The Gilder (17 page)

She turned the frame a quarter rotation and continued her final inspection. All week as she worked, thoughts of Thomas had insinuated their way into what was typically a reflective and meditative time at the end of a challenging project. The pieced-together photograph on Zoe’s bedside table that she’d managed to ignore for so many years had somehow unleashed Thomas from the depths of her psyche, where he’d been successfully submerged. Now he floated on the surface like a piece of flotsam, inexorably bumping against her conscience. Worse still, now every time she looked at Zoe, she saw his lanky build, the narrow nose, the unruly curls, and, of course, the gray eyes. Was it possible Zoe had grown into these features overnight? How had Marina not recognized them before? By the end of the week, it had gotten to the point where she dreaded the slam of the car door, the click of the gate latch, and was relieved when Zoe announced she was spending the weekend at Sasha’s.

For Zoe’s sake and perhaps to some extent to appease Thomas’s specter, Marina had attempted to come up with some form of apology or explanation for not taking Zoe to Florence with her. All manner of civilized banalities came to mind. “I know you want to know more about your father, and I’ll do what I can to answer your questions,” or “I understand that you’re feeling angry and confused right now, and I’m going to do whatever I can to help you sort things out,” or, even worse, “I’m sorry I haven’t taken the time to talk to you about your dad, but I’ll try and do better from now on.” One by one, she cast aside these vapid clichés as it became clear that rectitude led her to a place she’d rather not go—facing the truth. Nor was she convinced that honesty was the best policy with Zoe at this point; she was too young for the whole truth. In any case, Zoe hadn’t asked any more questions since she’d slammed out of the studio, and Marina saw no point in stirring things up.

The sharp trill of the phone cut into her thoughts, saving her from further doubt and self-denigration. It was Lydia calling to tell her that June would not be joining them for dinner, something about helping Ben cram for a physics test. Marina picked up a small whisk broom and brushed off the area around the frame. Even the tiniest bit of debris accidentally picked up on a brush or rag could mar its perfect surface. She admired Lydia and June’s relationship, and over the years had seen firsthand what went into building a nurturing and committed union, something far deeper and more mature than her infantile fantasies about a relationship with Sarah. She couldn’t now fathom what had possessed her to cling to them even after Sarah had made it clear that day by the river that she wasn’t interested in a life together.

They had taken a walk along the Arno one afternoon under tree branches weighted with the promise of spring, and settled themselves in the shelter of a stone parapet about a mile from the center of town. They’d seen little of each other since Sarah had nursed Marina through her “cold.” Marina had made herself unavailable by burying herself in a restoration project for Sauro; Sarah was immersed in preparations for Thomas’s show.

A light breeze ruffled the water as Marina tipped her face to the sun, the same sun that had welcomed her a year earlier. But instead of feeling pride in all she’d accomplished—her work with Sauro, her home in Via Luna, her friendship with Sarah and Thomas—she felt only confusion and despair as the life she’d created began to crumble. She needed to make a decision—to confess or not. Living in perpetual limbo was making her sick to her stomach. But would her friendship with Sarah survive the truth? And what, exactly, was the truth? That she’d had sex with Thomas, made love with Thomas, been seduced by Thomas? She sensed that the wine alone was not responsible for what had happened with Thomas, that in some strange way, her feelings for Sarah had drawn her into Thomas’s seduction, but she couldn’t quite make sense of it all. Yet, an unidentifiable force brewed inside her, pressing her to confess. But confess what? That she had feelings for Sarah? That she’d had sex with Thomas? Presented side by side, the two were incongruous—how could she have slept with Thomas if she loved Sarah?

In the weeks following the bathtub photo shoot, Marina had seen Thomas only once, when Sarah pressed her into joining them for dinner at Anita’s, and she’d known that to decline an invitation yet again might raise questions. That evening Thomas had feigned nonchalance as he kissed Marina on both cheeks and bantered with Anita as usual. He’d talked about how great the show was going to be, the photos, the framing, the invitations; he’d talked nonstop as if he were afraid Marina might fill any lull in the conversation with an accusation or confession. For her, it had been an agonizing evening spent between rage and shame that rendered her numb and the meal tasteless.

Now Sarah was complaining about how much work she had to get done before the show opened, but Marina wasn’t listening. The knot in her belly was becoming a cramp. Maybe, if she could get Sarah to go away with her like they’d always talked about, to have some time to themselves without Thomas around, they could work this thing through.

Without opening her eyes, she interrupted Sarah. “What would you think about taking a trip together after the show’s up?”

“Where would we go?”

“I don’t know, one of the places you’ve told me about. Cinque Terra, or even down to Amalfi.”

“They’re a bit far, we’d have to go for longer than a weekend.”

Marina continued basking her face in the sun, her heart pounding. “I was thinking of a couple of weeks, or maybe a month. We could rent a place. You could do some drawing or even start sculpting.”

“What about Thomas?”

“What about Thomas?” Marina hadn’t meant it to sound as harsh as she felt.

Sarah didn’t say anything for a few moments, so many moments that Marina began to think that she really had gone too far and offended her friend.

“Marina, there’s something I need to ask you.” Sarah’s voice was soft.

Marina opened her eyes but didn’t look at Sarah. Her life paused for a second—no thoughts, no heartbeat, no breath.

“Do you think you might be in love with me?”

Marina turned her head and stared at Sarah, for a split second elated, until she heard the rest of her statement.

“Thomas says that you are.”

“What? When did Thomas say that?”

“He’s said it a couple of times recently, mostly just teasing me, telling me to watch out for you, that you might steal me away. Silly really.”

Marina felt nauseated. Her stomach cramped. She watched Sarah’s lips move, seemingly out of sync with her voice. What was Thomas playing at? Hadn’t he done enough damage? He’d already compromised her relationship with Sarah by seducing her, now he was stirring up more trouble. Maybe it wasn’t silly, maybe he really was afraid that Sarah would leave him and run away with her. Was he simply jealous of their friendship? Her anger threatened to spill over into tears.

When she didn’t respond, Sarah continued. “You’ve been such a good friend to me, the best friend I’ve ever had besides Marcello. The only girlfriend. And I do love you, but ... not like that, not like Thomas said, and ... I would never leave him, not for any reason. You must know that.”

“I’m not asking you to leave him, I’m just suggesting a trip. It’s not as if we haven’t talked about it before.” She tried but couldn’t keep the anger out of her voice. Her months of speculation, confusion, hope, fear, and anguish had just been put into perspective—she
had
misread Sarah’s signals. Perhaps there had been no signals at all, just her longing for more. She’d been so focused, first on school and then on getting to Florence, that she’d never really thought about what her life might look like beyond becoming a gilder, and this intense longing took her by surprise. But didn’t she deserve to have someone for herself, someone to love, who loved her, someone to make a life with? Every cell in her body was telling her that she did and that Sarah was this someone.

At the time, Sarah’s rejection had been a blow that Marina fended off with denial, at first, simply refusing to think about it, and later, creating fantasies where she and Sarah raised Zoe together. Eventually, though, time fulfilled its own cliché by healing that staggering loss as she became immersed in her career and motherhood.

Marina wrapped the frame in soft packing cloth and then bubble wrap. Moon Craters would be there in the morning to pick up the frame for crating and shipment. Now she could turn her full attention to the conference and the impending trip. She gave the bundled frame one final pat and made her way out of the studio and across the yard to the house. At barely five o’clock, it was already dark and the temperature had dropped considerably. The lights were on in the kitchen, the TV flickered across the living room ceiling, and the bass from Zoe’s stereo pressed its obstinate rhythm against the antique panes of her bedroom window. Marina shivered in her thin denim shirt as she hurried onto the back porch and into the kitchen. Overhead, copper pots of every shape and size hung from the beamed ceiling, while underfoot a honey-colored, wide-plank pine floor stretched obliquely toward the back of the house. The long trestle table was strewn with the remnants of Zoe’s snack: an open package of pita bread, a half-empty container of hummus, a pile of cucumber skin, the peeler, and a crusted table knife. Marina, who favored comfort foods—macaroni and cheese, mashed potatoes and gravy, in fact, anything with a sauce, the richer the better—marveled at Zoe’s healthy eating habits. She did not have her mother’s sweet tooth or her carnivorous cravings, most often eschewing red meat for fish or poultry. Consequently, Marina had fallen into the habit of cooking red meat only when Zoe was elsewhere. Now Marina’s taste buds perked up at the culinary prospects of a weekend to herself, but at the same time, she felt a pang for the long lazy weekends she and Zoe had once shared baking, working in the garden, scouring yard sales along Route 9, or packing a picnic and taking a drive to nowhere. As tempting as it was with her studio right next door, she had always been strict about not working on the weekends, but with adolescence came a social life that had expanded Zoe’s world beyond her mother’s embrace, and now the studio was exactly where Marina ended up spending her weekends.

Finding the living room empty, she turned off the television and went into the hall, where she paused at the bottom of the stairs, then, realizing Zoe wouldn’t hear her over the music, climbed up in search of her daughter. From Zoe’s open door, Marina surveyed the room, what she could see of it under the wreckage of Zoe’s wardrobe. Surely only a bomb in the laundry basket could have gotten the purple panties up on the curtain rod. Zoe was cramming a portion of the debris into her gym bag.

“Zoe,” Marina called over the unrelenting beat as she rapped her knuckles on the doorjamb.

Zoe zipped up the bag, slung it over her shoulder, flipped off the stereo, and turned to face her mother. “June’s on her way to pick me up.”

“That’s fine, but ...” The rule was that Zoe had to pick up her room before she went on a sleepover, so that when she returned tired and cranky from too little sleep, her room was in some semblance of order, enough to get homework done and prepare for the next school day. Marina surveyed the room, weighing which battle to choose. She stepped into the hall and let Zoe pass, following her down the stairs. “You need to clean up your snack mess before you go.”

“I was going to.”

Right,
thought Marina. “When will you be home? We need to organize ourselves for Thanksgiving.”

Zoe dropped her bag on the kitchen floor and began clearing the table. “Are we going there or are they coming here?”

“We’re going there. All we have to do are the pies. Lydia’s doing the rest. I think Peter’s helping her.”

Zoe turned, her face bright. “Uncle Peter’s coming? I thought he was going to his dumb girlfriend’s.”

“Zoe.” Marina’s reprimand was halfhearted. No one liked Peter’s current flame, the most recent in a long line of unfortunate women he’d dated. Unfortunate not because there was anything intrinsically wrong with them, although this one was a bit of a dullard, but because Peter would never commit to any of them. Lydia claimed that her brother, the favorite uncle and primary male influence in her children’s lives, chose women who were wrong for him on purpose so he wouldn’t have to commit.

“That is soooo great.” Zoe wiped the table, moving the crumbs from one spot to another. She wagged the sponge at her mother. “This is your chance, Mom. You should marry him before the next ditz gets her claws into him.”

“I don’t think ...”

Zoe interrupted. “Come on, Mom, he likes you, you know he does.”

“And I like him, I always have, but ...”

“But, but, but. You’re perfect for each other. He’s waiting for you. You’re just chicken.”

“Zoe ...” A horn honked in the driveway. “You go. I’ll finish clearing up. Say hi to June for me.”

Marina picked up the discarded sponge and rinsed it out in the sink. She wasn’t afraid of dating, she just wasn’t interested. Her life was busy. She had her work. She had Zoe. She opened the fridge and reached for the package of lamb chops, then gathered oil, garlic, tamari, and rosemary for a marinade. As she whisked the ingredients together, she thought about Peter. She definitely had a soft spot for him, and he for her, at least according to Lydia. But in all the years they’d known each other, shared holidays and children’s birthdays, he’d never crossed the line of friendship, and neither had she—after all, he was practically family.

Lydia and June had opened their hearts and home to Marina and Zoe right from the beginning, providing a support system and a sense of family for which she was grateful. Although Lydia had a large circle of friends, few of them had children, and with June working the long hours of a pediatrician, one who still made house calls, she spent most of her time with Marina. Initially, the connection had been their baby girls, but in time they discovered common interests: art, history, music, and antiques
.
With Ben already in preschool and the babies in their Snuglis, the two women were free to explore the flea markets, auction houses, and galleries that the area from Hudson to Poughkeepsie had to offer. Before Ben was born, Lydia had worked as a freelance draftsman out of a small office over her garage
,
but she and June agreed that the children needed one full-time parent, so Lydia took on that role after Sasha was born, and when Marina began working again, Lydia offered to care for Zoe during the day. Over the years, Lydia, June, and their children became her extended family, along with Peter, who lived over his antiques shop in Hudson just a few miles away and was always available to lend a hand with the kids or tackle a project around the house.