Misty said, “The what?”
And somebody said, “Peter Wilmot.”
Someone else said, “Do not make eye contact.”
All her girlfriends said, Misty, do not even encourage him. Anytime Peter came into the room, every woman remembered a reason to leave. He didn't really stink, but you still tried to hide behind your hands. He didn't stare at your breasts, but most women still folded their arms. Watching any woman talk to Peter Wilmot, you could see how her frontalis muscle lifted her forehead into wrinkles, proof she was scared. Peter's top eyelids would be half shut, more like someone angry than looking to fall in love.
Then Misty's friends, in the gallery that night, they scattered.
Then she was standing alone with Peter in his greasy hair and the sweater and the old junk jewelry, who rocked back on his heels, his hands on his hips, and looking at the painting, he said, “So?”
Not looking at her, he said, “You going to be a chicken and run away with your little friends?”
He said this with his chest stuck out. His upper eyelids were half closed, and his jaw worked back and forth. His teeth ground together. He turned and fell back against the wall so hard the painting beside him went crooked. He leaned back, his shoulders squared against the wall, his hands shoved into the front pockets of his jeans. Peter shut his eyes and took a deep breath. He let it out, slow, opened his eyes to stare at her, and said, “So? What do you think?”
“About the painting?” Misty said. The craggy stone house. She reached out and turned it straight again.
And Peter looked sideways without turning his head. His eyes rolled to see the painting just past his shoulder, and he said, “I grew up next door to that house. The guy with the book, that's Brett Petersen.” Then loud, he said, too loud, “I want to know if you'll marry me.”
That's how Peter proposed.
How you proposed. The first time.
He was from the island, everybody said. The whole wax museum of Waytansea Island, all those fine old island families going back to the Mayflower Compact. Those fine old family trees where everybody was everybody's cousin once removed. Where nobody's had to buy any silverware since two hundred years ago. They ate something meat with every meal, and all the sons seemed to wear the same shabby old jewelry. Their kind-of regional fashion statement. Their old shingle and stone family houses towered along Elm Street, Juniper Street, Hornbeam Street, weathered just so by the salt air.
Even all their golden retrievers were inbred cousins to each other.
People said everything on Waytansea Island was just-so museum quality. The funky old ferryboat that held six cars. The three blocks of red brick buildings along Merchant Street, the grocer, the old library clock tower, the shops. The white clapboards and wraparound porches of the closed old Waytansea Hotel. The Waytansea church, all granite and stained glass.
There in the art school gallery, Peter was wearing a brooch made from a circle of dirty blue rhinestones. Inside that was a circle of fake pearls. Some blue stones were gone, and the empty fittings looked sharp with ragged little teeth. The metal was silver, but bent and turning black. The point of the long pin, it stuck out from under one edge and looked pimpled with rust.
Peter held a big plastic mug of beer with some sports team stenciled on the side, and he took a drink. He said, “If you'd never consider marrying me, there's no point in me taking you to dinner, is there?” He looked at the ceiling and then at her and said, “I find this approach saves everybody a shitload of time.”
“Just for the record,” Misty told him, “that house doesn't exist. I made it up.”
Misty told you.
And you said, “You remember that house because it's still in your heart.”
And Misty said, “How the fuck do you know what's in my goddamn heart?”
The big stone houses. Moss on the trees. Ocean waves that hiss and burst below cliffs of brown rock. All that was in her little white trash heart.
Maybe because Misty was still standing here, maybe because you thought she was fat and lonely and she hadn't run away, you looked down at the brooch on your chest and smiled. You looked at her and said, “You like it?”
And Misty said, “How old is it?”
And you said, “Old.”
“What kind of stones are those?” she said.
And you said, “Blue.”
Just for the record, it wasn't easy to fall in love with Peter Wilmot. With you.
Misty said, “Where did it come from?”
And Peter shook his head a little bit, grinning at the floor. He chewed his bottom lip. He looked around at the few people left in the gallery, his eyes narrow, and he looked at Misty and said, “You promise you won't be grossed out if I show you something?”
She looked back over her shoulder at her friends; they were off by a picture across the room, but they were watching.
And Peter whispered, his butt still against the wall, he leaned forward toward her and whispered, “You'll need to suffer to make any real art.”
Just for the record, Peter once asked Misty if she knew why she liked the art she liked. Why is it a terrible battle scene like Picasso's Guernica can be beautiful, while a painting of two unicorns kissing in a flower garden can look like crap.
Does anybody really know why they like anything?
Why people do anything?
There in the gallery, with her friends spying, one of the paintings had to be Peter's, so Misty said, “Yeah. Show me some real art.”
And Peter chugged some of his beer and handed her the plastic mug. He said, “Remember. You promised.” With both hands, he grabbed the ragged hem of his sweater and pulled it up. A theater curtain
