! I didn’t even know I wanted one until I saw it. It’s beige (“granite,” according to the saleslady) and made of soft, soft wool and it’s really me, everyone agreed. Although how that can be I don’t know because it’s very sophisticated. It makes me look much older, like nineteen or twenty, especially if I wear my sunglasses. I LOVE IT. No one in Clayborne has a hat like this, but that goes without saying.