The Third Grace (29 page)

Lou went back to working the crowd until the band wound down and she took the mike to direct everyone to their seats. Food service began and white-gloved wait staff poured wine—though Aglaia declined, placing her hand over the mouth of the glass. A scattered young woman joined her and Lou at the head table wearing a strapless sundress made of cheap stretch polyester.

“Dr. Chapman! Sorry I'm so late, but I couldn't find a parking spot.”

“And the dog ate your homework, I suppose,” Lou said in a voice she also used on Aglaia sometimes. “Whitney, meet Aglaia.”

“Are you one of her students, too?” she asked Aglaia, but she didn't pause for an answer before leaning forward to talk around her to Lou. “I'm so excited to be at the head table with you, Dr. Chapman. It's cool that you think I'm, like, worthy. Do I look okay?”

“Why not drape yourself in my pashmina? That's better,” Lou said as she reached across Aglaia and hid some of Whitney's overly exposed cleavage. Then, handing her a napkin, she added, “And maybe blot down some of that lipstick?”

Lou's insolent re-dressing of the newly arrived dinner guest annoyed Aglaia, stuck between them as she was. In addition to that, she thought she was to be Lou's sole companion this evening.

Apparently Whitney didn't get that the point of dialogue was for two people to take turns speaking to each other, because she didn't pause in her exuberant rambling aimed exclusively at Aglaia now that Lou was taking the microphone.

“Isn't this cool? I mean, all the glitz and everything? Somebody said Brad Pitt was supposed to be here, but I can't see him. When are you graduating? I'm out next spring with a double major, sociology and creative writing. In fact, I'm researching a special paper for Dr. Chapman right now. She's, like,
amazing
!”

Her prattle was slowed only by Lou's opening words of welcome to various representatives from the city council, the university, and two arts funding bodies, as well as members of the L.A. film studio and local affiliates, RoundUp's development team, and potential investors. She introduced the head table but Aglaia, alluded to as a “sensational emerging artist,” didn't see how she fit in. Even Whitney had a better excuse; Lou said she represented her absent grandfather, the chancellor of PRU. Aglaia spotted Dayna Yates at a back table and nodded at her friendly wave, relieved to see someone familiar in the crowd.

The appetizer was served:
fois gras terrine
with wild cherry preserves, cashew butter, and toasted crostinis
.
The band provided background music, but Whitney kept up her chatter throughout the dinner, hacking big chunks off the rare beef served with a port-wine-and-chocolate reduction, and stuffing asparagus into her mouth without, Aglaia was sure, even appreciating the flavor of the Hollandaise. Aglaia was picking at her cream-filled
éclair
when Lou stood in front of the mike again, putting a merciful end to Whitney's babbling.

Lou made a joke about academics—“We all know God never received tenure at any university because He had only one major publication”—and another about actors. Both were received with genteel laughter, so she went on to flatter the crowd and punctuate her speech with several other discriminatory pokes. It wasn't dignified, Aglaia thought.

The body of Lou's talk focused on the role Denver had played in RoundUp's original filming of
The Life and Times of Buffalo Bill
and described the studio's production-in-progress,
Buffalo Bill's Birthday.
She gave a short biography of main character William F. Cody—Pony Express rider, buffalo hunter, and army scout who first came to Colorado for the gold rush and who now lay buried on Lookout Mountain with a fine view of the Rockies and the Great Plains, making Denver an ideal filming location. Expressing regrets for boring any aficionados, she briefly explained the process of generating a movie and said that the script for the prequel was already drafted, the production office had been established in the city, and the cast, crew, and trades were being “rounded up.” The location manager, she reminded her audience, was present at the dinner and was scouting the lay of the land for outdoor and out-of-studio sequences—hadn't one scene in the first movie been filmed in the very parlor they were occupying now?—and Lou suggested that perhaps he'd consider a few shots on the campus of PRU. Whitney preened at this, as though she were devising a walk-on role for herself.

At the close of her talk, Lou begged pardon that her final announcement might be of little interest to the filming company—here she glanced over at Jerry and his team as if they'd dispute her statement—but it was of special interest to the educators gathered tonight. Aglaia noticed Lou picking up the royal blue cloth folder before she asked Dr. Oliver Upton to join her at the rostrum.

“This evening, on behalf of Platte River University,” Lou said, “we'd like to bestow a special tribute upon a female member of our community who has already made a significant impact on the artistic and sociological climate of our city. We anticipate more of the same.”

Lou glanced to her left and Whitney giggled. “Does she mean
me
? I won a poetry contest last week.” Aglaia almost shushed the student, but held her tongue. She felt a quaking uneasiness as Oliver took a turn at the mike.

“As head of the theater department and familiar with Denver's wider performing arts scene, I concur with my esteemed sociology colleague's choice of candidates.” Aglaia saw his lowered lashes flicker towards her. “I was able to speed up the nomination process, persuading the committee to grant exemption from the statutory requirements, and learned only today of the university's formal approval to present this award, the honorary Master of Fine Arts degree.”

Aglaia's skin tingled.

“Our successful nominee,” Lou said, “has had her work displayed in theater and film and even in a museum in Paris, France! You may have seen one of her costumes on our own mayor's wife at the last New Year's Eve masquerade ball. And so”—Lou motioned towards Aglaia to arise—“for her outstanding contribution to costuming on the national and international stage, please salute Aglaia Klassen as the latest PRU graduate!” The crowd applauded and a camera flash blinded Aglaia as she stood up in confusion.

Oliver now asked into the mike, “Sorry for the short notice, Aglaia, but perhaps you have a few words to say?” Since she was already on her feet, Aglaia had no choice but to step over to the podium where Lou beckoned her with the certificate of her honorary MFA degree.

Aglaia Klassen, a fine arts graduate? She stared down in disbelief at the diploma folder open in her hands and tried to think fast about what to say to the expectant audience, all waiting for a word.

Just then a commotion interrupted her. The eyes of everyone turned to the door, where an official was attempting to deny access to some agitated newcomers. An ashen-faced man wearing a tattered plaid jacket was leaning on the arm of an elderly woman, who fairly shouted in her guttural accent tinged with panic, “We need to talk to Mary Grace for a minute, that's all!”

Appalled silence filled the room and Aglaia's wanted to slither beneath the platform. But now all of them—including Henry and Tina Klassen—were staring at her, waiting for her to speak.

The tension was broken instead by Lou's facile tongue. “I know you Hollywood film types stick together, but I didn't expect you'd bring the Beverly Hillbillies!” The room erupted in relieved laughter. Lou winked at Aglaia and tilted her head towards her chair. She hissed with her lips hardly moving, “If you have nothing to say, at least sit back down!” But that would mean letting her parents suffer the humiliation alone, and Aglaia's indecision froze her to the spot like a tongue-tied preacher in a pulpit. The moment was drawn out, the laughter died down, and Lou was beginning to scowl at her standing there.

The lull became sepulchral.

Then Aglaia set down the diploma she held in her hands, stepped away from her place of honor at the podium, and descended to the floor, walking all the way across the Sage Room as Lou mumbled back into speech to cover Aglaia's social blunder.

Aglaia lifted her dad's bulk off the slight frame of her mom and linked arms with them both. Dayna Yates, sitting by the exit, arose and opened the door for the family, following them out to the lobby.

T
hat idiotic girl! Lou was furious as she scrambled to redeem the desperate situation Aglaia placed her in by walking out, even leaving behind her diploma. What would the studio representatives think of the goings-on? Aglaia's inexplicable indiscretion towards the homeless couple—or had that been her mother, Tina, whom she'd met in Aglaia's apartment?—surely snuffed out any chances Lou still had at tenure, judging by the scornful glare Dayna Yates leveled at her upon exiting. That was twice in two days Yates literally and physically turned her back to chase after Aglaia.

Lou told the audience another canned joke she had on hand for awkward moments, and invited them to continue mingling at the close of the evening. But she could see that Oliver was apoplectic despite his polite words of farewell at the microphone.

Lou would suffer his vituperation as soon as they were alone, and she wished she'd never arranged for him to consider Aglaia for the position of theater wardrobe consultant in the first place. She'd perceived Aglaia's lack of malleability in Paris, but Lou's earlier boasting of the girl's stellar reputation had already convinced Oliver of her worth, and he just had to have her. His resulting praise for Lou's commendable introduction of Aglaia into the university arts world would bring shame on his head now—and, consequently, on Lou's. If he did hire Aglaia, Lou would get no credit. She prayed that any damage from the girl's gauche deportment could somehow be alleviated or Lou might find herself without a job at all.

She caught Whitney's arm as the student was leaving in her hideous outfit. She just didn't shine up like Aglaia, but one took what one got, Lou supposed.

“Oh, Dr. Chapman, that was a fabulous evening! You're so good at public speaking.” The girl was a moron, but Lou pasted a smile on her face.

“Don't rush off,” she said. “Maybe after our guests leave you'd like to have a drink with me in the lounge?”

Whitney was the chancellor's granddaughter, after all.

Aglaia turned into the parking lot of her apartment block. “No, Mom, it was good that you came to find me at the hotel,” Aglaia said, meaning it. “But I can't believe the hospital let you check yourself out like that, Dad. You're not strong. Why didn't you at least call me instead of taking a cab?” It was a rhetorical question; her cell was shut off during the banquet anyway.

Aglaia's choice tonight to stand beside her parents in their neediness had been a defining moment for her. She appreciated Dayna's support—her friend had waited with Henry and Tina in the lobby while Aglaia fetched her car—but the mechanics of getting her parents back to the apartment and even the bolstering Dayna offered were only secondary in importance to the internal change that took place when she saw sick old Dad leaning on frail little Mom in the presence of all those eminent movers and shakers.

Something broke in her then, she thought—or maybe mended in her.

The thrill of holding the MFA diploma in her hands lasted about as long as the heartbeat it took for her to recognize that she hadn't earned it. It was worth only the paper it was printed on. Someday she'd get a professional degree the honorable way and complete her schooling, knowing now that it didn't complete her.

The drive home to Aglaia's apartment had been quick, Tina talking all the way to her place about how
nietlijch
Aglaia was dressed and how
sheen
the hotel was. Henry tried to coerce her into driving him back to the farm right away, but she put her foot down and called Byron, and they arranged to meet halfway in the morning. Dad was in no shape to travel farther tonight.

Aglaia made up the couch for herself. After her parents were quiet in the bedroom, sleep still eluded her. She got up and heated some milk, wincing when the microwave timer went off. As she feared, it awakened Tina, who padded out to the kitchen with her hair straggling around her shoulders.

“Making cocoa? I'll have
en B
ätje
too.”

The coziness of sipping hot chocolate at bedtime with her mom reminded Aglaia of all she'd left behind. How could she even begin to tell the truth to her mother, who'd suffered so much in this life because of her children? How could Aglaia start to explain the sorrow in her own life—the loss of face tonight, the bereavement over a brother in childhood and over François just days ago, even her own repeated rejections of Naomi's friendship? But she had to start somewhere.

She followed her mom back into the bedroom and sat down on the mattress so that her father opened his eyes.

“Dad, I'm sorry.” Her tears started up again. “I've been so angry at you for so long. At you and at Joel.”

He nodded as if he knew what she was talking about.

“It was my fault,” he said, pushing up into a sitting position. “I should have taught him better to always leave the tractor in park and not in gear when he boosted the battery. I should have made sure he knew not to stand where the tractor could run over him.”

“But if Joel had gotten more sleep, if he hadn't had to, you know, drive so late in the night on my account…”

Tina looked befuddled. “Joel was driving late the night before he died?”

Mom never did get it about François, Aglaia thought, and it was just as well. But Dad understood, and he drew her into his wonderful fatherly arms and he hugged her and rocked her. “We have a lot to catch up on, Mary Grace.”

When her parents were settled again and the mugs were rinsed, Aglaia made another decision. Despite her implicit agreement at the gala tonight that she'd submit her
resumé
and set up an interview, she changed her mind. She booted up her computer and typed in the e-mail address from Oliver Upton's business card, followed by a terse message:

Oliver, thank you for your tribute tonight. However, I hereupon withdraw my name from consideration for the position of theater wardrobe consultant in your department. My loyalty lies with my current boss and my real calling.

On a Saturday afternoon several weeks later, Aglaia stood in front of the farmhouse stove, transferring a batch of
Rollküake
from the pot of hot fat to an antique platter. Kneading up a bowlful of the rich dough from Great-Grandma's recipe all the way from southern Russia had been Aglaia's idea, the craving strong. Tina stood beside her dusting the crullers with powdered sugar, and Henry sat at the table munching celery.

“You have chokecherry syrup, right?” she asked Mom, since the usual accompaniment of watermelon was out of season.

“
Na jo
,” Tina affirmed, taking a jar out of the fridge. “I always have
Soppsel
for dipping, dear
.
” She spooned a taste into her daughter's open mouth.

Today marked Aglaia's third visit from the city since the night of the university dinner. This morning she'd helped Dad inspect the combine parked in the shop for the winter, Henry instructing her on loose bearings and cracks in the belts.

He asked her now, “So when are you going to tell us about this movie you're making costumes for?” Aglaia almost dropped her ladle.

“How did you know about that?” She herself had just learned last week about RoundUp's awarding the contract to Incognito, and she hadn't told her parents about it yet, sensitive to their bias against the cinema. “And since when have you been interested in movies or in costumes?”

He grinned at her. “I've been reading the weekend arts section of the
Denver Post
for years, watching for your name.”

He hadn't been the only one congratulating her. Dayna telephoned the day after Incognito's win was publicized and mentioned by-the-by that she was holding Aglaia's diploma at her university office, rescued from Lou's maniacal plan to have it rescinded. Aglaia picked it up, more to see her new friend than for the item itself, and stored the royal blue folder on the top shelf of her bedroom closet along with other deferred memories.

Lou's office had been cleared out by then, Aglaia saw when she passed its door, and the buzz around campus was that she'd been let go a day or two after she found out her aged mother died in New York. Dayna didn't offer particulars about her associate's dismissal other than mentioning how, out of revenge, Lou took a young arts student with her to the funeral and that her grandfather, Chancellor Wadsworth, was fuming over the impropriety.

Of course, Aglaia had heard directly from Lou herself sometime after the formal affair but before Incognito's status as bid winner became public. Lou had called her at work.

“Oliver just let me know he's found a new wardrobe consultant,” Lou said, her voice full of wrath. “What about our agreement?”

“I guess you could say I rejected the terms.”

“Oh my God, what were you thinking?” Lou demanded.

Oh my, what was I thinking, God?
she asked silently.
Where has my head been all this time?
She said aloud to Lou, “It's not a good time for me to talk right now.” Or ever, she thought.

“So that's your
modus operandi
. You suck up to a prominent person to bask in her glory and then run when the heat's turned up.” Lou's voice rasped. “Well, you've missed your chance, Aglaia. If I can help it, there won't ever be employment for you at the university—or for Incognito as a subcontractor, either—once PRU wins the tender for
Buffalo Bill's Birthday
.”

The threat didn't faze Aglaia and she answered as graciously as she could, “I don't believe the boss will mind. He's received encouraging news on that front.”

Before Lou slammed the receiver in Aglaia's ear, she shouted, “You've burned your bridges behind you, girl. That was your first big mistake!”

No, Aglaia thought now in her parent's kitchen, her first big mistake had been entering her name incorrectly at the vital statistics office all those years ago.

The Enns family arrived en masse, stamping the first snow of the season off their boots and crowding into the kitchen. Henry and Tina didn't have enough chairs, but kids doubled up on adult laps and the older boys—typical teens—hoisted themselves onto the countertop, one of them holding a very fat Zephyr who now made his home on the farm.

Aglaia still couldn't get over how much Silas looked like his shirt-tail relative, Joel, and how closely Sebastian resembled his birth father, François.

Aglaia was able to think about François without a visceral reaction, now that she understood she'd only been in love by proxy anyway. She'd used François Vivier as much as he'd used her, with a second-hand love having the wrong object in view, and ended up twisting her view of herself.

Across the room, Naomi beamed at Aglaia as she bounced her baby on her knee. Their first conversation after discussing François's true identity had been difficult for Aglaia as she asked forgiveness from someone who, she felt, had wronged her in the first place. Aglaia called her own wrongdoing “naïveté,” but Naomi wouldn't let her get away with that. “Nobody's innocent,” Naomi had said, and the truth cut deep.

Aglaia turned off the stove element and took her place at the table. Tina's kitchen was a vortex of all that Aglaia had once known and knew at this moment and would know in the future. Her brittle loneliness was being assuaged.

And as if her pleasure was to be without limits, she heard her cell phone ring. It was Eb.

“Sounds as though you're in the middle of a party, lass,” he said. “Here's something else to celebrate—put me on speakerphone.” He announced that, as reward for the U.S. branch's performance of late, Incognito headquarters had promoted Aglaia to managerial status as the new creative director, coordinating and executing all Denver projects and having artistic veto over anything leaving the workshop. “They've taken my advice to streamline,” Eb said. “I'll stay beside you as a part-time consultant until my full retirement. And in the meanwhile, I'm taking Iona to Hawaii for Christmas.”