Anything Is Possible(15)

Eventually Charlie said, “You doing okay these days, Patty?”

She said, “I am, I’m fine,” and turned to look at him. His eyes seemed to go back forever, they were that deep.

After a few moments Charlie said, “You’re a Midwestern girl, so you say things are fine. But they may not always be fine.”

She said nothing, watching him. She saw how right above his Adam’s apple he had forgotten to shave; a few white whiskers were there.

“You sure don’t have to tell me what’s not fine,” he said, looking straight ahead now, “and I’m sure not going to ask. I’m just here to say that sometimes”—and he turned his eyes back to hers, his eyes were pale blue, she noticed—“that sometimes things aren’t so fine, no siree bob. They aren’t always fine.”

Oh, she wanted to say, wanting to put her hand on his. Because it was himself he was speaking of, this came to her then. Oh, Charlie, she wanted to say. But she sat next to him quietly, and a car went by on Main Street, then another. “Lucy Barton wrote a memoir,” Patty finally said.

“Lucy Barton.” Charlie stared straight ahead, squinted. “The Barton kids, Jesus, that poor boy, the oldest kid.” He shook his head just slightly. “Jesus Christ. Poor kids. Jesus H. Christ.” He looked at Patty. “I suppose it’s a sad book?”

“It’s not. At least I didn’t think so.” Patty thought about this. She said, “It made me feel better, it made me feel much less alone.”

Charlie shook his head. “Oh no. No, we’re always alone.”

For quite a while they sat in companionable silence with the sun beating down on them. Then Patty said, “We’re not always alone.”

Charlie turned to look at her. He said nothing.

“Can I ask you?” Patty said. “Did people think my husband was strange?”

Charlie waited a moment, as though considering this. “Maybe. I’m the last person around here to know what people think. Sebastian seemed to me to be a good man. In pain. He was in pain.”

“Yuh. He was.” Patty nodded.

Charlie said, “I’m sorry about that.”

“I know you are.” The sun splashed brightly against the blue house.

After many moments had gone by, Charlie turned again to look at her. He opened his mouth as though about to say something, but then he shook his head and closed his mouth once more. Patty felt—without knowing what it was—that she understood what he was going to say.

She touched his arm just briefly, and in the sun they sat.





Cracked


When Linda Peterson-Cornell saw the woman who would be staying in their home for the week, she thought: Oh, this will be the one. The woman’s name was Yvonne Tuttle, and she had been brought to the house by another woman from the photography festival, Karen-Lucie Toth, who stood silently beside Yvonne as Linda welcomed her. Yvonne was very tall and had slightly wavy brown hair that went to her shoulders; her face had possibly been quite pretty ten years earlier. Now there were lines beneath the eyes that diminished their blue gaze, and also Yvonne wore too much makeup for someone who was clearly past forty—Linda was fifty-five. Yvonne’s sandals, with high cork wedges, made her even taller. They gave away to Linda the fact that Yvonne had, in her youth, most likely not come from much. Shoes always gave you away.

In the garden of Linda and Jay Peterson-Cornell’s house were two sculptures by Alexander Calder, both on one side of the large and bright blue swimming pool; inside the house on the walls of the living room were two Picassos and an Edward Hopper. There was also an early Philip Guston at the end of the sloping hallway that led to the guest area.

“Come,” Linda directed, and both the other women followed her down the hallway, which swerved around a corner then led through the long, glass-paneled walkway that finally opened into the guest suite. Linda nodded to the maid to indicate that she could leave, then Linda waited for Yvonne to say something. Yvonne just kept glancing around, gripping the handle of her wheelie suitcase, and said nothing about the house, which, even if you did not recognize the art on the walls—astonishing for a photographer not to recognize art—was still worth commenting on. The house had been renovated a few years earlier, and what the architect had done was inspired. The guestroom was all glass.

“Where’s the door?” Yvonne finally said.

“There is no door,” Linda said. She could have told Yvonne that there was no need to worry about privacy, as she and her husband stayed upstairs in the front of the house and the back garden had no houses overlooking it, but Linda did not say this. Instead she showed Yvonne the bathroom across the hall, which also had no door and was in the shape of a V and had no shower curtain or stall, the shower nozzle simply protruded from the wall. The floor was tilted to take the running water away.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Yvonne said, and Linda told her that everyone said that. Karen-Lucie Toth had continued to stand silently near Yvonne this whole time: She was the most famous of the photographers at the Summer Festival and the one who came back every year. Linda knew that Karen-Lucie had asked if Yvonne Tuttle could teach a class this summer, and the directors had agreed, although Yvonne’s portfolio was not as strong as the Festival usually required. But no one at the Festival wanted to lose Karen-Lucie: The students loved her, and her work was well-known, and also Karen-Lucie’s husband had thrown himself off the top of the Sheraton in Fort Lauderdale three years before. Karen-Lucie Toth got a pass on everything, including politeness, Linda thought, because when she said now to Karen-Lucie, “I don’t believe you’ve been inside this house before,” Karen-Lucie, also tall, also with brown hair—they could have been sisters, Linda observed—only said, in her extraordinarily thick Alabama accent, “I have not.”