The Matchmakers of Minnow Bay (15 page)

 

PART II

The Key

 

TWO YEARS EARLIER

“I think I met someone.”

Renee looks off at the distance like she didn't hear me. She is scanning the warren of second-floor Contemporary as though she's lost, even though, of all the halls in the Institute, this must be the one where we've spent the most time since it opened a few years earlier.

“What are you looking for?” I ask her.

“A bench.”

“Opposite the early Pollock in the long room, I think. Are you okay?”

“Oh, sure. My feet hurt, is all.”

Trailing behind Renee, I look down at her feet. It is high summer and I am wearing gold leather gladiator sandals I found at the Goodwill. She is wearing navy blue heels that look like they came from the Stewardess collection at Lord & Taylor, as I told her the moment we met up on the steps of the museum. “Wanna trade?” I ask her, when I catch up to her. Renee and I wear the exact same shoe size: 7.5 and just a hair narrow. For a long time, we shared shoes so fluidly that we weren't exactly sure which pairs belonged to which of us.

She looks at my ridiculous sandals. “Those don't exactly go with my outfit,” she says, laughing. “Or yours.”

“At least they're not the Slingbacks.” At some point during junior year, we bought a pair of unbelievably painful black-and-white pointed-toe Italian slingbacks. We talked ourselves overbudget by saying that we could wear them to interviews, but they were absolutely crippling after about thirty minutes of wear. At one point I wore them across campus, staggered into the student union, and called Renee to come bring me a pair of flip-flops so I could walk home. After that, we kept the shoes but put them up on a high shelf and used them only to threaten the other roommate. As in, “If you don't wash that moldly hot pot right this second I am taking away all our shoes except the Slingbacks.”

“I wonder what happened to those godawful shoes,” she says now as she flops down opposite
The Key
and slips her pantyhose-clad feet out of her heels.

“Wonder no more. I still have them in a box in my apartment.”

“No! You must throw them away. They are bad shoe karma.”

“Bad shoe karma would be giving them to Goodwill and then having someone else try to wear them. I am keeping the world safe from the Slingbacks. It's basically a charitable endeavor.”

“I wonder if you can get a tax break,” she says dryly.

We fall silent. This room, of all the halls in the Institute, may have the highest wow factor. There's
The Key,
of course, which is huge, probably five by seven feet, and colorful as all get out, especially for a Pollock, with a palette of tomato and teal and about three different golf-course greens. This work, done on the floor, was the first step on the way to the drip works that made him so iconic, and it practically vibrates with anticipation of what might come next, though thanks to the clever curators of the Contemporary wing, you need only take a few steps to see the answer: one of Pollock's best action paintings,
Grayed Rainbow.

And then in this very same gallery, Willem de Kooning's manic brushwork, the crayon madness of Twombly, the Lichtensteins and Jasper Johnses competing for oxygen, and then the Calder sculpture floating down from the ceiling and effectively trumping it all. And my personal favorite, Joan Mitchell's
City Landscape,
which does not look much like either a city or a landscape, and, despite its urban title, is awfully meditative. It's an oil on linen abstraction, sharp in places, almost muddy in others, with the tomato and teal palette not dissimilar to the Pollock we're staring at now, but no green to speak of. I miss it.

“Let's go stand in front of the Joan Mitchell and feel like talentless hacks,” I tell Renee now.

“You go ahead. I never needed to be inspired by genius to feel that way,” says Renee. “Plus, she's more your thing.”

“I know,” I say. “Mitchell says she's referential.”

“Why would she say that about herself?”

“Not Joan Mitchell.
My
Mitchell.”

“Hm,” she says. “Wait. You have a Mitchell?”

“I don't know that I have him, but sort of, maybe. His name is Mitchell Helms. I think we might be dating.”

“
What?
Why didn't you tell me you had a boyfriend?”

“Well, because I don't. I have a guy I am sort of dating.”

“How long have you been sort of dating him?”

“It's hard to say because I couldn't really tell we were dating until we started sleeping together on a weekly basis. Which he's pretty okay at, all things considered.”

“Oh, man. You're having sex. Oh, Lily. Tell me what it's like. I've completely forgotten.”

“Not really?” I say, knowing once upon a time she and Nic were at it like rabbits.

“Oh, really. Do you have any idea how much sex the mother of a three-year-old and an almost-five-year-old has?”

“I don't.”

“Zero sex,” she tells me now. “And if it were between sex and a nap right now, I would take a nap.”

“Don't say that. You don't mean that.”

“In a heartbeat.”

“Well,” I say. “To be honest, on my end, if it's between talking art with Mitchell and having sex, I would probably pick the conversation.”

“He can talk art?”

“Renee, you will never believe this: He owns his own art gallery. And it's legit.”

“Whoa, get out! Well done, Lily! I always believed you could sleep your way to the top if you really applied yourself!”

“Oh, no. This has nothing to do with my work. He's never even seen my paintings.”

“Well, you're just playing the long game. Soon he'll see how talented you are and the personal will become the professional,” she says with a winning smile.

“I don't think so. We both agreed to keep that part of our life separate from, you know, the sex thing—or whatever it is we have.”

“Hm.” Renee looks skeptical. “Then what good is he?” she says. “If he can't jump-start your career?”

“He's very handsome,” I tell her. “And smart. And he knows everyone in the art scene. And he's older. I really like him. I feel like he's too good for me.”

“How much older are we talking?” she asks me quickly.

“A few years.”

“A few ten years?”

“A few fifteen years.”

“
Hot.
”

I shrug. Mitchell makes me uneasy. I have seen firsthand at parties that this guy could have any woman he wants. He has a way of making me feel so … honored to be the one he picked. To me, that doesn't spell long-term success.

“It won't last,” I say. “I give it six months, tops.”

“Nothing wrong with that.”

“You don't think I'm wasting my life with this one?”

“Trust me,” says Renee, sounding almost a little sad. “Someday you'll have two children in preschool, and you will long for the days you had six months to waste having good sex with a brilliant older man. Anyway, don't rule out something more meaningful just because he's older. A guy with a guiding hand and a solid bank account might not be the worst thing in the world for you. I mean, how much more of the art-fair-and-coffee-shop scene can you really take?”

I think of the misery of hustling for every single $250 sale. It's true. A little leg up in the art world might not be the worst thing in the world, if one thing leads to another.

“Or I could give up and go get a real job.”

“I forbid it,” says Renee. “Not yet. You're the real deal, Lily. Give this Mitchell guy a chance. If he's worth his salt as a gallerist, he'll see that too, and then you'll be on your way.”

I sigh heavily. As Renee well knows, I've tried to crack the gallery scene. But I'm not a natural born schmoozer. I like to stay home and paint, or talk about painting. Gallery people don't talk about painting. They talk about the best places to vacation on St. Barts.

Maybe she's right. Maybe a schmoozer boyfriend is not the worst idea in the world.

“I think if you weren't in my corner I would have given up by now,” I tell her, putting my arm around her weary shoulders. I don't feel worthy to Renee anymore, with her beautiful family, successful career, enormous salary, sensible shoes. I feel as though all I do is struggle, and all she does is flourish and yet, she still, for reasons I don't entirely understand, keeps meeting me here over lunch. Like Mitchell, she feels vaguely out of my league.

“And if you weren't in my corner,” she says sweetly, “I probably would be napping in my office. There'd be drool on my laptop. I'd have forgotten sex or art even existed. So really, we're good for each other.”

I smile, not sure if what she's said is true, but grateful for the words all the same.

 

Eight

 

Where I come from, the phrase “out of character” is definitely not a compliment. When someone does something “out of character” it means they go on a rampage and drink too much and get into a fight with a biker in a parking lot. They hop in the car and vanish for days, without telling anyone where they are going. They burn down the shed in their backyard.

What I do next is very out of character.

First I pop the hatchback of my car and throw, or practically throw, three of the paintings I find there into the entryway of the inn. Then I grab the FedEx package that is propped against the front door, just waiting to be shipped far, far away. Finally, I hop into my car, coax it to life, and point it in the direction of Lemon Lake. God, I hope he's home. If he's not I'm going to wuss out. But if he is …

I turn at the carving of the bear and wind past the mansions. In the light of day they are even more imposing, more regal, more glorious. The homes seem to suggest escape and solitude in the same breath as they promise large noisy family dinners and rowdy barbecues. Now, the bright snow-covered lake is glistening through the trees and beckoning to me, speaking of rosy cheeks and snow hares and the pleasing creak of ice freezing and refreezing in the undercurrent. I see a snowshoer out there in the far distance, with his big wide march, and closer in, a pair of turkeys romping in the snow. Angry as I am, I must concede, what I see is beautiful and beckoning.

Finally, Ben Hutchinson's house comes into view. If possible, it appears even smaller, even more ramshackle by day. It's long and skinny, and set so deeply into the hill that from the road it looks no bigger than a one-car garage. Scattered about the front yard are what I surmise to be fishing boats, under black covers, which in turn are under a few feet of snow. Near to the house is a huge rickety-looking woodshed, painted, inexplicably, hunter's orange. His neighbors must positively hate him. I pull into the drive, throw my car in park, and before the door is even opened I am greeted by a racing beast, ears flying in the wind, snow spraying in every direction.

I step out carefully and tell Steve firmly to sit. He does, though I can see it's killing him. Then I give him my hand to sniff and a good pet under the chin and he leaps out of his sit to greet me properly: snowy paws on my stomach, tongue on my face. “Hi, Steve,” I say warmly. “How are you, buddy?”

“Steve, get down!” his master says. I muster a stony heart and pat the dog away. “It's okay, boy,” I say to him sotto voce. Then I look up and see Ben Hutchinson walking toward me. He's wearing denim, flannel, and a down vest. He looks like a cross between Sasquatch and an Eddie Bauer model. He's holding something in his hand. A hammer, maybe? I grab the FedEx envelope off the passenger-side seat and square my shoulders in his direction.

“Hello, Ben,” I say in my coldest voice. It's easy because it's so insanely cold out here.

“Lily,” he replies with an equally chilly nod. “What are you doing here?”

“I came here to give you something,” I say, waving the envelope in my hands.

He extends a hand, reaching for it as he comes my way. “Uh uh uh,” I say. I rip open the zip pouch I sealed only an hour ago and grab the divorce papers out of the envelope. “Not so fast.” I wave a finger in his direction. “You were really rude to me the other night. I made an innocent mistake and came all this way to correct it, and you accused me of all kinds of horrible things and treated me like crap. That's not okay.”

Ben seems taken aback by this speech, and for a second I think he's about to apologize. Then the second passes. “What am I supposed to do when I find out I've been married to a complete stranger for ten years without my knowledge?” he throws back at me. “Throw you a bridal shower?”

I level my pointer finger at him like a parochial school nun. “You are still being very rude.”

He inhales deeply, like I am trying his last nerve. I suppose I am. Too bad. He needs more nerves.

“You see this?” I ask him, gesturing to the annulment petition, which I have fished out of the envelope dramatically. “You know what this is?”

“Did you sign it?” he demands instead of answering me.

“I did. But I take it back,” I say, and then, with a flourish, I tear the papers in half. It's all very exciting.

“What the hell!” he cries.

“I do not like the way you tried to bully me.”

“Bully you? You're the one who trapped me in a marriage I never agreed to!”

“Excuse me, sir. You were there, fully conscious and in your right mind, when we got married in Vegas. You liked me well enough then. I was good enough for you then.”

“I didn't say—”

“In fact, you seemed to really enjoy my company,” I say. I feel outrageous saying this, alluding to a long past roll in the hay like a character from a 9:00
P.M.
drama, but he hears my meaning and blushes enough to make me glad I did. At least I wasn't the only one who had a good time that night. “And then, afterward, when the annulment papers never came, I didn't see you noticing a problem and picking up the phone.”