The Life Room (25 page)

They walked to the back door. She saw the tree up close, the one she had studied so often from her window. It looked wounded; the branches shot up like unkempt hair.

Stephen opened the back door to the house. He took her down to the cellar and opened a locker to an old pantry. Inside were dozens of empty jugs of wine. “She drinks.”

“But all these bottles? Why?”

“You can’t trust a drunk. Like every addict, she loves the glamour of deception.”

“You never knew?”

“I wondered. But I guess I didn’t want to know. I’m leaving today.” He forced the keys to his bike in his pocket tight against his upper thigh. “She disgusts me.” He retreated into the living room and slumped into the velvet cushions of the couch. “I don’t want to be here when she gets home from work. It’s what she does at night. Why she’s so alone.”

She heard him breathing heavily. She went to touch his leg, then pulled her hand back. She didn’t know how to comfort him. She kept her hands folded neatly in her lap, trying to honor his private torment, seeing that his anger filled him with a kind of passion.

“I’m not coming back here.”

“Come back with me to New York.”

He dug a lighter out of his pocket, flicked back the ignite switch. He lit the flame. When it went out he flicked it back again. He flicked it on and off restlessly. “I’ve got things to take care of in Colorado.”

“Then I’ll come visit you. I’ve never been to Colorado.”

“The mountains. Man, you have to see them to see how small we are.”

“Do you want me to come?”

He pulled out of his funk. “I’ll take you to the mountains. I want to be the first to see your face when you see how awesome it is. Yes, I do want you to come.”

“I don’t want you to leave yet. Come to the barbecue tomorrow. Then afterward you can go.”

“I’ll stay, Eleanor. But only for you. Then you have to promise you’ll come see me in Colorado.”

She felt excited when she awoke. Being with Stephen these last few days had made her believe once more in her ability to be touched by another person, and she carried that new hope inside like a gift.

A light summer rain cleaned their streets and broke the humidity, creating inside the house a sealed-off feeling of contentment. That night, with the air crisp and smelling of dampened grass, she thought that she could learn to accept William’s death. She imagined his soul at peace, wrapped in the pines.

When the guests began to arrive she felt in her stomach the anticipation of seeing Stephen. When Carol came in the door she was sure that Stephen would soon follow behind her. She thought she saw his shadow approach but then overheard Carol explain to her mother that Stephen had left that day. Carol said he’d spent the morning with her, that she’d made him a big breakfast and they had drunk an entire pot of coffee. That by early afternoon he had become restless. “I thought maybe I’d done something,” she said, “and then he came downstairs carrying the same duffel bag he arrived with, said he was going back on the road, that he had to get back for an assignment. Stephen’s always been hard to pin down. I let him come and go as he pleases. I’ve learned not to expect anything from him.” Her laugh was meant to hide sorrow. Eleanor stared at her, half angry and half feeling sorry for her. “Elizabeth, I should have called to tell you he wasn’t coming. I half expected that he might turn around and decide to come back.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Eleanor’s mother said, giving Carol a hug. “At least you had him for a few nights. It’s hard to see our kids growing away from us.”

Eleanor distracted herself with superficial conversation. She was surprised by the unexpected emotion that rose inside her. She didn’t understand what she had done that would have made him leave without at least saying good-bye to her. Had she misread the situation? She told herself that he couldn’t bear being at home any longer and she shouldn’t take it personally. When she went to sleep that night she could no longer recall the feel of his kiss or the solid weight of his fingers in her hand. She tried to picture him, but he had become vague and remote. She couldn’t remember his voice. Maybe she had only imagined he had once touched her lips with his own.

After William died she had isolated herself when she wasn’t studying, often sitting quietly in dark, cool cathedrals around the city. But once she saw Stephen Mason in Chicago that summer, something opened inside her. She needed to live again. She wasn’t going to feel sorry for herself any longer. The fact that William had chosen death made her cling to life more profoundly.

She hadn’t spoken to Adam since he’d walked away with her perfume bottle. His possessiveness seemed inconsequential in the face of William’s death. What mattered was that she needed a friend. “I’ve missed you,” she said when she called. “I committed myself to you. I mean to your work. I’m ready to come back to the studio.” He had described their silent moments working together as a sanctuary in which they gave their presence over to a higher power; she needed to be inside his sanctuary. They agreed to resume their relationship as painter and model, barely missing a beat.

She thought about how he had once described the studio as a life room. “I tell my students to go in and find the meaning,” he had said. “For each person it is different.” Eleanor thought of the life room as one that was of endless length and endless breadth. A room filled with one’s sole associations.

“I knew you’d eventually call,” Adam said. “But it had to be you. You had to want me. You look different. Older.” The canvases she had modeled for had sat in his studio unfinished since she had left. “They’ve been speaking to me. But I didn’t know how to access their meaning until you walked in the door.” She sat down on the daybed and took off her sweater. He began each of their sessions by playing Jascha Heifetz performing Bach’s violin sonatas. “You look sad. Has something happened?” He was already behind the canvas, eager to work.

“It’s William. He killed himself.”

“The boy from home?”

She hadn’t said William’s name in so long that just talking about him filled her with unexpected emotion.

He put down his paintbrush. “I’m sorry, Eleanor.”

“All the signs were there but I didn’t see them.”

“It’s not your fault. You know that.”

“It’s okay,” she said. It was still too painful to talk about. “Let’s work.”

She felt the pleasure of watching Adam; it was when she liked him most, when he didn’t seem to need anything from her. She closed her eyes and held on to the image of him lost in his work and realized how much she needed distraction and how happy she was to be back in his studio. He moved forward to arrange her in the position he wanted. Then he reached for the buttons on her blouse and unfastened them. It was quiet in the room. She realized it was easier to be with Adam when love was not at stake.

“There,” he said. “Don’t move.” He went back to his canvas. Eleanor watched Adam with his brush in his hand, looking at her. Her blouse was opened halfway, exposing her white lace bra. Adam continued to paint. He put down his brush and approached. “I want you to take off all your clothes this time,” he said. She did what she was told, though as she did she felt almost shy. He went back behind his canvas and stared at her. She looked straight back, and as she continued to look she felt herself grow more powerful, more attuned to who she was. She nearly loved herself in Adam’s eyes. He put down his paintbrush. He came to her. He kneeled down and put his face in her lap. “I’ve missed you, Eleanor.”

Eleanor ran her fingers through his hair.

“You’re not really here,” he said. “I’ve lost you.”

“I’m here.”

Adam took a beer out of the mini-refrigerator. He came back to the window by the daybed. She covered herself with a blanket. He leaned against the wall by the window drinking from the bottle and smoking. “Mediocrity goes against everything I believe in. I need you to feel passionate. I need you to want me. Don’t you find me attractive?”

“It isn’t that.”

“Then what is it? Is it because I’m married? Because if it is I’ll leave Mariana. If that’s what you want. You’re all I’ve thought about.”

“You don’t get it, do you? It’s not you.”

“Then what is it?”

“It’s because of William. I don’t want to hurt you. I think we should be friends.”

“I’ll make you forget him.”

“But you’re still married.” She felt that she should resist him. She wondered if it was her he really wanted or if it was because he couldn’t have her. In the past he had told her that what was between them was completely separate from what he shared with his wife. But she wasn’t sure she ultimately believed him. She remembered the ease with which Mariana conducted herself the night she had seen her at Adam’s opening. Adam had described her as strong. He said that’s what he had found attractive about her. I knew I could never be lost with her. But it’s lonely, he had said, to be around a woman who is always self-contained. Who doesn’t seem to need anything.

“I’m inaccessible to Mariana now, because of you, Eleanor.”

“But is it right?”

“I don’t know if it’s right. But I can’t live inside conventions. I’d rather be dead.”

She was curious about Adam. She liked his mind. She liked watching him work, the caked paint on his clothes, in his hands and in his nails, the array of brushes and jars of paint that littered his floor. She liked the absorption and concentration he brought to nearly everything he did, even the way he stretched his canvas, a medium weave, not too much tooth, he had explained. He worked direct, using oil paint with no extra medium and no glazing, just a little turpentine. He liked to use the paint in its original consistency, not thinned and not impasto. But she often felt reduced to silence in his presence, and she worried about growing attached.

“Do you think Mariana knows we’ve been involved?”

“A woman knows when she no longer commands the attention of her lover. Unless she doesn’t want to know.”

Adam viewed his relationships with women novelistically. There was a quality of unreality about it, as if he were living in it and outside it at the same time. She didn’t quite trust it. She told herself that she really couldn’t take Adam away from his wife when she was sure that in the end it was his wife he would go back to. What good was she to another person, she asked herself. The one person she loved she could not save.

“I’ve been in love with you since the first day we met. You know that.”

She let him slowly take the blanket from her hands. It felt so nice not to have to think about William, not to hear her own thoughts. She felt as if little pieces of herself were floating unhinged, free of attachment. At first she was passive, but a kind of passiveness with its own brutal force of resistance. She was allowing him to use her body, and allowing it to be used; humiliating herself. There was a strange power she derived from it, shaming herself, making sure that she was not seeking pure pleasure. She needed to be overcome by passion. She had to almost hate herself for allowing herself to be wanted. It had never been like that with William. “Our bodies fit perfectly,” Adam said. She allowed herself to let go and gradually felt herself become less passive. She needed to be in control. She couldn’t afford for anything to happen she wasn’t fully aware of.

She kissed him back, drawn to the intensity with which he seemed to care for her, and felt as if all the defensive layers she had erected to protect herself were breaking. Though it was summer and the windows were open, no breeze stirred the dark leaves of the tree outside Adam’s studio; she felt something other in the air, something as ancient and familiar as the scent of rain. Afterward she wept from the sheer emotion.

“There,” Adam said, declaratively, when they were finished, as if he had truly conquered her, or had just finished a painting he had been agonizing over for months.

“Mariana asked me to move out,” he announced some weeks later while they were having lunch at Fanelli’s.

“I didn’t tell you to move out,” Eleanor said. “I don’t want to get too attached.” She was afraid to put too much stock in what was between them. She wanted him to want her but she did not want her attachment to become so deep that separation would be like agony.

“It wasn’t my decision.” He slipped off his shoe and rubbed his foot against her calf underneath the table. “But you’re happy about it, aren’t you?”

“I don’t know.”

Once they had moved out of the confines of Adam’s studio they were on more equal footing. They talked about music, painting, and poetry. “The artist’s world is different from the world other people inhabit,” Adam said. “Artists need time and space. They need to be passionate and emotional and to not always make sense. Mariana never understood it.”

“But maybe it’s better for an artist to be with someone who is sturdy, who is in the world,” Eleanor argued.

“I thought that once. But it’s so alienating. People like you and me. We belong together.”

That evening they had plans to attend a gallery opening of an artist Adam knew. Eleanor was wearing a skirt, ballet-slipper flats, and a summer blouse. Adam went into her closet and pulled out a pair of heels and a halter top and asked her if she would change. She complied, not thinking much about it until they walked in the gallery. “This is Eleanor,” he said, introducing her to a circle of his friends, as if she were simply a girl out in the night to admire, another detail in the image he wanted to project to the world. She felt demoralized, as if she could never come into her own around him, as if she would always be viewed as his model. And yet, there was another part of her who enjoyed it, who loved being on view for others, like an adoring daughter looking up to her father for approval. She realized that she liked being with him. She had tried so hard not to like it. In one of his first paintings of her she was dressed in a white blouse. Everything about the portrait was schoolgirlish, Balthusian. In the last painting, the blouse on the figure was opened suggestively, and she had a bewitching smile on the figure, who was and was not Eleanor at the same time. The strand of pearls that had been in the earlier painting was ripped off the woman’s neck and the pearls were scattered on the floor. At the very edge of the painting was the figure of a man, suggesting that it was he who had ripped the pearls from her neck. Some pearls still dangled on the strand around the girl’s neck, dropping into her cleavage. It was brutal and seductive at the same time. The painting was composed so that the viewer’s gaze went not to the pearls but to the look in the young woman’s eye, which suggested that she was both taunting him and repelled by him. When she looked at the paintings it was like seeing herself transformed over time.