The Violet Hour: A Novel (41 page)

Abe had a new project, too. A sailboat. He eased the word into conversation over coffee one Saturday, as though it were the thing they’d been discussing all along.

“The thing is,” he told her, dressed in his windbreaker for an excursion that very morning, “we’re doing well. Thanks to Helen’s austerity, Lizzie’s tuition has long been provided for. You’re even bringing in revenue without having to teach. Neither of us wants a second house.”

“
I
might want one,” she said, stung by the assumptions in that casual “even.”

He looked at her skeptically. “Well, then that’s something we ought to discuss. You’ve never mentioned the desire before.”

“I didn’t realize I had to stake my claim! How could I know you were serious about the boat?” she added, somewhat disingenuously. She knew. He’d sailed every other week for years, returning to the house looking happily electrocuted, his face reddened, his hair puffed outward by the wind. He’d dreamed of buying a boat ever since he was a boy, but she’d always teased the suggestion away, pointing out how expensive it would be to maintain, how much easier it was for him to rent. She herself was prone to seasickness, and feared a wreck every time she’d joined him.

“I am serious. I always have been. We wouldn’t be discussing it otherwise.” The dog passed through the room on his way to a different perch.

“I don’t know.” She held her mug in both hands, growing tetchier by the second. “It doesn’t feel like a discussion to me. It feels like a plan you’ve made that you’re informing me about.”

His mouth tightened, holding words back. He had a knack for giving orders, for speaking in a tone that commanded authority, even to her. Early on, she’d clung to his authority, which had felt so much wiser and more reasonable—certainly more loving—than the kind her parents wielded. She found herself approving of everything he said, found herself defending his views to others. Together, they’d built a fortress of agreements, and for years, it seemed as though this were love, the melding of two into one. He stoked the illusion by listening to her speak and valorizing their “discussions.” But what were they really? They were announcements, because he was the one in charge. He had poured the contents of his mind into hers, replacing her intelligence with his, revising her memories, and endowing her with new prejudices she hadn’t previously held.

“It isn’t fair,” she said bitterly.

“Fair? What the hell does fair have to do with it?” He flung his hand at the word, as though it were a housefly buzzing in his face. “Christ, I’m only telling you what I want to do. Would you prefer I just went out and did it?”

“It’s no different. Can’t you see that? I already know what’s going to happen now. You’re going to buy the damn boat, and it’s not going to matter in the slightest whether you told me about it first or not because it certainly won’t matter what I think or feel or want.”

He sat fixed to his chair, and spoke in a calm, dark voice that threatened at every syllable to explode. “That’s a pretty nasty thing to say to someone who’s always talking you up. I’m not going to keep coming to gallery openings and bolstering your self-esteem if you’re going to keep throwing my kindness back in my face.”

“Well, I’m sorry I made you come. I’m sorry it was
such a sacrifice
for you.”

A door opened behind them and Elizabeth appeared, shuffling slipper-footed across the tile, rubbing her eyes awake. “Hey, guys,” she said. “
Great
start to the morning.” She opened a cabinet and reached for a box of cereal, her tiny cropped T-shirt riding up to expose the full flank of her lower back, her saggy pajama pants
slipping down below the lacy purple waistband of her underwear. Who, Cassandra wondered, was she dressing for in her sleep?

Elizabeth brought her corn flakes to the table, challenging them to resume their thorny conversation. She’d heard them go at it many times, but knew they preferred to do it when she was, if not out of earshot, then at least out of sight.

“You don’t want any fruit with that?” Cassandra asked.

“I’m good, thanks.” She grinned between spoonfuls, savoring her role as antidote.

Abe stood to rinse out his mug in the sink, then grabbed his cap from the rack on the wall. “I’m going to get you out on the water one of these days,” he said to Elizabeth as he opened the door to the driveway.

“Aye aye, Captain,” she said, saluting him.

“I’m serious, you. You’re gonna love it. It’s better than running.”

“It oughta be. Running kinda blows when you think about it.”

“Next time, then, okay?”

“
Maybe,
Dad. We’ll see.”

He regarded her with eyes half misty, half mystified, then nodded at them both. “Bye, guys,” he said, closing the door behind him.

Had Elizabeth not been home, and had Abe not been in such a rush, Cassandra knew she might’ve really made something of the morning. She’d grown to relish her fights with Abe the way other people relished their sports. The best ones tested her limits, remaking her into an extreme version of herself. They were cleansing, and if they were also a little foolish, they were no more foolish than sailing without a destination or running without being chased. The temptation to laugh was always there, particularly when she stumbled on a piece of unintentional alliteration, calling him a “bloviating bore,” or when he got profane and called her a cunt. The absurdity of it—being called a cunt by one’s husband of twenty-plus years! But if they could agree on nothing else in the throes of battle, they could at least agree to take it seriously and not ruin the seriousness with laughs.

Of course, there were some humiliations, times when she knew that
he was right: when he told her she’d become unhealthily obsessed with critiquing a fellow sculptor’s work, when she realized mid-accusation that he hadn’t actually thrown out her latest
Artforum
(yet). Even then, the war was worth it. Each showdown left her quaking with the power she wouldn’t otherwise have known she possessed. Shouting ripped air holes in the suffocating blanket of everyday life. It was a release, and an enactment of their bond. They were both fully present when they were shouting; they were keeping each other alive and holding each other accountable. Really, she never felt as significant as she did when she stood, exaggerating herself in the bedroom, shaking a pair of mismatched socks in his face and telling him he loved no one but himself. These were great, maybe once-a-year moments, moments of mattering intensely in another person’s life.

Cassandra watched Elizabeth play with Ferdinand’s ears, a thin moon of milk still shining in her bowl. Their daughter had no interest in boats. What was he doing, investing in an expensive toy that was only fun for him?

“Don’t look at me,” Elizabeth said, getting up for seconds. “I’m almost out of here. You’re the one who’d better learn to sail.”

C
ASSANDRA WAS JUST
getting back into rhythm after lunch one day, testing paints on a trial chunk of resin, when her studio phone rang—probably Elizabeth, telling her she’d be home late again.

“Cassandra Green,” said a knowing male voice.

“Yes?” she asked, cagily, irritated that anyone other than her daughter or husband should know how to reach her here.

“This is Vincent Hersh. We met at my gallery opening a few weeks back.”

It was cute that he felt compelled to remind her of who he was; less cute the way he said
my gallery,
as though it were already some famous place. Still, she was surprised to hear from him, having convinced herself, as she’d told Abe in the car that night, that he wasn’t at all interested in her work.

“Of course, hello, Vincent. But how on earth did you get this number? They’re not supposed to give it out.”

“I have my ways,” he said in his vaguely airheaded manner. “I hope you don’t mind. I have a proposition for you. I’m in a tight one here, and you’d really be helping me out.”

Her heart fluttered so recklessly she actually had to clamp a hand down over her chest to keep her stupid hopes in line. “Don’t tell me you need a yacht slip,” she said, evading him with the first thought that came to mind.

“A
yacht
slip? That’s funny. I don’t even know what that means. If I were the type—and
believe
me, I’m not—I hope I’d know better than to bring some good-old-boy request to you.” The way he pulled the vowels in “believe,” she was suddenly certain he was gay. Arrogant and macho, but gay.

She let her hand drop to her side. “It’s just that my husband—anyway, long story, but he’s thinking about buying a boat and so he’s gone ahead and gotten himself a deal on a spot at the Berkeley Marina,
way
in advance, you understand, because that’s the kind of guy he is, and all of a sudden people are coming out of the woodwork at the yacht club because they think he has some kind of in. People we don’t even like. You excepted, of course.”

She heard him chuckle softly. “Especially since I don’t even need a—a slip, or whatever. Really, the Berkeley Yacht Club? I didn’t think you’d be the type.”

“It’s not as stodgy as it sounds. It’s still Berkeley. And I’m not the type. My husband is.”

“Interesting.”

“Not really. I sculpt. He doctors. I cook. He sails.” She was surprised to hear herself still talking about herself, even in two-word sentences.

“I’m gonna have to hear more about that,” he said. “But seriously, I didn’t call about the yacht club. Here’s the thing. I have a show. It’s going up in a few weeks. It’s all local artists, and I just had one of them cancel. Between you and me, I’m kind of relieved to see him go.
He was a total diva about everything, making all kinds of ridiculous demands, each of which I met, until he finally decided I just didn’t
understand
the piece and he was going to have to take it elsewhere. It was a total fucking shit show. I mean, I never even
saw
the damn thing. Honestly, the more I think about it, the more I think there wasn’t a piece to begin with—just a great big fancy idea.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, not wanting to believe the direction his logic appeared to be taking. “And this implicates me how?”

“I need a piece!” he exclaimed, his voice suddenly faraway, on the other end of the world. “I need one from you.”

“What?” she asked. “Am I on speaker?”

There was a pause and the sound of rapid clicking, and then his voice was up close to her again. “Yeah, sorry ’bout that. Needed my hands for a second. Seriously, whaddaya say? Just one piece.”

“Well, I don’t know.” She had somehow skipped over joy and careened straight into terror. “What’s the theme? I’m not sure I have anything appropriate.”

“The theme is whatever you want! Sorry—you’re on speaker again.” His voice retreated to almost nothing beneath the thunderous shuffle of desktop papers, while her mind raced through every piece she’d ever made, including the ones no longer in her possession, trying to decide if any of them were snide or weird enough to hold their own in his trendy space. Not the umbrella barrel, not
The Reaching Man,
not even the series of fetuses that might’ve sparked some sort of dialogue with the trio of barnyard teats. Not that they’d still be around.

Just as she was about to tell him she’d have to think about it, and could she get back to him, his voice emerged again from under the shuffling papers. “Any style of work, any kind of media,” he was saying. “Why don’t you bring over whatever you select next Wednesday? Or bring a couple pieces if you need me to help you decide. Say, two o’clock at the gallery. Don’t worry if you’re running late. I’m here all the time.” Dead space suddenly filled her ear. He’d hung up before she had the chance to say no.

She stood there, vibrating, the phone still in her hand. In the quiet, she could see now that a good thing had come her way. Across the studio, her soon-to-be tree sat on its mount, guarded by assorted samples and a set of fresh brushes, patiently awaiting her return. How like Abe, she thought, fondly. How like him to make claims he couldn’t defend and then have those claims turn out to be right.

“G
UYS
?” E
LIZABETH
stood in the living room door, receiving greetings from a sleepy Ferdinand.

“We’re celebrating!” Abe shouted over John Lennon. Ferdinand barked, suddenly alert. Cassandra stopped dancing and raised her wineglass in Elizabeth’s direction.

“Shh,” Elizabeth said to Ferdinand.

“Your mom just landed her new piece in a group show!” Abe slunk his arm around Cassandra’s waist and kissed her, half of his mouth landing on her ear and half of it on her neck.

“Yuck, please.” Elizabeth closed her eyes. “But that’s great, Mom. I guess this is a big-deal show?”

“Ferd, lie down,” Abe said in his growly dog-master voice.

Cassandra danced over to her daughter and hugged her sideways around the shoulder. “I think it will be, sweetheart. The curator has an eye for work that gets national attention. New work. It’s like I’m finally getting to sit with the cool kids.”

“Bang bang, shoot shoot!” Abe sang.

“Want some wine?” Cassandra asked.

Elizabeth flushed. “Uh, thanks, but uh, no, I’d rather not. I’m really so happy for you, Mom, but you have to admit,
this
”—she pointed at her dad shaking his head by the wall of CDs—“is a little weird.”

“Oh, honey, you sure?”

“Yeah, I’ve got applications to write anyway.”

“You get dinner?”

“Yep. Bunch of us went out after practice. It was healthy, don’t worry. Sushi.” She put out her cheek to be kissed.

“Love you, sweetie.”

“Love you, too, Mom.”

She watched Elizabeth disappear down the hall then turned back to Abe. “She’s in her room,” Cassandra said, pulling him toward her by his belt.

“I should’ve gotten us some dope,” he said, reaching back to advance the track. He pressed his forehead into hers, his two eyes momentarily fusing into one. “I’m so proud of you,” he said, his breath heavy from the wine and a long day’s worth of cannabis-related consultations. The referendum on medical marijuana had just passed and now all of his arthritic patients were entitled to the relief of a second slacker youth. “
I’m soooooo proud,
” he said, this time singing it, more or less with the music, in her ear. “
I’m very proud of you.
”