Elm knew. There had been a profile in The New Yorker that detailed the delightful mess of the old house, down the beach from Frank O’Hara’s, an easy row from Pollock and Krasner’s house. But that had been a different time, and her famous neighbors were dead. Now artists stay-cationed at their studio apartments in the Bronx, unable to afford any sort of weekend getaway.
“You still design?” Elm asked.
“Unbelievable, but true,” Mrs. Schmidt answered. She brought the cigarette to her lips and took a drag as it quivered. “I ask my assistant to draw a shape. He draws it in permanent marker on large paper, and I can see the outline. I make changes, then he makes a model. I can see it then with my hands. I can feel it. Is it sexy? Is it cool? Cool temperature, not the other.”
Elm thought she understood. From just a piece of Ronan she could conjure up his entire existence, the smallest down on his back, the curve of his heel, the roughness of his elbows in winter. A piece of clothing could do it, a drawing he made, even a sock fallen behind a radiator that was retrieved years later. The part invokes the whole; there was a literary term for that. When she learned the term in college, it struck her that it described a phenomenon that she had experienced but been unable to express. It explained how pictures were fine, but a single Lego discovered in the box of crayons was a placeholder for an entire world. How a small toy could cause a pain so deep it felt like a hand was squeezing her heart, so insistent that it was impossible to imagine that she’d ever recover.
In the car on the way back to the office, Ian stretched his long legs out in front of him. “I think I’m in love,” he said. “Don’t you want to be like that when you get old?”
“Lonely and palsied?”
“No, you pessimist. Direct, no bullshit. ‘I’m trying to get rid of you, young man.’ Classic.”
“I suppose,” Elm said.
“Oh, Elm,” Ian sighed. Elm could hear the slight note of irritation in his voice, even as he pretended he was only kidding. There was a silence. “We really should poke around in there.” Ian affected a Slavic accent and caressed an imaginary crystal ball. “I see many weekend days of sifting through unimportant newspaper clippings in our future.”
“Colin will love that.”
“Tell him you’re having an affair.”
“He wouldn’t believe me.”
“Marriage,” Ian scoffed. But, like the note of annoyance she heard earlier, she could see through to the underside of his statement, which admitted a certain envy.
Elm felt grateful that people envied her marriage. Elm even envied it a little; the marriage people thought she had, or the marriage she used to have. Colin was terrific: funny, fun-loving, loving. But she regretted the loss of their idealized existence. Ronan’s death had taken a toll on their marriage. It made sense to her that many couples split up after tragedy; it certainly hadn’t brought them closer together. Colin assumed the role of clown, desperately trying to cheer Elm up. She mourned for both of them. And then he would lash out at her when she didn’t expect it, his grief bubbling over like soda in a shaken can. They would stay together, she didn’t have doubts about that. But would they ever be close again? Elm felt like she was moving through a fog, that a vast misty plain separated her from everyone else. Ian’s comments only made her more aware of the emergent distance.
“Listen,” she said, changing the subject. “You would have loved the party we went to last week.” Elm described the apartment, the artwork. “And some dealer named Relay who was sucking up like I was a free milkshake practically forced her card on me.”
“I know her,” Ian said. “Do you know she’s Lacker’s daughter?”
“Wait, Tom Lacker?” Elm asked. Tom Lacker owned an influential gallery on Fifty-seventh Street. The hipper downtown branch was on Twenty-fifth Street, and the superhip cousin was in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. He had all his bases covered, in other words. He was not about to miss a chance to represent an artist. Supposedly, young artists complained that showing with Lacker was like selling your soul to the devil. He fronted you money for supplies, rent, etc., but then you owed him everything. For life. It would make sense that the woman she met was his daughter. In fact, now that Elm