The year of the Lucy

CHAPTER FIVE

MIRELLE THOUGHT she could tell how Steve's trip had been by the way he closed the car door on his return. If the omen was bad, she'd quickly send the kids to the TV room and let him vent the first wave of dissatisfaction on her. Tonight, when she heard the door slam, she read a pleasant oracle in the sound.

"It would've been a bit much if he'd come home seething today," she told the oven as she peeked in at the casserole.

"Hi, honey," he yelled jovially, struggling in with his suitcases. "Roman! Nick! Give me a hand here!"

They came bouncing in to help him, Tonia on their heels.

"Bring me anything? Whaddja bring the boys?"

"Not gone long enough, baby," he said as he gave her a mighty hug. With the delightedly squealing child in his arms, he leaned to kiss Mirelle warmly. "Miss me?"

"Now that you're home, I believe I have," she said, teasingly, knowing that he wouldn't deliberately misinterpret.

"Oh, yeah," and Steve ducked his head, suddenly remembering the way in which he had stormed out of the house three days earlier. "The bogeys are off my back, the stars in favorable conjunction, the weather superb, my reservations weren't snafued and I have more than enough large orders to please the bossmen and no problems to report."

"Momma's got a commission," Roman said.

Mirelle nodded affirmation.

"And she made the keenest soldier last night," Nick added.

"On account of she watched Combat with us," Tonia could always find a last word or two.

"Oh, off on another toot?" Steve asked, putting Tonia on her feet.

"Guess so," Mirelle said, keeping her voice as neutral as possible. She could have choked Roman for starting the subject. She'd wanted to introduce it more gently in privacy to judge how Steve was really taking the news.

"It paid the back bills last time. What're you aiming for this time, honey?"

With relief, Mirelle saw that he was not going to start off by resisting her work-urge. She would have troubles with him later, she always did, but once she got underway, her capacity for ignoring interruptions was unlimited. Steve had once compared her to a lady steamroller.

"Trim on the house could stand repainting. I'd love to get rid of that hall wallpaper. You said something about a new suit and snow tires…"

"All that with one commission?"

"You know me once I get started."

"Tonight?" he asked, slightly aggrieved.

"No." She grinned. "Tonight you and I will have some time to… talk." She raised her eyebrows, rolling her eyes suggestively.

"I'm hungry," he replied with a leer.

It was a happy dinner. Mirelle, feeling slightly guilty over having lunched out, had cooked a complicated casserole, a family favorite, for dinner. It had always been her policy to feed Steve well when he came in from a trip. Consequently, serving her family second helpings, she felt mellow and serene, instead of rebellious and frustrated.

It would be so much nicer, she thought as Steve and she sat over their coffee in the living room, if I could always time my work jags with successful road trips. But you can't have everything.

"Say, where's the soldier Tonia mentioned?" Steve asked suddenly.

"Oh, him? I've plastered."

"Without my seeing him? You only did him last night." Steve frowned.

"Well, you remember that marvelous deer…"

"Are you never going to forget that?"

"No," she replied tartly. "But you can scarcely blame me for wanting to avoid a repetition."

"No, I guess I don't blame you. Did you really use Caje as a model?"

"As much as anybody, I guess. It's the posture… you know, the broken-legged, sore-hipped, swung from the knee walk of the infantryman?"

"I always said," and Steve leaned back with a smug expression on his face, "you married me for that walk."

He bent over and kissed her.

"Why do we nag at each other, Mir?" he asked softly. "I love you, hon, but you get in one of your bitchy, untouchable moods and I'm teed off with those bastards on my tail, and we wind up at each other's throats like we hated."

Mirelle wondered if he was reading her mind.

"We've been married fifteen years, Steve. Perhaps we're just wearing away another level of petty irritations."

"Before we're deeper in the marriage rut?"

Mirelle was glad that she was serene inside or surely she would have bridled at that.

"Rut, schmut, so long as you love your wife."

"Get the kids sacked out early, will you?" he suggested, his eyes intense with desire.

"Don't you just know it!"

The next morning, because they had had the most satisfactory sex in months, Mirelle went through the business of tidying up the house, feeling slightly like Scarlett O'Hara. She loaded Steve's laundry into the washing machine and sorted out what had dried the previous day, before she allowed herself to pause in the studio.

The plaster cocoon on the soldier, now a formless blob, was cool under her hand. She envisioned it already cast in bronze but had no desire to finish plastering beyond the color coat. He was safe there, from curious fingers and eyes.

Idly she picked up her file of sketches, a rather awkward collection as she used whatever came to hand when she saw a face or a pose she liked. There were old deposit slips, shirt cardboards, programs, menus, even two match covers. She riffled through the file, selecting one or two for closer inspection, until she came to her original sketch for the Bronze Cat which Jamie Howell had admired.

She looked at it a long time, her mind's eye taking her beyond the two dimensions to her vivid recall of the finished statue. She had sculpted Tasso washing a paw, his tail carefully curved around his bottom, tail tip slightly raised. He had been sitting in the sun, she remembered, and he'd remained on the windowsill for a long time, just as if he realized that he was posing for posterity. After the session, when she'd stroked him, he'd arched his back under her hand, purring roughly. They had only been in the Spartanburg house for three weeks. Nick was an impossible yearling, Roman running wild and Mirelle was violently bitter at having been uprooted from Ashland. She'd been so happy there for she'd met Lucy Farnoll and there were few women like Lucy anywhere.

How much that sketch of Tasso evoked! Mirelle thought with a long sigh. Three weeks in a new location and already Tasso knew where the sun would be for his morning bath: where, aloof and contained, he could observe the neighborhood animals on their rounds. How she had envied that adaptable complacency. How horribly she had missed Lucy.

"Ah, she dwelt among the untrodden ways…" The verse popped into Mirelle's mind. How she and Lucy had laughed about it, the winter they were snowed in and the road to Lucy's house, set far back from the highway, had been impassable. They'd had to backpack supplies in.

Mirelle had actively hated Steve for accepting the trans fer from Ashland to Spartanburg. She certainly had railed at the Company, slamming in the vilest of tempers around the little new house which Steve had bought before she'd seen it. Steve had been tolerant with her for a long time. But that was before management had begun to pressure him. He'd been so keen, so eager: he'd lived enthusiastically and completely in his work so that he'd been able to regard her disillusion with detachment and tenderness.

Life in Ashland had been full for Mirelle: in Spartanburg, it was impossibly tedious. She knew no one and had never made friends easily under the best conditions. In Spartanburg, the full brunt of her natural introversion pressed her into a masochistic reclusion, and the care of two young children had left her with no energy at all for sculpting. In Ashland, Lucy had often taken Roman and Nick off her hands for a day or an afternoon, allowing Mirelle uninterrupted time to work. Lucy had understood completely Mirelle's compulsion to create and her conscientious devotion to her children. Lucy had talents of her own, being a poet whose work often appeared in the literary reviews as well as the slick women's magazines. Lucy maintained that if her husband, Fred, complained about her being lost in creative trances, he never complained when the checks came in. However, Mirelle was not blind to the fact that Lucy ran an exceedingly well-organized house, kept tabs on her four children in an off-handed manner, and lived up to every duty of marriage and motherhood. She could afford to tell her husband off. Mirelle felt no such freedom.

"I run like hell to stay in one place sometimes, cookie," Lucy said one day as Mirelle watched her bake three pies at once. "Now I freeze the other two and then, when I see the old man getting feisty, I shut off the growl at the stomach level. A tip I pass on to you at absolutely no extra charge. There are ways of working the jungle we call life, but don't you ever, ever leave off that," and Lucy pointed to a doughy fork in Mirelle's hands, restlessly forming minute animals out of scraps of pie dough. "God gave you stewardship over your talent. It's HIM you answer to, not that overgrown sex-addict who sleeps in your bed."

"God doesn't have my bills to pay," replied Mirelle.

"Ask and you shall receive but remember, the Lord also helps him who helps himself." Lucy paused to brush hair from her eyes, flouring her forehead liberally in the process. "I mean it, Mirelle. The parable of the talents can refer to creative gifts as well as old coinage."

It was Lucy who provided a direction to her efforts when she realized that Mirelle had little time to complete any ambitious work. It was Lucy who discovered the answer in Mirelle's creche figurines and forced Mirelle to take time out from her frenzied endless housecleaning to make Christmas figures for the church bazaar. Mirelle had managed three dozen various animals, shepherds and kings before her cranky kiln broke down. She had the satisfaction of seeing every one sold the first day of the bazaar. It was Lucy, however, who insisted that she give only a percentage of the additional orders to the church. There hadn't been much profit but there had been enough for a book on furniture refinishing which Steve had wanted, and a new sweater for herself. And the following year, she'd had to start work in October to fill orders for her creche figures.

Lucy had sought and found an answer for her, and that year Mirelle had broached her much-hated inheritance to cast a bronze figure. She'd done a woman sitting, leaning on one straightened arm, her feet drawn up under her skirt. The dreamy face was upturned as though the woman were watching something in the sky.

" 'Beside the streams of Dove,' " Lucy had said with an embarrassed laugh when Mirelle had presented it to her friend.

Mirelle had had to turn away, deeply touched, that Lucy would perceive so accurately the thought in her mind when she'd done the figurine.

"Mirelle, it's the loveliest thing I've ever owned," Lucy had murmured.

"It's 'thank you' for blasting me out of the slough of despond."

"Just 'thank you' the girl says, with a masterpiece." Lucy's voice was unsteady. "You funny, funny kid. If you don't look like Mrs. Average Dumb Housewife, and you can turn out… ach, go away."

Mirelle had, almost on wings, she was so pleased with the reception of her gift. It wasn't as if she'd been afraid that Lucy wouldn't understand, but because her friendship with and affection for Lucy was such a fragile thing.

"You can't ever rush a friendship," she'd tried to explain to Steve. "It can flop, all of a sudden, like a souffle."

"Oh, Lucy's all right," he'd replied sourly. "Fred's my sort of guy, though. Sure knows his mulches."

Mirelle never tried to explain again. She often wondered if Steve hadn't been a little jealous of their friendship, and annoyed because Lucy encouraged Mirelle to be independent.

In her own way, Mirelle had quietly followed Lucy's advice: she ran like hell to keep up with the children and her housework, and always found time to work a little each day. Until they'd left Ashland.

" 'But she is in her grave, And oh, the difference to me.' "

Mirelle quoted the last lines out loud, carefully putting Tasso's sketch back in the file. "Let's face it, there aren't many Lucys in the world for Wordsworth or Mirelle. But then, how many are needed?"

She took down the photo album and thumbed through it, snapping out four photos of Lucy at various summer parties. Reluctantly she took out the obituary clipping, with its dull-looking, full-face portrait of Lucy.

The sense of loss had not diminished. Mirelle swallowed against the tightening of her throat at remembered grief. Lucy had not been much of a letter writer. There had been only two brief notes between Ashland and Spartanburg. The last one had told Mirelle of the cancer which Lucy had known was poisoning her body even before Mirelle moved away. Then Reverend Ogarth had sent Mirelle the newspaper clipping and a personal note. She could remember every word:

Lucy asked that I write you when the funeral was well past, his letter had started. She said that she'd told you of her illness but not that the cancer was inoperable nor that her death was only a matter of months away. She was like that, giving unceasingly of herself.

I know how close you were to her. Nothing I can say can ease this blow for you, Mirelle. But she gave me a message for you. I was to remind you that you must keep running, as hard as you can. She made me promise not to write you until after the funeral.

The tears rolled down Mirelle's cheeks onto the clipping. As she brushed them aside, she knew what she was going to sculpt next.

She had used the only prepared form she'd had for the soldier. It was infuriating to have to make a new armature with this concept boiling up inside her. She compensated by making the frame much larger.

Work big, bigger. Lucy was bigger than life anyhow. Well, Lucy was practical, too. Mirelle thought as she prepared the wires.

The thing with working small is that you finished quicker. But I don't want to finish fast. Not this time.

Mirelle made four attempts in the next two weeks before she was satisfied with a pose that expressed her conception of Lucy. She wanted to capture a certain attitude. Lucy had had a habit of finger combing her short front locks out of her eyes. She was constantly in motion and constantly losing hair pins, always pushing the lock back from her forehead as she moved restlessly from one task to another, too busy to take time to find or replace the pins. Mirelle put the figure's right hand up, in Lucy's gesture. The skirt was flying, to express the vitality and energy of the woman. Lucy had worn her hair either in a chignon or a pony tail, long before that style became popular. Mirelle chose the pony tail to express youthful exuberance. For some time, she toyed with idealizing Lucy's unexceptional features but finally she decided that it had to BE Lucy to make the work successful. Lucy's vital inner self must spring through the bronze, fleshed out in beauty so that one could almost see the marvelous snap in the eyes: hear the rough-edged contralto voice, see all the intangibles that had made Lucy beautiful.

Can ye not see my soul flash down/A singing flame through space?

Mirelle chanted the old poem to herself as she thumbed a line down the skirt. For three weeks she had spent most of her time on the Lucy. During the two brief respites when plasticene had resisted her, she had done a rough plaster of the soldier and another happy pig figure to mollify Nick over Tonia's prize. Otherwise she had Lucied.

The doorbell rang and she damned the intrusion because she was so close to finishing the statue. As she went up the stairs to the door, she looked back at her work, highlighted by the sunlight. And sighed with satisfaction.

"Expecting someone?" asked James Howell facetiously.

"Is it the 26th already?" she cried in dismay, acutely aware of her clay-smeared face and dirty smock. She stepped back so he could enter. He placed his hat on the hall table.

"It most certainly is and it is obvious that the passage of time which I marked in dragging tempo, has flown by you in industry."

"I have been working. I'm sorry. We have a lunch date."

"I also have a commission with you, or has that flown your recollection?"

"No, it hasn't. But I have to confess that I've really done nothing on it. I started out to. But then, well, I had to do a pig for Nickie when the Lucy wouldn't work, and the soldier…" She stopped because she realized that the soldier was in plain sight on the workshelf. And that soldier was more James Howell than the man himself.

"The Lucy?" he asked, his eyebrows rising.

She stepped aside so he could catch a glimpse of the statue down the stairway. Before she could divert him to the living room and the Running Child, he was down the steps and circling the statue with a half-smile on his face. And, of course, when he had made a half circuit, he saw the soldier.

"Ah ha," he exclaimed dramatically, striding over to pick the statuette up. He did a double-take as he recognized the features. "And when did you do this?" His expression was both startled and amused.

Mirelle wet her lips, searching for an answer as she walked jerkily towards him, twisting her hands together.

"Well… I…"

"Is… this soldier figure the one you mentioned?"

She nodded, unable to meet his eyes. He leaned towards her so that she couldn't avoid him.

"You have a very accurate memory, or you've been housebreaking into my war mementoes. If I didn't know absolutely that I hadn't posed for that, I'd've sworn that I had."

"You're not angry then? I mean, I have a nerve. I didn't really mean to put your face on it…"

"Angry? Hardly!" He shook his head. "I'm overwhelmed." He held the statue away from him, laughing at its mimicry of himself. "I still catch myself standing that way, you know, and wonder where my rifle is." He gave a short bark of a laugh. "And you'd seen me just twice before you did this?"

Mirelle sat down, nervously twisting spare globs of plasticene out of her smock.

"Here is one time I can say, without fear of contradiction, that I have made an impression on someone."

"Oh, no," Mirelle spoke up quickly, trying to keep a straight face. "I made the impression."

He looked at her blankly for a second and then menaced her with the soldier.

"You certainly cut a guy down to size."

"I surrender." She held up her hands, laughing, and was comfortable with him.

"Seriously, Mirelle," and he turned the statue over in his hands, one thumb smoothing the lifted thigh, "this is a masterful little vignette, if one can have vignettes in plaster. It makes me tired just to look at myself. But…"

"Oh, that isn't for the commission," she said as she sensed the reason for his hesitation. "Anyway, you couldn't have it for a while. I've promised Nickie that I'd make some models of it for his army. And it ought to be cast in bronze. Here's the pig I did, and that is, of course, the Lucy."

He examined the pig carefully, its expression bringing a smile to his face. Then he turned his full attention on the Lucy.

"A particular reason for her?"

"Yes."

He grimaced and made a motion with his hands, closing his fingers into his palm like a clam.

"No." She smiled. "No. Lucy was a special friend of mine. A staunch supporter."

"Was?"

"She died of cancer when Nick was two. Seven years ago."

"… 'But she is in her grave, And oh, the difference to me.'"

"You read Wordsworth?" Mirelle blinked back the tears that threatened to embarrass her.

"There are times when Gideon does not supply the traveler's reading needs."

"When did you get back to town?" she asked, remembering her manners. He looked tired, she thought, particularly about the eyes.

"Last night."

"You look it."

"Your compliments are going to my head." He accented the phrase histrionically.

"I'll change. I'll be very quick. Oh, there are more bits and pieces in the living room. They might give you some ideas," she told him as she ran from the studio.

Humming to herself as she fumbled in her closet for a dress, she was pleased that he wasn't annoyed about the soldier. She'd worried that he might be annoyed. When she came back downstairs, he was critically appraising the Running Child.

"That's Tonia at three," she said.

For a long moment, he regarded her through half-closed eyes before he smiled.

"Not bad. I timed you at just twelve minutes. I've been kept waiting longer with less result."

She dropped him a mock curtsey. He extended his bent arm.

"To lunch, madame?"

"To lunch, monsieur."

She directed him to the only other restaurant of which she had any knowledge. Over two drinks, she tried to get a rise out of him and managed not to fall for his little ploys. He told her of his trip, four good jokes that he'd picked up and one hilarious incident with a pompous ladies' club chairwoman. He didn't once mention the commission or her work but it did not seem to her a deliberate evasion.

After their lunch, however, he turned north, away from her development, then eastwards.

"I'm taking you, little spider, to see the web," he explained when she pointedly refused to ask where they were going.

"A bold course to direct my over-fertile imagination in appropriate directions."

"My dear girl, I would not for an instant consider directing your imagination. What impudence."

She caught a subtle undertone to his voice, but then he was turning into the driveway of a two-storey house.

"You don't know a good gardener, do you?" he asked with a weary sigh, gesturing at the neglected lawn and seared shrubbery.

"The exercise would do you good," she said with a heartless laugh.

"I'm a pianist, not a planter. I don't know a petunia from stinkweed."

"Sniff!"

"You are unkind," he said with mock petulance.

"Completely, but, at one dollar an hour I might lend you a knowledgeable yardboy."

"Robbery!"

His house, however, showed every evidence of order and attention. The entrance hall was attractively papered in a large black and white scroll design, and led into a white living room, carpeted with a rich, predominantly blue oriental. A white concert grand piano of a rather old-fashioned style dominated the room. A low, long sofa, upholstered in blue brocade, was opposite, a low coffee table, also of the Queen Anne style, in front of it. A second Queen Anne armchair completed the furnishings of the room. Over the fireplace was an excellent impressionistic painting with a predominance of reds. The dining room, seen through the archway from the living room, was also furnished elegantly in the same period, blue carpeted, with gold brocaded chairs around the table.

"It's a beautiful web."

"But sterile," he said, bluntly critical.

"I'm not sure I sculpt Queen Anne, though."

"No, Mirelle," and again he favored her with that quizzical look, "you are not the nymphs and shepherds type."

He guided her back to the hallway and opened a door that in most houses of this type would have led to a family room. It housed two more pianos, and an extensive library of music folios, books and albums was shelved on one wall. On the other, shorter inside wall, were photographs, autographed by the artists to Jamie.

"My artists," he said with a facetious bow to the display.

Several faces were immediately familiar to her. One of them was unquestionably Caruso, yet the inscription was also to Jamie.

" 'Friend of my early struggle'?" She translated from the Italian and stared at Jamie. "Surely not you?"

Jamie laughed, delighted by her confusion. "No, my linguistic sculptress, my father. He was concert master for many years at the Metropolitan. A good deal of the music here is his, and many of the photos. Unfortunately I never had the pleasure of accompanying Caruso or Gallicurci as he did."

"So you come by your musicianship second generation?"

"Yes, and I discovered who you've been reminding me of when I was browsing through some of Dad's old programs…"

He moved to reach an album down but she grabbed his arm.

"I don't want it rubbed in," she said.

"You come by your art second generation, too," he said, mildly surprised by her reaction. "Did it hurt so badly, Mirelle?"

She turned away from him.

"Perhaps if I'd been a boy. As always for a man, it's not socially inelegant to be different. But conformity is required of women and it's… it's goddamned hard to be a bastard and a girl."

She snapped the phrase out, wrenching her body towards him to see the effect of her words.

He regarded her calmly. "Madame Frascatti told me. But your mother was married at the time of your birth."

Mirelle let out a bitter laugh. "And he would have thrown Mother out of his house if his family hadn't convinced him that that would have given the scandalmongers a field day. So Mother was permitted to remain… but don't think that she didn't pay for it, day after day. And don't think I didn't. Oh, not physically. That wouldn't be in the well-bred tradition of the Barthan-Mores. Oh, why did you have to bring it up? It has spoiled a perfectly lovely day."

She turned from him again, crossing her arms on her chest, glaring out the window.

"Actually, I hadn't meant to mention it, Mirelle. I hope you believe that."

He waited for a reply. Then she felt him move to stand right behind her. From the corner of her eye, she could see his hands rising to curl firmly about her shoulders. She jerked her chin up in rejection of his apologetic gesture.

"Sometimes the very devil gets into my tongue when I'm with you, Mirelle. I knew you'd be sensitive to your parentage. I wasn't even looking for the picture when I ran across it. I had every intention of forgetting that I'd ever seen it except that you look so much like him, it's hard to ignore. He was scowling in the photo, much the same way you are right now."

The contrition in his voice had blended into amusement at the comparison and she jerked her chin higher. Then he reached for the album. She heard him shuffling the thick pages. And, although she had a tremendous desire to look, she averted her eyes when he first put the photo in front of her. One glimpse undid her resolve, because it was not only her face that stared back at her, but Nick's, when he got in one of his rebellious sullen moods.

"So that's where Nickie gets it," she said. "See, the browline here," and then she remembered, "but you haven't met Nick. Oh, Lord, what time is it?"

"Quarter to three?"

"I've got to get home. Tonia'll be there any minute."

He looked down at her for a long moment, then took the photo which she had thrust at him, not so much because it was of her father but because it still belonged to Howell.

"Well, you've seen the setting now," he said as he ushered her out, "although I'd prefer something to go in the music room. I'll find space for it, believe me," and he grinned as she glanced back at the crowded room. At the front door, he took both her hands in his. "Believe me, Mirelle, I didn't mean to open up old wounds."

"It's all right, Jamie."

"Now what settled you on 'Jamie'?"

"You don't like it?"

"Indeed I do but 'Jim' is the logical nickname."

"Who said I was logical? And you're just not a Jim or Jimmy," she said as she slid into the passenger's seat.

Tonia was just descending from her bus as Mirelle and Jamie drove up. The child's eyes widened at the sight of the Thunderbird. She behaved creditably during the introduction and then went obediently to change out of her school clothes.

"You have a calming effect on my daughter," Mirelle said with a laugh as Jamie followed her into the studio.

"She doesn't resemble you at all."

"No, she takes very definitely after her father's mother. A bit of astute genetic foresight on my part, I assure you."

Tonia bounced promptly back into the studio and right out again.

"Mr. Howell is here about the commission he asked me to do, so this is business, not social. Food, which is your current order of business," Mirelle said firmly, "is located in the kitchen. Do not, I repeat, do not, eat the icing without eating all the cake underneath it."

Jamie chuckled when the child had left.

"If I don't make the instructions explicit, the next thing I know the damage is done and I get the wide-eyed stares of outraged innocence and 'But you didn't say not to, Mother'." Jamie laughed outright at her mimicry. "Then there was the time," Mirelle went on, grinning over the incident, "when Steve came down late one Sunday morning and found Roman and Nick playing football with the breakfast honeydew melon. Only it was very ripe and did not drop-kick well."

Jamie roared.

"I'm not the avuncular type and your children sound more than this semi-bachelor can take in one afternoon. I'm in town for a while, so if you have any ideas, may I come over and watch you work? Or do observers make you nervous?"

"Hardly," Mirelle said, waving a hand in Tonia's direction, "the kids have even charged admission to watch the real live sculptor at work."

She waited at the door until he had driven out of sight and then turned thoughtfully back to the studio. Tasso was on his windowsill, old now and very grey about the muzzle. She stroked him, smiling over his violent purring response.

It had been such a shock to see a picture of her father. She hadn't thought of Lajos Neagu for years. Not since the terrible bitter battle with Steve and his parents over her bastardy. When they were first engaged, she had told Steve because she felt that he deserved to know the truth. He had been a little taken aback but had laughed it off. He had assumed that both her parents were dead. It hadn't occurred to him until then that her surname and her mother's stage name were the same. (Mirelle had stopped using Barthan-More when she was sent to the States in 1940 to escape the bombing of Britain. By then, Mirelle had known the full story, and had refused even the legal fiction of her mother's husband's name.)

Mirelle had seen her natural father only once, at a distance, when he'd been attending an exhibition of some of his portraits, donated by their owners for this charity showing. Mirelle had been intensely surprised, therefore, to benefit under his will along with his legal heirs. It had been that reference to her legacy in the newspapers which had touched off the nightmarish scenes with Steve's parents and, later, with Steve.

Roman had just been born so the inheritance ought to have been very welcome. Steve refused to touch a cent of it. He tried to make her refuse the bequest. He'd accused her of ruining his chances of success with the Company with the publicity of the announcement accompanying the will. He had requested a transfer from Allentown to escape what he termed the unwelcome notoriety and what he was certain was derision from friends and neighbors. It had been a cowardly and silly act on his part but his parents had made him feel unbearably ashamed of his choice of wife.

It had taken Mirelle nearly a year to recover from the shock and hurt. She had felt so betrayed by Steve's inexplicable disloyalty. If only Mother Martin had not made so much of it… If only Steve had stuck up for her … To prove to him, his parents and herself, that she was not at all like her mother, Mirelle had redoubled her efforts to be a perfect wife and exceptional mother and, to achieve those ends, turned into a cleaning shrew and an inflexible disciplinarian.

They had moved from Allentown to Ashland and there Nick had been born. She'd never told Steve how much Nick resembled her infamous father, but Mirelle regarded that as a bit of compensatory justice and had treasured Nick all the more.

Then Mirelle had met Lucy, and Lucy had helped mend the breach between them. And then kindly bullied Mirelle back to sculpting. When Steve saw how much Fred and Lucy Farnoll evidently admired and respected Mirelle, he began to forget the bar sinister. The stone of social ostracism dropped in the small puddle of Allentown had sent out very few ripples, despite what Mother Martin had shrilly asserted. No one in Ashland, had they noticed the small newspaper item, ever connected the infamous Lajos Neagu with that nice Mrs. Martin who did creche figures for the church.

Her father's bequest had been a substantial fifteen thousand dollars and a self-portrait, a small part of his total estate. Lajos Neagu had come from a wealthy Hungarian family who had circumspectly departed from their homeland before wealth had been nationalized. The family jewels had been collectors' items: his paintings had been, and still were, extremely valuable. When the crated self-portrait had arrived, Mirelle had stored it, unopened, in the attic, nor had she mentioned its arrival to Steve. She'd set aside five thousand dollars for Nick's college since Steve's parents had already started a fund for Roman. Occasionally she broached the balance for casting in bronze, or emergency money and, when they'd moved to Wilmington, indulged herself with the Sprite.

The noise of Roman and Nick arguing furiously over an incident on the school bus roused her. She threw a protecting cloth over the Lucy and went to deal out justice.

The mellow mood which had hung over the house for several weeks was abruptly shattered by Tonia's chance reference that night at dinner to Mother's boy friend.

"My what?" Mirelle asked aghast, for Steve had turned white, clamping his lips in a thin line as he stared accusingly at her.

"The man who brought you home in that beautiful car, Mommie. He's a boy friend, isn't he?"

"No, he is not," Mirelle said firmly, hoping vainly that Steve was not going to let his imagination run away with him. "Mr. Howell took me to lunch today to discuss the commission he gave me several weeks ago," she told Steve as diffidently as possible.

"What commission?" Steve's voice was sharp.

"The one that started Mommie's work jag," Nick said as if there couldn't be any other.

"You weren't asked. Clear out of here."

Mirelle seconded that with a jerk of her head which included all three startled children. She rose from the dinner table to clear the dishes but Steve reached out and pulled her down into her chair again.

"What's this all about?"

Mirelle sighed, trying to frame a satisfactory explanation. Steve jerked at her arm.

"Don't patronize me with those long-suffering sighs."

"I am not patronizing you. You are taking undue exception to a child's phrase. Mr. Howell is a male, he is a friend. To Tonia he is a boy friend."

"I'm not a child."

"Then don't act like one. I told you three weeks ago at dinner that Mr. Howell had offered me a commission. We spent the money… in talk… that same night. It was a very pleasant evening."

"Why did he have to discuss it at lunch?"

"Why not? If he hadn't taken me out to lunch and you had heard that we stayed here, talking in the studio, you'd've made another of your snide allusions to the 'casting couch'. Mr. Howell is close to fifty and has a grown daughter in college."

"Never heard of him."

"Oh, for God's sake, Steve. You're making a mountain out of nothing. Go to a movie. Go bowling. Cool down. Let me get on with the dishes."

"Don't put me off!" Steve yelled, jumping to his feet, his fists clenched at his sides.

Mirelle returned his glare coolly. "I am not putting you off and you know it."

She saw his hand come up in time to ward off the blow. She flung away from her chair, putting the table between them.

"Steven Martin, you listen to me. Your sick jealousies are ridiculous. You have, never, never had any cause to doubt my fidelity. I was virgin when I married you and I've had no affairs. If you're feeling guilty because you got laid on your last road trip, don't ease your conscience by accusing me."

"Like mother, like daughter," he shouted, thoroughly enraged now. And she knew that her random thrust was accurate and wished that it hadn't been.

But the violence in him was looking for an outlet and she did not want to be it. She whirled, running down to the studio and trying to close and lock the door before he could storm his way through. She wasn't quick or strong enough. The door hinges ripped the wood at the force of his entry. She retreated as far as she could across the room. He advanced on her, one arm pulled back across his shoulder to slap her but his hip caught the platform holding the Lucy, and it tipped over.

As Mirelle saw the statue fall, she tried to save it but the soft plasticene flattened on the vinyl tiles just as Steve struck her. She straightened up, scarcely feeling the blow in the cold of her anger at the terrible destruction. She just looked at him. Until she caught sight of the children, peering anxiously down the stairway, their faces white and scared.

"I'm sorry, Mirelle. I'm sorry," Steve blurted the words out. He whirled, saw the children and wheeled again, wrenched open the door to the laundryroom and slammed out into the night.

Mirelle couldn't move. She was unable to look at the smashed plasticene at her feet, or say something reassuring to the children. She was aware, dimly, through her shock that they finally went whispering away. Her neck and shoulder burned from Steve's blow.

Slowly she got hold of herself. With jolting, uneven steps she walked out of the studio. She told the boys to do their homework and sat like a stick at the dining room table until they had shown her their completed assignments. She sent them to bed. She loaded the dishwasher and then returned to the dining room table.

It was insupportable that the Lucy should suffer from his unreasoning jealous anger: that was the only thought in the leaden sorrow of her numbed mind. She kept reviewing the incident: her words, Steve's irrational replies. She saw him rise again, and again, and wondered if she'd let him hit her then, instead of running, if he'd released that senseless violence in the dining room…

She was suddenly aware of being cold. She looked at her watch and realized that it was close to one o'clock. She rose and went to bed. She heard someone moving around in the house and decided that it must be Steve. He didn't come up to their room. It wouldn't have mattered to her at that point if he had, but he didn't.

When she woke, still locked in numb withdrawal, she noticed that his side of the closet was open, the suitcase gone and two of his suits. Well, he'd've had sufficient clean shirts. He wouldn't be able to complain that she skimped on his ironing.

The children had got their own breakfasts: Roman had made coffee for her and set up a single cup and saucer at her usual place at the dining room table. There wasn't a sound from the gameroom but the asinine giggle of a TV cartoon character.

It took Mirelle several moments to realize that Tonia was standing in the archway, her eyes red, her mouth in the pout that precedes tears.

"It's all right, Tonia. Daddy had a bad day at the office…"

"He had no right to ruin Lucy," and Tonia dove for her mother's arms, sobbing.

"That's not for you to say, dear." Mirelle found it hard to comfort her daughter because she seemed unable to soften her arms to embrace her. The boys were standing, solemn-faced, across the table. "What have you been saying to her?"

"If she hadn't mentioned Mr. Howell," Nick began, his eyes flashing, emphasizing his relationship to his grandfather, "Daddy would never have…"

"You have no right to…" and Mirelle broke off, startled by the look of hatred on Nick's face.

"I hate him."

"That's enough of that, Nicolas. You don't hate your father."

"He ruined your Lucy!"

"That is ENOUGH, Nicolas. Each of you has ruined models… several models, so…"

"You're always standing up for him, even when he's so wrong, it's pathetic," said Roman, disgusted by adult criteria.

A tardy anger roused Mirelle enough to put a stop to the remarks.

"That's enough from all of you. The incident is closed. Do you hear me?" They nodded, startled by the tone of her voice. They were afraid, Mirelle realized, to alienate her as their father had alienated himself. This mustn't continue, she told herself sternly. "You had no business listening."

"Who could help hearing?" Nick demanded, again explosive.

"The bus." She snapped her fingers at them, shooing them all out the door, disregarding the fact that the younger two would have to wait at the stop.

She watched them go, conscious that she should have countered their arguments, excused Steve's behavior. But that would have been hypocritical, she thought. She ought to have said something.

She drank the coffee, more out of habit than desire. She seemed to have no emotion, not even regret, nor a trace of anxiety over what was surely a critical point in her marriage. She sat there, trying to sort out her thoughts, unable to concentrate on any line. She was conscious that Tasso came up to her chair, weaving himself around her legs, purring loudly. He was hungry, she thought, and lacked the energy to remedy the problem. Then he leaped to the table and she watched him without rebuke as he lapped milk directly from the pitcher.

She wished that she still had Lucy to talk to. She censored that idea.

She was mildly surprised to see a car drive up and stop. In a passive way, she recognized it as James HowelPs. As he strode past the dining room window, he saw her there, and frowned when she gave no response to his cheerful wave. She heard his knock at the door and could do nothing. After a long pause, he stood in the archway, concerned by her lack of recognition.

"What's wrong, Mirelle?" As he turned to close the front door, he caught a glimpse of the studio, the damaged door and the statue on the floor. He went half-way down the steps as if he couldn't believe his eyes. "What on earth happened to that lovely thing?" he asked as he came back to the dining room. "Mirelle, what happened?"

She looked blankly up at him, until finally the sense of his question registered in her mind.

"Steve… Steve… he…" she began and was choked by the sobs that were released at this attempt to voice an explanation.

Howell reached out to her, at first sympathetically, and then in alarm as Mirelle seemed to dissolve into hysterical weeping. When he tried to comfort her, she pushed him away and ran down into the studio. He followed and found her on her knees by the statue, sobbing Lucy's name over and over, patting the flattened head.

He watched her for a moment, then went into the laundry and filled a pail with water which he threw on her. He half expected her to attack him from the savage look on her face. Instead, she gulped and made a determined effort to get control of herself. He found a clean towel in the laundry room and handed it to her.

"Thanks," she said weakly as she mopped her face and shoulders, and pushed her soaking hair out of her eyes. She got up stiffly, still swallowing sobs. "Sudden Storm, Chapter Five," she said in a rasping voice, walking unsteadily to the couch. Her knees buckled and she sat heavily. "There's bourbon in the cupboard over the fridge. I need it."

He brought back the bottle and a glass, and poured a healthy shot. She was shaking so badly that he had to hold the glass while she drank but the straight alcohol did steady her. In a moment she could hold the glass by herself.

When he saw that she was shivering now, he went up stairs and grabbed a blanket from the first bedroom. He wrapped it firmly around her, disregarding her soaking dressing gown.

Mirelle could not, or would not, look at him. She kept sipping the bourbon, waiting for it to penetrate the numbness. The phone rang, a startling sound since she was right by the extension. Howell picked up the receiver and held it to her ear. It was Steve.

"I have to be away for the rest of the week, Mirelle. It's useless for me to say that I'm sorry about the Lucy, but I am. I didn't even see it. Mirelle, are you listening?"

"Yes." Her voice was flat.

"I don't know why I do things like that. Want to lash out and hit you, I mean. But I can't seem to reach you sometimes. And I have to…" he broke off and there was a long pause. "When I've finished this trip, can I come home, Mirelle?"

"Yes. Come home, Steve."

She motioned for Howell to replace the headset and took another sip of bourbon without looking at him.

"I've no desire to involve myself in your affairs, Mirelle, but I cannot leave you in this state."

"I'm not the suicidal type."

"I didn't imply that you are," he said smoothly, "but you are in no condition to be left alone."

She drank the last of the bourbon and he took the glass from her hand.

"Do you have a good friend…" She shook her head violently, averting her eyes from the mess on the floor. "Not even one who is slightly sympathetic?"

She did look at him this time and he was surprised by the bleakness in her face and eyes. "No."

"I'm going to make you coffee and something to eat. Go get dressed," he said, rising to his feet.

She nodded, like an obedient child, and got up, wondering why there suddenly seemed to be so many steps from the studio. Or was it that they were so hard to climb with wooden legs? But she dressed in whatever came to hand. And she drank the coffee and ate the breakfast he put before her. When she had finished, he collected the dishes and took them to the kitchen. She watched him moving about, thinking that she ought to protest but no words came.

The next thing, he was holding out her coat.

"You've got to cultivate some friends, my dear, for I'm simply not around very often to provide this type of service," he said drily as he guided her out to his car.

He drove steadily for a while without her marking which direction so she was a little puzzled when he pulled into a crowded city parking lot. He handed her out and, as she watched bemused, carefully locked the car. They were in the center of town, she realized, and found herself being led up the street to the open-air farmer's market.

"I found this the week before I started the tour," Jamie told her, "and I've had it in mind to come back when I got the chance. Let's see what's new and different to supermarket homogeneity."

In spite of her self-immolation, Mirelle was amazed. "A walk in the woods, perhaps, or a cozy head-shrinking by your fireplace. But a farmer's market?"

"I'm always open and above board, m'dear. Any objections?"

"No, Jamie. None. Only thanks. Thanks so much."

"Let's see if you know your apples, lady," he replied, taking her arm as he saw tears start in her eyes. He propelled her firmly towards the rows of apple-crammed baskets around the nearest truck.

He bought more apples then he could eat by himself, and country sausage and scrapple, a wild-looking homemade cheese, baking potatoes, dead-ripe tomatoes and leaf lettuce, fresh basil and dill until neither could carry anything else.

Then he drove her back to her house, pressing an apple into her hand as she got out of the car. He drove off with a friendly wave.

With a deep sigh she pulled open the front door, looking resolutely down the steps. At some point, Jamie had removed the Lucy from the center of the floor. She closed her eyes, profoundly grateful to be spared the sight of the ruined statue.

Tomorrow, she thought, tomorrow I'll go down and see exactly how much damage was done. Tomorrow I'll be able to start all over again if I have to.

She was sagging with fatigue. She left a note for Tonia on the floor in the hall and went upstairs to bed.

The phone's shrill ring woke her around five. When she got the receiver to her ear, she heard Roman's voice, whispering on the downstairs extension so she hung up. She got out of bed and went to get supper. Then she sat and watched TV with the kids until it was time for them to be in bed.

The next morning she felt less exhausted but still detached from life. The children had already forgotten some of the tension of the previous day and she envied them their resilience. She did all the necessary chores but she wouldn't walk through the studio so she left the dirty clothes basket at the bottom of the steps. She was sitting down for another cup of coffee when Howell's car turned up the driveway. His reappearance did not, somehow, surprise her.

This time she mustered a smile as he passed the window and gestured him to come on in.

"The Madonna of the Sorrows is better, I see," he said.

"Coffee?"

"Thank you and don't get up. I know where the cups are. The bourbon, by the way, is not over the refrigerator. It is in the dining room closet. That's why I know where the cups are."

"Oh."

He sat down at the corner of the table at her right, pouring out his coffee.

"I said some selfish things yesterday about not getting involved in your marital problems. On further reflection, I have the nagging suspicion that I might have been the cause of one."

She looked him squarely in the eye for the first time since their pleasant lunch so long ago.

"I can almost set the scene," he continued, gesturing expansively in the air, "small child makes comment about Mommie coming home in a big beautiful car… Hubby asks sternly whose big beautiful car… "

"Yes, you can set the scene. But your entrance is the climax of Act Two, not Act One, or should I say Act 22."

"You've a jealous-type husband?" He leaned back to scrutinize her, his expression neutral. "Has he any reason?"

"In spite of my parentage, none. Maybe, because of parentage, none. But he feels that the sins of the mater, in this case, are indeed likely to crop up in the daughter. And right now," she turned to Howell with a brazen smile, "if he's giving me the name, I might just as well have the game. So, how about it, big boy, shall we adjourn to the 'casting couch'?"

Mirelle ruined her bold effect by bursting into tears, hiding her face in her arms on the table. Howell let her cry and when her sobs had quieted, he gave her his handkerchief.

"It would be a red silk one," she said, drying her eyes.

"I buy them by the gross."

"As if anyone would have any interest in a dragged out schlep like me," she said, pushing back her chair to get the comb and lipstick from the hall table drawer.

Howell poured fresh coffee in her cup when she returned so she sat down again, flipping her thick hair back over her shoulder.

"You have a certain je ne sais quoi about you even now," he said blandly. "However, I prefer to be loved for my own sweet self rather than be used in a masochistic spirit of revenge."

"You certainly deserve better. I mean…" and her voice trailed off. She bent her head and busied herself in rubbing off the lipstick mark on the cup rim.

"What do you do now?" he asked in a quiet kind voice.

"Oh, I pick up the pieces and try to put them back together again."

"The pieces of the statue… or your marriage?"

"Both, I guess. Ironic though that it's Lucy. She kept my marriage from cracking up once before and over a much, much, much more basic problem. It's funny. I know he's been unfaithful to me. And that doesn't bother me. Honestly! Because, well, infidelity is simply not worth getting upset about. I mean, I had an idea of certain qualities that would be essential to me in a husband. Steve has eight of the twelve so I figured that I was ahead of the game. Sexual fidelity was not one of the twelve. I know that isn't the usual priority…"

"Certainly it's not prevalent in suburbia," Howell interjected with sour amusement. "As a matter of fact, if you'd stop being such a paradox, you'd probably be better off."

"I don't understand."

He grinned at her reassuringly. "Think it over. Later. When you've started thinking again. But you are a paradox, my dear."

"What's paradoxical about not worrying if your husband is sleeping with other women? That's on his conscience, not mine. And good Lord, the man's away so much, it's only natural to… to do what's natural."

"You are either remarkably well-adjusted or incredibly naive."

She didn't know whether or not he was laughing at her.

"I shouldn't have brought that up, his sleeping around, the other night. But he was accusing me of it, and I haven't."

"Thus spake outraged virtue!" There was a damnable twinkle in Howell's eyes.

"I'm not being outraged virtue! But he'd no right to blame me for the sins on his conscience. And he was sorry about knocking the Lucy over. He really is proud of my work. Lucy did that for me. Maybe he doesn't understand why I have to sculpt, but he likes the money it brings in. I don't care which just so long as I have the chance to do it and he doesn't complain too much.

"Oh, don't misunderstand me, Jamie. I'm no undiscovered Michelangelo, but I've been well trained. And if there is such a thing as inherited instinct or talent, I have that, for all that my father worked only in oils. But my work is solid, competent and sometimes provocative."

"I'd employ different adjectives," Jamie said, clearing his throat hastily. "I rank 'provocative' with 'interesting' as damning adjectives. In sculpture, I put the wire-crate junkyard variety in the 'provocative' category."

"I just have to sculpt," she ended lamely.

"Then you won't give it up because of this brouhaha and the damage to the Lucy?"

"No," she said, shaking her head for emphasis, "especially because the Lucy was involved. So you will have your work," she added quickly.

"That was furthest from my mind," he said in acid annoyance. Then, seeing his reaction distressed her, he took her hand in his. "I want a LeBoyne, believe me I do. Besides," and he grinned wickedly at her, "I feel I've earned it."

"I apologize for involving you in this crise des nerfs. I see now that it's been building up. I can usually sidestep them but I was happy and I didn't keep my eyes open."

He shook his head disapprovingly and pursed his lips. "I don't see, myself, why you should have to keep your eyes open when you're happy."

"You're most vulnerable then," she replied as if he should know.

"No wonder you close up so tightly, Mirelle." He rose to his feet. "You have no reason to apologize to me. In an obscure way, I was glad to be here with you yesterday. You needed someone. I suggest, most sincerely, however, that you cultivate a female friend. Actually I dropped by yesterday to say that I've been called to substitute for another accompanist who's ill. I'll be away until the 14th. I'll call you when I get back."

At the door, he turned.

"Find Lucy in someone else, Mirelle. Clay has no opinions and makes a damned clammy shoulder to cry on."

She watched him stride quickly to his car, his left shoulder hiked up, his gait that of the foot-weary infantryman. For all that caustic tongue of his, James Howell was a kind man.