“He made it up. The alcoholic brew. Don’t blame it on the Swedes.”
“Your mother gave me the recipe when we were first married.”
“So you say.” She took a mug from the counter and lifted it toward her husband. Duke poured more wine and vodka into the pot. He used no discernible measurements but instead poured with abandon, first from one bottle, then the other.
Basil came in through the back door. He didn’t knock.
“Basil,” Duke accosted him with a ladle full of wine, “have a drink.”
“I think he needs a cup,” I said. Duke put the ladle back into the pot.
“Good thinking, Jane. Sensible girl.” Duke looked at Max as if he were somehow responsible for my good sense. That was reasonable, I supposed, since all of us were attached to Max in some way or we wouldn’t be there.
Basil took the cup Duke offered and warmed his hands with it.
“It’s cold out there,” he said, “but it’s supposed to be clear tomorrow.”
“I heard it was supposed to snow,” Max said. He stood against the kitchen counter.
“No, clear,” Basil said. They stared at each other. Basil looked pointedly at Max, then turned to me. “Jane, I’d like to show you my work.”
I didn’t want to leave the comfort of the kitchen. Duke’s attention was now on another large pot on the stove; he looked up at the kitchen clock. “You’ve got twenty minutes before the stew is ready.”
The other women followed Nora into the warmth of the living room while I was dragged away to Basil’s house. He took my arm when we got outside. The moon had slipped behind the clouds, so it was not only cold, it was dark.
“The Franklins should really put footlights in,” he said, “so I can find my way home in the dark.”
It had been a year since Cynthia died. Maybe they didn’t want him to find his way back.
The Franklins’ house was hidden from Basil’s by a hill and some trees. Basil’s was a smaller version of the main house—a little gem. I could understand why he wouldn’t want to leave it.
He showed me the first of two bedrooms, which had its own bathroom, complete with Jacuzzi. Basil called the second bedroom his “studio.”
He led me in and turned on the lights. This man had been busy. His work was piled against the walls, hanging from ceiling hooks, and there were several pieces, unfinished—or so I assumed—on easels.
“Well,” I said. “Well, well.” I put my hands on my hips and looked around with as much interest as I could muster.
“I call them ‘the art of the word,’” he said, “which is why I think they are perfect for the
There were words everywhere—stenciled, painted freehand, crayoned, inked—words, words, words on canvas, on watercolor paper, on plywood planks.
One said “L-O-V-E” in pink and green on a plank the size of a door. It reminded me of something I’d seen on a greeting card and I wondered if Basil was trying to make a reference to pop culture. I waited for something in that room to move me. Art is supposed to move you, isn’t it? I checked my emotional temperature—nothing.
“That was the one I did especially for Cynthia,” Basil said, pointing to the L-O-V-E painting. “I was going to present it to her on our wedding day.”
It occurred to me that an accidental death might be preferable to standing in front of all your friends and relatives to accept this gift with a straight face. Still, it was obvious that Basil was serious about his art. Art books and magazines littered the countertops, and I eyed the
Basil stared at the L-O-V-E painting. His shoulders drooped and his normal hangdog expression became even hangier and doggier. I thought he was overplaying his hand as the grieving lover.
I looked at my wrist, though I wasn’t wearing a watch. I wanted to go back. I couldn’t bear the thought of everyone sitting down to bowls of hearty stew while I stood here looking at words. There were other words: U-N- I-T-Y, F-A-I-T-H, P-A-S-S-I-O-N. Many, many words. Trite, sappy words. Maybe I would have liked his work if he had chosen better words.
“Jane,” Basil said, lowering his voice to a decibel level even lower than his usual key of grief.
“Yes, Basil?” I tried to make my voice gentle, the kind of voice you might use when visiting a person who had just suffered a psychotic break.
“I think you understand me.” He put a hand on my shoulder and we stood there together in awkward silence. Was the grief-man making a move on me? Would I recognize one if I saw one? “I want you to think about these pictures,” he said. “Think about adding art to the foundation’s work. I could be your emissary, your Evan Bentley of the art world.”
Basil had heard of Bentley because, just as everyone interested in that type of thing knew about George Plimpton and the
Though Bentley had always acted as the front man—he went to the writers’ conferences, gave speeches, and performed most of the public functions required of an editor of a successful literary review—my own reputation must have been greater than I knew, because it had preceded me here to this room full of words. I smiled and nodded at Basil. Because I stayed in the background most of the time, I was unaccustomed to being applied to in this way, and I didn’t know exactly how to behave. I’d been approached, of course, by the occasional writer who thought I might be able to publish him, but it somehow always took me by surprise. I never felt that I had the power these writers were so quick to give me.
I suggested we go back to the house. Basil turned off most of the lights, leaving one on as a beacon to guide him back. He shut the door behind us.
“You don’t want to stagnate, Jane,” Basil said when we got outside. He was a head taller than I was and looked down at me in the dim light.
You don’t want to stagnate.
It felt like Basil’s words were ringing off the sides of the distant mountains—ominous words in a cheap horror film.
“I don’t intend to stagnate,” I said. My voice sounded loud out there in the quiet of the night.
“Don’t be angry,” Basil said. He took my arm. I wanted to shrug him off, but it wouldn’t have been polite. He was only trying to help me through the dark.
When we came in, the men were still in the kitchen. Max looked up and smiled. If it’s true that passion dulls discrimination (and I’m sure it is), my feelings for Max, no matter how I tried to convince myself to the contrary, were still passionate. It didn’t matter what I learned about him or who he loved. When he was near, I still followed him with my eyes.
When Duke announced that supper was ready, the women came in with bowls from the dinner table. Max followed me into the dining room to retrieve our bowls.
“How was the art?” he asked when we were alone.
“It depends on what you like,” I said.
“Always the diplomat.”
“Not always.” I looked up into his greenish eyes.
“About last night,” he said. “It was all so awkward.”
“It’s none of my business,” I said.
Max chewed on his bottom lip. “Who was that guy on the mountain today?” he asked.
“I told you. Old friend of the family’s.”
“He seemed very interested in you.”
“I don’t see how you could have seen that,” I snapped. I couldn’t tell him how much it hurt me to have him try to make a match for me. I picked up a bowl and he picked up the one beside it.
Everyone started returning with their stew.
“Where are you sitting?” Lindsay asked Max. He pointed to the place where his bowl had been.
Lindsay sat down in what would have been my place.
