An Emergence of Green (16 page)

Of all the events of the past week, Carolyn’s accompanying her today was the most intriguing. Smiling, Val remembered the circumstances, how she had been bantering with Neal: “Far be it from me, a measly mother, to expect a trip to Santa Barbara and a visit to the beach house afterward to compete with a Sunday in front of Granddad’s TV.” Neal had retorted, “Granddad understands all about the Cubs maybe going to the World Series and Walter Payton breaking Jim Brown’s rushing record and Dallas being on the tube besides.”

Carolyn’s query had been soft: “Would you like me to go with you, Val?”

“Well…sure,” she had replied, quickly recovering from her amazement. “But I do need to stop at the beach house, Carrie. Pick up some paintings—”

“I can spend the day with you,” Carolyn had said in the same quiet voice.

What in the hell was going on with the Blake marriage? Never mind all of Carolyn’s excuses about wanting to help fix up the flat; she had been spending astonishing amounts of time there. Carolyn’s moods had been pendulum swings between frenetic chatter and dispirited silence. It had taken sharp reining in of her concern and curiosity not to inquire, not to probe—to wait for Carolyn to talk when she was ready.

Val squeezed toothpaste onto her brush. Maybe Paul Blake was playing golf or going to a football game or some other stupid male weekend ritual—but even so he must be in a terminal rage knowing where Carolyn would be this day, whom she preferred to be with. Maybe, she thought, peering into the mirror with a toothpaste grin, he even suspected a lesbian affair.

How ironic that for the first time in her life she liked the idea of someone thinking she was a lesbian—as long as that someone was Paul Blake.

She tossed aside the robe and stepped into the bracing cool spray of the shower. Clearly, something was amiss in the Blake marriage. While she wished Paul Blake nothing but ill—and one day surely Carolyn would discover that she could not be married to this man—she could not take any satisfaction in any situation bringing Carolyn real unhappiness.

Sitting at the table, sifting through the multitude of sections that comprised the Sunday
Times
, he drank coffee and ate the English muffin Carolyn had prepared for him, and listened to the sounds of her preparation for leaving. Before, over the weekends, she always took her bath in the evening, an hour or so before they went to bed, and came out to him wearing a robe and smelling deliciously of bath scents, to curl up on the sofa. Bathing on a weekend morning…to go off like this without him.

Not since the death of his mother had he been so helpless, so unable to act. Every night since Monday she had slept in the guest room. As usual she had prepared his dinner, but left it warming in the oven; he had worked late all week because he could not be in the house with her. Could not bear her chill formality when she was there, yet could not bear his anguish when she was not there—when she was with Val Hunter. He did not even know where Val Hunter now lived.

“I hope you’re not wandering around this late at night in a dangerous part of the Valley,” he had said at midnight on Wednesday when she came home. It was both a warning and a probe for information. But she had not replied.

Three times this week she had been gone late into the night, as if she no longer cared about her own lack of sleep, as if he no longer deserved the slightest consideration. Each night he waited up for her. They did not exchange even brief news of their workday; they did not mention—or even allude to—their quarrel. Careful about continuing to demonstrate his own affection, he touched her in the casual ways he always had—an arm around her when he came into the kitchen for ice—all the physical habits of all the days of their marriage, hoping to convey that this part of his love for her was too ingrained in him to change, regardless of the degree of their estrangement.

He had lost essential, crucial control. He was in the weakest position he had ever been in with Carolyn—he held a poor hand of cards, and must play them carefully. No matter what the cost to him in pain, the next move must be hers—or he would lose more than he could ever recover.

Ride it out
, he told himself, as he had told himself every day that week. When the cards were this bad, you held them close to the vest, and bluffed. There was nothing else to be done.

This would blow over. It had to. A friendship of only a few months duration against years of marriage? Correct balance had to reassert itself. His side was weighted with eight proven years of loving and caring.

He’d overreacted to the Hunter woman. Used an atom bomb when anything else would have done as well with less fallout besides. He didn’t believe today’s psychobabble, but Carolyn was indeed going through a life phase, some kind of hysteria peculiar to women. A little fling at independence was what she actually wanted, so let her get this out of her system and then they would go on as before.

He had to stand firm and soon everything would be all right again, everything would gradually return to normal, like it was before. In the future he would be more careful—give Carolyn more leash. When they got transferred out of this loony bin of a city—and he would do his best to make that happen soon, even accept a lateral transfer—he would be certain to immediately seek a wide circle of acquaintances, have more social life. She would have her women friends, all she wanted. But there would be no more Val Hunters.

Whatever the attraction in this relationship, it would pall. Val Hunter was perfectly capable of sexual aberration—the woman was masculine enough to wear a suit and tie—but Carolyn was a completely normal woman who was only temporarily fascinated by a freak. If Carolyn was confused right now, she would eventually belong to him again. Because there was real substance here. He had a close friendship himself—twice this past week he’d talked to Harve in Chicago, betting that the Cubs would reach the World Series—and no friendship, no matter how close, could challenge the powerful bonding of a good marriage.

Yes, ride it out. Be patient. Behave like a saint. No, like a martyr who was allowing a willful wife to do anything she wanted. As soon as Carolyn relented, as soon as she decided to be conciliatory, he’d figure out ways to soothe all her ruffled feathers, make everything up to her, solidify his marriage once and for all. They would be closer than they had ever been.

Gazing across the living room dimmed by closed drapes, in the silence of his house he strained for any sound of her. A wave of chill brought gooseflesh to his arms, and he admitted his fear: To love was the ultimate risk. One he had taken blindly, without knowledge of the stakes. Was this what his mother, with her death, had tried to teach him?

He had not learned—had not even seen the warning. He had loved again, and this time with every molecule of his being. To lose Carolyn…he could comprehend such a loss no more than he could comprehend his own death.

Carolyn came into the room and he looked at her, his chest tight with pain. She wore a short-sleeved shirt the color of lime, one he had not seen before, and dark green denim pants. Without makeup—just the barest touch of lipstick—she looked very young, her blow-dried hair thick around her face, the ends curly and unruly. He could not remember when she had ever looked more beautiful to him.

He said with difficulty, “Take your car. That heap she drives, you’ll be lucky to make it around the corner.” He thought he saw a softening in her face, the beginning of a smile.

“I’ll suggest it,” she said. “You look tired.”

“Long tough week.” He managed a smile. It was as much as he was willing to concede.

“I’m tired too.” She leaned over to quickly kiss his forehead, her hands braced on his shoulders as if to resist if he pulled her to him. “Be back this afternoon.”

The scents of her bathing filled him with anguished longing. He clasped her waist; but his hands moved gently on her as he kissed her  forehead. He would not be so dishonest to wish her a good time. “Be careful,” he said.

As she walked away he closed his eyes, thinking of her silky nakedness pressed into him, her arms holding him.

Looking at her with pleasure, Val let Carolyn into the flat. It was nine o’clock; she had already taken Neal to his grandfather’s. She planned to be in Santa Barbara half an hour before Hilda Green’s gallery opened at eleven.

“Paul wants us to take my car,” Carolyn told her. “I promised him I’d mention it.”

“The Bug’s all packed,” Val said easily. “I don’t want to move the paintings again.”

Fuck you, Paul Blake. My car’s good enough for your wife, taped upholstery and all.

Still struggling to subdue her anger, Val picked up a small wicker basket. “Some fruit, cheese, apple juice. Neal packed this—he thought we might get hungry coming back.”

Carolyn chuckled. “He’s amazing. You look nice, Val.”

She grinned, her good humor restored. “You look cute.” She pulled a Windbreaker from the closet; Carolyn should have worn long sleeves. It would be cool beside the ocean.

Hopestead Gallery was in a wooded enclave on the outskirts of Santa Barbara, one of a dozen specialty shops of white clapboard with roofs of stained wood shingles and a landscape of bark chips and tiny fir trees. “Fancy schmancy,” Val murmured. “This probably won’t take long, Carrie.”

“I’ll be strolling around,” Carolyn said, eyeing a pastry shop from which delicious odors wafted on the crisp morning air.

In answer to Val’s knock, a white door with amber bottle-glass panes swung open to reveal a gray-haired woman in a plum-colored silk dress. “You must be Val Hunter. Come in. A friend of mine has one of your paintings…”

An hour later Val found Carolyn wandering through a gift shop. Carolyn spotted her, ran to her, embraced her. “It’s good news, I can tell.”

Val hugged her back. “Yes.” She took her arm, the flesh cool to her palm. “Come on, I’ll tell you in the car.”

Weaving through heavy Sunday traffic, Val spoke excitedly. “So she’s agreed to take six and then we’ll see. But she’s very confident. She wants to branch out from carrying local artists, to upgrade the gallery, she told me. Upgrade it, Carrie. She’d already decided to carry my work on the basis of a friend’s opinion in L.A. and from those lousy photos I sent her.”

Carolyn reached to her, covered the hand that lay on the gear shift. “Finally things are starting to open out for you. Neal will be so proud.”

Val clasped Carolyn’s hand. “I’m so glad you’re with me.” “Val—a curiosity question. What percentage does a gallery take when it sells your work?”

“Thirty-five is common. Susan takes thirty. Hilda Green wants forty.”

“That much? But that only leaves—”

“Less than you think,” Val finished with a chuckle. She squeezed Carolyn’s hand. “All the planning, the actual work itself, not to mention materials—I must make about twenty cents an hour. But…” She grinned joyously at Carolyn.

The car began to labor and she took her hand from Carolyn’s to shift into high gear. “Hilda Green’s gallery may be small but she has an active clientele. She thinks my work should be priced at no less than a thousand dollars.”

She reached for Carolyn’s hand again. For the next hour and a half, her mood pure exuberance, she talked to Carolyn and managed to wend her way through the traffic on Highway 101 with one hand on the wheel.

The house in Malibu was two stories of weatherbeaten gray wood, cheek to jowl with the other modest houses nowhere near the Malibu Colony, their only glamour a limitless sea and sky.

Consulting a card, Val punched a code on a panel just inside the front door to turn off the burglar alarm. Carolyn glanced first at the dominating flagstone fireplace flanked by two picture windows. The house looked out over waves sufficiently strewn with boulders to discourage surfers, a beach rocky enough to deter sunbathers. A long sofa faced the sea; bookcases lined the side walls, one containing a TV and record player. An imposing grandfather clock of burnished cherrywood stood in a far corner, its ticktock perforating the crashing of the surf, its single chime drawing attention to the time: one-thirty. Plants hanging from wicker baskets enlivened the beige and brown colors of the room. Carolyn walked over to examine photos on the dining room wall, evidently interested in the people who owned this house.

“It’s wonderful here,” Carolyn said. “A dollhouse, perfect for two. But it seems really damp and chilly.”

“The upstairs louvers are open,” Val said. “It’s been so hot they’ve been open all summer. Get the Windbreaker out of the car while I close them.”

“I’m okay. I want to come upstairs with you.”

As Val pulled the louvers closed Carolyn glanced at the large bedroom containing an early American four-poster bed, a walk-in closet, a bathroom with an oversize tub.

Downstairs again, Carolyn went to the window. Far out on the horizon hung a gray curtain of mist, but the day was clear and bright and the tide was high, green waves breaking powerfully over dark rocks with plumes of pure white spray. They stood for long minutes, not speaking. Carolyn reached for Val’s hand, then released it to slide an arm around Val’s waist. Val’s arm circled Carolyn. There were slight tremors in Carolyn’s body.

Carolyn said softly, “I am cold. I should’ve worn something warmer.”

Without hesitation and without thought Val turned and took her into her arms, held her to warm her. Carolyn’s head touched her shoulder; Val felt the texture of her hair against her throat. For a moment they stood motionless, Val knowing only that she must warm Carolyn; her arms tightened around the soft body in her arms. Carolyn uttered an indecipherable sound.