He walked through the arched entrance to the main gallery where Morton Dermond was supervising the efforts of a half dozen young people who were uncrating and hanging a show.
“Doris, darling,” Dermond yelled, “the reds in that one will absolutely slay that wonderful Ricardi. You’ll have to get it much further away. Try the west wall, dear.”
He came smiling over to Jimmy Wing. “This show is so colorful, we’re having a hideous time hanging it. How are you, Jimmy? I’m really terribly excited about this show. It’s a shame we couldn’t have gotten it during the season, but it’s really much too good for us at any time of year. It’s a traveling show. California artists. I was able to get it only because they had a little gap in their scheduling. It’s on its way from the Delgado to the Four Arts. Please don’t tell me you are going to review it! But you might do better than poor Dottie Grumbann at that. The dear thing comes to an absolute cultural stop over anything more complex than a Picasso.”
“Is this a bad time to talk to you, Mortie? I’m just feeling out a possible feature story on these summer classes for kids.”
“I can talk, if we stand here where I can see what’s happening. Charles! I want to save that center wall for the Deibenkorn, please. Why don’t you get it and hang it next, dear boy?”
“I had the idea of doing it as a sort of double interview, Mortie. One with a teacher, and one with one of the kids.”
“But you’ll have to clear the final draft with me, Jimmy. I have a very cowardly board of directors, you know. Let me see. I have just two teachers this summer. Peter Trent is sweet, but he’s practically inarticulate. I think Nat Sinnat would be really ideal. And she’d look better in a photograph than Peter would, with that grimy beard.”
“Then I have your permission to set it up with her?”
“Natalie! Come here a moment, dear!”
A girl at the far end of the gallery turned and came walking toward them, brushing her dark hair back with the back of her hand. She wore salmon-colored shorts and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up. Her sun-dark legs were almost but not quite too thin. She walked well, with grace and assurance. As she came close Jimmy saw that she looked flushed and hot. Her hands and shirt and chin were smudged.
“Natalie, dear, this is an old friend of mine, Jimmy Wing, from the newspaper. We can spare you for a little while here, so why don’t you take Jimmy into my office. He wants to interview you for a newspaper story about the children.”
“How do you do?” Natalie said. “I’ve heard Mrs. Hubble speak of you, Mr. Wing.”
“I don’t want to take you away from your work, Natalie.”
“She’s earned a break, Jimmy. She’s done as much as any two of the others.”
The girl picked her purse up from a bench by the arch and, as they walked out into the lobby, she said, “If you’ll excuse me, I’d like to wash up. I don’t know how the paintings get so filthy. If you’ll wait for me in Mortie’s office, I won’t be long.”
Morton Dermond’s small office was a sweltering jungle of books, easels, paintings, sculpture, mobiles, magazines, posters, sandals and strange hats. He turned on the window air conditioner, cleared the junk from two contour chairs and positioned them near the only clear corner of Dermond’s desk.
The girl came in, closing the door behind her, and went to stand in front of the cold wind of the air conditioner. “This is my first summer down here,” she said. “It’s really wicked, isn’t it?”
“Once we start getting some rain every day it won’t be so bad.”
“That’s what my father keeps telling me.”
She came over and sat near him. He asked questions and made the few notes which would cue his memory. He made it clear to her that Dermond had suggested her as the person he should interview. She was quick, intelligent and more poised than he had expected. When he asked about the caliber of the children she was teaching, she said, “They are all recommended by the art teachers in the public schools. I probably shouldn’t say this, but the ones who’ve had the least instruction are the most rewarding ones. What they get in the public schools seems to sort of tighten them up. They’re afraid of their materials. Peter and I seem to spend most of our time getting them to open up, to be bold with their colors and forms.”
“Are you planning to become an art teacher, Natalie?”
She frowned. “I don’t know, really. I’ve had just one year of fine arts. I’ll be a sophomore when I go back. I like this better than I thought I would. I want to be a painter. I know I have a knack, but maybe I haven’t much talent, really. I guess you better put down ‘undecided.’ ”
As he had talked to her he had become aware of a curious duality about her. Though her expression was placid, he thought he could detect the marks of tension in her young face. And her poise was a little too nearly perfect. She began to seem more guarded than poised. He guessed there could be a great amount of neurotic tension beneath the surface, the understandable product of sensitivity and a broken home. After he had told her he would make arrangements for photographs, and had gotten from her the name of a child who would be a good one to talk to, he put his notes away and said, “Aside from the climate, Natalie, are you having a good summer?”
“A very nice summer, thank you.”
“Kat Hubble seems very fond of you.”
“She’s sweet.”
“Her husband was one of my best friends.”
“My father told me what happened to him. It seems so terrible and so pointless.”
“Your people have been wonderful to Kat.”
“They like her a lot. And her children are wonderful kids.”
“Do you think you’ll be coming down every summer while you’re in school?”
“I don’t really know. I needed... a complete change of scene this summer. I asked if I could come down.”
“I guess it was up to Claire.”
“What has this got to do with the interview, Mr. Wing?”
“Absolutely nothing,” he said, smiling at her.
“Claire is one of the warmest, most generous people I’ve ever met.”
“Well, I hope you’ll come back every summer, Natalie. You improve the local summer scenery.”
“Thank you,” she said, startled and blushing slightly.
“Have our local young men gathered around with understandable enthusiasm?”
“I haven’t been dating,” she said, and stood up. “I better get back to work before they finish all of it.”
After she was back at work he talked to Morton Dermond again. The young people had almost finished hanging the show.
“Get what you need?” Dermond asked.
“Yes indeed. It should make a good story, Mortie.”
“Nat is articulate and she’s a darling and I love the way her mind works. She’s superb with the wretched little children. I can’t endure them myself.”
“I got the idea there’s more to her than meets the eye.”
“Oh, you are so right! She arrived down here shattered, just getting over an absolutely sickening affair with some pig of a graduate student up there in Michigan, and her mother was no help to her at all. Recriminations and so on. That’s why she came down. She told me about it in confidence. Broke down completely when I was criticizing her drawings, and it all came out. She seems to be coming out of it now, bless her. But she’s terribly vulnerable. That pig destroyed her confidence. I think she yearns for someone to appreciate her. Too bad you’re a little too old for her, Jimmy. Right now, to kill time, and maybe to help get herself back together, she seems to be running a little lovelorn anonymous club, being sweet and motherly to some dreary high-school boy, who seems to worship her. I saw him once in her car. I have no idea who he is. He’s rather a beautiful boy, but he has a sort of bovine look. You know the type. Natalie is a very complex little person, and very troubled, but I can’t tell you much about her because she spoke to me in confidence. You know how it is.”