Paint It Black (9 page)

Michael had had tutors and hotels in Europe. Maids. Seats in first class. When he was twelve, Meredith sent him to Cotillion, where he learned to dance with girls who would never have spoken to Josie Tyrell. She’d seen girls like that, with their shiny perfect hair and braces on their teeth, new leather shoes. They played tennis at the country club, out in Stockdale. She and Corinne once rode their bikes out there, sat and watched those girls. They hadn’t even hated them, they were so far away. The flash of their tanned legs in white skirts and white shoes, the light gleaming on their faces. She and Corinne never talked about it, but it had remained, in the very back of her mind.

She gazed up at the dark house. She loved this house. That was the truth. This somber place, with its graceful, rusted gate and heavy dark trees. Darker than Stockdale, but even more compelling. This was the place he grew up, the place that had made Michael. It was in his blood, like the Loewy plot at the cemetery.
Ming.
Light glowed through the iron canopy and the trees, the leaded window. The piano started playing again, slow, painful.

Josie sectioned another orange, peeling the bitter felt from the pale meat. She could smell the groceries in the backseat, the stinking fruit, the bean cake.
Feliz Navidad.
Last year this time Michael was painting, full of ideas, he was teaching her to dance the Charleston. Last year this time, she thought she’d signed a lease on paradise.

She gazed at the yellow light through the window, imagining Meredith up there, in the living room with its threadbare old rugs smelling of must and floor polish. The last time she had been in that house, it had been fall. A sunny morning in October. The leaves had all been swept, and she’d worn her yellow print dress with the geishas on it. They’d been together almost two months, and she was going to meet his famous mother. Meredith was back from tour and needed to talk to him, right away. She’d just found out that he hadn’t gone back to Harvard. The lawyer told her, that rat fink.

“Come with me, Josie,” Michael said. “I want you to be there.”

So they had gone, right through those gates. She was nervous and excited to finally meet this woman whom her son so hated and admired.

The house had changed, now that its owner had returned. The furniture was dusted, the tall windows cleaned, dark floors gleamed with wax. An elegant woman in green slacks and a crisp white shirt rose to meet them, dark hair framing her strikingly boned face. Sea green eyeshadow made her eyes even more translucent above those decisive cheekbones. Eyes just like his. When she saw Josie, her smile flared and died, like a scrap of paper that burns out in a second.

“Meredith, this is my friend Josie. Josie, my mother, Meredith Loewy.”

His friend? Suddenly she was his
friend?
After fucking him senseless the night before, his
friend?
Josie followed him down into the living room, face flaming, across the polished floor, the worn-out rugs, if they were so rich, why did they have such junky old rugs? His mother stood by the couch, tall like her son. She smiled at Josie, a flicker, then turned to Michael, who came to her and kissed her, lightly. “Michael, we need to talk. I hadn’t expected . . . company.” A quick flicker of green.

“Josie’s not company, Meredith,” Michael said. “She’s my girlfriend.”

Soothing, healing waters, cooling her face, her heart.
Girlfriend.
She felt restored, she had a right to be here.

“But we need to talk, darling,” Meredith said. “I thought Irv explained to you —”

“There’s nothing that you can’t say in front of Josie,” Michael said.

Now, sitting outside the great dark mushroom wall of the house, Josie understood exactly why Michael had brought her along that day. She had thought he wanted to introduce her to his mother, show her there was going to be a new setup. Announce that they were together. But now she saw he was afraid he would weaken, give in, if she wasn’t there to remind him of what he wanted, who he’d become in the months his mother had been away. He had drawn courage from her. She thought of Cal:
Storming of the Bastille, you don’t even know.

“I see,” Meredith said. “I’ll have Sofía bring us some coffee.” She walked up the three steps to the foyer. “Michael, will you help me for a moment?”

“I’ll wait here with Josie.” They settled on one of the white couches in the room where all the grandfather’s friends had gathered to drink and flirt and forget and remember the Europe they’d left behind—brilliant parties that sometimes went from one day to the next. Composers and writers and movie directors. Stravinsky had once sat here, Billy Wilder. Schoenberg, who at the time was making a living giving piano lessons to rich brats in Beverly Hills. The very air seemed permeated with their foreign voices, the energy of their genius. And here was Josie Tyrell from South Union Avenue, Bakersfield, being invited to the party.

His mother returned, folded herself onto the couch opposite, defended by the leather-topped coffee table with its bowl of bronze chrysanthemums. She reached out and plucked a sagging bloom from the bowl, threw it into the empty fireplace. A painfully upright woman with black hair scraped into a chignon came down the steps balancing a tray filled with cups and saucers, the silver coffee set now polished to a satin shine. She carried it the way you’d carry a crown on a cushion, her nose high bridged and aristocratic.

Michael spoke to her in Spanish, Josie could tell the woman was thrilled to see him, though she pretended she wasn’t, wouldn’t look at him straight on. Josie would never have guessed her to be the maid, she looked more like a scary Spanish teacher in her gray wool dress. She set the coffee things down, and sent Michael a glance full of messages, then turned back to her boss. “You like me to pour, Señora?”

“No, I will, thank you, Sofía,” Meredith said. “That will be all.”

That was over a year ago and she could even remember that flashing glance Michael had exchanged with the maid. And how intimidated she’d felt, sitting there, in a room where Marcel Duchamp had once played chess with the grandfather. Even the maid acted like royalty.

“So,” Meredith said, crossing her legs, folding her hands over her sea-green knee. “Irv tells me you’re not going back to Cambridge.” Irv, the fink lawyer.

“That’s right,” Michael said. “I’m in art school. I’ve decided to be a painter.” He put his arm around Josie.

How Meredith’s eyes flicked almost imperceptibly at the sight of it. As if the eyes themselves could not believe what they saw, the arm, the ease with which they were together. “You never painted before. Why this sudden interest?” She poured coffee into the cups, handed Michael one on a saucer, black, poured another. “Cream?” She was talking to Josie.

Josie shook her head. The mother passed her the cup and saucer, white with little blue designs painted on it, the handle like pointy lace.

“I’m enjoying it,” Michael said. “I’m not even half-bad.”

“I like ice cream. But I don’t drop out of Harvard for a double scoop.” His mother’s knuckles tight on the saucer, Josie could see the white bone. “Think, Michael. How are you going to compete with people who have genuine talent? Who have dedicated themselves, who have drive and self-discipline?”

Josie took the cup, the saucer, she wished Michael would say something, stick up for himself. Why didn’t he say something? But he didn’t, just turned a little white along the jaw, and his mother kept going.

“And I suppose you expect me to support you in this little venture, you and your little friend.”

“It’s Josie,” Michael pronounced, slowly and clearly. “Tyrell.”

“Of course. Miss Tyrell,” his mother said, her eyes like green welding torches. “Do you understand that my son has dropped out of Harvard College? That this is his senior year?”

As if it was her fault. As if she had anything to do with Michael’s choice. She blushed to her hairline.

“I’m painting, it’s going very well. What’s the big deal? It’s not like I’m going to be a lawyer or anything.” His hand was on Josie’s neck, stroking the fine hair at the nape. “You’re an artist, Cal’s an artist —”

“You’re not an artist, Michael,” his mother said, like God separating the light from the darkness. “And I can’t abide a dilettante. Art history was the perfect choice for you, I don’t understand this sudden change of heart.”

“I don’t want to study what other people paint, I want to do it myself. I’ve always drawn.”

“Fiddled. Diddled. Dabbled.” Meredith sighed and sat back in the deep pillows of the couch, her voice low and patient, like a nursery school teacher. The morning light streamed in through the big French windows, softened by giant camellia bushes twelve feet high. She sipped from her blue and white cup. “It’s not something you can just pick up.
Oh, I’m going to be an artist now.
”

“Kandinsky was forty.”

“He’s really very good,” Josie interrupted. “You should see what he’s doing.”

His mother turned her attention to Josie, surprised, as if she hadn’t noticed her sitting there before. It was a little frightening, the ferocity of that face, like being two feet away from a leopard. Speaking slowly, as if she wasn’t sure Josie spoke English, Meredith said, “And just where did you acquire your knowledge of fine art, Miss . . . Tyrell?” Sipping from her coffee, holding the saucer just so, the porcelain so delicate you could see the design right through.

She knew that tone. She’d heard it all her life.
You’re one of those Tyrells, aren’t you?
“I model at the art school. I’ve seen a lot of work and he’s wonderful. His teachers think so too.”

“A model,” Meredith said. Not a question, a statement, as if a piece of the puzzle had fallen into place.

“There’s nothing wrong with your hearing, Meredith. What’s this all about?” His arm was not around her anymore. He curled his hand around his fist, leaned forward over the chrysanthemums. “This is not about me and Josie.”

“Oh God, Michael, don’t be stupid,” Meredith said. “Of course it is. I see it all quite clearly. We meet the little match girl and out goes Harvard, we’ve dropped out and suddenly we’re playing
La Bohème
down there in Echo Park. Alas, poor Mimì.” His mother drained her cup and set it on the leather-topped table, settled back into the pillows of the white couch, edged in antique fringe. She plucked at the fringe. “You know why artists live in garrets, Michael?”

“Fresh air?” he said.

Meredith wasn’t smiling. Her tone became harsher. “It’s not
La Bohème
if there’s money from home. You understand me? Go back to Harvard. You’re almost done, you cannot keep changing your mind. Especially for this . . .”

Meaning her. His mother was threatening to cut him off, because of Josie. She felt a surprising pang of guilt. It had never occurred to her that Michael might have dropped out of Harvard for her. That wasn’t what he said. He just wanted to paint.

“I hated Harvard,” Michael said. “It’s cold and we were reading things I read at nine. I wasn’t learning anything that I couldn’t have learned just as well at the public library.”

“Yes, but you’ll need the credential to be anything in the art world. All I’m asking is that you finish your degree. Surely that’s not too much to ask.” Meredith uncrossed her legs, leaned in toward her son, that electric face, the intelligent leopard eyes. “I know it’s late, but you’ve already read the books, I’m sure you can catch up.” She smiled a quick smile. “After that, you can go anywhere. Florence, Paris, I’m sure the Sorbonne has a program. But not this, Michael. Why don’t you and . . .” she paused for an instant, catching a slip before it emerged, “
Josie,
” a smile, “discuss it on your way home. Then you can give me a call when you’ve decided.”

Michael reached across the leather-topped coffee table and took Meredith’s hand, surprising her. Still looking her in the eye, he said, “I’ve already decided.”

Her eyes flashed green fire. His own were a cloudy sea.

Declaration of Independence, storming of the Bastille.
The man he had begun to become, that day when he’d fucked her in Meredith’s own bed.

She unscrewed the top of the voddy, took a swig, let it go down, warm, took another, and screwed it back as jarring fistfuls of notes crashed down through the darkness. Meredith must be pounding on the keyboard with her forearms. A shriveled leaf from a sycamore blew onto the windshield, lingered there like a begging hand.

She’d been so proud of him that day, when Michael sat unmoved, unafraid, across from that furious woman, and told her he no longer needed her approval, that she had no hold on him anymore.

Though of course, it was only an act.

When they got home, he collapsed onto the legless blue couch, his long hands drooping between his knees. “Now what the fuck do we do?”

She put her face against his. “Go back to work.”

They sat, breathing each other in. He sighed heavily, drew her close. “I’m going to tell you something I’ve never told anyone. I’ve never had a job. Pretty fucking useless, huh?”

She stroked the sides of his face with her fingertips. “It’s not a big deal. You’ll find something.”

“Like what?” Running his hands through his rumpled dark hair. “Washing dishes? Walking people’s dogs?”

“Sure, you’d be a great dog walker, why not?” And she created a story about the dogs, his charges, how he’d walk them eight at a time, winding around his legs, snapping at each other at the end of eight leashes. Making him laugh a little. It was just work. No big deal.

But his gloom washed in like a red tide. “But realistically, Josie, what can I do? Nothing.”

She shrugged. What did people do? “You can wait tables.”

He rubbed his cheek against her hair. “Listening to people’s bullshit all day? Watching them shovel food in their faces? I’d kill myself.”

She struggled to understand him. Sure, waiting tables wasn’t easy, all the standing, and you had to hustle, but it paid well, and every job description included fielding people’s bullshit. But then again, maybe it wasn’t the same for him as it was for her. He was sensitive, and he had such pride. He would be easily insulted, and people could be so funny about their food. Maybe she couldn’t really see him with a white apron and an order pad. “How about teaching people’s kids, you know, math and things?”