Get Up, Eleanor, page 24
“Did you give one to Paul?”
Eleanor slowed and turned around. Jackie nearly crashed into her.
“Why do you ask that?”
“He was close to her. Don’t you think he would like one to remember her by?”
Turning again, to resume their trek, Eleanor nodded. “In fact, I did hint that he could have one. I didn’t offer it outright. He was quick to insist that I not give away too many, like he was protecting Connie’s legacy, or something.”
“Well, that’s her agent’s job, right? I mean, the agent controls the paintings already out in galleries. She’s the one who’s gonna decide how to sell and where to donate to standing collections.”
“That sounds right. But, apparently, I need to keep you in the loop. You’ve clearly given that some thought.”
“That’s just because of my brother. He’s still living, of course. But I could tell right away what the agent’s role would be, when you told me about your mom’s will. At least, that’s how Ty’s agent would probably see it.” She had caught up and was nearly shoulder-to-shoulder with Eleanor. “But I think you should try harder to give Paul one. I think he needs a concrete expression of your forgiveness.”
“I’m not holding anything against him, that’s true. Even if the barn came down because of bad wiring, wiring his dad and uncle did, we saved most of the paintings. And Paul risked his life to do that. How could anyone resent his role in all of it?”
“He could, I think. Sounds to me like he’s still kneeling in contrition, waiting to be released.”
“Maybe I should get Virgil involved in this. He knows more about that kind of thing than I do.”
“And he knows Paul?”
“It’s a small town, dear. Everyone knows everyone.”
“Not literally.”
Eleanor turned back toward the house. “No, not literally. But that reminds me. I want you to meet Yvonne.”
Jackie made a small noncommittal sound as she continued to follow. Slowing, Eleanor tried to estimate the distance back to the house. Her foot was ready for a break.
That meeting with Yvonne happened faster than Eleanor had assumed it could be arranged. It turned out that the next day, a Tuesday, was a good time to come by and visit The Dove’s Nest. Eleanor wanted Jackie to see the paintings.
On the phone, the caregiver had assured her that Connie’s portraits were still displayed in Yvonne’s room. “I don’t think she would ever consider taking those down. It is like a drug for her. It makes her high.”
Eleanor didn’t know how literally to take that assessment. What were Consuela’s medical qualifications, her psychological credentials? But she certainly knew Yvonne.
“Yvonne does still come out of her room. I was worried at first that she would never go for walks or come downstairs for meals. The first week she was totally obsessed.”
That Tuesday, Consuela met them on the porch of the group home. She led the two visitors inside. On the way up the stairs, she dipped her head confidentially toward Jackie.
“I hope you don’t mind me mentioning that Yvonne doesn’t know many black people. She might say something insensitive.”
Eleanor guessed that hearing it from the Hispanic woman made that warning a little easier for Jackie to accept in its best light. Jackie was remarkably secure about racial identity, anyway. All she showed in response to Consuela’s caution was a smile that might have been a bit mischievous.
When they reached the top of the stairs, the door to Yvonne’s room swung open. She stood before them wearing the white peasant blouse and red skirt that Eleanor had found in the studio and had brought over the week before Jackie arrived. For a long moment, Yvonne stood holding the door, as if still deciding whether to admit the visitors. But Eleanor suspected that it was a pose, a sort of performance art.
Then Yvonne broke character. “You must be Eleanor’s friend. Were you Connie’s friend, too?”
Jackie smiled and offered her hand. “I’m Jackie. Pleased to meet you.”
Yvonne just looked at that hand.
Taking the hint in the hesitation, Jackie responded to Yvonne’s question. “I mostly knew Connie through her daughter, Eleanor. I only met her once, in New York. In some ways, I’m meeting her anew through her paintings.”
“Then you can meet her through these.” Yvonne reached slowly for Jackie’s hand just as Jackie had begun to withdraw it. With her other hand, Yvonne performed a sort of spokes-model flourish toward the fabulous prizes on display.
Jackie allowed herself to be towed into the room. She was looking at the paintings on the walls, speaking in a muted automatic tone. “Thank you. Thank you for sharing this with me. I know it’s a precious thing.”
Still holding Jackie’s hand, Yvonne nodded. “A precious thing. Connie was like a mother to me.” She settled into a kind of meditative stillness, standing now in the center of the room.
Eleanor was watching a hint of amusement and a full portion of fascination on Jackie’s face. She stepped next to the two of them, as Consuela departed down the stairs.
Yvonne’s room wasn’t large. It had space for a double bed, a small desk painted antique white, and a tall, narrow dresser of similar design. A small bedside table and one armchair were the other major furniture items. A basket of stuffed and plastic baby dolls in one corner caught Eleanor’s attention for the first time, but her interest clung to the dance between Yvonne and Jackie, the dance of the model and the admirer.
Sweeping her free hand toward the paintings on the wall again, her arm lifted high, like a gypsy dancer in a vintage cantina, Yvonne said nothing now. Her body was speaking for her. That explanation included a satisfied smile and glistening eyes. Eleanor wasn’t even looking at the paintings.
Jackie stood enthralled by the portraits arranged on every wall in that room, at eye level. Almost every inch of wall space was covered by framed paintings of Yvonne.
Eleanor had contributed the frames, two at a time, hoping they were a way of honoring those paintings, enhancing them for both artist and model. Each time she had arrived with a frame or two in hand, along with the tools for setting a painting into a frame, Yvonne seemed to receive it as a sort of ceremony. It was a ceremony celebrating her paintings, Connie’s art and the beauty communicated by the gift from one woman to the other. Yvonne continued to welcome Eleanor into that beauty.
This was the first time this summer that Eleanor had visited without a picture frame in hand. But bringing Jackie with her seemed to please Yvonne as much as those golden gifts.
“I would know you anywhere, after seeing these.” Jackie studied Yvonne in person for a few seconds and then returned to the portrait reverie.
Something about Jackie joining in Yvonne’s glory, displayed in those paintings, cracked Eleanor as if her heart were a hard-boiled egg. A disturbing feeling. What was it? A protest? An accusation? Against Connie?
Why had Connie given this to Yvonne?
Why did Eleanor’s mother give such beauty to this stranger?
And not to her daughter?
Eleanor knew objective reasons her mother had chosen Yvonne as her model. Yvonne was available. When had Eleanor given Connie the idea that her daughter would be available to pose for hours?
And, of course, Yvonne needed this. Connie surely knew the riches she was bestowing on this lonely and shattered woman.
Yvonne needed to be seen. She needed a mother figure. And she needed that mother to see her, truly and lovingly.
But didn’t Eleanor need that too?
Connie had beamed over her daughter’s academic accomplishments. Was that enough? Eleanor would have allowed a silent assent to that question ... before.
But now?
Eleanor’s value was more than the bullet-points on her resumé. Connie should have known that. She should have seen that. Seen the beauty of her daughter.
Sensing that someone was watching her, Eleanor refocused her gaze. She had been staring at the wall, a strip of medium blue paint. Jackie was asking a question with her eyes. She was studying the expression on Eleanor’s face. What exactly that expression was, Eleanor didn’t know. But her dissatisfaction had come loose, come out of its box, spilled on the floor around her feet, like the pieces of a toy with some assembly required.
Then they were all back together. Eleanor smiled at Jackie, as an apology for whatever her friend had perceived on her face during that foray into regret. And Yvonne was the star in the room again.
She had finally released Jackie, standing with both hands on her hips. It was the pose from one of the seven paintings. Yvonne appeared in it from the knees up. She was looking to her right, as if anticipating a guest at her door. Her face and posture included expectation but not yet a welcome. Yvonne waiting. Yvonne hoping. Yvonne prepared to be disappointed, perhaps.
Then Yvonne, the living woman, began to cry. No sound. No movement. Just tears.
Eleanor glanced at Jackie. Jackie was standing next to Yvonne, observing the change from a foot away. Eleanor was close enough to see the shine of the tear-soaked cheeks. She was also close enough to know that she didn’t really envy Yvonne now.
Blinking back her own tears, Jackie reached out and rested the palm of one hand on the peak of Yvonne’s near shoulder.
Her lower lip curling and quivering, Yvonne turned toward Jackie. She shook her head. She looked at the door. And then began to sob.
“She’s not coming. She’s not ever coming.”
That squeezed a purging flood out of Eleanor. As if she had come to visit Yvonne for this very purpose, to find a catalyst for her own grief, Eleanor lunged into sadness with full volume, before muting her catharsis from the ears of unseen listeners.
Instead of coming to Eleanor’s aid, Jackie wrapped one arm around Yvonne. Even in her wretched state, Yvonne was clearly less than fully comfortable with that contact from Jackie. But she didn’t resist. She didn’t move away. She seemed to be as much beside herself as Eleanor was.
Finally, Yvonne turned toward Eleanor and allowed a sort of curiosity to tighten her eyes. Then she reached a hand toward her. That was all the invitation Eleanor needed. But she knew better than to wrap her arms around Yvonne. She settled for interlocking both her hands around Yvonne’s offered one. Perhaps that physical contact distracted Yvonne. Eleanor could see the acid grief begin to dilute immediately.
But Yvonne’s childish declaration still hung in the air. And it was landing deep in a carved furrow. A seed that seemed certain to take root in Eleanor’s heart.
“She’s not coming.”
No. Connie is not coming through that door. Not ever again.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Virgil stood chopping tomatoes on a wooden cutting board with smooth, round corners. He was laughing at Jackie’s story about her husband’s latest movie.
“Thomas was perfectly serious when he compared the role to Hamlet. But the kid director seriously had to take a few seconds to try to recall who Hamlet was.”
“I guess it was off his radar in the midst of filming a movie about invading aliens and superheroes.” Virgil’s laughter ended in a head-shaking smile.
Eleanor had to break herself away from watching him—Virgil being handy in the kitchen, Virgil enjoying her best friend and holding nothing back when he heard a funny story. She grinned at the phrase flashing on her internal message board. “This guy is so cute.” He certainly wouldn’t appreciate that label. But she could still enjoy it privately.
“So, has Eleanor mentioned her idea of building a gallery on the site of the charred barn?” Jackie cocked an eyebrow at Eleanor, even as she aimed her question at Virgil.
Eleanor read that as a defiant eyebrow. It was saying, “Ha, you can’t stop me now.”
Snorting and looking back at the chicken browning in the skillet, Eleanor pretended disinterest. Not a believable pretense, she expected.
“A gallery? Oh, that sounds like an inspired idea.”
“What?” Eleanor let the spatula rest on the edge of the pan. “I think the operative word here is ‘conspired’ not ‘inspired.’ You two are scheming behind my back.”
Virgil stopped his slicing and stared at Eleanor before checking with Jackie. “Oh. Did you say the same thing?”
“Go ahead. Feign innocence.” Eleanor returned to flipping the strips of white meat and turned down the flame.
“Oh, girl, you’ve just been exposed, and you can’t admit it.” Jackie cackled. She slapped her thigh once. “You’re taking direction from Heaven, but you don’t want anyone else to notice.” She turned to Virgil again. “Did she tell you how mysterious forces led her to move paintings into the house before the barn fire?”
Grinning at each of the two women in turn, Virgil seemed to be enjoying the repartee. Then he grew more serious and kept his eyes on Eleanor. “I was meaning to say something about that. I think it is providential that you felt drawn to move those paintings in here. It made sense to me as part of the grieving process. But, after the fire, I got a good chill out of the thought that God wanted to save as many paintings as possible.”
Eleanor turned off the burner entirely, stiffening against her own chills. She scraped the chicken strips onto a paper towel folded over a medium-sized plate. “Well, if we’re getting into this …” She offered Virgil a challenging glare. “… then tell me why God didn’t just fix the air-conditioner part to prevent the fire.”
The insurance company was blaming the fire on an electrical part connected with the air-conditioner unit, a part that had caused dozens of similar fires around the country. They would pay Eleanor for her claim, but the insurance company would join other firms in pursuing recompense from the part manufacturer.
Leaning a hand on the butcher block and setting down the knife, Virgil seemed to rise to Eleanor’s challenge. “Okay. But, why stop there? Why couldn’t God help the designers make a better part? Or why couldn’t God inspire the air-conditioner manufacturer to choose a different part? Or maybe God should have appeared in a dream and told the designer of the faulty part to pursue another career, say in pyrotechnics?”
Eleanor snuffled a constrained laugh, but Jackie let loose.
“Ha! This guy is good.” She flipped shards of lettuce onto the floor in her enthusiasm. They were in the middle of a cooperative salad project.
“I think we’re ready to get this together.” Eleanor was still grinning, but she didn’t aim that grin at the others. She carried the plate of chicken toward the counter where Jackie had arranged three dinner plates.
Jackie faced her. “Are you changing the subject?”
“Would you cut the bread?”
“Yes. And yes, you are changing the subject.” Jackie shook her head and reached for the bread knife.
Eleanor thought she saw a small conciliatory shrug from Virgil, probably aimed at Jackie. Co-conspirators, indeed.
Virgil spoke next as if into the evening air, addressing the night and no person in particular. “The interesting thing I find in lots of these discussions about why God did or didn’t do something is the assumption that we humans know what’s best. We ask the question ‘why’ because we see a failure in the system. And, of course, we look to the top of that system for the origin of the failure.”
Eleanor was persisting in her food preparations, adding the chopped vegetables and chicken onto the greens. But that slowed when Virgil’s voice deepened.
“I went through this when Joanne died.”
When was the last time he had mentioned his deceased wife?
Eleanor stood holding two plates now, Jackie a third salad and the bread. Both stopped still.
“I had the perfect solution back then. I saw the point of failure, the fault where I could correct God. But, in the process, I realized my own failed assumption. I was assuming that God wasn’t God, or at least not very god-like.” His voice sharpened. “Why assume that the failure is in the only part of the system that’s flawless, and not in one of the many other parts, all of which are deeply flawed? If God is just another flawed player in the cosmos, then God isn’t God, but just another guy not doing his job.”
In the silence that followed Virgil lead the way to the dining room. That silence grew out of the quaver that had thinned his voice. And out of the way he then reduced that voice to a whisper. And then he ended abruptly. Plates clacking together, silverware tinkling, and glass tumblers landing on the table had their say. The aroma of freshly cooked chicken and freshly grated Parmesan seemed to increase in the hiatus in human voices.
“Sorry. I guess that was too heavy for the occasion.” He stood now behind his dining room chair, the sheer curtain behind him billowing with the breeze, weightlessly brushing against him.
“No. That was good. That was a good reminder.” Eleanor stood directly across from him. “I’ve avoided seriously asking questions like that all my adult life. I certainly haven’t thought them through thoroughly.” She pulled out her chair. “And I appreciate you making it personal. Because, of course, it is personal. Which is why we even bother to ask.”
He smiled at her, a grateful smile.
The salad was fresh and tasty, and the conversation easier and somewhat sedate after that. A storm blew in from the northwest. And the three of them moved out to the front porch to watch the ebbing and flowing downpour, standing just out of the wind and clear of the drenching. It had been a dry summer so far. Much of the grass had gone brown already, with most of July and August still ahead. This deluge would revive the greening of summer, at least for a while.
When he prepared to leave that night, Eleanor hugged Virgil and kissed him on the cheek. That physical farewell was more prolonged than they had allowed themselves thus far. Maybe her warm touch was safer with Jackie there. And maybe it was a peace offering, after her attempt to challenge the conjoined faith of her two guests.
She didn’t really feel outnumbered by them. Jackie and Virgil surely didn’t agree about everything religious or philosophical. She had also seen signals that she wouldn’t have to entirely conform to Virgil’s creeds to have a lasting relationship with him, just like her relationship with Jackie.
