25. Rome, December #4
“Sure,” I said, pulling my straps up, though I was startled.
I wasn’t ready to see the portrait. Not yet.
Mary had been so protective of her work, and I had spent so long fantasizing about how she perceived me, that I had expected this moment to be more ceremonious.
Or, at the very least, private. Mary and I needed to be alone to appreciate the material expression of everything that had passed between us.
More than twenty sittings. Plus, the observation outside of school, too.
Across the table from each other, in bars, in pizza restaurants, our heads facing each other on the pillow.
But when I rounded the canvas and looked up at the portrait, everything about it was wrong.
The shock of how wrong it was brought tears to my eyes.
I bit down on my bent finger to prevent my tears from falling.
The softness of my image disarmed me. Mary had changed the black sheet I’d been posing in front of into a misty lilac background.
In fact, everything about me had been altered: The surface of my face had a blurred film on it, as if she’d seen me through gauze, or fine rain.
The rest of my face was homogenous, identical to the faces in her other canvases that hung sloped around the school.
She’d rounded the angles in my face, shaping them into more classical features, smoothing out the bumps in my nose and softening my jawline.
Even my hair had been tidied. There was no way that it wasn’t a flattering portrait, but I was basically unrecognizable: much more womanly than I was comfortable with.
My chin, in particular, was desperately off.
But what hurt me, most of all, was my anxious expression.
I had the frightened look of someone who’d been interrupted, perhaps pulled back on the shoulder by someone unknown.
A stranger. My mouth had been almost comically reddened and rounded open, in surprise.
Through Mary’s eyes, there was nothing magnetic or appealing about me.
I looked dull, like a woman on the cusp of absolutely nothing.
I thought then of something Jean had said in a previous session. We’d been discussing love, and she’d mentioned how true love could only develop if we understood and appreciated the absolute uniqueness of the other person. If we paid full, worshipful attention to them.
But there was no tenderness in Mary’s rendering of me; it was formulaic. I knew then that Mary didn’t love me at all. The pain of that knowledge hit me in successive waves.
“Thoughts, comments, reflections?” Mary asked, chewing her thumb. I could tell she was delighted that Lawrence was happy with it. Her leg was fidgeting with pleasure and tension, like a spaniel awaiting its next command.
“You’ve made me look very young,” I said, trying to smile.
They turned back toward the painting then, teacher and pupil.
I had to stand there for a number of excruciating minutes while they deconstructed my painted image.
I was sickened by the glowing praise she received.
Lawrence kept stepping toward the canvas, suggesting improvements, using his fingernail to mimic future brushstrokes.
It was so obvious to me now that they had been lovers.
He patted her back and shoulders as he instructed her, while she leaned loosely into him.
When there was a lull in the conversation, Mary finally looked at me.
“Gussie, you look upset,” she said, and sighed, her frustration at my reaction evident. “It’s not finished, you know. There’s still the hands to do, and the hair.”
I shook my head and turned away from them both. “I’m fine,” I said. “Just a bit overwhelmed.”
Mary insisted that we go out after the sitting ended, and I couldn’t resist one more—and it was our final—outing with her.
The bar where we met the wider group was near Piazza Navona.
We pushed plastic tables together to accommodate the size of the group, and I sat at the end opposite to Mary, watching her quietly.
She’d changed in the toilets at the school and was now wearing a long silver column dress and biker boots, bangles running up her arms. Bright gold earrings were hanging from her ears, the heavy kind she got from India.
They swayed prettily around her face as, with every drink, she grew more and more animated, telling stories, and greeting strangers who approached our table simply to kiss her cheek, flitting in and out of Italian.
I should have left when the bar closed, but I was feeling destructive.
When the group moved on to a nightclub nearby called Il Gioco, “the game,” I followed.
It was a low-ceilinged, carpeted little room, an old bunga bunga dive with mirrored walls, the kind of place where politicians abused their privileges.
Apart from Mary, the rest of us were dressed too scruffily to be there, in Converse trainers and jeans, but somebody knew the doorman and, since it was a weeknight, they let us through.
On our table were three or four bottles of vodka.
Everyone was distracted, because sitting at the table next to us was the national rugby team.
Mary went straight up and asked for photos with one of them, posing with one foot lifted in the air and a hand placed delicately on his tank of a chest. She’ll fuck anyone, I thought, anyone at all, because she loves being admired .
Watching her, I was suddenly struck by how moronic that was.
I wondered if, together with Jean, I’d projected an intricacy to Mary’s character that was never actually there.
I helped myself to the vodka, enjoying the way it burned as I swallowed. Then someone grabbed me roughly, by the shoulder. It was Cleo, and she looked frantic.
“Have you seen my sister?” she asked. “She was meant to meet us. But she’s not answering her phone.”
I shrugged and turned away to pour myself some more vodka. My insides were twisting at the taste, but I also liked the harshness of it. I wanted to corrode all the softness inside me, the animal shame. I wanted to harden over the hurt.
To the right of the bar, I found a narrow conservatory where you were meant to smoke.
Inside, I slumped into a leather chair and watched the floor tilt dangerously from side to side.
Rubbing my face with my hands, I thought once more of the portrait.
She hadn’t seen me. Couldn’t possibly claim to know me.
She had been thinking of Lawrence all along.
Then there was a sound at the door. It was Mary. She couldn’t open it and was getting frustrated, flapping at the handle. Deep down, she was just a yob, I realized, as I went over to let her in. A rich yob.
“Gussie!” she said hoarsely. “ Dove vai? You know, you don’t have to be out here.
People are smoking at the tables. It’s cool.
” I took in her appearance. Her silver dress was stained with alcohol, and there was red wine scum around her lips.
Crumbs of coke in her nostril. I dabbed at it roughly with my thumb.
“I’m going,” I said.
Mary sat clumsily on the sofa, spilling the drink she’d been carrying.
With two fingers, she mopped the vodka up from the table and sucked them clean.
I was also extremely drunk, but I could never behave like that, because I wasn’t a rich girl like her.
If I openly wandered about in stained clothes and took drugs, it would mean something different.
It wouldn’t be charming. It would only affirm someone’s idea of how a person from my background might behave.
The injustice of this provoked a swell of anger.
“You’re a state, Mary,” I said quietly. “Look at you. You should get home.”
She looked taken aback, but only momentarily. Grabbing hold of my hands, she brought me down to sit next to her, her earrings tugging her lobes as she moved. I hated that my body still shivered at the closeness of her.
“What’s the matter with you tonight? What have I done wrong?” Her eyes searched mine earnestly. “Was it the painting? You know, it’s not finished, anyway.” She leaned toward me and massaged my hands. “I’ve still got these to do.”
I withdrew my hands quickly.
“What does it matter?” I said, tears stinging the backs of my eyes. “Law will pass you whatever happens, won’t he? I saw you and Vincenzo together at the party.”
There was silence. Mary’s face darkened. She lit a cigarette and exhaled. Her mouth carried a twisted, half-mirthful expression. “I didn’t know you’d seen us,” she said.
That us was unbearable. I had thought that we were an us. But when we’d shared a bed, she’d carried that secret with her. Warmed herself against it. I began to feel angry.
“He’s ancient, Mary. How can you sleep with someone that old?”
“Gussie, please don’t.”
“Look at you. You’re so beautiful. You could have anybody. Why him?”
“Please. Stop. You don’t understand,” Mary said, bringing a hand to her forehead, then her neck. “You don’t know anything about it.”
“I know I don’t. And I’m glad, because it disgusts me.”
“See?” She pointed her cigarette toward me. “I actually tried to tell you before, and you know what, I’m glad I didn’t bother—you’re too judgmental!”
I laughed and shook my head. Nearby, a group of women stood smoking, oblivious to our conversation. I took in their thickened upper lips and ugly, sharp-heeled shoes. I hated places like this and I hated myself for following Mary here.
“Go on, then,” I sneered, wanting to hurt myself with the details. “How did it start?”
Mary bit down on her cheeks. “Sorry if you think I’ve confused you or whatever—”
“When, Mary? This term, or did it happen before?” I nudged her with my arm. “Tell me.”
There was a pause as Mary leaned forward to stub her cigarette out in the ashtray. Then, in a quiet voice she said, “Years ago.”
My head jerked to face her. Our eyes met and she nodded, so that I understood the full gravity of what she meant.