“I’ll show you interesting,” she scoffed at him. “I got kids like this right down the street. You don’t need to take an airplane to get shots like these.”
“No, I’m sure I don’t. Now, if you’re through patronizing me, I’d like to get back to my patients.”
She looked at him and he saw that her lips were trembling.
“What’s the matter? What is it?”
“These came just in time.” She opened a large canvas duffel bag and took out a bulletproof vest. “Here, you’d better put it on. You’re going to need it.”
“What?”
“We’re on their list.”
“What list?”
“Their hit list. I checked out their Web site. They’ve got a hit list and we’re on it.”
“What, are you kidding?”
“No joke. Here, I printed it out.” She took a piece of paper out of her bag and unfolded it. “I wanted you to see it.”
Holding the paper in his hands he began to shake. It was an involuntary response, and there was nothing he could do to control it. There were two photographs positioned next to each other, one of him and one of her. Each had a caption underneath that gave their names and home addresses. Under his name were the names of his wife and children. At the bottom of the page, in big bold letters, were the words SHOOT TO KILL.
His legs felt weak suddenly and he sat down. “You’d better go, Celina.”
“I know.” She buttoned her coat.
“Be careful.” He could feel himself shutting her out. He picked up the phone.
“Who are you calling?” she asked.
“I’m calling my wife,” he said with surprising animosity. “Her name is on that list, too.”
First he dialed Annie’s office, but he got her machine. He tried her cell phone, but she hadn’t turned it on. Infuriated, he called the house, but for some inexplicable reason it just kept on ringing and he sat there like that for several minutes listening to the repetitive sound, wondering why he never seemed to be able to get through.
33
PULLING ONTO CAMPUS, winding up the circular driveway toward the South Cottage, Simon began to feel a familiar mixture of fear and excitement. The acerbic tonic of love, he thought, that he could no longer do without. Annie was waiting for him on the curb, wrapped up in her long camel coat with the wind like a child’s scribble across her face. One day he would paint her this way, he thought. He would paint the wind in a fury of brushstrokes, her face blurred and apprehensive. He parked and got out to open the door for her. She conceded to these old-fashioned gestures, he knew, because it gave a certain formality to their meetings, as if their courtship could lead to something other than misery. It would not be long, he knew, before this smart woman came to her senses.
He was taking her to the Whitney to see his painting, one of his earliest works. The Taconic was empty, and he tried to focus on the beauty of the scenery and the fact that his lover was sitting beside him, but in truth the excursion made him nervous. They spoke little on the drive, and when they arrived at the museum it was raining. He dropped her off in front, then circled the block numerous times before he found a space. He sat in the car for a moment with the rain beating down and wept.
He found Annie on the third floor, standing in front of the painting, which he had titled Her Father’s House. In the painting, Lydia stood in the doorway of her father’s crummy house in Vanderkill with the old man in the shadows behind her. He remembered trying to paint the word lurk, because that’s how she’d described her father, that he was always lurking over her shoulder, even though the man couldn’t get out of bed. Looking at it now, he was critical of some of his brushwork, the colors he’d used. The dirty white clapboards, the gray windows, the torn yellow shades, the mangled brown grass in the foreground. In the lower right corner, entering the canvas with prurient insinuation, was a rusty red mailbox.
The gallery was not crowded, and the space glowed nicely and hummed with the circulating heat. He observed Annie, who stood at the painting, tilting her head this way and that way, her shoulders slightly raised with emotion or ambiguity, he knew not which. He could not imagine what she was thinking. Regretting their visit now, embarrassed by it, he sat down on the bench behind her. Somehow, he felt lost. Melancholy whirled up inside him and he was struck with the distant memory of his father taking him to a museum, the Met. It had been one of their few outings together, their first visit to a museum. He remembered his father yanking him by the sleeve up the steps. Once inside all the sounds of the world faded. It was like being inside a cloud. The galleries with their glorious paintings. Massive canvases exploding with colors. His father rushed him through all the galleries, his face glowing with feverish sweat, until he found the painting he was searching for, a small Corot. His father sat him down hard on the wooden bench in front of it and handed him a sketchbook and pencil. “Draw that.”
Simon was happy to be allowed to draw again, and thought, perhaps, that his father had decided to approve of him. When they got home he was given a small canvas, the exact dimension of the Corot they’d seen at the museum, and a box of oil paints and brushes. His father put out the drawing he’d done at the museum. “See if you can paint that. Do it perfect. You want to be in this family, you earn your fucking keep.”
A week later, his father sold the painting to a man who peddled reproductions at a flea market in Brooklyn. His mother cooked pork chops and his father drank whiskey. Simon was nine years old.
“You okay?” Annie joined him on the bench. “You look gloomy all of a sudden.”
“I’m fine,” he lied.
“Is it hard? The painting, I mean. Seeing your wife.”
“I stole her,” he whispered. “You know how those people in tribes don’t want their pictures taken because they claim it steals their soul? Well, that’s what I did to her. I put her up on the canvas. I stole her soul.”
Annie said nothing. Her eyes looked watery and sad.
“She was this kid and I showed up and I fucking stole her. And nobody tried to stop me. I just walked in and took her life and I never gave it back. I never gave her anything.”
“I can’t believe that’s true,” she said softly.
“I’m a despicable man. I’m going to hell for it.”
They toured the museum together, then went down to the café for lunch. Annie picked at her food, glanced at her watch. She shifted on her chair as if she were sitting on a thumbtack. “I need to get home. I’m worried about the kids.”
“Worried? Why, Annie?”
“We’re being harassed,” she told him, and went on to explain how an anti-abortion group had been threatening her family. “It’s starting to really get to me.”
“I didn’t know your husband did abortions.”
“At a clinic in Albany,” she said. She seemed to be searching his face, attempting to discern a moral hue, which he did not supply.
Simon knew the group she was speaking of and suspected that his wife was a member of it. He’d seen their literature around the house. He knew Lydia participated in those rallies. She had mentioned them to him once. He had discovered her down in the basement, making signs. The floor had been cluttered with pictures of dead babies. When he’d questioned her, her face had glowed with excitement, like a teenager proud of a school project.
“I didn’t know,” he said again, wondering with horror if Lydia was at all involved in the threats.
“It’s one of the things he does,” she said cautiously. “You’re not against it, are you?”
“I suppose it’s a necessity in a society like ours.”
She scowled at him impatiently. “It has always been a necessity. It’s not like it’s some revolutionary new procedure.”
“You get mean when you’re angry, I like that.”
“Fuck you, Simon.”
“I was kidding, okay? What kind of threats?”
“Phone calls, pranks. We’re being watched. Michael skulks around like a thie
f.” She shot him a look. “Don’t tell me you’re voting for Nash.”
“All right, I won’t tell you.”
Her eyes watered. “You are despicable. Take me home.”
“I’m sorry, Annie. I’m not very political. It’s all the same bullshit if you ask me.”
“That’s a lame excuse.”
They walked to the car and moments later were stuck in traffic. She sighed and said, as if to punish him, “I can see that it would never work out between us. I find your apathy insulting. Especially with what’s been going on with Michael. You’re totally absorbed in yourself.” She rolled her window down, letting in the sound of the traffic. “Sometimes I feel like I hardly know you. Sometimes I feel like you’re somebody else in my head. Somebody better.”
“I’m not sure I like the sound of that,” he said, feeling spurned.
“It never would work out,” she said again. “We’re different people.”
“You know what they say: opposites attract.”
“I still love Michael,” she said softly, looking away.
“Although I am sick with jealousy, I never expected that to change.”
“I wish you hadn’t met Lydia,” she said. “Because you might have had a different life. You might have been happier.”
He didn’t know why, but the comment offended him. “It’s not in my disposition to be happy, Annie.”
“You know what I mean.” She gave him a dirty look.
“You’re overlooking something. It’s that naughty romantic in you again.”
She crossed her arms over her breasts. “What?”
“You’re overlooking the fact that, at my core, I’m inherently nasty. It’s a survival skill I’ve learned to perfect.”
“You know I don’t believe that.”
“If I had found you, Annie, I would have married you,” he said, because he knew she needed to hear it. “You would have been a poor painter’s wife. Mommy would not have been pleased.”
“But you didn’t find me, and I didn’t find you.” She frowned. “We can’t regret the past.”
“No,” he said.
“And I don’t regret that we’ve done this.”
“Nor I.”
“Everything happens for a reason. Don’t you think?”
“If you hadn’t married Michael, you wouldn’t have Henry and Rosie,” he said generously, even though he sometimes wished he’d been the one to father her children.
“And if you hadn’t married Lydia, you wouldn’t have any of those incredible paintings. You might not have become a famous painter. You might have become a used-car salesman.”
“And I would have sold you a minivan.”
This made her smile.
“I would have taken you for a test drive and stuck my hand down your underpants.”
She laughed. “And I would have taken your sticky hand and bitten it.”
“Ooh la la.”
They drove for a while in silence, and then she asked, “Do you love her?”
He hesitated, then told her the truth. “No.”
“If you’re so unhappy with her, why don’t you leave her?”
“I couldn’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“Because it would kill her.”
34
THE MACHINE WAS BLINKING when she got home from the city. Michael had called. She rang him at the office. “Where the hell have you been?” he said, angry. “I’ve been trying to call you all day.”
“I went to the city.” She’d decided not to lie. “To the museum to see a painting by Haas. For the article. I’m sure I told you.”
“Look, Annie, you need to be careful now, okay? Wherever you go. You need to understand that. It’s for your own good.”
“What’s wrong, Michael? Is everything all right?”
“Everything’s fine,” he said levelly. “But I want you to be extra cautious. Pick up the kids right after school and don’t be late. I don’t want them riding the bus.”
Her heart tumbled. “Michael, what’s going on?”
“I got another threat, that’s all. I just want you to be careful.”
She could hear him breathing on the other end. “Are you coming home tonight?”
He sighed heavily. “I’ve got two women ready to pop. I’m on call tonight. We’ve got a lot of patients down here to see. I’m getting creamed. I’ll be late. That’s why I want you home. Pull the drapes, lock the doors. Don’t answer the phone.”
Tears ran down her face. “Please just come home, Michael.”
“You know I can’t do that.”
“Why can’t you switch with Finney?”
“Look, I’ll get home as soon as I can.”
“You’re so fucking dedicated,” she said contemptuously.
“Annie. Don’t make this any harder than it already is.”
“They fucking brainwashed you and I hate them for it.” She hung up on him and burst into tears.
For the next hour Annie felt unhinged with doubt. It seemed impossible to do anything. Even cleaning the house was a complicated task. Molly wanted to go out, scratching at the door. Annie put on her Bean boots and took her for a walk in the woods behind the house. She felt keen to the sounds around her. The rush of dry leaves under her feet. As they ventured deeper into the woods, Molly grew agitated and then Annie heard a gunshot. It made her hair stand up on the back of her neck. She scanned the trees and saw a group of men, maybe five in all, in camouflage attire, carrying rifles. Tremulous, she broke a sweat and small gasping breaths escaped her mouth. For a fleeting moment she imagined in vivid detail these men storming her home—a mental barrage of carnal images stolen from television movies. Again she scanned the trees and saw that the men were laughing, sharing a joke. They all had hunting permits in laminated tags on the arms of their coats. Of course! she remembered, feeling a bit foolish; it was hunting season. The men had every right to be there.
“Come on, Molly, come on, girl.” She tugged at the dog’s collar, but the dog wouldn’t budge. “Molly! Come!” But Molly had other plans, and twisted free of her, baring her fangs. She took off into the woods after the men, barking savagely. It wasn’t like Molly to bark like that. Annie felt torn, afraid to go after her. She did not want to get near those men, hunting permits or not. She did not want to have to talk to them. Abruptly, Molly’s barking stopped. It suddenly became quiet. Annie scanned the woods, but she didn’t see the men now, and she didn’t see Molly either. She stood for a moment, listening. A branch cracked in the distance. She had the feeling she was being watched. There was no way she was going in after Molly. She turned and ran back across the field to the house.
At three o’clock, she drove to the school and waited for the children. Everything appeared to be normal in the parking lot. She recognized some of the other mothers’ cars, but when she made eye contact with them and smiled, they went stone-faced and turned away.
You’re being paranoid, she thought.
At quarter past three, the doors opened and a throng of kids came out. She didn’t see Henry and Rosie at first, and she could feel the back of her neck going damp—but there they were, Henry in his down jacket, lugging his pack, wearing his usual disgruntled scowl, and Rosie, neatly assembled in her little red coat, pink jumper, blueberry tights, and black high-tops, skipping toward the car. Rosie was holding something. It looked like a Barbie doll.