Walking and talking at 10 months. He graduated with his first Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry at 16. By 24 he was a tenure track Ph.D. at Stanford with his own administrative assistant.
He was miserable.
It was the poetry of the basic cell that charmed him. How it quivered in the agar agar and devoured the sucrose. How it cringed when the refrigerator malfunctioned and almost died. He could see the small thing shiver,
The cell had likes and desires. It had dislikes and burdens. So did Leo.
He read Byron. He called all of his cells she for they possessed all of them the ability to divide and become two. To reproduce.
He’d recite She Walks in Beauty when pipetting some new solution into the dish.
He said “Give me your good side, Sweetheart,” when he slipped them between a slide and admired their nakedness.
His mother had wanted all this for him, but Leo had always and only wanted to drive trains through the Rockies.
He tried to make the best of it. He did love his cells. But he wanted to hang his head out the window of the caboose and howl as the train descended 200 feet into a valley.
He was 30 when he called the Chessie system.
31 when they quit laughing and took him serious
He was 33 and 2 days old when he landed a job on the railroad.
He hadn’t told his mother. Her dad had been a railroad man with a different family in every depot.
She would keen and cover her still glossy Greek curls with a shawl and call the priest. But perhaps some vocations are genetic. His cells cried out for railroad tracks through the pristine mountains. For the howl.
Stanford was her dream, not his.
He tucked Lord Byron into his lunchbox that morning. He would tell his mom at the end of his shift.
MEXICO-MAYA ARTISTS. “Market Scene,” by Maya artist Gregoria Coche Mendoza from San Pedro de Laguna
Maria Lucia Machado was ready for market. Every Friday, the same routine. Pack the vegetables, the fruit, the flowers into baskets, bowls, and boxes and load them into the back of the truck that only still ran because Maria Lucia Machado lit a candle at mass every morning, praying for its continued life.
Into the back of the truck, she also loaded the box of used plastic bags for those who didn’t have shopping bags – usually the gringos that came over the border for Market and cheap prescription drugs at the farmacia.
Not loaded yet were the watermelons. She was waiting for Ricardo, her eldest, to come load those. They were now just too heavy for her old bones.
Oh! And her tamales. Maria rushed to the kitchen. She had made them the night before. They only needed to be wrapped and would be ready to go. She thought it stupid to wrap them – that’s what the corn husk was for. Stupido. But the city folk and the gringos wouldn’t buy them in just the husk. Maria shook her head as she wrapped them quickly, two each to a square of tinfoil.
¡Hola, Mama! Ricardo had arrived. All happiness and enthusiasm. Ricardo loved market day. Ricardo loved life. He was young, and he was strong, and he was filling his head at the universidad. He was also in love with Teresa Maria Antonio.
Mama, I took three of the calla lilies for Teresa. ¿OK?
Sí, nino.
She hugged him, marveling that his strong, beautiful self came from her body. Oh, how she wished Eduardo had lived long enough to see the man he had become. A fine one. With a future.
Mama, I brought some of Teresa’s art to sell for her. ¿Is that okay with you?
Yes, of course. Let me see it.
It’s in the truck already, come see
Ricardo pulled out a canvas, and Maria gasped.
Oh, nino. She is very talented. That is the pattern I described to her. Just words. The one mi madre designed to represent her goods. Maria touched the painting gently. It was like her Mama was alive again. ¿She saw this from my words?
Yes mama. I have a surprise.
¿A surprise?
Yes. Teresa said to give this one to you. It is yours. Teresa said your descriptions of the old Talavera patterns were invaluable. She knows now that she is preserving history and not just guessing.
Maria Lucia Machado loved the painting too much to even pretend to demure. A wide grin filled her face. For once, her missing teeth could not quiet her face.
¡Oh, nino! ¡Tell her gracias! Bring her for dinner Sunday. I will prepare a feast of thanks.
Mama, you will still be tired from market. I will bring her to dinner on Sunday, but just a regular Sunday meal. It will be enough.
Maria looked at the old wall clock above the stove. It was time to leave. She gathered her things and headed to the truck. Ricardo would drive. He helped her into the cab, and when finally seated, he turned to his mother and both of them at the same time said, “Hail Mary, full of grace,” as he turned the key.
The truck started on the first try.
Maria grinned for the second time that day. A good omen. It would be a good market day.
Lucy Goosey pulled her worn winter coat out from the back of the closet. Glancing around to make sure she was alone, she slid the dress out from underneath the coat.
The dress still had the tags on it. It was a size 8, and the color was Regal Blue. It fit every part of her, requiring no alterations.
After she cut the tags off, Lucy would tuck them into her scrapbook.
Lucy had never had clothing, other than underwear, that was storebought new with tags.
She kept the dress secret even from her mother, though it fair killed her. She did not want the gossip and speculation to start. She intended to surprise.
She laid the frock on her bed and spread the skirt. The color was glorious, and Regal Blue was the perfect description. The taffeta caught the early sun and glowed. With its full skirt and low neckline, Lucinda Marie Duval would command attention.
Lucy paid on the layaway for twelve weeks, doing without the few extras she allowed herself. She walked to work every morning and home from secretarial school every night so she could use her bus fare against the layaway balance – the one decreasing oh so slowly.
In celebration of her eventual achievement, the shop owner steamed the dress for free before expertly folding it to fit into the store’s signature box.
Once home, she lifted the dress, taking care not to disturb the tissue paper stuffed into the bodice and sleeves to prevent wrinkles. Lucy set aside the pink ribbon used to bind the box shut. She would wear it with her maid’s uniform.
She saved the pristine and sturdy white dress box.
Nothing in Lucy’s life served a single purpose. The gleaming dress would celebrate her betrothal or mark the end of a relationship stealing her youth. The Regal Blue frock might go on to serve as her wedding dress should they decide on a Justice of the Peace, but either way, it would end up in the window of the consignment store. The proceeds would be applied to the next semester’s tuition.
Johnny knew she, the woman he had nicknamed Lucy Goosey for her fluid dance moves, had been expecting a proposal for months.
Johnny changed the subject if the air between them felt palpable with expectation. He knew she was trying to find the words that would prod his.
Once she found those words, everything would change.
A few times when her expectation niggled at his brain, he sent his younger brother with a message that he was ill and would not be able to escort her to Smitty’s as planned.
Johnny was not prepared for the Lucy who greeted him at the door.
Everyone at Smitty’s would understand as soon as she walked in arm-in-arm with Johnny. If they did walk into Smitty’s. Moving from her doorway to Smitty’s might not happen.
The light from the floor lamp set her skin, her eyes, her hair, and the taffeta glowing. Johnny was on the porch, but the lamp lit his face as well.
Lucy watched his expression change and then change again. She did not need to say anything.
She was regal.
She wanted it understood she was not a supplicant. His first naked expression told Lucy he did understand. He knew he had until he walked her home to make the decision.
The niggle had failed him this day. Surprise had been achieved.
The splendor of the dress did not overpower her in any way. She was striking. She was tall. She was resolute.
Lucy was planning a future ablaze with certainty. She knew lots of people with promise who never found that future.
Still, her voice was soft when she said, “Shall we go now?”
Johnny held out his arm. She wrapped hers around it.
His voice as soft and gentle as hers had been, he said, “You are so lovely.”
Johnny would remember, for all of his life, the image of Lucy in the doorway.
Lucy did love Johnny. He excited her and made her feel alive. They danced together like one body. She thought them well-suited in temperament, though she wasn’t sure his ambition matched hers.
Her future would fork left or would fork right this very evening. So would Johnny’s. The question was whether they would be arm-in-arm on the same fork.
Her mother and father had loved one another. As had his.
Though necessary, love can be not enough. Lucy understood that. Johnny suspected as much, but hadn’t allowed himself to think beyond the now.
He loved his Lucy Goosey, but he would never again call her by that name.
Now was slipping away and soon Lucy might too.
She slowed her pace to match his as he checked his watch.
Alice R. Henderson is believed to have painted the piece attributed to Matisse titled The Conversation. The image is that of a dark-haired woman in a black robe sitting in a chair. Standing opposite her is a red-headed man. He is wearing pajamas. The expressions on their faces are familiar but hard to put to words, although it is clear the woman is not happy.
Persephone wants to leave early, and Hades won’t let her. For six months of every year, for centuries now, she has gone to the underworld and hidden herself away. The earth transitions to winter during her confinement, and the people long for a return to warmth and growth. But Persephone is forced to stay in her chambers and slumber. She is weary of sleep. Weary of stillness. Weary of the silence.
The look Alice R. Henderson painted on their faces is one of yearning and discontent. The people who line up to view this painting, all of them, instantly vibrate. They know that look. They know the feeling is uncomfortable, but they don’t have the words. They can’t have The Conversation.
They want to. Oh, how they want to. Everyone views the painting and regards it as a Zen koan. They don’t know what that look is, but when they leave, they are transformed. They make changes. They leave jobs, they leave marriages, they leave countries. When asked to explain, they say nothing, or they say, “I don’t have the words” or they say “Go see the painting.”
They know the feeling is uncomfortable, but they don’t have the words. They know the feeling provokes change. They have had the conversation and expressed their discontent and expressed what it is they yearned to experience. The conversation between their heart and their brain was silent, but the silence reverberated. It is revealed in the lives they go on to live.
Persephone wants to wake. She wants to return to warmth and growth.
Note: Alice R. Henderson was Matisse’s scullery maid. He noticed her artistic promise when he saw her drawing rather than eating during her meal break. It has been alleged that Matisse’s departure from the open, spontaneous brushwork of his Fauve period in favor of a flatter, more decorative style coincides with Henderson’s employment at the Matisse residence. No one is sure how much of what is attributed to Matisse is actually Henderson’s work.
*****
[An aside: As are many of my stories, essays, and poems, this one began as my response to a writing prompt.
For this one, we were given an image of an older woman holding a candle (I think-we were only given a moment or so to view the painting.]
The image was accompanied by this text: What story did she recreate as art?
There is no Alice R. Henderson. Matisse did indeed paint The Conversation, and it is a self-portrait of the artist and his wife. Matisse is an interesting guy, but so too was his wife. It has been postulated that many of Matisse’s shenanigans were orchestrated to draw attention away from his wife while she was working with the French Underground during the Nazi occupation of France.
