That afternoon, I retrieved a dusty pen-and-ink set from the recesses of the study and sat in the sunroom, looking out at the snow-covered lawn and the lake beyond. But when I lifted the pen, the image that emerged on the paper was not another landscape but a picture of a dress. A soft white ballgown, with an asymmetrical bustline and a dishabille skirt that floated and draped like a fresh snowdrift.
As I sat there considering what I’d drawn, I felt Michael’s breath on the back of my neck. “That’s beautiful,” he said as he leaned in closer to examine it. “Have you ever designed clothes before?”
“I wear clothes. I don’t design them.”
He pressed a declarative finger on the page, right in the center of the dress’s bust. “You do now,” he said.
I laughed. “Come on. I’m hardly a fashion designer.”
“Why not? You have the platform. You have the taste. You have the resources and clearly you have the talent. Did no one tell you that before?”
I stared at the page, trying to see it through his eyes. Was it possible I had greatness in me after all? Something that had been unacknowledged all these years, a flicker of light that no one had ever bothered to fan into flame?
Pull it together, a familiar voice whispered in my head. Stop asking other people to tell you that you’re worthy.
People don’t take the time to really look at each other anymore. We live in a world of surface imagery, skimming past each other, registering just enough to assign a category and label before moving on to the next shiny thing. It’s the rare person—Michael!—who pauses to really see, to think about what else might be outside the frame.
Maybe I’m emerging from a chrysalis! Maybe I’m on the verge of becoming a whole other person. Maybe I’ll change my name to O’Brien, and shed Liebling forever.
I’m already halfway there; why not just go the distance?
28.
Week Three
MICHAEL WAKES ME UP with a grave expression on his face. “I have to go back to Portland for a few days,” he says. He thrusts a cup of coffee at me.
I scoot up the bed until I’m pressed against the carved mahogany headboard. The bed smells of sex but also dust: The red velvet swags of the overhead canopy are surely housing a collection of dead spiders and flies. Another thing on the list of issues I need to point out to the housekeeper, who I am pretty sure is quietly abandoning one cleaning duty every week. Sometimes I think Stonehaven is trying to return to its natural state: a haunted mansion in some Halloween theme park.
I take a coy sip of the coffee, frown as if I don’t understand. But I’ve known this would come eventually, the moment when the spell would be broken and real life would intrude. Michael came to Tahoe on vacation. He never intended to fall in love and get married and stay forever. Of course he would have to go back home at some point.
“You want to retrieve your belongings?” I ask.
He nods. He climbs in bed beside me and lies next to me, on top of the coverlet. It tightens over my legs, like a straightjacket. “That, yes. And also to tell the administrators that I won’t be back to teach in the fall.”
I smile. The coffee tastes of citrus and chocolate, it burns pleasantly at the back of my tongue. “Oh really. Presumptuous of you.”
“I mean, you’d prefer to stay here than to move back to Portland with me, yeah? Your house is much more spacious, and private….” He nuzzles his nose into my neck, kisses me on the edge of my lips even though my breath must be abysmal. When I laugh, he stops and draws back. “But there’s something else, my love. And I’m a wee bit embarrassed to tell you this.”
“What?”
“She…and I—well, looking back this is the stupidest thing I’ve ever done. Call me na?ve, but I tend to trust people, yeah? I never could have thought…and it’s still hard to