Whitney Scharer - The Age of Light

Jean says, “Lee?,” and she realizes he has been talking to her. “We’ll see you tomorrow?” he asks, and Lee nods yes.

The men leave and Lee stands on the stoop for a few moments. Man is inside, or he is not inside. She doesn’t know which would be worse. She opens the door and lets a crack of light into the darkened hallway.

Inside, the air is still and quiet. Lee climbs the stairs to the second floor. First into the parlor, then the office. Man is not there. Her stomach grows nervous, a feeling stronger than her hunger. The studio is dark and shadowed, the camera lurking in the corner like a giant sleeping animal.

Lee considers running home to look for him, but as she walks back toward the darkroom she sees that the amber warning light is lit beside the door.

Triple tap. He doesn’t respond. She goes to knock again and as she does Man pulls the door open. He stands holding a wet contact sheet and at first he doesn’t really look at her. But then his gaze flicks to her face and he notices her appearance. Brushing past her to take the print over to the table, he says, “Instead of coming home you slept at a glue factory?”

It is true: she must look very strange. Lee raises her hands to her hair and feels the cake batter crusted there, looks down at her clothes, smeared with plaster dust.

“I was at—”

He cuts her off. “Why didn’t you tell me where you were going? You could have been anywhere. With another man. How was I supposed to know?”

Her own anger snaps to match his. “Well, I didn’t feel much like talking to you after you ran to Kiki when she slapped me in front of everyone.”

“I had to get her under control. When she gets like that—you have no idea.”

“You’re right: I have no idea. And I don’t want to. I can’t believe you were with a person like her for ten years.”

“By the time she was calm you were gone. Gone! I had no idea where you were.”

Lee throws out her arms in a defiant gesture. As she does it she can smell herself, batter and plaster and the sweat under it from the hours of filming. “Well,” she says, feeling wobbly, out of control, “I didn’t realize I had to tell you where I was every minute of every day as if I were a child.”

“A child. So then I’m your father? I wouldn’t think you’d want to bring your father into this.”

“What are you trying to say?”

Man pauses and seems to consider his words. “You’re being ridiculous. You and I both see the difference between knowing your every move and having you never come home.”

“For all I know you never came home either.”

“That’s because you weren’t at home.”

Lee makes a sound that is half growl and half sigh. “Jean took me to his house and I slept in his guest bedroom.”

“Jean? You and Jean are on first-name terms already?”

Lee’s stomach growls audibly and she crosses her arms over it. “He asked me if I wanted to be in a movie he’s making. He took care of me.”

“Lee, not every man can want you. Let the homosexuals alone.” Man smiles at her as if he is being funny, and his smile fills her with rage.

“I’m going to be in his film,” Lee says. “I won’t be coming to work here. For a week, maybe a little more.”

“You can’t do that.”

“It’s a week! And he’ll pay me.”

“I mean you can’t work for him. Cocteau—he’s such an unctuous little sycophant. His politics are anathema to what I’m doing. Tristan can’t stand him, André can’t stand him—I’m not alone in this…”

Lee wants to push Man and see how far she can make him go. “But that’s exactly the problem: you don’t like him. It’s your art. But I’m not you.”

Man rubs a stiff spot in his neck. “You’re not not me.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” As always happens when she is angry, Lee feels her eyes well with tears. There is a chair near her and she slumps into it, rubs her forehead, and watches plaster flake off onto the floor.

Man lifts up his chin. In a small voice, he says, “Last night—when you didn’t come home—I realized things have changed between us. Those things I said to you about jealousy, when we were talking about Kiki—that’s how I felt when I was with her, but it’s not how I feel with you. I need more from you. I’m no longer—I can’t be happy, can’t be with you unless I have some sort of commitment from you.”

“You need more.” Lee stares up at him.

“You want to know what I did last night? After you left, I put Kiki in a cab and sent her home. I didn’t want to spend another minute with her—all I could think about was you. Do you know what you’re doing to me? I’m not like this. I’m not this sort of person. And I went home and I sat in the kitchen and I waited for you and I waited and waited and you never showed up. And I imagined terrible things—” Here his voice breaks, and she can see him cross his arms tighter to keep from trembling. “I imagined you hurt, or with someone else, and I couldn’t stand it. I truly could not stand the idea of you with someone else.”

“I wasn’t with someone else, I told you—”

He stops her. “It doesn’t matter. I just can’t ever have you be with someone else. I need you to agree to that… or…”

Lee stands up and crosses her arms, suddenly cold. “Or what? I don’t really know what you mean.” She turns away from him. “I need a drink.”

She walks through the office and into the parlor and goes over to the bar cart and pours a glass of Scotch. Man follows her and she hands him the glass and pours herself another. She holds her glass tight and rubs her fingers over the etched design on its surface. When Man speaks again his voice is much steadier.

“Commit to me and you can work on this film,” he says. “That’s what I want. That’s the way it has to be.”

“But I don’t even know what you mean: commit to you.”

“Promise me I will be the only person for you.”

“Forever?”

“Yes.”

Lee doesn’t know what to say. The Scotch isn’t warming her up the way it usually does, so she takes a bigger sip. This is not at all how she thought this conversation would go. It is Lee who is supposed to be angry—Lee, the one who was left to fend for herself last night. She sees again Man’s arms wrapped around Kiki, his mouth near her ear as he whispers things to soothe her.

“All those people saw you go to Kiki and not to me. How could you do that to me in front of them?”

Man pushes his fingers into his hair. “I just had to get her under control. I had no idea what she was going to do next. She could do anything, truly.”

“You make her sound like some kind of wild animal. Who were you scared for: you or her or me?”

“I don’t know. I wasn’t thinking it through. And then by the time I looked up you were gone.”

“I couldn’t be there. I hate that woman.” Lee’s voice sounds childlike when she says it and she feels a few new tears streak down her cheeks. She wipes them away and then actually laughs. “I do. I hate her.”

Man sets down his drink and moves closer to her. He clears his throat. “Lee… what I’m trying to say is this is not just love for me. The things I feel for you—it’s something more, something stronger. It’s making me—changing me back into someone I used to be, that I had forgotten how to be. Last night in our bed—it was so big and empty. I kept moving over to your side and hoping I’d feel you there. And this morning—I barely slept; I’m not all here today, I’m sure you can tell—I walked the long way to work so I could see the Seine and the whole time I was walking I imagined you next to me. I’m not explaining it very well. I wasn’t imagining it. I saw you next to me. I couldn’t not see you, everywhere I looked.”

He reaches out and takes the glass out of her hand and sets it down on a side table, then takes her hands in his. They feel hot. She knows he is waiting for her to say something but she is not sure what it is. He’s never spoken this way before. They’ve discussed marriage, but only their mutual dislike of it. They agreed it’s not for them. But this—this is something different. Man’s voice is ragged; he holds her hands uncomfortably tight, as if he can squeeze her into understanding what he is saying.

Before Lee can speak, he continues. “I want to give you everything. Me. Not some other man. And I have given you so much—I’ve made you so good. You’re so talented now. And every time you show me your work and it’s better than the work you’ve done before, I feel more justified in loving you, in these feelings I have that I can’t even make sense of.”

She stares at his fingers wrapped around hers, the short dark hairs between the knuckles. He is so serious, but the words don’t mean much to her. Commit—to say yes, to agree. And if it will gain her a permanent place here at his side, in this studio, then isn’t that what she wants? So she nods, and she says it. “All right, yes. You know I love you.”

He squeezes her hands harder and she feels her bones pressing against one another. “I want you to love me forever.”

“Forever,” she says, nodding, and then because she doesn’t want to say anything more, she pulls her hands free and wraps her arms around him and lets him hold her and rock her back and forth. They stay like that for a while. Finally she pulls away. Man squares his shoulders and looks as if he is trying to regain control of himself.

“I should get to work,” she says, and starts walking toward the darkroom. She turns to see if he is going to follow her. Instead, he picks up one of the birds’ nests on the mantel, cupping it in one hand.