The Colorman (9 page)

That familiar vertigo was beginning to wash over her, but Rain was grounded by the emptiness left in her father's absence. It kept her feet firmly planted in the New York sidewalk. Right there on the Upper East Side, in front of his lawyer's office.

“You…” Rain began, purposefully maintaining control in her voice, “haven't got any idea…what you're talking about. You don't know ANYthing about making art or being an artist or art or even being—” Rain waved bunny fingers in his face, “
arty
.”

Karl shoved his hands into his pockets, set his feet like he was getting comfortable and turned his face skyward in a here-we-go kind of pose.

“No,” Rain said, keeping a finger up in his face. “Listen to me.”

Karl looked at her past the finger.

“I tell you what, have a
great
time in London this fall and
don't
tell me what to do with my time!” And with that, she turned and walked quickly away from him.

“Oh, very good, Rain,” Karl called after her. “Nice!”

Rain wore a black dress with a high-buttoned collar and short puff sleeves. It was a “not” dress. Not frumpy. Not revealing. Not too stylish. Not awful. Not the way she felt right now, however. She was in a daze, wandering through the National Arts Club alone among mostly elderly literary types who were chatting and munching hors d'oeuvres and sipping cocktails. She was moving around as though she was searching for someone. It kept people from trying to talk to her for the most part. The speaking to her that got through this grate seemed muted to her. Her own responses felt mute and flat, like she was speaking into a pillow.

Somebody, an old friend of his, more of a colleague probably: “He had a good life. It's a blessing he left so quickly— no pain…”

Rain looked at this old guy. Should have been him instead. “I wish he wasn't dead,” she said at his face.

Another one: “You were very lucky. He adored you, you know,” like he knew what the hell John Morton ever felt.

Rain said, “I do know, yes.”

Another goddamn sad-sack but the bright-side-of-it-all face: “At least he didn't suffer.”

Rain finally said, “I don't want him to be dead.”

Everybody knew her Dad and now that he couldn't defend himself, they seemed to know all about the value of his life: “He lived such a full life, enjoyed it so very much. We should all…”

Rain said, “He shouldn't have died yet.”

Different person, same goddamn thing: “It's all right, honey, it was his time. His life was good and it was long and he accomplished so much.”

Cold, stoic, to all of them. To none of them. Not caring how raw this sounded, Rain said, “But I still need him.”

Same lady, seemed to be under some delusion that this was an actual conversation: “You'll be alright,” and actually patted Rain on the arm. “You'll be all right. Your mother…?”

“Died in childbirth,” Rain said. “Excuse me.” Rain realized she was enjoying making these people uncomfortable. Not a healthy sign of coping. Very immature on top of that. She left the room.

Stepping out onto a balcony, Rain looked down and saw Karl talking feverishly into a cell phone, pacing on the street in front of the building. Rain, numb from it all, turned and looked back into the room only to find Gwen laughing into the face of some overdressed man with that kind of glowing tan rich-guy skin complexion. Metrosexual and seventies. Ick.

Tears filled Rain's eyes as she watched her. Gwen caught Rain's glance and excused herself. Approaching Rain, she brought her familiar fragrance, a dress she'd worn with him, her makeup and her hair done beautifully and effortlessly as always.

“Rain,” she gently scolded.

“He's not even cold yet,” Rain blurted.

Gwen smiled and looked down. Patiently, she said, “I won't let you judge me. I'm very clear about your father and me. I adored him. I am who I am and one of the greatest things your father did for me was to love me as I am.”

Rain snapped, “He had bad taste.”

Gwen smiled and leaned against the stone wall of the balcony alongside Rain. “It's going to get better, Rain. Appreciate what you had of him. Don't be so angry you lost him.”

Rain was crying now. “It's stupid.”

Gwen took a pressed handkerchief from her small purse and handed it over. Rain took it without saying a word. “Did they deliver the keys to the cabin and the papers?” Gwen asked her.

Rain was silent for a moment until she realized she couldn't care less what Gwen did with her affections now. It was her father she wanted.

Rain wiped her face, cleared her throat and asked Gwen, “Had you ever gone there?”

“Only once, a long time ago. We just stopped in to see it. It might need a little work, but it's an architectural gem,” she sniffed knowingly. “Valuable,” she said.

Looking down, Rain said, “I thought he'd sold it after I was born.”

Gwen looked out over Gramercy Park; its high, wrought-iron fence held in the bursting lushness of the late summer foliage. “He said too many memories. I think he wrote
Mission
there.” Gwen said. She removed the tiny purse from her wrist and ran her fingers over its curves. “I believe he loved it, but he'd somehow sealed off that era.”

“Well, I'm going up next week,” Rain said casually, feeling like she was crashing over a threshold. “We're renting the loft out while Karl's in England for the fellowship.”

Gwen smiled over toward the park. “So, you're not going,” she said quietly.

“No,” Rain said. “I don't…” her voice trailed away. She didn't want to be doing things for anybody else's approval today.

“Smart girl.”

“What do you mean?” Rain asked, looking up at the sky, trying not to sound defensive. The old argument about Karl had begun when she had started seeing him. Rain would not divulge to Gwen that this plan hadn't been her idea.

“Nothing. Going to work up there?”

“I'm going to set up a studio there, spend some time painting and fix the place up a little, much as I can.”

They stood in silence for a few moments, Gwen's presence finally soothing Rain. Something of her father was still left in her company. Rain feared that the bantering, easy, friendly bond between the two women could not bear the snivelly, grab-on, sink-down, sob-fest that Rain felt on the perpetual verge of these days: it was just not that sort of relationship. Gwen claimed not to have raised her own children. “Nannies and boarding school did that for me,” she liked to say, and she had entered into her relationship with Rain with a lot of respect but very little physical affection. Rain was already twelve when they first met and that sort of thing had just never felt right.

Gwen looked at Rain now fondly, but with a little regret flickering across her face. It seemed as though she'd have liked to reach out and put a hand on Rain, but she didn't. Instead, she offered, “Your father told me that you were the only pure thing in his life.”

“Pure?” Rain turned uncomprehendingly to Gwen and met her eyes for the first time since they'd been outside on the balcony. She shook her head silently, knowing she looked desperately freaked. Not caring much.

“How he felt about you. It was a balm to him. You were a gift he never expected.”

Gwen, too. With the…with the platitudes. Rain's mind was racing and her throat was constricting. She had cried too much already. She was moving into shocked silence. Into that kind of personality whose feelings were all capped, sealed, boxed and stored because if they were let out, they'd destroy you and lots of other people around you. Her mind was racing with this new self that was trying to take over the more open, raw person she knew in herself. Rain shook her head some more, trying to get her voice back. Not okay. Not yet. “I didn't get enough of him,” Rain whispered, alone now in the world. “It's not fair.”

Gwen put her little purse on the balcony wall between them decisively. “What do you want, Rain?” she demanded, turning squarely to her. “What are you after?”

Rain shook her head again. “What do you want from
me
?” she blurted back. “What's that supposed to
mean
, ‘What do I want…?'” Rain waved her arms toward the wake. “I know what I
don't
want!” She looked across 20th Street to where Karl had been talking on his cell. He was standing, holding onto a bar of the park fence, staring at the open phone in his hand.

Rain turned her back on him again and looked at Gwen. “I want my own show,” she said. “I want to make a living as an artist. I want to be left alone to paint, but I want to know somebody wants them when I'm done. I want painting and thinking about painting to fill my life. Not just be a little hobby. I want to find the right set of tracks for me and then just GO on them. I want to already be wrapped up in a project for better or for worse, not trying to
find
anything anymore.”

“Alright then,” Gwen smiled broadly at her. “That's what I wanted to know.”

“What?” Rain said, frustrated, not understanding how Gwen could fail to hear the plaintive drone in everything she had just said. “That doesn't mean anything. Dad's gone.”

“Yes, but don't you know what he wanted for you?”

“No, I don't. What?” Rain jabbed her fingers at the concrete balcony wall she was leaning against.

“He wanted you to want things, to have a sense of your own purpose, no matter what it was.” Gwen took up her little purse, undid it and snapped it shut again, placing its small handle over her wrist. An ending gesture. Like she had sorted out something tricky and was thoroughly done with it.

Of asphodel, that greeny flower,
I come, my sweet,
to sing to you!
My heart rouses
thinking to bring you news
of something
that concerns you
and concerns many men. Look at
what passes for the new.
You will not find it there but in
despised poems.
It is difficult
to get the news from poems
yet men die miserably every day
for lack
of what is found there.

—W
ILLIAM
C
ARLOS
W
ILLIAMS

Green Earth, or Terre Verde, is among the oldest pigments known. An earth pigment or clay like Umber, it varies widely depending on the supplier. Some pigments change dramatically with the addition of titanium from a deep earthy green to a sky blue or bright yellow. Malachite, while not perhaps caveman era, also goes back quite far in use, being a simple product of copper. Verdigris is also derived from copper but it is more of a blue green. The copper and arsenic pigments have better tinting strength and staying power than the earths which can brown over the years. The Impressionists accused the Dutch masters of being obsessed with browns, but some conservators theorize that it is the discoloration of brighter, original hues over the centuries that is responsible for their earthy palette.

The train ride from Grand Central took about an hour. By giant rent-a-van, however, the journey took at least two. Add to that the hour and a half it took Rain to inch over to lower-leftSoho, or NoCa (North of Canal), or HoTuHo (Holland Tunnel Hollow)—or whatever the real-estate developers were trying to name it at that moment—where she emptied her whole studio with both Quinn and Stan and one of their more hearty girlfriends, all putting in serious elbow grease in exchange for venti lattes and muffins.

Rain endured their ribbing about her fabulous studio, since its imminent destruction only allowed it to go so far.

“You'll have us up to the country?” Stan asked, all lock-jawed and playful.

“I really have no idea what I'll find up there…” Rain said.

“Dee da deer da deer da deer da dee…” Stan sang. The opening bars of the banjo duel from
Deliverance
.

“That seriously has me freaked out now,” Rain laughed, climbing in to the high, trucker-style driver's seat.

Quinn looked up at Rain with a little tweak of sadness on his face. “Call sometime,” he said.

“Come on!” Rain howled. “You're making me feel like I'm moving away or something,” she laughed. Her friends didn't join in.

The girlfriend shuffled away and Stan said, “See ya Rainy,” and chucked her on the knee.

Quinn came in closer. He was like a brother to Rain. She had known Quinn since middle school and she had always, always had a huge crush on him. Each new girlfriend he retained was like a fresh heartbreak for her, even though the one time he had tried to kiss her she had laughed at him and punched him in the shoulder.