Art on Fire (28 page)

She took a step closer to Aaron, inhaled his smell—sweat, lemony deodorant, beer. She watched the top of the large Styrofoam cooler lifted each time a misted brown bottle of German beer was removed, then passed among uninterested fingers.

“Wanna go for a walk?” Aaron asked.

Just then the lesbians emerged from the hedges. The Little One carried a gift-wrapped book. “Hello, Bella,” she said, smiling at Aaron.

“Thanks so much,” Isabella took the package. “This is Aaron,” she motioned to her left and tucked the book under her arm. “Aaron, these are the neighbors.”

Vivian arrived with a plate of hot dogs and hamburgers on bright white buns, half the burgers blanketed in orange slices of cheese. “Isabella,” she said in a high pitch, “Go show Aaron the house. Leave the neighbors alone.” She held the plate out to the lesbians. The Little One took a hot dog; the Big One waved the plate away. “Thanks. I don't eat meat,” she said.

Isabella wanted to tell the neighbors how she'd tried to write a book about them. But there was Aaron. Waiting. She looked at his shoes, his bare feet inside sneakers. The neighbors, after all, lived right next door. She might never see Aaron again.

“See you,” she said to the neighbors, certain the Little One had flinched with jealousy.

She had not yet said hello to Mrs. Val Noonan, who was standing
at the Weber beside Alfonse. The agent's legs were crossed at the ankles, her head was bent; she giggled and pulled at a corner of molten cheese with bitten-down nails. Alfonse patted her shoulder, gestured and laughed.

“I have some vodka in the basement,” Isabella said.

Aaron followed her around the side of the house. She felt him look at her body as she quietly pulled back the screen door. They slipped in, walked slowly, uncertainly, down the basement steps. It was cool and dark. A pile of dirty laundry lay on the cement floor. Isabella kicked it aside. She located the bottle but could not dislodge it from behind the oil burner. Aaron happily took over, rocking the neck of the bottle several times until it finally came free. He handed it over proudly. Men loved that sort of thing, she knew: stepping in and doing things women couldn't finish. She licked her lips, turned the cap, and heard the tear of paper. She spun the plastic cap until it toppled off and onto the floor. Like a stripper's last article of clothing, Isabella thought, raising the bottle and taking a hefty swallow.

Aaron removed a small package and a tiny spoon from his front pocket.

“Cute,” said Isabella, pointing to the spoon. She took another drink, wiped her hot, numb mouth with the back of her hand, and hoped he would not ask for the bottle. He did eventually, though he barely put his lips to it, handed it back, then bent over and dipped the tiny silver spoon into a pile of powder. Carefully he lifted the spoon, positioned it at the base of his nostril, and inhaled hard. Like he had a bad cold.

He offered Isabella the spoon.

“What happens?” she asked, turning over some of the powder with the tiny utensil.

“You'll feel really awake,” he said.

“I'm always really awake.”

Aaron shrugged and took the spoon from her, dug another mound, and sucked it into his nostril. His eyes glittered. He ran his finger along the hard wall of his gums. Isabella took another swig of vodka, exchanged the spoon for the bottle, and sucked in the powder. Her brain was suddenly flooded with sunlight.

Too quickly they finished the cocaine, depleted the vodka. Aaron
stuck out his finger and put it under Isabella's top lip, pressed her tingling gums. He pulled her body close to his, pressed against her, and covered her mouth with his own. He was so eager, so fast, and the world seemed numb and far away. Still she liked the smell of him, the softness of his lips against her unfeeling skin. She was wet between her legs. He undressed her, undressed himself. She lay back on the daybed and thought that finally she was doing something women were expected to do. Finally she was not in a white room or an attic. She was not at a party full of strangers. Finally, ow (he apologized), she was staring up into a face that gave her pleasure.

Francesca sat in the pizzeria chatting with Sherry, describing the previous evening's excesses: plates of neatly cut lines of cocaine passed around the table, boys fucking in the coat room, Shanta taking so many quaaludes, Francesca had had no choice but to send her home with some sturdy, very willing Butch (“with a capital B,” Francesca said, realizing in the moment, that Sherry also fit that description) who actually knew how to drive a car. “I gotta learn to drive,” she said ruefully.

Sherry nodded in agreement.

Just then, Charlotte Wallace pulled back the restaurant door and stepped inside, flustered and excited. Sherry took one look at her, exhaled a long, disgusted sigh, and escaped to the back of the room. Charlotte opened her eyes wide. “What,” she said to Francesca. “What did I do?”

Francesca shrugged, feeling her worlds collide.

“You know,” Charlotte said, scooting into the booth and facing Francesca, “I don't care what sort of upbringing a person has had or not had, there is no excuse for rudeness. Why can't she just let bygones be bygones?”

Francesca shrugged. “Charlotte, please. I don't want to get involved.”

“I know. I'm sorry. But, if it hadn't been for me, they would have shut this place down. Does she realize that?”

“I said,” she tightened her jaw and spoke through gritted teeth, “I don't want to be involved.”

Charlotte waved her hand in the air and zipped her lip. She closed her eyes a moment, trying to forget the whole thing. What did it matter what some white trash pizza restaurant proprietor who looked like a
car mechanic thought about her? Perhaps, in a perfect world, they would be friends. They were neighbors, after all. Who wouldn't want to be friends with her neighbor? What kind of nut case didn't at least try to be friends with her neighbor?

“The fact is,” Charlotte said calmly, “there were rats in the dumpster. And something had to be done.” She shrugged. “She needs to just get over it.”

“What's that?” asked Francesca, pointing to an envelope in Charlotte's hand. “Mail for me?”

“I saw you in the window,” said Charlotte. “It's from New Haven.”

Francesca snatched the envelope and examined the postmark. She tore it open and read the contents aloud. It was from someone named Suzy Bishop, a young art collector who, judging from her poor syntax and punctuation non grata, spoke English as a third or fourth language, at best. It was composed on an old electric typewriter, not even the likes of a Selectric, and (with some difficulty) expressed the collector's desire “to see the paintings of the artist and I am considering to buy one about chinese girl.”

“Look how well she spells,” Francesca pointed, subjecting the letter to rare scrutiny. The New Haven postmark intrigued her, and Sunday's
Register
had featured Francesca in its article about up-and-coming artists in the Northeast. She brought the envelope back to the cabin, placed it on the wire spool table in the center of the room, and turned it over to examine the postmark, then again to look at the printed address: Francesca DeSilva. With a capital D. What if someone from her past had found her? What if they'd been looking—all this time? Perhaps her photograph had been on milk cartons all these years, hanging on bulletin boards at bakeries, hair salons, grocery stores.
Have you seen this girl? Last seen May 11, 1981. Naked. In bed with another girl
.

She stared at the canvases lining the walls of her cabin, the table scarred with lumps of paint, strewn rags, all of it, to her, as beautiful as the stains on her fingertips, the greasy taste of oil paint when she accidentally put a finger in her mouth while she was working, maybe to move something from behind a tooth. And all of it, suddenly, ephemeral. The life she'd been enjoying as she'd never enjoyed life
before, might be taken from her in one small gesture. The arrival of her mother might accomplish it; or she might be brought down by a shadowy figure from her past—someone determined to expose her for what she was: a witless, defenseless excuse for a human being, posturing as someone extraordinary.

Though Francesca had never discussed her past with Charlotte, it hadn't been terribly difficult for Charlotte to put together a rudimentary outline based on spartan facts: Obviously, there had been an unhappy childhood; a Chinese girl of misguided importance. Something with the sister, some sort of rivalry, the intense sort that makes the loser, in this case Francesca, retreat to the corner like a wounded animal. Enough neglect or bad will to seed the damage more deeply, to send Francesca spinning through life wrestling the core belief that she deserved nothing more than a moldy shed by the train tracks. It broke Charlotte's heart. Charlotte had no children of her own, but if she were to have one, Francesca would be the daughter she'd construct for herself—brilliant, subtly beautiful, kinder than she wanted anyone to know, and desperately in need of love, so desperately in need, Charlotte had decided, that Francesca could tolerate love only when she didn't see it coming, when it wormed its way into her world undetected, like a fragrance slips in from outdoors and sweetens the air. Anyhow, Charlotte told herself, Francesca's reticence only contributed to her mystique and, thus, her marketability. Her paintings oozed with all she would not say.

While Shanta was lovely and darling (a little like a zaftig, Indian Julie Christie, Charlotte would say when describing her), any layman could tell Francesca was not in love. Still, Shanta's adoration seemed to make Francesca happy, and Charlotte very much wanted Francesca to be happy. And there was an unuttered benefit to the prosaic nature of the relationship between Francesca and Shanta: it allowed Francesca to keep painting.

Charlotte had a hunch about Suzy Bishop. The uncooperative collector could manage lunch only on May 10, Francesca's birthday,
so Charlotte apologized to Francesca but went ahead and scheduled the appointment. Francesca assured her it was fine, a good thing in a way since it would distract her from that perennial marker, one she usually defended against by disappearing into the darkness of back-to-back movies or long, shin-splitting walks on the beach.

In preparation for Suzy Bishop's visit, Charlotte had the driveway swept, the hedges trimmed, the rugs cleaned. She arranged a catered lunch, filled the dining room with fresh freesia. At 11:45 Francesca watched from behind the wisteria patch—according to Charlotte, the oldest on the Cape, limbs thick as squid strangling a 30-foot-wide lattice wall against the potting shed—as a small red VW Rabbit appeared at the bottom of the drive. Slowly the car crept up the driveway and stopped beside the entrance to the flagstone patio. Charlotte hopped like a bunny to the driver's side, looking as if she were going to curtsy as the door opened and Lisa Sinsong, a.k.a. Suzy Bishop, stepped out. She shook Charlotte's hand, dropped a cigarette onto the pavement, and squished it with the pointed sole of a leather boot.

Charlotte spied Francesca hidden in the woody climbers. “There she is!” she cried. “Francesca!”

Lisa didn't wait for Francesca to step forward. Instead, she strolled over, cocky and self-assured. “Hey,” she said, her voice deeper than it had been the last time. With some difficulty she freed a small box from the snug front pocket of her jeans. “Happy Birthday. Sorry I missed the last seven.” She looked strung out and pale, as if she desperately needed to eat something green.

“Francesca, this is Suzy Bishop,” Charlotte ran up from behind.

“I know who it is.”

“You do?” Charlotte turned full throttle and set a wary glare upon Lisa's face. “Who is it, then?” she asked.

“This is Lisa Sinsong. Lisa, this is Charlotte.”

“Lisa,” Charlotte barely uttered the name, trying to identify its importance. She stared at the drawn features. “Lisa. You mean Lisa Gone?”

“Yeah. Right,” said Francesca.

Charlotte was rapt. How amazing to meet the subject of
Francesca's art, after having only known the art. And how plain this girl was. How very . . .
Chinese
. Small, thin, serious-looking. Her arms like noodles at her sides. Her pale neck. (Body thin as a chopstick. Eyes black as soy sauce.) More than ever, she was convinced of Francesca's gift. It was incredible, the intensity of emotion Francesca had injected into such a plain face. An unadorned face. Once again, she was awed by the incredible power of art. She remembered a quotation she'd read recently, the words of H.L. Mencken: “Nothing can come out of an artist that is not in the man.” The intensity, then, thought Charlotte, lies not in the subject, but in Francesca. Francesca had aggrandized this plain girl, breathed life into her tired face, enriched her pallor, added dimension to her limp form. Because she was in love. And it was this love, this deep and irrepressible love, into which Francesca had first dipped with her brush. And her beloved, this very plain Chinese girl, had gone to the trouble of creating an alter ego and tracking Francesca down, probably to avoid being rebuffed. How this girl must love Francesca, then! Charlotte wanted to rejoice! How suited to someone of Francesca's genius to possess such a love, to tend to it so carefully, to guard it so jealously (she'd hid Lisa's little present away in her pants pocket, not wanting to subject it to the ordinary light of day). Charlotte could have grabbed Lisa Sinsong and kissed her in that moment, or forced the two of them together in an embrace.