She handed it to him. It was silver. Part of a vanity set that had belonged to her mother. No hair ever touched the bristles, which seemed misnamed, because they were as soft as down. He ran his fingers over them. It was a little gesture of warm-up, like a pianist stretching his fingers above a keyboard.
He held her foot in one hand, though she certainly had the strength to keep her foot in the air, but that was an old debate, and actually she was reassured by her total reliance on him. He placed the brush against the undersides of her toes and brushed down, slowly, only the first split second ever so slightly tickling; thereafter, she felt no such sensation. He brushed a hundred times, always stroking in the same direction, as if brushing hair. She trusted that he brushed her foot one hundred times because she’d long ago stopped counting. The stroking took away the ache in her elbow and the pain in her shoulder, and it dulled the pain behind her head, where the stitches had been taken against her will, after she tripped and fell. “Six stitches! They’re nothing! Only the tiniest bit of hair had to be shaved, and the other hair lies on top of it.” He’d held out the mirror, the silver mirror, which she’d taken in her hand but not been willing to look into, after turning her back to the mirror on the bureau. Now, as he stroked, she had a vision of the children when they were children: blurry and romanticized, not the crying, biting, pushy, and often wild-eyed creatures they’d been. They’d been one big snaggle, and in her worst moments she’d thought about how lovely it would be to just grab the clump of them and cut them out, no different than you’d cut out the unbrushable part of a dog’s matted ruff, worth doing sometimes even with a hopelessly knotted little clump of your own hair. Though she hadn’t. Only monstrous parents did that — or nowadays mothers put them in the car and drove into the water, eager to perish with them.
“Two hundred and six, two hundred and seven, two hundred and eight,” he murmured. It was a lie. One hundred strokes was all he’d do, that was it, but if his joke contained a little protest, she imagined he must be nearing the end.
MISSED CALLS
Dear Mr. Cavassa: I received both your letters, the first belatedly because it was sent to my Virginia address and only forwarded today. So my reluctance to talk about Truman Capote isn’t as great as you suspect in letter #2—just a problem of getting the mail at the right address. In #2 you say that you are working with a former student of mine who is digitalizing your archives. I remember Billie fondly and hope she is still writing those wonderful, subversive little vignettes. Your quote from Diane Arbus was wonderful (to the effect that we can’t despair, since we’re all we’ve got). I met her once, btw (as I now know to say), when I went to a surprise party for Dick Avedon. Blowing up balloons with her seemed easier than gushing admiration. Now, I wish we’d talked — though that sort of imbalance rarely results in anything long-lasting, in my experience. I was dating a friend of Avedon’s who took me to the party as a last-minute substitute when his mother developed a toothache. All more than you want to know. Capote I hardly knew at all, so I doubt that a trip to Maine would benefit you — though it’s not at all a question of my “finding time.” When would you like to meet? With best wishes, Clair Levinson-Jones.
Dear Clair (if I may), Thank you for the quick reply. I’ll be attending my goddaughter’s graduation from Bowdoin in early June, and if you could see me on either side of that — the 5th or 7th would be ideal — I would be grateful for a little of your time. If you’re so inclined, and there’s somewhere you like to have lunch, it would be my pleasure to have a meal together. I do understand how busy you must be, however — so even a glass of water and a few moments of conversation will be fine! Thank you again for getting back to me so quickly. All best, Terry.
Terry — the 7th is good, though there may be some banging because of a new sink being installed in the upstairs bathroom. Tell me approximately what time to expect you, so I will not be running an errand. Again, I hope that my very few recollections about Capote are not a disappointment, but you’ve been warned! With best wishes, Clair.
Noon, Clair, so I might take you to lunch? Anticipating meeting with great pleasure. Best, T.
Terry — I will look for you about noon. Dockside is a restaurant near the water that I sometimes go to, though lunch tends to be a meal I forget. And breakfast consists mostly of vitamins. Though perhaps it would be good to have a bit of midday fuel. It is slightly tricky to find, so come to the house and we’ll go together. Do you need any driving instructions? Best wishes, Clair.
My GPS should get me there. Until then, T. Anticipating with great pleasure.
Terry — I won’t send this letter, though sometimes it’s good to write something and tear it up, since the simplest things one wants to write just dissipate into words that sound good and have a logical configuration on the page, yet don’t really communicate what I want to say. Do you already know that Capote visited us, and are you expecting his essence might be indelible, even if — assuming you’re like other writers and photographers I know — you have no mystical beliefs? He peed in the toilet upstairs across from what will be the new pedestal sink. He may have done more than pee — that might be why he went upstairs, rather than using the downstairs half bath. Would it be amusing if I dithered aloud about this to you, a bit nervously, wanting to ingratiate myself, as the old do with the young? Or should I make an attempt to take your subject seriously and not conduct myself for my amusement? We must not talk of toilets at all, but of how good the fish chowder is, or how lovely the lobster salad (which I’ll probably not order, since the days of lavish expense accounts are over). Chances are we’ll never meet again but instead have some little flutter of follow-up on some minor point, and at Christmas I suppose you could astonish me by sending an unintentionally bizarre floral display with glittery pinecones protruding like enormous hatpins. My resentment of the young drips into everything I say, I fear — I, too, am a leaking sink. What it costs to install a sink nowadays! But I’ll save that for hectoring the repairman. No one thinks Capote was a major talent any longer. Now everyone is a prodigy. No one even knows the names of the most serious contemporary writers unless they’re local “celebs” who come out to eat organic cheese on hand-hewn toothpicks to benefit some do-good organization. I was once in a car when the GPS registered “CR” as CRESCENT, rather than CIRCLE. It turned out there was a CRESCENT (in New York State!) in some built-yesterday housing development, and there we were, the driver and me, at the wrong address for the B and B at nearly midnight. It’s good you’re Anticipating with great pleasure, because like all old people I fear the future (An’ forward, tho’ I canna see, I guess an’ fear). The sound you hear is paper ripping, Terry of the genteel manners.
Adver had not come to install the new sink, just as she’d suspected he wouldn’t. He had no phone. He was probably hungover. He often had the “flu.” He would show up eventually, and she’d begun to enjoy brushing her teeth in the shower, so what did it matter? Better that the house be quiet for their conversation.
Across the street she saw the bushes, slightly greener than the day before. This intermediate stage was not her favorite. In certain light, she liked to photograph the tangled branches with the iPad, whose camera was the only one she had anymore. All of Demeter’s things had been donated to the Maine College of Art, where he’d guest-lectured the last few years of his life. Eight days from diagnosis to death. No memorial service, as he’d requested. Instead, she’d bought half a dozen kites and given them to the front desk clerk, who handed them out to children staying at the Stage Neck Inn — the hotel right above the beach. She’d sat in the bar having a glass of wine with her friend Barb Gillicut, still in shock the weekend after Dem’s death, watching the surprised children lean like cats stretching their paws on the thighs of their fathers, who prepared the kites to be sailed. Eventually a sumo wrestler flapped by with Silence of the Lambs teeth and contorted mightily in the wind before crashing to the sand. Unlike balloons, no kites simply drifted away as she watched, sharing a second glass of wine with Barb, aware that the bartender had her eye on them and was drying glasses like a Gypsy having a manic fit over a crystal ball, simultaneously polishing and trying to appear disinterested.