Dark Rooms (26 page)

It's an apology, a real one. I look up at her, and, when I do, panic leaps in my stomach. I'm not sure why panic. Maybe because I see what I think is tenderness in her face and, once I see it, I understand how badly I've been wanting it from her. The dangerous kind of tenderness too. The kind that will peel back my skin and flesh, bend my ribs, expose the wet, trembling heart at my center.

“You know what I was afraid of when I was walking over here?” she says. “I was afraid you'd look different.”

She's gazing at me, deep into my eyes, and, as she does, I can feel her intuiting everything I've suffered, everything I've endured, knowing it all without me having to say even a single word. My throat swells again, and there's a pressure building inside my chest. Then she lifts
her hand, starts to reach with it, making like she's going to bring it to my face. I try to hold myself in, stay self-contained, keep my cheek from leaning out to meet her fingertips.

“But you don't,” she says. “You look exactly the same. You're just the same.”

Her words are like a slap to the face, hurting me but waking me up, too. How could I have forgotten? That she seems perceptive and sympathetic but is really neither? That I love her but that I don't trust her, not for a second? And, most important, that I can never, never as in never ever, make myself vulnerable to her?

I catch her hand roughly by the wrist. “No touching,” I say. “My skin'll break out.”

Mom looks puzzled, even a little hurt, but vanity as a motivating force is something she understands all too well, so she nods her head.

“Anyway,” I say, “how's your work going?”

An emotion flares in her eyes—panic maybe or fear—and when I spot it, I have to hold back a smile. The question I just asked only sounds dull and innocuous; it is, in fact, as sharp and bloody-minded as a straight razor, because, as she and I both know, without Nica there's only one way her work can be going: shittily.

I remember that day in February when Mom received the call from the gallery in Chelsea, her reaction—a mixture of shock that it hadn't happened for her yet, shock that it was happening for her at all. The theme was to be Nica from the age of
Nica's Dream
on up, an extended portrait. Mom had one problem, though. Nica was refusing to be photographed. Of course, Mom had been photographing Nica for years, had hundreds upon hundreds of images stored. But after sifting through all the material, Mom decided she needed a final image, something new, something that would, in her words, “both close out the show and break it wide open.” Only Nica wasn't going to let her get it. Mom didn't seem too shook up, no doubt figuring she still had plenty of time, that Nica's anger couldn't stay white-hot forever, and that when it cooled enough
to touch, the photo would be hers. But then Nica went and got herself killed. And unless Mom's worked some kind of magic or miracle—and from the shadow flitting across her face right now, I'm betting she hasn't—her career's about to die a premature death, too.

“The show's just a month away now,” I say.

Mom picks up the container of milk, pours it in her cup, turning her dark coffee pale. Then she picks up her spoon, starts stirring. Stirring and stirring. “A little more,” she says. “Five weeks.”

“Still, you must be in the final stages of the selection process.”

She stops stirring. Taps the spoon on the side of the cup, lays the spoon next to the saucer. “Yes.”

“Has she—what's the name of the gallery owner again?” I ask, knowing full well.

“Aurora.”

“That's right, Aurora.”

I'd met Aurora once. She'd come by the house, stopped off on her way back from a trip to Boston. A tall woman in her early thirties, dramatically thin, in black tights and crimson lipstick. “You're the other daughter,” she'd said brightly when Mom introduced us, smiling without looking at me, only having eyes for Mom and Nica.

“Has Aurora seen any of the photos yet? Besides
Nica's Dream,
obviously.”

Mom, her voice so low I have to lean in to hear her, says, “Aurora prefers prints to CDs. She's driving up from New York this weekend.”

“This weekend, huh?” I say, really starting to enjoy myself. “That's a lot of pressure. I mean, nothing's set in stone yet, right? If she likes what she sees, it'll be the making of you, a whole new level of exposure and recognition. If she doesn't, though, she won't show the work or represent you. Must be nerve-racking.”

Mom looks down and away, raises one shoulder in a shrug.

“So, how did the showstopper turn out?”

“The showstopper?”

“You know, your final image. Did you end up using one of those old pictures of Nica? Bet you found something you didn't even know you had.”

Mom closes her eyes. “I found something,” she says softly, the lie so transparent I almost feel sorry for her. Almost.

“Where is it?”

“In the studio.”

“Can I see it?”

“You want to see it?” Her voice has now sunk nearly out of hearing.

“How about we swing by after coffee?”

She opens her mouth, then shuts it. Just nods.

“Great!” My appetite suddenly returning, I pick up the abandoned piece of toast, take a bite. Then another.

“A little harder, maybe,” she says.

I swallow. “What?”

“You. You're harder. At first I thought you looked exactly the same, but you don't. You used to have a dreamy, tender quality. It's gone. Without it you look more like Nica. More like me, too, actually.”

To an outsider it sounds like I've just been insulted. I haven't been, though. Nothing makes Mom's lip curl faster than innocence. She's always been clear about how unappealing she finds the trait, how moist and sticky she thinks it is, how close to stupidity. So her telling me I'm hardening up is a compliment. And, of course, being compared to her and Nica is the ultimate compliment. I feel my cheeks flush. I try to duck my head, keep her from seeing my pleasure, but she catches my chin.

“The dreaminess has burned off almost entirely,” she says, turning my face this way, viewing it from different angles. “You should sit for me sometime, let me photograph you.”

When she says this I nearly laugh out loud, at my susceptibility as much as at her shamelessness. The one-two punch: softening me up with flattery, then hitting me up for a favor. I can practically see
the thought bubbles coming out of her head:
Aurora's not driving up till this weekend so I've still got a few days. Nica's gone but I have Grace and she's better than nothing. Maybe I can pull the show out of the toilet after all.

I bare my teeth at her in a grin. “No thanks. I'm allergic to having my picture taken. Remember?”

She shrugs. “Up to you.”

Nice bluff, I think sourly. Sick, suddenly, of the cat-and-mouse games, I decide to get to the point. “I asked you to meet me for a reason. There's something I've been wondering about.”

She folds her hands in front of her, cocks her head to the side, letting me know she's all ears.

“Why did Nica break up with Jamie?”

She looks at me, eyes shuttering and unshuttering several times in rapid succession. Then she says, “Shouldn't you be asking Jamie that?” Her voice is smooth and unhurried, but it's too late. She's already given herself away with those stuttered blinks.

“He doesn't know.”

“And you think I do?”

“Know Jamie? Yes, I do think you know Jamie. I think you know Jamie very well.”

If she registers my smirky, insinuating tone, she doesn't let on. She tears open a sugar packet, spreads the grains out on the table, starts writing her initials in them.

Getting impatient, I say, “Why did Nica break up with him?” And when she still doesn't respond, I pick up my spoon, bang it twice on the tabletop. “Come on, Mom. It's a simple question.”

“With a complicated answer. And not the one you're imagining.”

“And what am I imagining?”

She brushes her hands over the sugar, erasing her initials, and looks directly into my face. “That I was screwing Jamie's brains out.”

The crudeness of her language makes me flinch. “So you weren't?”

“Give me a break. My sixteen-year-old daughter's boyfriend? And, besides, two Bakers in love with him was enough, don't you think?”

This time I manage not to flinch. To give myself a few extra seconds, I return my spoon to its original spot to the right of my knife, line up the two utensils precisely. I'm hearing a very convincing denial of what I thought was my worst fear. So why isn't the relief just coursing through my veins? Something in Mom's face is holding it back, a certain tightness around her mouth. “You have something to say, say it.”

She snorts. “You don't want to hear what I have to say, baby. Trust me.”

She's right. I don't. But I do want this to be over, and it can't be over until she tells me everything. “Say it.”

She looks at me, then shrugs. As she opens her mouth to speak, though, an electric bolt of fear runs through my body, bringing me to my feet so quickly my chair shoots out behind me, crashes into the wall. She stares at me in surprise. “I have to pee,” I mumble.

The Bakery Art's Café's bathroom is unisex, naturally, and without a proper lock, just one of those flimsy eye hook things. There's a chair inside, though, and I prop it against the door. After flushing down the bites of toast I throw up, I stand before the mirror, gaze at my reflection. I rinse my mouth out, rinse it out again.

At last I return to the main area. Weaving through the jammed-together tables and scattered chairs, I make my way toward my mother.

Mom lifts her cup of coffee, blows on it, even though it must be ice-cold by now. She reaches up, takes out her clip, letting her hair, a brown so dark it appears black—Nica's shade exactly—tumble to her shoulders, then repins it in a slightly different way. She touches the middle tine of
her fork, the edge of her saucer, the lobe of her ear. She's stalling. It's okay, I tell myself. I can wait.

“I wish I still smoked,” she says with a sigh.

“Even if you did, you couldn't smoke in here. It's as illegal in Vermont as it is in Connecticut.”

“I could until someone stops me.”

I look around, careful to avoid the eye of our waitress so she doesn't think I'm trying to signal her. I spot a boy with nicotine-stained fingers sitting at a table by himself. I walk over, ask him if he has an extra cigarette. He pulls one out from behind his ear. I stick it between my lips so he can light it. It's bent from the curve of his skull and tastes waxy from whatever he styles his hair with. I inhale without letting any of the smoke into my lungs. After thanking the boy, I return to Mom.

“Talk,” I say, as I hand her the cigarette.

She brings it to her face, drawing on the filter so hard her lips disappear. She holds the smoke in her mouth a long time before exhaling reluctantly. At last she begins: “I graduated from art school at twenty-one. Up until then, I'd lived in a small town in Vermont and Providence, Rhode Island, also a small town. I decided there'd be no more small towns for me. I wanted a big city, the biggest. I wanted New York City.”

“So what stopped you from getting it?”

“Money, not having any. I knew if I went there straightaway, it'd be hand-to-mouth, working round the clock to pay for some toilet bowl in a crummy neighborhood. No time for photography. No time for romance. No time for anything. It would be better, I decided, to move to a less expensive city for a year or two, save my pennies, develop a portfolio. I picked Hartford. God knows it's cheap. And a lot of Connecticut is rural, important to me at the time because I was still taking pictures of twigs and berries. Plus, I knew someone who knew someone whose mother-in-law was the art teacher at Chandler and about to retire. I interviewed for the position and was hired.”

She pauses to take another drag on the cigarette. What she's saying doesn't have anything to do with Nica and Jamie, but I'm interested almost in spite of myself. She's always been so evasive about her past, so cagey with the details.

“That first semester was lonely. I was the youngest faculty member by nearly a decade. I barely spoke to anyone outside the classroom. And I was spending most of my nonteaching time in the campus darkroom. And since I was a dorm parent I didn't get out much on nights or weekends. I was making it through, but I was counting down the days. Then came the Alumni Winter Fund-Raising Luncheon. I would have skipped out, only I'd already missed the Alumni Fall Fund-Raising Dinner and I was skating on thin ice with Dean Crowley as it was, so I went. That's where I met James. He was—”

“James?” I interrupt. “James who?”

She looks at me. “James Amory.” Like, who else?

“Jamie's dad,” I say, clarifying.

“Well, not then he wasn't. He was just James. Crowley used to trot him out at all the fund-raising functions. Still does. He's an Amory, a direct descendant of one of the original Chandler Academy families. Represents continuity, I guess. Not to mention, he looks great in a three-piece suit. He looked especially great in a three-piece suit twenty years ago. The speech he gave that day wasn't exactly impressive, but it was charming, self-deprecating. He noticed me as soon as I walked in. He was shy, though. I had to go up to him.”

I'm in shock. I'm beyond in shock. I'm in disbelief. Mom and Mr. Amory? I'm careful, though, not to reveal myself. My voice neutral, I say, “Was he married?”

“Not then, no.”

“But he'd already met Mrs. Amory?”

“They were engaged. Didn't stop the girls from chasing him, though. He was tall and graceful and lazy-eyed, like some big beautiful cat.”

“Sounds like Jamie.”

“Jamie's his twin.”