Just One Look (2004) Read Free Page A

Grace asked.
    "You're not dating much, are you?"
    "Well, no," Grace said. "The husband and two kids have really cramped my style."
    "Pity. See--and don't ask me why--but on the fifth date, the guys always raise the subject . . . how should I word this delicately? . . . of a menage r trois."
    "Please tell me you're joking."
    "I joke with you not. Fifth date. At the latest. The guy asks me, on a purely theoretical basis, what my opinion is on menage r trois. Like it's peace in the Middle East."
    "What do you say?"
    "That I usually enjoy them, especially when the two men start French-kissing."
    Grace laughed and they both got out of the car. Grace's bad leg ached. After more than a decade, she shouldn't be self-conscious about it anymore, but Grace still hated for people to see the limp. She stayed by the car and watched Cora walk away. When the bell rang, the kids burst out as if they'd been fired from a cannon. Like every other parent, Grace only had eyes for her own. The rest of the pack, uncharitable as this might sound, was scenery.
    Max emerged in the second exodus. When Grace saw her son--one sneaker lace untied, his Yu-Gi-Oh! backpack looking four sizes too big, his New York Rangers knit hat tilted to the side like a tourist's beret--the warmth rushed over anew. Max made his way down the stairs, adjusting the backpack up his shoulders. She smiled. Max spotted her and smiled back.
    He hopped in the back of the Saab. Grace strapped him into the booster seat and asked him how his day was. Max answered that he didn't know. She asked him what he did in school that day. Max answered that he didn't know. Did he learn math, English, science, arts and crafts? Answer: Shrug and dunno. Grace nodded. A classic case of the epidemic known as Elementary-School Alzheimer's. Were the kids drugged to forget or sworn to secrecy? One of life's mysteries.
    It was not until after she got home and gave Max his Go-GURT snack--think yogurt in a toothpaste-like squeeze tube--that Grace had the chance to take a look at the rest of the photographs.
    The message light on the answering machine was blinking. One message. She checked the Caller ID and saw that the number was blocked. She pressed play and was surprised. The voice belonged to an old . . . friend, she guessed. Acquaintance was too casual. Father-figure was probably more accurate, but only in the most bizarre sense.
    "Hi, Grace. It's Carl Vespa."
    He did not have to say his name. It had been years, but she'd always know the voice.
    "Could you give me a call when you have the chance? I need to talk to you about something."
    The message beeped again. Grace did not move, but she felt an old fluttering in her belly. Vespa. Carl Vespa had called. This could not be good. Carl Vespa, for all his kindnesses to her, was not one for idle chitchat. She debated calling him back and decided for the time being against it.
    Grace moved into the spare bedroom that had become her makeshift studio. When she was painting well--when she was, like any artist or athlete, "in the zone"--she saw the world as if preparing to put it on canvas. She would look at the streets, the trees, the people and imagine the type of brush she would use, the stroke, the mix of colors, the differing lights and casts of shadows. Her work should reflect what she wanted, not reality. That was how she looked at art. We all see the world through our own prism, of course. The best art tweaked reality to show the artist's world, what she saw or, more precisely, what she wanted others to see. It was not always a more beautiful reality. It was often more provocative, uglier maybe, more gripping and magnetic. Grace wanted a reaction. You might enjoy a beautiful setting sun--but Grace wanted you immersed in her sunset, afraid to turn away from it, afraid not to.
    Grace had spent the extra dollar and ordered a second set of prints. Her fingers dipped into the envelope and plucked out the photographs. The first two were the ones of Emma and Max