Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fourteen
I’m alone with Georgia O’Keeffe.
There are dozens of other people milling around, sure, but I’m parked on this bench, in this museum, and she’s showing me what it felt like to leave New York and move to the desert. To have two lives. How to hang a skull in the storm clouds and adorn it with one white flower.
Art museums were Lou’s thing. She’d drag me here and spend way too much time standing around quietly. Then I’d drag her to the gift shop and spend way too much time deciding between buying a refrigerator magnet or a coffee mug.
I still have a crayon drawing of my childhood cat that she did for me in third grade. I still have the self-portrait in oil pastels she did during her first round of chemo. I held the mirror for her.
It’s on the list. Go to the Met as often as possible. I know Miles is my list buddy, but he’s made crossing things off look so easy. I thought I might cross this one off on my own.
I’m starting to regret that choice.
She used to come to this museum to be alone with the greats, she’d say. We should have buried her in the Met.
“He wants me to make new friends, Georgia,” I tell the painting.
“Oh! That’s nice,” says the elderly gentleman sitting next to me on the bench.
A pack of middle schoolers on a field trip come to stand in front of the painting and now all that he and I can see are ponytails and snapbacks and headlocks and smiles.
He turns to really study me and I study him back. His eyes start to narrow. “How’d you know my name?”
“Me?” I point at myself and look behind me. “I don’t.”
“You used it. Just now.”
“I said Georgia,” I say, pointing toward the painting.
“Oh.” His feathers settle back into place. “Well, Georgia can’t hear you. But George can.” He points to himself.
“Nice to meet you, George.” I shake his hand.
“Sorry about the suspicion,” he says. “My son is paranoid about people scamming me because of my quote-unquote advanced age. ”
“Probably wise,” I say. “People suck.”
He eyes me. The kids move away in a clump and I’m back to considering Georgia.
“So, what’s the verdict on new friends?” I ask him. “Worthit?”
“At your age? Of course.”
“Not at your age, though?”
He bats the idea away. “You live long enough, you’re the only one left.”
“That…sounds like hell.”
“That’s life,” he says matter-of-factly. “And I’m not trying to be a wise old man on a bench. I’m saying life is for those of us among the living, sure, but sometimes you’re better off dead.”
Well, George is a sour grape. Frankly I’m not sure he’s the best one for me to be talking to right now.
“Better off dead? Not really what ya wanna hear, George.”
He bats that hand in the air again. “Oh, don’t listen to me. Apparently I’m clinically depressed. Go be young. Play baseball or something. Have a couple kids. Have an affair. Read some history books. You’ll be fine.”
I consider these suggestions. “Being clinically depressed doesn’t mean I shouldn’t listen to you.”
He rolls his eyes. “I’m not depressed. My wife died. I keep trying to tell them it’s different.”
I decide not to weigh in, leaning back on my palms, eyes on Georgia. “I’m sorry your wife died.”
He grunts. “Either she was going to die first, or I was.”
“Did she love Georgia O’Keeffe?”
“Huh?” He laughs a little. “Oh no. We don’t like art museums. We’re Yankees people. My son dragged me here ‘for enrichment,’ he says. Then I got lost.”
I’d been picturing him doing exactly what I’m doing, mourning a loved one, hoping to be closer to them by loving what they loved. But nope.
“Want me to help find your son?”
“No. I’m enjoying the quiet. Actually,” he says as he leans back against the wall behind us, situating himself, “I think I’ll close my eyes for a few.”
“Okay, George. It was really nice to meet you.”
He shakes my hand again, crosses his arms over his chest, and closes his eyes.
I stand up from the bench and approach the painting. Storm clouds in dramatic, shadowed grays. The skull of a majestic animal. Horns attached at the bone. Scorched red hills below. And that one silky, rich flower—the only thing left alive—growing from the skull.
You live long enough, you’re the only one left.
Either she was going to die first, or I was.
I wipe my tears into the sleeve of my sweatshirt, careful not to alert George. Making my way out of the hall, I feel as lost as he is. Delirious in a maze of paintings.
A man in a faded Yankees sweatshirt rushes through a set of doors in front of me. He’s got two hands in his hair and a wild look in his eyes as he turns a full circle.
I approach quickly and tap his shoulder. “George is in the Georgia O’Keeffe exhibit. Sleeping on a bench halfway through,” I tell him.
“ Thank you, ” he breathes, relief washing over him, and then he sprints in the direction I’m pointing.
Poor George. His nap is over.
Lucky George, he’s got someone who loves him so much that he makes him look at art.
I stumble into the vestibule at the head of one of the public restrooms and I just make it into the corner when I slide down the wall. My head is buzzing with tears and I’m sick with grief.
Coming here was a mistake.
“Miss?” a security guard inquires from behind me.
“I’m fine. I’m fine,” I say, gaining my feet and jetting toward the stairs. I make it out onto the street.
It’s raining today, just enough to make the car tires sing. I dash across the street. There’s rain on the back of my neck.
I cast my face toward the sky, and look, there’s a mass of Georgia O’Keeffe clouds. But the skull is in my chest, lodged and jagged. No flowers anywhere.
“New friends?” I half shout. “Ha fucking ha. The old friend just about killed me.”
How come I can’t just buy a bouquet of roses and go lay them on her grave when I’m missing her?
No. When I miss Lou I weep at the Met and make passersby cross the street to get away from me.
I shouldn’t visit Georgia O’Keeffe and invoke Lou’s name. I shouldn’t dig her up from the fresh dirt. I should let her rest and just take step after step on this crowded Manhattan avenue.
I want to disappear just like George. Get lost in the world and not tell a soul where I’ve gone.
Worrying is for the living. George and I, we’re caught somewhere in between living and dead.
An hour later, I’m on the Staten Island Ferry, waving at Ellis Island and gasping in the wind.
I want to be good and lost. Forever lost. I want dark night and strangers and oblivion.
I look up from my sleeve in time to make eye contact with Lady Liberty. “Give me Lou or give me death,” I whisper to her.
I grip the rail and collapse at the knees, hitting the deck. My eyes are squeezed tight, but even so, the tears find their way out. Then, up from the dark black I’m greeted by one image.
George’s son. His hands in his hair, the look in his eyes. Frantic to find the one he loves.
People in sweatshirts who come to collect us when we sleep in public. People who run as fast as they can to keep us earthside.
“Miles,” I gasp into the phone when he answers.
“Lenny?” His voice sounds like it’s already sliding into shoes, grabbing a coat and his keys off the hook. “What’s going on?”
“I’m on the ferry again,” I tell him. “I wanna be somewhere else.”
Somewhere painless and dark.
“I’m coming,” he says. “Don’t hang up.”