We Are Water (24 page)

“Well, let’s put it this way, Viveca. If and when I want to sell it, I’ll let you know.”

I heard her exhale. She asked if she was competing with another collector. “Are you trying to engage me in a bidding war? Is that it?”

“No,” I said. “I’m not that cagey and it’s not about the money.”

“Then what
is
it about, if you don’t mind my asking.”

If I’d been honest, I would have told her it was about leverage. About taking back some of the power from the woman who’d caused my wife to leave me. “I just like the painting,” I said. “It’s about my keeping it, not about my selling it to someone else.”

“Very well then. Let me know.”
Click.

In the end, I said no to selling the painting but yes to her second proposal—partially, anyway. They may be getting married in Three Rivers, but the ceremony’s not going to be at
our
house. Marissa and Ariane will be bunking there, and maybe their mother, too; I’m not sure about that. But Viveca
won’t
be. She’ll be staying at the Bella Linda Inn, where their wedding’s going to be. That was where I had to draw the line, whether or not she’s letting me stay at her place up here free of charge. She
won’t
be sleeping in the bed I used to share with Annie. And if she goes over to the house and pokes around, she won’t find
The Cercus People
or any of those other Josephus Jones paintings, either. I’ve made sure of that. So I guess you could say I’m like that sagging roof of the Jones brothers’ little house down in back. I partially caved, but mostly not. . . .

Here’s the sign for
PAMET HARBOR
and
TRURO CENTER
. I put on my blinker and, at long last, exit Route 6. I should be there in just a few minutes; the real estate office is less than a half mile off the exit. But the drive up here has taken me five hours instead of the usual three. It’s almost seven thirty. They’ve got to be closed by now. . . .

D’Andrade Realty—here it is. I pull into the crushed clamshell parking lot. No lights on inside, just like I figured. But when I get out and walk toward the building, I see that the rental agent has left the key inside a business envelope taped to the office door. “Christophoulos-Shabbas Cottage” is scrawled across it in red Sharpie. Viveca would not be pleased with this casual a system. In a five-minute phone conversation, she mentioned to me twice that some of the artwork at her summer place is extremely valuable, so whenever I go out, I should make sure to lock the doors and windows and put on the alarm system—instructions in the loose-leaf folder on the coffee table.

Viveca’s “cottage” turns out to be a stunning split-level contemporary—a far cry from the rustic beach bungalow I’ve been imagining myself hunkering down in for my soul-searching retreat. I slip the key into the double lock, turn the knob, and enter. Walk down the three steps into the foyer and look around.

Jesus Christ, what a place!

Chapter Seven

Annie Oh

R
emembering my past has riled me up. Minnie’s left for the day, and I could use a drink. But rather than helping myself to one of those fine wines that Viveca buys, I go instead to the utility closet and take out Minnie’s jug. Grab a coffee mug from the kitchen and carry my mugful of Carlo Rossi into Viveca’s bedroom. I pour, drink, pour some more, drink some more. I sit on the edge of her bed—our bed—and stare at those four bridal dresses. I should be getting up, walking down to my studio instead of thinking about the wedding. . . .

Nothing’s ever neat and tidy. Perfect. If the girls want to be there and Andrew and Orion don’t, well, I just have to accept that. It’s their prerogative. And maybe Andrew
is
too busy. Maybe that’s all it is. And Orion? Well, I can appreciate why he wouldn’t want to be there. I think it was generous of him to say yes, the girls and I could stay at the house the weekend of the wedding. His only condition was that Viveca
not
stay there, and I can appreciate that, too. When I explained it to Viveca—how it must feel from his perspective—well, she didn’t like it but she accepted it. Had her assistant book her a suite at Bella Linda, where the reception’s going to be anyway. It’ll be more convenient for her. . . . And anyway, who knows? He hasn’t said one way or the other if he’s coming. He may drive back down from the Cape and be there after all. And if he does come, I’ll feel . . . relieved. It will show me that he loves me more than he hates me because I fell in love with her. Because I fell out of love with him.

And if my born-again son isn’t coming to the wedding because he’s standing in judgment of me—assuming that Viveca and I are subverting God’s plan or whatever—well, it’s my life, not his. I became an artist, moved to New York. I’ve earned what’s come to me. I work hard at what I do. . . .

But so did Josephus Jones. A bricklayer by day, a painter by night. It’s strange that Orion and I bought the property where he used to live and work. Is it just a coincidence that two unschooled outsider artists just happened to . . . or was that God’s plan, too? What was it that woman said to me that time? That coincidence is God’s way of staying invisible? Could it have been Josephus Jones I saw out in our yard that day? . . . And that other time I’ve never told anyone about, when I was down it the basement, working on one of my pieces. When I looked up, that same man I’d seen before was standing there. Watching me. I jumped, looked away for a second. And when I looked back, he wasn’t there. Was that just something I imagined? Or dreamt, maybe? Sometimes when I was working down there late at night, I’d start to doze. . . . No, it’s ridiculous. I don’t even believe in ghosts. . . .

But I believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. How can I believe in one and not the other? Well, if Josephus Jones has been tracking my success from the Great Beyond, I’ll bet he’s a resentful ghost. He ended up stuffed in that well out back and I ended up here in this luxury apartment.

I can feel it approaching: the cyclone. I grab my mug and drink some more of Minnie’s wine. Sometimes when the weather in my head changes, I can hear his voice. And I don’t want to. Not today, when I’m already feeling so vulnerable. When I’m here instead of at my studio, working.

Tell me something, Annie. And be honest.

Shut up! Go away!

What is it that you want?

I want this: my life here in New York with Viveca.

Anything else?

I want my kids to be safe. I want Orion not to hate me.

Ah, very nice. Very unselfish. But you can’t fool me. What is it you
really
want?

I want . . . to make my art.

And aren’t I an integral part of that? When the cyclone comes toward you, isn’t that because of me? After all, Annie, I know your secrets, your shame. Like it or not, I’m in your head. It’s me who starts the cyclone.

I shake my head. Grab Minnie’s jug and refill the mug. I drink, stare at Viveca’s wedding dress. . . . When she married Abe, she told me, everything was so spur of the moment that she’d had to wear an off-white Oscar de la Renta pantsuit that was hanging in her closet. She carried a bouquet that Abe’s secretary had ordered. They’d lived together for years on the Upper East Side. Attended dinner parties with people like the Kissingers, Alan Greenspan, and Andrea Mitchell. They’d held off marrying because both families opposed it. Because Viveca’s father hadn’t wanted his daughter to marry an Arab, and Abe’s grown daughter had made no secret of the fact that she didn’t like Viveca. So they’d waited until after her father’s passing, and even then Abe had wanted to keep things streamlined and simple, for his daughter’s sake: a civil ceremony at City Hall, a small wedding luncheon at the Four Seasons for immediate family and a few friends and colleagues. At that luncheon, Viveca said, she’d overheard Abe’s daughter refer to her as “the barracuda” and it had ruined her day. Tears welled up when she told me that, I remember. Since Abe’s death, she and the daughter have had as little contact with each other as possible, even after the daughter’s husband died. Viveca sent her flowers and a letter of condolence, she said, but didn’t attend the funeral. “I just couldn’t go there and hug her, offer her sympathy,” she said. “The barracuda: after I had tried as hard as I could with that spoiled little princess.”

Viveca is pleased that Ariane and Marissa are going to be my attendants. She won’t meet Ariane until the weekend of the wedding, but she and Marissa have grown fond of each other, and I’m glad for that. When the two of them went shopping for Marissa’s bridesmaid’s dress, Marissa saw what she liked at Stella McCartney’s shop over there in the Meatpacking District. Viveca bought it for her. I told them both that I wanted to pay for it, but when I asked them how much it cost, they wouldn’t tell me. Viveca said that was a secret between her stepdaughter and her.

Ariane’s picked out something online from Coldwater Creek. “Do you think it’s all right, Mama?” she e-mailed me, along with the link. Ari’s never been that sure of herself when it comes to fashion, and she’s self-conscious about the weight she’s gained since she moved to San Francisco. Poor Ariane. She’s unlucky in love, and every time she gets dumped, she eats.

I e-mailed her back
.
Told her I thought she’d look beautiful in that dress, and if she liked it, that was all that mattered.

She e-mailed me again. What about the color? Was burgundy going to clash with anything?

Absolutely not, I wrote back.

“Burgundy?” Viveca said when I told her about Ariane’s and my exchange. “Maybe it’s me, but I’ve always thought of burgundy as such a matronly color. Can’t you talk her into something a little more fun? A little more age appropriate?” It made me feel defensive: her disapproval of Ariane’s choice. Viveca hasn’t even met Ariane yet and she’s trying to tell her how to dress? Now I’m not
just
defensive. I’m mad! Before I can stop myself, mug in hand, I throw my wine at her pale green wedding gown.

It lands halfway down the skirt. The red wine against the green silk makes it look like Gaia, the primordial earth mother, is having her period. I know I should feel guilty. Contrite. I should be rushing to the fridge and grabbing a bottle of club soda before the stain sets, or rushing Viveca’s dress down the street to that dry cleaning place. But I’m
not
contrite. I’m a little giddy, in fact. I pour another mug of wine and throw it at the other three dresses. In some places the wine seeps in and it dribbles down to the hems in others. I do it again: pour, splash. I feel like Jackson Pollock must have felt, except I’m not dribbling paint; I’m staining beauty with blood.

I laugh. I feel powerful. The cyclone is swirling, coming closer, and I’m meeting it head-on. It enters me, travels down my arms. I grab all four of the damaged dresses and rush out of the bedroom, out of the apartment. Downstairs in the lobby, our weekday doorman, Rocco, is on duty. “How you doing, Miss Oh? You need a cab?”

I’m in too much of a hurry to answer him. He swings the door open for me and I rush out into the street.

Chapter Eight

Orion Oh

T
he kitchen counters are black granite, the lights are motion sensitive. The side of the house that faces the ocean is floor-to-ceiling glass. The artwork hung throughout the downstairs is edgy and wild—and, I have to admit, pretty fucking spectacular. Some beach bungalow, Viveca.

After I’ve done an upstairs and downstairs walkabout, I go back out to the car. Leave my bike on the roof rack but retrieve my other gear: laptop, groceries, Grey Goose. On my second trip in, I grab the duffel bag I’ve stuffed with Ts, shorts, and underwear. The little marble dolphin my grandfather made for me when I was a kid is in there, too; I’m not sure why I packed that. I leave the second duffel in the backseat of the car—the one that holds my history. It takes me three more trips to carry in the twenty-two paintings I removed this morning from the crawl space in the Jones brothers’ ramshackle little house. I’ll be goddamned if she’s going to get her hands on them, as unlikely as that would have been. Let the art shark cruise other waters.

I find where she keeps her glasses, grab one, fill it with ice. Pour myself a stiff one and flop onto a beige leather sofa—the kind they describe in those high-end catalogs as “buttery soft.” I sip my drink and remember. . . .

I
t’s after nine on that March evening when Jasmine knocks on my office door. I’ve just finished my paperwork and am ready to go home. “Come in.”

I don’t recognize her at first. She looks different. It’s her hair, I guess. It’s longer than it was the previous semester, and lighter—honey-colored instead of dark brown. She’s in tears and shaking badly. Her winter coat’s flapping open, and she’s wearing a red V-neck sweater underneath. She’s pacing, speaking so rapidly that I’m not getting half of what she’s saying. I stand. Go over and close the door, then lock it at her request. “Have a seat,” I say, but she says no, she’s too nervous to sit. She goes over to the window and takes a furtive peek out at the quad below. When I ask her to tell me again what has her so upset, she says, “Not what.
Who
.”

Her ex-fiancé has been scaring her, she says. Stalking her. He won’t return the key to her apartment she gave him. Last week, she went home and there he was. And tonight, as she walked toward her car in the student lot, she saw his car a few parking spaces away from hers. Saw him sitting there with the lights off and the motor running. She panicked and ran back toward the Psych Services building and saw the light on in my office.

When I ask her if she wants some water, she nods, and so I grab one of the plastic cups in my desk drawer and tell her I’ll be right back. At the doorway, I look to my right, my left. The hallway’s empty. I fill the cup from the drinking fountain and bring it back to her. She’s taken her coat off now and has sat down after all. “Thanks,” she says when I hand her the water.

She drinks it too fast and water dribbles down her front. The sweater she’s wearing fits tightly across her breasts. She brushes the water off her skirt and takes another sip. Her fingernails are painted deep red. Her oversize hoop earrings rock back and forth. Were her breasts always this size? It seems as if half the young women on campus these days have gotten implants. Earlier that day, when one of my patients told me she felt her new breasts were helping her with her self-esteem issues, I was at a loss about how to respond. I could almost hear a whole generation of feminists sighing in defeat.

When I ask Jasmine if she’s considered taking out a restraining order against him, she shakes her head. She just keeps hoping he’ll get involved with someone else and leave her alone. But when she saw his car out there—or what
might
have been his car, she’s not even sure now—she panicked.

“Maybe you should call campus police,” I tell her. “And if I were you, I’d definitely have your locks changed.” When she asks how she would go about doing that, I suggest she look online and call a locksmith.

“Oh, right,” she says. “Duh.” She’ll do both of those things, she says, but right now all she wants is to go back to her apartment, dead-bolt the door and put the safety chain on, and try to get some sleep. She can leave her car here overnight and get it tomorrow. Could I please give her a ride home?

I nod, pack up my briefcase. At the door, I look both ways before entering the hallway. “Let’s go,” I say. She follows me out. Walks down the hallway behind me.

En route to her apartment, I try to distract her by asking how her semester is going. “Better,” she says. The evaluation I gave her the semester before upset her at first, she tells me, but she’s come to see it as useful criticism. She’s grateful. She’ll be applying soon for an internship. There are a couple of places in Boston that look good. Can I write her a recommendation?

Her work was poor, but maybe it’s improved. I’ll ask some of my colleagues, see if that’s the case. “I might be able to do that for you,” I say. “But let’s just get you home safely. Take one thing at a time.”

When I pull up in front of her building, she asks me if I’d like to come in. I decline, but when she asks if I’d
please
come in for a few minutes—she’s still feeling shaky and doesn’t want to enter her apartment alone—I say okay. When we’re inside, she tells me to have a seat. I watch her go from room to room, checking, I guess, to make sure the ex-boyfriend isn’t hiding anywhere. She returns from the kitchen holding a bottle of white wine in one hand and, in the other, a fifth of Captain Jack. “I have this and this,” she says. “Which would you like?

Neither, I say. I really have to be getting home.

“Please, Dr. Oh.”

I nod. Point to the whiskey. “Just a short one.”

There’s Coke in the fridge, she says. Do I want a Jack and Coke?

Good god, no. All I want is to get home, get something to eat. I squeezed in a patient at lunchtime, so all I’ve eaten since breakfast is a pack of peanuts from the vending machine. “Just some ice if you’ve got it.” She nods and, a few minutes later, returns with a Jack and Coke for herself and, for me, a tumbler three-quarters filled with whiskey, two little ice cubes floating at the top. Jesus, if I drank all this, it would knock me on my ass.

She sits beside me on her green leather love seat. We sip our drinks. She tells me about her father’s defection and her miserable four years of high school, her dating history with the menacing ex-fiancé. Seth is ten years older than she, she says. He makes good money and has sophisticated tastes, and that was what appealed to her. She enjoyed going out with an adult for a change. In the two years they dated, he never hit her. His abuse was mostly just verbal.

“That’s still abuse,” I say.

She nods. Gets up and puts her iPod in the dock. Turns up the music.

“Cassandra Wilson?” I ask.

“Uh-huh. Do you like jazz?” I say I do. She says she does, too—that Seth took her to a number of jazz clubs when they were first going out and got her into it. We sit there in silence, listening to Wilson’s rendition of Chet Baker’s “Let’s Get Lost.” Jasmine thanks me for my help, says she feels better. “She’s got such a sexy voice, doesn’t she?” she says.

“She does,” I say, but her comment is a red flag. The liquor and the music have shifted the mood, and I’ve just caught myself thinking about how beautiful she is. It’s time for me to go. She stands and says she’s going to fix herself another drink. Do I need mine refreshed? “No, no,” I say. “I really should be going.”

“Okay,” she says. “Just wait a sec.”

While she’s in the kitchen, I look down at my glass, surprised to see that I’ve drunk half of what she poured, something I hadn’t meant to do. I stand. Feel a little woozy. At the entrance to her kitchen, I open my mouth to say good-bye but instead ask her, does she mind if I get myself a little more ice?

I’m reaching into the freezer when I feel her come up behind me. She slips one hand inside the back pocket of my jeans and begins massaging my neck with the other. Pulling free, I turn and face her. Her top is off. Her breasts are beautiful, her nipples rosy pink and erect. There’s a tattoo over the left one—a tiny blue dragonfly. “No, no, Jasmine,” I say, looking away. “You’re feeling confused right now. It’s understandable, but—”

She says I should call her Jazzy. That’s what her friends call her, and we’re friends, aren’t we?

I shake my head. “I’m your superior,” I say. “Look, you got really scared tonight. I can imagine how vulnerable you’re feeling, but we can’t . . . or
I
can’t—”

“Can’t what?” she says, smiling. I can tell she’s tipsy.

“Take advantage of your situation.”

“I’m a consenting adult, Orion,” she says. “If you want, you can check my driver’s license.” She takes my hand and places it on her breast. Leans in and places her mouth against mine. She pushes my lips apart with her tongue and flicks it against my tongue.

I put my hand on her shoulder to push her away, but she smells so good. She’s such a beautiful girl. I start returning her kisses, telling myself as I’m doing it that I have to stop. Have to get out of here
right now
since I haven’t gotten out already. She reaches down and cups her hand against my crotch, starts rubbing me there. And I let her. There’s my crucial mistake: I let her. For the past several minutes, I’ve been flirting with the edge of the cliff and now I’m falling off of it.

“You’re getting hard,” she whispers. She unzips her skirt and shimmies. It drops to her ankles. She guides my hand to her pubis. She’s wet.

My heart is pounding. My breathing is fast and shallow. And then my zipper’s down. She slips her hand through the slit in my shorts and wraps it around my cock. Starts running her finger around the ridge at the base of the head. God, it’s been so long. It feels so good. But I have to stop her or . . . “Hey, Jasmine? Jazzy? I . . .”

“Shh,” she whispers. “Just enjoy it.”

She laughs when I come. Withdraws her hand and looks at her semen-covered fingers. I tell her I’m sorry, ashamed of myself. Babble about how I’ve been separated from my wife for some time and am out of practice. That I hadn’t realized I was going to—

“It’s okay, Orion. I’m a big girl. It’s fine.”

Fixing my pants, I make my way toward the door, mumbling assurances that nothing like what just happened has ever happened between me and a student before. She says it’s not necessary for me to apologize. I nod. Glance down at her hand and get the hell out of there.

On the drive home, I grip the steering wheel to stop my hands from shaking. I try to unsee her breasts, the dragonfly tattoo. My mind’s ricocheting with shame, guilt, anger at myself. But
she
seduced
me
, right?
I’m a big girl.
It’s fine.
But how many times have I counseled students who had slept with their professors and then come into my office shaken and confused? How many times have I tried to point out to these kids, guys as well as girls, that they’d been taken unfair advantage of ? Sometimes I’ll see one of the offending profs on campus and think, what a shit you are, what an abuse of power. And now I’ve joined their ranks.

The next day, she e-mails me to thank me again for my help and to remind me that I promised to write her a recommendation, which I didn’t exactly do. The following Monday, there’s a Post-it note stuck to my office door.
Reccomendation letter for Jasmine
, it says and I stand there, stupidly, thinking: it’s one
c,
two
m
’s. How’s she supposed to go on, become a therapist, when she doesn’t even know that?

For the next few weeks, nothing happens. I’m relieved not to run into Jasmine in the building or anywhere else on campus. I tell myself that it’s blown over; that it’s amounted to an embarrassing cautionary tale, that’s all. I’ll just never put myself in a situation like that again. But each time I try to write her that letter, I revisit my humiliation. I’ve started it half a dozen times. Look, stop torturing yourself, I tell the tortured face in the bathroom mirror. Just finish her goddamned letter and be done with it. So she gets an internship someplace? Let her inadequacies catch up to her there. And if she squeaks by, so what? The profession’s already got plenty of incompetent shrinks. What’s one more? But instead, I look up her schedule to see which of my colleagues are supervising her now. When I seek them out, they’re universally negative about Jasmine’s work. Did I actually promise her I’d write her a recommendation, or had I only said I’d consider doing it?

She e-mails me to ask if I have her letter yet. I e-mail back to say I haven’t. In her return e-mail, she asks me if I can get it done in the next few days because her applications are coming due. She’ll stop by my office to pick it up. And when she does come by, I tell her I’ve talked to some of her other profs and have had to reconsider. “I think it would be a mistake for you to apply,” I say. “At least for now.” She frowns. Asks why. “Because these internships tend to throw you into the deep end of the pool. I just don’t think your work is strong enough yet. If I were you, I’d reconsider.” She glares at me for several seconds, then turns and leaves.

The next day, Muriel summons me to her office to tell me we have a problem. “We?” I say. . . .

W
hen I wake up in the dark, I don’t know where I am. I rise too quickly, stumbling and bumping into unfamiliar furniture. My movements make the lights go on. I squint and sit back down, waiting for the seasickness to pass. For several seconds, I’m confused and scared.

After I’ve oriented myself—realized I’m at Viveca’s beach house—I recall the dream I just had: Annie and I are sitting on the couch in our Three Rivers living room, holding hands in the middle of some crisis. Maya Angelou is sitting across from us, consoling us. “Our thoughts and prayers are with you at this difficult time,” she says. Is one of our kids hurt? Has one of them died?

Annie, sobbing, turns to me. “Is it because of me?” she asks.

“No,” I say. “It’s something I did.” I turn back to Maya Angelou. “Right?” But she’s become Obama.

“We’re doing all we can,” he says.