For years after that day, I'd continue to be amazed by the ability of her body to hold light. Even at the end — when she was flat and wooden under the hospice sheets. I'd watch her endlessly: following her body across each foot and nook of my studio; outside, walking through Central Park, lying down, the sun caught in her skin — or in bathtubs, watching how the water refracted the light on her face. I'd paint. It felt like cheating. Even after she moved in-after my wife and daughter left — she posed for me almost daily. Then, when she was tired of being watched, she'd lick a fingertip as though to turn a page but the finger would drop below her book and dangle over her groin. This didn't mean anything special, of course. If she smiled, though — not any old stretch but a smile broad enough to reveal her chipped canines — that was it, my cue, the first infallible move in our formula of sex. Always enough — there and then — to make me happy.
***
OLD APELMAN BEAMS WHEN HE SEES ME. "The big day!" he cries out, before marching across the polished floorboards of his gallery dodging sculptures made of wire and rubber bands, to give me a hug. Apelman's a sucker for all that man-to-man contact stuff. Right now, though, I'm a convert. I can't get enough: I'm nestling my chin against his beard when he shoves me away, pats me hard on the back a couple of times and says, "You smell like the main floor at Bloomingdale's."
It's true-I smell good. Mixed with sweat, the half ounce of French cologne I splashed on this morning seems to have brought forth a chemical pungency.
"And hey, buddy, did I see you power walking just now?"
I realize, after a while, he's talking about my squirmy, gimpish gait. A new aerobic regime, I tell him. We joke around about black-tie marathons and cardiac arrests — who'll finish first — but my heart's not in it. My mind's jammed. I know why I'm here — I'm ripe for Apelman's pep — and honestly, I'm trying to follow him as he jabbers away, but in my head I'm still inside her matchbox apartment, sharing a bathtub so small we both sit chin to knee; I'm watching her eat, sloppily lips smeared with mango juice, sweet with the nectar of plums. I never thought it would be me: the painter who falls for his nude model. I love that, she says. What? When you look at me too long. Then she smiles. I drag her toward me, fend her off. Through it all, she loves hitting me. Her lips turn martial. Afterward we fall apart, marks on our bodies, smelling of fruit and mineral spirits, soap and charcoal. You're a dirty old man, she says, giving me her best dirty young girl look, steering my cigaretted hand to her lips. I leave, each time, with new bruises.
No, I think to myself, no, get with it. Stay with the program.
"How's business?" I ask.
Apelman 's looking at me funny. I take another drag. Maybe he'd been hot for her. Maybe not. He'd never married. After a prolonged period of sulking and half-veiled threats on my part, they'd both denied it.
"Better," Apelman says slowly, "if my biggest name would give me something to sell."
"Freud's up to eight months now. Per painting."
"He's a perfectionist."
"I'm a perfectionist."
"Well," he says, "that explains why you've got nothing to give me."
We both grin. We're a regular riot together.
"Listen," I say. Then I stop — I realize I've got no idea what to tell him. "Actually. I've been meaning to talk — "
He motions me toward the back office. "Hey," he says, "forget it, buddy. That's not why I asked you here." He rests his hand on my tux shoulder. "Take all the time," he says.
But I know what he's thinking. I glance at the walls as I dodder behind him: splashes of chalky-colored oilsticks on linen and vinyl, photogravures and woodcut prints — all pulled off with the impatient skill and insolence of youth. They're good. Clamoring at his door. He always had a good eye, Apelman. He's thinking of my last exhibition — when was it? — more than a year ago now: those obsessive portraits of Olivia, black-layered and liquid, how I'd worried the same lines — trying to keep in the light — before it was shut off for good. The tube running out of her mouth, two plastic offshoots from her nose and the bright green wires that led to the bright blue box pumping breath in and out of her. Disney colors.
"How are your eyes?" Apelman asks.
I blink, looking for a place to throw my cigarette butt. A few months ago, my eyes joined in on my body's general strike. Some condition that made them more sensitive to light. An ironic incapacity. Everywhere I looked, everything looked brighter — then dimmer in a bright way through my sunglasses — like the color was drained out, like I was seeing everything at twilight. Anyway, my ophthalmologist, Andrew Werner, ran some tests and found nothing physically wrong.
"It comes and goes," I say.
"We're getting old." He peers quickly through the glass partition into the gallery. A young couple is walking in. "So, have you talked to Elise?"
"Not since last week."
"Where are you taking her?"
"Picholine. Her fiancé too."
"The manager?" "Yeah." I snort." The Leech."
The young couple drag their feet as they move, heads swaying and slanting, through the gallery. Grad students, probably. As they get close to the back office, I see them glance in, eyeballing my outfit. The girl starts whispering to the boy behind a magazine. I stare back and they scurry out. The boy tries to affect a relaxed amble but he's irrelevant; there's something about that girl — I watch as she darts across the street — how, past all the glass-fronted galleries, the low brick chop shops and warehouses, she walks without moving her hips, how the cute little beret holds down her hair against the Hudson wind…
"Still got it," Apelman chuckles. Then, "Hey, buddy — hey, you okay?"
I shrug. He reaches into his coat pocket, leans across the office desk and hands me a white, ironed handkerchief. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to blow my nose into it. For a moment I want to tell him about the diagnosis. I can't. It's clogged there somewhere, blocked by a little mushroom in my throat, maybe more than one, maybe deeper.
"It's a big deal," he says gently. "You're meeting your daughter for the first time in-for the first time, really."
I nod.
"She's an adult now," he goes on. "She's making her own decisions. A new life. And she's decided she wants you to be part of it."
It's pathetic how okay this guy can make me feel. With his smooth talking and chic Chelsea gallery I don't get how he's managed to stay unhitched.
"Henry, I'm going to tell you something." He sets his mouth in a tight line in the middle of his beard. I know this look. I'm about to be advised. And what's more — I want it. I crave it. "I know you've been having a hard time of it," he says. "I know you miss Olivia. I miss her too. You're angry." Only Apelman could pull this off, this primped wording, this deadpan goodness. He goes on in this vein — nothing I haven't heard before — his eyes so earnest he looks like a cross between a TV evangelist and a cow. He only wants what's best for me, he says, and in that precise moment I realize it's true. He's the only one. At last he stops, breathes, waits for me to catch up to him, then says, "Just don't let your anger get away from you. You know how you are. And another thing: Elise is not her mother. Remember that."