The Seducer (11 page)

“It's not all about doing what you like, Mama,” Michelle rebutted. “It's about survival,” she repeated word-by-word one of her father's statements.

Ana winced at the comment. “Let's pick up your brother,” she placed her hand upon Michelle's shoulder, directing her towards Allen's classroom.

Even within the boundaries of his familiar surroundings, little Allen looked confused. Ana's eyes lit up as soon as she saw him. “Did you have a nice day at school today?” she asked him, planting a kiss upon the velvety softness of his cheek.

“I guess.”

“What did you do?”

The boy shrugged. “I don't know. Nothing special.”

“You don't know? Weren't you there, in class?” his sister interjected.

Allen's buttons were easily pushed. “Stop it!” he objected in a whinny tone, already brought to the edge of tears by her comment. “We didn't do any stuff today!”

“That's all right. On some days, they review,” Ana intervened in her son's defense. She had already retrieved his lunch box, coat and backpack, since, when left to his own devices, Allen let them find shelter on the lost and found table outside the classroom.

“You always take his side,” Michelle looked reproachfully at her mother as they made their way through the busy parking lot.

“Only when you poke it,” Ana unlocked the car doors. “Make sure you put on your seatbelts.”

“I know, Mama, I'm not stupid,” the girl protested. Then her tone changed, as she remembered something. “Know what? Our Social Studies teacher told us that the Renaissance Festival is coming to Ann Arbor this weekend. Can we go there please?”

“It's fine with me. But we'll have to ask your father.”

That evening, after Rob had already eaten dinner and retreated into his office, Ana knocked lightly on his door to consult with him about their weekend plans. She overheard him talking on the phone but entered nonetheless. She was greeted by his aggressive gaze. His left hand fluttered rapidly in the air to shoo her away. Ordinarily, Ana didn't let Rob's dismissive behavior get to her. But on that evening, for some reason, it did. She went into the bedroom. To calm down her nerves, she turned on the radio to her favorite jazz station. The lulling, sultry sounds of a singer bemoaning lost love fit her melancholy mood. As she became lost in the chords of resonant emotions, Rob poked his head through the door. His features were distorted by a familiar smile. Ana looked at him with undisguised contempt and fluttered her hand, exactly as he had done to her. “Not now, please. I'm relaxing,” she said. Rob retreated, troubled by the lingering intuition that they had little left to hope for in their marriage.

Ana stepped into the gallery which exhibited her artwork. She secretly hoped that an important art critic would drop by, see her work and whip up a sensational article on her paintings, which would instantly catapult her to celebrity. Not that she painted to become famous. She painted to express herself, as any artist does. But with fame came money, which, Ana felt, would shift the balance of power in her family. If she were more successful, Rob might treat her with more respect, like he used to back in college, when she was winning all those prizes and he saw in her so much artistic promise. In turn, Michelle would see that pursuing your dreams isn't necessarily a waste of time. As for Allen, Ana was obliged to admit that her son's attitude wouldn't change much. He was the least judgmental member of the family.

Surveying the gallery, Ana noticed a woman with asymmetrical salt-and­pepper hair. She was examining her work down the sharp incline of her pointy nose, an impressive feat given that the paintings were hung above eye-level. She looks snooty, Ana assessed her. She then spotted a more promising prospect. A gentleman in a dark suit was contemplating her latest painting. It featured two naked lovers locked in an embrace: but not a happy one, God forbid! The figures' tortuous positioning, the angular shapes of their bodies, the grayish tint of their sickly skin and the anguish reflected upon their pasty features, all suggested an attitude of suffering and despair. Well, I had to put a sexier painting in this show since Tracy asked me to, Ana justified to herself this concession to what she considered to be popular taste. Tracy, the gallery owner, had recently speculated that perhaps the reason why Ana's paintings weren't selling so well was because they were too somber: “When the economy's bad, people want to look at something bright and cheerful,” she had suggested.

“But my paintings are meaningful and expressive,” Ana had modestly retorted. “They're more likely to touch art critics who actually care about the human condition,” she defended her aesthetic standards over trivial market considerations.

“Too bad those critics haven't set foot in my gallery yet,” Tracy had responded. Although she was as sensitive as a businesswoman could be without going bankrupt, Tracy nonetheless indicated that perhaps the expression of anguish, which was obviously Ana's forte, could be combined with motifs that were more popular, such as nudity and sex.

“So you want me to depict rape scenes?” Ana put two and two together.

“What? No, of course not! I was only making a suggestion. If I were you, I'd paint pretty landscapes, flowers or vases. Something neutral that people might actually want to display in their homes and offices,” Tracy advanced a novel idea.

But Ana dismissed such a crude vulgarization of her artistic talent. “I don't paint to sell. I paint to express,” she said. Tracy, however, politely reminded her that if she wanted to continue expressing in her gallery, she'd need to become more adaptable to the taste of their customers. As she was focusing upon such sobering recollections, Ana spotted a young man with glossy hair and dark eyes. For some reason, he looked familiar to her. Within a few seconds, she recognized him. It's Michael, that nice, adorably shy Catholic young man she recently met in church! Without making direct eye contact with Ana, Michael went straight to her new painting of the two lovers. He appeared to be examining it closely.

“Hi. Thanks for coming to my exhibit,” Ana approached him.

“I said I would, didn't I?” Michael turned to her with a friendly smile.

Gosh, he's even better looking than I remembered, she observed. Don't look at her tits, Michael told himself, attempting to focus on Ana's eyes instead. But he couldn't help but notice in passing that her outfit was Jess modest than the one she had worn in church. This time the young woman wore a short brown dress that hugged her curves.

“I really like this painting,” he said, assuming a contemplative demeanor. “I especially love the set of contrasts you establish here.”

“Which ones?” In her mind, the painting expressed a unified theme: the suffering that results from a dying love.

“Well, the angularity of the lovers' position versus the soft curves of their bodies, for instance,” Michael remarked, gesturing towards relevant parts of the painting. “Plus the antithesis between the tenderness with which they hold each other and the anguish of their facial expressions,” he pursued. “Not to mention the complementary color palette you use,” he added, risking overkill.

As she listened to Michael's comments, Ana wondered, does he even notice that this painting shows two naked people having sex? She was surprised that Michael seemed to mention every other element of her work, omitting only the most obvious. “You know, this painting's mainly about sex and love,” she helpfully explained.

“Really? I hadn't noticed,” Michael replied with a bemused smile.

“My gallery owner asked me to do a painting about something that sells,” Ana shrugged with an air of resignation.

“And you thought that two people looking like they're both in excruciating pain while making love would do the trick?” Michael followed the lead of her conversational directness. Will she take offense? he wondered.

To his relief, Ana laughed good-naturedly. “That's what I call a compromise. Usually, I paint only serious themes,” she made a sweeping movement with her hand to indicate her other paintings, which featured popular themes, such as death, disease, massacre, hunger and despair. “I depicted the scene just to please Tracy.”

Michael nodded in agreement. “I get it. Enough anguish to please critics and enough nudity to please customers.”

“That was precisely my theory,” the quirky artist concurred.

“Just out of curiosity, has anybody expressed interest in buying this particular painting yet?”

“Let's just say that my hypothesis has not yet been confirmed.”

“Good. Because I'd like to buy it,” Michael offered, surprised by his own atypical impulse of generosity.

Ana directed him an incredulous look. “Did you take a peek at the price tag yet?”

“Why? Do I look that poor to you?”

“I didn't mean to suggest that ...”

Michael glanced at the title of the painting. “
Goodbye forever
? What's that all about?” Then he noticed the price, “Three thousand bucks? Holy shit!”

“You are aware of the fact this is a posh art gallery, not a flea market, right?” Ana double-checked.

“Yes and I stand by my offer,” he confirmed.

“You really don't need to, honestly. I'm sufficiently impressed by your noble intentions,” she assured him.

“No, I mean what I say. I want to buy it,” Michael insisted.

“Are you sure?” When he nodded, Ana's face lit up with childlike joy. “Thank you so much!” She stepped forward and hugged him so tightly that he could feel the softness of her breasts pressed up against his chest. As she whispered a few more words of gratitude, currents of tingles ran from his ear to his neck, through his torso, all the way down to his toes.

“I really do like your art, Ana,” Michael said. “You have a way of expressing the sadder emotions. You give them nuance and range. Personally, I haven't seen many contemporary painters who are able to do that as well as you do.” As he uttered the word range, he made a sweeping gesture with his hand, which accidentally brushed up against Ana's hip. Michael's whole body quivered, electrified by this unexpected touch. “Sorry,” he apologized.

“Don't worry about it,” she placed her hand briefly upon his shoulder. “I'm Romanian. We Latin women are used to a lot worse.”

He looked at her with a sense of relief. She's absolutely radiant, he thought. And that wasn't just his impression. In point of fact, Ana beamed with delight. Many people had complimented her paintings and some had bought them. But hardly anyone grasped their essence as well as Michael. “I really appreciate your gesture. It's so nice of you,” she repeated.

“Well, don't thank me yet. I still have to seal the deal with the gallery owner,” Michael reminded her. The young woman promptly ushered him into Tracy's office.

After they parted on that Friday afternoon, Ana left the gallery in a daze. She looked up at the sunny September sky. The clouds were so clearly defined that they almost looked painted upon a pale blue background. I must be floating on air, she told herself, uplifted by a sense of peaceful elation. Each time she recalled Michael's fluid gaze gliding over her body and pausing to look admiringly into her eyes, she fell into a trance, like a schoolgirl experiencing her first infatuation.

Under the spell of these fresh impressions, Ana crossed the street to take the People Mover to the RenCen, where she had parked her car. When she arrived downtown, there seemed to be a big commotion around the subway station.

“What happened?” an elderly woman asked.

“A man fell under the train,” replied a middle-aged woman wearing clogs.

“Did someone push him?” a young man wanted to know.

“No. I heard this guy who was a friend of his say that he threw himself under the train,” a young woman commented.

“But why?” the first woman inquired.

The young woman shrugged. “Who knows? Poor guy ... His friend was saying that has a wife and three kids. Can you imagine what those poor souls will feel when they find out about what happened to their dad?”

These snippets of conversation sobered Ana, taking her mind off her recent encounter with Michael. On the drive back home, she kept thinking about that misfortunate man's suicide. What could have driven him to such a desperate act? she wondered. Was it alcohol? Debt? Drugs? An illness? Losing his job? Heartache from a failed love affair? Ana went through a few possible reasons. None of them seemed compelling, however. Nothing could be bad enough to abandon your children, she told herself. When she picked up Michelle and Allen from school that afternoon, she embraced them warmly, as one does when reuniting with loved ones after a long separation.

“Mama, stop it! I'm not a baby anymore,” her daughter protested.

But Ana disagreed. No matter how old they are, they'll always be my babies, she told herself.

Although Ana had closed the bedroom door, she could still hear the children's voices shouting and laughing. On that Friday evening, they were hosting a double slumber party. In the spirit of equality and fairness, Rob had allowed both Michelle and Allen to invite their friends over for pizza and a sleepover. It was already past ten. Ana hoped that the kids' energy level would go down, but no such luck. They were charged up like batteries, while she and Rob felt exhausted. To relax, Ana went online to check her email. She found five spams and three messages. Four of them advertised enlarging various body parts while the last one, by way of contrast, suggested liposuction. The three real messages came from people she didn't know.

Let's see, Ana opened the first, with only mild curiosity. It was from an artist who wanted to know if she had an art agent. No I don't, she replied. The second was from a man who claimed to have seen her painting of the two lovers. He wondered if she would be willing to do an idealized representation of him and his wife. Ana responded that she didn't do portraits. The last note was from an artist who wanted her to recommend his work to her gallery owner. Ana replied that she'd be happy to, but she'd have to take a look at his art first. As she was about to log off, she became aware that the house was unusually quiet. Back in the old days, when the kids were calm without adult supervision for more than a few minutes, it often meant they were up to no good. Once she even caught them making mud pies in the living room with the leftover fudge.