I see you everywhere (27 page)

Even now, I’m consumed by the physical details. I love Ray’s chaotically freckled skin, his slippery stout-brown hair. I love the way he holds his toast so primly aloft while reading the
Village Voice
or
Boat-
building Primer,
the skeptical tilt of his eyebrows when he blows on a spoonful of chili. When we go biking, I let him lead so I can watch the muscles oscillate in his wide calves. The last girl picked for every team, I crave his solidity.

Week five and it pulls me down, a deep ice-cold weariness. Every night before dinner, I furl myself in two blankets and take a nap while Ray broods on the fate of the Yankees, his loyalty to all of us pained but unswerving. My breast is seared in blotches, and the scar has turned purple, ringed by green circles and crosses where the technicians take aim. They reapply the Sharpie whenever it fades.

A curator from the Guggenheim, someone who owes me a favor, calls me. A group show is to open in three weeks, and she’s just found out that one of the sculptors was killed. Driving his work down from Vermont on a flatbed truck, he hit blizzard number fourteen—the one I’d been hoping for, to stave off a jinx. A patch of ice, a spin given surefire momentum by two tons of crafted steel, all those trees along the interstate . . . This isn’t the power I hoped for, I think as I pick up the phone to call Esteban. I won’t tell him why; his conscience would never let him enjoy the big break he deserves.

At the hospital, the schedule’s in a shambles because of the snow, appointments backed up more than an hour. I don’t like this waiting room. Nothing’s private, because everyone knows why everyone else is here. There’s an orgy of sharing since few of us can cope with the silence. Ordinarily, that would include me, too—me and my compulsion for Glas_9780375422751_3p_all_r1.qxp 7/2/08 10:21 AM Page 181
I See You Everywhere

181

expository everything—but I’ve heard enough about visualization, metastasis, recurrence, negligent grown children, bewildered small children, scars, baldness, early menopause, doctors with hollow hearts. Today, though, is different; everyone’s talking about terrorism and politics. The World Trade Center was bombed last month, and this morning there was a scare at Kennedy, a forgotten duffel bag that led to evacuation and mayhem.

Wise old Nine humors me, looking hard for my funny bone. Some days, he’s the only one who can find it. I tell him about the waiting room, glad to have escaped to his dim, frigid cave. Nearly every seat was taken out there, everyone wearing the obligatory robe. We look like a bunch of kindergartners in smocks, waiting for our paints or a game of musical chairs. Better, a variation of Duck Duck Goose: Breast Breast Breast Lung, Prostate Prostate Breast Larynx Breast. Mostly breast by far. I give Nine my litany on dying young: not having to floss, because you’ll never lose your teeth. Not having to turn down your Walkman, because you won’t get the chance to go deaf. Not living to see your parents in diapers, mistaking you for that villainous cousin who pawned the Murano goblets to finance his golf.

As if I’m the only one who tells him these things. Tuesdays, I’m sheltered by Science rather than Sports. Dinosaurs are on the front page; my omen detector never shuts down.

“Clem called,” says Ray. “She’s in the lab till late. She wants to hear from you.”

His arms feel like a swimming pool after a subway ride in August. I say,

“Dr. Bloom recommends a little chemo. I have two weeks to decide.”

The newspaper topples. “A little chemo? What, like a little night music? A pinch of genocide? A tad of Agent Orange? He never mentioned this before the surgery, did he? It wasn’t on his smug little program, excuse me if my memory fails.”

“They ration the bad news. It’s only humane.” Anger is not what I expected. I expected him to gang up with my sister—who called, I sus-Glas_9780375422751_3p_all_r1.qxp 7/2/08 10:21 AM Page 182 182

Julia Glass

pect, to make sure I submit. When I tell her about the chemo, she’ll tell me to beg for an extra helping or two. She will not, however, tell me to savor small moments of joy. For that I will be grateful.

“Humane as a cattle prod,” says Ray.

I twist around to see his face.

“I leave for Alberta in less than a month.”

“That’s great. I’m glad.” I think about Ray diving, over and over, out of the sky, one more fear I don’t need.

We arrive late at Esteban’s party because of my nap. The talk around us is half about bombs and half about babies, because in the midst of the group—radiant as a prophet, wearing a purple velvet dress and a sleeve of gold bangles—is a tall, handsome woman so enormously, tautly pregnant that she looks as if she’s expecting twins, any minute. Esteban is in raptures, sharing his good fortune with the world. As he leads us through the loft, I hear Preston—“Why we don’t nuke the bejesus out of those clowns, for the life of me I don’t know”—and then Mary, our photo editor: “Sweetie, you’ll beg for the epidural, believe me.” As I come face-to-face with the pregnant woman, Esteban says, “I have been saying, saying all the time how I cannot wait for you to meet!” and I realize as he puts an arm around each of us that this is the much-revered Muriel.

“Esteban calls you La Découvrice. His discoverer. But I say you simply lucked out,” she says. “It was bound to happen, the only mystery was how.”

“I’m sure you’re right.” I make an effort to keep my eyes on her face. When she raises her eyebrows at Ray, I realize I’ve forgotten he’s with me.

“Nice to meet you,” he says once I’ve introduced him. He stares down briefly and blushes. “And I guess—well hey, congratulations, I guess.”

Muriel laughs. She holds her belly with both hands, as if it were a trophy.

Glas_9780375422751_3p_all_r1.qxp 7/2/08 10:21 AM Page 183
I See You Everywhere

183

Preston sidles up and kisses me on the neck. “Miz Looweeza, poised and fetching as ever.” He toasts me with a martini. He’s as overdressed as he is drunk (he drinks and dresses, after five, to unashamed extremes), in a navy-blue suit with a pink French-collared shirt and a tie with golf-ball polka dots. “I think we have ourselves a cotillion of future gods this year, a Mount Olympus in the making,” he stage-whispers in my ear. Along with Esteban’s friends, a dozen of the hatchlings are here.

“May I thank our glamorous hostess for bringing us all together,”

Preston drawls at Muriel. He spreads a hand across the expanse of velvet below her breasts. “There’s testosterone humming away in there, I can feel it.”

She seems delighted by his attention, or else she’s a very fine actress. I’d have slapped him.

Ray has wandered away. I see him, on tiptoe, whistling into the birdcage. Caught between Preston’s sloshed preening and Muriel’s radiance, I realize that a party is the last place on earth I’m ready to be. I nearly shout when I feel something damp on my hand.

“Hello, my panda king!” Muriel exclaims, reaching down. A massive black dog stands at my side, wagging his entire body. “This is Kiko. Kiko’s my hottest star, aren’t you, bushka?”

Kiko’s arrival draws several guests in our direction, including Rose of the lovelorn X-rays and Garrett of the midnight ice floes. A large woman in an elaborate turban also joins us. She kneels beside me and hugs the dog, who licks her face.
“Mère, tu es sa favorite!”
says Muriel, making a sequence of musical gestures with her hands.

“I love dogs, but my landlord hates them,” Rose says sadly.

“This is no dog. This is a pony,” says Preston.

“He’s a Bernese mountain dog.” Muriel scratches him behind the ears. His eyes close in pleasure.

“Oh right, totes booze to marooned mountaineers.”

“You’re thinking of Saint Bernards.” She tells us she’s an animal handler. “A wrangler. Don’t you love it? Picture me lassoing a steer.” Muriel handles dogs and cats, plus the occasional monkey. Just now, dogs are the Glas_9780375422751_3p_all_r1.qxp 7/2/08 10:21 AM Page 184 184

Julia Glass

rage in commercials; they’ll sell anything from credit cards to disposable diapers. Kiko, the only client she owns, is bringing in a nice nest egg for the baby’s college tuition.

“Like, what’s Kiko been in?” asks Rose.

“Next month, a TV movie about a family trapped on a houseboat in Hurricane Andrew. Kiko, as you can guess, saves their lives.”

Across the room, Ray talks to Mary and Esteban. He wears a studious, tender expression and swings his arms as if directing traffic. An illustration of something grand. I forgot he could look so passionate. The woman whom Kiko adores is standing now, all smiles, watching Muriel talk. After telling Rose about Kiko’s other roles, Muriel turns to the older woman and speaks again in French, gesticulating. When the woman gesticulates back, I finally understand that she is deaf. Preston says, “So tell us, please, what fonts of childhood fancy have shaped your son’s unique imagination.” Muriel translates, in French and with her hands.

Esteban’s mother. I watch now as she makes a small speech with her hands. It looks so much like knitting.

“All inspiration comes from God,” Muriel translates, “but Esteban was not like other boys. His favorite thing was the market in Port-auPrince, all the beautiful cloths, helping her choose what to sew.”

“Ah,” says Preston. “Aha!”

“I haven’t met you,” I say, holding out a hand. Her name is Tatiana. She clasps my hand in both of hers and smiles, then gestures a phrase.

“She says you are the second messenger of great joy to this household,” says Muriel. Her belly, of course, was the first.

“We are all together, this makes me so glad!” I feel Esteban’s arm encompass my shoulders. Ray stands on my other side, and Mary glares fondly at Preston, who’s filled his martini glass with red wine. When Tatiana signs at her son, I know from her sidelong glances that she is talking about me, saying kind things.

“She wants you to tell how you found me.” He giggles. “Me, the foundling!”

Glas_9780375422751_3p_all_r1.qxp 7/2/08 10:21 AM Page 185
I See You Everywhere

185

I tell her—Esteban translating now—how every year we go through thousands of slides, talk to hundreds of dealers, but how I saw Esteban’s work in the entrance to a public school.

She nods:
Exactly as it should be.
She looks at Ray, back at me.

“Do you have children, she wants to know.”

“No,” I say. Tatiana sees something in my face.

“You are afraid to have children? Too many people are afraid these days, afraid of life,” relays Esteban. Muriel, Preston, Mary, Rose, and Ray are watching me. I’m hoping Ray will come to my rescue, but Rose is the one who finally speaks. Like Tatiana, she’s come to her own conclusion.

“So maybe you can adopt.” In a nervous rush, she tells us how last month her sister adopted a lovely Chinese baby girl, how her sister says that any baby at all is a miracle, how when it’s put in your arms you can’t believe the love that springs from nowhere, a geyser of love, how it took two years and maybe a lot of paperwork, but what’s two years? “Like, time just rushes on by, doesn’t it?”

Preston jumps in with “People plan too much. I say, let the future unfold! Willy nilly! Onward the leering mazurka of life, the unknowns, tragedies, twists of fate . . .” Mary squeezes his elbow so hard he winces. All I hear now are Kiko’s nails as she trots away across the floor.

“Excuse me, but I must steal Louisa,” says Esteban. Like another dog, relieved to have a good master, I follow him.

He leads me back to the studio, shuts the door behind us, turns on the floodlights, and climbs a stepladder. He fusses with a fixture, aiming it at the tall tepee in the corner. Without looking down, he says, “My mother has cancer, too. It’s why she stays with us.” I say nothing; I’m focused on that “too.” Mary and Preston are the only people I’ve told at work.

“She didn’t want it, all this medicine. But I told her my child will have a grandmother to know and remember. Is her son selfish?” He looks over his shoulder from on high.

When he comes down, he circles the new piece, pulling off the tarps. He watches me look.

Glas_9780375422751_3p_all_r1.qxp 7/2/08 10:21 AM Page 186 186

Julia Glass

“Oh Esteban. It’s really something.”

“The red is not too much?”

“How could it
not
be red?” Blood, yes, on the verge of cliché, but blood as a rich, fresh force, not violation or loss. We look together for a while. “My doctors say I’ll be fine.”

“The idea that
you
would be afraid of life!” He holds me to his side. We share a cab with Preston, who can’t stop talking about how we wouldn’t be in the pickle we’re in, we wouldn’t have to live in mortal terror of some shabby abandoned satchel, if our cowering bureaucrats had refused to collude with the shah of Iran. Now we’re paying through the nose. “And that boy-president we’ve gone and elected?” he says.

“Charisma to burn, but
Arkansas
? How would a godforsaken place like that prepare you to deal with
Iran
? Well, that place is pretty godforsaken, too; ha!”

Halfway across the Williamsburg Bridge, I say, “Preston, shut up.”

Ray pulls his knee away from my hand. No one says a word for the rest of the ride, even when Preston gets out and hands Ray a ten. He won’t remember this or much else about the evening, but that’s not the point. At home, Ray pours a scotch and spreads the plans for his kayak on the dining table. With a thick carpenter’s pencil, he makes notations. I put on a nightgown. I sit in bed and try to read, but the rustling of Ray’s plans in the other room distracts me. I go in and stand beside him.

“Yes?” he asks without looking up.

“I’ll miss you when you go.”

“Me, too.” He erases a figure on the plans, writes in a new number. I unbutton the top of my nightgown. “Ray?”

He looks up. “You all right?”

“Ray, you never look.”

He sets down his pencil and turns in his chair to face me. “Show-andtell?” He finishes opening my gown, smudging the buttonholes with graphite as he descends. He whistles. “Looks like World War Three.”

Glas_9780375422751_3p_all_r1.qxp 7/2/08 10:21 AM Page 187
I See You Everywhere