CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 18
Kari stood staring at Indrid’s gift. Her oldest friend had brought an antique French cabinet called a commode. The slender legs were curved, like the delicate steps a ballerina might make. The side panels and the two front doors were inlaid with polished burl. The top was sheathed in ormolu, the gold alloy carved with designs from the reign of Louis XIV. Kari’s living room was now redefined by this work of art, in the way that a beautiful painting might give meaning to a wall.
She felt herself filled with an eerie calm. She had expected to be shaking in her bones, knowing that she was about to put her newfound liberty and creative fire on the line. Instead, she merely flowed into the next moment. Speed-dialing Graham’s private line. Listening to his phone ring.
“Kari?”
“I think I should do this.”
“I need to sit down.” Silence, then, “Are you sure?”
“No. I’m a billion miles from certain about anything.” She breathed around the immensity of her words. “But it feels right.”
“Is it all right if I share this with Rafi?” Graham’s voice was unsteady.
“Yes.”
“Just a minute, dear.” He did not cover the phone, which meant she could hear Graham say the words, “We’re going to Miami.”
Rafi snapped, “Give me the phone.”
“Rafi . . .”
“Don’t you ‘Rafi’ me. I need to hear this for myself.” A long moment, and then Rafi asked her, “This is for real? Really real?”
“Yes, Rafi. Really, really real.”
His silence carried an emotion, an energy, something strong enough to cause her to shiver. Then a trembly, “Here’s Graham. And, Kari . . .”
“Yes?”
“Oh, nothing.”
Graham said, “We’ve been fielding calls every hour or so. The fact that you haven’t said no has had them dumping ever more chips on the table.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Kari responded.
“Incentives, dear.” Graham sounded eerily calm now. As if her own weird state had passed through the phone and infected him. “We are now up to your having the premier suite at the Ritz Carlton South Beach, and quite a nice one for us, as well. Private jet to sweep us all up as soon as you give the word. Hot and cold running limos.”
She heard Rafi cry from the background, “Ask her about the paintings!”
Graham said, “They’d like to include samples of your recent work. Your friend Dr. Anand was scheduled to have her painting delivered tomorrow. Your brother is moving and wanted us to hold his until he’s settled. We were wondering. . .”
“I’m sure Indrid will agree.” It was her turn to hesitate. “Would you mind asking Justin for me?”
“Not at all, dear. Anything else?”
“No. Well . . .” She stared at the hand stroking the purring kitten. Tiny flecks of paint rimmed one fingernail. “I have some works you haven’t seen.”
“You mean your current paintings?”
“No. Well, yes, those too. But I kept others back from the past two shows. I brought them to Miramar with me.”
A longish silence, then a very weak “How many?”
“Fourteen, plus those I’ve been working on here.”
“Oh. My.”
Rafi shrilled in the background, “Tell me!”
“Kari has been hiding work from us. Fourteen paintings, plus her new ones.” A pause. Then he told Kari, “Rafi is now prostrate on the floor.”
“I have no idea if any of these fourteen are up to exhibition standards,” she cautioned. “I just felt a special bond . . . something. I wasn’t ready to give them up, so I kept them hidden. You’ll need to come up and decide for me.”
“We would like nothing more. You’ll be able to complete the others in time?”
“I can’t say for certain. But things are going so well, I might have them finished. When do we leave for Miami?”
“Three days. When can we come up?”
She breathed around the enormity of it all, then said, “Does tomorrow work?”
* * *
Kari carried her phone into the bedroom and settled on her pallet, her back against the side wall. Sienna padded over and climbed into Kari’s lap as she placed the next call.
Ian answered, “Hello?”
“It’s me.”
“And?”
“I’m going.”
“Wow. Kari.” A silence, then, “Are you okay?”
“I have no idea.” Kari stroked the purring kitten, the world a distant silence beyond her closed door. “I’ll probably come down with the screaming meemies in a little bit. Right now . . .”
“Yes?”
“I want to go finish a painting. Maybe two.”
He laughed. “I’d take that as a good sign.”
“This rushing forward, it ought to terrify me. I’ve spent so long holding tight to one little space.” In the quiet moment, voices sounded in Ian’s background. “I took you away from something.”
“Kari, nothing is as important as . . .”
“What?”
“Being there for you.”
She formed a silent wow.
“Did that sound totally lame?”
“No, Ian. It sounded nice.”
“Did they say where you’ll be staying?”
“The Ritz Carlton, on some beach.”
He laughed a second time. “You’re staying at the Ritz Carlton South Beach?”
“Is it nice?”
“At two thousand a night for the standard room, it better be.”
“They say I’ll have a suite on the top floor.”
He laughed again. “No kidding?”
“And another for my managers.” She loved having the ability to draw laughter from this man.
“I guess you must be somebody important. Thank you so much for speaking with little old me.”
“Stop.”
“I’ll call Kiki and ask if they can put me in the same hotel. That is, if you want.”
“Very much. I need—” Her voice caught then. Trapped by all the wrong moves she’d made with other men.
Ian said softly, “You need a friend nearby. Just in case.”
“You understand.”
“Yes, Kari. I really do.” A man’s voice called Ian’s name. Sharp and loud. “I have to go.”
Kari cut the connection and sat there. Stroking the kitten. Coming to terms with this shift in the world’s axis. Trying, anyway.
When she was ready, she rose and carried the kitten through the house, out the rear door, and said to Indrid, “I need to paint.”
“Is it done?”
“Yes.” Kari started down the walk, then turned back and said, “If you’re coming, come.”
* * *
There was no question about which painting to work on. It was a decision of the heart, taken without conscious thought.
She painted the man.
A vague portion of her mind sensed Indrid moving about the atelier, inspecting each canvas in turn. Then the woman left and returned, Kari assumed with a chair from the kitchen. But she couldn’t be bothered to check.
The structure came to her so clearly, the work might as well have already been completed.
The borders became a swirling mass of gray flecked with black sparks. Pale and incomplete, like smoke in the wind, cold cinders thrown aloft and spinning with the intensity of dervishes.
At the painting’s heart was the man.
He sat upon a musician’s stool and held a guitar. His face was turned slightly toward the instrument’s neck. But he could not see where his fingers were placed. Because he had no eyes.
A tight golden flame was set deep inside the man’s heart. Despite the tightening intensity of smoke and cinders, his illumination defied the gloomy storm. The light seared outward, so that the man’s right hand, the one playing the strings, was on fire.
Kari then took a metal stylus and began drawing half-formed people in the stormy background. They writhed; they danced; they did all they could to pluck away the man’s flame. Turn him from the music toward the storm. Wreak havoc in his creative life.
As she painted, Kari listened to a softly lyrical internal dialogue. She had witnessed the marvel of true love, but only from a distance. It was there in the shimmering exuberance of a happy child, the gentle affection of a good parent. She had glimpsed it in how longtime lovers cared for one another. She had watched an old man pushing an ailing woman’s wheelchair, his gaze mirroring the sorrow that creased his lover’s features. For Kari, the difference between young romance and true love was night and day. The love she found in such moments pointed toward an elevated state of existence. Far more refined than a simple end to loneliness or the momentary spark of sex between lovers. In her finest pieces, as she painted the last few strokes, she felt she approached a true understanding of love. A softly yearning call to what she feared would never be hers.
Kari had no idea how long she worked. Time’s passage was meaningless. When she stepped back from the canvas, her neck and shoulders and right arm formed one continuous ache.
Kari realized she was alone.
Then footsteps scratched along the path, the atelier door opened, and Indrid entered bearing a tray. “Your cat is very unhappy.”
Kari walked to the house, opened the rear door. The kitchen was filled with the aroma of fresh-baked bread.
“Sienna!”
The kitten scampered toward her, mewing plaintively. Kari picked her up and started back. As soon as she entered the atelier, however, Sienna began squirming. Kari let her down, and the kitten ran to the chamber’s far corner and slipped beneath a canvas drop cloth.
Indrid said, “Many young animals grow out of shyness as they become aware of their own strength.” Indrid had brought in a second chair, which, like hers, faced the new work. “Come sit down.”
Kari sat and accepted a plate holding buttered bread topped with chunks of crumbly cheese and sliced tomato. “I’m starving.”
“I’m not surprised.” Indrid filled a mug and set it on the floor between them. She sipped from her own mug and studied the painting. The colors gleamed wet and alive in the afternoon light. “This is extraordinary.”
Kari ate and drank and watched her oldest friend approach the canvas. The man’s boundaries swam in and out of focus as clouds passed over the sun. One moment he was almost lost to the gloom; the next, his defiance seemed ready to push him from the canvas.
When her plate was empty, Kari set it on the floor and said, “I make such a total mess of my relationships. It’s only in those first moments of coming together that I realize . . .”
Indrid stepped back two paces, still facing the canvas. “What?”
“How lonely I am.”
Indrid nodded slowly. Her gaze still elsewhere.
“So I grow frantic. Desperate. Clingy. I want so much. And then . . .”
Indrid spoke to the gray-shrouded man. “You run.”
“It doesn’t matter what they do. How nice they are. How right it feels. I don’t . . . I can’t . . .”
Indrid walked back. Seated herself. Assumed a position so as to face Kari directly. “The relationship’s intensity threatens your world. It isn’t the man at all. Your enclosed space, your creative drive, becomes endangered by what they represent.”
Kari wiped her face. “How do you do that?”
“My dear young friend, has it occurred to you that you are facing your own wall?”
When Kari did not respond, Indrid went on, “You came here to Miramar expecting one thing. But your current state, your immediate needs, won’t be satisfied by more of the same. The solitude you needed to protect yourself in Los Angeles, it has no place here.”
Indrid’s words pressed against Kari from every side. Just the same, she could not deny the truth. Or deflect.
Indrid reached over, gripped Kari’s hand, and said, “Just know you don’t walk this road alone.”
* * *
Kari waved Indrid off, then stood and watched the silent valley road, so tired her thoughts felt congealed. When her phone rang, it required genuine effort to pull it from her pocket, find the proper function, make the connection, lift the device, speak the word hello.
“Hi, Kari. It’s Aldana, your neighbor.”
Only then did Kari notice the woman standing a half dozen homes away, waving in her direction. Kari waved back. “Yes?”
“You remember at dinner, we mentioned the young artist who’s the son of our friend?”
Kari searched her memory. “Liam, is that right?”
“He’s coming over this evening. We’re grilling burgers in the backyard. I was wondering . . .”
“Just a moment.” First things first. A nap before anything. Kari checked the time, decided. “Would six be okay?”
“Perfect!” Aldana waved once again. “See you then.”