We Are Okay(22)

When leaving campus, I never turn right because it would take me too close to the motel. I can’t fathom boarding a plane to San Francisco. It would be flying into ruins. But how could I begin to explain this to her? Even the good places are haunted. The thought of walking up her stairs to her front door, or onto the 31 bus, leaves me heavy with dread. I can’t even think about my old house or Ocean Beach without panic thrumming through me.

“Hey,” she says, voice soft. “Are you okay?”

I nod but I don’t know if it’s true.

The silence of my house. The food left, untouched, on the counter. The sharp panic of knowing I was alone.

“You’re shaking,” she says.

I need to swim. That plunge into water. That quiet. I close my eyes and try to feel it.

“Marin? What’s going on?”

“I’m just trying . . . ,” I say.

“Trying what?”

“Can you tell me something?”

“Sure.”

“Anything. Tell me about one of your classes.”

“Okay. I’m taking Art History? I think I might minor in it. I really love the Mexican art, which makes my mom so happy. Like Frida Kahlo. Her paintings are so . . . strong. There are all the self-portraits, close-ups of her face and shoulders with variations. Like sometimes she has animals with her, monkeys, a weird hairless dog, that kind of thing. And some are more simple. Is this right? Am I helping?”

I nod.

“My current favorite is called The Two Fridas. It’s pretty much the way it sounds. There are two versions of her, sitting next to each other on a bench. One is wearing a long white dress with an elaborate lace bodice and collar, and the other one is dressed in . . . I don’t remember exactly. Something more relaxed. But the thing that I really like about it is you can see their hearts. You can see right into their chests. Or maybe their hearts are outside their chests. It’s kind of gruesome, like most of her paintings, but it’s also really dramatic and beautiful.”

“I’d like to see it.”

“I can pull it up if you want me to. Hold on one second.”

I open my eyes.

We are in my room.

My hands are still.

She’s taking my computer off my desk and entering a search. She sits down next to me and positions the screen between us, resting it on one of my knees and one of hers. The painting is how she described it, but there’s also more. Behind the two Fridas are storm clouds, gray-blue and white.

“I can’t tell,” I say, “if the trouble is coming or if it’s passed and already left them.”

“Or maybe they’re in the middle of it,” she says. “Something is happening with the hearts.”

The hearts are connected by a thin red line. A vein. It’s bleeding onto the Frida in the white dress, who is holding a pair of scissors. I point to her heart.

“We’re looking inside her chest to see it,” I say. “And it looks painful. But the other one . . .” I point to her. “I think her heart’s outside her body. It’s still whole.”

“You’re right,” Mabel says.

Where the one in the white dress has scissors, this one has something else.

“What is she holding?”

“It’s a tiny portrait of Diego Rivera. She painted this during their divorce.”

“So it’s about losing him,” I say.

“Yeah, I guess,” she says. “That’s what my professor says. But doesn’t that make it too simple?”

I turn my head to look at Mabel.

“It’s better if it’s complicated?” I say.

She smiles. “Well, obviously.”

I take another look at the screen. “Maybe it really is as simple as it looks, though. She was one person before. She had a whole heart and the man she loved. She was at ease. And then something happened, and it changed her. And now she’s wounded.”

“Are you trying to tell me something?” Mabel says. “Are you finally answering me? If you need to do it this way, I’d be happy to find a bunch of paintings for you to analyze.”

“No,” I say. “I mean, yes—I know how she feels. But that’s not what I’m doing. I’m just looking at your painting.”

“The thing I most love about it,” Mabel says, “is how they’re holding hands right at the center of the painting. It’s so important. It’s what the whole thing’s about, I think.”

“It could mean so many different things.”

“Like what? I just think it means the Fridas are still connected. Even though she’s changed, she’s still the same person.”

“Yeah, it could mean that,” I say. “But it could also be something else. Like the whole one is trying to pull the wounded one back to her, as if she could undo what’s happened. Or the wounded one is guiding her old self into her new life. Or it could be that they’ve separated almost entirely from each other, and they are holding hands as a last moment of connection before they break apart completely.”

Mabel stares at the image.

“And why are you changing your major?” she asks.

“Because wouldn’t it be better,” I say, “if the hand-holding really just meant they were connected, and you didn’t have to think about the other possibilities?”