The Pilot's Wife_ A Novel - Anita Shreve [7]
THE GLARE OF THE SUN, REFLECTED FROM THE occasional passing car, moves along the back wall of the shop like a slow strobe. The shop seems airless today, suffocating in the heat, the air thick with dust motes floating in the shafts of light. She stands with a rag in her hand inside a maze of mahogany and walnut tables, of lamps and old linens, of books that smell of mildew. She glances up at him as he walks in. She has a brief impression of someone official on an errand, of someone lost and looking for directions. He has on a white shirt with short sleeves that stick out from his shoulders like thin white flags. Heavy navy blue trousers. He wears old man’s shoes, black shoes that are weighty and enormous.
— We’re closed, she says.
He looks quickly behind him and sees the OPEN sign on the inside of the door. He scratches the back of his neck.
— Sorry, he says, and turns to leave.
She has always marveled at the speed with which the mind makes judgments — a second, two seconds at the most, even before anyone has moved or said a word. Early thirties, she guesses. Not stocky, exactly, but large. He has broad shoulders, and she thinks at once that there is nothing anemic about him. She is struck initially by his jawline, which is rectangular and smooth, and by his somewhat comical ears, which stick out at their tops. She thinks there might be something wrong with his eyes.
— I’m taking inventory, but if there’s something that you’re looking for, that’s fine, she says.
He moves into a tube of sunlight that comes from a round window over the door. She can see his face clearly.
There are tiny wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, and he doesn’t have perfect teeth. His hair is cut short, a military cut, dark, almost black, and would be curly if it had any length. There is a dent in his hair, as if he had a cap on earlier.
He puts his hands into his trouser pockets. He asks her if she has any old checkerboards.
— Yes, she says.
She begins to walk through the maze to a far wall, apologizing for the mess as she goes. She is aware of him behind her, aware of her gait and posture, which suddenly seem unnatural, too stiff. She has on jeans, a red tank top, and a pair of old leather sandals. Her hair is loose and sticky on the back of her neck. She feels as though the heat and the humidity, combined with the dust she has been kicking up, have created a kind of dirty film all over her. In the mosaic of her reflection in an antique mirror on the wall, she catches a glimpse of soggy tendrils of hair on either side of her face, which is shiny with perspiration. Her bra strap is showing, a white flash under the red, and there is a blue stain on the tank top from something that bled in the wash.
The board is lying against the wall with several old paintings. The man moves in front of her and crouches to get a better look. She can see the strength of him in his thighs, the length of his back in the crouch, the place where the belt dips in the back with the strain. She notices the white epaulets on his shoulders.
—What’s this? he asks, his eye caught by a painting beside the checkerboard. It is a landscape, an impressionistic rendering of a hotel out at the Isles of Shoals. The hotel is old, nineteenth century, with deep porches and a long smooth lawn in the middle of a rocky seascape.
He stands and shows her the painting, which she has never paid much attention to before.
—This is pretty good, he says. —Who’s the artist?
She tilts her head and reads from the back of the painting:
— Claude Legny, she says. — Eighteen ninety. It says here that it came from an estate sale in Portsmouth.
— It’s like a Childe Hassam, he says.
She doesn’t respond. She doesn’t know who Childe Hassam is. He traces the wooden frame with his fingers, and it seems to her as though someone were trailing his fingers up and down her spine.
— How much is it? he asks.
— I’ll look it up, she says.
They walk together to the register. The price, when she finds it, seems staggeringly high. She feels embarrassed to name such a