National Security
(continued)
“I would love for you to see how I’ve decorated,” she said.
“That would be great,” I said, curious.
“C’mon. Lewis and your husband can watch the kids.”
“You mean now?”
She was already heading for the door. I had no choice but to follow her next door. Taking me by the arm, Joan led me on the grand tour.
From what I could tell, there was not a single bit of wall space left in the Weavers home. Every possible inch was covered in paint-by-numbers artwork. There were paint-by-number puppies, clowns, summer landscapes, winter landscapes, children ice skating and with beach balls and ice cream cones, Jesus’ face, Dalmatians on fire trucks, rabbits in mid-hop, deer chewing meadow grass and poker playing bulldogs.
“My hobby,” Joan said, by way of explanation as we perused the walls in the upstairs hallway. “I work in acrylic only. It relaxes me.”
“You must be very relaxed,” I joked. I didn’t know what else to say. I had to say something. My wisecrack seemed to go over Joan’s head.
“Have you ever tried freehand?” I asked Joan, regrouping, and realizing that I didn’t know if that was the correct way to describe painting without numbers.
“This way I always know how it will turn out,” she enthused, looking way past my right shoulder.
“I see. Like reading the last page of a novel first.”
Joan glanced at the floor, apparently confused. I hadn’t meant to confuse her. “Well, it’s lovely,” I said hoping to sum up the art and the house all at once and get back home.
Joan’s eyes settled on the hallway carpet as she thanked me. “So, um, where did you move from?” she asked, shyly.
“The city. We were downtown,” I explained. That’s all I ever needed to say and people got it. “We lived a mile and a half from the Site.”
“I’m so sorry,” she said, glancing up but not at me. “Come with me, “ she said gently, leading me downstairs to a room at the back of the house. “I’ll show you my studio.” We stepped into a room cluttered with laundry, a computer and a vinyl bar. An easel was set up in the corner.
Joan disappeared behind the bar a moment and emerged with a painting of a dappled watery summer landscape á la Monet’s Waterlillies. “For you,” she said, her gaze fixed on something behind me. “Welcome to the neighborhood.” The picture was signed and framed under glass.
When Joan and I finally got back I made a fuss — I think the word is flourish — over the gift she had given me. Dan’s pokerfaced gratefulness was an example of tremendous willpower. Lewis’ eyebrows whirled like helicopter blades, an apparent sign of pride in his wife’s work and gifting.
It was a full hour later before the Weavers left.
By now, whatever had been cooking in the oven was a scary version of jerky. I turned it off and got out the cereal and bowls. The kids ate as though drugged and we got them off to bed easily. (Burke was too tired to remind me about decorating his walls.) Dan and I were also wiped out and didn’t have to say it to know that yet again another video rental would go unwatched and that we’d fall asleep before 9 p.m. without sex and in the clothes we’d worn all day.
The truth was, too, that I was anxious to get back to the novel I’d been reading. For the first time in three years since my baby girl was born with full-frontal colic and a knack for stealing focus, I had been reading books again. After 9/11 I had become obsessed with the news and read one if not two newspapers every day. This segued into reading books again. Maybe just the act of reading a lot and often had gotten me interested in books again, that and the fact that it is so convenient to drive to the beautiful libraries of Rockland County. I read hungrily now, delving into the deliciousness of absorption and story.
I settled into bed with my book. I got through maybe a page and a half when I started dozing off. (Nothing knocks me out like a good book.) The phone rang just as I was headed into La La Land. I answered it anyway.
“Hey, Lenie,” my brother Jack’s familiar voice said. He sounded hassled. “I just wanted to call to say that Eddie is yours if you want him. We just don’t have the space for him anymore.”
Eddie is what we call the portrait of the famous statesman from the American Revolution that my maternal grandfather purportedly bought at an auction at San Simeon and that my brothers and I inherited 20 years ago when my father died, which was several years after our mother passed away. Jack had been elected by the rest of us to keep the painting at his place because he was the only one of us with a consistently stable lifestyle which we all knew twenty years ago at the reading of the will before Jack even had a proven track record but there are some things about your family that you don’t need a crystal ball to know. His kids were grown now and he had downsized from a sprawling colonial to a townhouse. Oddly, his move and our move from the East Village in New York City to Rockland County happened the same month. “What are the odds?” we asked each other.
My family was by no means wealthy but in hindsight I suppose spending money on art was a priority. My parents made their choices. There were things we didn’t have such as a clothes dryer and we hardly ever traveled. But we did have original artwork on the walls, woodcuts and paintings by local artists and friends, and a rare and beloved poster from the 1963 March on Washington, a collage with the words “We Shall Overcome” across the top like a banner. It never occurred to me — never — that anyone would live without original, or any, artwork on the walls. It was not until I met my husband and visited his family and friends down South that I saw walls without artwork, without paintings or prints. Instead, their walls were covered in family pictures in Wall-Mart frames, dried bridal bouquets, trophies and military honors displayed on single shelves mounted at eye-level. This was proud art, the art of accomplishments and memorabilia.
I told Jack that we’d love to have Eddie come live with us. Jack asked if I minded picking Eddie up. “Of course not,” I said. “Not a problem.”
