“Yes, I was amazed that you saw me that way,” said Jane. “You seemed to be seeing some better version of me, or so I thought at the time, but then, I was excessively self-conscious when I was younger.”
“Did I idealize you back then?” Maxine asked with horror.
“God, I don’t know,” said Jane. “Honestly, I can’t remember back that far. I just know that painting is definitely worthy of Oscar. Brilliant. It’s satirical. Such a sly joke, making an über-WASP society girl portrait of a white-trash Southern Baptist like me, and then also passing your own dyke girlfriend off as one of your brother’s conquests…So clever, Max, just so stunningly smart. Class, gender, stylistic appropriation. And on top of that, by using Mercy as the model for Helena, in pairing the two paintings, you made both of them about race, as well.”
Maxine furrowed her brow.
“Good God!” said Jane. “Don’t disillusion me and tell me it was all unintentional.”
“I was just trying to win a bet,” said Maxine, taking a slug of whiskey. “I don’t know about all that other crap. Want a tuna sandwich?”
“In a bit,” said Jane. “Let me get a buzz on first.”
“Tell me about this boyfriend of yours,” said Maxine.
Jane took a sip of wine with the kind of smug, thoughtful little grin people used to attribute to the Cheshire cat from Alice in Wonderland, a book that had always given Maxine mental hives.
“All right, then,” said Maxine, “don’t tell me.”
“No no,” said Jane, “I like talking about him. It’s just that he’s very quirky. It’s hard to describe him.”
“I never knew you were bisexual,” said Maxine, trying to sound nonjudgmental, without accusation.
“I’m not,” said Jane. “I’m as gay as you are. It’s just that…”
“What’s his name?” Maxine asked, stifling a sigh.
“Sylvester Beely,” said Jane. “Syl, he’s called.”
“What’s he like? Sensitive and artistic, or manly and rugged?”
Jane laughed. “Well, he’s not…artistic, to say the least. Actually, he’s far more effeminate than you are. He calls himself a girl with a penis, and in many ways he is.”
“Oh,” said Maxine.
“But in some ways he’s quite rugged,” said Jane. “He’s not American…so his idea of masculinity is more complex and inclusive than that of most men who were born and raised here. He was born in Bombay to a Dutch father and an English mother, raised in India and Africa, schooled in England and at Harvard, where he got an M.B.A., and now he’s a self-made millionaire who retired early. He’s fifty-seven. A little younger than I am.”
“What does he do now that he’s retired?” Maxine asked through a welter of frustration.
“He coordinates charitable and humanitarian efforts for AIDS victims in the Third World. And when he’s not doing that, he goes white-water kayaking in Canada and studies ancient Greek. He’s working his way through Homer’s Odyssey in the original. He sounds too good to be true, doesn’t he? But he’s got a lot of mental problems, a lot of fragility, unresolved conflicts, demons…. He needs me desperately, which is as much a part of his appeal to me as the rest of it, his success, his intelligence. He’s a mess inside. His childhood was hell. His ambitions always kept him from the things he really wanted to do — find love, get married, have a family, emotional stability….”
“And you fulfill all his needs,” said Maxine. “You mother him; you fulfill his longing for intimacy.”
“No need to be snotty,” said Jane. Her tone was light, but her smile was sharp-toothed.
“Yeah,” said Maxine. “Well, after I saw you the other night, I kicked myself. I couldn’t remember why we broke up, to be honest.”
“Give me some more wine,” said Jane, holding up her glass.
Maxine poured a good dollop into her glass.
Jane leaned back and fingered the glass’s stem, looking up at the ceiling. “I was heartbroken by our affair, Max,” she said after a moment. “It took me years to get over you.”
“You were? It did?”
“You didn’t know?”
“I had absolutely no idea.”
“Oh yes. I was catatonic for a few months after you dumped me.”
“I dumped you?” Maxine felt as if she’d been plunked down in an alternate universe. She could feel how bug-eyed she looked. She was sick to her stomach with shocked regret.
“Well…” said Jane, still not looking at Maxine. “You said you didn’t want to see me anymore. I took that to mean I was being dumped. Perhaps I overreacted.”
Maxine stared slack-jawed at her hands, which were twisted together on the table.
“You are a tough nut to crack,” said Jane. “You mean to say you had no idea that’s what happened?”
“I saw it somewhat differently,” said Maxine. “It seemed to me we were both unwilling to show our cards. We were both too proud and insecure at once. No one seemed to be willing to fall headlong.”
“I fell headlong!” Jane said, half laughing, half angry. “Never before or since did I give or have I given of myself so completely. I felt you couldn’t handle my intensity. I felt you were put off by it. Whenever we would start to get close, you would back off, shut the door, say you had a lot of work to do. I mean, hell, it only lasted a few months. But it devastated me. It’s amazing how very brief affairs can go so deep, cut to the bone, so it takes years to get over what lasted only hours.”
Maxine felt weak, ashen, befuddled. “I didn’t know,” she said. “Truly, Jane. I had no idea. I would have loved to be with you for a long time, to be with you still. I feel awful. I mean this. I was very sorry to see you go.”
“‘Very sorry to see me go,’” said Jane. “Sounds like you didn’t suffer too much.”
“I can’t very well take a lie-detector test about this,” said Maxine. “But Jane, I never knew how you felt about me; I had not the slightest idea. This whole conversation has me feeling as if you and I were in two different affairs. I wanted to fall in love with you but felt somehow blocked. I don’t know why.”
Maxine and Jane looked at each other.
“I thought you were such a coward,” said Jane.
“I thought you were remote,” said Maxine. “I wanted to know you better, but I had no idea how to get there.”
Their mutual gaze deepened a little.
“I’m glad you’ve found love,” said Maxine.
“Well, thanks,” said Jane. “I wish you had found it, too.”
“I’m horrified that you felt the way you did and I never knew it.”
“I never really saw what I had to offer you,” Jane replied. “You were so interesting and famous and all that. I was this boring academic type.”
“What?” Maxine said.
“You were so exciting. You had such strong opinions about everything. I loved being with you. It made me feel bohemian and unconventional, corny as it sounds, instead of a kid from a trailer park masquerading as an academic, which is what I am. You were the kind of woman I had hoped to meet all my life.”
“Why the hell couldn’t you show me you felt like that?”
“I did show you,” said Jane.
“Hell no,” said Maxine. “You did not. This is not all my fucking fault. I was not the villain here. If you had felt so passionately about me, don’t you think I should have had an inkling of that? I am not stupid. And I had no frigging idea.”
“Well then, I don’t know what the problem was,” said Jane.
“You should have told me,” said Maxine. “The problem was that you didn’t tell me.”