Lion's Share (13 page)

Suddenly she found it impossible to relax. The right side of her body wasn't used to being pressed against a mattress. She turned over; Ed's warm flesh blocked her intake of air.

In the middle of the night, waking to find her staring off into space, Ed suggested they change sides. His careful, hairy legs slid over her. Jana drifted off to sleep so quickly one might have thought she was in her own bed.

“That's your good side, isn't it?” Ed said the next morning. “Why didn't you say something last night?”

“I didn't want to disturb you.”

“So you lay there like a dodo,” he teased. “We'll mark that side of the bed with an x. It will be yours from now on.” He had as much as said that he wanted her back! It might not be now, but it wouldn't be never after all. Jana was so disconcerted that she poured orange juice, thinking it was milk, straight from the carton into the coffee Ed had set on the kitchen table.

“I'd best get home and start unpacking,” she said soon after breakfast. She hadn't fantasized about the “morning after” part and wasn't certain what a woman was supposed to do at this point. Much as she wanted to spend the day with Ed, she assumed the suggestion should come from him. “Will I see you at the meeting tomorrow?” she asked on her way out.

“You'll see me at the meeting,” he said, kissing her forehead. “If not before that,” he wanted to add, but she seemed anxious to get home. “The meeting tomorrow afternoon,” he repeated behind the closed door.

Jana retrieved the suitcase from the corner of her room and began putting clothes back in her closet, pretending she was hanging slacks up in Ed's closet. She folded sweaters into the drawers of the old maple dresser she'd found on the street two years ago, imagining herself placing them in a drawer Ed had cleared out for her. She called Marilyn, intending to give her a full report, but realized there were aspects she preferred to keep to herself.

First thing Monday morning, she stopped at the post office. The package turned out to be her slides, returned from DCA with a xeroxed letter:
We regret to inform you that you were not among the final artists selected to receive an Art In Public Spaces commission. Please bear in mind that only two commissions were awarded, and this rejection does not reflect
upon the quality of the work reviewed. We hope you will apply for future commissions sponsored by the Department of Cultural Affairs, which will be announced in the near future.
“I knew it,” Jana told herself, “Harriman succeeded in blocking me.”

The time with Ed set her off balance, the rejection letter knocked her down, and her poise was stretched to its limit by Monday afternoon's meeting. A glance at the first three items on the budget Phyllis had outlined for the gala didn't help:

$47,500 for catering (the original budget listed $2,000)

$3,000 for speaker fees ($1,000 on Natalie's budget)

$3,500 for the band (a new expense)

When parking, limos for dignitaries, flowers, and other miscellaneous expenses were included, funds appropriated for the gala alone totaled $62,400. Jana and Natalie had expected the entire exhibition to cost less than $69,000. Jana jotted a few calculations on her notepad: eighteen artists, with six pieces each, totaled one hundred and eight pieces. The average drawing sold for $900. If, instead of staging a lavish reception, APL were to purchase half the pieces in the exhibition, they would still have almost $14,000 left in the budget for a gala reception. Even The Paperworks Space board of directors would laugh in her face if she suggested such purchases, she realized, smiling shyly in Ed's direction. Ed's return glance seemed to whisper “later.”

Phyllis explained that Windows on the World didn't have room for a dance floor, but the Vista Hotel, on the second floor of Tower Two, had a lovely ballroom, and their food was excellent. “If we can put on a grand enough gala
and
can get a guarantee of coverage from the all the local TV channels and at least two major networks, I'm certain Ed Koch can be persuaded to give the keynote address,” she concluded.

“I agree it's a good idea to aim for weighty political speakers, but we also don't want to forget this is an artistic event,” Natalie commented. “How about trying to get Kitty Carlyle Hart to speak as well? As executive director of the New York State Council on the Arts, she might offer a nice balance to political concerns.”

“I'll check into that,” Phyllis promised, jotting down the name but obviously not willing to commit herself. “Any entertainers you think might be appropriate? What we're looking for is someone with a big name, but not the same people who are continually doing benefits.”

“You mentioned hiring a band,” Jana said. “Perhaps we could begin searching for musicians who draw crowds?”

“Skitch Henderson, perhaps?”

Jana chuckled. “I was thinking more of Miles Davis. Someone with a reputation for ground-breaking work in his art form, someone who will complement the artists we're presenting.”

“Well, we don't have to decide today,” Phyllis said, realizing this aspect of the meeting was headed nowhere. “The gala's not until just before Memorial Day. I think if we have a list of people to speak with by November, we'll be fine. That way we can begin final arrangements before the holidays.”

Jana felt as if she'd been given a stay of execution. But as always, Natalie broke the spell. “Miles Davis only works high-paying jobs and third-world benefits,” Nat commented as they headed back to the gallery. “Besides, he doesn't play dance music.”

“Then we're back to Skitch Henderson,” Jana quipped. “I wanted to get them thinking in terms of a jazz sound. Ed might come up with some ideas, too.”

“I should have known you were thinking of Ed.”

“Phyllis didn't bring up Matt Fillmore,” Jana said, changing the subject. “I can't believe she hasn't read between the lines of his bio yet.”

“Don't kid yourself,” Natalie cautioned. Certainly everyone at APL knew Matt's reputation by this time, but they wouldn't broach the subject unless someone from The Paperworks Space did. Everyone, including Natalie, was still hoping there would be nothing to discuss.

At least one good thing had happened today—Jana was meeting Ed for dinner. She took the slides returned from DCA out of her desk drawer, opened the padded envelope, and held them up to the light. They'd been carefully inserted back in their plastic cases. If she didn't know better, she'd think no one had looked at them. “It doesn't matter,” she told herself. “My work's evolved so much in the past month that these paintings feel ancient now.”

She spent Monday night with Ed, then they planned to meet at his apartment again Wednesday night. Jana heard the music coming from behind Ed's door as she walked down the hallway. “I want you to hear this,” Ed said almost before he'd kissed her. She saw the album spinning on the turntable and picked up the jacket lying on the sofa—
Sonny Rollins: Way Out West.

“I came home tonight and dug it out of the back of my closet. It's got to be ten years since I played it,” Ed told her. “This was my favorite album as a kid. Listen.”

Jana
tried
to listen, but she was too tense. She'd always been told she had a tin ear. Would Ed lose interest in her if she couldn't share music with him?

“This album came out in 1957, just after Rollins split from the Max Roach Quartet. Not many people knew about Rollins in those days,” Ed told her proudly. “I was fourteen—it was the last year I took piano lessons. My teacher saw these arrangements as an inspired way to entice kids who'd rather have guns hanging on their hips than be sitting at some dumb piano.” He sat down beside her on the sofa. Jana closed her eyes and leaned her head on his shoulder, hoping if their bodies were close enough he wouldn't notice her lack of appreciation. “I'd sit in my room with the door closed, playing this over and over on my old monaural record player. Then, beginning with my junior year I got tied up applying to colleges, then the pressures of school …”

Suddenly a broad smile crossed her face. “Is that ‘I'm An Old Cowhand?'” she asked in amazement.

“Yep,” Ed said. “These songs were inspired by Rollins' first trip to the West Coast. Aren't they great?”

Jana sat up straight and shifted to face him. “It's amazing,” she began. “I can hear the music! I can even recognize the tune!” She was beaming so proudly that Ed had to laugh at her. “You don't understand—I've never been able to hear music before. It usually runs together in my head and sounds more like noise than a melody. But I can hear it. I can actually hear what Rollins is doing!”

This time Ed let loose with a loud laugh. But quickly he joined in her excitement. “The best way to understand jazz is through the really simple melodies, where the musicians keep coming back to the same place. Wait—I'll show you.” He searched through the box of records he'd dragged from the closet and found John Coltrane's “My Favorite Things.” He cleaned the record off with his Diskwasher kit, then held it up to the light to check for scratches before he put it on the turntable.

Jana listened and listened. “I'm not hopeless, after all!”

“Far from it. As a matter of fact, you give
me
hope,” Ed said, drawing her close again. Her innocence brought back his own naïveté, yet she was also quick to catch on. “It's been a long time since I've just sat back and listened to music—I mean just listening, not judging, not seeing it as an event APL might be interested in funding, not monitoring a concert series already receiving support.”

“What made you bring out these records tonight?” Jana asked.

Now it was Ed's turn to smile broadly. “I've been planning to listen to Rollins since that day over the summer when we had breakfast. Hearing you talking about your painting brought back all the memories.”

“Has it really been that long since you listened to music?”

“The first few years I was working in the city, friends and I used to go to concerts every so often. Then I started seeing Kathe all the time. My friends didn't especially like her, and I guess I let too many friendships drop. The music sort of dropped along with them.”

A blank look crossed Jana's face. Ed asked what was wrong. “I was just picturing you getting involved with me now,” she began, “or hoping you'd get involved with me now.”

“I'm hoping the same thing.”

“What about those old friendships?”

“Are you kidding?” Ed laughed. “Those friends will love you.”

“I wonder how long I'll be able to hold onto Ed if we do nothing more than sleep beside each other,” Jana was thinking when she walked into her apartment on Thursday morning. He kept insisting there was no rush, but still …

There was a message on her machine to call Steve Whitman at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. “Back to business as usual, even for virgins,” she thought dryly. “Whitman probably wants to know if Walker can get the environment exhibition after it closes here.” She hated it when people called her at home about gallery business. She'd wait and return the call from work.