Dark Plums (7 page)

It was night, and the windows in the brightly lit loft were shiny and black like mirrors. To Adrianne, they had a slightly menacing quality. Street noises below mingled with Caribbean music on the radio. Alfredo sketched her while she lay on his old green couch. He was swaying to the music, but then stopped and looked at her intently.

“Why are you so down, baby?” he asked.

“Money,” she murmured. “I never make enough to last the week.”

“You could always try hustling,” Alfredo waved his arms up towards the high ceiling with its ancient gas pipes. “You'd make a lot more than you do now. Hell, you could even support me. Then I could stay home and paint instead of busting my ass at that lousy bar and taking long shots at the track.”

“I didn't know you bet.” She tried to conceal the shock she felt at his references to hustling and the race track. He had never talked about these things before.

“Occasionally. There's always the dream—the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.”

She smiled uneasily. On the street below she heard men talking, laughing, and cursing. A fog horn sounded in the distance. “
Baila, baila, baila la rumba
…” a man was singing over the radio, and just now she found this music jarring.

“Don't look so scared. I was just thinking out loud.” Alfredo put down the charcoal and lit a cigarette.

She rolled over on the couch and drew her knees up against her bare chest, shivering. Smells of paint, stale cigarette smoke, and liquor filled her nostrils.

“I guess prostitutes do make a lot of money,” she said, sitting up. “Hey, don't break that pose. I'm not finished!” he shot at her. “Of course they do. They're not hung up with a lot of middle-class shit. Now hold still.” He continued working for a few minutes, then paused, stepped back, and lit another cigarette.

“Do you go to the races a lot?” she asked.

“Once in a while. I'll take you to Belmont one day.”

She yawned. Strangely, the tension she was experiencing made her sleepy. “Alfredo, I'm so tired.”

“Hold on. I'm almost finished. Hey, baby, have you ever read Gurdjieff?”

“No. Who is he?”

“Gurdjieff was an Armenian mystic. A philosopher and a genius. He spent his life studying human consciousness. Gurdjieff writes somewhere that a person on the spiritual path ought to be able to make a living with his left foot. He meant that an artist shouldn't have to bust ass paying the rent at the sacrifice of his real work.”

Alfredo added a few more strokes, then told Adrianne she could stand up.

She wrapped herself in a blanket which lay draped over the couch, then walked over to the easel. The floor felt cold beneath her feet. There she was, drawn in charcoal on butcher paper, bloated, with large breasts and buttocks and an anxious look in her eyes. Her nose looked longer and narrower than it was, and her cheekbones stood out.

“That's me?”

“That's one version of you. You've got a fantastic body and an expressive face.” Alfredo drew her close and kissed her. His shoulder muscles bulged beneath her hands. As the blanket slid, she reached to gather it around her, but he yanked it off.

They went into the bedroom and made love. Burrowing against his shoulder, she savored his scent of sweat and cologne as she fell asleep.

Later he woke her. He had switched on a light. In his hands he held a worn volume of Gurdjieff's writings, which he had taken from the bookcase. Sleepily she rubbed her eyes. “Read this, Adrianne,” he said, handing her the book. “It will open up your mind. Gurdjieff writes about how most people live their life in a kind of sleep, unless they make an effort to become aware. People don't question the rules…. How much do you make in a month, Adrianne? Two hundred dollars? You could make that in one night.”

“But what a price to pay!” she said, upset that he had again brought up the subject of hooking.

He punched her lightly. “Some jerk fucks you. He doesn't have anything of
you
, he's only enjoyed your body.”

“Alfredo, let me go back to sleep.”

“Before you do, I've got something special for us.” He pulled several books out from a bookshelf and produced a black lacquer box. Inside it was a small quantity of greenish grey tobacco and some thin paper. “Marijuana,” he said. He rolled a joint, inhaled, held the smoke inside his lungs for what seemed a long time, and then exhaled. “Try it,” he said. “Hold the smoke in as long as you can.”

Again she was a bit shocked, as she had no idea that he smoked marijuana. When she inhaled, she coughed. He only laughed, thumping her on the shoulders, and encouraging her to take a few more drags.

“Marijuana gives me a relaxed kind of energy so I can work all night,” he said. He put on his white jockey shorts, paint-stained jeans, and blue work shirt that lay heaped on the floor.

After a while she began to feel some of the effects of the marijuana. As she lay in bed unable to sleep, she saw vivid images in her mind. The Caribbean music was playing again. Rhythms and melodies sounded particularly distinct, as if time had slowed. She could hear him moving around in the studio as she drifted off to sleep.

Early the next morning he showed her the new canvas on his easel: a woman with two heads, four arms, and four legs, like an Eastern deity in brilliant hues of orange, red, purple, green, black, and yellow.

“Adrianne, this is for my show. Did I tell you the Harris Gallery is giving me a one-man show in October? It's a real break for me.
With any luck, I'll sell enough work to quit my job,” He drew her close. “I might even be able to support two people.”

Her heart pounded as she thought that he must truly care about her. He was haggard; there were hollows under his eyes and lines in his face that she had never before noticed, and she realized for the first time what a strain he must be under. “You need to sleep,” she said. She reached out and stroked the stubble on his gaunt face.

“Make me a cup of that Japanese tea by the stove, will you,
preciosa
?”

While he slept, she tidied up the loft and swept the floor. Later she washed the dishes in the sink, and she even cleaned what she could of the thick dust and bits of plaster from the ceiling which covered everything. Although she was exhausted, a sense of peace came over her as she worked. Pausing, she looked at Alfredo and watched his regular breathing. His face was peaceful. His lean body was curled up like a child's.
He trusts me
, she thought, and this gave her comfort.

One morning the phone rang at the rooming house while she was still in bed. She heard Max pad down the hall in his slippers and answer. Then he pounded on the door. “It's for you.”

“Who is it?”

“Someone named Lucille.”

Adrianne stretched, rubbed her eyes, and put on her robe, tying the sash tightly around her. As she passed Max in the hall he brushed against her. Ignoring this, she picked up the phone.

“Adrianne, at last I've found you!” cried Lucille at the other end. “Why haven't you written to me? I finally got your address and phone number from your mother. I'm here in New York, at the Plaza Hotel for two weeks. Can you come and visit me today?”

Adrianne hesitated because Alfredo might call. “I may have to work tonight.”

“Come for lunch then.”

After she hung up, Max planted himself in front of her. Adrianne could hear the landlady and one of the other roomers, a Chinese student, talking in the kitchen. The landlady's elderly, matter-of-fact voice contrasted with the sing-song English of the student.

“Adrianne, for days now you avoid me. I must talk with you.” He looked unhappy.

“Max, I just don't have time right now. I'm sorry.” She felt cruel, speaking to him this way.

As she rode the crosstown bus and then a Fifth Avenue bus downtown, she wondered why Lucille had come to New York. The strangers around her in this midday heat seemed like shadows, except for their sweaty smells and raucous sounds. How different these voices were from the slower ones of south Texas, and from Lucille's. Across the aisle sat an old black woman in a cotton housedress, shiny with sweat. Adrianne thought the woman seemed to radiate a dull reddish aura of pain. She looked as if she mopped the floors of skyscrapers at night. At the 72nd Street stop, the woman opened her
eyes an instant to look sullenly at her before an onrush of passengers blocked her from Adrianne's view.

Adrianne's memories of Lucille mingled with those of Gerald. She remembered the night she had first met Lucille. She and Gerald had gone to a party at Lucille and Barney's house. Lucille's husband, Barney, was a self-made millionaire, and Adrianne had been impressed with the elegance of the mansion and the guests. Unaccustomed to hard liquor, nevertheless she had three drinks to cover up the disturbance she felt because Gerald had never before ignored her like this, and he was openly flirting with other women at the party. A tall and handsome doctor, with his icy grey eyes and fair hair, Gerald seemed accustomed to being sought out by women. Adrianne had stood awkwardly in a dark corner, a trifle dizzy from the liquor. Suddenly an attractive woman in a white silk dress had swooped upon her.

“Who are you?” Lucille asked. “Honey, you look lost.”

Lucille's voice was vibrant. She had taken Adrianne upstairs to her bedroom suite, with its satin upholstered furniture, and they had drunk still more and talked.

That night Adrianne found out that Lucille came from Alabama and that she had met Barney when she worked in Las Vegas as a show girl. Lucille had been vague about her past. In repose, a certain bitterness had showed in her face. But her manner was warm, even tender. Adrianne had found herself talking in a rush about Gerald and about the abortion. She had not felt able to confide in her few friends, nor in her mother.

“How old are you?” Lucille had asked.

“Eighteen,” said Adrianne.

“Poor baby,” whispered Lucille, clasping Adrianne in her arms. Aroused by Lucille's sympathy, Adrianne's emotions, which had been buried for months, came to the surface. Unaccustomed to tenderness, Adrianne sobbed uncontrollably. She pleaded with Lucille not to tell anyone about the abortion because she wanted to protect Gerald's reputation at the hospital where he worked.

Lucille had stroked her hair. “Relax, honey. It's not so bad. I had two abortions in Juárez. You're young and beautiful, even if you could lose a few pounds. There's nothing to be afraid of.”

Adrianne shuddered. Was she beautiful in anyone's eyes? She felt overwhelmed that someone as sophisticated and elegant as Lucille should take an interest in her.

At last Adrianne was standing in the hotel corridor outside Lucille's room on the sixth floor. Nervous and inexplicably frightened, she smoothed her turquoise print nylon dress over her body, then knocked on the door. She had gained weight since living in Manhattan, and this was evident from the way the dress clung to her. Lucille would tell her to go on a diet. In her presence, Adrianne always felt a bit clumsy, yet she knew that Lucille cared for her with the warmth of the dream-mother of her childhood who used to come to Adrianne at night when she needed reassurance and love

In a flash, Adrianne remembered the afternoon their relationship had changed. At the time Adrianne had been working as a clerk in a small gift shop. She arrived at Lucille's late in the afternoon, exhausted from being on her feet all day, and she had lain back in a chair and closed her eyes for a moment. Lucille had started to stroke her hair. Then Adrianne felt the kiss that Lucille placed full on her mouth. When Adrianne drew back in shock, Lucille had whispered, “It's all right, honey. It's all right.”

The door opened, and Lucille stood there, thinner than Adrianne remembered her, in a dark, dappled, clinging dress, its starkness relieved by a strand of pearls. Lucille's face was unnaturally pale, and her long glossy brown hair had been shorn off just below her ears.