Queen of the Owls Read online

  The woman’s chin shot up. “Excuse me?”

  “You heard me. Get out.”

  Richard looked amused. “It’s okay,” he told her. “We were finished anyway.” He ushered her to the door, closing it firmly.

  At least he had let her in, Elizabeth thought. He could have refused to answer the buzzer, if he’d wanted to be alone with Teresa. “You always buzz people in,” she challenged, “without knowing who they are?”

  “It could be a pleasant surprise. As it was.”

  Elizabeth had fantasized about doing this very thing—showing up, without warning. In her fantasy she had taken her clothes off as she strode through the door. He had taken his off too.

  Relaxed and handsome as ever, Richard was acting as if he’d done nothing wrong. Even Daniel, when he was trying to look innocent, had a crooked little dent in his grin. But Richard offered no sign that he knew why she was there or that anything had changed since her last visit.

  Then again, maybe it hadn’t.

  A gust of wildness rose up in her. What if she didn’t know about the gallery? If she hadn’t run into Isabelle on campus today? Another minute talking to Harold, a few more sentences, and everything would have been different. Isabelle would have been on her way to math class instead of tapping Elizabeth on the arm. It was just chance that it worked out one way and not another. She could just as easily not-know about Joaquin Ventana and his damn gallery.

  What if she let that be true—forgot about Naomi and Isabelle and Joaquin? Not for long, just long enough to live out her fantasy?

  She looked into the grey eyes that seemed to see her more clearly than she saw herself. It seemed possible, for a moment. To be a person who could do that.

  Then she shuddered. What was she thinking?

  She straightened her shoulders and snapped, “I doubt you’re all that surprised to see me. You could hardly expect me not to get wind of your little show.”

  “I wasn’t trying to hide it. I figured you’d come across it.”

  His casualness caught Elizabeth off-guard. She’d been ready for a fight, for a flimsy excuse she could demolish with the swipe of a claw, leaving him in the wrong and eager to placate her. But he seemed almost indifferent.

  “And that didn’t concern you? How I might react when I saw it?”

  “I hoped you’d like it, if that’s what you mean.”

  Elizabeth couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Was he a moron? What kind of person wouldn’t understand that she would be horrified? “Like it? Are you out of your mind?”

  “You ought to like it. You look gorgeous.”

  She wanted to smack him. She’d wanted to look gorgeous for him. Not for Naomi and Joaquin Ventana and everyone else in this fucking town.

  “You need to take those pictures down. Right now.”

  Richard took a step back. “Excuse me?” The same phrase that Teresa person had used. It meant are you insane?

  “Now,” she repeated. Literally, because she really didn’t have much time, and she damn well wasn’t going to leave without knowing she’d gotten what she came for. “I never said you could make them public.”

  “Not to be rude, but it wasn’t your call.”

  “My call? I’m the one in the pictures.”

  He waved a hand, as if waving away her objection. “I offered to show them to you. You didn’t want to see them. You didn’t seem to care what happened to them.”

  “I care now. Take them down.”

  “It doesn’t work like that, Elizabeth.”

  “It can.”

  “No, it can’t.”

  She didn’t understand why he was acting so obtuse. They should have settled this by now. She had to get out of there, get back to Lucy’s. “It’s about consent. I didn’t give it.”

  “Of course you did. You knew exactly what you were doing. What we were doing.”

  The same thing Marion had said about Georgia. But did she? No. She had assumed—a jumble of assumptions. “What were we doing? You tell me.”

  Richard gave her a long hard look. Flirting, Elizabeth thought. Foreplay.

  The silence was thick, connecting them, separating them. Then he said. “I think we both understood. It was for our mutual benefit.”

  What was that supposed to mean? A shared benefit, or two individual benefits, of equal heft on a scale that only he could understand? “I guess I’m stupid. Spell it out for me.”

  Richard sighed. “Let’s not argue, Elizabeth. Here. Sit down.”

  She began to protest I have to get going, but he touched her arm and led her to a folding chair. Then he pulled up a second chair so he could face her.

  They were sitting at the little wooden table, the same table where he had stacked the photos of O’Keeffe. He regarded her evenly. “Did it help you, to pose?”

  “Don’t patronize me.”

  “I’m serious. Did it help you?”

  Help her—to what? Elizabeth wanted to fling the words back at him, insulted by his arrogance. But the knowledge was there, right in front of her. Yes, it did.

  “It freed you to feel your own beauty.” He leaned forward, his face close to hers. “And it helped me too. I’d been stuck, in my work. I had this idea—I think I told you?—that each person has one particular part of their body that captures the essence of who they are. I wanted to show that, through my camera, and I did. I was good at it. But I kept doing the same thing. I didn’t know how to let it go and move on.”

  Despite herself, Elizabeth listened. Yes, she remembered him telling her that.

  “Then I met you. You wanted to be photographed. I could feel it, even before you told me about O’Keeffe.” Idly, he reached out a hand to trace the line of her neck and shoulder. Elizabeth wanted to jerk away but she couldn’t.

  “It was my chance,” he went on. “To try something new. A whole person. You were that person, because it was what you wanted too.” He dropped his hand. “A serendipitous occurrence. For our mutual benefit, like I said.”

  Her neck felt empty, abandoned. That was all?

  Seconds passed as his words sank in. “It was for your art?”

  “I’m an artist. I told you that when we met. We talked about Weston and Stieglitz, what I was searching for. What you were searching for, in your study of O’Keeffe.” His gaze was disarmingly candid. “What did you think it was about?”

  She could kill him. He knew what she thought it was about. Proof that she could be someone other than Lizzie-the-owl. A way out of a marriage and a life that was choking her to death. And yes, a slow seduction. Obviously.

  He had tricked her, twice. Making her believe she was beautiful and alluring, and then mocking her by putting her delusion on display.

  She couldn’t believe that she’d never asked why he was giving her so much time and attention. She’d accepted the gift, blindly, preferring not to question his motives. Carried away by her fantasy, like a dumb schoolgirl. Ignoring the fact that he’d never asked to see her away from Tai Chi and their studio sessions, never asked about the wedding band on her left hand, never even asked for her phone number—she’d still thought it was a prelude to becoming lovers. Or maybe it was because of those facts, because their encounters were a world of their own, separate from the rest of her life.

  Oh, who knew? All she knew was that he had humiliated her.

  He lifted a shoulder. “It was good timing. For both of us.”

  Elizabeth was sick with revulsion and shame. Revulsion, that he could pretend to be so innocent, as if it was some kind of business transaction. And shame, that she could have been demented enough to believe she’d become a fox at last.

  Her failure was as bright and clear as Naomi’s jewel. If she’d been sexier, he would have wanted more than a new phase in his artistic development.

  “I do understand,” he said, “that it might be a little shocking to see yourself as an artist’s model, but you look beautiful, trust me. It’s a good show. And it needs to stay right where it is, wh
ere people can see it.”

  Now she was angry. “Please don’t play dumb. I can’t have people seeing me like that. This is a small town. I’m a doctoral student, for god’s sake.”

  Richard gave another dismissive wave. “None of those professors are going to see your pictures. They never leave their little academic bubble. You ought to know that. There’s the campus, and there’s the town.”

  Was he cruel, or just stupid? “You don’t think people are going to know? I have students, and some of them have already seen it. I have children—”

  She stopped. Her eyes widened in horror. No, please. When had she lost track of the time?

  She looked at her watch. It was 11:56. Lucy’s program was about to start. She was going to miss Daniel’s superhero and Katie’s snowflake.

  Her lie about a broken-down delivery van that stopped traffic for twenty minutes until a tow truck came to drag it out of the way—and her distress, which wasn’t a lie—worked with Lucy, but it didn’t work with Katie. Katie screeched when Elizabeth tried to touch her. Still screeching, she twisted away and fought to tear off her snowflake costume. When she couldn’t get it off, she began ripping it apart. The lacy pattern, painstakingly cut by Elizabeth only two days earlier, made it easy to shred. She stood in the corner of Lucy’s dining room, face to the wall, as bits of white costume fluttered to the floor.

  Daniel wasn’t much better. He pretended not to care but kept going up to other parents and announcing, “You smell like poop.” Elizabeth told herself that she ought to reprimand him, but she didn’t have the heart. He was talking about her, and to her. She wanted nothing more than to erase the entire horrible day.

  Phoebe’s sympathy only made it worse. “It’s not your fault,” she whispered. “It could have happened to anyone. Everyone understands, and your kids will too.”

  No, Elizabeth thought. It was entirely her fault, it couldn’t have happened to any of the other parents, and no one actually understood, least of all her children. She had betrayed them as badly as Richard had betrayed her.

  She knelt by Katie, who refused to come out of the corner. “Katie my love, I am so very sad. I can’t tell you how sad I am.” She put a hand on Katie’s shoulder, but Katie swatted it away. She looked to see if Katie was crying, but her little body was rigid, pressed into the V where the walls met, like the crack in the center of Georgia’s painting, The Black Place. Elizabeth wanted to cry herself.

  “I know you’re sad too. And mad. You have every right to be. I let you down terribly.” She sensed Daniel coming up behind her, listening. “I didn’t mean to break my promise, but something happened and I didn’t get here in time.” She waited. The wait took forever.

  Finally Daniel said, “I hate that delivery van.”

  “Me too.”

  “It’s made of poop.”

  “It’s definitely made of poop.”

  “Stinky poop.” Elizabeth could see him watching to see if she would react. When she didn’t, he added, “Stinky fart poop.”

  Katie turned around and gave Daniel a deadpan look. “Fart poop.”

  Elizabeth wanted to pull the two of them into her arms and never let go. “Now, now,” Lucy said. Elizabeth hadn’t realized that she was nearby. “Is that how we talk?”

  Ruthie, trailing behind Lucy, imitated her voice. “No, it isn’t.” She threw a smug look Elizabeth’s way. Elizabeth didn’t care. All she wanted was for her children to forgive her.

  “Stop,” Phoebe said, taking Ruthie by the arm. “Focus on yourself and how you talk to your own brother.” She shook her head, including Elizabeth in her silent kids.

  Elizabeth felt worse and worse. Was everyone crowded around this one little corner of the dining room, watching her display of terrible parenting? She reached for Katie again, but Katie flung her hand away. Fart poop had been for Daniel, not a sign that she forgave her mother.

  “All right, everyone,” Lucy said. “Cookies on the porch. And coffee for the parents.” She gave Elizabeth a reassuring nod. “Come, have some coffee. Katie will relent in her own good time.”

  Reluctantly, Elizabeth stood. Lucy was right, of course. Katie would grow tired of pressing her face to the wall. As the afternoon wore on, she would want to play and then, sleepy, she would climb onto Elizabeth’s lap and grant her the reprieve she didn’t deserve. Yet Elizabeth knew she had let Katie down in a far deeper way than missing the performance. She’d been the opposite of the woman she wanted her daughter to see and become.

  “I took pictures,” Phoebe whispered in her ear. “I’ll send them to you.”

  Elizabeth tried to blink back her tears. Everyone was being so kind. They wouldn’t be kind if they knew the real reason she was late. Phoebe, especially, made her want to weep. After the way she had rebuffed Phoebe, again and again, she was absurdly grateful for Phoebe’s generosity.

  “Of course,” Phoebe added, “my pictures suck. I always miss the best shots.” She gave a lopsided grin, like her haircut. “Maybe we should have hired that friend of yours to take some photos? You know, that Ferris wheel guy? The one you told me about?”

  Elizabeth froze. How did Phoebe know? Phoebe kept smiling, and she realized: of course Phoebe didn’t know. Yet her words brought Richard right there into the room, where he didn’t belong.

  “What’s a Ferris wheel?” Daniel asked.

  She whirled around. Why hadn’t Daniel run after Lucy, first one at the cookie platter, the way he usually was? She tried to steady her ragged breathing. “It’s big wheel that turns,” she said, when she was able to speak. “You sit in a special seat and it takes you up and around, up into the sky.”

  “I want to go on it.” He crossed his arms, his eyebrows a stern line. Elizabeth got the message: If you want to redeem yourself, take me on it right now.

  “And you will,” she told him. “The very next time we see one.”

  “You promise?”

  She had told them I never, ever break my promises. Next to her, Katie stirred, tired of sulking against the wall if no one was paying attention. Elizabeth put a hand on the top of her head, lightly, so Katie could pretend it wasn’t there. “I promise,” she said. That was what you had to do, when your child asked.

  “Now let’s go get some cookies, pal. How’s that sound?”

  Daniel broke away and ran to the porch, shouting, “I’m going on a Ferris wheel!” Katie pushed past Elizabeth and ran after him.

  Twenty

  Elizabeth knew that Ben wouldn’t be as understanding about the broken-down delivery van as Phoebe and Lucy had been. He’d mask his reaction in front of the children but later, when they were alone, he’d be furious. Elizabeth could already hear his angry hiss. “You couldn’t have gone to campus after the program, instead of trying to squeeze it in when you knew that time was tight?”

  Of course she could have returned Harold’s book in the afternoon. But she knew, as Ben didn’t, that Harold liked to reserve afternoons for his own writing, which was why he had specifically asked her to come first thing in the morning—and that Daniel and Katie would need to get home and cool down after the play, instead of being dragged to campus—and that she couldn’t possibly have predicted what the morning would bring. So yes, in theory, she could have made sure she was there. But things didn’t always work out the way they did in theory.

  Daniel and Katie were buckled into the back seat of the car as Elizabeth drove home from Lucy’s house. Katie, predictably, was sound asleep. Daniel was looking out the window and humming to himself as he rubbed his thumb against the metal clasp of his seat belt. Elizabeth cleared her throat.

  “Hey buddy,” she began. “You know how sad Daddy was that he couldn’t be there today?” Daniel met her eyes with an oblique look that could have meant anything from you should talk to what’s your point? Carefully, Elizabeth went on, “He’d be even sadder if he thought I wasn’t there either.”

  She hated what she was doing. Saying thought I wasn’t there when she and Daniel both k
new that the correct wording was knew I wasn’t there. But she couldn’t handle one more terrible conversation today.

  Daniel didn’t answer, so she kept going. “Daddy works so hard, and I really don’t want him to be sad. Will you help me?”

  “I can tell him a joke,” Daniel offered. He brightened, then inserted an experimental finger into his nose. “Rex told me one.”

  “That’s a very good idea,” Elizabeth said. “And maybe we can also, you and me, make Daddy happy by telling him all about the play. But maybe we don’t have to exactly say that I wasn’t there—that I was late—because it would make him too sad.”

  “You mean a secret?”

  Daniel was sharp. She really didn’t want to call it that. All the parenting books said that was one of the worst things you could do. But she was trapped. “Kind of.”

  Daniel twisted the finger for a while before withdrawing a piece of dried snot. He inspected it with interest. “Okay.”

  Okay what? Elizabeth thought. Okay you won’t say anything, or okay secret was the right word to use for the sly little maneuver she was suggesting to her four and a half year-old son?

  Too late to back out now. Keeping her voice mild, she said, “We can show Daddy the pictures, like I promised him. I have a lot of great pictures from Rex and Ruthie’s mom.”

  Elizabeth said a silent thank-you to Phoebe for her kindness. Then her words boomeranged back, stunning her with their irony. A lot of great pictures. Those other pictures, still on the walls of Ventana’s gallery, weren’t great at all.

  “Okay,” Daniel repeated. Absently, he flicked a yellow trapezoid of snot across the back seat. It landed in Katie’s hair. Elizabeth saw, but said nothing. That was the least of her concerns. Katie, snoring quietly, didn’t notice.

  “What’s gotten into Katie?” Ben asked, gesturing at Katie across the dinner table.

  Katie was refusing to let Elizabeth cut up her food or come near her chair. She shook her head from side to side, jaw clamped.

  “Oh, more Terrible Two’s,” Elizabeth said. “You know, devoted one minute, snobbish the next.”