Venus Envy (7 page)

Kenny stared at the letter, then held it to his heart.

S
IR TEDDY,” A HAUNTING OIL PAINTING BY BEN MARSHALL
, captured Frazier’s attention. Painted in 1808, the subject was a lean and long Thoroughbred, which, on the 27th of August, 1808, beat the mail coach from London to Exeter, doing the 176 miles in 23 hours. Small, yet large in impact, the painting was so unusual not because of the horse but because of the two dogs in Sir Teddy’s stall, one of which, a white cur, peered out at the viewer from behind the stall siding. Frazier couldn’t take her eyes off the white dog. She felt the dog was Ben Marshall studying the viewer.

The gallery, in the old part of downtown, drew knowledgeable collectors and dealers from the Americas and Europe. When she left Sotheby’s, Frazier considered opening a gallery in New York City but the overhead plus the punishing local and state taxes wrecked that idea. She remembered the line “Build a better mousetrap
and the world will beat a path to your door.” In Frazier’s case this was the absolute truth. For one thing, she could offer extraordinary sporting art and the occasional Matisse at far more competitive prices than her big city competition.

In that respect Frazier was a true capitalist. The big city broker sought to make one big hit. Frazier built a loyal clientele and had repeat business. Selling a George Stubbs for $10,000 under market value seemed insane to her competitors but she made ten times that when the gratified customer became a friend and continued buying from her over the years. Her competitors couldn’t seem to figure out that being located in central Virginia, in the small but sophisticated town of Charlottesville, was a huge advantage.

Her other two advantages were Amanda Eisenhart and her own sharp eye for the young artist. Not only did Frazier possess an unerring sense of quality, brushstroke, line, and composition—lots of people had that—she also had an uncanny knack of knowing what painters would go the distance. Darcy Weeden, her Delta Delta Delta sister, sang her praises throughout Buckhead, just outside of Atlanta. Frazier sold Darcy a large equine painting by an English artist who was in her thirties. The cost five years ago was $17,000 and Frazier promised the hesitant Darcy she would never regret this purchase. The value of that same work had skyrocketed to $185,000 at last appraisal.

Mandy read her letter from Frazier. It said “Thank you. Love, Fraiz.” She folded the letter and walked out of her office into the main room of the three-roomed gallery. She drew alongside Frazier and studied “Sir Teddy.”

“You’re not going to sell that painting.”

“Ben Marshalls are easy to sell even in a depressed
market. You know that. Like Herring, Stubbs, Munnings, Bonheur. There are some artists who are golden.”

“I know all that, thank you very much.” Mandy half-smiled. “You aren’t selling that painting, because you’re in love with it.”

“Well … I guess I am.”

“Are you sure you want to work today? You’re still coughing. I don’t mind running the show.”

“Thanks, but I’d rather be here than at home. My bronchitis medicine is helping. I threw that damned other crap in the trash can. I’ll tell you this: don’t you ever mess around with heroin or opium or morphine. They’re the same, I think. I mean, they’re different but aren’t they all derived from the poppy?” Mandy shrugged and Frazier continued, “I was so low, black as the insides of a goat.”

“Still?”

“No, but
I
rock and roll a little bit.”

“I just read your letter.”

“Shorn of all literary flourish.” Frazier put her arm around Mandy’s shoulders. “But I meant it.”

“Will you ever tell me what the surprise was in your will?”

“If I live through the next few months I’ll tell you everything.”

Mandy’s eyes widened in fear. “Are you still sick? Is there something you’re not telling me?”

“Oh, no, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said it quite that way. Come on over here—let’s sit in my office. I’d better tell you exactly what I’ve done, because there’s going to be hell to pay. Big time.”

Frazier’s office was painted a soft yellow, the yellow that the Metropolitan Museum of Art often uses on its walls. The two sat on the 1930’s overstuffed sofa. The office, simple but sensuous, with lots of curving lines,
betrayed a secret side of Frazier. Most people would have expected her office to be an homage to Hepplewhite, Sheridan, or Chippendale, a bow in the direction of the eighteenth century.

“Shoot,” Mandy said nervously. “No, wait. You’ve experienced a catharsis. You’re selling everything and moving to Hawaii. Actually, for you it would be the south of France. Lake Como, or New Zealand. Am I right?”

“About everything except New Zealand. Beautiful but so far away. Argentina.”

Mandy fell back on the sofa. “I knew it. I knew you’d leave.”

“No, I just meant if I were to go it wouldn’t be to New Zealand. I’m not going anywhere, although I might be run out of town.”

“Frazier, what did you do? I mean, what can someone do who is full of tubes and flat on her back in the hospital?”

“You told me to write letters to Tomorrow.”

“I got one. Thank you back at you.”

“Uh, I did write letters to Tomorrow. I wrote everyone and told them the truth about myself and what I believe to be the truth about them.
I
begged my brother and Billy to change their ways. I told my mother exactly what I think of her—I emphasize
exactly.
I bequeathed the same favor, different flavor, on Ann Haviland. I wrote my father an exhaustive letter about him, Mom, Carter, and myself. Who else? Auntie Ruru, whom I adore, and Kenny Singer. I opened the whole can of worms.”

“Jesus H. Christ on a raft.” Mandy was speechless after that. Frazier pulled herself up and opened the little refrigerator. She handed Mandy a Coke and took one for
herself, grabbed the crystal old-fashioned glasses, filled them with ice cubes, and rejoined her on the sofa.

“Imagine what would happen to you if
you
told everyone around you the truth,” she said.

“I’m doing that very thing.” Mandy rattled the cubes in her glass and then poured the Coke. “I’ve been more open than you are but I guess I’ve got a couple of skeletons in my closet and I’ve got my own stuff right now, you know?’

“I don’t know.”

A little involuntary twitch, which blossomed into a smile, indicated that Mandy registered this but wasn’t sure what to do next. “Right. Boyfriend trouble. We can talk about me some other time. My first question is, do you remember what you wrote?”

Frazier’s eyes glassed over. “Kind of.”

“What do you mean, ‘kind of’?”

“I ripped the morphine tube out of my arm. It swung in my way every time I moved my arm and I couldn’t write and anyway, as the night wore on I sank deeper and deeper into the slough of despond or anger or wherever I was. I did tell the truth. I just think had I been in a better emotional state I might have chosen my words more wisely. I don’t think I was ugly. Well, I was to Mother.” Frazier breathed in sharply. “But she deserved it and I should’ve laid my mother out to whaleshit years ago. Am I being unfair? Doesn’t everyone blame her mother for everything?”

“Uh, I don’t. I love my mom. Most times, anyway. Don’t start beating up on yourself. I’ve seen
tua mater
many times. She’s no prize.”

“Whew.” Frazier crossed her legs under her and turned to face Mandy, who did likewise. “Thanks for that. You know, when I was writing Mother from the hospital I kept thinking about how she would read Carter and me
stories at bedtime when we were tiny. When I got a little older I wanted to read them myself. So I opened
Babar the Elephant
and
Bambi
and found sentences, even paragraphs, blacked out. When I asked her, she lied and said the book was printed that way. So one day at the library—oh, I must have been in third grade by then—I found
Bambi.
Do you know what she had done?”

“I can’t imagine,” Mandy replied.

“She’d crossed out every reference to the mother being killed.”

“No!” Mandy exclaimed.

“Every syllable. So I marched home and asked her why she’d done that and she said because those passages would have upset Carter and me. She wanted to protect us from Death. Only made it worse, of course. I never really trusted her after that. Of course, I’m not sure I trusted her before that either. Bambi and Babar made me realize what I had always known, I guess—that Mother wants everything controlled, placid, no involvement. You feel things as a child but you don’t know what you’re feeling. After that I knew what I was feeling, about her anyway. I sure knew not to tell her my feelings too.”

“Who knows what your mother will do now? She can’t black out the sentences in your letter.”

“I reckon I’ll find out.”

Mandy sat straighten “Did you tell them all that you’re—”

Frazier interrupted: “Gay? Yes, ma’am.”

A long silence followed. “In the long run you’ll be glad you did. In the short run …”

“In the short run I am going to be sliced and diced, I am going to be barbecued, I am going to be deep-fried Southern style, I am going to be trussed and trounced and beat so hard about the ass that my nose will bleed.
Honey, I am in deep shit, like all the way to China deep and you goddam well know it.”

“Now I Feel responsible. I gave you the stationery.”

“Nah. This was my doing. I’m taking full credit and if I’d had any ovaries I would’ve read everyone the riot act years ago. I’m not eager to suffer the consequences though, and suffering is such an important part of Christianity that Mother feels it’s her duty to spread it around. Oh, sweet Jesus, I need a friend.”

“You got one.”

“In a pig’s blister.”

“Me.”

“Ah, Mandy, there’s nothing you can do to protect me or save me.”

“No, but I can stand by you. And so will Auntie Ruru.”

Frazier turned her glass around in her hand a few revolutions. “Billy, maybe.”

“Billy?”

“Considering I told Billy he’s going to hell in a handbasket, in so many words, I don’t know which way he’ll cut. I think it’s me that will get cut, actually.”

“He’s gay, too, of course.”

“I don’t feel it’s my duty to blow the whistle on anyone else.”

“Bullshit. I’m not an idiot. Anyway, past the age of thirty, roommates look suspicious.” Mandy’s flash of anger gave her a sultry, sexy look.

“He doesn’t have a roommate.”

“Oh, Kenny Singer is just attached to his hip, is that it? I mean, if I’m going to be here in the center of the hurricane, you can’t be Little Miss Daisy in a field of cow flaps. You’d better tell me everything I need to know.” She put her glass on the coffee table and folded her arms across her chest. “What about Carter?”

Frazier shook her head. “He’s going to be the biggest surprise of all, I think. Hell, Mandy, I don’t know. Right now I don’t know shit from Shinola.”

Mandy leaned over and patted her hand. “The great thing about the truth is you’re not obliged to remember it. You can claim amnesia. Not that you would. You know what my mother says …”

“No, but I have a feeling I’m going to.”

“If you’re going to be hung for sheep you might as well be hung for a wolf.” Mandy finished off her Coca-Cola.

“Hung is the operative word, a word I don’t wish to hear unless it applies to the male of the species.”

“Amen, sister.” Mandy uncrossed her legs, swinging them over the sofa. “Know how to tell if a man’s well hung?”

“I’ve got my method. Let’s hear yours.” “If there’s three inches between the rope and his collar.”

“Oow.” Frazier squinted. “Mean.”

“A small diverting moment from the crisis at hand. All right, let’s catalogue the worst. You’ll be drummed out of the Junior League.”

“My heart is breaking.”

“You’ll have a devil of a time getting a golf foursome at the country club. Your women friends won’t want to be in the bathroom when you’re there. Uh, children. Yes, they’ll hide their children when you drive by.”

Frazier suddenly froze. “Mandy. It’s not funny. Some people
are
that ignorant. I’ll no longer be Mary Frazier Armstrong. I’ll be Mary Frazier Armstrong, comma, Lesbian. My identity will be skewered on a word derived from the name of an island off the coast of Greece, or is it closer to Turkey? I’m about to lose my individuality, my social position, parts of my family, if not all of it, and God knows what else.”

“That’s why I have the advantage over you.”

“What?”

“You can lie about who you are. I can’t. My face tells the tale.”

“Your face is uncommonly beautiful.”

“Thank you, but it bears the stamp of Africa. That’s hardly a plus in the land of the Blond Beast. At any rate, I can’t be anything or anyone other than who I am. It’s better that way.”

“I don’t know,” Frazier honestly stated. “Funny what runs through your mind. I keep hearing a phrase Carter used one time when we got campused by Mother for throwing a party when she and Dad were out of town. It happened to be prom night too. He said, ‘It doesn’t matter if the rock hits the jug or the jug hits the rock. The jug still gets it.’ I’m the jug.”

“I hope not, Frazier.”

“Me too.”

“How much damage did the party do to the house?”

“Frazier’s voice lifted into the mezzo range. “Oh, nothing. The house was untouched but Carter and I took photographs of various St. Luke’s sports heroes engaged in indelicate acts with cooperative ladies. The taking of them wasn’t the issue. Circulating them at school for profit landed us in hot water.” Frazier burst out laughing. “But it was worth it. The sight of the prom queen giving Ernie Watkins a blow job, tiara and all. Yahoo!”

“Frazier, there’s a whole side of you I don’t know.” Mandy stared at her in wonder and admiration.

“Carter and I could cut a shine—until I had to earn a living. That’s when I pulled in my horns, or became mature—take your pick. Yeah, and that’s when I began to hate myself too. Have you ever seen rainbow trout? They’re shimmering, living rainbows in their element.
Take them out of their element and their colors fade. I guess I was like that, or I am like that.”