Lion's Share (26 page)

“You called at exactly the right time,” Ed laughed. “I'm just about to get in bed, and I haven't the slightest idea what to wear.”

Jana thought about the way he'd slept in his underpants those first nights they'd spent together. Night after night the would come in them, then get up at one or two in the morning to change. Because she was almost fanatical about his wetness seeping into her, he showered also. Many nights the hot water had been shut off, and he'd return to bed still damp, shivering, extraordinarily happy. But sleeping in his underpants now might emphasize her absence. “Why not sleep in your tuxedo?” she teased.

“You're out of your mind. Whatever would I sleep in a tux for?”

“As preparation for the gala. If APL wants to take all these mangy artists and stuff them into tuxedos, then its executives can make a few sacrifices as well. Besides, I don't want you too comfortable when I'm not around.”

“Little chance of that,” Ed laughed.

Jana could hear the radio in the background. “What's that doing on?” she asked. “You said you were going to bed.”

“I am. I set the timer so the radio shuts off at two o'clock. That should give me time to fall asleep.”

“Since when did you need anything to help you fall asleep?” She was the one who was often drinking a shot of brandy or sherry before turning in, and even then she usually lay awake for an hour listening to Ed snoring.

“I haven't needed anything since you've been around,” Ed told her. “But I used to put the television on all the time when I was a kid. It drowned out my parents' voices.”

“I'll be back in a few days.”

“Don't be surprised if the radio wakes us up in the middle of the night.”

“At least I'll know I'm missed.”

“You're missed already, dear. I'm planning to make coffee and leave it for you every morning, just like always.”

“You can move back to your old side of the bed tonight.”

“I'd rather keep the memory of you there. Sometimes it seems as if you've been there forever.”

“Doesn't it, though?” Pressing the warm phone to her ear, she told him about the flight, the museum, her excitement at seeing Dave Phillips' work, and how it made her rethink her own direction. He told her the proofs for the exhibition catalog had come back from the printer, and during his lunch break he'd stopped by the gallery and picked up copies for Frank and Phyllis to check over.

After she hung up, Jana found herself wondering whether penguins got much sleep. Minnesota was certainly cold enough for penguins. How many people at the opening Friday would be wearing tuxedos? She was planning on wearing a gray silk pants suit, and she suddenly became worried that she'd be dreadfully out of place. This wasn't New York. For openings at The Paperworks Space and other Soho galleries, people often showed up wearing Levi's. “Dressing Up,” the term Phyllis had used when she first spoke of the gala, usually meant black lace stockings, flapper dresses, red velvet jackets, or fox stoles (head attached), which the more daring wore to parties at the Palladium. She hadn't been to a black-tie affair in over ten years, and didn't relish the idea of jamming herself into an evening gown, then tripping over high heels—although maybe the tightly laced bodice would help to hold her together.

Thursday passed without incident—one of the museum's board members picked up her and Richard at ten AM, drove them around to show off the town, took them out for lunch. In the afternoon there was an interview with a reporter from the
St. Paul Pioneer Press Dispatch
who was doing a feature article on the three artists. Then dinner with the museum staff, and a mediocre play at the Guthrie Theatre, across the court from the Walker. As might be expected on the day any exhibition opened, Steve and the rest of the museum staff were tied up all day Friday, and the artists were left to their own devices until the six o'clock reception. Jana walked through the enclosed downtown shopping area, looking for a souvenir she could buy for Ed. After running herself so ragged that she no longer thought to be nervous about the opening, she found the perfect gift: a small speaker that attached to the earphone jack on a Walkman—appropriate, inexpensive, and it fit easily into the suitcase.

Steve Whitman, wearing a tasteful business suit, grabbed her arm the moment she walked into the already filled gallery. She was introduced to political dignitaries; museum board members and patrons; local artists, writers, and academics; representatives from the Minnesota State Arts Board, Compas, the Jerome Foundation, and two other foundations Jana never caught the names of; the chief curator of the Walker; owners of galleries in the area; and Dave Phillips' family. Not a tuxedo in sight. The men wore suits, but here and there a sports jacket added a bit of color to the crowd; most of the women had on tailored skirts and expensive cashmere or Icelandic sweaters. “If I were the curator here, I might feel a bit out of place, but it's okay for an artist to stand out just a bit,” Jana assured herself.

She struggled to recall which people she'd met before. “I'm losing my touch,” she realized. “There can't be more than 200 people here. If I'm this bad now, what am I going to be like when there are 500 people at the Artistic Response to the Environment Gala?” Picturing herself having to put eighteen artists at ease, Jana was tempted to quit while she was ahead. “Ed will help,” she consoled herself. The problem with Ed was that he was so at ease with people that she tended to lay back and let him make most of the small talk. Even so, at least half the people at the gala would be acquaintances whose paths crossed hers frequently, she'd have no trouble remembering them. And she'd certainly moved about with ease during recent openings at The Paperworks Space. Her tension tonight was excitement at this being her show. Still, she wished Ed were here.

“Stop wishing and start circulating,” she admonished herself, smiling at the nameless face in front of her and making an effort to join in the conversation. The man standing to her left combed his prematurely white hair exactly like Ed's; she found herself drawn to him.

Saturday, the fourth night away, Jana took a dime-store mystery novel to bed with her. It was a pleasure to lie back and read again, and it was a relief to sleep in her panties and a self-adhesive Modess pad. Ed kept close tabs on her menstrual cycle, and since she'd been with him she was starting to anticipate its effects herself: one month she would have cramps, the next month she'd go into a deep depression. She was in the midst of a depressed month, but the excitement of the show was enough to carry her smoothly through it. “Good thing I know there's nothing physical to be depressed about,” she reminded herself. Dr. Barbash had taken another biopsy last month, and there were no further changes, so the cell structure of those warts was chalked up to her mother's probably having taken DES. She suggested Jana come for a routine examination every six months, and that was the end of it. It wasn't a contagious wart virus after all.

Ed had to practically drag her into the office for that second biopsy. “What I don't know won't hurt me,” she'd insisted. Jana laughed when she imagined what she'd be like right now if she still didn't know—she'd probably exaggerate every depressing thought, every menstrual cramp would be the wart virus spreading, and Ed wouldn't be around to comfort her. When she was depressed, he held her and reminded her it was hormonal; when she had severe cramps, Ed's massaging her pubic area was the only thing that provided relief.

Jana tossed the book aside. It was the same as Dr. Waters easing her stomachaches, wasn't it? There was no use trying to deny it: every pleasurable aspect of their relationship, everything Ed did that eased the pain a little, reminded her. She placed her hand on her crotch, trying to rub out the memories. She couldn't bring back that sexual urge she'd dreamt last summer, even though it was usually strongest when she had her period. She'd been petrified of how intense it would be: five long nights alone now that she knew what it felt like to sleep with another person.

She recalled that first week after she'd lost her virginity, when she'd continually sought out mirrors in which to view herself. “I don't look any different,” she'd remarked, relieved and disappointed in the same breath. She couldn't understand how she could have been through so much and not have changed a bit. “Every woman I've met in the past fifteen years experienced bodily changes when they lost their virginity because they were still teenagers at the time. Teenage bodies change every day,” she'd realized, laughing at her own silliness. Jana laughed again as she remembered her expectations of a mere five months ago, but the laugh was tinged with horror: tonight she came to the realization that it had been the ability to touch herself, satisfy herself, even want herself, which had been taken away from her.

She heaved a deep sigh, flicked off the light, and pulled the covers up to her chin. She no longer knew how to stay warm by herself, either. One by one, she began listing the people who'd been at the opening yesterday, but she couldn't even remember their names. She might as well be counting those flabby sheep, one body looking precisely like the next.

No, the sheep didn't look alike, not if she looked closely and saw them for themselves instead of relying on preconceived notions. One sheep had a bit of black around his left eye, another had a black spot behind his ear, that sheep off to the left had a black muzzle. She thought of the sheep she'd seen on the farms around Yaddo—even passing in a car, she'd noticed their thin, awkward legs which didn't look sturdy enough to hold the woolly bodies. At one farm she rode by last summer, there was a horse in the same pasture; he'd picked one extremely fat sheep and was chasing it in circles. She remembered clearly now: that sheep's fur was dry and yellowed, as opposed to the pure white fur others had. She remembered seeing sheep without fur—she and Marilyn had gone up to Massachusetts a year ago last April. When the weather turned suddenly cold, the recently shorn sheep had pieces of white canvas tied around their midriffs to keep them from taking sick.

There was no use fighting it, she'd be better off getting up. Jana flicked on the light, got her robe, went over and sat cross-legged in the chair by the window, and picked up her sketch pad. Sensing the tension in her body, she drew a few circles to loosen up. She flipped the page and began drawing sheep heads, slightly more than circles themselves. Her hand moved from place to place, the heads bore no relation to each other, much like those counted sheep she'd watched arrange themselves in the pasture after they'd cleared the fence. Sometimes she drew only an ear or a neck, part of ahead with lines running down to indicate the body. She drew one whole sheep which looked more like a Siberian husky.

By the time she moved to the next page she felt herself getting used to the shapes of their bodies. Her hand moved faster, the animals came out looking vaguely recognizable. She drew the grass under them, highlighted the black fur around the ear of one, the eye of another. On a new page she drew the neck and chest, then another sheep—neck, chest, and front legs. She drew a sheep with one leg raised, like a dog offering his paw to shake. She sketched a fence in front of him; the paw looked as if it was testing the height before jumping over. The sheep seemed worried, anxious. His body looked like a Siberian husky's again, only a dwarfed husky, caught in a body too big for him, his bones enormous and the fur shriveled. If he were the proper size he'd be able to make the jump easily, and he didn't understand what had happened to him.