Twenty-Nine #2
We gather for it, a hush through all of us.
I remember Clément at four years old, shooting his arms skyward when he first saw the Roller pigeons fly, frantic that they’d leave forever.
Now, he takes KR from the coop, whispers something to him, pets his head, and opens his hands.
He does the same with the other two. Up into the air they fly, and I gasp, watching them.
Here’s the world; they’re greeting it. KR spins and dips in the sky and we watch, hoping he’ll come back, trusting that he will so that we can enjoy the show he’s putting on for us.
And then here he comes, home, to the coop.
A miracle, it seems to me, but Lionel gives a single nod. He expects it.
Soon after, the phone rings on a Sunday. Elise, back from Mexico City. “Can I come over?”
She hands each of us a hand-painted mask, carved from wood.
A jaguar with thin white whiskers and eyelashes for Nathalie, a man with a long black mustache for Clément, a brown rabbit for me, its ears tall and pink.
I watch her laugh as Nathalie snatches Clément’s mask and puts it on, sets her hands on her hips, walks like an actor from a Western.
Clément dons my rabbit and hops. Elise is delighted by all of it, clasps her hands, catches me watching her, says, “What? They aren’t normal children. ”
We go to Pickwick’s the next day on my lunch break. “Hey, Gregory,” Elise says to a plump young man in a beret, our favorite bookseller. “Do you have something naughty for us to read?” He leads us to the fiction section and plucks a thin hardcover from the shelves. “James Baldwin’s latest novel.”
“Giovanni’s Room,” Elise says. “Sounds steamy. I’ll take it.
” I buy a copy, too, and we read it over the next few days, discuss it over the phone late at night, meet at our favorite Hollywood bar when we’ve finished.
“Well, that was gorgeously written, and horribly depressing,” she says.
“Should we get drunk and forget all about it?”
“It reminded me of Felix. The way David craved a normal life, how close he got to having it with Hella.”
“Except you didn’t need Felix to lie. He had full permission to do whatever he pleased. Felix craved both kinds of lives, that’s why he agreed to it in the first place.” She cocks her head at me from across the table. “One could say that you wanted that, too.”
“I only want one life.”
“Do you?”
“What about that part when Giovanni thinks David’s come back to him? Crushing.”
“Brutal,” Elise says. “The whole thing. So full of self-loathing. I appreciate Gregory’s attempt at giving us real literature but I’m going to need several dime novels to undo the emotional damage.
In fact, let’s go get some now.” Months pass and we read mysteries and pulp novels. We read ARTNews and The New Yorker.
Clément spends so much time out with the birds that Nathalie and I are often alone in the house.
One day I bring home an armload of cardboard from the plant.
We cut them into various sizes, lay them out on the studio floor, and prime them.
A few days later, once they’re dry, we start making paintings.
I paint the pink bathtub. I paint Clément’s necktie, coiled in a spiral.
I paint the laundry on the line, that old favorite subject.
Nothing precious about them. They’re studies, meant to be started and completed in a few hours.
Nathalie paints her paper dolls and the images from her favorite record jackets.
She paints Clément’s coop. She paints me.
It feels good, to both of us. It feels like playing.
Elise sighs at the cardboard the next time she comes over. “Well,” she says, “I guess if Picasso did it you can, too. At least you’re working again.”
Autumn comes. I’m clocking out at the plant one afternoon, leaving the building with Claud and Ivy and Janine and a few other girls, purses slung neatly over our shoulders and stepping in stride.
A small white car zips through the parking lot—Ginny’s car, but Ginny isn’t driving it.
The car pulls over in front of us and a woman in sunglasses and bright lipstick peers over from the driver’s seat.
And then here’s Ginny, appearing from nowhere, brushing by me, climbing into the passenger side.
It’s the closest we’ve been to each other in more than a year, over in an instant.
The car speeds off. Ginny doesn’t look back.
Over drinks at the bar, Claud speaks low to the table. “They’re living together now, in Ginny’s place. She’s a salesgirl in a perfume shop. Pretty, right?”
Ivy lights a cigarette, exhales. “I’ve read both Kinsey reports cover to cover. Nothing shocks me anymore.”
Janine touches the cross at her throat. “It’s still going against God.”
And the rest of the girls chime in, disapproving or defending, claiming they’ve known all along or refusing to believe it.
Ivy says, “Odette, you’ve been awfully quiet.”
I can’t meet their faces, reach into my purse and take out my drawing supplies. “I admire people who do the things that make them happy,” I say. And then, even as the memories of Ginny and me play over in my head, I add, “Though sometimes those things can be difficult to understand.”
Lionel comes over for a drink that night, after the children are sleeping.
“I saw Ginny with a woman today. What’s her name?”
“Pamela,” he says.
“Do you like her?”
“Does it matter?”
I shake my head. I’ve asked the wrong question. “Is Ginny happy?”
“I’d say Ginny seems all right. Pamela’s crazy about her. That’s for sure.”
Her medallion is hard and warm against my skin. He yawns, stretches his neck toward one shoulder, the other.
“What about you?” I ask. “You still never think about settling down?”
“Nah,” he says. “Variety’s the spice of life.” I make a show of shaking my head and he says, “Ginny’s no saint, either, you know.”
“None of us are.” I divide the last of the bourbon we’ve been drinking between us. There’s an ache in my chest. “She told me she’d settle down for me. Over that summer, I mean. Before Pamela.”
He peers into his glass. I can’t read his face. “And you didn’t take her up on it?”
“It’s too great a risk. I’ve made peace with it. I’m glad she’s happy.”
He finishes his bourbon. Stands, sets his glass in the sink.
The windows are dark, just us reflected when I look. “Actually,” I say. “I haven’t made peace with it.”
“I know.” He kisses me on the cheek before leaving.