Via Dolorosa(11)

“Yes,” Emma said, “a diagnostician. Isn’t that smart?”

“Smart,” Nick said.

“I am a photographer,” Isabella clarified.

“She takes pictures,” said Emma. “She’s been taking pictures all over the world.”

“It’s good to meet you,” he said.

“Are you hungry, dear?” Emma said. “Isabella and I already ate.”

“I’m okay for now.”

“You should eat something,” Emma continued.

“Maybe later. I just woke up.”

“Just don’t let the morning go by without eating something, Nick.”

Now you’re overreaching for sure, darling, Nick thought, and he found that, unlike moments previous, he could not settle his eyes on her for any extended length of time.

“Is this your first time visiting the island?” Isabella Rosales said.

“It is,” he said.

“It is a wonderful place for a honeymoon. It’s fun and there are a lot of things to do, but it’s also very quaint and romantic, too.”

“Yes,” he agreed.

“Also,” Isabella said, “there is the beach.”

“Nick loves the beach,” Emma said.

“Oh, it is such a beautiful beach,” Isabella said excitedly.

“It’s a great beach,” he agreed without expression.

“Your wife confessed that you are the genius behind that wonderful drawing off the main lobby.”

“I’m working while we’re here, yes,” he said.

“It is a very brilliant drawing. When will you start to paint it?”

“Today,” he said. “After breakfast.”

“It is such an amazing drawing,” Isabella Rosales seemed to say to no one in particular. It was in the way she spoke and looked at no one that made her comments universal. She appeared as someone chronically uninterested in specifications, finding simple pleasure in the statement of her own opinions as fact. She had a nice figure but her clothes seemed too plain, too simple, and almost forcefully so. She wore no makeup on her face. Her fingers, long and brown, looked somehow strategic, too, and were adorned with clusters of tarnished silver rings, each studded with turquoise stones. Despite her obvious Spanish heritage, there prevailed an almost Native American air about her. Nick, for just a moment, considered what it might be like to love Isabella, or someone like her. Loving her (it occurred to him as he sipped his Jamaican espresso and sat casually beside his new wife) would be easy and free and would not come with anything that came, he knew, with loving his wife. Loving Isabella would be like loving rain, loving summer, loving sky.

“Amazing drawing,” Isabella said again. She sounded very genuine and her eyes finally settled on him, weighing her words with sudden importance and sincerity.

“So you’re a photographer,” Nick said, not wanting to discuss the mural. “Are you here working, too?”

“I am doing a shoot, yes. You’ve heard of the Goat-Man?”

“The what?”

“Sounds scary,” Emma commented.

Isabella fashioned her head back slightly on her neck, leaving her neck unlined and creaseless, smooth and vulnerable, and laughed just once—sharp, simply. Her eyes never left Nick’s own, however, as if she distrusted leaving him, even for a split second, out of her line of sight.

“Right,” she said. “Russell ‘Goat-Man’ Claxton.”

“Uh…” Nick managed.

“He’s a virtuoso,” Isabella said. “A veritable genius. The man, he is some American legend, and he is so young and handsome. You do not know him? He is a jazz saxophonist. I saw him blow once in New York City, at Mandy’s. It was after he released his first album, Gingerbread Man. You do not know? He sustained a single note for three whole minutes on stage, and this is no exaggeration. It was the most goddamn impressive thing I think I have ever seen anyone do.”

“Sounds impressive.”

“Also, he plays polytonally.”

“I’m not sure I know what that means…”

“Do you follow jazz at all, Nicholas?”

It sounded strange to hear her say his name fully like that. “You mean the music? Uh—ha.”

Isabella Rosales offered up an archipelago of white, even teeth. “I’m compiling some images of Goat-Man for a book.”

“So is he called the Goat-Man because he has a horn?”

“But the saxophone is only one horn,” Isabella said. “By that logic, that would make him the Narwhal-Man.”

“Or the Unicorn-Man,” Nick suggested.

“Ah, yes. The Unicorn-Man. Yes, Nicholas, I like that. But no—it has nothing to do with his saxophone.”

“Well,” he said, “it was just a guess. Anyway, it was only a matter of time before the conversation turned to sax.”

“You,” Isabella said, “you, you, you are funny.” She turned to Emma. “Your husband is funny. I adore him.” Turning back to Nick, she said, “I do mostly freelance work. I have been working on a few different projects for some time now, and this is where it has brought me. I have been getting some wonderful shots of the beach, too. Until the storm came, anyway.”