Queen of the Owls Read online

  She wanted to grab the phone out of his hand. His vacillation between hostility and indifference was making her crazy.

  Ben looked up from his phone. “I don’t think you slept with him, by the way, if that’s what you’re worried about. It’s not something you would do.”

  Elizabeth wanted to burst into tears. Not just because of the way he had reduced her, shrunk her back into a cautious little person whose disrobing had been an aberration instead of a transformation. But because the whole conversation was so arid and cerebral and sad. Like their marriage.

  Understanding hit her like an ax against a tree. She had cheated Ben in a far worse way than if she had slept with Richard—because she’d coerced him into marrying her when she knew they didn’t love each other. She had robbed him of the chance to be truly loved by someone else. To feel the desire, naturally, that had eluded him for all these years.

  Her hand flew to her mouth. Ben glanced at her, then away. He hadn’t seen what she was feeling now, just as he hadn’t seen what she was feeling in Richard’s photos.

  “Anyway,” he said, “we have other things to deal with.” He gestured at the walls. “Suppressing any further publicity. Or, if worse comes to worse, making sure the exhibit’s spun as part of your dissertation.”

  The same half-truth she’d told herself in the beginning. Had she come full circle?

  Elizabeth followed the arc of his arm as he indicated the portraits of her neck and stomach and face. She could still accept Ben’s version of what had happened. Maybe he was hoping that she would. But she couldn’t. The price was too steep.

  There was nothing more to say. Elizabeth stood in the center of the room, surrounded by images of herself, and knew that her husband would never see her.

  Elizabeth read through the final pages of her dissertation. She still had to defend it to her committee—that was part of the process, an oral defense, revisions, a final submission—but she knew they didn’t want to prolong her stay on campus by requesting extensive changes. They wanted her gone.

  She would submit her manuscript, complete the semester of Feminist Art, grade the students’ final papers. She and Ben would step politely around each other, as they’d done since the hour in Ventana’s gallery, held together by a complicated web of shared arrangements and, she supposed, a reluctance to upset the equilibrium.

  O’Keeffe had told Ansel Adams, her close friend, that spending time in Hawaii was one of the best things she had ever done. The place enchanted her, not only because of its visual splendor—the shimmering waterfalls and extravagant flowers—but because it was a place that was utterly new, free of memory and association. Starting with small things—a spikey red crab-claw, a white lotus with its bright yellow heart—she had engaged with ever-larger aspects of the strange and irresistible islands, hiking, sketching, painting. In her statement to accompany the 1940 exhibit, O’Keeffe had written: “If my painting is what I have to give back to the world for what the world gives to me, I may say that these paintings are what I have to give at present for what three months in Hawaii gave to me.”

  What was it, exactly—the new something that three months in Hawaii gave to her? Georgia never explained.

  To Elizabeth, the key words were at present. The paintings captured what O’Keeffe had been able to absorb and express while she was in Hawaii. But her time in Hawaii hadn’t finished unfolding. That would take more than nine weeks.

  O’Keeffe never painted in Hawaii again. She went forward, to a new stage of work. Making your unknown known is the most important thing, she had written, and keeping the unknown always beyond you. As soon as the artist rendered her vision in a knowable form, it was finished, replaced at once by a new unknown. A field in movement, constantly emerging.

  O’Keeffe kept searching, painting, even when her eyesight was nearly gone, returning at the end of her career to an abstract purity that echoed the way she had begun—not a repetition, but a fulfillment of its promise. O’Keeffe’s journey took her from the swollen fecundity of flowers to the stillness of bones, from the pelvic ovoid to the angular doorway, from a rounded landscape of undulating color to the stark geometry of space and form.

  Road to the Ranch, painted in 1964, breathtaking in its perfection. The Zen-like Winter Road, with the same elegant simplicity as the painting she had called Black Lines half a century earlier. The formless energy of the compositions O’Keeffe had entitled, simply, Blue, or Blue Abstraction, painted between 1916 and 1959, with their coiled potential.

  O’Keeffe had said, years later: When I look at the photographs Stieglitz took of me, I wonder who that woman is. Elizabeth wished she could ask Georgia if posing had been a transformative experience—if she had been right to think of it that way. Then she had to laugh, because it was so obvious. Posing for Richard hadn’t helped her understand O’Keeffe. It had helped her understand herself. The question was what she planned to do with that understanding.

  Richard’s studio was her Hawaii, her place of transition. But not her destination.

  She would submit her dissertation. Defend it. A strange term, as if the dissertation had enemies. And after that? She had no idea.

  Twenty-Six

  The answer to her question came from Harold Lindstrom.

  When Harold emailed to say that he needed to meet with her again, as soon as possible, Elizabeth wondered what else had gone wrong. Was her dissertation that bad? Did Marion want her ousted from the entire program?

  But Harold’s expression was gentle as he opened the door to his office and motioned for her to take a seat. “I have an offer for you,” he said. “Something to consider.”

  Elizabeth took one of the chairs that faced his desk. Instead of circling back to the big leather chair, Harold sat down next to her. “I’ll get right to the point.”

  “Oh dear. Sounds ominous.”

  “Not at all.” He leaned forward, and she was struck, again, by the kindness in his eyes. “You’re an excellent teacher, Ms. Crawford. I’d hoped, candidly, that there might be a place for you on our faculty once you completed your doctorate. However, I’m sure you understand that it’s not possible now.”

  Elizabeth gave him a wry look. “I do.”

  “Nonetheless, you should be teaching somewhere. It would be a crime to let that gift go to waste. So.” He placed his hands on his knees. “I have a colleague, an old friend from my undergraduate days, who’s dean at a small liberal arts college. I told him about you and he’s prepared to offer you a position. Not to give you a swelled head, but this is the first time I’ve advocated for a student like this. He knows that, and that’s why he’s taking my recommendation seriously. The job’s yours if you want it.”

  The job’s yours. Elizabeth could hardly absorb the three simple words. The rest of the sentence didn’t matter. Elation, followed by astonishment and gratitude, nearly made her jump up and hug him. Then her brow furrowed. It didn’t make sense.

  “Why are you doing this?” she asked.

  After I’ve embarrassed the department. Pissed off Marion Mackenzie. Caused so much trouble.

  Harold seemed to understand the complexity of her question. “Lloyd—that’s my colleague—was impressed by your fearlessness in entering the art, as it were, instead of viewing it from a safe intellectual distance. He’s a champion of what he calls the need to rethink how we engage with art and what an art history department ought to be doing—cultivating a twenty-first century sensibility instead of dwelling in the past. Teaching students to explore what art means, for them, instead of merely writing papers.” He smiled. “Your story appealed to him. He said you were exactly the kind of innovator and risk-taker he’d like to bring on board.”

  Elizabeth tried to take in what Harold was saying. The generosity. The surprise. The implications of his offer—which she couldn’t possibly accept.

  The person Harold was talking about wasn’t her. She hadn’t been fearless, revolutionary, out to challenge the conventions of art history. She had bee
n drawn by Richard, the man, and the possibility of being a different kind of woman. It hadn’t been about art, not for her, although she understood now that it had been about art for Richard. Then, when Richard made her private exposure into a public event, she’d been desperate to suppress the photos, not a partner in promoting them.

  Harold shouldn’t give her credit for something she hadn’t done. And Lloyd, whoever he was, shouldn’t offer her a position based on a falsehood. It wouldn’t take long for him to discover that she wasn’t the innovator Harold had described.

  “It’s a small college,” Harold went on, “not a big research institution like this place. But it’s a start and you might, in fact, be happier there.”

  Yes, she might. Another reason it stung to have to turn it down. But she had to, because Elizabeth-the-innovator was just one more made-up story about who she was and what she had done.

  Everyone, it seemed, had a narrative to offer. There was Naomi’s version: the proud and feisty professor, champion of a woman’s right to use her body as she damn well pleased. And Ben’s version, less flattering but equally convenient: naive and bookish wife, victim of a clever manipulator. Now this one: a free spirit with a bold new educational vision.

  It was all nonsense. She’d rejected the first two stories, even though each had its benefits, because they weren’t true. Harold’s story wasn’t true either. She was finished with stories.

  Elizabeth was about to explain why she had to decline his offer, generous as it was, when something in his eyes made her stop. There was an understanding, a silent pact—as if he knew, or suspected, that she hadn’t really been the person he described but was giving her a chance anyway.

  A chance to choose, intentionally, the identity she wanted. Even if it had been thrust on her, at first, by others—it didn’t matter. She could consent, actively, to a way of being. A woman who entered the art she loved. A woman who entered and lived in her own body.

  Georgia had been furious at the art world’s response to the photos Stieglitz took of her, yet the photos had opened a door, spurring interest in her work. Maybe it could be like that for her too. Richard’s use of the photos had made her angry, but they could open the door she needed.

  That had been the theme of her dissertation. The doorway. The opening.

  Harold cleared his throat, waiting for her to answer.

  “I’m a bit dumbstruck,” she said, finally. “I had no idea what I’d do after graduation, frankly, or be able to do.” Now that she’d lost Marion’s sponsorship. She didn’t have to say it. Harold knew, at least as well as she did, the consequence of that loss.

  “It’s an intriguing opportunity,” he said. “Perhaps not what you originally envisioned, but if you’re willing to focus on teaching instead of research—which, again, might be more to your liking—it could be a good fit.”

  Elizabeth studied his face. It was open, encouraging. She wasn’t sure, then, that she’d been right about the tacit understanding she had seen on it a moment earlier. Maybe he did think she’d meant to take some sort of stand when she posed. Or maybe it had less to do with sympathy for her and more to do with his relationship to Lloyd. An opportunity to help an old friend and colleague, repay a favor or put one in the bank, to be redeemed later in the bizarre academic calculus that she was just beginning to comprehend.

  “You’re being incredibly kind.”

  Harold gave a small sigh. “I was in your shoes once, about to get my doctorate. I had a chance to do something bold and exciting that I truly believed in. But I didn’t. I took the safe route, told myself it was the mature thing to do, but there was always that what-if. So I thought, well, why not help someone else do what I didn’t have the courage to do myself.” He opened his hands. “And here we are. I’ll pay it forward and hope that one day you will too.”

  Elizabeth was touched by what he had shared, after all those months of meticulous adherence to their advisor-advisee roles. They sat in silence, and then she asked, “Where’s the college located?”

  “It couldn’t be more idyllic.” He named a small town about two hundred miles northwest. It was well-known for its pristine lake and vibrant community of artists and craftsmen. The perfect place for a non-conformist art history professor who didn’t mind taking her clothes off to make a point.

  But not a place Ben would want to move to.

  He wouldn’t want to move anywhere. He had a law practice and, of course, those squash games.

  Harold handed her a folder. “Here’s a packet about the college and the program. Read it over and give Lloyd a call, his number’s on the top sheet. No doubt you’ll have questions—salary, teaching load, tenure requirements, all of that. I’ll leave it to the two of you to work out the details.” He coughed. “If you’re interested, that is. I don’t mean to assume.”

  Elizabeth inhaled. Then she took the folder. “Yes, I’m interested.”

  “Excellent. I do think you’d thrive there. Certainly they’ll appreciate your, shall we say, eclectic approach.”

  “I’ll try not to disappoint.” Rising, she tucked the folder under her left arm and stretched out her right. “Thank you, Dr. Lindstrom. For everything.”

  “My pleasure.” He took her hand in his, his clasp firm. “Let me know how it goes.”

  “I will.”

  She left his office, closing the door softly behind her.

  “You want to what?” Ben said. “Are you out of your mind?”

  “Maybe I am.” Elizabeth willed herself not to flinch. “Maybe for once I’m out of my mind and into my whole self.”

  “Oh for god sakes, Liz. You really think you can just decide, unilaterally, that we’re going to uproot ourselves and move to some pretentious little hippie town on a goddamn lake?”

  She’d been afraid Ben would respond like this, but she had dared to hope that he might see it as a chance for a new beginning—for them, not just for her. Improbable, perhaps, after all that had happened, yet it didn’t seem entirely foolish.

  Ben had always supported her career, and he’d been the one, in the end, to help her across the threshold of her dissertation. She had wanted to give up after losing Marion and her teaching job and, she assumed, Harold’s goodwill. It had seemed masochistic and pointless to finish a manuscript that wasn’t going to be an entrée to academia after all. But Ben had been adamant. “You’ve worked so hard on this, Liz. It’s been your goal for as long as I’ve known you. You can’t quit now. It’s who you are.”

  Elizabeth had wanted to say, “It’s not all I am.” Yet she’d been touched by his belief in her, in the side of her that he knew and understood. She double-checked her references, formatted her table of contents, and emailed Harold to schedule the oral defense. And then Harold offered her a gift she had never expected.

  Ben was glaring at her now. There was no mistaking his reaction.

  Elizabeth steeled herself. She hadn’t known when the moment would arrive, only that it would. “If you don’t like the idea, you don’t have to come.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You know exactly what it means. Don’t come.”

  Ben’s eyes were blazing. It was the same fire she had seen that evening, when Charlie started talking about jazz, or when a principle Ben believed in was under siege. It was arrogant and myopic to think Ben wasn’t capable of passion. Of course he was. Only not toward her.

  “Is this some kind of game? What is it you want, Elizabeth?”

  Freedom, she thought. The freedom to walk through the passage, the opening, into whatever might come next.

  “I want to take this job, and I want to have a life where I can be everything I need to be.”

  “Christ. Where did you read that? On a Hallmark card?”

  “Fuck you, Ben.”

  “Would you, if I bought myself a camera?”

  She slapped him, as hard as she could. Then, just as swiftly, she covered her face with her hands. She’d wanted there to be fire between them
, but not this kind.

  “Please,” she whispered. “Let’s not do this. We’ve never been ugly with each other.”

  “We’ve never been anything with each other. That’s the problem, isn’t it?”

  Elizabeth raised her eyes. His gaze was flat, the anger gone.

  He’d said it. Finally. She didn’t know if she felt relieved or cheated that he had been the one to utter the truth she had tried so hard not to know.

  Ben’s shoulders slumped. “I never understood why. I got used to it, I guess.”

  Sadness seeped into her limbs, as heavy as the Hawaiian air. “Me too.”

  “I blame myself,” he said. “I never should have married you. You were so sure, so convincing. I don’t know, it just seemed like the easiest thing to do.”

  The words made Elizabeth want to smack him again. He made her sound like a lousy job he’d settled for, the only car he could afford.

  “Don’t look at me like that, Liz. I’m taking my share of the responsibility, that’s all.”

  Oh yes, that was the Crawford way. Fair and reasonable, equal portions of blame. Then Elizabeth shook her head, sick of analyzing every gesture and phrase. What did it matter—her fault for talking him into a loveless arrangement, or his for accepting it? They’d made a calculated alliance, and their calculations had been wrong.

  Richard had shown her that.

  She’d faced her students, Richard, Harold. Her own image, there on the gallery wall. She could face Ben too. “You’re right,” she said. “We’re both responsible for our lives. But we’re not trapped.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “Meaning that I’m taking the job.” Then, to be sure there was no misunderstanding, she repeated, “I’m moving. And I’m taking the kids with me.”

  “They’re my children too.”

  “Of course they are. They need you, and they need to spend as much time with you as they can.”