Queen of the Owls Page 27

But Ben asked the question that Harold hadn’t. “Then why the hell did you pose for a professional photographer?”

  Naomi’s question, too. It echoed in the stillness of the apartment. And Elizabeth’s answer. I wanted to.

  She hadn’t thought, when she walked away from Richard, that she was walking back to Ben, yet she had believed in their essential kindness toward each other. She’d even imagined, only moments earlier, that she might tell Ben what she had discovered about herself, standing in front of Richard on the sidewalk. It had felt like an extraordinary idea, yet utterly possible. Ben cared about her. He would want this for her.

  But now, in the wake of everything they had said, and not said, she couldn’t imagine telling him what the photos meant to her. It was too intimate.

  Ben tightened his jaw and stood. “I’m going to bed. I can’t talk about this anymore, not right now.”

  Elizabeth rose too. She started to reach out her hand, but he recoiled and she let it drop. His voice was cold. “I’m still trying to fathom your moronic audacity and figure out how we’re going to deal with its aftermath. I’ll talk to someone at the firm, see what our legal options are.” He stepped around her as he left the room, flinging open the door to the bedroom. She heard the thwack of his shoes hitting the floor.

  Elizabeth stood by the couch, unable to move. Ben was right about one thing: she hadn’t thought about him when she posed. He belonged to one life, and Richard, along with the Georgia-like person she might become under Richard’s gaze, to another. Ben was like the apartment or the car, a fact of her daily existence.

  She could hear him moving around in the bedroom. She tried to picture her own movements. Turning off the living room lights, getting undressed, climbing into bed, her back to his. Sleeping or not sleeping. His words lingered in the air. Moronic audacity. How we’re doing to deal with it. A crisis to get through, like the time Katie swallowed one of Daniel’s Legos and had to be rushed to the emergency room.

  We weren’t going to deal with anything.

  It was her body, her life.

  Joaquin Ventana was bending to unlock the door of the gallery. It wasn’t due to open for fifteen minutes, but Elizabeth had hoped he might arrive early. She tapped his arm. When he saw it was her, his face darkened. “I thought I made it clear. If you continue to harass me—”

  “No. Please. That’s not why I’m here.”

  He glared at her. “Why are you here?”

  Elizabeth wet her lip. “I need to see the photographs.”

  “So you can—what? Rip them down yourself?”

  “No. I just need to see them. Without anyone else around.”

  Joaquin gave a barking laugh. “Right. Trust you alone with the photos. Sure, honey. No problem.”

  “I mean it. Please. I need to look at them.”

  He stopped laughing. “Why?”

  “I’ve never seen them. I need to.” She paused. “Alone.”

  He waited, as if taking her measure. They were outside, on the sidewalk. The sun glinted on the etched glass of the gallery door, igniting the oversized O and V. On View.

  “That’s why I came early,” she said. “Before you opened. So I wouldn’t be in the way.”

  “You’ve never seen them? Really?”

  “I never wanted to.”

  “And now?”

  “Now I have to.” She held his gaze. “All I want to do is look, I promise. By myself.”

  The seconds seemed endless. Then he sighed. “I hope I don’t regret this.”

  “You won’t.”

  “Fifteen minutes.” Pulling open the door, he ushered her inside. “I won’t open up till then. After that, if someone else wants to come in, they can.”

  “Thank you. I really appreciate it.”

  Joaquin waved her toward the interior gallery. Slowly, Elizabeth crossed the foyer and entered the adjoining room. She heard him flick a switch, and the room was flooded with light.

  In the center were four bronze sculptures on pedestals, Ventana’s art, and on the surrounding walls were Richard’s photographs. Next to each was a small reproduction of the Stieglitz photo she had re-enacted. A sign, white lettering on a black rectangle, was propped on an easel. Re-Visions: Seeing/Being Seen. Richard Ferris, photographer.

  She didn’t turn to check, but she was sure Ventana had kept his word and left her alone. For an instant she was tempted to do exactly as he’d said—grab the photos, slash them, rip them to shreds. But she didn’t.

  Because they were beautiful.

  She knew it at once. The woman in the photos was extraordinary. Utterly revealed, through Richard. The arising of desire, and the way she had ached for satiation yet reveled in the desire itself, vulnerable and confident, surprised and pleased by her own body. The arousal and the mystery. The intelligent eyes in the beautiful face.

  She moved around the room, gazing at each photo for a long time, seeing herself as Richard had seen her. It was uncanny, how he’d captured the heart of her experience. Exploiting her, perhaps, yet without him she would never have felt that glory and wholeness. It was there in every photo.

  She had thought, at the time, that she was doing it for him. Without him watching her, there would have been no possibility and no point.

  Yet, now, all thoughts of Richard fell away. There was only her astounding, embodied self. Revealed, as Georgia had been—but not through imitation, outside matching outside. Her unique self, traveling outward through the tracery of the postures, like in Tai Chi. That was what Richard had drawn from her, no matter what his motive.

  Elizabeth stood in the center of the room and turned, a heartbeat at a time, to absorb the panorama of the portraits. There were faint lines on one of the nudes, stretch marks, from her children, the people she and Ben had made. A scar on her right leg from the time Andrea had shoved her off her bicycle. A map of her life.

  Joaquin Ventana was going to leave them up. She had to accept that, not reluctantly, but with her whole heart.

  Yes. I accept the gift.

  Mahalo.

  That was what Georgia said in Hawaii. To Hawaii.

  Mahalo.

  Thank you.

  Twenty-Five

  Katie held Elizabeth’s face in her hands, fingers splayed like a starfish on her mother’s cheeks. “Pity Mama,” she crooned.

  Elizabeth broke into a delighted grin. She could take Katie’s words as an expression of compassion for her unfulfilled life or as a declaration of her beauty. It was up to her. “Yes, my darling,” she said. “I am pretty. And so are you.”

  The rosebud mouth, the long-lashed eyes, the porcelain curves of her round little face. Katie’s perfection took her breath away. “And you are very, very smart too. Just think of all the words you know, all the things you know how to do.”

  As if to demonstrate, Katie dropped her hands, climbed down from Elizabeth’s lap, and went to the silverware drawer. Gravely, she extracted four spoons and carried them to the dinner table. She laid a spoon in front of the chair where Ben always sat, and Elizabeth stiffened.

  She and Ben had barely spoken since he confronted her about the photographs. His phone call with Tim D’Agostino, the intellectual property lawyer, hadn’t yielded any useful ideas, not that Elizabeth had expected it to. The photos weren’t her property; Richard had told her that. After dismissing the conversation with D’Agostino, Ben had announced, “I’m going to try the defamation of character angle, see if there’s anything there we can use.”

  We. Elizabeth had bristled at the pronoun. Ben was no better than Richard, appropriating her life without her consent. Yet the shared concern in that plural formulation came from a true feeling. Ben had called her moronic and careless, in need of rescue by a fast-acting attorney. It had felt presumptuous and unfeeling—but it was a Ben-like way of caring.

  Katie distributed the other spoons to three random spots on the table and turned to Elizabeth with a satisfied so there. “Thank you so much,” Elizabeth told her. “I had no idea you
could do that.”

  “Do dat,” Katie said.

  Elizabeth swept her into a hug. Her daughter was growing, changing. She couldn’t stop Katie from leaving babyhood behind, any more than she could stop the change that was happening in herself—because she was changing, had already changed. Like Katie, she wasn’t finished.

  Katie squirmed off her lap, heading back to the silverware drawer. As Elizabeth watched her daughter amble across the room, her gaze fell on the telephone, upright in its cradle. The memory flashed across her mind. Ben, clamping his fist around the black rectangle, asserting his claim on the message it contained.

  Then she realized: Damn. She’d never returned Phoebe’s call. The last thing she needed was for Phoebe to call again and ask her—or Ben—if they’d had a chance to check out the exhibit.

  “You’re doing such a good job,” she told Katie. “But Mommy has to make a phone call. Can you go play for a few minutes?”

  Katie nodded and ran off. Elizabeth reached for the phone, scrolling through the call-back numbers until she found Phoebe’s. Phoebe answered right away. The bright, musical lilt was unmistakable.

  Elizabeth could feel her irritation spike, the way it did whenever she heard Phoebe’s voice. How could anyone be that absurdly chipper?

  Then she froze, struck by a thought that seemed both obvious and astonishing—because what was so absurd, really, about Phoebe’s cheerfulness? She’d always taken that kind of perkiness as the sign of a shallow mind, an indication that the person wasn’t worth knowing. Based on what, though? As a researcher, she ought to know better.

  With a flutter of shame, Elizabeth remembered how Phoebe had told her, when they first met, “When Lucy told me you were some kind of professor, I thought you’d be, I don’t know, a snob or something.”

  She had been a snob. Phoebe had offered an easy friendship, but she had rejected the offer without trying to know who Phoebe really was. Had she truly not seen that?

  “Hey there,” Phoebe said. “I left you a message the other day.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  All Elizabeth could think was: I’m sorry. She seemed to be apologizing to everyone. To Marion, her children, Andrea. Not to Ben, although she supposed he wanted her to.

  “So what do you think?” Phoebe asked. “The Georgia O’Keeffe thing? It looked cool, from the little write-up.”

  Was it? Maybe.

  Elizabeth fought the urge to tell her: Don’t go to see it. Don’t open the link. Ever.

  Of course, Phoebe might go, with or without them. Ventana was a client; she might be curious or happy to lend support.

  The Georgia O’Keeffe thing. The old lady in the desert, that was how Phoebe had known who she was. Yet, equally, a woman at the edge of the shimmering Pacific, swathed in the humid Hawaiian air. A woman lifting her arms.

  Somehow Elizabeth found the words she needed. “Turns out we can’t do it after all.”

  “Oh no.” Phoebe’s voice rose in dismay. “I’m totally bummed.”

  “I know. I’m sorry.” She swallowed, then said again, “I’m so sorry. Please forgive me.”

  “Hey, no problem. We’ll do it another time.”

  “Sure,” Elizabeth managed to say. “I’ll be in touch.”

  She wouldn’t, though. Once the semester ended and she submitted her dissertation, she wouldn’t need Lucy anymore. She and Phoebe wouldn’t run into each other, and whatever thread had connected them would fray. That was what happened when two people weren’t really friends.

  And yet, oddly, Phoebe had altered her life.

  That guy from Tai Chi, Mr. Ferris Wheel?

  Phoebe had no idea what her words had set in motion, just as Ben had no idea what the photos—and Richard—had meant to her. Elizabeth thought back to their conversation, when Ben had confronted her about the exhibit. She had thought of trying to explain, but she hadn’t. Things had veered in a different direction, and she’d never given him a chance to understand.

  Maybe she could, even now.

  But not in words.

  She could show him.

  She waited until Daniel and Katie were asleep, and even then, she almost didn’t say anything. The newspaper in front of Ben’s face was like a banner, proclaiming Keep out. From the opposite armchair, Elizabeth watched as he flipped the page. There was a hiss of steam as the radiator switched on; the evenings were chilly now, as fall faded into winter. From faraway, she could hear the wail of a siren. The Journal of Art and Art History lay face-down on the armrest.

  It would be easy to pick up the journal and retreat to her desk. She and Ben would stay in separate ends of the apartment until one, then the other, went to bed. It wouldn’t be the first evening they had spent like that. Maybe that was the best thing to do. Let the tension dissipate, wait till the crisis had passed.

  Yet Mr. Wu had told her: You try, and you can.

  Elizabeth flexed her fingers. “Ben,” she began.

  Reluctantly, he lowered the newspaper.

  “About the exhibit.”

  She could see his mouth tighten. She wondered if he thought she was going to offer an excuse, a retraction, a form of penance—something he would tell her was unnecessary, when he really meant that it wasn’t enough.

  “I told Phoebe that I don’t want to go to the gallery with her and Charlie. I want to go with you.” Elizabeth straightened her back, committed now. “I want you to see the photos with me.”

  He gave her a sour look. “Really, Liz. Why rub salt in a wound?”

  “It doesn’t have to be a wound.”

  “You can’t be serious.”

  “I am. It’s important.”

  Their eyes locked. Elizabeth knew he didn’t understand her request. She wouldn’t have believed it herself if someone had told her, only twenty-four hours ago, that she’d be pleading with Ben to see the very photos she had wanted to destroy.

  “I need us to see them together. Please.”

  “I’d rather spend my time undoing the havoc they’ve caused.”

  “Please, Ben.” She needed to tell him that this was their chance. That whatever he had missed, all these years, could be his now. Theirs.

  Better that he saw for himself. It was right there in the photographs.

  He gave a weary sigh. “If it means so much to you. At least I’ll know the extent of the disaster.”

  Elizabeth bit back her response. He’d said yes, that was what mattered. “Maybe we can meet there at five tomorrow, if you can get away a little early? Before I pick the kids up from Lucy’s?”

  Ben shook the newspaper open again. “Fine.” He gave her a pointed look, then returned to the paper. “Tomorrow.”

  She remembered the first time she had pushed him until he gave in. The little kitchen with the white metal cabinets and dirty yellow tile, when she’d convinced him not to break up.

  Ten years ago, she had made her case, and won. Tonight she had won again.

  She sat without moving, unsure of what she felt. It might be relief, or it might be dread.

  Elizabeth led Ben through the etched glass door, across the foyer, and into the room where the photographs were displayed.

  She stopped in front of the photo with her arms raised above her head, fingers wide open, clinging to nothing. Her face, like Georgia’s, was grave and inward. Ben didn’t comment. After a while she moved to the photograph that showed her holding her breasts, one in each hand, framed by the open kimono. Still he said nothing. Slowly, Elizabeth moved from picture to picture. Breasts and collarbone, chin held high, hair streaming down her back. Her whole body against the white curtain. The photo Richard had wanted to take, a close-up of her breasts and stomach and pubic hair. No head, but it was still her. Beautifully, still her.

  She turned to Ben, pleading with him to see. For a moment she thought he might have understood—a softening of his expression, a hesitation. But the moment passed, and he frowned.

  “Honestly, Liz, it’s even more tawdry and inappropriate th
an it was online. You’ve embarrassed yourself. And me. All I can hope is that none of my clients—or opposing counsel, worse yet—get wind of this.” The frown deepened. “Well, really,” he said, looking almost annoyed. “What did you expect me to say?”

  The words burst from her. “But what do you see?”

  His annoyance was unmistakable now. “I see a careless woman, whose lapse of judgment I’m going to have to deal with.”

  That was his response? As if she were a stupid child, instead of a woman who had made her own choices. “I don’t believe you,” Elizabeth said. “That can’t be all you feel.”

  “You’re telling me what I feel?”

  Maybe she was. It was what she’d done from the beginning, when she told him that his feelings for her were stronger than he believed. Or, in any case, strong enough. She had out-thought him, won the debate, won the husband and marriage she had decided to have. Lizzie the planner, the achiever, the brain.

  “No,” she said. “I just want to know what you really do feel.”

  Ben shrugged. “Like I told you the other day, I think a clever photographer roped you into imitating Georgia O’Keeffe. There are a lot of manipulative people out there, and I suppose none of us is immune if the right button gets pushed.” He reached in a jacket pocket for his cell phone. “My guess is that it had to do with your wanting some kind of original take on O’Keeffe. You know, something that would advance your career.”

  Elizabeth was too stunned to respond. Was Ben right? Had Richard manipulated her by appealing to her ambition, her determination to write a knock-em-dead dissertation?

  She could say yes, that’s right, it was about my career. The narrative Ben was offering fit with his image of her, made her vulnerable in a way he could understand and forgive. Not quite as noble as the narrative her students had offered, but plausible. If she embraced Ben’s version of the story, she could save her marriage.

  Yet Ben’s version wasn’t the whole truth. An ocean of meaning lay in the difference between his description and her experience.

  He scowled as he scrolled through his messages. “Can we go now? You wanted me to see the pictures, and I’ve seen them. It’s been a long day. I’m sure the kids are ready for dinner and, frankly, so am I.”