Queen of the Owls Read online

  Andrea looked alarmed. “Lizzie, it’s just a game.”

  “For you.” She could feel them staring at her. Could this really be their composed and cerebral sister, sister-in-law, wife? She didn’t blame them for being astonished. She’d never had an outburst like this before.

  From the edge of her vision, she saw Ben slowly folding his napkin. He still hadn’t spoken.

  “Well, you’re silly to feel that way,” Andrea said, “so let’s give you a brand-new body part you can love.” Quickly, she corrected herself. “I didn’t mean, like, a transplant or a nose job. I mean a new hairdo. You’ll feel tons better. Really.”

  Elizabeth had to laugh. It was such an Andrea-like solution. Andrea was a hair stylist. She’d been offering a makeover for years, insisting that Elizabeth would be amazed by what highlights and a bit of layering could do. Elizabeth had always refused, explaining that she didn’t have the time or inclination.

  “It’s okay,” she told Andrea. “I appreciate the thought.”

  Then she looked at Ben. Well? she signaled. Your turn to speak.

  He coughed, fingering the edge of his napkin. “Like Andie said, it’s just a game.”

  At the word game, Daniel snapped to attention. “My body part is my butt crack,” he announced.

  Stephanie let out a peal of laughter. “Butt crack!”

  Happy with his success, Daniel repeated the magic words. “Butt crack.”

  Katie waved a triangle of pizza. “Butt crack, butt crack.”

  Ben rose, hands flat on the table. “Enough. Time for bed.” Daniel looked stricken, but Ben’s towering figure left no doubt that he meant what he said.

  “Oh dear, my fault,” Andrea apologized, but she was laughing too. “Come, Stephanie, let’s say goodbye.”

  Reluctantly, Stephanie pushed away from the table and cast a longing glance at her cousins as Ben ushered them down the hallway. Elizabeth felt a sweep of relief: the evening was over. She stood and began to gather the plates.

  Michael retrieved their coats and bent to give Elizabeth a kiss on the cheek. “Thanks for hosting. Tell Ben I’ll see him on the squash court.”

  “Our place next time,” Andrea added. Then she whispered, “Don’t get so upset, Lizzie. You take everything way too seriously.”

  “Define too,” Elizabeth muttered, but she didn’t think Andrea heard. She walked them to the door and kissed Stephanie goodbye. The click of the deadbolt was crisp and comforting.

  Behind her, she heard Ben re-enter the room. “The tub’s filling. I told the kids they could play till it’s ready.”

  Without turning, Elizabeth murmured, “Okay.” Wasn’t he concerned, or curious, about why she had cried out?

  He took a step closer, and she heard him sigh. “I know the kids got a little wired but frankly, I think you overreacted. Andie was just having a little fun.”

  Elizabeth wheeled around. “Oh? And what exactly is my favorite body part? You seem to think everyone knows. Well, I don’t.”

  “I was making a joke.”

  “Let me in on it.”

  He hesitated, and Elizabeth saw the complicated look cross his face again, the same look he’d had as he watched Andrea and Michael. Longing and confusion, as if he were lost in a strange city. Then his features shifted, rearranging themselves into the familiar apologetic look that was part grimace and part regret. “I just meant, you know, your brain.”

  “That’s not a body part.”

  “It was meant to be funny.”

  “It wasn’t.”

  “I understand. I’m sorry.”

  Elizabeth wiped her tears with the back of her hand. “I am too.”

  She could feel the unsaid words linger in the space between them, all the unnamed things they were sorry for. But it was the wrong moment, the bathwater was filling. It was always the wrong moment.

  “I’d better check the tub,” she said. She stepped around him, wondering if he might reach out to touch her. He didn’t—or, if he did, she’d missed it, already on her way out of the room.

  Four

  When Elizabeth stepped out of the freight elevator onto the fourth floor landing, she was surprised to see that nearly all the cubbyholes were filled with the shoes, caps, and sweaters of the other Tai Chi students. People had come, even without Mr. Wu. She tucked her purse and shoes into one of the remaining spaces on the top row. This time she left her phone. She’d worn sleek black leggings instead of baggy cargo pants, and there was no pocket for even a slender iPhone. Then, on impulse, she pulled off her knitted headband and thrust it into the cubbyhole next to her shoes.

  Determined not to be nervous, Elizabeth pushed through the curtain that separated the anteroom from the dojo. Richard was standing in front of the room, legs parallel, knees flexed. A spare elegance. It wasn’t, she realized, that he was classically handsome, yet there was something compelling—mesmerizing, really—about his presence. She blinked, as if clearing her vision, and slipped into the back row.

  “I heard from Sifu,” Richard said, “through his daughter. He needs to recuperate for a few weeks, but he wants us to keep practicing.” He looked around, his eyes moving from person to person. “I’ll call out the postures and we can try them together. Sound okay?” Several people murmured their assent. Clearly, Richard was the most advanced pupil, and no one seemed to mind that he had assumed the role of proxy for Mr. Wu.

  “Okay, then. Parting the Wild Horse’s Mane. We’ll do it slowly.” He lifted his arms. Elizabeth caught her breath. Really, it was like watching a work of art, as if one of Georgia’s flowers was unfolding in front of her. She tried to copy his movements.

  After forty-five minutes Richard looked at his watch. “I know we have the studio for two hours, but this feels like enough for now. What do you think?”

  Juniper, the woman in the blue yoga pants, answered at once. “Agreed. The important thing is to keep the flow of positive energy.”

  Richard gave a polite nod. “Until next week, then. Sifu’s daughter gave me the key, so I’ll take care of locking up.”

  Elizabeth followed the others out of the studio—self-conscious, suddenly, in her sleek dance-like attire. The other students were wearing sweat pants or loose karate outfits with belted tunics. When she’d pulled her workout leggings from the drawer, relic of the days when she had time to go to the gym, she’d felt lithe and serene. Now, though, aware that Richard was watching them leave, she felt inappropriate and exposed.

  She took her belongings from the cubbyhole, stepping into her shoes as she slung the purse over her shoulder. “Elevator’s here,” someone called.

  Elizabeth hurried to the elevator, edging next to a woman in a bright knitted cap. The woman smiled at Elizabeth as she adjusted the brim. “Weather’s getting cold. Anyway, my ears are.”

  Elizabeth gave a start, remembering the headband. “Oops, wait. I forgot something.” She caught the door before it closed. “Can you hold the elevator a second?”

  “Folks need to get going,” one of the men said. “We’ll send it back up for you.”

  “All right.” She stepped out, and the doors slid shut. She rounded the corner, back to the wall of cubbyholes, then stretched and felt for the headband. After a minute’s scrabbling she found it and stuffed it in her purse.

  Then, without warning, the lights went out and the alcove where Elizabeth was standing turned dark. Quickly, she retraced her steps to the landing.

  Everyone was gone except Richard, who was waiting for the elevator. “Ah. Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you with the blackout. I thought everyone had left.”

  Elizabeth indicated her purse. “I forgot my headband.” She gave what she hoped was a casual flick of her wrist. “Anyway, I don’t scare easily.”

  Richard met her eyes, and Elizabeth felt the same stunned helplessness she’d felt the week before, as if her willpower was sliding down her back and pooling at her feet. It might be true that she didn’t scare easily, but something in her was terrif
ied right now.

  The elevator pinged and the doors opened. Richard gestured. “You first.” Elizabeth stepped inside, shivering as he reached across her. “I have to lock the floor,” he explained. He twisted the key in the brass button marked with the number four. Elizabeth nodded. Was she supposed to answer?

  “You’re new to the class,” he said.

  “Very.”

  “Bad luck, having Sifu absent when you’ve hardly begun.”

  That smoldering gaze again—the same way he’d looked right into her, when Mr. Wu fell. It didn’t feel like bad luck, not if it had led to this moment. She tried to look indifferent, though her heart was beating like mad. “Taking it slow is fine with me.”

  Lord. Her pulse jumped right out of her skin. That sounded like a coy little double entendre; what did he think she had meant?

  Richard dipped his chin, as if agreeing with her plan. “We still have an hour of class time. I’m free if you are. Want to have a cup of coffee?”

  The elevator crept along its cables. The arrow over the door moved from three to two. Richard was leaning against the side of the elevator now, hands in his pockets, ankles crossed. Elizabeth could almost touch the mysterious magnetic something that seemed to radiate from his skin. She swallowed. “Sure.”

  “There’s a place down the street.”

  It was perfectly acceptable, she told herself. She had coffee with people in the Art History department all the time.

  He guided her to a tiny café squeezed between a shop that sold vintage clothing and another that sold comic books and posters. There was an empty table in the back, two wicker chairs at right angles around a marble circle. A waiter gave the marble a quick swipe with a white cloth. “You guys know what you want?”

  “Americano, please,” Richard said.

  “Same for me.”

  The waiter gave a sage nod, as if approving their choice. “Right back.”

  He left, and Richard pulled his chair closer. “I don’t know your name.”

  “It’s Elizabeth. And you’re Richard. Juniper mentioned you the other day. She said you’re the senior pupil.”

  “Years don’t always translate to proficiency.”

  “Even so, it’s hard to be proficient without them.” She moved her chair closer, as he had, and propped her elbows on the table. “What else do you do, besides Tai Chi?”

  “Mr. Wu would say that the what else doesn’t matter.”

  “But it does to you.”

  “Ah yes.” He smiled. “I study people, try to capture their souls.”

  “You’re just trying to sound interesting.”

  “Am I succeeding?”

  She felt herself blush. Was this what people did when they flirted? Whatever it was, she liked it. “I’ll let you know.”

  He turned serious. “I’m a photographer. I do portraits, not those wedding-and-baby things. Real portraits.”

  “What does that mean?” Real portraits. It sounded arrogant, as if he thought other photographers were imposters.

  Richard tilted his head. Then, almost meditatively, he touched her arm, just above the place where her elbow rested on the marble. “I try to see how people’s faces and bodies reveal who they are. It doesn’t have to be the whole face or the whole body. But there’s an essence, everyone has it. If you can see it, you try to show it in the photograph. You pick that thing, and you show it, through a fragment.” He moved his fingers, the merest inch, to the edge of the bone. “It can be anything. A jawline, a wrist. An elbow.”

  Elizabeth was acutely, shockingly, aware of his fingers on her skin—a place she’d never paid attention to that was, now, the most intensely alive part of her.

  Say something, she told herself. Quickly. Before—what?

  She cleared her throat. “On the other hand, a portrait might not be a single image. The personality, the whole person—you can’t contain it in just one photo.” She hesitated, afraid she had revealed too much. “Stieglitz said that, about his photos of O’Keeffe. A collective, cumulative portrait. That’s why he had to take so many pictures of her. More than three hundred, over twenty years. Different parts of her, at different times.”

  “That’s interesting.”

  “Oh. Am I the interesting one now?” She couldn’t believe she’d said that. It was reckless, sassy.

  He smiled again. “Quite.”

  Elizabeth felt the heat rise up in her face. She had to keep talking or she’d lose herself in the sensation of his touch. “Of course, sometimes a small part is all you need, like you said. I often painted fragments of things because it seemed to make my statement better than the whole could. Georgia O’Keeffe said that.”

  “How come you know so much about Georgia O’Keeffe?”

  “I’m studying her. For my dissertation.”

  The waiter appeared with their coffee. “Did you need cream, milk, skim? We have almond hazelnut half-and-half.”

  Reluctantly, Elizabeth moved her arm so the waiter could set the mugs on the marble. “Nothing. Thank you.”

  “Nor for me.” Richard reached for his cup. He blew across the hot surface. “Why did you pick O’Keeffe?”

  “I’ve always been drawn to her. She painted these tiny, tiny things, and then these incredible mountains. She wanted us to take the time to look, to really see.”

  “We have something in common, then.”

  “Oh?” She could feel the place on her arm where he’d touched her, as if his fingers were still there. An inch of skin, shimmering, sizzling. “We do?”

  He took a sip of coffee. “We have a passion for how art can reveal what’s really there. You have O’Keeffe, I have Weston. If I could take photos like his—the beauty of a single cabbage leaf, spread like a woman’s hair—I’d die a happy man.”

  She nodded. “The peppers and the sea shells.”

  “And the nudes.” Richard took another sip. “It was the only way Weston, egoist that he was, could let himself adore the women he loved—Tina Modotti, Charis Wilson. Through his camera. That’s my theory, anyway.”

  “When you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it’s your world for the moment.”

  “Your words, or Georgia’s?”

  “Georgia’s again, I’m afraid.”

  “What do you have to say, Elizabeth? For yourself.”

  She felt her flush deepen. “I don’t know.” She thought of how O’Keeffe had let herself be seen through Stieglitz’s lens—hands, breasts, stomach—and then, through her own art, had made the world more visible. There was something she wanted to say about that, Richard was right. But she hadn’t found it yet, that central thing. She hoped she might find it in the Hawaii paintings. O’Keeffe’s transitional time, the little-known interlude that bisected her life.

  Finally she said, “I guess I’m still looking for it. Pondering the paintings, her life. Waiting for that aha.”

  Richard set down his cup. “Well, don’t count on the aha finding you. You might have to go out and look for it.”

  Elizabeth could hear the groan of an espresso machine, the clatter of dishes. The rich dark smell of coffee filled her nostrils.

  In Maui, there had been the scent of flowers. Water dripped along the rocks.

  “O’Keeffe spent nine weeks in Hawaii,” she said. “That’s what my dissertation is about.”

  “Why did she go to Hawaii?”

  “That’s the thing. I think she was drawn, at first, by a fake Hawaii. You know, the whole fantasy, hula dancers and palm trees and ukuleles? It was everywhere in the 1930s. That’s why Dole sent her there, to paint a pineapple they could use in their ads. O’Keeffe was probably expecting the exotic paradise she’d heard so much about.”

  “That wasn’t what she found.”

  “No. Not at all. I think she had to reject the fake Hawaii in order to understand the real one.”

  “Or accept that it was fake and enjoy it anyway.”

  Elizabeth began to laugh, as if Richard had made a joke. Then
she stopped, unsure. “Maybe.”

  A long moment passed. Again, she heard the groan of the coffee machine. A shiver slid up her spine, a frisson of danger.

  With a jerk, she pushed away from the table. “I really have to get going. Let me pay you for the coffee.”

  “No need.” He gave her a slow smile. “You can buy next time.”

  Next time. Elizabeth’s pulse shot upward. Had he noticed the wedding ring? Did he care? Anyway, why should he? It was just coffee. “Fair enough,” she said.

  Without saying goodbye, she turned and strode out of the café. She wondered if he was watching her walk away, her strides long and sleek. Parting the air in front of her as she moved. Parting the wild horse’s mane, revealing the path ahead.

  “The problem,” Harold Lindstrom said, “is that you’ve made up your mind in advance about the Hawaii period, so you’re looking for evidence that you think can prove your theory, instead of letting the theory emerge from the evidence. That’s not how scholarship works.” He leaned back and peered at Elizabeth over the top of his glasses. “At least, not in the dissertations that I chair.”

  Harold Lindstrom was head of the Art History department, a distinguished scholar, and a coveted mentor. It would be foolish to take his goodwill for granted.

  “Yes, I understand. But I can’t help thinking there’s something there.” Elizabeth remembered the words she was supposed to use. A finding that can contribute to the scholarly literature.

  Ask him for guidance. That was her role, as the rising star she intended to remain. “How do you think I should approach the question?”

  Lindstrom adjusted his glasses. “You have to widen your lens. Look at the whole of O’Keeffe’s life and work, and then see how the Hawaii period fits in.”

  Widen the lens. The metaphor made Elizabeth think of Richard, but she pushed the image aside. “Yes. That makes sense.” Then she frowned. “You know that 600-page biography of O’Keeffe you told me to read? I looked through it, and there’s less than one page about her time in Hawaii. Not even one page, can you believe it? And no mention of any specific painting she did there, except that damn Pineapple Blossom she did back in New York, after the Dole people got so mad at her. The author calls her Hawaii paintings sterile, harsh, angular.” She mimed wiping her hands. “Done. Dismissed.”