Blake?--to the center and replaced it with a card
that simply said ...brute, brute heart.
“Plath, right?” she asked.
“Who the fuck knows,” Jason Karl squatted off
the stool and moved the cards to their original
places. “You can undress behind the curtain.” A
bed sheet was nailed to the adjacent walls of a
corner.
“I’m not--”
“I imagine you are and aren’t a lot of
things.” Jason Karl clutched the small of his back
with both hands and stretched. “You made the
necessary arrangements with Barbara?”
She nodded. She’d never met Barbara.
Jason Karl strode away, peeling off his t-shirt,
his back the same pale moonscape as his head,
patches of white shoulder hair like ash. He swung
an apron over his head and flapped his arms in
front and behind him, a swimmer in the blocks.
“My mother--” she began.
“I’m seventy-eight years old. There have been
hundreds of you. There is only one of me.” His
tone was plain; it was a fact, not a threat. He
fixed his gray eyes on her and waited.
She turned her back and dropped her purse
beside the stool, then shrugged off her coat and
stepped out of her slacks and panties. She unbuttoned her blouse and unsnapped her bra and
let them fall to the pile. She turned to face him,
waited a beat, two, then bent to the cards on the
floor and moved the Blake and Plath quotes once
again.
“Where do you want me?” she asked, straightening.
Jason Karl dug a pack of Pall Malls from
his pocket and stuck one in the corner of his
mouth. He cracked open a Zippo and said,
“You’re fine where you are.”
“Did you meet him?” asked Nina’s sister that
April. Nina was loading the dishwasher, scraping
the leftover pilaf into the trash.
She considered lying. “It was pleasant,” she
said. It had been six weeks; she’d been back
eleven times times, promising herself at the end
of each sitting that she’d confront him the next
time. Jackson thought she’d picked up volunteer
work at the library.
She’d avoided Erin’s calls, but Maria’d answered
the phone before she could stop her.
“He was receptive? He was able to process the
information?”
“Are you reading from a textbook?”
“Huh?”
“He has a dozen kids. What’s one more?” It
was true. Jason Karl had dropped enough baby
batter to field a full little league team, according
to what she’d read in an old Vanity Fair article.
“I wonder if you’re being a little cavalier about
this,” Erin said.
“Cavalier, huh? It’s not a fact, it’s a suspicion—
your suspicion, actually.”
“So, you didn’t tell him.”
“I wanted to be sure. I wanted something
solid to show him.” She had the letter. It’d never
occurred to her to bring it with her to his studio
after the first visit. She forgot where she’d put it
at this point.
“I think it’s pretty concrete, Nina.”
“Well, I’m glad you’re satisfied with the evidence.” Nina looked out the window, at the
swing set. Her kids were too old to play on it
now. It looked tired, not from overuse, but the
lack of it. Like sitting in a meeting all day, or
holding a pose for Jason Karl, for hours, which
she was starting to get the hang of—flexing and
relaxing, little tweaks that kept the blood flowing. It’s good for me, she thought, like yoga, even
though she’d always hated yoga and the morning
after each session with Jason Karl made her ache
like she’d fallen off an overpass. “I went on a
lark. Either way, I’m not curious anymore.”
“It would change things, though.”
“No more than finding out I’m a year older or
younger than I thought I was. Some people never
really know. Are their lives different?”
“Yes! And that’s not even as profound as what
you’ve learned. What’s one year?”
“Tell that to Mom.” Nina wasn’t sure whether
she meant it as a dig on Sara’s vanity or current
condition. Mostly, Nina just felt like being churlish.
“Harsh, Nina. This is working on you. Something’s changed.”
Nina took the phone to the foyer, looked at
herself in the mirror. Same sweat suit, same ponytail. Boring.
Jackson, certainly, would appreciate an effort.
If he even noticed.
Her daughter ran by with the iPad, watching
some show on Disney, the