Anything Is Possible(19)

“Because he is creepy. I’m telling you.” Karen-Lucie pointed her swizzle stick at Yvonne.

“It’s not like he looks creepy. He looks normal.” Yvonne picked up a chip, put it back into the basket.

Karen-Lucie let out a long sigh. “For a hundred years I waitressed in my youth, and, child, I got to know some things. I got to know men’s eyes.” Karen-Lucie tapped the swizzle stick to her cheekbone. “And this man, baby doll, thinks yew are a big old tall piece of trash, that’s what he thinks. He’d think the same about me, but I’ve won some a-wards, and he’d rather hang me on his wall. And when you win your a-wards, and you will, Yvie, he’ll want you on his wall beside his fuckin’ freezing cold Pee-casso. But right now he is sniffin’ your panties and tuckin’ your pretty white pajamas under his pillow each night.”

Yvonne gave small nods. “Thank you.” She added, “I’m serious.”

“I know you’re serious.”

“Whoa,” said Tomasina. “This is sad stuff I’m hearing.”

Karen-Lucie looked at Tomasina’s profile with a serious hard look. Then she put her hand on his and said, “You are to worry about nothing. You are doing just fine.”



Linda and Jay Peterson-Cornell sat in the living room waiting up to speak to their houseguest. Every night she had come in later and later, and when she came in she always said “Hello, g’night” and kept right on walking down the ramp in her wedge-heeled sandals.

The night after Jay and Linda had been to the exhibit, Jay said, “She doesn’t give us the time of day.”

Without looking at him, turning the page of her magazine, Linda said, “When I first saw her I thought maybe you’d run off with her.”

Jay laughed. “Did you? Because of her slightly slutty, kind of working-class look?”

“I don’t think it’s just a look,” Linda said.

“No. Clearly not.”

Linda should have sensed—she did sense—her husband’s heightened state. She did not watch with him again the view of Yvonne in the bedroom or the bathroom. She did not mention to him that Yvonne had reported her white pajamas missing. On the last night of Yvonne’s stay, Linda sat with him in the living room, and toward midnight Yvonne came in. “You’ve been burning your candle at both ends,” Jay called out to her.

“I have been. Sleep well,” Yvonne called back, disappearing down the ramp.

“Would you come here for a moment, please?” Jay called. He stayed sitting and Linda sat next to him, holding a newspaper open on her lap.

After a moment, Yvonne came back up the ramp. “Yes?” she said.

“Have you a family?” Jay asked her. “Are you divorced?”

“Am I divorced?”

“That’s what I asked.”

“Well. Jeeze.” Yvonne put a hand to her forehead. “There’s a conversation starter. Is that the first thing you usually ask middle-aged women when you meet them?”

“You look divorced,” Jay said.

Yvonne shook her head quickly in tiny gestures. “Okay. If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to bed.”

“You’ve stayed in our house for more than a week,” Linda said. “And you’ve never once had a conversation with us. You’ll understand if we feel—rebuffed. We opened our home to you.”

“Oh. Okay. Yeah, I’m sorry.” This seemed to have hit home, and Linda sensed immediately how little confidence the woman really had. How her mother had probably tried to bring her up right but a desperation was inherited. Yvonne stepped into the living room. “I didn’t mean to be rude. I’ve just been really tired each night.”

“Sit,” Jay said pleasantly, nodding toward a chair.

The woman sat. Her legs were very long and the chair she sat in was low to the ground, so her knees stuck up like a cricket’s. Linda could see she was uncomfortable, and Linda was not sorry.

“So tell us. You live in Arizona? Have you lived there long?” Linda asked.

“Yeah,” said Yvonne. “Basically. You know, most of my adult life.”

“Our daughter was thinking of moving to New Mexico, but she went east instead,” Jay said, smiling. “She lives in Boston now.”

“Yeah? How old is she?”

“She’s twenty-three and very much enjoying her independence from us. It’s natural at that age.” Jay was still smiling. “She has a twin brother who lives in Providence, and he’s enjoying his independence as well,” he added.

“Karen-Lucie has done some wonderful work recently,” Linda said.

“Hasn’t she?” Yvonne sat forward, but her knees were too high so she had to sit back and stretch her legs out and she looked undeniably inviting. “The whole earthquake series. I think she’s brilliant. Those cracked plates.” Yvonne shook her head appreciatively, tried sitting up straight again.

“Some artists are so competitive. Even with their friends,” Jay said. “But I guess you can be generous since your own work’s been successful. And rightly so, might I add.”

“I’m sure you’re just generous anyway,” Linda said. She thought Yvonne looked wary. “Let me get us some wine,” she said. There was no doubt about what she felt. Jay had had his successes before, but Linda had never felt as complicit.