Hallie's Comet Read online

  “Hallie, have you looked through a window recently? It’s raining cats and dogs.”

  “Damn the Temptations. They wished for rain. Okay, scratch the golfing doctor. I’ll give Jeff his bottle, call your obstetrician, then nine-double-one. Let’s see. I’ll need hot water and a knife. Rats! I don’t have a real knife, just plastic, and I don’t think chopsticks will cut it.”

  “Cut what?”

  “The umbilical cord. I’m not the least bit nervous, Marianne, honest. I have a knife sharpener and a palette knife and a copy of last Sunday’s New York Times.”

  “Oh, great. Do you plan to fill in the crossword puzzle while you wait?”

  “Haven’t you seen movies? They always use newspapers. The pages are sterile or something. Steve McQueen once used a leather Bombers jacket, and in that movie about med students, you know, the one where they’re always working on corpses? They used a checkered tablecloth, at least I think they did.”

  “I’m glad you’re not nervous, Hallie.”

  “Hush. Get into bed.”

  “You don’t have a bed.”

  “Okay, get into mattress.”

  “Into mattress?”

  “On. I meant on. Hurry. No. Don’t hurry. Walk slowly. I’d help you, but I have to fill a pan with water and…”

  Hallie blinked. Not now, she thought as another vision came to mind.

  A child clad in knickers was preparing to light a wood-burning stove. In her hand she clutched a box of matches.

  “Your pains are very close together,” Hallie said, her voice somewhat sluggish. “He won’t get here in time.”

  “Who? The doctor? Neil?”

  “No. Gabriel.”

  “Who on earth is Gabriel?”

  “Get into bed, Mama Scarlet!”

  “Who’s Mama Scarlet?” Face scrunched, Marianne emitted a long, drawn-out groan. Then another.

  That cleared away the mist that had momentarily obscured Hallie’s vision. “Scoot,” she said to Marianne. “I’ll take care of everything, I promise.”

  True to her word, Hallie took care of everything. She even tossed her palette knife into a pot of boiling water and fished it out with chopsticks.

  “The Temptations wished it would rain and now they’re singing ‘My Girl.’” On her knees, Hallie pressed a cold washcloth against Marianne’s brow. “What do you want, sweetie? A boy or a girl?”

  “Neil. I want Neil.”

  “Let’s sing.”

  “You’re tone-deaf.”

  “Who’s listening?”

  “Me. The baby.”

  “Okay. You can be my back-up.”

  “Back-up?”

  “Right. Sing the do-rah-rahs.”

  “What?”

  “Which word didn’t you understand?” Hallie teased. “Never mind. You can play my orchestra.”

  “Have you lost your mind?”

  “Pant, Marianne. Pretend you’re blowing into a flute.”

  “I don’t believe this.”

  “Pant, damn it! My girl,” Hallie sang, “talkin’ bout my girl, oh-oh.”

  “Oooh…”

  “If it’s a girl we’ll call her Temptation. Where the hell are the paramedics? They probably got stuck in a traffic jam.”

  “I like Temptation, Hallie, but Neil gets to name this one since I chose Jeff.”

  While the clock ticked away the minutes, everything seemed to occur in slow motion, as if Hallie aimed her finger at a fast-forward button but kept hitting the pause button by mistake. Desperate, suggesting that Marianne blow a pitch pipe, a bugle, an oboe, even a bassoon, begging her to push and pant, Hallie was dimly aware that the baby arrived in time to hear the Supremes. “Stop,” they sang, “in the name of love.”

  Neil arrived in time to name his new daughter.

  The obstetrician, tracked down by his service, arrived in time to congratulate Hallie on a job well done.

  A couple of paramedics toted Marianne and the newly-christened Shania Twain O’Brien toward a curbside ambulance. Soon the strident hum of sirens pierced the neighborhood’s rain-shrouded curtain, and Hallie found a few precious moments to wonder why she’d handled the baby’s delivery so efficiently.

  She remembered calling Marianne “Mama Scarlet” and telling her that Gabriel wouldn’t be back in time. And although Shania’s emergence had been somewhat kaleidoscopic, Hallie had performed competently. The palette knife had been too whippy, too bendable, so she didn’t dare cut the umbilical cord. But she had hummed a hymn, “There is Sunshine in Your Soul,” a hymn she didn’t even know she knew. She had endured Marianne’s bone-crushing grip, cooled her brow with a wet cloth, and promised help would arrive any minute.

  As if she’d done it before.

  TWO

  The woman who posed for Gabriel Quinn wasn’t beautiful. She had a moon-shaped face, and Gabe wanted to strangle the beautician who’d tortured those soft brown curls into what looked like a frizzy Orphan Annie wig.

  Perm, my eye, he thought. It’s a permutation.

  Stifling his irrational anger, he extracted flowers from a cut-glass vase, shook the stems free of water, then wove them together and placed the circlet on top of Anne McFadden’s head.

  Perfect! Red rosebuds brought out the sheen in her carmine lips, violet pansies darkened the baby-blue of her eyes, and the flowers effectively disguised what she’d tearfully called a bad hair day.

  “I’m having a bad hair day, Mr. Quinn,” she’d said, after changing into her hula dance costume. “Why oh why did Johnny insist I have my picture taken?”

  “Because he’s stationed at a military post overseas and he wants to fulfill his fantasies until he returns,” Gabe had responded cheerfully, watching a vivid blush rouge Anne’s cheekbones. Some of his clients were brazenly provocative. Others squirmed, cringed, or tried to hide their lovely assets.

  Anne McFadden was a cringer.

  “Have you ever been overseas, Mr. Quinn?” she had asked, pouncing like a cat on the word “overseas” rather than “fantasies.”

  “I was a photojournalist, Ms. McFadden. I covered combat situations in India-Pakistan, Mozambique, Northern Ireland, Iran, and numerous other locales.”

  Silent, she had contemplated his reply while she paced up and down the small platform. Now, a minute or two later, she stopped short and thunked her forehead with the heel of her hand.

  “Gabriel Q,” she breathed. “I knew you looked familiar. Didn’t Newsweek write an article about you?”

  “Yes. Shall we get started?”

  “The article included pictures and I thought you looked like a movie star.” This time her cheeks flushed crimson. “Why did you quit photojournalism, Mr. Quinn?”

  “You’re procrastinating, Ms. McFadden.”

  “I’d really like to know. And please call me Anne.”

  Momentarily, Gabe considered making some dumb remark about how he’d rather shoot pretty girls. Instead, he blurted out the truth. “When I covered my last conflict,” he said, gesturing toward his left leg, “a piece of artillery exploded near me and flying shrapnel hit my knee. But that’s the chance one takes. It could have been worse. I could have stubbed my toe on a land mine.”

  “Do you suppose they have many land mines where Johnny is stationed?” she asked, her face scrunched with fearful anxiety.

  Gabe held back a sigh. He should have made his pretty girl remark, but he found it difficult to lie, even in the best – or worst – of circumstances.

  “There’s probably lots of land,” he replied with a wink, hoping his wink would reassure her. “However, we have more mines right here in Colorado. Gold mines, silver mines. Have you ever seen those wonderful black and white photos of the men who worked the Cripple Creek gold mines?”

  “Yes. Johnny drove me to Cripple Creek before he left. We toured the museum and even walked through the Old Homestead. You know, the parlor house? It wasn’t at all what I expected. I mean, it could have been a boarding house.” Another flush suf
fused her cheeks. Then, out of the blue, she said, “You look like Johnny Depp, Mr. Quinn.”

  Gabe tried not to grimace. Good old Johnny Depp. Sometimes Gabe wondered if people told Johnny Depp he looked like Gabriel Quinn.

  “Please call me Gabe,” he said, scrutinizing Anne through the lens of his 35 mm camera. The flowers subdued her frizzy hair and her face looked fine. She had stopped cringing. However, her body was unresponsive, stiff as an ironing board. No. Stiffer. Gabe’s old board tended to give way when he pressed his white slacks and blue denim shirt, the clothes he wore while playing Boudoir Photographer.

  His fiancé, Jenn, didn’t care for what she called “Gabriel Q’s preposterous profession.” He had tried to explain that women were now seeking a sophisticated image, slightly more risqué than the traditional portrait. Many couples wanted to stop the clock forever with tastefully created, provocative poses, more suitable for Memory Lane than the wedding album.

  Despite his fiancé’s derisive opinion, Gabe earned a goodly sum at his “preposterous profession.” His bank account was growing by leaps and bounds, and even if he couldn’t leap and bound any more, he had submitted his résumé to several magazines. And the White House. After all, there was no reason why he couldn’t become the President’s personal photographer. “If you drop a dream, it breaks,” he told Jenn.

  “Analyzing dreams is like investigating air,” she shot back. “I prefer reality.”

  “So do I. That’s why I’m a Boudoir Photographer.”

  Gabe’s waiting room displayed the usual copies of Vogue, Cosmo, GQ and People, but he always included the latest Victoria’s Secret catalogue. “Vicky’s Exquisite Skivvies,” a nickname coined by his brother, possessed a delicacy which set them apart from the theatrical bras and panties created for Frederick’s of Hollywood.

  Inside his costume alcove, folded on shelves or swinging from quilted hangers, were scores of exquisite skivvies, in every size imaginable.

  Gabe honestly believed that reality comprised the growing requests for intimate glamour photos. Jenn, however, insisted that more was less. Ankle-length nightgowns, she avowed, were much more provocative than naughty costumes. And pantyhose was much more comfortable than a garter belt.

  “Forget garter belts,” he had said, trying to think of a way to explain in words she’d understand. “The plainest woman can look sexy if she strikes the right pose, assumes the right attitude.”

  “Are you saying I’m not sexy?” Without waiting for an answer, Jenn had flounced from the studio.

  “Mr. Quinn? Gabe?”

  “Sorry, Anne. Are you ready? Shall we get started?”

  “Yes. I guess so. I just want to get this over with. The sooner we start, the sooner we’ll finish.”

  Adjusting his array of lights, Gabe wondered if he should seat Anne on top of the antique couch he had discovered at a garage sale. Then inspiration struck.

  Denver. Not the city. John.

  Gabe’s usual choices – Elvis or the Stones, Barbra Streisand or Beyoncé – wouldn’t do the trick. But there was an old John Denver album on his shelf, wedged alphabetically between the Carpenters and Bob Dylan.

  All at once, the lovely poetry that was Annie’s Song filled the studio. Anne McFadden’s eyes assumed a dreamy expression. Instinctively, her body relaxed.

  Bless John Denver, thought Gabe, looking through the lens of his camera.

  THREE

  “Rocky Mountain hiiiigh, Colorado.”

  Hallie harmonized with her air conditioner. Well, to be perfectly honest, the air conditioner was a mite inharmonious, causing Alice W. O’Brien’s voice to sound off-key. Not that Alice W. could carry a tune on the best of nights. In fact, she often lip-synched Christmas carols.

  If she wanted music to drown out the loud pitter-patter of her heart, why not adjust her radio’s dial? Right now it was set on an all-news station. But all they ever talked about was the heat wave, and Hallie need only glance through her window to see that the lush green golf course, burned by the sun, had turned as colorless as the fingers that clutched her paintbrush.

  In any case, it was almost dawn and music from her radio might disturb the sweet retired couple who shared the second half of her duplex.

  The air conditioner issued forth one last hum, then a weak whir, then nothing. It had finally surrendered to the omnivorous humidity that covered Bayside – and Hallie – like a soaking wet electric blanket.

  She considered shedding her cut-offs and raggedy, sleeveless T-shirt, but she hadn’t found the perfect window drapes yet and an improvised bed sheet curtain might subdue the occasional breeze that a whimsical Mother Nature bestowed upon her city dwellers to give them hope.

  It was hopeless. Hallie couldn’t sleep. She couldn’t drown out the rapid beat of her heart by singing a John Denver song, off-key, and she couldn’t stop painting the images that filled her mind, the reason for the rapid beat of her heart.

  “Damn, damn, damn!” Her shout pierced the curtain of pre-dawn silence. Even the sweltering neighborhood dogs couldn’t summon up enough energy to whine, much less bark.

  She slammed her brush on top of the palette on top of her workbench, spattering her breasts with paint particles that were one third tangerine, one third vermilion and one third ivory. Feeling the urge to vent her fury on someone or something, she turned toward the painting she’d titled “Archangel.” Propped against the TV screen, directly in front of her unfinished ballerinas, his eyes seemed to follow her every move.

  “What the devil’s going on, Gabriel? Why did I paint you? And why am I now painting a parlor house?”

  Gabriel didn’t answer, of course, but Hallie knew what Marianne would say. She would say, “You were born in the wrong century, kiddo. Tell it like it is.”

  “Okay, Marianne. A house filled with women of ill repute.”

  Did Gabriel’s mouth twitch at the corners? Did his dark eyes mock?

  Hallie swiveled her face toward her easel. The painting clamped to its wooden frame, the painting she’d been working on non-stop, depicted a two-story house. Since there weren’t any walls, it looked like a stage set. Upstairs, inside various rooms, women were entertaining male visitors. Oh, they weren’t engaged in sex, but their intentions were obvious. For one thing, the girls wore scanty attire, mostly corsets and camisoles. A few sported embroidered panties, and they all looked as though they had selected their undergarments from a nineteenth-century X-rated catalogue.

  If Hallie painted her dream man because she couldn’t find the man of her dreams, did that mean she painted a parlor house because, deep down inside, she wanted to be a woman of easy virtue? Or, deep down inside, did she want to select her undergarments from a nineteenth-century X-rated catalogue?

  Probably the latter. She suspected that if/when she got married, her butt would be stamped MAIDEN by a notary public.

  Groggy from lack of sleep, bemused by the heat, frightened by the creative impulses she couldn’t control, she marched into her bedroom and retrieved a pair of white undies. Stomping back into the living room, she glanced toward the window. An unseen deity’s palette knife had scraped away the sunrise and was now spreading buttery sunshine across a vast loaf of blue sky. Soon the butter would melt. Soon Hallie would melt.

  Why had she retrieved her undies? Oh, yeah. Picking up her paintbrush, she printed VESTAL VIRGIN across the cotton with the last of her tangerine-vermilion-ivory paint. Then she draped the undies across one corner of Gabriel’s canvas.

  “This will give you something else to contemplate,” she said, feeling utterly ridiculous. Why didn’t she simply turn the painting around so Gabriel faced the wall?

  Maybe she wanted to contemplate him. Like any other red-blooded female, she could fantasize. Even Marianne had confessed that, while bathing, she sometimes pictured Brad Pitt.

  “Naked?” Hallie had asked, shocked.

  “No. Fully clothed. Of course, naked.”

  “But what about my brother?”

&n
bsp; “He prefers Catherine Zeta Jones.”

  “Neil has a thing for Catherine Zeta Jones?”

  “Everyone has a thing for someone.”

  At the time, Hallie had thought Marianne’s notion absurd. Not anymore. Too bad Hallie’s someone didn’t exist.

  She brought her attention back to the parlor house painting. It was finished, thank goodness. No it wasn’t. One small bedroom remained unoccupied.

  Since she hadn’t deliberately created any of the other “painted women,” she waited for her brain to direct her hand. It didn’t. That meant the room was supposed to be unoccupied, right?

  Inside her belly, fear coiled like a snake. Because she suddenly realized what, or to be more precise who the subject of her next painting would be. She even knew the woman’s name.

  Lady Scarlet.

  FOUR

  “No, I don’t think your mind is playing tricks on you.” Marianne shifted six-week-old Shania from one shoulder to the other. “You simply read your mother’s history books when you were little and the memory has resurfaced.”

  “But the paintings are so real,” Hallie said, as she leaned back against a soft, leather, cabernet-colored couch cushion. “Most of the women are young, beautiful, and they come in all tints. White, off-white, saffron, sienna, cinnamon, black.”

  “That’s easy to explain. You’ve just finished a series of paintings on the Dance Theatre of Harlem.”

  “Almost finished.”

  “Whatever.”

  “But my new paintings depict prostitutes, not dancers.”

  “Hallie, you said the P-word.” Marianne tsked her tongue against the roof of her mouth then grinned impishly.

  “Hush.” Hallie nodded toward her niece, who had just entered the family room. Draped across Barbra’s shoulders, like a black and orange fur stole, was her calico cat.

  “Mama,” Barbra said, “Madonna, Tina, Jeff and me want to watch TV.” She reached up to pet the cat’s white ruff. “Carrie Underwood wants to watch, too.”