An Emergence of Green (8 page)

—I do love you, Alix. I never wanted…more.

—You did. The year we lived together we never went to bed but there was everything else. How you touched me, how you looked at me.

—What was real for you was a phase for me. Experimentation.

—I see you better than anyone in your life, Val Hunter. Better than both your husbands, your parents, anyone. I know how you think, I know your self-control. You make something not exist by denying that it does. One day you’ll admit what you want—to yourself, if to no one else.

—I’ll admit nothing. All the choices I’ve made, even if they turned out wrong, seemed best for me. I have a choice about everything. Look at me, Alix. I’m independent. Free.

—Free? You’ve let everyone else dictate how you’ve lived. And when you finally couldn’t stand it anymore you withdrew completely. Soon you’ll be totally consumed by your art because there isn’t anything else. Maybe you’ll even devour your son.

It had been six months since she last heard from Alix. “Why Houston?” she had asked her.

“Because Helen came out to her parents and they want nothing to do with her. She wants to be with friends in Houston. There’s a large gay community there. And because I need to get away from you—to finally break the tie.”

She would hear from Alix, of course. They had been supreme presences in each other’s lives since the year they lived together. Alix—tiny, blonde, desired by men who expired like moths against her brilliant cold flame—was right. Val knew Alix loved her, and the depth and sexuality of that love. After Alix had turned in anger from her to other women she had never taken any of Alix’s lovers seriously, including the current Helen. Val had basked in Alix’s love; she missed it. If a man could ever love her like that…What Alix perceived in her and was attracted to was the androgyny all good artists must possess, nothing more…It was the reason for her own attraction to Alix.

That Helen’s parents had disowned Helen was additional proof, if more was needed, that a lesbian lifestyle was a complication anyone should avoid who had any choice in the matter. She certainly had a choice. Bad enough to lack anything resembling a fashionable female body let alone the height and size and physical strength and deep voice and aggressive personality to go with it. Bad enough that because most people assumed she was a lesbian she had to wear her two failed marriages and her production of a son like a badge. Why on earth should she seek further ostracism?

Neal came in. She closed the sketch pad, slid it in among the stack on the coffee table, and leaned forward for his hug. She followed him into the kitchen, listening to his chatter with one level of consciousness, thinking that she should have Carolyn Blake come over soon. Neal would love Carolyn.

Carolyn walked down the path beside Val Hunter’s house, her thoughts a confused jumble. How would she handle this with Paul? Not only was it impossible to maintain the secrecy of her friendship with Val, but how would she explain the painting? She regretted her impulsive act only in the moment before she remembered the gray peace of the painting and her feeling as she stood before it in the heat of Val Hunter’s house. No, she wanted that painting to hang in her house. She was lucky to have a chance to buy it—and she
would
buy it, no matter what Val said—and she was lucky to be able to afford it. But how to handle this with Paul?

“Why Carolyn, hello! What a surprise to see you over here!”

“Hello,” she said tightly to Dorothy Robinson, annoyed at being startled, that her thought process had been interrupted.

“You’ve been visiting Mrs. Hunter, how lovely. She and her boy are so nice. Don’t you think so?” She took a step closer to Carolyn, the point of her sharp nose quivering like the antenna of an insect. “Do you know them well?”

“No, not well.” Carolyn edged away from her, backing down the path. “I’ve got to run. Paul will be home soon—”

“You must come over, Carolyn, you and Paul. You will, won’t you?”

“Of course, Dorothy, but with each of us working different hours, well, you know…” Impatient and exasperated, she finally made her escape.

“I’ve bought a painting from Val Hunter.” She had decided that the best approach was direct—like the clean simplicity of a Val Hunter dive—but during the conviviality of dinner time. He was gnawing on a chicken wing, watching Peter Jennings report on the Reverend Jesse Jackson’s visit to Cuba. He looked away from the TV screen and toward her, blankly. “You did what?”

“I bought a painting. From Mrs. Hunter. Next door.”

“The Amazon? You don’t even know her.”

“We’ve talked a few times,” she said as casually as she could.

Dabbing at his lips with a napkin, he studied her. “Oh? You’ve never mentioned it.”

She shrugged to convey that she had not considered it important.

“It seems odd that you didn’t mention it. Talking to an Amazon who paints strikes me as unusual enough to be worth mentioning. Now I see the reason for the art books. I don’t see why you wouldn’t tell me.”

She was irked as much by his characterization of Val as by his inquisition. “Do you tell me everything that goes on during your day? You hardly mention anything at all. You’re never interested in my job—”

“Why did you buy this painting? An act of charity?”

Anger flared. “She’s very good. She’s a wonderful artist. Her work is displayed in a gallery.”

“Oh?” He looked taken aback. “Which one?”

How could she have been so stupid? She hadn’t thought to ask. “Venice, I don’t know where.”

“Venice,” he repeated. “Where all the loony tunes roller-skate.”

She said crossly, “Does she have to hang in the Metropolitan? I like her work. Isn’t that good enough?”

“How much was it?”

Swiftly she gauged her husband. Val had said: Whatever the traffic will bear. “Four hundred,” she said.

“Four
hundred?
Carolyn! You might have consulted me!” He stared at her.

“Oh, Paul.” She did not feign her disgust. “I spend almost that much on each of those dresses you insist I wear to your office parties.”

“That’s different. This is something for the house. What if I don’t like it?”

“I don’t think you’ll mind it. It’s a study of rain—really quite unobtrusive. It’ll fit in very nicely in the living room.”

He said sarcastically, “So you’ve even decided where it should hang.”

“Honey,” she said in her most conciliatory voice, “let’s not fight. If you don’t like it we can hang it in the garage.”
Not very damn likely
, she thought.

“Four hundred. For an amateur she’s pretty proud of her work.”

Anger flared again. “She is
not
an amateur. I told you her work is displayed in a gallery. She sells her work. I sell my work. You sell your work. Are we amateurs?”

“I don’t know anything about this so-called gallery and neither do you. Maybe she’s just giving you a line. And if she sells her work only to you, she’s an amateur.”

“You’re so quick to sneer and judge things—”

“I’m not prejudging anything,” he said in a tone edged with ice. “Not till I see this painting you went ahead and bought without even a thought for my opinion. It must be these new hours of yours—you’ve been testy and strange ever since you’ve been on them.”

His voice softened. “Why don’t you invite Mrs. Hunter over, maybe for dinner? If you’re that impressed with her, I’d like to meet her.”

Nonplussed by this unexpected tack she blurted, “I don’t think you’d care for her.”

“Now you’re the one who’s prejudging.”

“She doesn’t seem your kind of person, that’s all,” she said lamely, feeling suddenly that she had lost control. “There’s her son too, he’s only ten—”

“Invite him too. Wednesday’s the Fourth of July—invite them over, we’ll barbecue. The kid’ll love the pool. Okay?”

“I’ll ask her,” she said reluctantly.

The next day during her lunch hour she drew four hundred dollars from their bank account, and back at her office consulted the Valley yellow pages. After work she drove out along Laurel Canyon to an art supply store. Afterward she stopped again at the library and checked out several more books. She had the remainder of this afternoon and all weekend to read.

On Monday she changed into shorts and a blouse and walked out to the pool to greet Val. “So how was backpacking?”

“Hot as hell. But great.” Val had emerged from the pool and was toweling her hair. “How was your weekend?”

“Boring,” Carolyn admitted after a moment of reflection. “Will you help me with some packages in the car? Then can I come over and get my painting?”

As she looked into the trunk of Carolyn’s car Val said accusingly, “What’s all this?”

“A gift. If you can give me a gift I can give you a gift.”

“No. You can’t do this.”

“Of course I can. I can do anything I want.” Carolyn chuckled, enjoying herself. “I’ll take these packages if you carry the easel.”

Carolyn lowered her packages to the work table in Val’s house, staring at the painting propped against the box, framed in a paper-thin band of silver. “It’s perfect. I love it more now than when I first saw it.”

“I think the framing is right, it extends the painting to the edge. And the varnishing went well—only took one coat.”

“Is that unusual?”

“No, just lucky. Often there’s a flat spot or some matte areas and you have to give it another coat.” Val was opening a package. “Holy Christmas morning,” she said softly, “will you look at all this. Sable brushes.” She picked one up, stroked the bristles with sensual delicacy.

“The woman at Carter Sexton said that painters always need brushes, and sable is best. I told her you made your own colors; she said to get basic colors and lots of white, dry pigments and linseed oil. So everything here is her suggestion—the watercolors and watercolor paper, it’s their best. And the roll of linen canvas.”

“Even a carrying case.” Val’s voice was a purr of pleasure. She had unlatched the wooden case filled with tubes of watercolor. “I’ve always needed a decent case to carry supplies when I paint somewhere besides here.”

Carolyn watched, smiling, as Val touched the tubes of paint with caressing fingertips. Impulsively she hugged Val, and was surprised by the softness of her body; she had expected muscular solidity. “Can you come over for a few minutes and help me hang my painting?” She knew exactly where it would go—across from where she usually sat on the sofa, so that she could glance up and see it.

“It’s interesting,” Paul said.

Carolyn clearly understood that he disliked the painting. “I think so too,” she said relentlessly. “I think it’s wonderful, I’ve never seen a painting I like so much.”

“That’s going a little overboard, don’t you think? I don’t know that it looks best in the living room—”

“I definitely do. I love it, Paul,” she stated, defying him to deny her the pleasure she felt in this painting. “
I love
it.”

He nodded. “I’m starved.”

As she served their dinner she tried to recall another time she had successfully asserted herself on any issue of importance during their marriage. She could not remember any. She could not remember trying before.

At dinner, as they watched Peter Jennings report on the Reagan administration’s unhappiness with the Reverend Jackson’s activities in Cuba, he said, “Tell me, are all Mrs. Hunter’s paintings like that one?”

She replied carefully, “What do you mean, ‘like that one’?”

“Modern.” He grinned, trimmed a piece of lamb neatly from the bone. “Does she paint navels in the middle of foreheads?”

She said coldly, “Is that your sole understanding of modern art?”

“Come on, Princess. I was just trying to be funny.”

She knew better; she knew he had not really accepted the painting in the living room and this was an indirect attack on it.

“Forgive my levity,” he said sarcastically. “I should have realized you’re an art critic now that you’ve read a few books.”

She remembered the pride she felt during the past weekend when she looked at examples of cubistic art in her books and suddenly understood why the concept had been so daring and exciting—that it had led the entire revolution into modern art because artists for the first time had looked at an object as it would appear from different angles, in different places, at different times. She said, “I’m only glad I don’t have your sneering ignorance.”

He contemplated her.

She had always disliked this aspect of him, this feeling of being under the microscope of his gaze in cold, evaluating analysis, as if he had laid his emotions aside like a scientist. “I’ve never closed my mind to anything,” he finally said, his voice uninflected. “Did you invite her for the Fourth?”

She had decided that she would wait, and if he did not mention it again…“I’ll ask her tomorrow.”

She lay on her raft next to Val in peaceful, quiet companionship. She had applied suntan lotion so that she could remain in the sun longer.

“I’ve been reading about different forms of art,” she said. “I know expressionist art comes out of emotion and it’s individual and personal art—but from what I’ve seen, your work isn’t abstract. Yet you say it’s expressionist.”