The Ascent(53)

At 7:15, the lampposts along M Street blinked on. I had an Elvis Costello CD in the stereo on repeat, and I was lying down on the heater at the back of the studio. In the offices upstairs, I could hear doors being locked, heels and loafers moving down the concrete stairs of the fire exit. Burners of the midnight oil.

There was a pretty good chance I might have fallen asleep if I hadn’t happened to turn my head and spot my tuxedo hanging from a hook on a closet door. “Shit.”

Hannah had already given her speech and cut the red ribbon by the time I arrived at the gallery. It was a good turnout; a number of heads swiveled in my direction when I made too much noise coming through the doors. My tux dusted with powdered concrete and my flesh reeking of booze, I nodded at my closest admirers and went straight for the rear of the gallery. Brightly colored oil paintings glared down at me, disappointed in my appearance. I staggered over to Hannah, pretty in a red sequined gown and holding a champagne flute, but when I touched her arm and she turned around, it wasn’t Hannah at all.

“Shit,” I said to the woman who wasn’t my wife. “I mean … shit, I’m sorry …”

The woman seemed to look straight through me.

I pivoted and caught a glimpse of Hannah—this time for sure—talking with a good-looking guy in a black suit and tie. She was stunning in a contoured velvet gown cut just at the knee. She wore black nylons—something that had always driven me wild. She must have sensed my gaze from across the room because she looked in my direction at that moment, our eyes locking.

“Hey.” I kissed her cheek. “I’m sorry, Hannah. I got caught

up.” I nodded at the gentleman in the suit. “Hi.”

“Tim, this is David Moore. David, this is my husband, Tim.”

David grasped my hand and pumped it like a car jack. “Good to meet you, Tim.”

“David bought your sculpture.”

I arched my eyebrows. “Oh yeah?”

David smiled. He was dark skinned with silver streaks in his black hair. Firm chin already darkened by tomorrow’s beard stubble. “It’s a beautiful piece. I noticed it right away. It really spoke to me.”

I cocked a grin at him. “What did it say?”

“Uh,” David said and followed it up with a nervous laugh. He looked me up and down. “I should leave,” he said, turning to Hannah. He leaned in and kissed her on the cheek. “It was a fabulous evening.”

“Thanks for coming, David.”

I watched him leave before facing Hannah. “So how did it go?”

Grabbing me by the elbow, she led me away from the center of the room. “Jesus, Tim. You stink of booze.” She, too, eyed me up and down. “There’s … there’s shit all over your tux.”

“I should have covered it with a trash bag. I didn’t think.”

An elderly couple waltzed by, raising their hands to my wife. She offered them a broad smile, shoving me farther behind her as if to hide me from the world. I took a few steps back until I stumbled into a wall. There was a speaker directly above my head through which issued a slow jazz instrumental.

“Who is he?” I asked that night in bed.

“Who is who?”

“The guy who bought my piece.”

“David? He’s a linguistics professor at Georgetown. He’s written a few books, and he’s very well respected in the arts community.”

“He seems to like you a lot.”

“He’s a lover of art.”

“I mean, he seems to like you personally.”

“What’s that mean?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “He just seemed really friendly.”

“He’s one of the donors. And he spent a lot of money tonight. Most of it on your sculpture.” She rolled over in bed, her back toward me.

“A handsome guy, too,” I said, staring at the ceiling.

“You’re still drunk,” she muttered.

“I’m sorry about tonight,” I said.

“Just go to sleep, Tim.”

“Can we talk about it?”

“We’ll talk about it tomorrow.”

“All right.”

But we didn’t.

We didn’t.

3



ANDREW’S VOICE FOLLOWED ME DOWN INTO THE

darkness: “Is it too tight? Can you move your arms?”

Except for the shrinking circle of light above my head, my world was black. As they lowered me into the ice shaft, my nose only an inch or so away from the wall of black ice, I couldn’t help but think about the accident in the cave. Had it really been two years ago now? Bumbling through constricted tunnels below the earth, lost and blind yet going deeper and deeper. Everything had that coal mine smell. Then, just as it had happened to Hollinger, the ground had opened up beneath me and I’d dropped. My leg snapped when I crashed to the bottom of the trench, the pain so intense I was rendered instantly unconscious.

I recalled now what Andrew had alluded to over a week ago as we huddled together in the cave after Shotsky had died. What he’d said about my reason for wandering around in those caves by myself in the first place. I hadn’t been afraid of dying. Lying at the bottom ofthat pitch-black stone trench, my ass soaking up ancient water that had somehow found a way in through the cracks in the rock, I had surrendered. I’d closed my eyes and surrendered, welcoming it. I was tired and wanted no more of it. And I would have simply bled out and died there if it hadn’t been for Hannah.