Truths of the Heart (35 page)

“I'd prefer you not talk.”

She raised an eyebrow.

Absorbed in his work, his arm muscles flexing like taut coils, getting
the shape of the head, proportion of the eyes, nose, lips just right, an hour
seemed like five minutes.

Her attention, more than once went to his face. Exchanging eye contact,
she caught herself wanting to touch him. She stiffened, said, “I should be
getting back soon.”

“Another half hour.” He paused. “Did you want to take a break?”

“How much longer?”

“Hard to tell.”

“May I see?”

“No, not yet.”

“I'll take that break.”

“Five minutes.”

“Thank you.”

****

After the break, another hour passed as Seth, with a one-inch brush, worked
flesh tones into the portrait.

Rachelle said, “I have to be leaving pretty soon.”

He was absorbed and didn't answer.

“Hello.”

She glanced at her wristwatch, 4:00. She stood. “I really have to be going.”

He stopped. “What are you doing?”

“I have to be going?”

“But I need more time.”

“When?”

“You tell me.”

“Tomorrow.”

“Yes.”

“What time?”

“You name it.”

“Afternoon.”

“Two.”

“Okay, but I have to tell you, that's it.”

“Just a few hours.”

“What's a few?”

“Twenty-four.”

“Two.”

“Okay.”

As she stepped outside, she noticed someone seemed to be studying the M.S.U.
Faculty Sticker affixed to her Saab's windshield. Yes, that woman who had
passed her in the hallway, from the hospital, redhead, the photographer. She
stepped back inside the stairwell, waited then peeked out. The woman walked to a
black sports car parked behind Rachelle's Saab and pulled away. Rachelle went
to her car and heading west toward Lake Lansing she noticed the black sports
car, two cars back, following her.

Approaching a traffic light that had turned yellow, Rachelle slowed
and, just as the light changed red, sped through it. She glanced in the rear
view mirror. The black sports car, boxed in, had to stop. Rachelle breathed a
sigh of relief and, taking a different route, arrived at her Lake Lansing home.
She pulled inside the garage, and pressed the remote that closed the door.

The door clamoring shut, she sat thinking about the redhead, then dismissed
it all as paranoid. Why would she follow me? She was probably going to East
Lansing, too.
But I was with Seth nearly five hours. She was waiting.
Maybe
you should get it straight from the silver tonged artist's mouth
.

Inside the house, T.S. was in hiding. “Thomas Stearns, where are you?”
She checked the answering machine. Three messages from Carl: “Rachelle. You
there? Pick up.”

BEEP.

“Rachelle, if you're there pick up. Rachelle.
Hello. Call me.” A hushed, “Fuck.”

BEEP.

“Rachelle, hello, I tried to call the office, your cell....”

BEEP.

She hit the erase button.

The phone rang. She looked at it, call ID Carl, the recorded message kicked
in, finished, and she figured, pick up or it will go on all night. “Hello.”

“Where ya been?”

She crossed her fingers and explained she had been on campus, meetings,
library research.

After a pause he said, “Bad news, I'm going to be tied up over the weekend,
dickheads at WJJ have more concerns about PR, all that crap. Have a meeting
with lawyers Saturday morning, why doncha come over to Detroit this weekend.”

Are you for real.
“I
don't think so.”

“You better get your ass over here pretty soon, start looking for a
house, deal's a deal, remember.”

Doesn't get it.
“The
way things are going maybe we should stay put for the time being.”

“I told you it's all bullshit, this will be over by the Fourth of
July.”

Doesn’t get it, never will.
“You still going to D.C. next week for hearings?”

“Yeah.” Pause: “Why you ask?”

“Just wondered.”

“Got something planned?”

“Yes, the Spartan Athletic Department is coming over for a swim in the
pool.”

“Hah hah hah, wouldn't doubt it.”

“Anything else? I have to go.”

“Fuck you.”

“You too.”

She hung up, turned the answering machine off, and stuffed her cell phone
in a kitchen drawer.

The kitchen phone began to ring.

Ignoring it, she started upstairs and T.S. appeared at the top. “There
you are.”

Arrived at the second floor landing, T.S. sniffed her like he recognize
where she had been, looked at her slyly, then turned and walked into the
bedroom.

“Be that way.”

She changed into silk pink pajamas, went to the sitting room, took up
her journal, and wrote:

Reality check. What are you doing? Do you have any idea what you did
this afternoon? You dressed in a disguise, went to a student's apartment and
stayed there for the better part of five hours. It's insane. And what was that
black sports car scene out of James Bond all about. Who is that woman? What is
the matter with you? Can't you see what is happening? You are about to become
another conquest for a young gigolo. He has them coming in and out of his place
like Saturday night at the bordello. That redhead is probably one of thousands.
Then there's the Indian Princess, he might go to jail for statutory rape on
that one.

She recalled T.S. Eliot's 'Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock' and recited
the line: “In the room the women come and go talking of Michelangelo.”

She wrote:
Get out of this now. You could lose your job, not to
mention your life, as in killed by you know who … speaking of which, how are
you going to get out this so called marriage…? Hah. Meantime, I will put Mr.
Trudow out of my mind, not show up tomorrow, maybe I should try to embarrass
him … criticize his art … Listen to you, that is so unprofessional, unlike you,
unkind, why do you want to punish him … is the feeling for him that strong? Maddening
… or perhaps Dear Z, you are trying to punish yourself....

She recalled more of Prufrock, “‘…time yet for a hundred indecisions, and
for a hundred visions and revisions … do I dare disturb the universe? Should I,
after tea and cakes and ices, have the strength to force the moment to its
crisis?’”

She whispered, “Maddening Z, maddening … but glorious.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Friday, a warm but gray afternoon, misty rain, overcast, Rachelle,
dressed in her baseball hat and sunglasses disguise, parked a block away and
stood at Seth's door. A few minutes past 2:00 P.M. She knocked lightly. Jude
opened the door. Touching her sunglasses, Rachelle recognized another of Seth's
friends. Rachelle, “Is Mr. Trudow in?”

“Don't tell me, Greta Garbo lookalike?”

Seth, dressed in Levis, white T-shirt and bare feet, stepped up. “Hi,
come in,” he pointed to Jude, “she was just leaving, my soul-sister, you two
met, I think, when I was ... the hospital thing, talked on the phone, Jude
Wisdom, daughter of Cochise.”

Rachelle said, “Oh, yes, how do you do.”

“I do fine, how do you do?”

Seth said to Jude, “See you later and if you are determined to still go
to Italy with Grandpa, yes I will drive you to the airport tomorrow, get your
car delivered to the dealer, you sure your father cleared it?”

“Yes, Ron's Ford Dealership, just take it in and ask for Ron.” She
turned to Rachelle, “Don't believe a word he says.”

Jude winked and pulled the door closed behind her.

Taking her sunglasses off, Rachelle said, “Let's get this over with.”

Seth sensed her annoyance, “Jude really is only a soul-sister, nothing more.”

Pretending to telegraph a total lack of interest, she said, “I have a
five o'clock appointment.”

He smiled, “She's a dear friend, really”

She looked at him professorially, “Your life appears to be a female
merry-go-round.”

“No, it is not, I....”

“Please.” She held up her hand. “I don't care, don't want to hear.”

Seated at his desk, babushka in place, Rachelle said, “What was that
about Jude, running away, Italy, Grandpa?”

“She's fallen madly in love with the impresario of the Milan orchestra.”

“That sounds exciting.”

“At least.”

“Tell me more about the other one, the photographer.”

“Why?”

“I think she followed me yesterday, or attempted to anyway.”

Paused for a moment, “You're kidding me.”

“No, I am not.”

Painting again, “She's insane.”

“Well, anyway, this is it, and you may tell her for me, get her a note
or an email or something, but tell her to get off my case, or I might have to
hurt her.”

He paused, “This is a side of Rachelle not seen in academia.”

“This is a side of me not me.”

“Perhaps it's a mistake.”

“What?”

“Her following you.”

“I don't think so.”

“Let's get back to work.”

“Lets.”

Absorbed, he worked with sure strokes—those amber topaz eyes, that slightly
large but perfect nose, tear drop nostrils, elegant neck, slightly sloping
shoulders. The canvas was becoming an illusion of depth and substance,
distance, three dimensional, alive. He had captured her essence too—calm on the
surface and yet, beneath, uneasy, longing, a searching.

Some final touch-up needed, stepping to the window, he invited her to take
a look.

She stood slowly and went to the canvas. She looked. She folded her
arms and studied. After several minutes, “You flatter me.”

Looking out the window, his palms moist, Seth put his hands in his pockets,
then turned and looked at her. She still studied the painting. The short
distance between them was only a few feet.

She looked to him and smiled, “It's wonderful, maybe I am a peasant
after all.”

“This is not a vice.”

He looked into her eyes. She looked into his. She didn't look away.
They looked into each other for what seemed a day.

Creation, instinct, energy, something primordial. Seth's thoughts
soared, she must know how he felt. He stepped to her and took her hands and
went to kiss her.

She backed away. “Seth, please.”

He released her hands and stepped back.

Her eyes avoiding his, she said, “I must go.” She took her baseball
hat, sun glassed, and quickly left.

Down the steps, at her car, she got in and sat. She couldn't get the
key in the ignition. Couldn't or didn't want to? She felt his pull. She
couldn't let it go at this. She went back and tapped at the door.

He opened it, turned and walked to his desk.

She entered and closed the door. “Seth, about the manuscript, did you make
the revisions?”

“I've decided it's not something I want to do.”

She removed her sunglasses, “Seth, this must not happen.”

“It has happened.”

“No.”

“Oh, okay.” He walked to the window and stared out at the gray day.

She said, “Seth, I'm sorry if I misled you.”

“You didn't mislead me. I saw it in your eyes. Since forever, we were meant
to collide. We have no control over this.”

“I'm leaving.” She stepped toward the door.

“Again?” He stared out the window.

She stopped.

He said, “You know professor, there is a mistake beginning painters
tend to make.”

She waited.

“Beginning painters tend to complicate subject matter. Instead of
dealing with a simple arrangement of light, dark, hues, values, their painting
is a confusing pattern scattered all over the canvas.”

She listened.

“There's another art exercise, getting to know your colors. Red mixed with
green produces gray. Get to know your colors, Dr. Zannes.”

She turned and said to him, “I know my colors, just fine.”

Still looking out the window, “No you don't. Avoiding, you choose not
to believe what you know, changing truth to fit the circumstance, lying to the
universe.”

“I am not lying to anyone. Maybe that is your problem. You are trying
to change reality to suit yourself.”