Robin Black - Life Drawing

“I had a visitor last night,” Owen said, turning down the flame under the kettle.

“What do you mean?” I imagined an animal of some kind. We had a fox once in a while, the occasional raccoon.

“The daughter. Nora. Alison’s daughter. It turns out she’s a fan. You want tea?”

“Yes. Wait. I don’t understand.” I watched as he took two mugs off their hooks. “She went out to the barn? She was in the barn?”

“She’s read my books. After her mother told her about us. She looked me up. And I’m a genius according to her. An inspiration. Underappreciated. Destined to be lauded after my death, you’ll be glad to know.”

“She couldn’t wait until morning?”

“By my best estimate, she was at least three sheets to the wind. Maybe four.”

“Jesus.” I hadn’t seen this coming. Weren’t churchgoing girls a little more reserved than that? “Well, I just hope Alison drove. Assuming she wasn’t also smashed. Was Nora making a pass at you? Was this some kind of move?”

He shook his head. He poured the water. “No. This wasn’t that.”

“Don’t sound so disappointed.”

“I don’t sound disappointed. Because I’m not disappointed. This was more like the impulsive act of a young girl who fancies herself a writer.” He brought over the mugs, then sat across from me and yawned. “Honestly, I don’t know what it was. I just hope the poor girl doesn’t explode from embarrassment when she wakes up. And I hope she doesn’t make a habit of dropping in any time the fancy strikes.”

“Well, it’s always nice to be admired. And in vino veritas and all. It sounds like sincere admiration.”

“Oh, it was sincere all right. It was, if anything, a bit too sincere.”

“I thought you said it wasn’t a pass.”

“It wasn’t a pass. It was … just very sincere. That’s all. That’s all I mean. It was possibly embarrassingly sincere. Sincere in the way that a reasonable, adult person might regret in the cold light of day.”

“Well, she’s young,” I said. “She may not yet have a sense of how embarrassing a thing like that should be. She may not even remember it, if she was drunk as all that.”

“Maybe not,” he said, but in doubting tones.

“According to a certain extremely hung over young woman,” Alison began as soon as we crossed paths outside that afternoon, “it seems your husband may have had a late night visit from an aspiring author and fan. Needless to say, I didn’t know anything about it at the time. Please apologize on both our behalves.”

“Oh, he didn’t mind,” I said — which was true enough. I had been more put out than Owen. “He could use a little ego boosting these days.”

“Well, she wants to die. Of course. Though mixed in there is all kinds of stuff about being thrilled to have met him.”

I laughed — part of my newly devised strategy for dealing with any crush Nora might be developing. I would make the whole thing out to be a joke. Ridiculous. “Tell her she doesn’t have to die. We’re artists, tell her. We’re old bohemians. We’re used to odd behavior. She didn’t even register on the odd behavior scale. He was very flattered I’m sure. In fact …” I glanced toward the barn as if to consult. “In fact, aren’t we on for dinner tonight? Ten seconds at our house and she’ll know not to feel bad. We’ll all have a good laugh together.”

“It may take some convincing Nora,” Alison said. “But assume we’ll be there.” She reached out and squeezed my arm. “She’s already been punished with a wicked hangover. Poor thing. Stupid of me to let her get like that. Terrible mothering to let her drink so much.”

I surprised myself by wondering if there wasn’t some truth to that. “I’ll admit I don’t expect that kind of traipsing from true believers,” I said.

“That, of all things, is no defense.”

“I guess that’s right,” I said. “I shouldn’t assume that everyone who believes in God is …”

“Well behaved?” Alison laughed. “Well, she is, at heart. I mean, I do think the religion steadies her, not that she needs special steadying. But it surely doesn’t mean she never gets drunk and acts idiotic. That would have taken better parenting, not more piety.”

“Hardly,” I said; though again, I did wonder if she wasn’t right.

Owen greeted the news that Alison and Nora would be joining us for dinner with mock horror, but I wasn’t convinced that the prospect of an admiring young woman at the table upset him one bit.

“Why don’t you go put on your most dashing pair of shorts?” I called as he climbed upstairs to take a shower.

“Excellent idea,” he called back. “The dress cargoes tonight.”

Life. It begins and begins and begins. An infinite number of times. It is all beginnings until the end comes. Sometimes we know it and sometimes we do not, but at every moment life begins again. Nora. Young. And elegant — shockingly so, something that hadn’t quite come through at our hurried first meeting. Young and elegant with a single pearl in each earlobe, the cross nestled between her collarbones. She wore a simple black sundress. And she was very beautiful, another surprise, as though it were a switch she had turned on since arriving the day before. Green eyes — bright like her mother’s but a different shade. Straight blonde hair, fine and shining, lines of light shifting through it with her every move.

“I feel like such an idiot,” she said, leaning against our refrigerator. Owen was not yet downstairs. “When I drink I have horrible impulse control and the people who love me have to deal with that, I’m afraid.”

The people who love me .

Also the people who don’t, I thought, but did not say. “We all have our shortcomings,” I said, instead. “Anyway, I think you probably made his year.”

She groaned. “I don’t even remember what I said.” She was playing with a clay palette-shaped magnet from the fridge, an ancient gift from Charlotte. I had to restrain myself from taking it from her lest it somehow break.

Alison said, “I’m sure you’re far too well brought up to be rude.”

“I think you just told him nice things about his work,” I said. “There isn’t a writer on earth who wouldn’t enjoy that.” I walked past her, a platter of baked chicken in my hands. “Why don’t you put that magnet back and come sit down,” I said. “We’ll pour some wine and we’ll eat, and you’ll forget it ever happened.”

Our dining room table, an inherited oval of no particular distinction, came from my childhood home. I had covered it that afternoon with three overlapping cloths, set at angles so some of each color showed: white, then pale gray, and then a dark rose one, on top. And I had gotten out the good china too — which meant an array of mismatched but very fine pieces we had picked up at garage sales over the years. I’d cut wildflowers and set them in green glass jars, one at each end of the table, with half a dozen candles randomly arranged. Long ago, back in the city, I had painted our chairs, also mismatched, all the same shade of dark gray, and lacquered them. They looked like shadows in the candlelight, shadows in sculptural form.

Stepping through from the living room and seeing it all gave me a flash of great pleasure. It wasn’t often that Owen and I bothered to eat in surroundings that honored the activity. For the most part we sat in the kitchen, which I also loved, but which was dark and hardly celebratory. Or we shared the couch and stared together into a fire. And all of that was good, it was companionable and certainly convenient, but I had almost forgotten the pleasure of giving a room a magical aura like this one now had.