Black & White (36 page)

“I can’t do this.” Clara struggles not to cry.

Robin looks at Clara with a notable lack of sympathy.
Suck it up,
she seems to be saying.

“Of course you can.”

The three of them take in Clara’s reflection in the mirror. Everything will be different from now on. And nothing will ever, ever change. Clara’s relationship with Ruth—now frozen in amber. Tears roll down her cheeks, and she wipes them quickly away.

S
HE KNOWS
this will be the last time. When her robe falls from her shoulders and she stands in the hot white glare of the pole lights, when she shivers at the suddenness of it, she knows she will never, after this, have to pose for her mother again.

It is late at night when Ruth pulls her from a deep sleep.

“Come,” she says, her voice gentle. “Come with me.”

The studio is brightly lit. Ruth has hung a heavy cream-colored tarp along the length of the far wall. The tarp spills halfway onto the floor, pooling there like the train of a wedding dress. Ruth recently started to take commissioned portraits for
Vanity Fair
and uses the studio for the shoots: Sting has come through, and Meryl Streep, and even Madonna, who just starred in
Who’s That Girl?
Near the door a leather-bound guest book, a gift from Kubovy. Someday it will be full of famous signatures, from rappers to presidents.

“Stand over there, Clara.” That quiet voice. Does Ruth use the same tone when she shoots her celebrities? Clara steps onto the tarp, the canvas rough beneath her bare feet. Her mother has never taken her picture in the studio before. All the other pictures have been staged: the lizard, the wet bed, the Popsicle.

She waits, her senses alert, the thick terry-cloth robe still wrapped around her. She doesn’t allow herself to be detached—not like she has always been before. No. This time she needs to be fully present for what happens next. What happens when her robe drops to the floor.

Ruth fiddles with the lights, then moves a reflector so that it’s aiming up at Clara like a silvery moon. Ruth is muttering to herself as she works, concentrating on getting the exposure exactly right.

In the arched windows of the studio, Clara can see her own reflection against the darkness of the night. She imagines people down on Broadway—walking their dogs before bed or coming home late from a party—looking up at the bright glow coming from the top floor of the Apthorp and wondering what’s going on up there at this hour.

“Okay,” Ruth says. “Let’s get to work.”

Clara pauses for a moment. Nothing will be the same after this. Lately, she has managed to hide herself. She has worn black bulky leggings and sweaters beneath her school uniform. She has locked the bathroom door when she’s taken showers. She has changed quickly into her pajamas. The only noticeable change has been her hair, that short black choppy cut she gave herself a few months ago.

“Come on, Clara.”

Ruth is impatient. Everything is set up and ready to go. Clara sheds her robe the way a high diver might before walking out onto the board. Preparing to somersault, to flip backward, to slice clean through the water like a blade.

“Oh, my God.”

The first words Ruth utters. She doesn’t see Clara head-on, but, rather, through the lens of her camera. She lifts her head up and stares at her, her mouth ajar. “What the hell is that?”

At fourteen, Clara’s thighs have become fleshy, thanks to a steady diet of ice cream and doughnuts after school. The weight she’s gained hasn’t made her fat, exactly. She’s what could be described as solid. For the first time not a waif, not a frail thing. But it’s the tattoo Ruth can’t handle, the dark green garland of leaves and vines snaking around Clara’s upper arm like a misplaced Christmas wreath.

“What have you done to yourself?” Ruth’s voice has lost its gentle, coaxing tone. Her voice is stretched so thin it sounds like it could snap. And Clara—Clara just gazes at her mother calmly. As if watching a movie unfold from a comfortable seat in a darkened theater. Ruth has no way of knowing how hard Clara’s heart is pounding. How she feels her entire spine is made of ice.

Ruth puts aside her equipment, then approaches Clara slowly, almost nervously. She lifts Clara’s arm and examines the tattoo for a moment, then rubs her thumb over it to see if perhaps it’s just painted on.

She stands inches away from Clara, her chest heaving.

“Who did this to you?”

Clara can’t seem to talk.

“Do you realize it’s illegal to—my God, Clara. You could have gotten an infection. You could have died.”

Ruth is still staring at the tattoo, willing it to go away. And Clara is wondering. Is that what’s really bothering her mother?

“Say something!”

Clara is silent. Her body speaks for itself.

“Goddammit!” Ruth cries. Then she turns around and stalks back to her camera.

Clara bends down to collect her robe.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Ruth asks.

“Getting dressed,” Clara says.

“Oh, no. We’re still going to work.”

The ice in Clara’s spine turns to water. She feels herself melting—all that hardness, all that bravado falling away.

“What?” she asks.

“You did this to yourself, to your beautiful—” Ruth’s voice cracks. “Why?” The word comes out in a wail.

“So you’d stop,” whispers Clara.

Ruth doesn’t move a muscle. She stands behind her camera and looks at her daughter for what seems a very long time. Lost—somewhere way, way deep inside herself—in thought. Outside, on Broadway, a car alarm goes off, a long series of high-pitched beeps. The radiator hisses and rattles. A mouse scratches its tiny claws inside one of the thick walls.

“We’ll document this,” Ruth finally says.

“I don’t want to,” Clara says.

“It will be the last time, Clara.” Ruth closes her eyes. “I promise.”

Click.
Clara is standing naked in all her tattooed, black-haired solidness, holding her bathrobe like it’s a teddy bear. Her breasts are hints of the woman she is becoming. A shadow between her legs.
Click.
Her left arm red from where Ruth had grabbed her so tightly.
Click.
Tears—is she angry or sad, relieved or mournful?—standing still in her eyes.

A
FTER THE FUNERAL
—town cars lining Madison Avenue despite the attempt to keep it private—after the eulogies and flowers, the casket lined in a purple velvet Ruth would have hated, after the guest book scrawled with signatures, the sea of famous faces, Kubovy ushers Clara and Robin into a café two blocks from the funeral home.

“Why now, Kubovy?” Robin fumes. “There will be people waiting at the apartment. People who want to pay their respects.”

“I’m leaving for Europe tonight.” Kubovy looks first at one sister, then the other. “I know this is difficult, but—”

“We should be doing this in her attorney’s office, not here”—Robin gestures at the marble and chrome, the gleaming espresso machine—“sitting in this fucking fishbowl.”

And it is a fishbowl. They’re seated by the floor-to-ceiling windows of E.A.T., where all of Madison Avenue can see them. The tables are crammed close to one another. An older woman in a tweed jacket is right next to them, eating her scrambled eggs and lox. Clara realizes, with a start, that this is precisely why Kubovy has chosen this place. Total visibility. He’s trying to avoid any possibility of a scene. But why would there be a scene? She doesn’t care how Ruth left things, and she can’t imagine that Robin does either. Robin certainly doesn’t need any more money. And Clara—Clara doesn’t want it or expect it. She hopes her mother left her entire estate to a museum—or to Kubovy, for that matter. She just wants to go back to her life in Maine. She wants all of this to close up around her like skin healing over a wound.

“Your mother”—Kubovy speaks carefully—“wanted me to be the one to explain to you the terms of her will.”

“Fine.” Robin takes a sip of her espresso. “Let’s get down to business. The kids are waiting.”

Clara watches Robin—her sister’s body is rigid and tense. Robin is nervous. But why?

“All right.” Kubovy pulls a legal-sized envelope from his briefcase. It’s hard to see his eyes behind his green-tinted glasses.

“Robin, your mother appointed you executor of her estate,” Kubovy says.

Robin’s shoulders slump with relief. She wanted this, Clara realizes. She wanted Ruth to pay attention to her—in death, if not in life.

“Well, that makes sense,” Clara says. Hoping to smooth things over.

“What, you mean because I’m an attorney?” Robin asks.

“No. Because you’re the older daughter.”

Kubovy clears his throat. The woman eating her scrambled eggs is hanging on to their every word, all the while pretending to be immersed in the current issue of
The New Yorker.

“And Clara—” Kubovy says, drawing out the words. “Clara, your mother has given you the—” He stops, shaking his head, as if he can’t bear what he’s about to say.

“Come on, Kubovy,” says Robin.

“A little respect, my dear.” Kubovy’s lids are heavy, his pallor gray beneath his tan. Clara almost feels sorry for him. Almost.

“You have control over the work,” he finally says in a rush. “Ruth left all decisions regarding the disposition of her work up to you.”

The din of the café falls off. What did Kubovy just tell her? It makes no sense. Her thoughts are just out of reach.

“That’s—but that’s everything,” says Robin. Looking suddenly a bit shaken.

“Hardly,” says Kubovy. “You’re going to be dealing with the investments, the apartment, the country house—which of course you two will split down the middle—”

“What does that mean, the disposition of her work?” Clara asks. She thought she didn’t care. She thought there wasn’t anything about this conversation that could possibly matter to her. So why is she gripping the sides of her chair so tightly that her knuckles have turned white?

Robin turns to her.

“It means that you’ll decide,” Robin says. “Galleries, museums, retrospectives, future sales of Ruth’s photographs—”

“And the book,” Kubovy says quietly.

“What about the book?”

“Oh, Clara, don’t be so naive,” Robin says.

“Don’t say that. I haven’t done anything to—”

“I’m sorry,” Robin says. “I just—”

She stops, swallowing hard. Then she scrapes her chair back and walks quickly in the direction of the ladies’ room.

Clara and Kubovy sit in silence, across the small table from each other. He is watching her carefully, searching her face for signs of how she’s taking this news. And Clara—Clara is looking out the window. The nannies pushing strollers up the avenue, the bike messenger locking his front wheel to a meter, a handsome older couple carrying shopping bags from the Sharper Image.

“Why did she do this, Kubovy?” she asks. “After a whole life of—” She breaks off. “I mean, she never—I don’t get it.”

Kubovy reaches across the table and grabs Clara’s hand, as if he needs to touch her in order to make himself understood. For the first time in all the years she’s known him, Clara sees—is it possible?—the thin sheen of tears in Kubovy’s eyes.