“Then that’s that,” Albina said. “Do you want to leave any of the other pieces here, or do you have something new you want to hang?”
Izzy thought of the paintings at the Grumbling Greenhouse Studio, but she wasn’t sure she was ready to give them up just yet. She also wasn’t sure what Rushkin’s reaction to them was going to be, since he’d made it quite plain that any work she did he wanted done in his studio. Their relationship had been going so smoothly of late that she didn’t want to throw a kink in the works. Rushkin was so quick to take offense at even fancied slights, she couldn’t imagine what he’d do if he found out about the paintings she’d done in the green-house—especially when she tried to explain why she’d done them there, not to mention the freedom she’d discovered working away from his studio in the coach house. She supposed she’d have to tell him at some point, but she planned to put that off for as long as she could. Hanging them in The Green Man Gallery was not the way to go about keeping them secret from him.
“Nothing at the moment,” she said, finally. “Do you really think any of these will sell now when no one wanted them in the show?”
Albina nodded. “They’re still good, Izzy. They’re just not as good as what you’re capable of. They may sit here for a while, but I guarantee we’ll have sold them all by the summer.”
“Really?”
“Really. So you’d better get started on some new pieces for me.” Albina laid her hand between her breasts. “But envision them from here. Put your heart into them, the way you did with Smither’s Oak and The Spirit Is Strong.”
III
That night, while they were sitting on a bench down by the Pier, Izzy tried to give John The Spirit Is Strong, but he wouldn’t take it.
“Where would I put it?” he asked. “It’s not like I’ve got my own place and I can’t really see it sharing the same wall as my aunt’s black velvet Elvis and her crucifixes. I’d rather you stored it for me.
I’d feel safer that way.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
He looked blankly at her.
“Why would my storing the painting for you make you feel safer?” Izzy asked.
“Because if I kept it at my aunt’s place, she’d probably throw it out. Why? What were you thinking?” Then he laughed. “Are you still wondering if I’m real or not?”
“I can’t help feeling that if something happened to the painting it would happen to you as well.”
“Like what?”
“Like if I gave it away to anybody but you, you’d walk out of my life.”
“Izzy. You don’t have to—”
“I was offered five thousand dollars for that painting, but I turned it down.”
“Five thousand dollars?”
Izzy nodded.
“And you turned it down?”
“Well, what was I supposed to do? You’re like this big mystery in my life. I don’t know where you came from and I don’t know where you’re going. All I know is I painted this piece and you walked into my life. I can’t help but think that you’d walk right out again if anybody but you or I owned it.”
“You know that’s not going to happen. I’m not going to leave you because of some painting.”
Izzy shook her head. “No, I don’t know that. All I know is that I love you, but then I get all screwed up because I don’t even know who you are.”
“I’m what you see—nothing more or less.” He turned to face her, dark eyes serious, and put his hands on her shoulders. His gaze held hen. “There’s no mystery here.”
“I guess.”
John smiled. “But I have to tell you. Nobody ever thought I was worth anything before—and they certainly wouldn’t have given up five grand for my sake.” Keeping one arm around her shoulders, he leaned back against the bench once more and drew her close. “I appreciate it, Izzy.”
They looked out over the lake, watching the crowds at the concession stands and strolling along the boardwalk. The ferry made its return from Wolf Island, landed to exchange one load of passengers for another, then started back out across the water again.
“Tell me something about your past,” Izzy said.
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. Anything. You tell me about the reserve and your people, but never anything about yourself “
“There’s nothing to tell.”
“There’s got to be something.”
John shook his head. She had turned to look at him, but his gaze remained on the distant horizon.
“Were you so bad?” Izzy asked. “Is that it? I wouldn’t think the less of you, you know, because you’re so good now. I could only admire the turnaround you’d made in your life.”
“I wasn’t bad or good,” John said finally. “Before I met you, I was nothing, Izzy.’
“Nobody’s nothing.”
“That depends upon your perspective. Let’s just say I was in a different story from the one I’m in now.”
“And how does this story end?”
John shrugged. “That’s not something we can know. We have to live it through and find out, just the way everybody else does.”
Only everybody else has a past, Izzy thought, but she knew there was no point in trying to take this particular conversation any further. There never was. Sighing, she snuggled against him and tried to put the questions out of her mind and be happy with what she had.
IV
Newford, March 1975
“Did you read those new stories yet?” Kathy asked when she got home.
Izzy looked up from the art-history book she was studying and felt a twinge of guilt. Even with her show over, she still never seemed to have enough time to do half the things she wanted to do. She had two papers due at the end of next week; she was behind in her studying, which was not good considering she had finals coming up in less than a month; John was beginning to complain about how little time she had for him; her other friends were starting to tell her that they were feeling neglected; and then there was Rushkin. He was working her so hard that she could barely keep her eyes open in class after leaving his studio. She hadn’t been to the greenhouse studio in weeks.
“I feel so bad,” she said. “I just haven’t had the time.”
“That’s okay.” Kathy hung up her coat and then settled into the pile of cushions by the window. “I understand.”
“No, really. I feel like my life went insane last December and it’s never recovered.”
Kathy nodded. “We should get a cat,” she said. “A big scruffly tomcat with a chewed ear and an attitude.”
Izzy blinked. For all that she was used to the way both Jilly and Kathy switched topics almost in the middle of a sentence, it could still catch her off guard sometimes.
“Whatever for?” she asked.
“I think we need some male energy in here.”
“You could get a boyfriend.”
“I don’t think so. They’re too much responsibility.”
“Oh, and a cat isn’t?”
“Not in the same way,” Kathy said. “I mean, look at you, juggling a million things in your life, and then having to worry about what John’ll think if you can’t get together with him this night or that. A cat’s not like that. They’re much more easygoing.”
Izzy laughed. “You’ve obviously never owned a cat.”
“But am I that wrong? I think men are like dogs, always in your face about something or other, while women are like cats, just content to take things as they come.”
“I think a man would say just the opposite.”
“But it wouldn’t be true. Or at least,” Kathy added, “it would only be true on the surface. The stronger a woman gets, the more insecure the men in her life feel. It doesn’t work that way for a woman.