Electra's Dictionary Chapter 26

                                                                         Wavegirl

Jean Paul says to me,

“There is something between you and Bran, yes?”

We are walking outside in an area that he calls the Promenade just behind the building where the offices are. The Promenade is shaded and has the view of the landscape; thick with old trees and hedges, topiary and rose bushes. We stand in the stone archway looking out.

I don't look at him. I say,

“what do you mean?” and then think about the two young women Jean Paul assigned to show Bran around the building on a tour of it. Instinctively, I suspected a ploy and glared at Bran when Jean Paul took my hand with familiarity to drag me away. Bran just shrugged at me as he was dragged off in the opposite direction.

Jean Paul turns back to me. I feel his eyes studying my face. It makes me uncomfortable. I shake the weight of my hair to fall over it.

“How long have you known Bran, mon granola?” he asks.

I decide to study his face instead of answer his question. I look directly into his eyes. They are very dark, and, like liquid, like ink, but warm; they match his hair and lashes and blend with his olive complexion. I can see how his eyes must have won him many conquests, even with the age lines around them which only seems to sharpen and enhance all the angles of his face. Yes, I see he is handsome but I am unmoved.... I move back a step needing space.

“You know he is married?” he asks me now and raises one smooth dark brow and looks intently, “and has children.”

I smile slowly because I have to fight the jab he has induced,

“I am married and also a mother.” I start walking towards the steps that lead down to the stone walkway and feel him rush to follow me. We are halfway down the length of the walk that leads to the grass and I ask, “what do you want? To do business with me or to find some amusement?” and only after I have said this do I realize that I could be putting our negotiations in jeopardy. And I think: fuck it. Nothing is worth that much.

“I would rather know what you want,” he says in that slippery manner that is beginning to make my skin crawl.

“How long have you known Bran?” I ask now, “you said, the other day, 'a long time', or something like that.”

“At least fifteen years. Probably more.”

“You know his wife?”

“I met her once.”

I don't say anything. Even though I want to ask. I don't want to ask. I don't want to know. And I know better than to be sucked into this game with him. Finally I say,

“you knew him before he was married. You knew him when he was....”

He laughs,

“a ladies' man?”

I look at him with what must have seemed like open disgust because I didn't have a second to edit my face,

“I really don't see that about Bran.”

And at this Jean Paul laughs very loud. It almost echoes. Then he says,

“your eyes tell me everything about you, mon granola, even though you think your lunettes keeps them hidden.”

Mon granola?

While wanting to escape Jean Paul, I am distracted by a little bird trying to wrestle a tiny branch.... Then turn to look towards the office building hoping to see Bran when a handful of people begin to walk towards us. Instead, I see one of the women who had dragged him off.

I say,

“can we go back? I can't take the sun this time of day.” It is a good excuse because the sun is strong over us and my skin is already starting to show signs of being burned.

“I should have known, of course, mon granola, but there is un belvedere up ahead,” and points to a gazebo.

I shake my head and begin to walk back towards the building.

“Please tell me that I have not offended you,” he says now as he catches up to me.

But I don't feel like talking. I head back towards the doors we came from. We are already upstairs and weaving through the office corridors when he says,

“I was only hoping to get to know you better.”

But I don't answer this either.

He says,

“you interest me, mon granola. There is something different about you. I see what it is.... why he's in love with you.”

He has touched a nerve now. I have to stop because I feel upset. It is making me dizzy. Hoping to hide this I say,

“how would you know that?-- he would not have told you that-- and please, why are you calling me that?”

“So he has not told you? I can see he is. But you doubt it....” He stares at me now, invading through my eyes, he bores into my head. I pull back when he touches me. He puts his hand on my cheek and touches my hair, “granola, because I think that you would taste like milk and honey.”

I have nothing ready in my mind to reply so I say nothing, too distracted and feel relieved to see Bran stepping out from the glass office doors towards us. There is a look of concern in Bran's eyes when he sees me, then turns to Jean Paul with wariness. I keep my voice low and whisper,

“are we almost done here? Can we go?”

He looks at Jean Paul again, and whispers back to me,

“is something wrong?”

I start to say something but don't get to finish when Jean Paul says,

“how is your wife these days, Bran? You haven't mentioned her or the children at all.”

Bran smiles. Openly forced. He looks like he has swallowed a mouthful of razor blades leaving him with indigestion. He says to me, looking at me,

“excuse me,” and I can see the sharp pin points of the green in his eyes standing out in anger like live wires. He moves towards Jean Paul now and says, “you mind?” and now he is looking right at Jean Paul. I see him put his hand on the sleeve of Jean Paul's tailored suit and forcibly pull him towards a window that is far from where I can hear. It is a short conversation and I watch it happen.

I believe that I know Bran well enough to know his moods, but I have not seen this one of his. I watch Jean Paul smile up at him and take a step back when Bran leans towards him. There is a look of raw surprise in Jean Paul's face as Bran speaks. And then, as I watch, I see some understanding reached between them. I watch as their expressions become serene and hard to read. When Bran returns to where I am, he is visibly still upset. I see his eyes are still bright and seem to glisten with a sharpness. He puts his hand on my arm and says,

“let's go. We can 'e-sign' the paperwork. I think we're done here.”

***

He buys me more flowers before we get home. They are lilies and irises. I fill a vase with water and put them in.

“Do you want to go out or stay in?”he asks me, watching me with the flowers. “You look so nice, we should go out somewhere.”

“Tell me what you said to Jean Paul.”

He makes a face,

“I don't want to talk about Jean Paul. I would rather talk about something else, if you don't mind, Beth.”

“Like what? That soon our week will be over and....” but I don't finish this.

He says,

“tell me about Electra, I want to know.”

“What do you want to know?”

“Electra and father.... I was just thinking about it recently. Those things you write about in your blog. Your confusion over identity, because you don't know who your father was.... and I just wondered.... am I a part of that neurosis.... and also.... if it turned out that the one you call 'Hitler' was your father, could you handle it?”

I am surprised he has figured this much out. I hadn't expected he had got this far. I want to change the subject but the emotion of his eyes compel me; they master; they are poet's eyes. They are beautiful. 
I say,

“I don't know.... you know why, don't you?”

“Because he rejected you ….and physically abused you.”

“Yes, but....what else?”

He does not answer right away. He studies me. He puts his hand up to my face and touches my skin. He says,

“you know Jean Paul just wants you for himself and how can I blame him?”

I shake my head because his subject change has fucked with my thoughts,

“Bran, I was degraded by my father.... because he believed I was this vile, illegitimate, mulatto bastard.... if I were to find out that it was all such a lot of bullshit.... I mean, to be rejected by him, this heinous person who is my complete antithesis, that....was actually really my father? That.... would be the worst insult. The worst irony. I don't know if I could survive that.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don't know,” I say, but he looks at me strangely and I realize that I have said too much. “Never mind. I don't know,” I repeat stupidly.

He looks like he wants to say something but is not sure what.

But then he gets a text from Jean Paul asking if we could do a mock up for a bathing suit ad using 'Wavegirl'. Without the hole of course. I feel a stab inside.

It is only that, this image is significant to me. It gave me some kind of courage when I could have given up. I have rolled that thing up and moved it everywhere. I never transferred the original painting onto canvas but kept it on the cheap, shitty material I did it on because it was all I could afford at the time. So, you see, it is more a symbol to me. It is a part of my soul. Even though the figure is flat and has no depth, except for the giant hole in her abdomen, because that was significant to the emptiness of my life at the time.

I am quiet when Bran tells me this. I stare out the window thinking. And then I am no longer in Paris. My mind is back in New York. First in the room with my dying father just after my mother died. Then in another room when Jamie was still an infant. Her father shouting threats at me.... and later in a court room signing away my parental rights... I am in places I don't want to be ….but from where Wavegirl was born.

It is awhile before I realize that Bran is watching me. His eyes that compel trespass. It is a long while before either of us says anything. I am wrestling within. I finally say,

“I didn't realize you shared that image with him.”

He is standing by the window on the other side. He takes a breath and shrugs,

“Beth, you can say 'no'”

“But you would think that I was being immature. Or maybe vain,” I say looking into his eyes to see his first reaction to what I just said.

“No,” he shakes his head. He does not pull his eyes away. “I'll tell Jean Paul we will come up with something else.”

I turn to look back out the window.

And then I begin to think about my father, or the person who I grew up believing was my father. He was in advertising, a successful ad-man. On Madison Avenue. How funny to find myself in his world now. Selling my soul. Maybe it's in the blood? But he wasn't an artist, my mother was, he just sold space. Selling and money was his whole life. He made lots of money but in the end he lost it all; he died penniless. I think again of loss. Of the giant hole in the abdomen of Wavegirl. And then suddenly I find myself thinking of Andy Warhol; the man who sold the art world.... and the significance of the soup can, the ironic commentary on the triviality of life, repeated images of icons. Yes, this too is art.

I turn around and say,

“but will it still be my image? I mean, the one with the hole. That image will still be mine, right,I mean, legally? ”

Slowly he says,

“Yes.... I don't see why not. I'll talk to my lawyer.”

What else do you do with something that is so deep within you that it burns a hole in you? There is no choice but to turn it into art. And if only something superficial is seen and appreciated as some kind of aesthetic commodity that came from a deep dark place maybe that is what it has to be. Maybe it is time to give up the ghost. And maybe it will free that part of me.

He brought his laptop with him, and later, as we work together on this, there is an energy between us. And as we work, I watch him. I have never seen him at work before. To watch now and see what he does. And see that he is brilliant at what he does.... 

We spend hours cleaning up the image, engrossed, testing out different colors and bathing suit styles. And the hours fly by and as they do I recognize there is a new dimension between us that I don't think either of us expected. A flow of energy so much like the energy we have when we are having sex. A charge and silent but fluent communication. It is thrilling. 

And it is no surprise that while working with him I feel myself get wet. And as this happens to me I wonder if he feels it too. Until he says,

“come here,” and sets me on the table where we have been working. He pulls up my long skirt, removing what I'm wearing underneath.... We don't want to waste time. He enters fast, anchoring me to the table.