An Illustrated Death (7 page)

C
HAPTER
F
IFTEEN

I
WAS RUNNI
NG
out of time to buy a dress for the memorial. Resisting the siren call of just one more sale—a sale that might have the book I’d been looking for all my life—I made myself drive over to Veterans’ Thrift on Jericho Turnpike. The store was cavernous, a converted airplane hangar which displayed long, jumbled racks of clothing and dry goods. I bought most of my sweatshirts here. The rack labeled “Formals” was nearly too packed to sort through, but I pushed through it. Unless I wanted to look like a 1970s prom queen or the grandmother of the bride, there was little to choose from.

I continued on to Goodwill a mile farther down the road, and there I stumbled on a royal blue velvet dress. It wasn’t floor-length, it ended at my knees, but it had a full skirt and an iridescent blue-green satin flower pinned to the waist. It fit perfectly and gave my eyes some color. I could add matching eye shadow and wear my hair up. No doubt it would have been more practical to buy something in black, but for $11.99 I decided I could splurge.

C
OLIN LOOKED ME
over carefully when I opened the door Saturday night, a father long practiced in sending his daughters back upstairs to change.

“Very nice,” he said finally, holding my arm to turn me and inspect my French twist. “Where’s that gold chain I gave you?”

“Upstairs. You think I need jewelry?”

“Absolutely. And take off that Star Wars watch.”

He had made reservations at Chez Marcelette in East Hampton, an intimate restaurant with designer food. Intimate also meant that the tables were as close as Kentucky cousins. Colin grimaced at the amount of room allotted to him, but managed to squeeze his generous body into a corner. No one looked surprised that he was wearing a tux.

When Jason was four, he had whispered to me, “Is Daddy Santa Claus?” That was even before Colin’s thick beard had turned white.

I thought he’d been asking if Colin was responsible for his Christmas presents, and said, “No, of course not. Santa lives at the North Pole.”

Jason had taken another look at Colin sitting in his wingback chair, his reading glasses perched on the tip of his round nose. “Well, is he his
brother
?”

Colin had gone on to cultivate the Santa Claus persona, showing a large and generous spirit to the people who worshipped him, especially archeology students and aspiring poets. And to his family, as long as he approved of what we were doing.

“How was Utah?” I asked, looking up from the menu. I had already decided on the lobster-stuffed ravioli with a truffle reduction, something I didn’t often make at home.

“Too damn hot. We excavated some Anasazi dwellings, the usual kind. But I think I’ve had it with the Southwest.”

“Really? Why?” I had loved traveling to that part of the world.

“Wait.” He signaled the young waiter, who had already identified himself as Jeff, and ordered a bottle of vintage Côtes du Rhône. I was impressed.

I also knew not to ask him anything else until the wine was poured.

We were raising our glasses for the first momentous sip when he reached over to clink mine. “To new beginnings!”

Whose new beginnings? Ours? Had he brought me here to tell me he had found someone else?
This was the man who had moved out of the farmhouse almost a year ago, blaming me because his life lacked zest. The one who reminded me that since I hadn’t finished college, I was not fit to polish his commas.

“Salut!” he insisted.

“Salut,” I echoed, trying to remember which country it was from.

“The truth is”—he lowered his eyes modestly—“they’ve offered me the chairmanship of the entire division.”

“Wow. Congratulations. What does that mean exactly?”

A break as our waiter set down the house salad of walnuts, blue cheese, pears, and baby greens. I gave the salad a fond look. It cost as much as my dress had.

“More administrative decision making and less teaching, of course. More compensation, but they’ll expect me to be around more. And I’ll need to do more entertaining.” He gave me a meaningful look.

I lowered the fork I had started to move toward my salad. Something about the way he was looking at me reminded me of Marty at the Old Frigate last week. While I had been happily trying to sell books, the men around me had been plotting an alternative universe.

He tilted his head and looked into a rosy future. “A man reaches a certain point where he is no longer willing to live life on the fly.”

Another familiar ring.
But this one was Jane Austen, declaring that a single man in possession of a fortune must be in need of a wife.

The trouble was, we had never had the fortune. Still, our life had been an adventure. I had been places I never would have gone. We’d always have Peru. And Berkeley. And Khartoum.

“It’s time to buy a real house,” he was saying, “a house that suits who I’ve become. One of those grand old Victorians in Stony Brook or a captain’s home in Port Lewis. Somewhere we can give parties and hold receptions.” He took a bite of salad. “I know you never cared much about fixing up the farmhouse. But something like this might inspire you.”

He was right about the farmhouse. Although I’d turned the barn into my book retreat, I had treated the house itself as if it were a motel to which we returned whenever we were in town. We could have negotiated with the university to replace the harvest gold kitchen appliances that needed mercy killing, and gone to sales to buy tasteful antiques. But we hadn’t. We were always off to another university for a guest lectureship, or sequestered at another archeological site. With three kids there were more pressing things to do when we were home.

“We can fix up the top floor for the grandchildren.”

Considering that Jason and Hannah were too young to think about marriage and Jane had sworn off serious relationships, I decided he was in Santa Claus mode.

Jeff was back to clear our salad plates. I hadn’t touched mine yet.

“Are you still working on that?”

“Slaving away,” I assured him cheerfully.

Colin snorted. When a disappointed Jeff had gone, he said, “You could think about finishing your education and deciding what you want to do.”

“I
am
doing something. It’s called bookselling. What are your plans for my books anyway?”

“Your books? You mean the ones you sell? A lot of these houses have sheds out back.”

“For eight thousand books?”

“You could scale down. Specialize in one area.”

“I’ve thought of that,” I admitted. What bookseller hasn’t fantasized about concentrating on selling a few expensive books to wealthy collectors? I thought of Charles Tremaine though I didn’t know what he specialized in. But there were dealers on BookEm.com who looked down from that snowy summit at the rest of us selling ten-dollar books. The trick was to figure out how to scramble up there with them. Besides, I was fascinated by all the different kinds of books I sold. How could I turn my back on any of them?

“And you’d have to do something about your hippie wardrobe,” he teased.

My wardrobe?
As if.

Jeff was back. Without removing my untouched salad, he arranged a steaming bowl of pasta in front of me. “Pepper?”

“Yes, please.”

He produced a pepper mill the size of a softball bat and twisted it over my plate.

Colin had ordered a large porterhouse steak with sweet potato fries, and was contentedly digging in.

“Remember the restaurant in Santa Fe where the waiters and waitresses suddenly went over to the piano and started singing songs from
The Music Man
?” I asked. We had turned and watched them, openmouthed. I couldn’t imagine Jeff breaking into song.

“La Cantina. They still do. I was there this summer.”

Without me.
I was shocked at the depth of the wound that created. What adoring young graduate student had been there in my place? We had had a life, a good life together. If I had been more obliging . . . If he had stayed more intrigued by me . . .

I leaned forward, crushing the napkin in my lap. “Are you propositioning me?”

He laughed. “Can a man proposition his own wife?”

“I don’t know. But you haven’t said anything about love.”

“
Love
.” He closed his eyes as if exposure to the brightness of the word might injure his corneas. Or perhaps it was to demonstrate that he was lost in thought. Finally he opened them and jabbed his fork at me. “Define love.”

“Colin . . .” I paused for another bite of ravioli that melted to nothing in my mouth. “Don’t do this to me. A year ago you decided that being married was holding you back. Living with me was keeping you out of the stratosphere where National Book Awards are given.”
Shut up, Delhi. Be nice.
I tried again. “As you may remember, I was devastated. We’d been through a lot, but I never saw that coming. All of a sudden I was on my own and had to think about how to survive.”

“You don’t—”

I put up a hand to keep him quiet. “What I found out was, being by myself isn’t that bad. It’s not bad at all. I finally have a life I’m in control of. I can eat McDonald’s every night if I want. So when you come along with what sounds more like a business proposition, I have a few questions.”

The restaurant door slammed and the candle on our table flickered in agitation. “If you told me you loved me and planned to spend the rest of your life with me, that would be different.”

Say it, Colin. Make it different
.

He sighed and pushed back as far as he could in his chair—not very far. “What you don’t understand is that life is a fast-flowing stream. You can’t freeze relationships. We aren’t where we were a year ago, and we don’t know where we’ll be in five years.”

“That’s the point. I have to know.”

“Why do you need so many guarantees? Why can’t you let things just play out? All I know is that I’m the new department head and that certain expectations come with the job. I can’t go on living in a rented condo. What I’m offering you is a chance to be part of a great new adventure. A chance to trade in your Berkeley mentality for a truly adult life. We’re not kids anymore.”

“But without love.” I saw that my hand was shaking and put my fork down quickly.

He stopped eating too. “Of course not without love. Loving you isn’t the issue, you know that I do. All I’m asking is to see how things develop.”

My face was burning. “I can’t. Because if I give up the life I’ve made, I need to know that you won’t decide in a year or two that you need fresh inspiration elsewhere.”

“Then you’ll be missing out on the most fantastic adventure we’ve ever had. You’ll be consigning yourself to a lonely old age.”

“Colin, I’m only forty-five! And they’re
my
kids too.”

“You’re forgetting something: If we’re not married, you can’t stay on in the farmhouse and barn. It’s university property.”

Marty’s proposition about running the Old Frigate crept into my mind.
No
. “You know what? That sounds a lot like blackmail.”

He gave me his disappointed-professor glance. “That is exactly the kind of fallacious thinking that you fall prey to. With more education—”

“Oh, don’t lecture me; I’m not your ethnography class. You know why I dropped out of college. By the time we were settled in one place and the kids were older, I was more interested in other things. So just stop.”

He raised his hands in surrender. “Okay, okay. It’s just that you’re so bright you could do whatever you want.”

“I am doing whatever I want.”

How did we get from buying a house together to getting a degree I didn’t care about? Colin was the most infuriating man I’d ever known.

I had had enough ravioli and too much conversation. “We’re going to be late.”

C
HAPTER
S
IXTEEN

G
UILD
H
ALL WAS
on Main Street in the center of East Hampton, a pretty village divided by a narrow canal and an ancient burial ground. The cemetery, which had been there since the 1600s, lent a certain gravitas to the shops and restaurants that sprang up like toadstools after rain and were mowed down just as quickly. The taste for delicacies from Provence and fat-free yogurt might wax and wane, but Lion Gardiner, stretched out on his tomb like a medieval knight, was eternal.

The lobby of Guild Hall was solid with bodies, a mélange of beautiful people discovering each other with little cries, kissing the air beside each other’s heads as if afraid of disease. More than once I heard the words, “Truly a sad occasion.” Not all of the men had on tuxedos—several were wearing beautifully tailored dark suits—but I was sure that even the shortest, skimpiest dresses around me cost more than a Hemingway first edition. This was the kind of occasion that my twin sister, Patience, and her husband, Ben, who had a summer home in Southampton, would try to be seen at. We didn’t share information about our social calendars though.

“Think Pat and Ben will be here?” I asked Colin.

“I wondered about that. I haven’t seen them in a coon’s age.”

On several easels near the auditorium doors were photographs of the Eriksons. One, from a Beaux Arts Ball, showed them recreating the painting of Spanish royalty,
Las Meninas
. Nate, as the artist, Velázquez, wore a black mustache and held paintbrushes, and Eve was a beautiful Queen of Spain, her black hair shining under a coronet. Puck, in a rust-colored velvet suit with a lace collar, was the little boy with his foot on the dog in the painting. A pretty little girl as the golden-haired princess in an elaborate ivory dress with a huge skirt could only be Regan. Bianca hovered over her along with Rosa, who in adult makeup was perfect as the dwarf. Gretchen was the adult attendant. Only a gawky Claude standing beside Eve, dressed to look older and represent the king, took a leap of imagination.

A copy of the original painting has been posted for comparison, and it was uncanny how well the Eriksons replicated a portrait painted over three hundred years ago. Only the dog was missing.

Another exhibit showed scenes of Hampton life, with Nate playing in Artists vs. Writers softball games and posing in a group with Eve at a picnic on the beach. The last board held pages from the
Life
magazine story Bianca had mentioned, photos of a younger Nate in his studio and walking the grounds. One photo showed the whole family around a table, drawing. An adorable Puck, no more than two, held a fistful of crayons up to the camera.

I didn’t see my sister or any of the Eriksons in the lobby, so we continued into the John Drew Theater and found our seats in the fourth row. The auditorium was opulent, with a silky tan and brown ceiling and a crystal chandelier. A grand piano, shrouded in canvas, was discarded on one side of the stage like somebody’s aunt. Looking around, I located Eve shifting restlessly between Bianca and Claude, fingering her program like a small child forced to sit still in church. Lynn, wearing a ruffled black dress, was beside her husband. Rosa on her left looked half asleep.

Oddly, there was an empty seat between Lynn and Rosa, as if the family did not want to be identified with her. Then I realized it was not odd at all. The empty seat was the one they were saving for Gretchen. She must be still in the lobby talking to old friends. Claude stood up then and scanned the room as if looking for her. His oversized tuxedo hung from his shoulders like a jacket draped on a scarecrow. I was certain that it had been Nate’s, that by wearing it Claude was hoping to be the man his father had been.

I stared down at my program feeling the weight of Colin beside me. I looked calm but was churning inside. I had no doubt he
did
love me. But why did Henry Higgins and Eliza Doolittle come to mind?

A chime trilled three notes, and the rest of the audience wandered in gracefully. When everyone was seated, a smiling dark-haired woman approached the side podium. She was dressed in an ivory silk suit, perhaps to show that she was a member of the staff and not a guest.

“ ‘In the midst of life we are in death,’ ” she said softly. “But a wise man once reminded us that there is a season for everything. For living, and for dying. We are in mourning for this great artist who was taken from us so tragically. Yet we are also gathered here to celebrate his extraordinary talent and life. Nate Erikson did not live in vain.”

Briefly she described how he and Eve had come to Springs in the early 1970s as a young married couple, raised a family, and helped to develop an entire artistic community. “They called their home Adam’s Revenge and it was indeed paradise on Earth. Only the privileged were allowed inside. Their presence in the community triggered the migration of other artists, especially to Amagansett and Springs. And all of this before the Hampton Jitney.”

A ripple of surprised laughter.

“Nate Erikson will be remembered most for the illustrations that enriched the lives of readers the world over. Tonight we are privileged to have an exhibit of his landscapes as well as the work of his daughter Regan, a talented artist in her own right. Most excitingly, unlike our museum exhibits, these works are available to collectors,” she finished demurely. It reminded me that the money from the tickets, besides any commissions from sold artworks, went to benefit Guild Hall.

The speaker introduced Regan next, and I sat up to get a better look at the sister that everyone hated. Her fair hair had darkened to chestnut and tumbled over her shoulders like a stream breaking on rocks. Her silky dress of beautiful patchwork colors was either an expensive designer creation or a vintage store offering. There had been nothing like it at Veterans’ Thrift or I would have snapped it up.

“I grew up before the term ‘dysfunctional’ was applied to families,” she began.

There was an intake of breath around me. At last people would be hearing the true story of what went on behind those garden walls.

“But it wouldn’t have mattered. My childhood was an idyllic one.”

A release of disappointed air.

“My father, whom we are honoring tonight, taught me everything I know about creativity. My mother taught me what I needed to know to get by in life. I never went to an art school, never went to
any
school. I had a classical and individually tailored education, as did my brothers and sisters. They have all chosen creative fields. And though
my
children are being educated more conventionally, I am confident they will carry on their grandparents’ tradition.”

“Not those little bastards!” Eve’s voice rang out in the stillness.

Consternation, everyone in the first few rows turned to stare. I saw that Claude was smirking, Bianca staring down into her lap. Lynn had her hand up to her mouth. Gretchen’s seat was still empty.

The buzz from the back of the auditorium was probably everyone else trying to find out what Eve had said.

“I see my mother hasn’t lost her sense of humor,” Regan continued with a grim smile. “But we’re here tonight to honor my father. Clyde Still, an artist you all know and one of my father’s closest friends, wants to say a few words. And then you’ll be hearing my brother’s music. So I won’t take up any more of their time.”

She stepped down to vigorous applause.

C
LYDE
S
TILL
SAID
what he would be expected to say in warm remembrance of Nate Erikson, his colleague and good friend. Simple words, yet they fixed Nate in a specific time and place. His words made me imagine Nate a single figure in the circle of a spotlight. He had had his time on earth, lived wholeheartedly, and was not allowed a second more. I stole a glance at Colin to see if he was feeling what I was. In profile he looked thoughtful, perhaps pensive, but I didn’t know what his thoughts were. I was still too upset to lean over and ask him.

As soon as Clyde Still left the stage, we were plunged into darkness. When the footlights shone again, Puck, another young man, and a young woman, dressed identically in black turtlenecks and black slacks, were standing behind a row of objects on the table. I looked at my program and saw the piece was called “Beach Reverie.”

The three musicians moved skillfully, clanging on a tin sand pail, continuously dropping stones into a glass container, and beating a piece of driftwood with a stick. There was a background recording of gulls shrieking over the roar of waves, and, periodically, a mournful ship’s whistle. The sounds from the table were miked loudly into the room.

Of the six pieces, my favorite was “Toy Shop.” The live instruments were a wooden toy piano painted white, friction cars that Puck zoomed across the table, and blocks stacked, then knocked down with a clatter. An old cloth-bodied doll wailed, “Ma-ma” when she was flipped upside down. The background music was busy and staccato.

Unlike Clyde Still’s eulogy, this had not been expected.

After some dutiful applause—no one yelled “Bravo”—Colin nudged me. “You brought me here for
this
?”

He was teasing, but I felt responsible. “No, I brought you here to meet Bianca Erikson. But it’s late, we can go.” I was feeling in no mood to socialize. I needed to replay our dinner conversation, hold it up to the light and consider its implications, before I made any decisions. I planned to sleep on the way back to Port Lewis.

“No, no, I’ll talk to her.”

For Bianca’s sake, I led him into the next room.