CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 3
Kari lingered in the front room, allowing the media to photograph her alongside one painting after another. A television crew positioned her by the front room’s unsold picture, Kari’s favorite. A reporter whose gaze was as lacquered as her hair asked empty questions. Kari scarcely heard her own answers.
When the pros were done, the fans crowded in. Eager for selfies with the painter who had never before revealed herself. Kari remained mildly astonished at her ability to handle the attention, the conversations, the interviews.
Dr. Indrid Anand, the woman who had done so much to help shape the woman Kari had become, drifted quietly around the two rooms. Kari’s parents had never met the woman who had effectively saved her life. To them, Indrid was just another well-dressed visitor. Kari watched Indrid return time after time to the unsold painting. Most times, Indrid found it necessary to wipe her eyes. Which would have probably had Kari reaching for a tissue herself had so many cameras and strangers’ gazes not been on her.
Finally, her family prepared to leave the gallery. Quick hugs from her father and her brother. A kiss to her cheek and a final complaint from her mother. Her first ever hug from Beatrice’s second husband.
As Kari accompanied them to the door, Justin asked, “Do you know what you’re doing, leaving town like this?”
The answer was, she had been planning this step for over a year. Ever since her growing success had offered Kari the financial wings necessary to escape. But she replied as he probably expected she would. “Do I ever?”
Then the door closed, and she responded to her mother’s final glare with a smile and a wave. Finally, she could turn away and walk over to where Indrid stood in front of the unsold painting.
Her dearest friend said, “I heard them talking. Your mother tried to be snippy with Raphael.”
Which was precisely the sort of reaction Kari had expected from Beatrice. Tonight, though, her mother had probably got exactly what she deserved. No one did snippy better than her manager. “What did Mom say?”
“How nice it was of them to host her daughter’s little event.”
It should not have hurt as badly as it did. She had endured a lifetime of such comments. But still. “And?”
Indrid did an almost perfect rendition of Rafi at his insulted best. “Oh, madame. It’s an honor. After all, your daughter is a global star. You must be so proud.”
“Rafi just earned the night’s biggest hug.”
“It left your mother so angry she actually played nice with her ex. They’ve basically agreed to gang up on you once this is over.”
“I’m not giving them the chance,” Kari replied.
“Your mother intends to force you to stay in LA.” Indrid was watching her now, gauging Kari’s response. “She called it just another of your misguided escapades. I fear your father and brother agree.”
“I said I was leaving town tomorrow, and I will,” Kari said. “But I’ve already packed everything I’m taking. I won’t be going home. Rafi booked me into the Courtyard three blocks from here.”
“Booking his star artist into a Courtyard,” Indrid said, smiling. “Rafi must have broken out in hives.”
“My car is already parked in the hotel garage,” Kari went on. “Sienna is sulking in the room.”
“Who?”
“My kitten.”
“Since when have you owned a pet?”
“Since last month. Rafi and Graham’s cat had a litter. Sienna is a Persian-Siamese mix. It was love at first purr.”
“A traveling companion. How nice for you.” Indrid took hold of Kari’s hand. “Now, be a dear and introduce me to your world.”
* * *
As they slowly toured the two rooms, Kari found herself recalling what she had come to consider the signature event. The moment when her life finally, at long last, began to come together.
Throughout her early years, the fear of unleashing yet another bout of rage pushed Kari ever further into silent isolation. Gradually, this silent drifting around the edges filtered into other aspects of her life. At school she rarely spoke. When she entered her teen years, Kari became ever more focused on the one thing that held her. The one passion that made her feel whole.
But after the shocking and hurtful responses from the art schools, Kari refused even to consider applying elsewhere. At seventeen, Kari had no money, no friends, no apparent interest in leaving home. And in the eleven months after the schools rejected her, she did not paint. Or draw. Not once.
At seventeen, her life was defined by worries. Her mother was defiantly involved in the affair that would soon wreck her marriage. The pool house, Kari’s refuge, was lined with half-finished paintings and empty canvases, shards of her former passion. Now that she had stopped painting, what was she to do with all the empty days?
Would she ever paint again?
As she drifted mouselike about their home, Kari began hearing her parents use the I word. Institutionalize. At first, she didn’t understand what was happening. But days turned to weeks, and the word became an increasingly familiar component of their arguments.
She was almost ready when Justin approached her. Playing the diplomat, seeking an alternative to having their parents lock up his only sister. He gently asked if she might be willing to speak with a therapist.
Knowing the alternative was just beyond the horizon, Kari agreed with a speed that surprised them both.
In truth, what she most wanted at that point was someone who could tell her what to do. Who might show her a way to change all the gray days into something with color. Who could show her a compass heading. Something.
Even so, the closer it came to that first appointment, the stronger grew Kari’s dread. When she finally entered the therapist’s outer office, she was ready to throw up.
But in that first moment of sitting down across from Indrid Anand, Kari . . .
Settled.
The impossible invitation was there in the room’s pastel calm, the woman’s penetrating gaze. Indrid Anand’s first words were, “Anything you tell me, anything you wish to share, whatever happens within these walls, it remains absolutely between us. Do you understand what that means?” When Kari responded with a nod, Indrid asked, “Can you please interpret that for yourself and tell me in words?”
“Whatever happens in here is confidential.”
“Exactly. Very good. Do you believe me?”
Strangely enough, Kari did. “Yes.”
“I’m so glad. Just to be clear, anything I discuss with anyone else must first be approved by you. And that agreement will cover only the explicit issues or thoughts you wish to share. Nothing more. Agreed?”
“Yes.”
“Very good. So how do we begin? Do you have any questions for me?”
She did, in fact. “Where are you from?”
“My parents are both Punjabi. They fled the disputed territory along the India–Pakistan border. I was born here. Along with my three brothers. I am the youngest.” Indrid was in her midsixties and possessed the stately grace of a thousand undistilled generations. “May I ask a question of my own?”
“I guess. All right.”
“If you could declare your number one ambition, your true life’s theme, what would that be?”
Kari struggled to breathe around the sudden great balloon that had filled her entire being. The therapist probably assumed Kari hesitated because she didn’t know how to respond. And before entering this chamber of secrets, that would have been her own true response. Now, though, Kari knew instantly what she wanted to say. What made her hesitate was having this supposed stranger from a far and mysterious land knock on Kari’s secret door.
Indrid waited with her. Unblinking. Intense. There with Kari in utter totality.
Finally, Kari said, “I just want to get one thing exactly right.”
The words seemed to push Indrid back in her seat. “How absolutely delightful. Tell me, Kari, do you know what that one thing is?”
Whenever Kari looked back on that moment, she recalled actually hearing the secret door open. The portal creaked and shuddered and scattered a year’s painful dust.
But it opened.
Kari asked, “Can I use your pad?”
Indrid was seated so close to Kari, their knees almost touched. She reached back and lifted the yellow legal pad from her desk. “Pen or pencil?”
“Either. No, both.”
The side wall behind Indrid held shelves, mostly filled with books and a collection of antique bowls in copper and bronze. But there were also two sets of photographs. Both held collages of young boys growing from gap-toothed childhood to marriage. To either side were two additional pictures, both of infants. Kari assumed these were Indrid’s grandchildren.
She drew. It flowed so easily, the images and intent so clear in her mind, all those empty months might as well not have existed.
The infants Kari drew in ink. A minimum of lines. Unfinished brilliant blue sketches of new life. Strong and vivid.
Indrid, she drew in pencil. The therapist held both children in her lap, an act not shown in the photographs. In fact, Indrid was not in any of the pictures. Kari drew the woman as Indrid already appeared in her heart—both strong and caring. A woman capable of giving love and showing compassion, no matter what.
Kari drew her leaning forward slightly, studying the two babies. Calm. Knowing. Loving.
Too soon the creative moment ended. Too soon.
“I’m very sorry, my dear. But our time has ended. Perhaps you can . . .” Indrid stopped speaking when Kari handed back the pad.
Kari sat and watched as Indrid’s motions slowed. For the first time in what felt like forever, Kari was truly content. Tight little sparks, aftereffects from releasing the creative energy, jolted her body.
Indrid sniffed. Wiped her face. “I’ve never cried in a session before. Afterward, yes, not often. But it happens.” She looked up and inspected Kari with eyes of rain-washed opal. Even now, so early in their relationship, Kari’s new friend knew exactly what to say. “Your family . . .”
Kari nodded. “They can never know.”
* * *
Kari had long ago realized she was not, and never would be, normal. Whatever that word meant. But in the eight and a half years since first walking into Indrid’s office, Kari had found a distinct peace in two hard-learned lessons.
The first was, she was far from unique.
The world was full of fragmented souls. That was especially true for a place like Los Angeles, where the beautifully broken came seeking the film world’s special form of redemption.
Drifting around the periphery of her family’s universe, Kari had observed any number of so-called stars. Who viewed their newly happy existence through the lens of success. As long as the world remembered their names.
All the others, though, faced the terrible daily challenge of viewing a hard-edged world through crystal shards. Just like she had in those awful months after the art schools rejected her work.
Kari’s second realization was she had found a way to knit together all her own broken pieces.
In the hours spent within her creative fire, Kari was as close to whole as she would probably ever come. As a result, her art remained her most precious treasure. And everything came down to protecting the gift. Crafting a time and space and seclusion where the gift could rise up, consume her, and be.
Which was why she had not revealed her secret life to her family until the day of her departure. Even now, as the gallery crowd began to thin, the small voice continued the same fretful whisper that had plagued her since she’d agreed to this public display. That she had made a terrible mistake. Revealing herself was an act of self-destruction.
Especially to her family.
Kari let Indrid set the pace as they toured the two rooms. This was her fourth exhibition in Rafi and Graham’s gallery. Indrid had attended them all, either alone or accompanied by her husband. This was the first time Kari had ever attended, first time she had allowed herself to be identified as the artist. Before, she had come to the gallery only on the days before the opening and had fretted over the hanging of her work, not complaining, but distraught. Eventually either Rafi or Graham always ordered her out.
Before, she had watched the openings from a coffee shop across the street. From time to time, while her work hung on the walls, she would scurry up and down the sidewalk, passing in front of the gallery. Hiding her face behind a cap and oversized sunglasses. Not going inside. Never, never, never.
The fact that she had cast aside her secret mantle and revealed herself to the world left her breathless.
Indrid asked the occasional question, but mostly, she viewed the works in silence. Kari was beyond grateful for the chance to share this moment with her dearest friend. Indrid had remained her therapist for only nine months. Far too short a time, as far as Kari was concerned. But Indrid had been insistent, repeating the same response to all Kari’s pleadings, speaking the words so often they became a mantra. Kari did not need therapy. She needed a friend. Which was what Indrid had remained to this very day.
She had also refused to accept any of Kari’s paintings.
Indrid had framed the pen-and-pencil sketch of herself with the two grandbabies and had hung it in her living room. Anytime Kari had offered something more, Indrid had insisted this memento honoring their first meeting was all she would ever need.
So Kari had painted what she hoped Indrid would be unable to refuse.
The two babies, now nine and ten years old, were again painted in vivid blue. But the brushstrokes were vague; the forms incomplete save their faces. They watched the woman holding them with solemn trust.
Kari had tried a new technique in shaping Indrid’s image. First, she had created a hazy collage of grays, an indistinct shadow figure that melded into the background. Kari had then taken an iron-tipped pencil and drawn Indrid’s actual form into the wash. A single colorless deep line that depicted the woman holding the infants, meeting their gaze with her own.
By the time they returned to the front room and again stood before the one unsold painting, most of the other patrons had departed. Waiters moved quietly about, cleaning up. Rafi and Graham stood with two old friends in the back room, laughing and gossiping about the latest scandal making headlines in the LA art world.
Kari said simply, “This is yours.”
Indrid gazed at the painting and said, “I can’t possibly accept it.”
“Fine. There’s a Russian oligarch who told Graham he’ll basically pay any price. Rafi says he’s suitably awful. Big and hairy and he smells of vodka. He’ll pay cash. Then he’ll hang it in some corner of his superyacht. Which he keeps in Dubai.”
“All the nice things I’ve said about you over the years,” Indrid said, “I take them back.”
Kari struggled to find some way of saying what she felt. Such words had never come easy, if at all. But this time she needed to knit them into the bond that joined them. “You are why I can do this. Be here. Meet the world. Speak with my family. To say thanks just isn’t enough. I did this for you. It would mean the world—”
“Stop. Just stop.” Indrid wiped her face. “I could not love you more if you were the daughter I never had.”