Chapter Nine
Nine
“Don’t ever let a man show any signs of violence around you,” my daddy told me when I came back home during winter break my freshman year of college and confessed that I’d finally acquired my first boyfriend.
“Not even as a joke. He uses his fists to solve a problem his mind should be able to handle, you leave him, and you don’t look back, ’cause one day, he might decide you’re the problem.
And your daddy doesn’t want to get locked away for murder, you understand? ”
My father never hit my mother, but he showed his contempt in other ways: birthdays, anniversaries, and holidays during which he expected to be celebrated but routinely neglected her, temper tantrums thrown about her disrespect when she didn’t jump to attend to his every need.
For him, the line was clear: he would never raise a hand against her.
As long as he did that, he was a good man, and my mother agreed.
I thought that Eric was a good man. On the surface, he had all the markers of one: an educational background that promised financial stability, a close-knit family, the kind of homegrown chivalry that dictated that he bring flowers to a first date.
My father thought he was a good man too.
The first time I came crying to him—because Eric had called me selfish and threatened to leave me for considering an offer to attend my dream training program—my father warned me that my ambitions, while nice, would limit my romantic options and that good men like my boyfriend, who would be fine with my stubborn insistence against “continuing his legacy” with children and my constant need for schooling, were hard to come by.
When I caught Eric flirting with one of his female coworkers over text and he claimed to feel neglected, my father insisted that, well, men were weak to sins of the flesh, and it was my job to keep him satisfied or be content to watch him stray.
It was all bullshit. A part of me knew that even then, but I buried those voices down deep and did what I was told: trusted and believed.
Eric was too stressed by his postdoc to cook, so I made sure to meal prep for two and keep the fridge stocked on the weeks when I was on service in the intensive care unit.
Eric wanted a woman who prioritized him, so I neglected my friendships in favor of his and ended our relationship with a circle significantly smaller than the one with which I’d entered it.
Eric hated when I cried, claimed that my tears were manipulative, and so when I couldn’t hold back my frustration and hurt I cloistered myself in the bathroom, gripped the edges of the sink, and waited for my sobs to subside.
I didn’t question if I deserved comfort, only why I was so weak as to want it.
Which was probably why I felt so tense, receiving it from Julian now.
“How’re you feeling?” Julian asks when we pull into his building’s garage.
I lean back against the headrest and close my eyes.
“Like I need a stiff drink and a day-long nap,” I say.
“Lucky for you, I make a pretty good whiskey sour,” Julian says. He snaps the locks open. “You want to try one?”
I do. I follow him through his heated garage and into the mirrored elevator. Julian’s apartment is on the twenty-fourth floor, and the first thing I notice when he swings the door open is its dazzling view of the city.
“Wow,” I say as I step inside. The Chicago skyline glitters outside his window, the lake a dark expanse just beyond it. I imagine the view in the daytime is just as breathtaking. “You wake up to this every day?”
Julian snorts as he helps me out of my coat.
I wander farther in, marveling at the beauty of this space.
It’s not a sparse bachelor pad, nor is it outfitted in the typical neutral palette favored by most young professionals.
Instead, the walls are a rich, dark navy blue, the decor a mixture of golds, greens, and burnt oranges.
A healthy fiddle-leaf fig tree sits in a carved concrete pot by the window, and a patchwork throw is tossed artfully over the back of a plush couch.
And then there’s the bookcase, cherrywood, floor to ceiling, and filled to the brim.
It’s the home of an established man who has clear and distinct tastes. Difficult to form at his age, and yet he’s managed.
At his kitchen island, Julian is assembling supplies to make our drinks.
“Make yourself at home,” he instructs.
I slip off my boots, arrange them carefully by the door.
“Your place is beautiful,” I say. It’s the truth.
Julian’s apartment is imbued with so much personality that I feel like I know him better just by standing in it.
I bend to examine a small polished wooden sculpture that resembles a fertility goddess, listening to the steady clink of glasses hitting granite, the slosh of his shaker.
There is art hidden throughout his living room: a painting in the undercarriage of his coffee table, a bronze figure tucked under the lamp on a walnut buffet.
Prints and pieces in eclectic frames, sizes, and subjects cover the wall across from the television.
My gaze snaps to one, a medium-sized canvas adorned by an ornate gold frame.
It’s a different style than the rest, impressionistic and dreamily depicted.
The label tells me that it was painted by one Ifeoma Nwagwu in oil, and the title is Together.
It features four teenagers, two girls and two boys.
The first girl, sharp featured and brown skinned with thick wavy hair that skims past her hips, grins knowingly at her companions: a laughing woman with thick golden waves; a pale, slight man with a face like an angel and shoulder-length black hair; and a man with dark springy curls and smiling eyes.
Their clothes are light and airy, white linen shirts and dresses that shroud them in innocence and meld into a sky bleached by a noonday sun.
It takes me a moment to realize why they look familiar.
“Is this you?” I ask, pointing to one of the figures.
Julian moves so silently that I don’t realize he is right next to me until I feel the coolness of a glass being pressed into my hand.
“Yes,” he says.
“That’s Leila,” I realize, looking at the blonde. “And these ones…”
“Old friends. This is Rose,” Julian says softly, pointing to the other woman. His finger drifts, then lingers on the man. “Alphonse.”
“Together,” I read the title out loud.
“I commissioned it a few years back,” Julian says. “The artist has this exceptional ability to capture personality and movement. She had an exhibit at the Whitney Museum in New York last year.”
I marvel at the effort he’s taken. It’s clear these people are important to Julian, and that makes me want to know them.
“Tell me about them,” I say.
Julian sips his drink, and I echo him, lifting my glass to my lips. His whiskey sour is sweet, tangy, and concerningly drinkable.
He gestures first to the woman with long black hair.
“Rose is an artist,” he explains. “A brilliant one. Has shows all over the world. You’ve probably seen her work before—she submits a lot of it anonymously.”
I squint at her.
“Can you give me a hint on which ones?” I try.
“Not a chance. I keep my friends’ secrets,” Julian says in a tone that is teasing but firm.
“You’re no fun,” I say. My finger trails to the other man. Even in this rendition, his features are delicate. “How about Alphonse? Where is he now?”
Julian hums, like he’s suddenly remembered something.
“Alphonse…” he says softly, “is no longer with us.”
My heart seizes. There is pain in his tone, yes, but also acceptance. This is an old wound, scabbed over but still raw under the surface.
“Oh,” I say, stunned into stupidity. I’m astonished.
I look at the boy closer. Alphonse’s arms are crossed, his expression more tempered than the others’.
I imagine him as the source of reason in the group, the one who kept them out of trouble.
I wonder how it would feel to lose Winona and I have to exhale out the horror that the thought brings.
“When did he—?”
“A long time ago,” Julian interrupts. I understand it for the gentle reprimand it is—that I shouldn’t pry further.
For a moment, I regret asking anything at all, and then change my mind.
There has to be a reason why this painting is displayed so prominently.
He must want people to ask. To keep Alphonse alive, in this small and mighty way.
“He was so young,” I say, eventually.
“He made good use of the time he had,” Julian says.
Sadness suddenly floods me. What Julian has in the way of art, he lacks in mementos of family. The only child of only children, he is the last remaining member of his line, cut off from tradition, heritage, from a history that I have taken for granted. What family he has now he has had to build.
I turn and meet his stare.
“What are you thinking?” Julian asks.
I’m thinking a lot of things. That despite his veneer of perfection, Julian’s life has been filled with endless loss. That the caricature I built of him as this rich, erudite, arrogant playboy seems silly now. The real Julian Conrad is unmoored and searching for his anchor.
“That you’re a bit too good to be true,” I say instead.
Julian snickers.
“I’m being serious,” I say. “I’m half convinced that you just rented out a model apartment to impress your dates with.”
“A fascinating theory,” Julian says. “So, the commissioned painting of me and my friends…?”
“An add-on to the package, to lend to the illusion,” I explain. “A broke art student in a basement whips one out for you in three to five business days. Comes complete with a tragic backstory.”
The corner of Julian’s mouth twitches upward with mirth.
“Ah, yes, the dead friend trick,” he says. “Gets all the ladies going.”
“Sorry,” I say, wincing. “I shouldn’t have joked about that. I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but I put my foot in my mouth a lot.”
Julian tilts his head to regard me more closely.