I started pointing them out. “That’s Julia de Burgos, a famous Puerto Rican poet; and Piri Thomas, who wrote Down These Mean Streets; and I think that’s Eddie Palmieri.”
“What’d you do, Rodriguez, study up before you brought me here so you could show off?”
I hadn’t, but she was right that I was showing off.
Terri pointed to another portrait. “Bob Marley,” she said, and started to sing, “‘No Woman No Cry.’ You’re not the only one who can show off.”
We headed into the main gallery, an exhibition of works by Felix Gonzalez-Torres, spare and austere.
Terri pointed at a stack of papers on the floor maybe two-by-three-feet and six inches thick, an image of sand or waves or clouds on top, it was hard to tell. “What’s this?”
“Pick one up.”
“You want me to set off the alarms and get arrested, that it?”
“No, I’m serious.”
She gave me a look, but did it. “Oh. I hadn’t realized it was a stack of the same picture.”
“Gonzalez-Torres wanted his art to be disposable-democratic, you know, just a stack of photocopies.”
Terri rolled up the print. “Maybe I’ll frame it. Free art, why not?” She moved to a wall of small framed statements, and read one: “Center for disease control 1981 streakers 1974 go-go boots 1965 Barbie doll 1960 hula hoop 1958 Disneyland 1955 3-D movies 1952.” She turned to me. “What’s this about?”
“I’d say it’s about juxtaposing fads and cultural phenomena to create unexpected associations.”
“Wow. You’re either too smart for me, Rodriguez, or really full of shit. Forgive me, but art intimidates me.”
“It intimidates lots of people, but you just have to know the language.”
“You mean like the G, with their BSS and CIU bullshit.”
“Exactly,” I said. “For me, art always came naturally, but put an algebra problem in front of me and I go brain-dead. Gonzalez-Torres is a conceptual artist. He works with ideas as opposed to, say, paint and canvas.”
“Sounds a lot cheaper.”
I laughed, and ushered her into another room, walls covered with papier-mâché masks made in the seventeenth century for the carnivals in Ponce, Puerto Rico.
“Jesus!” Terri gasped.
I looked back and forth between a hideous horned fanged devil mask and Terri’s pretty face.
“Can’t tell us apart, huh?”
“If it weren’t for the horns, no.” I laughed, then squinted at Terri.
“What?”
“It’s gone, but a second ago when you looked at that mask, your anatomy-your facial anatomy, that is-rearranged itself into a classic fear face.”
“How so?”
“Your eyes opened and tensed. Your brows raised, and your forehead wrinkled.”
“Not my forehead, Rodriguez. I’m way too young. Go on.”
“Your lips drew back, then opened, and for a second, just a second, your jaw dropped open and quivered.”
“It did not.”
“’fraid so. Dropped wide open-and it wasn’t pretty.”
Terri whacked my arm.
“Sorry, but the classic elements of fear were written all over your face.”
“You know, I see people lying dead in the street and I barely flinch. But I walk into a room with a papier-mâché mask and I freak out.”
“Facial muscles have a mind of their own. It’s totally involuntary.”
“You really know this stuff, don’t you, Rodriguez?”
“It’s my biz, but I’m still learning. And I spared you the anatomical muscle names because I didn’t want to show off.”
“I think you did a pretty good job-of showing off, I mean.” She looked up at me. “So what’s my face telling you now?”
I cocked my head and studied her. “Aside from your raised lip and the one cocked eyebrow-sure signs of disgust and arrogance-there’s a telltale sign of sadness in the downward slant of your outer eyelids, but I think what your face is saying is, ‘Hey, I’m gorgeous and I don’t always know it because I’m insecure, but I think this guy I’m looking at is way cool.”
“Asshole.” She laughed, and raised a hand to hide her face.
“Right on the money, huh?”
“All but that last part about you being cool.” She kept the hand over her face. “Just don’t look at me, okay, Rodriguez? I can’t have you reading my face all the time.”
“Afraid of what I’ll see?”
“Believe it,” she said and slapped my arm.
“You’re hitting me again.”
“Take it as a good sign.”
We ended up in the museum shop where Terri bought a box of Frida Kahlo stationery and I bought some postcards of tacky Spanish-language movies from the fifties.
Outside, a slate-gray sky was framing the naked winter trees of Central Park.
I looked at Terri, pulled her to me, and kissed her.
“Whoa,” she said, her hand pushing against my chest, but not before our tongues had done a little tango. “You could have asked.”
“I couldn’t take the chance of being turned down.”
She shook her head, but she was smiling.
He feels the bile rising into his throat; the picture of them kissing, vibrating on his optic nerve, sickening.
But what did he expect from her? Maybe she is half Spanish too, like Rodriguez. It was possible, some of them passed.
A school group is heading into the museum and he uses them like a shield to get closer. They are only a few yards apart. He sees them talking and laughing, completely unaware of him. Then the guy raises his arm and the sleeve of his jacket slides back.
He takes a deep breath and ticks off a few more pictures, then pulls the cap lower on his forehead and follows them.
We didn’t make it back to the precinct. We went to my apartment instead. Terri said it was her first day off in a year, but she still felt guilty.
After we fooled around, I pulled myself out of bed and got my pants back on. I wanted to show her my latest drawing.
“It’s still not enough for an identification,” said Terri,
“but there’s something familiar about it. When did you add to it?”
“The other night. I just had a feeling about it.”
She gave me a look, like she was trying to see inside my head.
“Don’t look at me like that.
It makes me feel like a crackpot, the way Denton was looking at me.”
“Oh, Denton just likes to have someone around to torture, and he thinks I’m sleeping with you, so you’ve been elected.”
“How would he know that?”
“He doesn’t. He’s just guessing,” she said, still gazing at the drawing. “What if we got one of the computer nerds to play with this, see what they could come up with?”
“You mean another sketch artist?”
“Oh, don’t look so wounded, Rodriguez, it was just a thought.”
“Well, it’s a sore spot with me. Most of the sketch artists who work on computers have no art training at all. They take a course in moving noses around on a computer screen and they think-”
“Okay, relax. It was just a thought. But do you think you’re going to get more of this face?”
“Maybe,” I said, but had a feeling I would. I thought I might show it to my grandmother too. It didn’t seem so far-fetched these days, particularly with her weird connection to the case.
“And you’ll show it to me if you do.” It was not a question.
It brought up my suspicion or paranoia or whatever you want to call it, that Terri just wanted me around to do my drawings. I don’t know why that annoyed me. I wanted to complete the drawing too.
“What?” Terri asked, looking up at me.
“Nothing.”
“Bullshit. I’m no face-reading expert, Rodriguez, but I can recognize annoyance when I see it.”
“I’m not annoyed.”
“Suit yourself,” she said.