The Light of Paris(71)

“It’s just such an unstable industry. Restaurants fail all the time, staff quit in the middle of a shift—it’s notoriously difficult to find good help, if you’ll forgive the expression.”

“Don’t apologize. My mother says it all the time,” I laughed. “Anyway, you seem great to work for, so I’m sure they’ll keep you around.”

“Well, thanks. It makes it much easier to have great employees if you’re a good boss. Short answer: they’ll be fine for a while. What about you? How goes the great moving adventure?”

“It’s going. She finally had an appraiser and an antiques dealer over, so they’re clearing some things out of the house. It’s incredible how much stuff there is.”

“She’s lived there for what, almost fifty years? That’ll happen. My parents are still in the house I grew up in. We joke that when they die, we’re just going to have to burn it down. It would be easier than cleaning it out.”

I pictured our condo in fifty years, when it would still feel empty. Phillip had an almost clinical intolerance for clutter, or anything he thought of as clutter. More than once I had left a book or some papers on a table only to come home and find he had recycled them as if they were trash. No matter how many times that place was redecorated, it would never be anything other than clean and bare.

“It’s amazing the things we’ve been cleaning out. I told you I found all my grandmother’s journals, which are amazing, and there’s a trunk full of books that have to be from the Civil War. Plus, of course, my Leif Garrett record collection, so clearly, treasures from throughout the ages.”

“I sincerely hope the appraisers appreciate the value of those records.”

“They’ll go for millions at Sotheby’s, I’m sure. Along with my vast collection of art works.”

“Have you been painting again?” We reached a narrow point of the sidewalk, where a tree’s roots had buckled the pavement, and he stepped back, letting me move ahead of him and then catching up a few steps later. It felt strange walking beside him—though he wasn’t much taller than I was, he was broad and had a comforting presence. Phillip was a greyhound, all sleek lines and delicate bones. Henry was more like a bulldog, wide and solid and comforting.

“Yes. How can you tell? The rosy glow of artistic achievement?”

“Well, that and the paint in your hair.”

“Oh,” I said, embarrassed, patting at my head, feeling for a stiff spot. For all my bathroom ministrations, I might as well have been a hobo, just wandered in off the streets. “Sorry. You’re always catching me looking like a slob. I don’t look at myself in the mirror a lot. Am I totally covered in it?” I checked my arms and saw a smudge that looked like I’d rubbed against some wet paint after I’d wiped my brush on my apron.

“No apologies necessary. I’m just going to pretend I’m hanging out with a famous artist.”

“Ah, I’m not an artist. I mean I was, years ago, I thought I would be. But I stopped.”

“Why?”

“That,” I said, whistling out a breath, “is the question of the day. I’ve been reading my grandmother’s journals, you know? And she really wanted to be a writer, but her mother was dead set against it. And I don’t know how much of that was the time, like women shouldn’t be having careers in general, or how much of it was the arts in particular, or what, but I got that message too, that art was a waste of time. My parents were practical people.”

We had reached the edge of The Row, and we stopped on the slight hill above the street to look at the scene. At the far end, near Cassandra’s shop, a band was playing, and there was a crowd gathered in the street. All along the sidewalks, people milled around, some of them standing in groups and talking, others ducking in and out of the stores and restaurants. The patio where Sharon and I had eaten breakfast was packed, people sitting at tables or leaning against the railing. Through the wide, plate-glass windows of the bookstore, I could see a woman standing at a microphone doing a reading, a group perching on folding chairs in front of her.

I was struck again by how much the neighborhood had changed. The stores were less gentrified, less concerned with who they should keep out and more with inviting people in. The people had changed too—they were younger, they came in endless colors and shapes and sizes, and their hair was wildly dyed or gloriously plain, and their clothes were vintage or didn’t quite match, and they called to each other in languages I didn’t recognize, and I felt like I was living again instead of locked in a compound that was struggling to keep out anyone who didn’t matter, surrounded by people who looked more like themselves and less like everyone else. “This place has changed,” I said to Henry, and I could hear the breathless awe in my voice. It was silly to be so caught up in a stupid street fair, I knew, and at the same time, it wasn’t just a street fair. It was like sitting at breakfast the other day with Sharon, talking to Henry and Cassandra and all the other people who had come along, and realizing I thought there was nothing to surprise me about Magnolia, but I hadn’t known it at all.

“It has. There’s been a concerted effort to revitalize The Row. I got some great funding to help make The Kitchen happen because of it.”

“It just seems so strange, that this is the same neighborhood I grew up in. All these new stores, all these people I don’t know. It’s like an entirely new place.”