Still Life with Shape-shifter (25 page)

“Guess you didn’t know that,” Cassandra said, reading the look on my face. “Sorry.”

“You can’t be sure,” I said. It was hard to speak, my mouth was so dry and my lips so stiff.

“He wasn’t lying about the rest of it, even though I thought he was. I don’t know why he’d lie about that.” She watched me curiously a moment. I must have been absolutely drained of color, I must have appeared to be on the verge of fainting, because she actually spoke with compassion. “Do you need to sit down? Do you need a glass of water?”

“No,” I said, barely breathing the words. “I’ll be fine.”

“I guess you love him, huh?” she said. She sounded a little wistful, a little relieved, a little pleased. “I guess you’ll be sorry to see him go.”

I put a hand to my heart. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to answer, but I managed a few words. “He’s everything. He’s my life.”

“You can’t ever make somebody else your life,” she said. “Anybody.”

I found the strength to draw myself up straight and head with an assumed steadiness toward the door. “That’s only one way you and I are different,” I said as I brushed past her. “And the reason my life is better than yours is that I still have Cooper. And you don’t.”

*   *   *

I
never told Cooper I had found his mother, and he never asked. I wasn’t sure what he’d deduced—that I had nothing to report, or that I couldn’t bear to repeat what I’d discovered. But he had learned a long time ago that knowledge could hurt him, so he was willing for me to keep my silence.

I did spend some effort trying to track down Loren DeAngelo, though I didn’t have much hope of finding him. My private investigator forwarded me information about other DeAngelos, including a family from Detroit, where a Loren DeAngelo dangled in solitary state off the genealogical chart, credited with no heirs. His birth date would have made him about the right age to be Cooper’s dad—but, according to this record, he’d died five years ago. I sent out letters to a few of his relatives, but no one ever answered, and two of the envelopes came back unopened, stamped
UNABLE TO FORWARD
. I promised myself that one day I would drive to Michigan and see if I could convince some of Loren’s relatives to talk to me if I simply showed up at their doors.

Maybe I’d make that journey when I was out of grad school. When I could afford a trip to Michigan. When I could bring myself to tell Cooper that I had found his mother, and she didn’t deserve to have him as a son.

I was haunted by the one detail she had tossed off so casually.
If they live to be fifty, it’s like a miracle.
As soon as I thought about it, it made perfect sense. The strain on their bodies undoubtedly ate up their physical resources at a phenomenal rate, and Cooper, at least, was always transforming into an animal that had a general life expectancy of less than twenty years. Average that with the typical human life span, and the outlook was not good. The outlook was horrifying.

I honestly did not believe I could live without him. I absolutely did not intend to.

But it took a supreme effort of will for me not to start hovering around him, fussing over him, checking him constantly for signs of aging or ill health, treating him like someone on the near edge of death. Nothing had changed, except my perspective. No wonder Cooper was sometimes afraid to seek out new knowledge. It reordered the universe.

I had expected the visit to his mother to change Cooper’s life, but it hadn’t. It had changed mine.

*   *   *

C
rystal was the one who was directly responsible for the second event that would have such a major impact on our lives. Against all odds, she and I had stayed friends after graduation, exchanging birthday cards and, now and then, meeting for lunch or coffee. During the summer between our junior and senior years, she had taken a job at an art gallery just to earn some extra income, and she’d been hired on full-time once we graduated. So much for the graphic-art degree, though she did use some of her design skills to create ads, posters, and signage for the gallery.

“We’re having a show next month at Gallerie Adele,” she told me one afternoon as we had tea and scones at a struggling little teahouse that probably wouldn’t be in business another month. “All local artists. I wondered if Cooper would like to exhibit.”

I was so surprised I practically spit out my half-chewed scone. “
Really?
Are you sure he’s good enough?”

“He’s at least as good as two of the artists my boss has already lined up—better, I think, than the woman who does watercolors of cats.” Crystal rolled her eyes.

“What would it entail? How many pieces would you want? Is there a size requirement? Do you want etchings or monoprints?” True to her word, a few years ago Crystal had introduced Cooper to the mad artist/master printer who owned an atelier in a run-down building in the business district. They had developed an instant affinity for each other, and Cooper spent virtually all his time at the atelier when I was in class. He still fooled around with pencil sketches when he was just sitting around the apartment, but most of his recent work consisted of small editions of exquisitely detailed hand-colored graphics. My apartment was full of them, and I’d given a dozen as gifts. Crystal herself owned five or six.

“We’re taking five to seven pieces from each artist. They have to be professionally framed, but we’ll split those costs with him. And he has to be willing to sell them at a fifty percent commission. Size—nothing bigger than twenty-four by thirty-six, but I don’t think he’s got anything that large, does he?”

I shook my head. “I don’t think he’s done any prints over ten by twelve. Crystal, this would be awesome, but are you sure? I don’t want you to get in trouble with your boss.”

She smiled. She was just as pretty as ever, even more sophisticated than she’d been at eighteen. Her blond hair was pulled back in a severe style, but it only served to make her facial structure more elegant, her blue eyes more striking. I often found it hard to believe that she was still with the ex-jock-turned-business-major she’d been dating since we met. Maybe he reminded her of her father. Maybe he had charms that were not visible to the rest of the world. Certainly the same could be said about my own boyfriend.

“I won’t get in trouble. My boss wants me to start building up my own stable of artists. If any of Cooper’s pieces sell, I’ll get the commission check. So, really, Cooper would be doing me a favor if he agreed to exhibit. Everybody wins.”

“And how often does
that
happen?” I said.

Cooper was, predictably, excited and nervous about the opportunity to display his work, but neither of us had any idea how to pick the most commercial pieces from dozens of images. We spent a couple of exceedingly pleasant days laying out all our top choices on the floor in the living room and studying them and debating out loud which ones we liked best and why.

His favorite was a full-figure portrait of me standing in a doorway, a long, narrow etching in a sepia-brown ink. He had spent hours working on the cross-hatching of the shadows behind me, the intricate floral design on my dress, the splintery texture of the wood around the doorjamb. My hand rested against the frame, and I gazed in profile at something on the other side of the door, out of the range of the picture. As I was in so many of Cooper’s portraits, I was barefoot.

“I love it,” I agreed. “It’s my very favorite picture of me
ever
. But is anybody else going to be interested in it? I mean, anybody who doesn’t know me? Why would they want a portrait of me on their wall?”

“It’s a picture of a pretty girl lost in thought,” Cooper said. “Who doesn’t like to look at something like that?”

“We’ll ask Crystal,” I said. “She’ll know.”

The images I liked best formed a diptych, two views of a densely detailed autumn landscape. One was a straight-on shot of a small boy, six or seven years old, staring at the viewer in surprise and wonder. His hand was lifted as if he was reaching for something—maybe a soap bubble or a butterfly. Cooper had not said so, but I was pretty sure this was meant to be a portrait of himself at that age.

The matching image was of a wolf, also staring directly out of the paper. It was modeled directly after photographs of Cooper I had taken last summer, so the wolf had midnight-black fur and amber eyes and a rather unsettling look of human comprehension. Behind him, a slightly different version of the autumn landscape unfolded in the same subtle greens and reds and golds. It was clear that these two creatures had accidentally stumbled across each other on one lazy October day; each was fascinated, unable to look away. There was no aura of menace in the images, no sense that the wolf was about to spring for the child’s throat. All either face exhibited was amazement and curiosity and delight.

I
knew the diptych showed Cooper staring at himself across the divide of transmogrification, but surely no one else would see anything but a boy peering into the face of the wild as the unblinking wild stared back.

“These have to go in,” I said. “They’re the most striking things you’ve done.”

In the end, we needed Crystal’s input. She came to the apartment four days later and, in her three-inch heels, stepped delicately down the rows of artwork we had left on my living-room floor. The first three she picked were my favorites and Cooper’s, and after about half an hour, she settled on four others.

“Will you come to the opening?” she asked after she had carefully packaged the paper between protective sheets of tissue and acid-free matboard. “Or will you be traveling then?”

“I’m not sure yet,” he told her. “I have a trip planned right around then. I’m not positive I’ll be able to make it.”
If my body holds to its usual schedule, I’ll be a wolf that weekend.

She nodded and turned to me. “But you’ll come, won’t you, Janet? And then if anyone wants to know more about Cooper, they can talk to you.”

“Sure,” I said. “Can I wear a name tag? ‘I’m the artist’s girlfriend.’”

“Maybe we could call you the artist’s agent,” she said with a smile. “Sounds more businesslike.”

Cooper was, in fact, in his alternate state when the night of the opening rolled around, so I headed downtown to the gallery to represent him. I arrived a little late because my last class had run long, and the gallery was already crowded. I estimated there were about seventy people milling around in a space that was not particularly large. I had to maneuver carefully between brightly dressed people standing before brightly painted canvases and holding bubbling drinks and plates of fanciful hors d’oeuvres. Amid the colorful landscapes and bold abstract serigraphs hanging on either side of his display, Cooper’s etchings looked almost stark, but I thought that might be a good thing. They offered an oasis of calm and quiet in a setting that might otherwise seem brash and clamoring. Some people would find them restful; I know I did.

Not five minutes after I took up my post, a fiftysomething woman stepped over to speak to me. “Are you the artist? I love your work.”

“No, he couldn’t be here tonight. I’m his agent.”

“His work is so understated but so beautiful. I’ve toured the whole exhibit, and I’ve come back here three times already.”

I was delighted. “Cooper will be thrilled to hear that.”

She took a sip of her wine and studied the hanging pieces as if she had not seen them before. “I like them all, but the ones that really pull my attention are these two.” She pointed to the diptych, which had been minimally framed in a thin wooden moulding stamped with a leafy pattern that mimicked the foliage in the art. “How big is the edition, do you know?”

“He rarely prints more than fifteen or twenty of anything.”

“Are there any left?”

I was momentarily confused. “Do you want one? These two are for sale.”

She gave me a sideways glance. “Not anymore. I already asked, and apparently they sold almost the minute the doors opened.”

Now I was stunned. “
Really?
That’s wonderful! This is Cooper’s first exhibit, you know, and he wasn’t sure there’d be any interest.”

“Oh, I’d guess he has a promising career ahead of him.”

“I’ll check back at the apart—the studio,” I stammered. “I’ll see what’s still left in stock. If you leave your contact information with Crystal, I think we can get you another set.”

“I’m counting on it.”

Before the evening was over, three more of Cooper’s pieces had sold, and two more customers inquired into the availability of the diptych. I was so jazzed with adrenaline and triumph that I was afraid to take a sip of wine because I thought it might make me spin into euphoria. My only regret for the evening was that Cooper couldn’t be there to enjoy his success, but I was convinced this wouldn’t be his only chance. Surely Gallerie Adele would want to take him on as a client. Surely he could eventually mount one-man shows—perhaps sell posters and reproductions—design a line of gift cards—who knew what else? If he started selling regularly, and once I got launched in my own practice, we could afford to buy a house out in the country and build a studio in the back. Cooper could safely roam the property when he was in wolf shape, work on his art when he was human. Not only did it seem to be the perfect setup for a shape-shifter, it offered me the first glimpse I’d ever had of a life that would both fulfill him and keep him safe.

Late in the evening, when exhaustion had begun to trample my elation, Crystal brought a man over to meet me. He was of medium height, stocky, probably in his mid-thirties, though his brown hair and neat goatee had almost completely yielded to gray already. I didn’t know much about men’s clothing, but his suit looked expensive, and on his left hand he wore a thick gold ring set with a line of diamonds. I didn’t need Crystal’s quick glance and nod to alert me that this was someone important to the gallery—and, probably, to Cooper.

“Finally! You’ve been surrounded by people all evening,” she said lightly. “I wanted to introduce you to Evan Baylor. He owns an art gallery in Chicago and specializes in Illinois artists. He’s so impressed by Cooper’s work, he wants to see more.”