The Ivory and the Horn

ago.'

Tommy looked at her expectantly when she fell silent. After a few moments, he couldn't hold it in anymore.

'Is that it? Is that the whole story?'

'Well, no,' Jilly said, and then she hesitated again. 'It gets a little weird after that.'

'We can take weird,' Maisie assured her.

The wirehaired terrier sprawled out on her lap looked up at Jilly and yipped as though in agreement. Jilly laughed and roughed the stiff fur on the top of its head.

'After I was done fixing the box up,' she said, 'I sat with it on my lap in the window seat of my studio. I wasn't thinking of anything, just holding the box and staring out the window, watching the light change in the alley below. I can't see the sunset from there, but that alleyway seems to hold the light long after the sun's actually set. I never get tired of watching it.'

'I know places like that,' Maisie said. 'Doesn't matter if they're in the middle of nowhere and there's trash every-where, they just seem magical.'

Jilly nodded. 'I'm fascinated by what can't be explained— or at least what can't be explained through the facts most of us have decided are true. So when I had this... visitation, I wasn't scared or anything. Just curious.'

'What kind of visitation?'

'I can't really explain it. I was alone, sitting there with the box on my lap, and then there was this ghostly presence in the studio with me, and I ended up having a long conversation with it. I can still remember most of what we talked about, word for word.'

7

— I don't know about limbo, but I had a friend once— a dancer. She used to tell her boyfriends that every second step she danced, she danced for them.

— But that would only be half the dance.

— I know. She said you have to keep something for yourself. You can't give everything away.

— I'm not sure I understand how this relates to me.

— You put everything into your paintings. You didn't keep anything for yourself.

— I still don't see the relevance.

— I think you're still doing it, and that's why you're in limbo. You're not painting anymore, but even as a ghost, you're not hanging onto anything for yourself. Maybe if you did, you'd be able to let go and move on.

— I'm not sure I have the courage to move on.

— Unfortunately, I can't help you there.

8

'What happened then?' Maisie asked.

Jilly shrugged. 'Nothing, really. We talked a little more and then he was just gone. He never came back— at least not so as I ever noticed. I don't know if he went on, or if he's still stuck in limbo and I just can't hear him anymore.'

'Sad,' Tommy said.

He looked so glum that Jilly began to regret having said anything about the pochade box having a story. But before she could think of something more cheerful to talk about, Tommy sat up straighter on the steps and suddenly brightened up on his own. He pointed down the pavement to where a vendor had setup a cart selling hot pretzels.

'Oh, look!' he cried.

He gave Maisie a long hopeful look until finally she relented. She carefully counted out the change he'd need, then stowed the remainder back in the pocket of her jacket. Jilly had been about to offer to treat them all, but reconsidered when she realized that it might be taken wrong. Maisie struck her as prideful enough to mistake generosity for charity, and Jilly didn't want to chance losing their new friendship over something like that. She was enjoying their company and wanted to get to know them better. So she sat back and let it play out, waiting there on the steps with Maisie and watching. Tommy run eagerly to the pretzel cart, the dogs scrambling about at his heels.

'Do You think Tommy would like it if I gave him this painting when it's done?' she said.

Maisie shrugged. 'It's hard to say. When I said he likes pictures, it's mostly stuff from magazines. He has me cut out the people in the pictures and then he uses them as dolls to make up little stories. He's never had a painting before, so I don't know what he'd do with it.'

Jilly decided that she would give Tommy a painting, except it would be one of him and his sister and their dogs. She had a good enough memory that she knew she'd be able to do it back in her studio without their needing to sit for it.

'That was an odd story,' Maisie said.

'What there was of it,' Jilly said.

Her companion gave her a considering look. 'If I didn't know better,' she said, 'I'd think that Angel had set this up— sort of a morality play, you know?'

Jilly shook her head.

'Well, she's always telling me I've got to get a life for myself— meet people, maybe get a boyfriend, that kind of thing. I can't seem to get her to understand that being with Tommy and the dogs is what I want to do.'

'But she's got a point.'

'And that is?'

'If you lose sight of yourself, then what've you got to offer Tommy and the dogs? You'll be as bad as my ghost, giving of yourself until there's nothing left to give and you simply fade away. You'll end up stuck in the same limbo.'

'You don't get it either. I want to be with them.'

Jilly sighed. 'I do get it. But maybe it'd be good for them to have some other input as well. I'm not saying Tommy can be self-sufficient— I don't know him well enough, what his limitations might be. But if you're always there doing things for him, bow's he supposed to learn to do anything for himself?'

'But that's how I found him. He was like that. He's not my brother, I just kind of adopted him. He got dumped on the streets because nobody else wanted him and let me tell you, without me, he wouldn't have survived.'

'I believe you. But maybe whoever he was with before wasn't giving him any slack either.' Jilly held up her hand to forestall Maisie's protest. 'Look, I'm not saying you're right or wrong, just that you might want to think about it— for Tommy, if not for yourself. Maybe you need Tommy as much as he needs you. I don't know. It's not for me to say, is it?'

'That's right. It's not for you to say.'

Jilly sighed. 'Now you think I'm trying to tell you how to take care of Tommy.'

'Aren't you? You're beginning to sound the same as everyone else I meet— you all know better.'

'No, I don't,' Jilly said. 'The only thing I know about Tommy is that I intend to treat him like anybody else I know. I don't have some hidden agenda, I was talking about you. Maybe you know how to take care of Tommy and the dogs, but do you know how to take care of yourself? I'm not talking about making a living or going back to school, or any of that. I'm talking about what goes on in here—' she touched a hand between her breasts '— in your heart.'

'What's that supposed to mean?'

'It's like my painting,' Jilly said. 'I'm out here on the streets with this pochade box because I was overloading my work with detail— so much so that while all the various parts of a painting would be good, the excessive details made the final painting way too busy. I was losing sight of what I was trying to say with each painting in the first place.'

'So?'

'I've done the same thing with my life. Concentrated so much on the details, that I would lose sight of the overall direction of where I was going— of the fact that I even wanted to go somewhere in the first place. I've got friends who work with people with special needs. I've even done some volunteer work myself. The thing is, it's so