Page 45 of Dirty Diana
When Jasper calls a few hours later, just the sound of his voice through the phone, and the fact I won’t see him tonight, lays me flat with longing.
Justine doesn’t turn up until the early evening. I hear her before I see her. The tinkling of her gold bangles, the sound of her kicking off her shoes before she pads over to examine our work. “Mm-hmm. Good, Diana. Really nice.” Melodie stiffens, waiting, while Hannah takes a break and stretches. Justine looks over Melodie’s sections. She sighs. “Honestly, Melodie, it’s fine but haven’t you been in the same place for quite a while now? Hannah’s just started and look how far along she is.” She gestures to the panel Hannah has been working on, tall stalks of brick-colored yarn flecked with bright yellows. “Diana, come and look, tell me how we can help Melodie’s patches over here. Maybe we mix in another blue?” Hannah blushes and turns away. Melodie’s chin is quivering.
I stand up. This isn’t going to get any easier by waiting, and I don’t want her to accuse me of not giving enough notice. “Justine. Do you have a minute?” I make her a cup of tea without her even asking for it. Then I pour out a handful of almonds into a little dish in front of her.
“Please don’t ask me for another day off,” she says. “Those days you took off for impromptu vacation nearly killed me.”
“No, not another day off…I…well, I’m moving.” The next part comes out sounding rehearsed. “It was a last-minute opportunity and I couldn’t say no.”
“What do you mean?”
“Jasper and I, we’re moving to Taos.”
Justine scans my face, to see if I’m joking. When I don’t smile, she asks, “When?”
“We haven’t set a date, but, well, as soon as we can wrap things up here. We have a place to stay in Taos already.” I figure I can trash most of my stuff. All I need are my clothes and Jasper’s photograph of the running girl and my tape recorder and paints. Everything else is from the Goodwill anyway.
“Leave,” Justine says.
“Now?”
“Now. Go. I can’t have this negative energy around me so close to a show.” She puts her teacup in the sink. “If you’re not committed to the work, then I don’t want you here.”
“But I can help you for a few more weeks. I can make sure we finishThe Mapin time,” I offer.
“Leave.” She waves her arm as if shooing a cat. “I expected more from you, Diana. I never thought you’d get waylaid by a man. Melodie, maybe. But not you.”
My mind races. Not from her confusing relationship advice, I’m used to that. But because I want to say something about the gratitude I really do feel for her. “I’m sorry, Justine. I thought you would understand. You told me to prioritize my own projects…”
“Stop. Stop. I don’t want to hear it.” She turns her back to me, rinsing her cup in the sink, so I go. Hannah looks as confused as I feel as I hand her my set of the studio keys and remind her to feed Henri. Melodie gives me a hug and whispers, “Good luck.”
“Thanks,” I whisper back. I need it. Because the unscrambled part of my brain is beginning to drown in regret.
Chapter 14
—
I cross the parking lot in a daze, trying to calculate how badly I may have just fucked up. But when I shut the car door and close out everything around me, I’m ravenous. I drive to my favorite taco truck and order a burrito with everything they can fit in it. I eat behind the steering wheel, watching a steady stream of customers come and go. By the time I’m halfway through the burrito, it’s like a flip switches—I feel free. The next week stretches out in front of me with no commitments. I drive slowly through downtown, thinking I might stop in one of the galleries, or at the bookstore, but then I see the revival movie house is showingStage Doorand I buy myself an enormous bucket of popcorn and sit in the back. When I get home, I fall onto my bed feeling sick and excited and completely exhausted.
Two days later, I drive Alicia to the airport, speeding all the way so she doesn’t miss her flight.
At the curb, I hug her tight. She’s been my warm place for six years and I don’t want to say goodbye. “Who’s going to make me laugh like you?” I whisper into her hair.
“I guess you should just come.” She squeezes me back.
When we pull away, we’re both crying. I wipe salty tears from her cheeks. “You have to run. You’ll miss your plane.”
She waves away my concern and digs for something in her bottomless purse. A crumpled piece of notebook paper. “Hold on to this.”
I smooth it open and printed in Alicia’s small, careful handwriting is a list of coordinates.
38° 27' 51"N and 90° 51' 25"W
I look up at her grinning face, confused.
“It’sexactlyhalfway,” she announces. “Between Manhattan and Santa Fe. We can meet there, okay?” She kisses me quickly on the cheek. “And get this, the town is calledThe Diamonds.The Diamonds, Missouri.” At the airport’s revolving doors she calls over her shoulder, “Perfect for a couple of sparkling broads like us!” then disappears inside.
I spend the next morning scrounging boxes from two different liquor stores in town. I pack up my dishes, books, and all the bits of ephemera that I’ve collected since moving to Santa Fe. I tape up my paintings, a shoebox full of minicassettes I’ve recorded, and a stack of half-finished sketches.
