"And lots of memories."
The children wanted to hang the portrait prominently between the windows in the living room. It was the best place, certainly. And she and Steve had often talked of getting a good picture for that spot. Lajos Neagu was shortly dominating the room. The rug, the drapes, the gold slip covers all seemed to take on added warmth as his personality blazed from the canvas. As it seemed unlikely to Mirelle that her parents-in-law would be gracing their home any time soon, they couldn't construe the portrait as an affront to their sensibilities. As far as friends and neighbors were concerned, Nick had innocently suggested the proper line: her parents had been divorced. No one knew about the Barthan-More part of her life, and to hell with the narrow-minded Martins.
She'd shooed the children off to pick up their rooms when the phone rang.
"How was the concert?" Sylvia asked, her words slurred.
"Just great, but where were you yesterday?"
"Your line was busy, my dear, for three hours." Sylvia was speaking slowly and her enunciation was very precise.
"Sorry about that. I had so many calls first thing that I finally took the phone off the hook. Besides, you had no intention of coming to the concert, did you?"
"Let us say, a conflict. I hoped that I'd be free in the evening. I was rather curious about Howell, the professional ivory-tickler. Tell me," and Sylvia's characteristic chuckle was remarkably unrepentant, "did he drive you home?"
Mirelle checked herself. She had been thinking only in terms of Sylvia using the concert as a cover-up for some activity of her own, not that Sylvia might be deliberately throwing her into Howell's company.
"Sylvia! You're meddling!"
"You're damned right I am. Have a little fun in life, honey," and the slurring was worse than ever, "before it's too late. Before it's much too late."
"Sylvia, what's wrong? You don't sound like yourself."
"Nothing's wrong. I'm insulated against the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. I'm wrapped in cotton wool. God's in his heaven, all's right with the world. Pippa passes."
Abruptly the connection was cut. Sylvia couldn't be drunk at 10:30 in the morning, thought Mirelle, glancing at her watch. She started to dial Sylvia's number but, at that point, Nick and Tonia started some kind of a full-fledged, object-throwing brawl on the landing and what with one thing and another, she had no chance to call Sylvia back until noontime - when there was no answer. It was quite likely that Sylvia was busy with Saturday errands but Mirelle was strangely uneasy about her friend.
She did her own shopping, took the children to a movie which had been enthusiastically plugged on TV, ironed, cleaned, and cooked until the children went to bed. Then she purposefully entered the workshop.
She took down the bust of Jamie. She knew, in a glance now, where she had erred and corrected the faults with quick careful strokes. Then she sat for a long time in contemplative regard of her craftsmanship.
Yes, she had been drawn to James Howell, amused and stimulated by his quick, sardonic humor, his ruthless attitudes, and his contradictory sensitivities. She wondered if sleeping with him had been the necessary catalyst to capturing the elusive quality of the man. God, she couldn't go around sleeping with every man she wanted to sculpt. Reverend O'Dell would be shocked! She giggled at her irreverence and then wished she could tell Jamie. And that amused her further.
Was that why, she wondered, her father had been so successful a portrait painter? Certainly he had been with her mother's portrait. Was that why Edward Barthan-More had kept the portrait in his bedroom? It had too much of a hint of the bedroom to be hung with the staider family portraits. She privately didn't give her stepfather such perceptiveness but it made an interesting conundrum. Obviously Lajos Neagu had used that research technique often. But it was one thing for a man… and quite another for a woman.
Mirelle hugged her knees to her chest and rocked in a silent excess of amusement. What was the matter with her? Genetic traits making belated appearances? Well, adultery was a family custom, wasn't it? She ought to be scandalized and appalled by her behavior, by her outrageous thoughts and yet, they all seemed natural. Just as the course of events which had started the day the Sprite's tire blew was inevitable, right into Jamie Howell's bed. Were all the major changes of life heralded by such trivia? For-want-of-a-nail-the-shoe-was-lost kind of sequence?
Boots' toss had started an upheaval both subtle and violent. Well, since she was dealing in cliches, she must also believe that an ill wind blew some good.
She had, after all, done the Lucy statue; she had this very creditable bust of Howell and damn the research which provided the final insight; the little soldier. She'd caused Steve to throw off his mother's domination, and she had finally come to terms with her bastardy. (Though she reversed the cliche, the child acknowledged the father.) Well, she couldn't leave the metamorphosis half finished. As soon as the Christmas rush was over, she'd get in touch with Ty Hopkins at the bank and see about a showing. She'd even find out if Sylvia had contacted that gallery friend of hers in Philadelphia. She might even advertise her Dirty Dicks in one of those Shopping Columns in magazines.
The house was chilling off; it was past 11:00 and fatigue stiffened her muscles. She mixed a blue plaster and coated the bust. It was, to her eyes, too naked an admission of intimacy. Had her father felt that way when he gazed at his finished portrait of Mary LeBoyne? She couldn't imagine that father of hers regretting anything he'd done! God, half her adult life had been wasted in worrying about the things she hadn't done. Ye gods, the times Steve had apparently envisioned her in bed with another man! Just this once she would permit herself to stray. Just once? Like mother, like daughter? Mirelle was too weary to pursue the analogy further. In fact, she almost dared not.
That night she dreamt again of the hands, with one difference. She no longer feared them and eluded their grasping talons with ease, because the Lucy statue was running beside her, only it never seemed to change its feet, but sort of hopped along on the one toe, a technique which irritated the dreamer profoundly.
When she woke to the bright Sunday sunshine, she wondered in the drowsy borderland between sleep and wakefulness, if the hands symbolized all her vain efforts to conform to Mother Martin's notions of the proper daughter-in-law? If so, what was the Lucy figure doing, traveling in that pogo-stick fashion?
There were a few minor problems with Roman's paper-route that morning. He had found a substitute to help Nick with the heavy Sunday deliveries, but the two boys had fallen to squabbling. Mirelle finally had to bundle the invalid into the Sprite and help him check out discrepancies.
When they got back a strange car was turning in the drive. Mirelle assumed it was about the paper deliveries until she saw the yellow telegram envelope in the driver's hand. Wordlessly the messenger handed over his clipboard for her to sign. She would have preferred not to read the telegram at all because it could only be bad news. It was the phrasing of the message which rocked her.
"What's the matter, Mother?" Roman asked. "Grandfather Martin's had a heart attack. Your Uncle Ralph says he'll be all right but he'll have to go easy," she said slowly. She did not add the final sentence of Ralph's message: "Trust you are satisfied now."
"I must reach your father," she mumbled and raced up the stairs to the privacy of her room. She threw herself on the bed. Part of her wanted to curl into a ball while the sane observer remarked that this was ridiculous.
'Satisfied now'? How could Ralph? As if she, Mirelle, could be to blame for a heart attack that had happened a week later and eighteen hundred miles away. And yet… it had happened when she, Mirelle, had been lolling in James Howell's arms. She pushed that from her mind.