The Burnt Orange Heresy

"But what's the point?' You've got your school year contract, and you have to go back to work, don't you?' Besides, I'm going to be busy. I won't have any time for you at all. First, there's the Debierue article to write, and the deadline is tighter than hell now. I'll have to find a place to crash. The man in my pad has still got another month on the sublease, you see. I'm almost broke, and I'll have to borrow some money, and-"

"Money isn't a problem, James. I've got almost five hundred dollars in traveler's checks, and more than five thousand in savings in the credit union. I'm going to New York with you.

"Okay," I said bitterly, "but you'll have to help me drive."

"Watch out!" she shrilled. "That car's only got one headlight!"

"I don't mean that way. I mean to spell me at the wheel on the way up, so we can make better time."

"I know what you meant, but you might have thought it was a motorcycle. We can trade off every two hours."

"No. When I get tired, we'll trade."

"All right. How're you going to get your twenty dollars back?"

"What twenty dollars?"

"The deposit at the electric company. If we leave tonight, you won't be able to have them cut off the electricity or get your deposit back."

"Jesus, I don't know. I can let the landlady handle it and send me the money later. They'll subtract what I owe anyway. Please, Berenice, I'm trying to think. I've got so much on my mind I don't want to hear any more domestic crap, and those damned non sequiturs of yours drive me up the goddamned tree."

"I'm sorry."

"So am I. We're both sorry, but just be quiet."

"I will. I won't say anything else."

"Nothing else! Please!"

Berenice gulped, closed her generous mouth, and puckered her lips into a prim pout. She looked straight ahead through the windshield and twisted her gloves, which she had removed, in her lap. I had shouted at her, but in my agitation, somehow, had consented to take her with me to New York. This was the last thing I wanted to do. It would take two days, perhaps three, to write the article on Debierue-and I had to do something about the painting for Mr. Cassidy. It wasn't a task I could have done for me, although I knew a dozen painters in New York who could have produced anything on canvas I asked them to put there, and the product would have been a professional job.

But no one could be trusted. It was something I had to do myself, to fit Debierue's "American Period"-at that moment I coined the title for my article: "Debierue: The American Harvest Period." It was a major improvement over my previous title, and "American Harvest"-the idea must have come to me from the worktable in his studio- would provide me with a springboard for generating associative ideas.

But there was still Berenice, and the problem of what to do with her-but wasn't it better to have her with me than to simply turn her loose where she could learn about the fire by reading about it in a newspaper, or by hearing a newscast?' How soon would the report go out?' Would Debierue telephone Mr. Cassidy and tell him about it?' That depended upon the extent of the fire, probably, but Cassidy would be the only person Debierue knew to contact, and I could certainly trust Cassidy to make the correct decision. He might inform the news media, and again he might not. Before doing anything, he would want to know whether I got a picture for him before the fire started. And although Cassidy might suspect me of setting the fire, he wouldn't know for sure, and he wouldn't give a damn about the other "paintings" destroyed in the fire so long as he got his.

I still had about three hours, or perhaps closer to four, to contact Cassidy before Debierue learned about the fire and managed to telephone him.

And Berenice?' It would be best to keep her with me. At least for now. Once we reached New York, I could settle her in a hotel for a few days until I finished doing the things I had to do, and then we could work out a compromise of some kind. The best compromise, and I could work out the details later, would be for her to return to Duluth and teach until the summer vacation. In this way, "we could reflect upon how we really felt about each other-at a sane distance, without passion interfering-and, if we both felt as if we still loved each other, in truth, and our affair was not just a physical thing, well, we could then work out some kind of life arrangement together when we met in New York-or somewhere-during her two-month summer vacation."

This was an idea I could sell, I decided, but until I had time for it, she could stay with me for the ride. It would take hours of argument to get rid of her now, and I simply couldn't spare the time on polemics when I had to concentrate every faculty I possessed on Debierue, his "American Harvest" period, his painting, and what I was going to write.

I took the Lake Worth bridge to pick up A1A, to enter Palm Beach from the southern end of the island, and Berenice shifted suddenly in her seat.