with Skandar had been revealed as “his special talk.”
“Believe me, I know him. I know it. And have to be careful that I don’t choose to please him, or else to displease him. I must make my choice alone.” She sighed. “I wish you could come with me. I’d like to know your opinion of these people. You see so clearly.”
“Well, maybe—depending—when do you go?”
“Thursday and Friday, the week after next. I’m afraid it’s impossible.”
“If it were in a few weeks—”
“I can’t change the meetings. It’s too bad. I’ll tell you all about it when I come back. It’s in the future. But enough: How are you, Nora my friend, in your work?”
Did she care? What I wanted was a sense of her spontaneous engagement, the feeling you have with your closest—that I have with Didi, for example, but not with Esther—that they don’t have to be careful, that their reactions are kind and genuine at the same time. Even as I say it, I realize it’s a lot to want. Maybe I’m registering an intractable discontent, born of my doubt about whether and how much she loved me, and whether, or how, I might ever know.
You’d think it would be an easy question to ask—do you love me?—but you’d think that only if you’ve never wanted to ask it yourself. That afternoon, instead of openly confessing as I’d dreamed of doing, I raised the question of departure.
“Isn’t it wild how fast the time is going?” I said. “I can’t believe you guys will be leaving before too long.”
“Wild. I know,” she said.
“When do you go? I should know, but …”
“My show opens the sixteenth.”
“July sixteenth?”
“July sixteenth?” she laughed. “In Paris? That would be like not having a show at all!”
“June sixteenth? In Paris? How did I not know that?”
“I think I haven’t been saying so out loud, to try not to be too much afraid. I’ve been pretending there is more time.”
“The sixteenth? But Appleton doesn’t get out until the twenty-third. You can’t go before then. And what about the kids? What about the kids coming here? I thought we said the end of the month.” We had already largely set up the space—the flowers, the mirror-shard strands of rain, the beginnings of the Jabberwock eyes—and we’d spent two rainy afternoons a couple of weeks before installing the video cameras for the shoot: we were, in some practical way, ready to go at the studio end. But to bring my kids there required time-consuming paperwork at Appleton: the approval of a field trip from Shauna’s office; the permission slips signed by the parents. It couldn’t be done overnight.
“Don’t be such a schoolteacher, Nora. We’ll work it all out. I can’t possibly be here when there is my opening in Paris. We haven’t yet discussed things at home. Skandar also, his plans are complicated—conferences here, in Montreal, in Washington—eh, basta. We’ll figure it out.” And with a sweep of her arms at the studio around us: “And we must bring the children, while there’s still time. That isn’t dispensable! Let’s fix the date today. So much to do before we get there—mountains to climb!”
“Wonderlands to build.”
“So, au travail!” And she was up on her light feet, her back to me, into her universe, gone.
She was so flippant about it—only two months before her Paris opening, and I’d just heard the date for the first time. When I got home that evening I took out the calendar, looked at it, all laid out on paper, the little boxes of days. Much would depend on how much she could finish in Cambridge; but she’d certainly have to leave by the beginning of June. I needed to steel myself for that. They wouldn’t pull Reza out of school, would they? Skandar would stay. Or maybe they’d ask me to look after him, if Skandar had to go for his conferences. I could feel along my arm the heat that Reza had emanated as he drifted off to sleep—I could do that, I could take care of him.
That was Thursday. Friday I knew she wasn’t coming. If I was alerted ahead of time, this wasn’t any problem. Not only kids are like this. As a teacher, I know from long experience that if you warn people beforehand, things go better. I knew I’d be alone at the studio, I planned to be there late, I took my brown cardboard salad box from the Alewife supermarket and a cheap bottle of red wine from the