Skyscape Page 7

  “I don’t think Starr of the Yard is art, exactly.”

  “I’m going to take a risk in New York,” he said. “I’m having dinner tomorrow night with Renata San Pablo and I’m going to take a chance. I’m going to tell Renata that Curtis is back at work.”

  “I lied for you,” she said.

  Curtis lay in the darkened bedroom. His arm was across his eyes because he said the light hurt them, the slim slip of sun between the curtains.

  “What did he say?”

  “He liked them,” she said.

  “He didn’t.” His voice was very quiet, but even when it was a virtual whisper there was something crisp, perfectly audible about it. “He wanted something wonderful.”

  “They are wonderful,” she protested. “He said they were very good, but then when I wouldn’t let him have them, he tried to pretend he thought they were only okay. I could tell what he really thought.”

  Curtis was silent.

  “Curtis, we have to go out. We have to let people see you. We want people to believe that you’re going to be all right.” It was her usual way of thinking—if you wished hard enough, and took some action to bring the wish to fruition, then there could be no question—the hoped-for happiness would come true.

  He turned his head away, slightly.

  “Tonight,” she said.

  She could do this—she could surprise herself. She could turn from someone quiet and yielding to someone sure of what she had to do. People who didn’t know her thought of her as nice, pretty, inconsequential. Curtis Newns’s other women had been glamorous, colorful, the stuff of gossip and story.

  Two of her earrings were on the dresser, like the twin wings of an insect that had molted and vanished. They were made of lapis lazuli, her favorite stone. Painters in the early Renaissance had mixed lapis with oil to give their skies that solemn blue. Margaret believed that the best artists painted what the eye could not see.

  She knew now what had to be done. They were running out of time. “We need to begin living the way we used to. Besides, Bruno’s going to talk.”

  Curtis sat up, his eyes fierce.

  She could not help it—she took a step back. “I lied for you. But he didn’t believe me.”

  He sank back. For a long time he lay, his arms outstretched. “I heard him calling up to me.”

  When she did not say anything, he continued, “Why would he talk? If he keeps my condition a secret it makes people think that I’m still going to paint another masterpiece.”

  “He’ll talk,” she said. “Because Bruno needs to talk. His currency is telling stories about people.” She wanted to explain that if a hope acted upon could become real, so could misfortune. Bruno was likely to say that while Curtis might be painting, he was still a psychological ruin. What people heard, and what people believed, had a way of coming true.

  “You don’t know him,” Curtis said after a silence.

  “I know enough.” She turned away.

  He said her name, and she knew she would wait there for hours if that was what it took to hear him speak again. “I trust you,” he said.

  “I know,” she whispered.

  “I know you, Margaret,” he said. “But the trouble is—you don’t know me.”

  As she shut the door she could not lie to herself. It was true. Something in Curtis was defeating her.

  They had lost their last housekeeper two weeks before. Curtis had seen her rifling the garbage. The stout, warmhearted woman had contended that she was recycling plastic. Curtis said that he knew better.

  Margaret jammed a cup over the rack in the dishwasher, the rubberized grill that was supposed to support and protect, and the translucent china broke. Fragments scattered into the well of the washer.

  A company in Nancy, France, sent him cups, saucers, gravy boats, finger bowls. They hoped, she supposed, that some day Curtis would realize how much gratitude he felt toward them and decide to design a set of dinnerware.

  Every day new gifts arrived for Curtis Newns: clothes, books, packets of slides artists sent, and strikingly immodest Polaroids of women who sought Curtis’s attention. There were manuscripts from Ph.D. candidates, cases of liquor provided by people he had never met. Much of it never got opened.

  Her mother, Curtis’s old girlfriends—they would all be proven right. And none of them would hesitate to say so. The former model arm-in-arm with mobsters on the news, and that actress who had put on all that weight and then lost it, and that singer with the scorpion tattoo—each of them would come right out and say it. Margaret was never going to keep Curtis.

  It made a pretty noise—another cup broke as she stuck it over the spindles in the washer. She shouldn’t try to do the dishes when she felt like this.

  She had never thought of herself as someone who was afraid. In high school, her friends had learned to talk about what they hated—what television shows, what kinds of food. But Margaret had felt like the citizen of another sort of republic, and knew better what she loved than what she disliked.

  She had always been so sure of herself. She leaned against the sink. She was trembling.

  10

  It was a surprise when Curtis appeared in his slacks and a shirt he had just gotten out of its laundry box. It still had the folds and contours of the box, and the front pocket was stuck together from the light starch.

  She asked him what he was doing.

  “We’re going out,” he said.

  It was what she had wanted. It had seemed like a good idea. But now she wasn’t so sure.

  “Let’s go,” he said. He had shaved and smelled of lotion. It was wonderful to see him up and looking so good, just a little puffy like someone who had had a long nap.

  “Are you sure?” she said.

  He buttoned the sleeves. “You’re right,” he said. “Bruno’s going to talk. But what he’s going to say is that I am in really wonderful shape, swimming laps every day and never having time to touch the piano because I’m busy making art.”

  “We don’t have to go out to prove Bruno right, or wrong.”

  His eyes were the color of black coffee. She could barely discern the pupil, that point of deeper dark. “We’re going out,” he said, “because I want you to be happy.”

  She began to feel just a little bit encouraged. Why not? They’d have some fun. They’d be fine.

  “What’s that in your hand?” he asked.

  “I broke a cup. I’m so sorry.”

  He smiled. It was a great smile. It might even be true, she thought—that he was back to himself again. But Curtis was too cheerful, too impatient to leave, an actor who knew his lines but had not completely mastered his character.

  She felt nervous as she put on something she felt would look good in a newspaper photo, “Artist on the town after masterpiece loss.”

  They opened the front door, and locked it behind them. Each stage of their departure was framed in her mind, like one of those serious comic strips about people who live in apartment buildings and have complicated, tense lives.

  They were outside the apartment. They were in the hall. She walked slightly ahead of him, as though to say Hey, Curtis—walking’s not so hard.

  She was trying to prove something to herself, too. She remembered reading that sled dogs on the Amundsen expedition to the South Pole needed to have a human figure walking ahead, where they could see it. Otherwise, the dogs would realize they were heading off the edge of the world and refuse to continue.

  That’s all Curtis needed—just someone encouraging him, striding off ahead of him. She told Curtis that she felt like a comic strip character, like Mary Worth.

  “Or Apartment 3G,” said Curtis. “Or Rex Morgan, M.D.”

  The elevator slid open. Was there anyone in it? If so, Curtis would wait.

  The elevator was empty and stayed empty, all the way down.

  A security guard said, “Good evening.”

  Yes, Margaret agreed, it was.

  They stood in the garden amid the
night-darkened impatiens and nasturtiums. Curtis was looking, crouching. He wandered briefly among the garden furniture, sprinkler heads leaking glittering water.

  “I don’t think he likes the cold,” he said.

  Curtis was looking for a desert tortoise that he had bought a week after their wedding. They had released it into the garden of the condominium, reasoning that the reptile would be happier there in the occasional sunlight and the green grass. They looked for awhile, but did not see the tortoise.

  It was good, though, to be doing something like this. See, Margaret told herself. We’re doing all right. Just going out for awhile. Just a quiet evening, like people in an especially pleasing article in the Sunday supplement.

  They went to The Blond Spike on California Street, the one place in town where she was absolutely certain they would be noticed.

  It was a good plan. They would drop by, eat a Sonoma-field-greens salad, say hi to the right people, and then slip out past the bouncers. Curtis often had lunch there, when he was in one of his public moods.

  From the beginning, however, things did not work out.

  For one thing, it was too crowded. She had wanted the sort of place they had frequented during the early weeks of their marriage. The more people who saw you the better. But a very famous television star had died in the men’s room a month before, and after a lull in business people decided that this was a place where almost anything could happen. Now they turned people away at the door, which had never happened so routinely before.

  And they still attempted to serve main courses, although no one really came there to eat. The portions were small, decorative nuggets of veal or Mendocino County filets. The tables were packed together, and one night recently the bodyguards of a basketball player had drawn their weapons on a game show host. Margaret hated the violence the place now seemed to attract, but she could understand the allure.

  Which made it, she came to realize when it was far too late, a mistake to be there.

  “At least five people are here just to watch me,” Curtis said.

  She thought about this for a couple of seconds. “Who?”

  “The waiter with the bow tie with the blinking lights on it. Those two guys at the bar. The two guys with mustaches. And this guy here.”

  “People like to look at you. They recognize your face.”

  “No, I mean these people are here to watch me.”

  She felt cold inside, but at the same time asked herself: what did you expect? “I don’t believe it.”

  “Take a look.” He knocked over the vase with its single pink rose, swatting it to one side. “Pick the rose off the floor and look around.”

  She picked up the rose. Please, she prayed, let us get through the next half hour.

  “He’s the kind of guy I hate,” Curtis said, bunching his fists, leaning forward on his elbows. He was trying—she could tell. Curtis was trying to keep his temper, but he was failing.

  “Please try to ignore him,” she said. She worked to control her voice. Maybe she could steer him out of the place in time. Where were the waiters?

  “If he says one more time what a killing he’s going to make tomorrow I’m going to break his neck. They hire people to sit next to me and act like an asshole just to humiliate me.”

  “Please, Curtis.”

  “Listen to him.”

  It struck her just then that one part of her mind had always refused to take his mental illness seriously. It seemed like such a willful game, a fantasy, like pretending to believe in a soap opera. Another aspect of Curtis was his abnormally acute hearing and vision. He really did see more when he looked at things. She could barely make out two heavyset men who might have had mustaches or not, she couldn’t tell.

  “Please try,” said Margaret. The waiters here were famously temperamental. Imperious, deferential, solicitous, absent. She couldn’t see one anywhere from her seat in what the headwaiter had described as the table “perfect for a man like Mr. Newns.” Which meant, it turned out, where the other customers could see the famous profile.

  She wouldn’t let herself look worried. She was her father’s daughter: never let them see you sweat. She made sure the crystal vase with the baby-pink rose was well over on her side of the table. It would have been a decent table under other circumstances—Curtis was always treated well. People liked him. It was a fact of nature—people respected him instantly, ungrudgingly, sensing that he was of star-quality even when they could not place the face.

  But the man at the table to her left had one of those carrying voices, one of those conceited droning monotones that she had to admit was impossible to ignore.

  The people at the table were having the kind of date typical in restaurants like this. The man felt entitled—obligated—to tell glorious stories about himself, and the woman felt equally obligated to sit there wide-eyed drinking it in, artichoke hearts barely sampled.

  The man would not shut up. He was bragging about his power as a loan broker. “Must of these guys don’t have what it takes,” he was saying. “Women can’t hack it, either. Do you know how few women there are in the field?”

  Margaret couldn’t make out his date’s answer, but it was easy to imagine her “No, gosh, please tell me.”

  “Tenants are jerks,” the broker was saying. “I used to own buildings on upper Broadway. Had to fire the management company because they were crooks. Even these rich old ladies would sit on their money every month until five days after the first. Two guys tried to rob me once. I mean literally.”

  The trouble was you could tell the woman was suffering, enduring what was probably a first and last date, basically just hoping this, too, would pass.

  You sat on the margins of other people’s seductions, political miscomprehensions, and general lack of conversational grace, and that was okay, because you have your own life to live, and it’s important to be tolerant and have a sense of humor.

  The loan broker ordered another bottle to replace the empty in the ice bucket and made a point of looking their way.

  She closed her eyes for a moment. Jesus, all she wanted to do was leave. That’s all. God, just get us out of here without a scene.

  Curtis sensed the man’s stare, and he was staring back.

  She had ordered sparkling water, a big bottle of Pellegrino, and had practically held her breath while Curtis ran his eye over the wine list. What had it been—several months without a drink? Curtis had looked at her, and offered one of his smiles—one of his wonderful smiles. “Just one glass,” he had said to the waiter, “of the Orvietto.”

  But the Orvietto didn’t come by the glass—big surprise—so he had ordered a bottle. It wasn’t all that much, really, and Margaret had asked for a second glass.

  The loan broker could tell that something was wrong, that the dark-haired man was getting angry, and the loan broker was one of those blandly good-looking men who like to show off before a young woman as long as it doesn’t put him in any real danger.

  The loan broker was making a show of looking over their way, now, actually giving Curtis long, even stares. This was even worse than usual. Most people in bars and restaurants, airport lounges, and hotel lobbies either backed off out of common sense, or they recognized Curtis as the famous ill-tempered genius and laughed, said how great it was to meet him, and let it go at that.

  But this man was bridling. He muttered something. The man’s date sensed the trouble, and stretched forth a hand to soothe the loan broker’s nerves.

  God, how stupid men could be. Margaret told herself to get up and leave now. Drag Curtis out of here.

  “She’s probably used to men like him,” Margaret said, offering conversation against what she knew was an unstoppable force. And it wasn’t true. It was pretty obvious. The woman’s response was instinctive—the man was seductive the way a gangster is, all power and dollars. She wasn’t having fun.

  Curtis himself had a way of getting angry that attracted women. He had a way of looking both furious and emoti
onally bruised.

  “I’m leaving,” said Margaret.

  “I’m not going to let him ruin your evening, Margaret. That’s what he’s there for. Sit still.”

  She stood.

  “I swear to God, Margaret, if you leave I’m going to tear this place apart.”

  She allowed herself a wry thought: she liked a man who didn’t exaggerate. He had demolished that bar in Carmel one afternoon.

  But then it looked like everything was going to be all right. The staring contest seemed to dwindle away to nothing. Curtis was taking a bite of sourdough and chewing, trying.

  The headwaiter floated by, but it was a deliberate, nervous sort of drifting. Margaret caught his eyes. “Right away,” he said, meaning: we’ll be glad to see Curtis Newns take a nice long walk in the fresh air. Since the TV star had overdosed the headwaiter had lost weight. He looked tired. She slipped the headwaiter the Amex card and knew it would be only another few minutes.

  It was going to be okay. They were going to leave the restaurant, and get Curtis home, and there would be no problem.

  You see? she told herself. He’s not as bad as he used to be.

  Curtis was a man who cared about what happened. If he saw the reports of a storm on television, children drowned, a village destitute, he would send a check to the Red Cross and spend a night tossing, getting up, wandering the semidark.

  A hitch was developing. The headwaiter was not coming back. He was nowhere.

  She couldn’t believe it. Everything had stopped but the voice of the loan broker, a relentless, asinine drone.

  There it was, the white jacket, the hand holding the tray, the check in its leather folder. Margaret signed the slip, her signature legible even now, snapped up the card, and all was well.

  Then the loan broker made his mistake. He didn’t make it quickly. He made it worse by taking so long. He eased himself up out of his chair, tossed down his napkin, and stepped over to their table.

  The broker was tall, and had a pudgy, careless face, the face of someone who knew the computer screen better than the human gaze. He had probably read a book or two. His eyes were intelligent, but lit with the overconfidence of booze. He had a square jaw, muscular shoulders—bulk. He had the thick neck of an ex-athlete gone only moderately to seed, the sort of man who had always been attracted to Margaret, thinking her “a whole lot of fun,” the sort of man Margaret had always loathed.