Painted Moon Part 2

The bang of a pot on the floor followed by low-voiced cursing snapped Leah back to what she had been doing. She looked down at the small pile. Too prosaic for her mood. She swept it into a dustpan, dumped it in the bin and went to see if she could lend Jackie a hand.

4.

Jackie ladled gravy generously over her stuffing. She would need a nap after this, but if she said so herself, the meal had turned out wonderfully.

"It's not all that glamorous," Jackie said, in response to Leah's question. "My folks kept me out of the limelight. I was just another diplomatic corps brat, really. I didn't go the fancy dinners or meet heads of state. Well, I did meet and curtsey to Queen Elizabeth when I was eleven."

"What kind of life is it, though? Where did you live?" Leah was dividing her attention between the turkey and the baked yams.

"Depending on the country, we lived in the city nearby or at the emba.s.sy. My mom was much happier when we lived in the cities. We lived in Oslo and The Hague. And Madrid. But we lived in the emba.s.sy anywhere south of that. I didn't get to see much of the African or Middle Eastern countries. My mom went outside more than I did. And I went to boarding school after I turned twelve."

"Where do you call home?"

Jackie swallowed a delectable mouthful of turkey and gravy. "San Francisco. I always wanted to live there. I have dual Canadian and U.S. citizenship, so I guess if I didn't love the Bay Area, I'd go for Vancouver or Victoria. When I'm a licensed architect it'll really depend on where the work is. At least the work I want to do." She made a face.

"I take it you're less than happy where you are."

"I could really hate it if I let myself. But I've got no one to blame but me. At least I can blame the car on Parker." She smiled wryly.

Leah paused in cutting another bite of turkey. "Let me get this straight about the car. You decided together that it made sense for you to buy a car so you could drive down to see him, and then he picked out the car?"

"That's not quite the way it happened," Jackie said. Put like that, it sounded like Parker was a chauvinist or something. He was in fact very sensitive to women's issues and she sought to defend him. "It was only when we were out looking and we found the MG -"

"But it wasn't the car you wanted and you were the one who was going to pay for it and drive it, right?"

She nodded.

"Well," Leah said. "Whatever."

Jackie let the silence grow. She supposed that her relationship with Parker wasn't something she could expect Leah to empathize with. She ignored the little voice that reminded her that she'd agreed to spend Thanksgiving with her aunt to make a break from the routine of seeing Parker every weekend.

"Why doesn't he drive up to see you?"

"His car has just enough life to get him to the office and back. And he works long hours."

"Longer than yours?"

Jackie nodded. 'I generally work through about noon on Sat.u.r.day, and he works until four or so. He's on contract, so he can come and go as he pleases, but he's on a very rigid production schedule. Software design is pretty complicated."

Leah snorted. "Lots more complicated than designing the requirements for a block of condominiums."

Jackie smiled. "Okay, architecture is complicated too."

Leah swallowed another mouthful of green beans, then said, "Well, I'm glad to see he supports you in your career."

Jackie decided the diplomatic thing to do was to take Leah's sarcasm at face value. "He does. I just wish he supported me in my choice of cars."

Leah cracked a smile. "Okay, I'll get off my feminist high horse for a while."

Jackie wrinkled her nose. "I'll be honest, it bothers me. Considering that I could have frozen to death, it bothers me a lot. Our relationship's not perfect, but I've got almost three years in on his training."

"I thought you said you'd just moved here last year."

Jackie could feel herself flushing slightly. She hoped Leah thought it was the steam coming off the baked yams. "I did, but we met in Boston. I had finished my Master's and was working on my license. I need at least two years practical experience under another licensed architect."

"Umm-hmm," Leah said around a mouthful of stuffing and gravy.

"Parker was working for Lotus when he got this offer to consult in Silicon Valley."

Leah swallowed. "You were able to transfer out here in the middle of your certification?"

Jackie grimaced. "Yeah, but I had to give up a couple of months credit. California's requirements on experience credits were a little different. And the firm I'm with now is not as... interested in what I want to do. Their forte is large-scale commercial buildings. It was a change."

"From what?"

"From school. I went to Taliesin." Jackie felt herself flushing again. She knew what Leah was going to say. She was going to say exactly what her mother had said. Exactly what her father had said, though he had been extremely diplomatic about it.

"Let me get this straight." Leah leaned forward on her elbow and pointed at Jackie with her fork. "You went to the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture. They have what- seventy-five, a hundred students a year?" Jackie nodded. "And just because what's-his-name wanted to take a job across the country you gave up your apprenticeship at the firm they placed you in?"

Jackie nodded.

"Couldn't he have waited and taken another job when you were through?"

Actually, Parker's not taking the job had never been discussed. Jackie wasn't about to admit that to Leah. "I didn't want to live apart."

"No regrets?"

"Je ne regrette rien," Jackie said. "No regrets." But even to herself she didn't sound very convincing.

Leah pushed her plate away. "I'm stuffed. I need to walk this off."

"Still snowing," Jackie said. "But it's thinned out."

"Thanks for the great meal," Leah said. The gravy had made her tongue do flip flops. She had made a pig of herself and it had felt... good.

"Thanks for hauling me out of the snow." Jackie smiled and Leah couldn't stop herself from smiling back. "Why don't we clean up the mess I've made?"

"One last thing," Leah said. She looked down at Butch who had not moved from her side throughout the meal. "Don't get used to this, girl," she said as she set her plate down on the floor.

It took Butch five seconds to clean it, including a small dab of yams. She looked up, eager for more.

Jackie laughed and set her plate on the floor. After cleaning Jackie's plate Butch correctly surmised nothing more would be forthcoming, so she wandered into the living room.

Leah dried the dishes as Jackie handed them over. They were finishing up when Leah saw a light gleaming down through the kitchen window. "What's that?" She lifted the blinds to peek.

"The moon," Jackie said breathlessly. "There's a break in the storm."

They wrapped themselves in their jackets and went out on the front porch. With a bark of delight, Butch launched herself up the slope, disappearing from sight as she sank into the fresh powder. With a yelp she leapt out of the hole she'd made and into a new one and on up the hill.

Jackie clambered after Butch and Leah followed. They'd be wet through in a few minutes, but after being cramped inside all day it felt good to be out in the bracing cold. For a few minutes at least.

With a hoot, Jackie threw herself on her back into the snow. "Oh, this feels great! Like feathers! Perfect powder!" She clambered to her feet again, a dusting of snow over her hair and face. She threw herself in another direction. "G.o.d! I've been inside offices for too long. The air is like wine." She hooted with delight and spun in the snow like a child.

Leah stood frozen, her fingers itching. The top of her head felt as though it was burning. The moon hung low in the sky, casting a faint blue over the snow, across the ground, on the tips of the dark pines. Jackie was etched in cerulean. Her braid spun in the light, and her face reflected the moon's glow. Her cheekbones were dusted in bleu celeste, and her chin was a blur as she threw herself into another drift of the silver-blue snow.

Leah whirled and stumbled back to the house, and then into her studio. She shoved some blank canvases out of the way. Chalks, sketchpad. She rushed back to the porch, out into the snow, then onto her knees.

Jackie had stopped her playful attack on the snow and looked at Leah in concern.

"Keep playing," Leah said. "Ignore me."

Jackie started to say something, but then just smiled. With another shout of glee, she launched herself yet again into a snow drift.

She was a mosaic of blues and whites. Silvers edged around her skin. The brilliant amethyst of her jacket framed the planes and curves of her figure.

She played for several more minutes, throwing s...o...b..a.l.l.s at Butch, who barked and tried to catch them, then refused to jump at more. They sank into the snow, breathing hard. The moonlight abruptly winked out.

"Well, that's the end of that." Jackie's voice floated down to Leah on the whisper of the breeze. "It's snowing again."

So it was. Wispy snowflakes floated down like tiny handkerchiefs. She stood up, feeling dizzy. Her knees ached with cold.

"You okay?"

"I was concentrating too hard, I guess. I'm fine."

"Let me give you a hand," Jackie said, reaching for Leah's arm.

Butch exploded out of the snow, her bulk throwing Jackie, Leah, the sketchpad and pencils in different directions. The sketchpad landed closest to Jackie. She s.n.a.t.c.hed it up out of the wet.

Jackie was looking at the topmost picture. "It's okay." She carried it carefully into the light of the porch. "This is beautiful." Leah reached for the sketchpad, but Jackie ignored her. She was staring at the drawing, then up the hill. "Yes, yes, it does look like that. The moonlight is both hot and cold."

Butch shook her coat free of snow, showering them with pellets of melting ice.

"d.a.m.n mutt," Leah swore. She was intensely uncomfortable with anyone looking at the first work she'd produced in more than two years. "She's probably toasty warm under all the fur. C'mon, girl, outta the way. C'mon!" She kneed Butch in the side again, but Butch didn't budge. Leah glowered at her. "How would you look as a fur coat?"

"Come on, Butch," Jackie said. She led the way into the house.

Butch followed, her tongue hanging out a mile.

Leah rolled her eyes and followed them into the warm house.

Yawning, Jackie settled in under her layers of blankets for the second night. Butch curled up in front of the sofa. The firelight from the Franklin stove played over the bare wall where the painting had once hung.

Over the muted crackle of the fire Jackie could just hear sounds of movement from the room at the end of the hall. With a stammering explanation that she wanted to work out the sketches, Leah had retired there several hours ago and nothing but the rustle of paper had been heard since. Jackie had amused herself with the rest of the mystery she'd started the previous night. She tried the phone again to see if service was back, but the line remained dead. She changed into pajamas and snuggled down into the sleeping bag with V.I. Warshawsky. Butch had been content to have a Milk-Bone and sleep after her affray with the snow.

The brief exercise had left Jackie far too tired. She had been spending too much time either in the office or in the car. She promised herself she'd get back on a routine of exercise as soon as possible.

She heard the sound of paper being torn from a pad. A strange creature, Leah Beck, a.k.a. Lee Beck. Jackie knew more of Leah's work from her own studies than from anything her mother said, though she recalled her mother's pleased admiration when Leah had told the National Endowment for the Arts that she'd accept their award only when they signed a pledge to end artistic censorship. Otherwise, they could shove it.

Thinking of her mother recalled the way her mother had sworn Jackie was ruining her life by giving up the apprenticeship she'd had in Boston. She grimaced. I'm too young to start admitting my mother was right about anything. Truth was, she hated her job now. She could barely stomach the cookie cutter approach to designing places where people lived and worked, cranking out buildings that hundreds of thousands would look at and forget seeing every day. This apprenticeship program was a mill for churning out specs and blueprints-very little hands-on experience with clients was available and only token opportunities to develop anything from scratch.

She was too much her father to fool herself about her skills. She was no Frank Lloyd Wright. But every ounce of creativity she did have was being ground out of her at Ledcor & Bidwell. As her mother had said it would be.

She tried to turn her thoughts from this unprofitable path. She'd been down it too much lately. She tried to think of how she'd get more exercise. Perhaps she could get Parker to go dancing with her. She hadn't been in ages and she dearly loved it. But Parker didn't like it as much and complained that she outmatched him, which made it no fun for him.

It was only a tiny mental step from the box where she kept her unrequited desire to go dancing to the dumpster where she kept her growing resentments about her job ... and about Parker. She was aware that her bitterness about the career setback spilled over onto Parker. She resented him his success. She resented his salary being five times hers and that after moving across the country they lived in separate cities and only saw each other on the weekends, and then only after she drove down to San Jose. Driving to see him in the car that cost a fortune to park in San Francisco a full block from her dark, tiny studio third-floor walk-up. She resented that his apartment, with two bedrooms and a modern kitchen, was in a complex with pool and Jacuzzi and free parking - all of which cost him less than her rent. She had almost no savings to speak of, while his bank balance was skyrocketing. He could have afforded a new car without a second thought.

She was enough her mother to tell herself firmly that she'd made her bed and now she had not only to lie in it, but get a good night's rest. She snuggled down into the sofa cushions and thought about getting one of the warm blankets.

She probably wouldn't have resented him so much if when she wasn't there he missed her, but she had the feeling she could skip seeing him and he wouldn't care. He hadn't been upset about her absence over the holiday weekend. She'd felt guilty about asking, but then he hadn't seemed to care. And she'd certainly had more fun than in a long time - making a big meal and having someone appreciate it. She'd forgotten how much she missed cooking. Her roommate in Boston had had an appreciative appet.i.te, too, like Leah's.

Funny, she hadn't thought about Kelly in ages. She wondered how she was doing, where she was working. She regretted that she and Kelly had grown apart - Kelly and Parker had been oil and water. After she had moved in with Parker, Kelly had just drifted away.

Parker. She hadn't wanted to do this - adding up all that she'd given up for the sake of their relationship. Her apprenticeship in Boston. Kelly's friendship. Some of her parents' respect for her good sense. If she was being brutally honest, she'd given up some of her own self-respect. And all for a rut that was making her crazy.

She put the book down, suddenly near tears. This taking stock had been inevitable. She'd been avoiding it, but now it was too late to stop. Her mother hadn't really had to persuade her too much to come up to her aunt's for Thanksgiving. She'd been eager to get away, have a bit of a holiday from her dark apartment and from Parker. They hadn't gone anywhere together in ages.

Every weekend was exactly like the one before. Get off work at noon on Sat.u.r.days, hop in the car with her overnight bag already packed. Stop for gas - her cost. Stop for the groceries she knew he wouldn't have remembered to get, including condoms- her cost. Let herself in at Parker's around three. Wait for him to get home. Go out to dinner - Dutch treat. Maybe go to a movie - Dutch treat. Go back to bis place, have s.e.x, be asleep by eleven. At least, he was asleep.

The last four weekends she hadn't been able to sleep, so she'd gone down to the Jacuzzi. She'd struck up a running conversation with a nurse who came at that hour to work the knots out of her calves after her shift. If she was truthful with herself, she'd admit she looked forward more to talking about books, movies and politics in the Jacuzzi than to seeing Parker. Parker talked mostly about software and his co-workers.

A board creaked on the other side of the room and she and Butch both started up.

"Sorry," Leah said. "I was trying to be quiet. I thought you were asleep."

Jackie had to clear her throat to be sure her voice wouldn't quaver. "I was just lying here thinking."

"Oh." Leah snapped on the light in the kitchen. "You want some hot chocolate?"

"Sure." Jackie sat up. Anything to stop thinking. Leah did have social skills, she thought with a little smile. She shrugged into the chenille robe Leah had lent her and padded out to the kitchen in her thick socks.

"Can I ask you a question?"

"Okay," Leah said. She poured milk into a saucepan, then looked up expectantly.

"Whose clothes are these? They're too big for you." Jackie pulled on the front of the pajamas which even she didn't fill out completely.

"They're Sharla's." Jackie could see the walls coming down in Leah's eyes.

"I thought so. Thank you for letting me wear them."

"Necessity is the mother and all that." Leah studiously measured out cocoa powder. "After my upbringing? I could hardly throw away good cloth."