Chapter 7
The following morning, Paul sees a man with sallow skin and dark circles under his eyes staring back at him from the bathroom mirror.
Though he shaves and tries to wash his face to brightness, he still looks a little sickly and pinched.
He needs to get outside for a walk, at least, but when his eyes land on the obstinately silent, squat telephone, he knows he won’t go.
The phone will ring today. It has to. It’s been eight days, and he thinks TJ has probably called several times, always missing him.
So he’ll stay home and eat the last dregs of his grocery store spoils—one sleeve of buttery crackers, two mandarin oranges, and a small hunk of smoked cheddar cheese.
Soon, he knows, he’ll have to replenish his cupboards.
He could just pop out to his closest bodega, grab a few things, run back…
but no. The telephone. He has the urge to pull it from the wall and fling it out a window, to put an end to this ludicrous waiting.
Maybe he should give up on the whole idea, even if it means relinquishing this fresh chance—his last chance? —to find footing in the art world…
And then the telephone rings. His mouth is full of crackers that he frantically chews and swallows, though he has no liquid nearby to wash them down. He clears his throat several times before lifting the receiver.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Paul. It’s TJ,” he says as casually as if only a day or two has passed.
Paul drops into the armchair next to the phone and lights a cigarette to try to project a matching nonchalance.
He inhales deeply, audibly, hoping to sound like a man who has the time and calm mindset to indulge in a favorite habit.
But his whole body is tense, and even as he exhales he tenses more, waiting to hear what TJ will say.
“Look, my dad isn’t too happy about it, but I convinced him to let you review all the photographs, select a few, and send them to a magazine—one magazine. What did you say the other day? Life?”
Paul pumps his free fist in the air.
“That’s great news, TJ. I don’t think we talked specifics, but Harper’s would be my choice.
It’s the right place for Judith’s work—it’s edgier than Life—and I have a connection there.
” He’s talking too fast, partly to cover the tenuous nature of his “connection”: Marty Janowski, head of the art department, the man who published Paul’s fight photograph years ago.
Paul thinks Marty will flip for Judith’s work, but first he has to get him to answer his call and agree to see him.
That’s a looming “if,” one he won’t share with TJ.
“All right. But you’ll have to pass everything by my dad before you submit them. He wants to make sure there’s nothing that could, you know, embarrass Mom. Her memory.”
“Of course,” Paul says, though his stomach tightens. What Tom thinks of as “embarrassing” could encompass all of Judith’s oeuvre. But he’ll deal with that later. “Did he say when I should stop by to pick up the photographs?”
TJ tells him he can visit Sunday afternoon, and that he’ll be there, too.
Paul is glad to have him as a buffer, especially if things get tense.
He hopes they won’t. He hopes he’ll glide in and pick up the boxes, make promises he’s not sure he’ll keep, and be on his way.
He tells TJ he’ll need all of Judith’s negatives and unprocessed film rolls, too, and TJ says he’ll pass the word along.
Paul thanks him and hangs up, then sits with the end of his cigarette clenched between his teeth, shaking his head in disbelief.
And glee. He pours himself a very tall whiskey.
It’s only noon, but screw it. He’s celebrating.
He glances at his dining room table and pictures them there: piles of Judith’s photographs like piles of gold.