Chapter 35
Saturday morning was unbelievably cold and sunny. The wind blew the car as they drove passed the new football stadium on Route 3 as they made their way into New York City. They drove into a place called Sculpture Supply. Zoe was effervescent. She was bouncing up and down on the seat of the car before they even went into the place. Ron was thrilled to see her so happy and delighted.
“The sculpture is already in the stone,” she told him as they wandered down the aisles that were like nothing Ron had ever seen before. There were heavy wooden racks and placed on them were pieces of rock. There were no labels, no prices. The understanding was that if you were shopping there, you knew what you were doing. Ron listened to her carefully as she spoke but he didn’t look at her. His eyes were drawn to the rocks. He ran his hands over them. He stared at them from different angles. Zoe craned her neck to look at them from the top. “I love to work with marble. I think it is my favorite thing.”
“More than painting?”
“Yes,” she said dreamily, “much more than painting.”
And then she stopped and stood very still. She was looking at a piece of white alabaster. It lay on its side and was rough all around. She rubbed her hands on her thighs before she touched it. Ron stood back from her and watched. She called someone over and they talked about the stone.
It was alabaster. It weighed 48 pounds. She could take it with her. She could afford it. Then Zoe began to cry. Ron looked at her with astonishment. Why was she crying? What had just happened?
“Zoe, is something wrong?”
She had her fist clenched tightly to her mouth and Ron could see that she was biting herself. Her body was trembling. “Everything is wrong,” she said. “Everything.”
“What do you mean?”
“What am I doing here?” she said. She looked at him as if it was his fault that they were in this place. “Why did you bring me here?”
“Zoe, you asked me to bring you here.”
“But why did you?” She stepped back from the stone and looked at him accusingly and then she turned on her heel and headed for the door. Ron stood there feeling completely helpless and confused. He felt the eyes of other people in the shop looking at him. There was the feeling of accusation that was coming from them. Then he started after her and caught up with her on the street alongside the car. He reached out and took her shoulders and turned her to him. Her face was scrunched and red. Tears were streaming down her cheeks and had pooled up in back of her glasses. Ron could see the light refracting on the tears in back of the lenses.
“I don’t understand,” he said.
“That stone is beautiful. It is perfect and I have no place to work on it. I don’t have the right tools to work on it. I need more training to be able to do what I want to do with it and I am stuck here. I need a studio and all I have is a pad and pastels.”
“But didn’t you know all that before we came here?”
She slapped his face hard. He felt his neck snap when she hit him. And then she was turning and walking down to the street. The wind blew her hair to the side. Ron stood there motionless. He could not recall ever being slapped in the face before. Maybe he should just get into the car and drive away. He couldn’t do that! And then he was jogging down the sidewalk after her. She heard him and saw him and then bolted. She was running full speed and Ron knew instantly that there was no way that he could catch her. He stopped running and watched as she reached the corner and then turned to the left and was gone.
He went back to the car and got in and turned on the engine. He was shivering. He was angry. He shoved his hands into his pockets and sat there thinking that he had given up the chance to take Robin to the airport for this.
A long time passed and then he got out of the car and looked around to see if he could spot her. He did not see her wedged into a doorway with her head in her hands and her shoulders shaking from the uncontrollable crying that wracked through her body. She told herself that she was being stupid. She told herself to get up and go to the car but she couldn’t seem to move. She waited for his car to pull out and leave but it didn’t. He turned off the engine and sat there smoking a cigarette. Why was he waiting for her? Why wasn’t he just smart enough to see what she was and just leave?
She got up slowly and walked to the car. She opened the door and got in. She stared at him and waited. Without looking at her, he started the engine and began to drive back home.
She kept staring at him, waiting for him to scream at her. They went into the tunnel and when they were in the semi darkness and she could not see the face that had not taken its eyes from the road, she asked, “Why didn’t you just leave me there?”
Still without looking at her, he said, “I was frightened for you.”
Ron felt like he had crossed the border back from some alien land when the car shot out of the tunnel. Jersey reassured him. He knew the rules.
When they got back to the apartment, she said, “Will you just take me to bed?
Ron said, “No.”
He opened his book bag and spread papers out on his desk and began to work. She sat in a chair in the kitchen and watched him.
End of Part 1