Chapter 79
The gallery was chilly and spacious. I’d known, somewhat vaguely, that she was a big name now. I didn’t know how big until I saw all the people there to see her work.
I passed self-consciously under the white lights spilling onto every piece, fiddling with my flyaways.
She must’ve been into Dalí lately—bright watery colors, surreal scenes that didn’t make immediate sense, a woman’s melting face, a commentary on extreme heat, maybe.
I was more focused on finding her than on her work, though even in my heart I wouldn’t let this truth fully surface.
A tray came around with champagne. I grabbed a flute, surveyed the crowd: Women in linen pants.
People laughing, tilting their heads back too far.
Men standing close to the art. And then: her talking to an older couple in the far corner, a man with smooth dark skin hovering behind her.
She laughed. It looked practiced now, not the wild thing I remembered.
Realizing my mistake, I started toward the door, but she saw me. She waited a breath before excusing herself from the couple and coming toward me, the man trailing her.
“Cat.” She smiled, dark red lips. She had the same lustrous bob, now with a fringe. Her soft arms were suddenly around me. I felt her smooth back under my fingertips. She was wearing a black halter dress with a long piece of fabric floating down the back.
Pulling away to look at me, “Has it been ages or has it been ages?”
“It’s been ages,” I parroted stupidly.
Her hand landed on the man’s chest. Who was this guy?
“This is my husband,” she said.
I forgot his name immediately. We shook hands. His were rough like a day laborer’s. Other than this, I failed to process anything about him. She didn’t explain to him who I was.
“I can’t believe this is all your work.”
She said, “I know, right,” and drifted toward the terrace. I took that as my cue to follow. Her husband stayed behind.
Southern California was at the tail end of a heat wave. I flapped my hand in front of my face, which just felt like someone breathing hot breath on my cheek. Tents crowded the sidewalk below. In the distance, the land was parched and cracked with drought.
“Do you live out here?” I asked.
She shook her head. “New York. What about you, are you still in DC?”
“I’m between DC and here.”
“How come I haven’t seen your books anywhere? I’ve looked.” Her eyes were sincere. I knew she wasn’t trying to hurt me, but it hurt all the same.
“I don’t have anything published.”
Her champagne glass was loose in her hand like it might fall. “What do you do for work, then?”
“I’m a journalist.”
“Ah. Dangerous.”
I rested my forearms on the balcony’s railing, but the metal was scorching. I pulled back, turning around to polish off my wine. I wasn’t sure what I’d been hoping for. To rehash the past, pick through mushy memories like overripe fruit? To make up? I laughed at that last thought.
My hand fell to my side. I could see her noticing my ring, but she didn’t comment on it. It was unremarkable, after all. She had one too. I felt briefly superior for having chosen a dark stone instead of the classic clear diamond. Silly. Stupid. But I held on to this tiny rebellion with both hands.
The fabric trailing her back whipped in the breeze when she turned. I could see the chocolate brown in her eyes. Leaning into me, wine on her breath, she whispered, “Did you see it?”
“See what?” But by the lift of her mouth, I knew.
Ever the hostess, she placed a featherlight hand on my back, guiding me inside. We wove through the crowd until we found ourselves before a painting that took up an entire wall. My knees almost dropped to the cool linoleum.
Of course I’d thought about the portrait. I was certain she’d destroyed it or left it to rot in some storage bin. I didn’t allow myself to hope. But here it was.
The first thing that shocked me was that it wasn’t a portrait at all but a landscape.
A dark purple sky, white moon in mist, cliff covered in moss.
Her brushstrokes were inconsistent—languid here, rushed there—revealing almost too much about the painting’s creation.
But she was saying something, wasn’t she?
Maybe: A human with human flaws and fears and impatience made these lines, mixed these colors unevenly so streaks of pink appear in the purple sky.
Maybe: I will not disappear from my own work, there I am, in that uneven stroke.
I was shocked, too, by the silhouetted woman at the cliff’s edge.
Was that me? It was like Nia had painted her (me?), then, at the last minute, cut her out, leaving behind her black shape, her shadow, like a heap of smoke.
It was unsettling. It didn’t fit the gorgeous landscape; in fact it was a blemish on it.
That seemed to be the point, this woman who was out of place.
I trembled like someone fevered.
Nia had kept groping until she found her final vision: this beautiful landscape painting that was also an unnerving portrait. She was an artist. And there I was, a faceless figure, trapped forever on that cliff.
I tripped backward. A man touched my elbow. (“Do you need some water?” “No, no, thank you.”) When I turned around, Nia was gone. Her disembodied laugh hunted me from across the room like the final scene in a horror flick.
Lightheaded, I fled through the pretty glass doors, my body assaulted by sun. Staggering down the dirty sidewalk, I must’ve looked like just another woman who’d lost the thread of her life, scrambling like a wild animal to pick it back up.