Yellow Mesquite (30 page)

Harley,

Come to dinner around eight.
 

Bring your work. Call if you
 

can’t make it.

Frankie

So, she hadn’t disowned him. But he cringed now to think she had seen his miserable lodging. He told himself he didn’t give a damn. Nevertheless, he went down to Rusty’s office to check it out. Yes, a woman came earlier, asking for him. She had slipped a note under his door. Classy little pip, that one, Rusty said with a lascivious grin.

The hell with it. He was who he was, and she could take it or leave it. Nevertheless, it wasn’t something he wanted to do, showing Frankie his work. After shooting off his mouth, acting like he knew anything at all about art, it was a lose-lose situation. Not only that, he was exhausted from trekking up and down Madison all day. On the other hand, he couldn’t go on indefinitely hiding his work anymore than he could hide his financial circumstance. She probably knew from Mavis that he was poor as dirt.

That evening he showered, changed into fresh jeans and shirt, donned his Levi’s jacket, and took the Styrofoam crate with his four paintings and all the drawings. Just off Park, he picked up a bottle of wine and took the subway up to Fifty-first Street, then walked from there around to Fifty-fourth.
 

The old general stood at the bottom of the steps, bent under the weight of his braided epaulets. His bony head jumped to attention and he showed his gums in a broad smile as Harley approached, the crate in one hand, the wine in the other. The old general flapped stiffly up the steps and beat Harley to the intercom.

“Heh-heee. Y–you punch this button like this, see? R–right by the name here? Rings them up, s–see?”

Harley grinned.
 

“Yes?” Frankie’s voice came out of the wall.

The old general flapped his bones. “T–tell her,” he wheezed. “Tell her.”

“Hi, Frankie. Harley here.”

Bratzzz
.
The old general creaked open the door and held it. Harley stepped through, shaking his head for the old doorman’s benefit. “That just beats all, doesn’t it.”

Frankie met him at the door. He gave her the customary peck on the cheek, then stopped, sniffing the air. “Whoa, here. What smells so good?”

“I hope you like roast beef.”

“Boy, I’m here to tell you.” He handed her the wine.

“Why, thank you.” Her hair was done up, ringlets springing down at her temples. She wore a bell-sleeved blouse of some shimmering champagne-colored material belted at the waist over black pants.
 

“So, finally I get to see your work. Bring them on into the living room. Make yourself a drink there, will you? I need to check on dinner. Oh, glasses are down below, ice in the bucket. You can make me a scotch with one cube of ice and just a splash of soda, please.”

He poked around behind the bar, made Frankie’s drink, then poured himself a little bourbon over a couple of ice cubes. He felt shaky inside, trying not to let his hands tremble.

Frankie returned. “Thank you,” she said as he handed her the drink.
 

“Where’s Mr. Mussette?”

Frankie glanced at her watch. “Oh, let’s see, he should be arriving in Chicago just about now. He went out to look at a drawing he’s interested in.”

“In buying?”

“Oh, yes. Let’s see your work.”

“All the way to Chicago?”

She laughed easily. “Cecil has flown to Europe to look at drawings he’s interested in.”
 

“No kidding. Huh. I’ve known ranchers to drive from Texas to Utah to buy one registered Rambouillet buck, but I never knew anybody who’d hardly drive across town for a drawing.”

“A what kind of buck?”

“Rambouillet. A stud sheep.”

“Oh…”

“All the way to Europe. That’s something.”
 

“Collectors are a peculiar lot.”
 

His gaze traveled over the drawings on the walls. “This must be like living in a museum.”

Frankie swirled the ice in her glass. “Well, come on. Let’s see. Let’s see.”

“You want another drink?”

“No, I want to see your work.” She parked herself cross-legged on the Persian rug and watched him, waiting.

He relived the misery back in Midland, standing by while Sidney studied his work in disappointed silence. He questioned his own mental stability that he would let himself in for that again. Well, the hell with it. If she didn’t like his work, tough titty. That’s what he told himself, rationally. But emotionally he was a wreck.
 

He took the four paintings out and propped them against the wall and then laid the folder of drawings on the floor at her side. He left her with the paintings, went to the bar, took up his drink and tried to see the work through her eyes. They were figurative works, somewhat in the flat style of Matisse and some of Diebenkorn’s recent pieces; only the color was subdued, bleak actually, the space empty, the light stark—just as the galleries on Madison had stated. They looked worse by the moment.

He added more Jack Daniel’s on top of what he already had.
 

Frankie gazed at the paintings, each in turn; then again, one to another.

“Don’t feel like you have to like them.”
 

She turned, gave him a brief look. “I wish you weren’t here.”

“That makes two of us.”

“Because then I could look without you hanging over my shoulder, second-guessing what I might be thinking.”

“Well, I’m not leaving till I get some of that good-smelling food.”

“Go make yourself another drink.”

“I just made one.”

“Well, go somewhere. Go pee or something.”

“I don’t need to do that, either.”

She gave him another look.

“Shoot,” he mumbled, and slid away from the bar. “I’ll go look at the drawings in your bathroom.” The drink was having an effect. Maybe he did need to pee after all. He wondered what she’d do if he just curled up on the bathroom floor and went to sleep.

When finally he came out, Frankie was still sitting cross-legged, the drawings spread out on the rug around her.
 

“Let’s put them away,” he said, not knowing but what she might sit there all night just to be polite.

“No, wait.”

He began to gather up the drawings.

“You’re mean,” she said.

He laughed, a half-suppressed nervous bark.
 

 
She got up and took a sip of her drink, watching in silence as he arranged everything in the crate and secured the rope handles.

“When do we eat?” he said in an effort to diffuse the focus from him and his work.

“Your work, it’s stark, but powerful,” she said. “There’s something almost…I don’t know…frightening about it. A kind of pent-up energy, as though something terrible were just about to happen.”
 

“Thank you…I think.”

“I must confess, it would have been awkward had you not been very talented after all. But then, I knew you would be.”

“That’s what I was afraid of, that you might not like it. Then what?”
 

“Of course, you realize I’m only one opinion.”
 

He did wonder what she saw that Sidney hadn’t. Maybe she really was just being polite.
 

“You’re going to do well in New York.”

“I don’t know. I haven’t had much luck so far.”

“But you’ve only been here, what, just over a week?”

“You know all those galleries over there on Madison? Well, I thought, shoot, I could get me one of those easy as pie. So I took these paintings over and they practically ran me off with a stick.”

“Wait a minute… You went looking for a gallery, on Madison?”

“This gallery business may be harder to crack than I thought.”

Frankie began to laugh. “You went looking for a gallery? On
Madison
? With these?”

His heart sank. “Well…yeah. Why?”

“Oh, noooo!” Frankie flopped down on the floor again and fell over on the rug, laughing.

“What’s wrong with that?” Tempted to take the paintings and walk out, he tried not to stare at her—curled on the floor, her perfect butt fitted compactly in the silky black pants. At the same time, he was aware of something playful and light about her in direct opposition to her normal poise and sophistication, a relaxed state of joyful innocence, almost childlike, that he found beguilingly hypnotic.

“Oh, Harley, Harley, Harley!” She sat up, took a tissue from a box on the table and dabbed at her eyes. “Those galleries aren’t for you.”
 

He stared, confused.
 

“Those are cheap commercial galleries. They sell to tourists and interior decorators.”

“But I saw people buying paintings, and for a lot of money, too.”

“Oh, sure, I suppose people do buy, but…”

“Six and seven thousand bucks a pop.”

“No…”

“Yes.”

She sobered a little. “You saw that?”

“Big as all get-out.” He told her about the two women at the “L’Atliar-what-you-call-it gallery.”
 

Frankie laughed again until there were tears in her eyes. “You actually did that? Stopped them right on the street?”

“Well, there they were, you know? Tootin’ across the street right toward me. I don’t know; it just sort of came over me.”

Frankie blotted her eyes with the wadded tissue. “That is
so
funny!” The single ding of a timer sounded from the kitchen. “Come,” she said, “I believe dinner is ready.” She extended her hand and he helped her to her feet.
 

The kitchen was neat and orderly. Two places were set across from each other at the small dining table, ultramarine blue plates on straw mats.

“So, this is how civilized people live.”

Frankie found the cork puller and handed him the cabernet sauvignon he’d brought. “If you’ll open this I’ll take the roast out.”
 

“You have any idea how good that smells to a fellow living on hamburgers?”

Frankie set the platter with the roast on tiles on the table, along with a bowl of new potatoes cut in chunks, baked with red peppers and onions. He poured wine into long-stemmed glasses.
 

She handed him the fireplace lighter. “The candles, please?” She turned the rheostat down at the wall switch, and the milk-glass globe dimmed to a soft, warm glow. She looked about the room, smiling with satisfaction as he lit the candles. She lifted her glass. “Rembrandt.”

“Rembrandt?”

“Smoldering gold light. That’s what we have here.”

He grinned and touched his glass to hers. Their eyes met for a moment. Her gaze wavered and dropped. “Please, will you slice the roast?”
 

He stood up to reach the roast and bumped the table. “Oh, damn… Sorry.”

“It’s all right. Relax.”
 

“Yes…” He cut a slice from the roast and put it on her plate.

They talked a little about art; then Frankie went into some detail about Merce Cunningham and John Cage collaborating with Jasper Johns on a project. He realized that she knew everything going on in the art world, that she was on the cutting edge, aware of what was happening on every front, and by extension what was truly good. Not only had he broadcast his ignorance, popping off at the Larry Rivers show, but he had actually just shown her his work.
 

He forced himself to make conversation, and later helped clear the dishes. Frankie went out to the foyer with him and collected his jacket.
 

“Thanks again,” he said. “Great evening.”

“There’s a gallery I think you should look into.”
 

He hesitated, trying to read her.
 

“What?” she said.

“You mean…you really
did
like the work?”

A light frown crossed her brow. “Are you suggesting that I would lie?”

“No, no. I just…”

“You know by now that showing your work to a gallery is a gamble with very poor odds?”

“After the way they beat me up over there on Madison Avenue? What’s one more black eye?”

“Are you free tomorrow, Sunday? After lunch?”

“Works for me.” He gave her a tenuous peck on the cheek, aware of her feminine, faintly cedarlike smell. “Good night, Frankie. And thanks again. I appreciate it. All of it.”

He went out past the old general slumped on a brocaded chair, mouth open, pink gums smacking in his sleep.

He thought of Sherylynne, wondered if he had betrayed her in his mind, if not in his heart. It was confusing.

Chapter 33

Martin Baldwin

“O
H, DEAR, GOODNESS
gracious me! Hmm. Yes, yes, yes.
Do
have a seat, darlings, please
do
. My, my!” With a flutter of his fingers, Martin Baldwin shooed Harley and Frankie toward two director’s chairs near a desk in his SoHo gallery, 20/20 Insight. He paraded before them, a stringy man in jeans, a stiff white shirt with red cuff studs, matching red bow tie, Pepto-Bismol pink blazer and black patent slippers with white silk socks.
 

“Interesting
.
Yes, yes, yes. Very in-te-res-
ting
in-
deed
. In-
deed
, in-
deed
. Ah, creativity, the valiant and ever-vigilant knight in the war with death and oblivion.” Martin picked at his chin, shifted the orange-tinted glasses on his nose, peered at the paintings.

Harley and Frankie moved toward the chairs, then stopped to watch as Martin thumbed through the drawings. Martin looked up. “Darlings, pu-
lease
, do take a load off your tootsies. I can’t think under your weight. Sit, sit, sit!

“Now,” said Martin, peering at them over his glasses as they eased into the chairs, “you’re from
Tex
-as dear boy, a real cowboy?”

“Well, no sir, I grew up on a kind of farm and ranch but, well, I guess you could say that…maybe, sort of.”

“Marvelous!” Martin wrapped himself up in his own arms. He turned to Frankie. “Don’t you just a-
dore
that accent? Divine, simply di-
vine
!”