Yellow Mesquite (36 page)

Sherylynne appeared to be, if not enthusiastically happy, at least resigned. She had gotten to know Vanita, the Indian woman, on the floor below. Vanita wore saris and had a red dot on her forehead, and seemed an unlikely candidate for a friendship with Sherylynne. But Vanita had a two-year-old son, Badri, and the babies entertained each other while their mothers talked and watched daytime TV, sometimes at one place, then the other. Sherylynne was both fascinated and appalled by the idols and shrines in Vanita’s home: “…a goddess called Durga with a whole bunch of arms,” she said, “and a fat elephant with a human body and human arms and legs.” In turn, Vanita was puzzled by Harley’s paintings.
 

Sherylynne made shrimp gumbo for Vanita and her family, and Vanita sent up spicy dishes of tandoori chicken and curried chickpeas and potatoes with fried flatbread. Sherylynne learned to like hot tea.
 

Leah had gotten used to Harley again and toddled after him wherever he went in the loft. They had improvised a gate at the foot of the staircase. He gave her crayons, and she kept up a rambling semi-coherent conversation, scribbling up sheets of paper on a table at his side, showing him the results with exuberant pride.

He went to
work five days a week at JCPenney, where he had been promoted to senior layout artist with a decent raise. He attended the School of Visual Arts two nights a week.
 

Except for Vanita, Sherylynne was as isolated as she had been back in Midland. However, she made no effort to cultivate new friends and seldom accompanied him to museums or galleries. She sometimes showed interest when he passed on a bit of gossip he’d picked up—the Judson Dance Theater was attracting large audiences and stirring up a lot of flak with nude dancing in the Judson Baptist Church on Washington Square. Needless to say, shocked Baptists around the country were pitching a fit. As well they should, Sherylynne said. In other news, Alan Solomon resigned from the Jewish Museum and he, along with Jim Dine and Claes Oldenburg, were trying to revive interest in “happenings,” which, Harley told Sherylynne, had all but died out a few years earlier. Sherylynne didn’t know what a “happening” was and when he told her, thought it was “dumb.” He pretty much agreed with that, too.

Vanita had babysat while he and Sherylynne attended the musical,
Fiddler on the Roof,
and from that moment Sherylynne was hooked. They saw
Mary Poppins
and she bought the soundtrack, and while they were unable to afford tickets to
My Fair Lady,
The Sound of Music,
or
Hello Dolly
, she bought the soundtracks for those as well.
 

“We have to stop this spending,” he said. “Right now I can’t even buy art supplies till the first of the month.”

She accepted the fact of their poverty with a rueful smile, a gentle touch of her fingertips to his cheek, filling him with the guilt of inadequacy. They were both disappointed that Martin had been unable to sell more of his work.

On Saturdays and Sundays, when the weather permitted, he took Leah out in her baby buggy. Sometimes Sherylynne went along, but more often she stayed in, listening to her music, one bare foot drawn up in her chair seat, chin resting on her knee, a distracted far-away look.
 

“I wish you’d try to make a few friends,” he said, for what must have been a hundred times. “Get out once in awhile.”

She pointed out that he didn’t have a lot of friends himself. It was true. He knew a good many people, but very few of them he would define as friends. Originally he had hoped to meet and befriend working artists, but on the whole he had been disappointed by how little they had in common. Most of the newer artists were into Pop, and he was still unable to convince himself that a soup can or a comic book was art just because a few artists and a few critics said so. Of course, van Gogh painted such non-dramatic object as an old pair of work shoes, a chair, his pipe, but he took them out of the realm of the ordinary, infused them with something otherworldly. Pop Art was a celebration of the everyday—not even a celebration, to his way of thinking—just everyday.
 

He still admired the Abstract Expressionist, but that movement was dead, and besides, they were a suspicious bunch. The ones who hadn’t died or committed suicide kept pretty much to themselves.
 

He worked, struggling to find and nourish his own vision, while trying to keep an open mind. If nothing else, he had learned that morality had little to do with intelligence or creativity; Warhol and the factory crowd, for instance. The Abstract Expressionist hadn’t been a bunch of angels, either, but the work itself, the best of it, was elevated above the moral failures of its creators.
 

HARLEY RETURNED
FROM
work one evening to find Sherylynne sitting at the table in her jeans as usual, the one bare foot up in the seat of her chair, chin on her knee, forlorn. She said hello, then reached around her knee and poured a dollop of peach brandy into a cup of hot tea. Leah had gone to sleep in her crib nearby. Normally, he would have awakened her, but he sensed something in the air. He took a can of Rheingold from the fridge, popped the top with a church key, and took a seat at the table with Sherylynne.

“Okay. What’s up?”

“Vanita is making a trip back to India,” she said dismally. “Now I have no one at all to talk to.”

“How long will she be gone?”

“Six weeks.”

While he felt for her, concerned that she and Leah would be more isolated than ever. he didn’t know what to do about it. He had exhausted the subject of her refusal to generate some sort of social life.

“I’m thinking of taking Leah to visit my mother,” she said.

He stopped, the beer halfway to his mouth. He set it down. “Sherylynne…you know we can’t afford that.”

She dropped her knee, leaned across the table and covered his hand with hers. “I can sell that necklace?”

He was beyond surprised. “Is that what you want?”

“It’s not doing anybody any good upstairs in that box.”

He thought about how much the necklace might bring. It was obviously worth a lot of money. They could live on the proceeds for quite a while. But from Whitehead? That was out of the question.
 

“That necklace is yours,” he said. “I’m having nothing to do with it.”

“I need to see my mother, and she needs to meet her only grandchild. I think that’s the best use for it, that necklace.” She looked at him, eyes moist, imploring. “Don’t you?”

SHE INSISTED ON
taking a cab to the airport, just she and Leah; returning him to the loft by cab would be an unnecessary expense.
 

He stood with her on the loading dock, holding Leah, waiting for the taxi. Leah looked from one to the other, her little face troubled.

Sherylynne put one arm around his waist, placed her other hand in the crook of his elbow. “I hate leaving you,” she said, looking up into his face, her eyes glistening with unshed tears. “Maybe this isn’t such a good idea…”
 

He forced a smile. “No. You need to see your mother. You need a break.”

“I wish you were going too.”

A Yellow Cab came down Franklin from the direction of Broadway. He handed Leah to Sherylynne, then picked up the two bags and followed her down off the loading dock. The driver got out, nodded, and opened the trunk. He took the two bags from Harley and placed them inside, then closed the trunk and opened the rear door for Sherylynne. She put her free arm around Harley and kissed him with a passion she hadn’t shown in a long time. Leah leaned from Sherylynne’s arms toward Harley, her hands opening and closing for him to take her. “Dadda,” she said. “Dadda…”

He let go of Sherylynne, cupped Leah’s face in both hands and kissed her on each cheek. “I love you both, more than—” he stopped, unable to continue.
 

The cabbie got in. He placed his hand on the trip flag, waiting to start the meter.

“Tell your mother hello.”

“I’ll tell her.” She got in with Leah. He shut the door after her. Leah strained toward him from inside, her face puckering behind the glass, one hand out to him, her baby fingers opening and closing, either in “take me, Dadda,” or “good-bye, Dadda.”
 

Sherylynne leaned around Leah as the taxi pulled out, eyes wet, mouthing, “I love you…” Then, turning, she watched him through the rear window, one hand covering her mouth until the taxi disappeared up Franklin.
 

He stood, watching them ride away—something pulling out of himself, an attached thread unraveling his heart.

Chapter 39

Petition

T
HE LOFT WAS
empty. Silent. His own footsteps drew attention to themselves. While he had never been aware of echoes, now every fork touching a plate resounded unnaturally. The radio, on the other hand, sounded perfectly normal. It was his own isolated movements that mocked him in the big empty space.

Three days and Sherylynne hadn’t called. Mrs. Riley didn’t have a phone, and he didn’t know her neighbor’s number. He kept telling himself that that was the hitch. Had there been an accident, someone would have notified him.
 

With concern came floods of memory: the first touch of her body, the stolen moments in Aunt Grace’s boardinghouse; Sherylynne stepping out of her panties, straddling him with sweaty passion on the one chair in his boardinghouse room. He took pleasure in recalling the habit she had of tilting her head when she listened, her freckles suggesting childlike innocence. He visualized her ascending the staircase to the loft, her body moving in rhythm to its own inner music. He warmed, revisiting an image of her nursing baby Leah—a Madonna as painted by a Renaissance artist, a drop of milk glistening on the peak of one nipple. He had taken pleasure in her presence, and longed for her in her absence. With painful yearning he relived again and again his last sight of her, whispering her love through the taxi window….
 

A WEEK PASSED
and he became seriously worried. But what to do? He had no idea how to get in touch with Mrs. Riley, or her neighbors. When a second week passed, he was on the verge of calling law officers in Vinton, Louisiana, to check on her.
 

On Friday at noon, he went to lunch at a Chock full o’Nuts with Steve and Fred. He tried not to think about Sherylynne, grateful that, as usual, the talk was of art.
 

When they returned to work, Nelda, the department secretary, flagged him at the reception desk. “Harley, a gentleman here to see you.”

His heart faltered, seeing a thin, balding man in a shapeless suit, rumpled white shirt and a paisley tie. The man rose from one of the reception chairs, a clipboard and a manila envelope in hand. “Harley Buchanan?”

“Yes…” he said, little more than a whisper. Fred and Steve exchanged quizzical looks, then politely sauntered on toward their cubicles in the layout department, stealing curious glances back over their shoulders.

“Mr. Buchanan, this document is for you. If you’ll just sign here, please.”

Harley looked at the clipboard, at the manila envelope. “What is it?”

“Conformation of receipt.” The man attempted a smile. “Twice already I’ve tried to deliver to your home address.”

Here it was—the bad news informing him of whatever tragedy had befallen Sherylynne and Leah. He took a step back and let himself down in one of the reception chairs before his legs gave way.
   

Nelda rose partway up behind her desk in alarm, paused, then slowly resettled herself.
 

Harley attempted to pull himself together. Watching his hands take the clipboard, he tired to focus on the single sheet of paper, its one short paragraph stating
receipt
of a petition from…from
…Midland County, Texas…318th District Court…?

A small glimmer of cautious relief—it was some legal whatever from back in Midland, and not a notification of tragedy from Vinton, Louisiana. Shakily, he signed his name on the line marked with a red X. The man practically snatched the clipboard from his hands, handed him the envelope and hurried toward the elevators.
 

“Are you okay?” Nelda whispered.

“I’m sorry,” he said, breaking the seal on the envelope, pulling a small sheaf of papers out, “I thought something had happened to—” He stopped in mid-sentence, his eyes fixed on Sherylynne’s name typed under a line reading:
Name of person filing for divorce (Petitioner)
. On a line below, his name was typed under:
Your spouse’s name (Respondent)
.
 
It was a one-two punch—
Divorce? Midland, Texas?
He absorbed it at once: Sherylynne hadn’t gone back to Vinton, Louisiana, at all, but to Midland…which meant…

Only vaguely aware of proofreaders returning from lunch, of Nelda watching, he got up and stepped around the corner toward the men’s room.
 

He threw up in one of the toilets. When after a few minutes he came out of the stall, Mr. Nelson, his supervisor, was standing at one of the sinks, washing his hands, watching him with what might be either concern or displeasure. Of course, Nelda had gone to him.

Harley stepped to a lavatory a few units away, rinsed his mouth and spat a few times, then washed his face.
 

“Sorry,” he said weakly.

“Are you okay?” Mr. Nelson asked, drying his hands on paper towels.

“Yes, sir,” Harley said, drying his own face and hands. “I’m good.” He had an insane urge to laugh out loud, to run amok.

Mr. Nelson watched him closely. “Anything I can help with?”
 

Harley shook his head, unable to speak.
 

“Listen,” Mr. Nelson said after a moment, “why don’t you take the rest of the day off. You don’t look well.”

Kindness at this point was something he couldn’t deal with. He nodded, mute, blotting his eyes with the paper towels.

“You know, if there’s anything we can do…” Mr. Nelson said gently.