Chapter 38

On Friday afternoon after work, the day before the party for Paul’s office staff, Carolyn drove to Venice, to the Austin Art Gallery. Located three blocks from the ocean amid a cheerful clutter of small antique shops and specialty stores, the gallery appeared from its front room to be a labyrinth of smaller back rooms. With a sense of obligatory propriety, Carolyn paused to inspect a series of pleasant if bland seascapes.

A trim, dark-haired woman ventured partway into the room. “Let me know if I can answer any questions.”

Carolyn looked at her curiously. The textured white wool skirt and sweater looked expensive. Could this be the Susan whose parents owned the beach house? “Thank you,” she said, “I’d like to stroll around.”

“Stay the afternoon.” The woman’s smile was easy and attractive. “You’ll find coffee in the back room.”

With decorous slowness, in mounting anticipation, Carolyn moved through a room of cheerful geometric mobiles, then through impressionistic landscapes, glossy acrylic miniatures, paper collages, huge watercolor flowers. She knew she had found Val’s work before she saw HUNTER in firm upright strokes in the lower corner of the first painting.

Five oversize paintings, the only contents of a room lighted by angled fluorescent ceiling fixtures, seemed to reflect their own light. She stopped before a canvas of glowing viridian, its dust-colored background shot through with what she judged to be cobalt yellow. In a seemingly haphazard fusion of tropical foliage she identified palm fronds. Other leafy shapes tugged at her mind in vague familiarity. An inked card beside the painting stated:

GREENERY, SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

V. Hunter, Los Angeles, California

She studied the painting for a long time, held by the hot vital greens, the fluid rendering of leaves and plants she had seen every day along the streets and freeways of Los Angeles without really seeing.

The next canvas poured warm cadmium oranges and yellows over her. Suggestive of the composition of her own rain painting, vaguely symmetrical shapes of burnt sienna conveyed building tops at the horizon level. The card read: SUMMER SUNRISE, LOS ANGELES.

Reluctant to leave the incandescence of this painting, eventually she turned her gaze to two large canvases which presented different perspectives of the same subject: an angular, cerulean blue body of water tightly surrounded by dusty hills whose sparse cover was dry, brittle, dying. The controlled shape of the body of water was somehow comforting, its strong blue color tranquil and clear—cool reassurance amid the encroaching desolation of the arid hills. The card beside each painting was identical: RESERVOIR AT CASTAIC: SEPTEMBER.

“I see you’ve found an artist you like.”

So immersed in the paintings she had forgotten where she was, Carolyn whirled at the sound of the voice.

“I didn’t mean to startle you,” the woman apologized softly. “I noticed you’d been in here awhile so I thought I’d mention that this artist is selling quite steadily. She’s an exceptional talent.”

The woman stepped to a painting Carolyn had not looked at yet—a scarlet vase, the flowers it contained suggested by splashes of color so brilliant they seemed to move, to dance. “Her work is distinctive, very bold. And her use of color—look how she’s put light colors against a dark background, very difficult to do well. Incredible use of color.”

Carolyn passed her cool hands over her face; she knew she was flushing in her pride for Val.

“This painting of the sunrise is a particular favorite of mine—how she builds up the color effects. And it has such optimism.”

“Yes, yes it does,” Carolyn said, her gaze again captured by it. The woman left, and Carolyn’s contemplation of the paintings continued until a glance at her watch told her she scarcely had time in rush-hour traffic to arrive home before Paul.

She found the woman seated at a small desk making notations in a ledger. “The sunrise painting,” Carolyn said, “how much is that?”

The woman smiled. “Obviously I think that’s a fine choice.” She consulted a chart. “Five-fifty.”

Carolyn wrote a check. She thought: Paul will go berserk.

In traffic that inched along the San Diego Freeway she made her way out to the Valley, penetrated by her awareness of the landscape beside the freeway, watching soft hills dense with foliage darken and deepen in their greenness as dusk descended. Taking her exit from the Ventura Freeway she gazed at distant palm trees black against the horizon, their bushy heads swaying in the slight evening breeze. She remembered films she had seen of palms bent parallel to the ground in hurricanes, their suppleness granting survival.

Palm trees are odd compared to most trees, she reflected; they’re like people who lack conventional beauty yet possess strong individuality. All things have beauty—that’s what Val celebrates in her art.

She drove slowly down her block looking at the houses. Like the vast majority of structures in Los Angeles, they were stucco or frame or both. This great city has no fear, she thought; it lies so fragile in the sun, confident that nothing will ever happen to it…Only the palm trees really know about living in sunlit cities.

Paul had arrived home before her. When he saw the wrapped painting in her arms his face darkened; he looked away from her and his shoulders adjusted, as if he were squaring them. He said, “One of hers?”

That name is never mentioned in this house, Carolyn thought. She nodded.

“I thought—I got the idea when you were sick that you two were on the outs more or less.” His voice came from deep in his chest, heavy with a resonance that seemed almost menacing.

“Not on the outs. But she’s finally settled into her new place,” she said smoothly. “She has things going on in her life right now.” She placed the painting on the bar. “This is from the gallery, I went there just on impulse. I was curious,” she added truthfully. “I didn’t intend to buy a thing. You may even like this—it’s quite different from the one we have.”

“How much?”

“Five-fifty.”

He heaved a sigh. “We’re spending money like drunken sailors, Princess. The trip, this party—”

No longer listening to his words she stripped the paper off and propped the painting on the bar for him. He stood back, arms crossed, in lengthy appraisal.

“I do prefer it to the one in here,” he said. “The brightness will be good and—”

“I want it in the guest room,” she stated.

He flicked a surprised glance at her. “If it’s in there you’ll hardly ever see it.” His tone was not argumentative, and he added, grinning, his hands raised in mock-terror, “Will you?”

She chuckled. “I expect I won’t see it very often. But that’s where I want it.”

He said promptly, “Let’s hang it.”

She carried the painting toward the guest room. “Not now. I don’t feel like it,” she improvised. She did not want him touching, handling it.

She leaned the painting against the wall. After the party she would hang it. Sunday, when Paul was at the Raider game. When she was alone in the house.

Date: 2015-02-03; view: 519