“Nope,” Jordan said. “Can’t do it.”
“Why not?” she asked. Then, pointing at the record player, “Look, I get the joke. Do we have to hear that song?”
“What do you want to hear?” He lifted the record off the spindle and slipped it into its paper jacket and reracked it.
“I want to hear you say you’ll help me do right by my father. I’ll pay you, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“I know, money’s no object. Thanks, but no thanks.”
“I’ll give you one of those James Heldon paintings you seem to like so much.”
“I don’t like them, actually,” he said. “No, that’s not quite true. There were two or three there that I admired. And I can get a Heldon on my own, thanks. But it doesn’t matter, I can’t help you.”
“You mean ‘won’t.’ Why not?” She stood and laid a hand lightly on his shoulder. “I think you’re more afraid of me than angry. Besides, that morning at the Club all I did was tell you the truth. That’s not so bad, is it? You don’t have to be afraid of me, Jordan Groves. I won’t hurt you.”
“Miss Von Heidenstamm…or is it Countess?”
“Miss.”
“Miss Von Heidenstamm, for a man like me, you are nothing but trouble. As you have already noted. No, the best thing I can do for both of us is see you out and say thanks for the visit and good-bye.”
Gently, the artist took her hand off his shoulder and led her to the door. He opened the door and let go of her hand, and she stepped outside. He closed the door and went back to his work-table. For a moment he stood there staring down at the block of maple he’d been carving for three full days. Then he reached for the bottle of rum and poured himself a drink. Glass in hand, he walked to the Victrola. He placed the record back onto the spindle, and the Spirits of Rhythm resumed singing, “My old man, he’s only doin’ the best he can….”
AROUND MIDNIGHT WHEN JORDAN CAME IN TO BED, ALICIA was still awake, reading Gone With the Wind. It was the novel that everyone in America seemed to be reading that summer, sent to Jordan by the publisher in typescript six months earlier with a request that he illustrate an hors commerce limited edition for special friends of the publisher and author, numbered and signed. It was a lucrative offer, tempting. But after skimming the first few chapters, he’d pronounced it a ladies’ antebellum fantasy novel and tossed the manuscript into the fireplace. Now the book had become a beloved best-seller and there was even talk of making a movie adaptation. He was a little sorry he’d turned the offer down — it would have been the first time he’d illustrated a popular book by a living author. It might have led to many rich commissions.
He went into the dressing room and pulled his clothes off, washed his face and brushed his teeth in the bathroom, and came quickly to bed. Alicia had already closed her book and snapped off the bedside lamp, and though she appeared to have gone straight to sleep, he knew that she was awake. Awake and waiting.
For a few moments he remained silent. Then he said, “That girl, Vanessa Von Heidenstamm, she came by the studio today.”
“Yes, I know. I wondered if you were going to mention it.”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“Why wouldn’t you? Really, Jordan. She has her cap set for you. You know that.”
“Well, that’s nothing to me.”
“Oh.”
“She wanted me to do something weird for her.”
“Oh.”
“She wanted me to fly her and her father’s ashes up to the Reserve, so she could scatter the ashes in the Second Lake. Pretty weird, eh?”
“No, I don’t think so. Maybe the place was special to him,” she said. “Will you do it?”
“Christ, no.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t particularly like the girl. Or her family, either.” He rolled over and put his back to her. “People like that don’t need help from me. They contaminate everything and everyone they touch. Besides, it’s against Reserve rules.”
“When did you start caring about rules?” she said and was silent for a moment. “‘People like that.’ They collect art, Jordan. They have nice big houses and apartments. They think artists are interesting, superior people. And you like all that, you know. And there’s no reason you shouldn’t like it, is there?”
“They don’t collect art, except as an investment, as capital. They collect artists. So I deal with them only as much as I have to,” he declared. “And there’s no way she’s going to collect me.”
“Oh.”
“What’s the matter with you, anyway? Are you pissed off at me for something?”
“Have you done something lately that I should be angry about?”
“No. Not that I’m aware of, anyhow.”
“Then I’m not angry at you, am I?”
“Jesus. Do we have to live like this? Aren’t you able to forgive and forget, Alicia?”
“You have tested me on that. Many times. And I have passed the test of forgiving and forgetting. Many times.”
“All right, then. So why are you still pissed off at me?”
“I’m not,” she said. “Go to sleep, Jordan.”
For a few moments they lay in silence, unmoving. Finally, he said, “Do you know how many nights we’ve let end like this?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know how long it’s been since we’ve made love, Alicia?”
“Do you want to make love to me?” she asked. “You can, if you want to.”
“Jesus Christ, Alicia! I hate this. You act as if you’ve taken a lover. Have you? Do you have a lover?”
“That’s a very strange question,” she said. “Coming from you.”
“Well, I mean it.”
“No. Go to sleep, Jordan. Unless you want to make love to me.”
He was silent again. Then after a few moments her breathing slowed, and he knew she was sleeping. He closed his eyes, and soon he was sleeping, too.
THE FOLLOWING DAY, WHEN HE’D PUT IN A FULL MORNING’S work in the studio, Jordan Groves decided around noon to drive into the village to pick up the mail and newspapers and maybe have lunch at the Moose Head over in Sam Dent. He wasn’t feeling especially sociable, merely in the mood for a little public solitude and a meat-loaf sandwich and a cold bottle of beer. He wasn’t free to linger: Alicia was working in the garden and had plans, if it cleared up later, to take the boys swimming at the falls and would need the car. He thought a moment about taking the truck instead, freeing him to set his own time for returning home, then decided against it. There was the unfinished wood-block, the set of lithographs he’d promised the publisher of his Greenland travel book, letters to write and accounts to update, a new studio assistant coming by later for instructions. He couldn’t linger. There was always more work to do than time in which to do it. Jordan Groves believed that was a good thing.
It was a bright day, but still overcast. He strolled from the studio to the garage, drew the doors open, got the Ford started, and backed the sedan from the dark interior out to the driveway. In daylight he saw the jar. It sat on the passenger’s seat — a tall, jade-green container about eighteen inches high with an overlapping cover. He stared at the jar, stunned and disbelieving, as if the object were a person, a stranger sitting beside him, unexpected and uninvited. The jar was very beautiful, softly rounded in the middle and narrow at the base and top, and elegantly proportioned, the force and gentleness of its ancient maker’s hands and mind evident in the form of the jar and the cut surface and the brilliant green glaze.
Ten minutes later, he pushed his airplane from the hangar and slid it down the ramp and into the water. To keep the green jar from being jostled or tipped, he had strapped it with masking tape to the seat in the aft cockpit. He let the engine warm for half a minute, then taxied upstream fifty yards and brought the airplane around and into the fluttery wind. He headed on a diagonal across the rippled open water into the wide smooth belly of the river, picked up speed, hit the step, and, pulling back on the stick, lifted the airplane free of the water. It rose quickly over the trees that lined the farther bank. He fought the torque and dipped the left wing slightly, cutting the airplane back around to the south. As he flew over the garden, he looked down and saw his wife and sons peering up at him. The sun had come out, and they shaded their eyes against it with their hands, and the shadow of the airplane passed across them.