Earth Colors Read online

  I hungered for another look at the painting, but alas, Mr. Gray Eyes had taken it with him, leaving only a tiny sample of each major paint color. These we had carefully chipped from the extreme edges of the painting where it had been covered by the frame. It was easy to see where the frame had lain because the colors were a bit brighter there, which suggested that the painting was not brand-new.

  I kept the paint chips in little glass vials to keep them pristine. I spent an inordinate amount of time studying them with my hand lens, dreaming dreams of Remington. Had this bit of color flowed from his brush, or from that of an impostor? I laid plans for getting time with the analytical equipment in the Geology Department, and imagined hugely magnified views of my tiny charges.

  As the weather was nice, I got to sitting out on the front porch with my books. That’s where I was the middle of the following week, when Fritz Calder happened by on his way home from a run.

  “Good morning,” he said. “You’re Em, right?”

  “Yes. And you’re still Fritz.”

  He wiped his forehead with the sleeve of his sweatshirt, assumed a pose of thoughtfulness for a moment, and then nodded decisively. “I suppose you’re right,” he said. “But then, Kafka woke up one morning feeling bugged, and it was true.”

  “Are you feeling bugged?”

  He smiled. “Nah. It’s just embarrassing that I have trouble remembering peoples’ names.”

  I changed the subject. “Did your kid come back from Germany yet?”

  His smile broadened to an expectant grin. “Two more days and he’ll be home. He’ll be here for the weekend.” He turned and moved toward me, his running shoes scuffing the sandstone flags of the walkway. He came up on the porch and sat down next to me, his greater weight moving the swing to a different plane of motion. “What you reading there?”

  “Stuff.” I turned over the book so he could see the cover. It was A Concise Encyclopaedia of Artists’ Materials.

  He took the book and began to flip through the pages. Unconsciously he set the swing into a gently spiraling motion. I found this soothing. He read around in the text for a while and I soaked up the comfort of having a big, warm body near me. Trying to focus again on the book, I said, “Like I said, stuff. But fascinating, eh?”

  “‘Mediums and Adhesives,’” he said, reading the chapter headings aloud as he went. “‘Pigments.’ ‘Solvents and Diluents.’ Diluents? Huh, I thought the word would be ‘dilutents.’”

  “That’s not a word. I looked it up. ‘Diluents’ looked weird to me, too.”

  “‘Supports,’” he read. “Is that like the canvas?”

  I said, “Canvas, wood, cardboard, paper …”

  “‘Tools and Equipment.’ I can get that part. That’s paintbrushes and such.” When he had turned to the last page he pointed to the illustration printed on it and read the caption aloud. “‘Containers for oil paint: (a) the skin or bladder in which the mixed and ground paint was kept, with a tack-like piece of bone to puncture the skin; (b) the firm metal tube with piston and refilled with paint; (c) the collapsible metal tube in use today.’”

  I leaned in close to get a look at that illustration. “‘(a)’ and ‘(b)’ are pretty bizarre, huh? I guess screw caps are a fairly new invention.”

  He skimmed the adjoining text, and read, “‘The development of collapsible tubes as containers for colors occurred largely during the middle of the nineteenth century. Bladders were still listed in catalogs until 1840.’”

  I looked askance at him. “You seem genuinely interested in this stuff.”

  He shrugged his athletic shoulders. “Sure. I read that book … you know, Girl with a Pearl Earring.”

  “I don’t know that one.”

  “Oh, it’s a novel about this fictitious girl who worked for Vermeer. The part I liked best was where she used to hang out in his attic grinding the pigments for him. She really got into it. Very sensual scene.”

  “What was she grinding? Was it a mineral pigment?”

  “Some semiprecious rock,” he said. “I forget the name of it. He used it to make ultramarine-blue.”

  “Lapis lazuli.” Ultramarine, the color of the Madonna’s robe. I thought of Sloane Renee and looked at my hands to cover my feelings.

  Fritz turned to me. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine,” I lied. “Hey, I meant to get you over for a meal before this. Are you free tonight?”

  “No, but I’m reasonable. What brand of microbrew shall I bring?” he asked.

  He hadn’t been sure what my name was, but he had remembered that I preferred beer to wine. As I noticed that, I realized that it had in fact bothered me that he hadn’t been sure of my name. Why? “I like the Polygamy Porter they make at Squatter’s,” I said, immediately wishing I had named a different label. First he thinks we’re a gay couple. Now he’ll think we’re a couple of sisters looking for a sire!

  “‘Why Have Just One?’” Fritz parried, quoting the microbrewery’s advertising slogan for its infamous porter.

  I felt myself turning red. “It’s actually pretty good stuff.”

  He gave me a roguish wink. “I like it, too. What time?”

  “Seven.”

  “I’ll be there.” He got up and headed home to a shower and his afternoon’s work.

  WHEN FRITZ REAPPEARED at seven carrying the six-pack, I had completed my Geochemistry reading and started on a take-home exam for Statistics. I looked up to appraise the candidate. He was nicely turned out in a pressed blue oxford cloth shirt and blue jeans.

  I grinned, certain that this six-foot-two-inch stack of manhood would turn Faye’s head. “Come on in,” I said boisterously. “I told Faye you were coming and she took pity on you.”

  “Oh? And she exhibits this sentiment how?”

  “She would not let me cook. The aroma from the kitchen is her current specialty, pizza and salad. The pizza is takeout from the Pie Pizzeria. The salad she built herself. You can’t burn salad.”

  “Unless you put it on the stove,” he said, hurrying into the kitchen. At the precise moment he yanked the wooden bowl off the burner, the smoke alarm started to shriek.

  Faye spun around and stared at him. He stared at her. He handed her the bowl. His mouth opened slightly. I thought, Music up. Close-up on hero and heroine moving helplessly into each other’s arms. They kiss, they fall into bed. End of story as warm Pacific waves wash up on sunset beach.

  Unfortunately, things did not proceed quite that smoothly. On cue, the baby raised her voice from annoyed snit through basic banshee to advanced air-raid siren. Faye took the bowl from Fritz’s hands, lifted to examine the damage to the bottom, and muttered, “Balls!” which caused Fritz to color slightly. Faye charged out of the kitchen and through the dining room at high speed, slammed the salad bowl on the table, and headed down the hall toward the baby’s room.

  Fritz turned from his position in the middle of the kitchen and looked at me inquiringly.

  I said, “She’s been getting a bit touchy about certain things lately.”

  “Such as?”

  “Such as fancy kitchenwares given by her Aunt Nancy. You know, stuff you get for a wedding present but you can’t afford to replace. Babies that show up six months after you get married. Things like that.”

  Fritz said, “And where is Mr. Faye?”

  I moved up close to him so I could answer his question in a whisper. “He’s dead. Died a month before the baby was born. So, you see …”

  Fritz moved his head up and down in one long, eloquent aha. “Yes …” Then he sniffed the air, turned, and opened the oven door. Smoke billowed out. “I think the pizza’s warmed up.”

  “Yes, so it appears.”

  He grabbed a hot pad and pulled it out. “Pepperoni and artichoke hearts, my fave.”

  “What luck.”

  Fritz appraised the smoking slab. “I think if we trim off the edges here it will be fine.”

  I let out a ragged breath. He looks good in blu
e jeans, he flies a plane, he brings beer, and he knows how to say, “You’re clueless in the kitchen” without it sounding like an insult. Why in God’s name did his wife divorce him?

  Perhaps it was he who dumped her, I decided, falling into one of my itinerant internal debates.

  He doesn’t look like the dumping type, I volleyed.

  What do you know? The pendulum of your life has swung way too close to forty without your ever seeing even the front side of a marriage, let alone the back, so what makes you an expert allofasudden?

  About then, Faye marched back into the room carrying Sloane Renee, and Fritz went all googly over her. The baby, that is. He took her into his arms and whispered into her tiny shell of an ear. Faye might not even have existed for all the attention she got from him after that. He was pleasant, and said all the right things, but through three pieces of pizza and two beers he bounced that child on his knee, held her over his head like an airplane, played Where’s-the-Baby, coddled, cuddled, cooed, and generally collapsed like a heap of mush around the amazing and remarkable Sloane Renee Latimer. Fritz Calder might be a good-looking buck and an eligible bachelor, but he was a touch too much aware of the baby and a touch too little aware of the mother to register on Faye’s Richter scale. In fact, she excused herself at eight o’clock to put the baby to bed and did not return.

  Fritz made no move to leave.

  I offered him a brandy.

  “No thanks,” he said. “I got to fly tomorrow. You know the drill: eight hours bottle to throttle.”

  “You flying somewhere early?”

  “Yeah, I have to take the prototype to Denver to show to an investor.”

  “Still looking for more funding?”

  “Always looking for more funding. Want to come along?”

  “A round-trip flight to Denver in a small plane. I used to do that with Faye. It was a blast. Skimming over the high peaks like an eagle, a sense that I owned the known universe. You mean come along just for the ride?”

  He shrugged his shoulders. “Sure. I can always use a copilot. It gets lonesome up there.”

  I heaved a sigh. “I’d love to, but I have a lot of schoolwork to finish.”

  “Oh come on, you can catch up over spring break.”

  “I can’t. Over the break I have to work for my living.”

  “What’s the project?”

  I made a zip-the-lips gesture. “Can’t say more, sorry. And besides, I have the little one to care for whenever Faye needs help.”

  “Well, let me know if you ever decide to play hooky. It’s Denver tomorrow, then L.A. on Friday, and Baltimore in about a week and a half.”

  “What’s in Baltimore?”

  “They have lots of interesting things in Baltimore. Like the east end of a railroad line that goes to Ohio. And parts for a widget I’m building.”

  “You got to fly all the way there to pick up parts? Why not have them shipped?”

  He looked at the floor, his face clouding. “It’s a design meeting. And I have to see some clients. And some money men.”

  I nodded. “Military stuff.”

  “Yeah.”

  “If you don’t like military stuff, why do you do it?”

  “You mean, apart from the fact that military contracting pays the bills, and supports my habit of tilting at the windmill of designing a new airplane? And keeps our nation strong?”

  “It sounds like I’ve poked a nerve. I’m sorry.”

  He hunched his shoulders. At length, he said, “I used to fly for the military. I was a navy pilot. Jets.”

  He had told me he did not like bombs. Now he said he’d been a navy pilot. That sounded like an uncomfortable combination of traits. I said, “I didn’t mean to pry, or to imply—”

  “No, it’s a legitimate question, and the problem is, I don’t really have an answer for you, but I do mean to suggest that I don’t disapprove of the military out-of-hand. Soldiers aren’t bad things. Everyone agrees on self-defense, or almost everyone, and a lot of people believe in maintaining a standing army as a deterrent.”

  “I don’t disagree.”

  “As I said. But beyond that, things get messy, because right there you move into the territory where things are no longer quite so black and white. You get into ‘Who’s in charge here, really?’ and ‘What’s the agenda?’”

  Trying to sound like I understood, I said, “It’s like that for me as a geologist some days. We’re paid to find resources, and we find them, all right, but we have absolutely no control over how it’s gotten out of the ground, or by whom, and we sure as hell have no say over who’s going to use it, or where, or how, or when.”

  He rose from the couch and shook his head. “Bottom line is, I haven’t really sorted all this out yet.”

  “I’m sorry to open a can of worms.”

  “No, it’s okay. Don’t ever apologize to me for asking questions like that. Besides, it’s me who should be apologizing. I kind of popped off on you. I—”

  “Let’s call it a draw,” I said.

  Fritz nodded and let himself out the door. I caught it before he could close it behind himself and told him good night.

  Halfway down the walk toward the street, he turned around and faced me again, and said, “Thanks for dinner. I had a good time. Really.”

  “You’re welcome any time.” I shut the door against the night air, feeling like a prize jerk, not to mention a failure as a matchmaker. So I went to bed myself, carrying books about artists’ pigments with me. It was time to set other peoples’ worries aside, and just earn my damned degree.

  12

  THOSE OF YOU WHO HAVE WRITTEN A MASTER’S THESIS WILL BY now have begun to think, Shouldn’t Em be discussing her thesis idea with her advisor? You have to get your advisor’s okay, don’t you?

  Yes and yes. But I had a little problem, and that was that I had already blown one thesis project, and therefore did not want to go to Molly Chang with my hot idea until I was sure it wasn’t going to cool off before the biscuits were baked. Instead I scheduled time on the analytical equipment at the University. I figured I’d spend spring break working up some hard data so that I could shove, not just an idea but full research parameters across Molly’s desk. I would explain to her that I could not publish Tert’s data (I would not even mention his name or the work in question), but that I had a lead on a similar set of data I could put into a thesis.

  By the Monday before spring break, I had assembled quite a raft of materials. I had the National Gallery of Art’s Artists’ Pigments, volumes 1, 2 and 3, the Short Encyclopaedia (which I could not look at without pronouncing each and every vowel in my head), and now Weber’s Artists’ Pigments. To this stack, I had added my old mineralogy book (Dana’s Manual of Mineralogy) and a few other texts. I also made another pass through the art section of the library stacks, adding several texts on Frederic Remington, and also two on George Catlin and one on Charlie Russell.

  One morning when I again awakened too damned early, I turned on the light by my bed and read around in Frederic Remington by Peter Hassrick. It seemed a good survey of the life of Remington, so I got up and began tapping a summary into the computer, hoping that one day it would become a chapter in my thesis.

  Frederic Remington, born 1861 in upstate New York, was the son of a newspaperman. During the Civil War, Remington’s father fought for the North and earned the rank of major, and was highly decorated for his valor. Young Frederic rounded out his basic education at a military academy in Massachusetts.

  In 1878, two months before his seventeenth birthday, he enrolled in art training at Yale. After three semesters, he left Yale in part because his father had died, leaving the family without income. Guardianship of young Fred passed to his uncle, who was “opposed to having any men artists in the family” and “desired to have him carry on the family tradition of writer-politician.” He worked at various clerical jobs for a couple of years.

  At the age of twenty, he fell in love with Eva Caten and asked her f
ather for her hand in marriage. Apparently finding young Frederic short on prospects, Eva’s father sent him packing. To seek his fortune, Remington headed west.

  Here I put down the book for a while and stared out the window toward the Oquirrh range, which that morning wore a fresh cap of snow tinted pink with the early light. I was liking this Remington guy. He was a restless, incurable romantic, just like me. I liked a man who was sensitive enough to become an artist yet tough enough to paint macho men and starkly beautiful scenery.

  I tried to imagine the twenty-year-old painter heading west with his dreams. As the Oquirrhs turned from pink to yellow, I read further, then wrote:

  Remington came home two months later with a different sort of riches than he had imagined: His portfolio bulged with drawings, and he quickly sold one to Harper’s Weekly, where it was reproduced as an engraving. Returning to the West as soon as he had passed his twenty-first birthday and collected his inheritance, Remington set himself up in sheep ranching in Kansas, and there he made enough of himself to finally win the hand of his beloved. When his fortunes in Kansas City failed, Eva went home to New York while Remington again traveled to collect material for magazine illustrations. Reunited with Eva a few months later, he made the rounds in New York City, peddling his drawings to editors to be used as illustrations for stories of the West. When there weren’t enough stories, he wrote them himself.

  Remington would return again and again to his beloved West to collect artifacts, sketches, memories, and impressions, soaking up the fading world of Indians, mountain men, cavalry, and cowboys. Peter Hassrick wrote, “Remington had selected an exotic theme, the final act of the drama of the Far West, but he chose to portray this romantic theme in the terms of a realist, allowing few compromises with grace, beauty, or sympathy. As a Romantic Realist, then, he found a place in American art, and his stature as a painter grew apace with the advancement of his technical facility.”