"You know-junk that suggests things. I used to get half my material from sc.r.a.p yards. Old pay phones that looked like goofy faces, vise grips that looked like robot hands, that kind of thing."
"You know," Ian said gently, "there"s a sc.r.a.p metal yard just east of Winslow. I have its address from the phone book."
"That"s not a bad idea, Ian. Maybe I should check it out. What was that address?"
When she stepped from the house, the warm air enveloped her in an unwelcome embrace. The sky overhead was a relentless blue. Her Toyota"s air-conditioning barely coped with the heat, blowing cool, damp-smelling air on her arms and face while she watched the needle of the heat sensor climb toward red.
Still, the sc.r.a.p yard was just what she needed. She spent three hours rooting through barrels of sc.r.a.p in a hot warehouse. She filled a box with lengths of pipe, sheets of rusted corrugated metal, gears, and unidentifiable machine parts. Her best find was a barrel of hollow bra.s.s forms that were shaped like hands. According to the owner of the sc.r.a.p yard, the forms had once been used in the manufacturing of rubber gloves. Over the years, they had tarnished so that the smooth bra.s.s was mottled with dark brown and black. The tarnish made patterns that looked organic, like the cracks in dry mud or the tracery of veins on the underside of a leaf.
With the box of sc.r.a.p in the trunk of her Toyota, she hurried home. By sunset, she had incorporated four of the bra.s.s hands into the sculpture. She flung open the door that led to the living room and called out to Ian for the first time since she had left the house. "Listen to this!"
She pulled the release, and the first ball began the gentle patter of rain. The other b.a.l.l.s joined it, and the sprinkle grew to a deluge as the b.a.l.l.s clacked against metal plates. They rolled down to where the bra.s.s hands were carefully positioned on a pivoting mechanism. While some of the b.a.l.l.s continued the drumming of the rain, a dozen rushed down a chute to tumble into the hollow hands, clattering through the palms into the fingers. Unbalanced by the impact of the b.a.l.l.s, the hands gracefully upended, rattling their stiff fingertips against a sheet of tin and causing it to wobble. The hands dumped the b.a.l.l.s onto a down-sloping curve of corrugated metal. Free of the weight of the b.a.l.l.s, the hands swiveled back to their upright position, striking the tin again on their return trip. The wobbling of the tin and the rattling of the b.a.l.l.s against the metal ridges blended into a deep-throated growl like thunder.
The b.a.l.l.s missed the catching bucket, hit the floor, and rolled in all directions, but Teresa didn"t chase them. She grinned at Ian. "What do you think?"
Ian smiled back. "I can see the reviews now. "Teresa King"s innovative use of bra.s.s hands is unique in the-" "
"What? Where did you learn that critical bulls.h.i.t?"
"It was easy. "Innovative" and "unique" are two of the most common adjectives in art criticism. Besides, they do seem to fit your sculpture."
"Well, I think you"ve been reading too much art criticism in that library of yours," she said, but she was still grinning as she got back to work.
A few days later, night was washing over the house as Teresa listened to the sculpture"s music. The rainstorm worked fine, and the thunder entered on cue, a close approximation of the sound she wanted. But she wasn"t quite satisfied with the next pa.s.sage, the burst of wild rain that followed the crash of thunder. For most of the afternoon, she had been arranging and rearranging the tracks. She had used corrugated tracks to provide staccato bursts, and dozens of metal plates against which the b.a.l.l.s rattled. It was a tricky business, looping one track over another, carefully setting the slope of each one. She was listening to her latest effort when the telephone rang.
"Ian! Could you answer the phone and take a message? I don"t want to stop right now."
In the middle of the third ring, the phone fell silent, and Teresa continued working. After a few hours of work, the section finally produced the sound she wanted: thousands of tiny rattles and taps that joined to fill the studio with a rush of noise. At that point, she stopped.
As she was checking in the freezer to see what she could thaw for dinner and telling Ian about her success so far, she remembered the phone call. "Who was that on the phone a few hours ago?" she asked.
"A woman named Carla, from San Francisco."
"Carla?" She hadn"t heard from Carla since her last letter, almost two weeks before. "What did she have to say for herself?"
"I recorded the conversation for you. Would you like me to play it back?"
"Sure, why not?"
Ian"s face disappeared from the monitor, and a line appeared down the screen"s middle. Teresa heard the phone ring; Ian"s face appeared to the left of the line, Carla"s to the right.
"h.e.l.lo," Ian said. "Can I help you?"
Carla smiled, and Teresa knew that Ian had piqued her interest. "I hope so." Teresa almost laughed; Carla must have broken up with her latest lover. "Is Teresa in?"
"Yes, but she"s working and asked me not to disturb her. Would you like to leave a message?"
"Just tell her Carla called. No, on second thought, tell her that we"re having a party out at the Headlands to welcome a new batch of artists. I"d love it if she could make it."
"I"ll give her the message. Does she have your telephone number?"
"After all the time I"ve known her, I certainly hope so."
"Then I"ll give her the message. Thanks for calling, Carla."
"Thank you." Carla smiled again. Teresa had seen that smile many times before. It rarely failed. "I don"t suppose you"d like to come out for the party? The more the merrier."
"I don"t think that would be possible."
"Too bad," Carla said. "Well, if you change your mind, Teresa has my number. Bye now." Carla vanished from the screen and Ian"s face filled it once again.
Teresa laughed. "Carla never changes."
"I don"t understand," Ian said.
"She was flirting with you," Teresa said.
"I don"t understand."
"Oh, come on, Ian. She invited you to the party because she thinks you"re cute. She wanted you to smile and flirt back a little."
"How do you flirt?"
"I don"t know. You smile, you tell jokes, you talk about this and that. It"s not so much what you say, it"s what"s going on under the surface that really matters."
"When you and I joke, are we flirting?"
Teresa hesitated for a moment, feeling suddenly uncomfortable. "I guess maybe sometimes we are. Sometimes, I guess I forget that you"re a... that you"re just a..." She couldn"t find the right word.
"An artificial intelligence," Ian said.
"Yeah. I guess I-I think of you as a friend, Ian. Sometimes people flirt with their friends."
"I understand. I"m glad we"re friends."
"Yeah." She studied his face, looking for flaws in the animation. She found none. She had grown used to seeing him as a person, and she could see him no other way. That was what Jeff had wanted. "Look-I"d better give Carla a call."
She dialed Carla and her friend answered on the fourth ring. Carla was wearing an old purple sweatshirt and sitting in a white wicker chair. Before Teresa could say anything, Carla was talking.
"Well, I was wondering when you"d call back. So, who was that guy who answered the phone?"
Teresa considered telling Carla the truth, but she somehow didn"t want to explain Ian. "That"s Ian. He"s a friend of Jeff"s. He"s taking care of stuff around the house while I work on that piece for Santa Fe. The deadline"s coming up, you know."
"A friend of Jeff"s, huh."
"Yeah-and a friend of mine."
Carla shook her head. "Jeff"s a trusting soul."
"What do you mean?"
"Leaving you alone with Ian all day?" Carla shook her head. "He"s the type that"ll steal your heart, all right."
Teresa shook her head. The conversation made her uncomfortable. "Not Ian."
"What, is he gay or something?"
She shook her head again, "No, just"-she considered the word carefully-"unavailable. Besides, I just got back from my honeymoon, and-"
"-and Jeff is working late every night," Carla interrupted. "You sounded pretty miserable in your last letter. No offense, Teresa, but it was grim. And face it-Ian"s just your type. I can recognize "em a mile off. More your type than Jeff is."
"Hey, I"m a married woman now."
"You"re married, but you"re not dead. And Ian"s awfully cute."
Teresa knew that Carla was giving her the chance to complain about Jeff and talk about Ian, but she ignored the bait. She wanted Carla to drop the subject. "Things weren"t going very well on the sculpture when I sent that last letter. It"s going better now."
"Is Jeff home yet?"
"No, he"s still at work. They"re in some crucial phase of the project, and he hasn"t been around much lately."
"And you don"t mind that?"
"Not really." Teresa realized that, for the first time in a while, she wasn"t upset when Jeff stayed late at work. It wasn"t like she was alone all the time.
Carla stared at Teresa in a moment of rare silence. Then she said, "So -are you coming out here for the party?"
"I"d like to, but I don"t know if Jeff can spare the time."
"Come without him then. Fly in for the weekend-you deserve some time off. Come out and stay with me."
"I guess I could use a break."
"Great-I"ll count on it."
"It"ll be good to see you," Teresa said. "So tell me about what"s been happening out there. What are people working on?" Teresa relaxed and listened to Carla talk about the doings of mutual friends. It would be good to get away for a while, she thought. She wasn"t quite sure what she wanted to get away from, but she pushed away the question and focused on Carla.
For most of a day, Teresa made minor adjustments in the sculpture: tightening a metal plate that didn"t sound quite right, changing the slope of a track by a tiny amount. She was killing time and she knew it, but she couldn"t figure out what else to do. The sculpture sounded fine-it echoed the rainstorm, a metallic version of rain on sand. That was the sound she had wanted, but now she found herself vaguely dissatisfied. The more she listened, the less she liked it.
Eventually, she stopped trying to figure out what was bothering her and started working on all the little jobs that she had been avoiding. She added six lifters and a motor to the sculpture"s base, then positioned the foot of each track so that eight b.a.l.l.s ended up at each of the six lifters.
After two days, the new parts were installed and ready to go. She loaded the b.a.l.l.s into the lifters, turned on the motor, and watched as the lifters rose slowly up the side of the sculpture. When they reached the top, the lifters tipped forward and released the b.a.l.l.s into their starting positions, and the sculpture began to play. She sat beside it and listened as the sounds washed over her studio.
That night, Jeff got home from work around nine. She hadn"t seen much of him lately: he had been staying late at work and leaving the house in the morning before she was awake. She told herself that she hadn"t had a chance to mention Carla"s party to him, but she knew that she hadn"t really wanted to. She was sure that he wouldn"t be interested in going. But that evening she couldn"t put it off any longer, and she told him about the invitation. To her surprise, Jeff was willing to take the time off work to go to the party.
They flew into San Francisco Airport on Friday night, rented a car, and drove directly out to the Headlands Art Center. On the plane, she found herself feeling awkward with him. He had been home so little lately that it was like traveling with a stranger. She couldn"t shake the feeling.
The party at the Headlands was just like old times-an a.s.sortment of artists and would-be artists, a cooler filled with beer, California jug wine served in paper cups, chips dumped hastily into bowls from the potter"s studio downstairs, guacamole dip from the burrito place near Carla"s apartment. Just like old times.
She mingled with the crowd, telling friends what she"d been doing, describing the piece she was working on for Santa Fe. As she talked about her work, she grew more and more excited about it, her own interest reawakened by the support of her friends. Ned, a fellow sculptor, listened to her description of the pivoting hands. She hadn"t been entirely happy with the pivoting mechanism. On a napkin, he sketched a few ideas that might solve the problem. She sat in a corner with Brenda, a musician, and talked about the overall shape of the composition.
Eventually, she retreated to the rickety wooden fire escape that Carla had dubbed the smoking porch. From there she could hear the crash of the surf over the party music. Through the window, she could look in to the party. Jeff was sitting in the far corner with a couple of men she knew vaguely. They both worked with synthesizers and computer music. The three men seemed to be having an animated conversation.
"Getting a breath of fresh air?" Carla said from the doorway. "Mind if I keep you company for a while?" She stepped onto the porch and closed the door lightly behind her.
Teresa shrugged. "I may not be very good company, I"m afraid."
"Yeah? What"s going on?"
"It"s just strange coming back. I realized how much I miss having you folks around. I"ve been feeling pretty isolated, I guess."
"You should get in touch with some artists out in Flagstaff. That"s only about an hour away from your place, isn"t it?"
She thought about the gallery opening. "Yeah. I guess that might help."
"Yeah, but that"s not the real problem, is it?" Carla studied Teresa"s face. "Something going on between you and Jeff?"
Teresa shrugged. "It"s more like nothing"s going on. At first, he didn"t have time for me. Now it seems like I don"t have much to say to him."
"Is something going on with this Ian guy?"
"No, nothing"s going on."
Carla studied her. "Look, I recognize all the signals. You may not be sleeping with him, but something"s going on." Carla leaned on the railing, looking toward the beach. "Jeff"s never around, so you"ve been spending time with this cute guy. He"s unavailable-but you hang out together. You talk and you flirt, and now you"ve suddenly realized that you"re infatuated with him, and you don"t know what to do about it." Carla glanced at her. "Oh, don"t bother to deny it. I know how you operate, and you"re feeling guilty." She waited for a moment. "Am I close?"
Teresa leaned on the railing beside Carla. "Maybe. It"s hard to say."
"So, what are you going to do about it?"
"I don"t know."
"What about Jeff?"
"What about Jeff? I don"t know what"s going on with him. He"s all caught up in his work; he doesn"t seem to care anymore."
"Well I"ll bet he doesn"t know what"s going on with you."
Teresa started to deny it, then stopped herself. "Maybe not."
"Count on it. You"re really good at shutting people out when you don"t want to deal with them."
"I am?"