The Yellow Braid (14 page)

***

That night Nina pleaded with Tommy. “I’m not
a bad person. And there’s nothing immoral about those photographs.
They’re beautiful. They’re art. For the first time in my life I’ve
produced genuine art. If you saw how other people view them, you’d
understand.”

Normally slow to anger, Tommy didn’t know
how to control the frenzy that rocked his insides. “You’re
suggesting that I go to the exhibition, knowing how I feel. That
takes balls, Nina. Real balls.”

“Yes, go for me.” Nina looked him in the eye
and defied him.

“You’re cocksure of yourself because John
Straub is in love with your work. Fuck! All the goddamn critics
probably will be, for Christ’s sake! Now tell me. Where does your
love for me come into this—for my opinion, for Livia?”

“
If you gave
any
thought to Livia you’d attend the opening. And as for your
opinion, it doesn’t count. This isn’t about you. That’s what you
don’t get.”

“
No, that’s what
you
don’t get,” he said and stomped out, leaving the
front door swinging open behind him.

Minutes later Nina heard his car skid out of
the driveway. She ran up to her bedroom where the quietest cry came
out of her, a muffled yelp. On her nightstand was a photo taken at
the New York Botanical Garden. Tommy, Livia, and herself wore silly
grins, trying to hold back from laughing at the couple who took the
photo: a bulging, burly man who wore a hearing aid and his short,
effeminate, overbearing partner who yelled instructions that went
unheard.

Nina’s body sagged. Only with great effort
did she remove her shoes and slide fully dressed into the dark
security of the bedcovers where she consoled herself in a low,
broken voice. “I haven’t done anything wrong.”

***

When Tommy returned home he stood for long
minutes staring at his sleeping wife. He remembered another time,
thirteen years ago that he had watched her in repose. It was the
night she’d told him she was pregnant. They’d been married for six
years, and both were nearing forty. They’d been trying to have a
baby since their honeymoon.

Unable to sleep, he had sat on the chaise
lounge opposite their bed, which had a view into what would be the
nursery, and mentally decorated the room in green and pink.

Inexplicably, he’d imagined a daughter. He’d
promised himself he’d be a good father, loving and attentive, as
his dad had been to him, and had pictured himself rocking his
infant girl after a midnight feeding.

Nina, on the other hand, had gone past
wanting to be a mother. During their years of trying to get
pregnant, she’d fought depression by putting all of her energy into
her career, and with her first exhibition just months away, she’d
said to him, “No way, I want a baby. It’s too late for that.”

“Please think about it at least,” Tommy had
begged. “It’s not too old having kids at our age.”

Two days later, without further discussion,
Nina had the abortion. When she told him, he’d packed a suitcase
and left, but only for a week. In spite of her betrayal, he still
loved her and somehow managed to stuff his wounded feelings into
the far reaches of his psyche.

Until now. Livia was the same age his
daughter would have been. He loved Livia, and thinking about her in
terms of the child he’d never had brought both a renewed anger at
Nina and an acute urge to protect Livia, emotions that upended his
normal sense of fairness and logic.

When he stormed out, he’d driven to a local
hangout, prepared to let a couple of martinis dull his temper. But
he wasn’t a drinker and instead headed for the town beach where he
sat on a picnic table and gave himself over to the anesthetizing
music of the surf and the quiet radiance from a half-moon.

What he concluded was that he couldn’t know
for sure what side of right or wrong he was on anymore. In
addition, that morning after Nina told her niece about the
exhibition, elaborating on where and when it was going to be held,
Livia had sought her uncle out.

“I’m not sure I’ll be there,” he’d said to
her.

“But why? Please, Uncle Tommy, you have to.
I don’t want to talk to a lot of people if you’re not going to be
there with me.”

“Maybe,” was all he could say, and then felt
his heart sink when she turned away, clearly disappointed.

There came a time when the risk
to remain tight in the bud was more painful
than the risk it took to
blossom. ~
Anais
Nin

On Friday night the exhibition previewed for
news media, critics, and a short list of invited guests. As John
Straub predicted, Nina’s collection caused a range of uproar that
at one end hailed her as “Manhattan art scene’s best-kept secret”
to her detractors, one of whom, after a Q & A session, labeled
her a “picture-taking deviant in a skirt.”

“How do you explain your use of nudity?” the
critic asked, his voice sharp.

Nina took a thoughtful pause before she
replied. “There is no nudity,” she said.

“Excuse me,” he retorted. “What about
“Summer Flowers” or “Innocence?”

“In the first photograph, she’s wearing
shorts and a garland around her neck. In the latter, her back is
turned and she has on a sarong. There is nothing more immoral in
any of my photographs than what most of you here with children have
in your family albums.”

“How would you know?” a woman asked. “Your
bio states you have no children.”

Nina reached for composure. “I was a child
with a family who took pictures. It’s the perspective you’re
viewing from, and the intention you’re looking at them with, that
determines what you see.”

Forty-five minutes later, Nina left the
conference room, exhausted, with the other five exhibitors, and
relieved that Tommy hadn’t been there to hear the backlash. He’d
offered to take her and she’d declined, knowing that his attendance
at the formal opening the next day would be tense enough.

***

On Saturday afternoon Tommy escorted Nina,
Livia, and Caro up the steps of the National Center for
Photography. The doors were just opening. Tommy led Livia through,
glimpsing the banner that advertised the artists included in the
“Changing Faces of Youth” exhibition. Caro hung back with Nina.

The photo of Nina reflected the
uncharacteristic seriousness and steadfastness with which she had
pursued her ambition of producing work worthy enough to be hung
among the likes of Sally Mann and Annie Leibovitz. Her facial
expression hinted at her inexperience with being in the limelight:
her eyes wide, her cheeks slightly flushed at the curve of the
bone.

Caro took Nina’s arm as they negotiated the
growing crowd of guests headed for the Rockefeller Room where the
exhibition was staged. Nina’s series was thematically grouped under
three titles: “On the Seashore,” “Two Friends,” and “Growing
Up.”

Almost immediately a small crowd clustered
around Nina, pushing Caro to the outer edges of the circle. She
welcomed the opportunity to be out of Nina’s spotlight and move
within sight and earshot of Livia and Beatrice, who’d come with her
mother. She homed in on Livia, who kept shaking her head in
disgruntlement.

“What’s your problem,” Beatrice said to her
friend.

“I don’t want to be here with all these
people staring at us. Think they’d never seen pictures of girls
before,” Livia groused.

“You’re such a ninny sometimes. This is the
coolest thing ever,” Beatrice said.

Livia ground her shoe on the floor before
walking with Beatrice to the next photograph titled “Study in Dark
& Light.”

Beatrice waved excitedly to Nina, who smiled
at her enthusiasm.

Phyllis arrived. She found Tommy only after
viewing the exhibition. “I didn’t know Nina was a portrait
photographer. She’s quite impressive.”

“That’s what everyone is saying.”

“You sound as if you don’t agree,” Phyllis
said.

“I agree with the breadth of her talent. Not
with the theme,” Tommy said.

“Why?”

“You don’t find it provocative?” Tommy
escorted Phyllis to the last picture in the grouping under “Growing
Up.”

Nina must have taken it the night of
Phyllis’s party because Livia had on the sea-green sundress and
held the posy she’d given Phyllis as a thank-you for her
invitation. She was half-sitting, half-laying on a chaise with her
arm slung over her head; her dress revealed the length of her leg
to her thigh; a single strap of her sandal had come undone. Livia’s
face slanted toward her left shoulder. In profile, her lips
fashioned a soft “O” and her long eyelashes graced the tops of her
cheekbones.

Tommy lowered his voice. “This is what I
mean. And what about how Beatrice is portrayed? Poor kid. Beauty
and the beast.”

“Tommy!” Phyllis scolded. “What a rude thing
to say.”

“
I’m only saying how it is. If
anyone’s
rude
, it’s Nina.
She’s the one with the camera.”

“Listen to me,” Phyllis said. “Nina’s your
wife. And she’s an artist. Sometimes the two don’t mix.
Unfortunately, you don’t get one without the other—”

“With all due respect, you don’t
understand.”

“
Hear me out, Tommy. As for Beatrice,
that
poor
kid, as you
call her, is ecstatic to have pictures of herself hanging in a
museum. What kid wouldn’t? Plain Jane or not?”

“Livia,” Tommy said.

“Livia’s a beauty. Nina captured that,”
Phyllis said.

“And miserable. She hasn’t smiled once since
we left home.”

Phyllis snickered. “Livia is being a little
tyrant. And with you, she knows she has her Uncle Tommy in the palm
of her hand.”

“You’re making her out to be a manipulative
brat,” Tommy argued quietly.

Phyllis pointed to the girls who were only a
few yards away. Beatrice seemed like she was trying to say
something to Livia who kept turning away in a huff. Finally, Livia
left her friend to go by Caro.

“If the shoe fits,” Phyllis said. “Everyone
confirms she’s special, particularly you and seems like Caro as
well.”

Livia asked Caro, “Can we go home?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Seems like we’ve been here for ages,” Livia
whined.

“I know,” Caro said, and stroked Livia’s
back.

“
Besides, all this is, is to make Aunt Nina
famous. She told Uncle Tommy that if people like these pictures,
she has an idea to photograph girls in India, and Africa, and…”
Livia cut her sentence off.

Caro faced Livia. “That’s a wonderful idea.
What’s wrong?”

Livia’s eyes swam and grew larger but she
held on. “The next time my mother goes away and my—my aunt is
somewhere else in the world, then where do I go?” Livia stuttered
in a cracking voice, like glass crunching underfoot. “I—I’ll get
sent away, to some school somewhere.”

“Your mom hasn’t said anything to you, has
she?”

“I know. I just know! George’s kids are in a
boarding school. And I don’t care that a lot of kids go. I don’t
want to. I want a home to go to every day, not once a month.” Livia
threw her arms around Caro and cushioned her face in the fold of
Caro’s elbow.

Caro felt the patches of moistened skin from
Livia’s tears, and wanted to cry along with her. Instead, she
collected her breathing and then pried the blonde head out of its
hiding place. With the flats of her thumbs she dried Livia’s cheeks
while she offered words of comfort. “What might happen months from
now, is then. For now, this moment in time, you’re in safekeeping.
I, for one, am not going away. For sure neither are Aunt Nina or
Uncle Tommy. Who would your uncle go clamming with?”

Livia released a small smile, like a flower
budding.

“What have you ladies been up to?” Tommy
asked.

Caro winked at Livia. “Girl talk.”

“Well, I have some news. John Straub just
informed Nina that the owner of a gallery in SoHo wants to meet
with her tomorrow morning so I’m making reservations at the Regency
for tonight; we’ll get whatever personal things we need at the
hotel boutique. What do you think? We can all stay or I can go back
to Long Island with you.”

“My choice would be to go back and let Nina
take care of business,” Caro said.

“Me, too,” Livia agreed.

“All right,” Tommy said.

Caro grabbed his arm. “Tommy, why don’t you
stay with Nina? I’ll take the car and you two can get a driver to
take you back tomorrow.”

“I don’t know,” he hesitated.

“Seriously, I don’t mind. And I don’t think
Livia does, right?”

“I don’t care, Uncle Tommy. Maybe Beatrice
can come with us, too.”

Tommy looked over at his wife, stunning and
slim in a red dress and spiked heels that made her taller than most
of the women and even some of the men. She’d confided to her
husband once that the added height was self-affirming. It instilled
a sense of confidence and authority in a world not meant for female
photographers.

Tommy’s shifting emotions about the show,
about whether he should stay with his wife or go back to
Westhampton, played out in the worry lines across his brow.

“Have you decided?” Nina asked him.

“I’ll stay.”

Nina kissed her husband at the corner of his
mouth.

***

After a supper of Chinese take-out, Caro left
Livia and Beatrice to moon-gaze on the beach. It was a habit they’d
gotten into whenever they slept over. Counting stars, they’d
explained to Caro, made them dizzy and giddy. And wasn’t it great
to live under such a beautiful sky!