quadrangles. There is a path that passes the music building and in the summer, when the windows are open, you can hear the students practising.
But bad weather threatens. Rain is imminent. So he decides to go back and get his car, after all. It will make what he is planning easier.
At 4:00 p.m. he will exit the building by the basement service entrance as quickly after Lizbett leaves as he can. It is a door that is little used, mostly deserted. Pete, the security guard, is an old and trusted employee, an alcoholic who sometimes drinks on the job and often sleeps in his small booth. Melvyn is counting on that. Then he will drive to the intersection where he is hoping to find her, just down from the museum. He may catch her a little farther along the street. No matter. He will offer her a ride because of the weather and he feels sure she’ll accept. In fact, he’s convinced she’ll be flattered to be asked, to be alone with him. He knows she cares for him. They will go for a drive. They will talk about masks. They will talk about each other. He will be so happy and so will she. He will see to it.
He isn’t sure why he has chosen today. He is aware of an urgency within him to establish close, separate contact with her. It has been growing since the beginning when he was so surprised and delighted to have Lizbett in the class. But there, it’s as if she belongs to everyone, so keen are her campmates to associate with her. And she responds avidly to each, making him or her think she could be a best friend. She does this genuinely because though she is an extrovert, she is a sensitive and considerate one. She treats everyone equitably. In this way, she spreads herself thinly, but not noticeably, at least not to the kids. But she exhibits a special regard toward him. If she were older, he would consider her flirtatious, but instead she has a curious ingenuousness, a real desire to share his knowledge. He suspects it is her love of theatre. At the end of the week, when each person in the group “charges” his or her mask, Lizbett is the one who most understands the intimate duality of the mask. It is her grasp of that subtle and complex profundity that has so endeared her to him. She becomes her mask brilliantly, impulsively, spontaneously, allowing the mask to take her over. And her mask comes alive. He finds it thrilling just to think about it.
Today the class will be creating life masks: plaster casts made right on their own faces. He will choose Lizbett to be one of the first. It seems appropriate that on such a momentous day, a day of ritual, she will leave her real face behind.
2
The Same Monday Morning in July 1986
The Warnes
The first thing she notices is the sky. It is lavishly streaked with crimson, a molten sun in the middle. A pulsating, bleeding sky. It feels violent, ominous, a harbinger of disaster. “Red sky in the morning; sailor take warning …” Meredith sighs. More storms.
Their house is on a street that climbs one of the steepest hills in the city and from her third-floor bedroom she can see out over the abundant trees (it is a city known for its green), to the office towers of the downtown and beyond that, a sliver of the great lake it sits on. She turns to look at her husband, Thompson, or Sonny, as he is occasionally called, a childhood nickname. He is sitting on the edge of the bed, his head in his hands, yawning. “Still not awake?” she laughs. She goes over and ruffles his fine, dark hair. He is a long, lean man, but soft, untoned with a little bulge above his pantline. Both of them are naked, having just made love.
It was hurried, more sensation than passion. She had, as usual, awakened early. Only this morning, lying there, instead of trying to return to sleep, she had curled herself around Thompson’s back and reached over and cupped his soft genitals. He groaned; didn’t respond. Mornings were his low point, the first few moments at waking grim.
“What do you think?” she asked. “Up for it?”
“Not sure,” he answered, not opening his eyes, not moving.
“Want me to try?”
“If you want. Some people like necrophilia.”
She laughed and pulled him over and lowered her head to his groin. This was as much for her as it was for him. She loved doing this, even with his disinterest. She loved his penis, ready or not. She loved the transformation from squishy, helpless thing in its nest of hair to solid, satiny tower. She loved to run her tongue around the precise rim of the glans, immerse the strong shaft into the wet warmth of her mouth. She felt power and pleasure with the possession of him.
His reaction, or its, was as she had expected and she reached into the drawer of the bedside table for the tube of K-Y jelly and lubricated them both and then she sat astride him and slid onto him. He still hadn’t opened his eyes.
“You know I hate this,” he said, with a sleepy grin.
“That’s okay,” she said, with a laugh. “It’s for me. It will soon be over.” And it was, she having reached orgasm by touching herself while she was on him, he quickly following her. She always loved sex, even when it was hurried like this. She loved its raw upheaval, the thrill of its temporary exposure. She lay on his lanky body, her own roundness filling his angles while he stroked her back.
“I do love you, you know.”
“Terrific,” he said, motioning for her to get off. They were both sweaty, more from the humidity than the exertion and she wasn’t a lingerer, in any case.
“Okay,” she said, sliding off him. “Up and at ’em. Time to get a wiggle on. No dilly-dallying,” which is what she says almost every day.
She heads for the bathroom and looks guiltily at the stationary bicycle in the corner. Her nemesis. Her struggle. Her weight. Tomorrow.
Thompson falls back onto the bed and puts the pillow over his head. In the shower, she lathers her curly, coppery hair and pale freckled body. She is beautiful, but not in the ordinary sense. She is more striking, with round, wide eyes, a small nose with a tilt, and a full mouth. Her face is always animated; her expressions pliant.
She thinks of the reliability of their sex, that it is not so much ardent (not after almost fourteen years of marriage), as loving and easy. Familiar. It isn’t boring or perfunctory. She doesn’t think that. What she feels is a small gladness for the surety of it; that Thompson would always be available and willing for it to happen.
She wonders if the girls have heard them. Not that they made much noise. She, a little, when she came, maybe, a stifled gasp. Besides they are on the spacious, remade third floor of their Victorian house. It has a large bedroom with a fireplace and bathroom and an office for both of them for their business, Artful Sustenance. He is a photographer, she a food stylist, and they’ve worked together successfully for six years since Meredith returned to work when Darcy was a year old. Before that, she was in advertising. Thompson has always been a sought-after photographer.
Lizbett, who is eleven, and Darcy, seven, are on the second floor, each in their own bedroom with a shared bath. There are two other bedrooms and another bathroom on the same level for guests.
Still, Meredith is always concerned about having sex when the girls are up. It’s better to wait until they are asleep. Thompson prefers that. Inventive, prolonged sex at bedtime. But Meredith is usually tired at night and not up to Thompson’s desires. Their best times are afternoons, with a bottle of white wine, when the girls are away or if they can escape somewhere for a weekend or a holiday, but none of these
