Skyscape (2 page)

“It was growing its first feathers,” said Margaret.

“Aren't they ugly when they're young?” said her mother. “But I don't think I like them when they get old, either. It's their feet.”

Margaret knew what her mother was saying—it was her way to say three or four things at once, none of which you particularly wanted to hear. Her mother was not simply expressing her opinion about the bird. She was saying that she had paid an uninvited visit to the studio down the hall.

It was an hour after the discovery of the razor, and Margaret told herself that she was acting calm. It wasn't easy. She was terrible at hiding her feelings.

Curtis must have asked something about their feet, because his mother-in-law went on. “They're so naked, and they have those icky little digits.”

“Yes, they do,” agreed Curtis.

“If it's happy, leave it the way it is, that's what I always think.” Her mother looked good in her new tan, although the eye shadow she wore was too blue, pool-bottom blue.

“We call him Mr. Beakman,” said Curtis.

“How cute,” said Margaret's mother.

“The trouble is you don't know what the bird's thinking,” said Curtis. “You wonder if it's happy or not.”

“But you could say that about anything. About people,” said her mother.

“That's right,” said Curtis. “We are mysteries, aren't we?”

Margaret wanted to protect Curtis from everything, even from her own mother. Curtis needed her, and this fact filled her as her own blood and warmth filled her. She was in love.

They all were drinking Bloody Marys, and Margaret stuck celery stalks in the drinks because her mother always made them that way. Margaret used extra Tabasco in her own, a lot of it. The visit was going beautifully. They looked out at the view of the Golden Gate and admired it. Curtis sat at the baby grand and splashed out music.

Margaret's mother was making an effort. Being around Curtis made her nervous. But Curtis was solicitous, called her by her first name, Andrea, and asked her what sort of music she liked. And her mother, who was dropping by on the way back from a trip to Hawaii, said that she didn't really have any particular favorites, lying, because she assumed Curtis would not know anything she liked.

Margaret's mother had a new boyfriend, a smiling, relaxed-looking man named Hal Webber. “Everyone calls me Webber.” He was more fit and quick to laugh than most of her mother's men, although it might have been the after-effect of a week at Napili Bay. He was something in cable television, her mother said. He wore a Rolex and a ring with a very large emerald.

Curtis played beautifully, a Gershwin medley. He remembered that Margaret had said that “Summertime” was a particular favorite of her mother's, and then when it was lunch everyone was so polite and relaxed it was exciting. It was the way it was supposed to be, the way it so rarely was.

They should have had help, someone to serve and wait for the guests' needs to make themselves known, but there was always trouble keeping household help. Curtis was having a good day, but these were rare.

Margaret didn't mind having to serve the gazpacho herself—it gave her something to do, and this was important ever since, some ten years before, she had heaved a porcelain Buddha at her mother and smashed it to pieces. Granted, seventeen-year-olds do things like that sometimes, and granted, further, that the Buddha had been gaudy shlock, the gift of a lobbyist representing the canned food industry. Her mother was old-Sacramento, and her family still had some political weight.

Still, the event lingered in Margaret's mind as a defining episode. She was much nicer to her mother now, but she felt both apologetic and fervent in her dislike of what Curtis called Andrea's “Betty Boop crossed with Vampira” mannerisms.

Webber told a story about seeing a manta ray off the shore, and swimming along with it for awhile, and Andrea batted her eyelashes and made her wide-with-awe expression, a look she assumed was a man-killer. “Weren't you afraid?” she said.

Webber made a little shrug with his hands: afraid of what. But Margaret could tell he was flattered.

“I lived in Hilo for awhile,” said Curtis. “It rained a lot. I remember toads. Hundreds of toads. And flowers. Beautiful flowers. And cockroaches. You wouldn't believe these roaches—the size of Chevies.”

“Oh my,” said Andrea.

“What am I doing—what a thing to talk about.” said Curtis.

“But the toads would help out with those,” said Webber.

“Oh, yuck,” said Andrea, enjoying herself.

“Curtis used to eat bugs, didn't you, Curtis?” said Margaret. She couldn't help it. Her mother made being nice seem criminal.

“I didn't,” protested Curtis, looking at Margaret for help.

“Larva,” said Margaret.

“We're going to have to move in that direction,” said Webber.

“In the direction of larva,” said Margaret.

“As a source of protein for the world's hungry,” said Webber.

Instantly Margaret decided that Webber was someone she could like. A strong person who could still enjoy himself. The sort of man who could fire three people in the morning and then make a big contribution to Save the Children and feel fine. He was, perhaps, not a noble person, but he wanted to be. He had that comfortable way of talking, someone who said things just as he had read them or heard them on the news.

“I act like this because my mother was so nice I knew I couldn't possibly compete with her,” said Margaret. She took her mother's hand, surprising even herself. She felt gracious. Her mother dimpled, looking at Margaret with something like happiness.

“I love your goat,” said Webber.

“You astonish me,” said Margaret.

“He has such a smart expression,” Webber said.

“I'm impressed that you're so widely read,” Margaret replied, unable to hide her pleasure. Webber was referring to a character Margaret had created for a series of children's books. Her stories were about a goat detective, Starr of the Yard.

Webber smiled. “Your goat's famous. Your mother said something about a TV series.”

“I'm sure Starr would like you,” said Margaret.

She wasn't sure, exactly. She was being polite. It was easy to be polite to Webber. She was fairly certain, however, that none of her characters in any of her books would have been able to stand her mother for half a minute.

It was enough to make things just a little uncomfortable in a pleasant way. Webber was almost flirting with Margaret.

So it was hardly a surprise when Andrea said, looking right into Margaret's eyes, “What have you been painting, Curtis?”

“I've been busy with all kinds of things,” said Curtis.

If you didn't know him it sounded like the truth.

“That's great,” said Webber.

Andrea knew how empty the studio was. “What sort of things are you painting now? More oils, or maybe acrylics. Or maybe watercolors, or drawings.”

“Yep,” said Curtis, so cheerfully noncommittal that they all laughed.

“I think you're not painting at all,” said Andrea. “I think you can't paint with Margaret's help any more than you could paint without her.”

Curtis smiled. It was not a nice smile.

“Listen to me,” said Andrea. “Good heavens! As though I knew what I was talking about.”

Curtis told her that he didn't mind.

“I really look forward to seeing some new work,” said Andrea. “Not that I understand much about art—”

“I have a print of yours,” said Webber. “One of the few things I kept after the divorce. A really wonderful print I wouldn't part with for the world.”

Margaret put her hand over his, and gave him a look she knew he must have understood, a look that expressed thanks and, at the same time, just hinted at a question: what on earth is a decent man like you doing with my mother?

Except she didn't just hint at it. She came right out and said it, to her surprise. Webber laughed, and Andrea laughed, too, careful not to crinkle her eyes and give herself more wrinkles, but Curtis did not laugh.

Margaret felt now that it had been wrong to smash an image of Buddha. Such an image was sacred. It would not be so wrong to smash one of these Italian plates over her mother's head, although she refrained from doing so.

“Because it's true,” said Curtis.

They were alone. The afternoon was late. Curtis had paced, helped with the dishes, sat at the piano. He had changed out of his broadcloth dress shirt and worsted slacks into jeans and a gray T-shirt. It was what he used to wear when he was painting. He dressed like this often, but it did not mean that he was about to begin work again.

She wanted only for him to be happy. And she was afraid this was going to end. The way she felt about Curtis had nothing to do with the facile, easy relationships she had enjoyed with men in the past. She felt rooted to Curtis, bound to him. She had wondered, as a girl, what love would be like. She had believed, in a half-considered way, that there would be one person, one man, and she would know when she had found him.

Now it frightened her. She could please him, but she couldn't help him—she knew this. And yet, he had allowed her to pretend. She had allowed herself to pretend. Someday he would be happy again.

Months ago she had begun dropping hints in public, implying that Curtis had stopped going to parties and galleries because he was working on something new. She had allowed herself to believe that the innocent lie would cause Curtis to begin painting again, as though a wish could be so easily fulfilled. She had wanted to help Curtis. Now Margaret wished she had kept silent. She felt the weight of public curiosity, people wondering what Curtis was painting, and when it would be finished.

Curtis played a tape of some of his music, languid, moody piano, discordant leaps, interludes. Margaret was fond of the pieces, but she understood that they were a replacement for the one thing that really mattered—the art he could no longer create.

“It doesn't matter if you paint,” she said, hating the words as she spoke them.

He punched the tape player and the machine fell silent.

They were quiet for a moment, and then she said. “Sometimes I wish she really knew what I thought of her.”

“Don't.”

“I can't help it. She doesn't know anything about art. You threaten her.”

“She's smart,” said Curtis softly.

There were a dozen things Margaret could have said to that. He was looking at her as she stood there, before the sliding glass door, before the view of the bay.

“I found it, Curtis. I found the razor. I was getting an eraser—”

He looked at her, his eyes uncertain, sad. Then he looked away. “It doesn't mean anything.”

She had trouble controlling her voice. “I'm afraid.”

He gave a tired laugh. “I finally gave up, for about the thousandth time. I think about my art on greeting cards and T-shirts, and how people print it on napkins, throw it away. I just can't paint. I can't do it.”

“Please don't think like that, Curtis—”

“I was out yesterday, walking, and I passed that shop on Columbus, the one that sells cologne for men, fancy brushes … and my hand fell on the razor. I couldn't help it.”

“I took it, Curtis. I put it away.”

What troubled her now was the way he nodded. “Sometimes I'm afraid, too,” he said after a long pause.

She formed the question, but she could not ask him what she could do. She was afraid of the answer: nothing.

He wasn't facing her, and for a moment she wondered if she had misunderstood him. “Take off your clothes,” he said.

It didn't take much of that sort of thing to encourage her. She was out of her linen blouse, and was shrugging out of the brassiere before she realized that with that look in his eyes she would feel so bare, so naked. Almost as naked as the small, unclad feet of a starling.

She hesitated. Sometimes she realized she did not know Curtis well. Not yet.

“Go ahead,” he said.

3

For the first time in an age he was working, the sound of his pencil on the paper the slight rustle of a thing that was alive, alive and gathering, creating.

The sunlight was heavy, warming her skin, her body. The light was more than radiance—it nearly had a sound, a throbbing bass chord. Her nakedness was a part of this sound.

He was her husband and lover, but she felt herself aware of how stripped she was, how bare before his eye.

Lie down, he had said, on that quilt. Spread it over the pillows.

They were in the studio. The starling in its cage made its liquid, metallic sounds, enjoying their company. She was aware of her body, the rolling weight of the sunlight on her hips, her shoulders. Don't do anything, she told herself. Do nothing to break this spell.

“We ought to let him go,” Curtis was saying, after a long silence.

It took a moment for her to follow his thought. It was essential that she say the right thing. “He couldn't survive,” she responded.

There was another long silence. He caught her eye and smiled, a look that made a wonderful emotion sweep her, a mix of feelings—gratitude for her good fortune, love for this dark-haired, quiet man who had been so troubled for so long.

He did not speak for awhile. Then he said, “He might, though.”

“But that's the problem,” said Margaret. “He might meet a cat. He might not. We don't know.”

The pencil made its sound, intent, cutting through the blank of the page. She was still, kept unmoving by the thought—
he's drawing
.

And he was drawing her.

She could never get used to the fact. The most famous artist of his time had married her.

She tingled with this: his eye over her thigh, her pubic islet, her breasts. She was strangely aroused. She felt herself moisten, soften under his gaze.