2
“WON’T BE NO SIGN OR MAILBOX THERE,” THE OLD FELLOW said, pumping gas into the tan Packard sedan. He was a scrawny man in his late sixties in coveralls, with a plum-size lump of tobacco in his cheek and stumped brown teeth. “Every time he puts one up, somebody comes along and knocks it down.”
“Why is that?” Vanessa Cole asked him. A light rain had begun to fall. She stepped away from the car and stood under the gas station canopy and watched the old man pump gas.
The man shrugged and looked the Packard over bumper to bumper and pursed his lips as if about to whistle. Nice-looking vehicle. Nice-looking girl, too. “Can’t say. ’Course, there’s some folks that claims he’s a Red. You know, a Commie.”
“And is he?” She reached into her purse to pay for the gas.
“Could be. I keep out of it. Could be he’s only what you call abnormal, if you know what I mean. Friend of yours?” he asked and winked at her.
“Aren’t you the flirt,” she said. Funny old man, she thought. She paid him and lay a gloved hand on his shoulder in a friendly way and gazed deeply into his wide-open eyes, startling and pleasing him. She thanked him for the directions and walked slowly around the front of the car and got in, letting him watch her.
By the time she’d driven the four and a half miles north on Route 19 as instructed by the funny man at the filling station, the rain was falling steadily in cold, wind-driven waves. Through flapping windshield wipers she caught sight of the red farmhouse and horse barn he’d said to look for and pulled off the road. She bumped onto the dirt lane that passed by the farm and drove through the adjacent field where a blue sprawl of chicory spread from the lane into the field. A few hundred yards beyond the farm, she crossed the river on a narrow wooden bridge and entered the woods. After a few seconds the rain briefly let up, and from the car she could see fresh chanterelles glowing like nuggets among the sodden leaves.
Then the rain resumed, and she had a hard time seeing where she was going. The lane wound uphill a ways, first through oak and maple trees, then through spruce and old red pines. After a while it dipped back toward the river again, ending at a large, two-story, cedar-shingled house situated on a rise in a hemlock grove. It overlooked an oxbow loop where the river slowed and widened into an eddy the size of a large mill pond. She parked as close to the front door as she could, removed her gloves, and dashed from the car up the wide stone steps and onto the front porch. She shook the raindrops from her hair and knocked on the door.
Carefully tended flowers decorated the yard — perennials and rose-and lilac bushes and pale-faced hydrangeas and thriving herb gardens. There was a two-bay garage at the side of the house and down by the eddy in the river a building that looked like a boathouse and must be where he keeps his airplane, she thought. On the flood plain beyond the boathouse she noticed a large vegetable garden protected by a head-high deer fence. The house and outbuildings and grounds impressed her. It was clearly the center of a serious, hardworking country life. She assumed the large structure with the skylights at the back of the house was his studio. Smoke curled from a stovepipe chimney and light glowed from inside. She knew he was there — the famous artist ensconced in his skylit studio, working alone through the cold, gray afternoon making pictures — and was eager to see the man in his natural element.
But first Vanessa Cole wanted to present herself to the woman of the house. She had learned the woman’s name while in Manhattan these weeks since her father’s funeral, but little else, for the artist’s wife was rarely seen in New York. Vanessa was curious about her — she wondered what the woman looked like, her age, her personal style. She wondered what kind of woman held on to a man like Jordan Groves. Or if indeed it could be done at all.
The door came unlatched and opened in. A very tall woman, taller even than Vanessa and a few years older, stood behind the screened door. A country woman, she seemed, and strikingly attractive, with pale blue eyes and silken, straight blond hair cut shoulder length. Her plaid flannel shirt was open at the throat, with the sleeves rolled above her elbows, and her arms and face and neck had a gardener’s tan, not a sunbather’s. A pair of Irish setters paced restlessly in the shadows behind her.
Vanessa said, “I’m sorry to bother you. I’m Vanessa Von Heidenstamm.”
“How do you do,” Alicia said simply.
Vanessa hesitated, expecting the woman to invite her inside. Finally she asked, “Are you Mrs. Groves?”
“Yes.”
“I was hoping to speak with your husband. We met…he came out to my parents’ camp a few weeks ago. On the Fourth—”
“Yes. I know that. He told me,” Alicia said. Then added, “I’m sorry about your father.”
Vanessa thanked her. She had caught the slight accent and wondered if it was German or Russian. Probably Russian, she thought. And probably why the locals think the artist is a Red.
After a few seconds of silence, Alicia said, “Jordan’s in his studio. He doesn’t like to be interrupted when he’s working.”
“I understand. I’ll come back another time, then. When would be a good time?” she asked.
Alicia looked at Vanessa Cole for a moment, as if taking her measure for the first time. Friend or foe? Neither, she decided. “The studio’s out back,” she said. “But it’s raining, so come inside. There’s a breezeway. You can get there from the kitchen without getting wet,” she said and pushed the screened door back, letting the woman into her house.