“I’ve heard so much about you,” she said, hugging me tightly. “A Ziegfeld girl in the flesh, and a beauty at that! Come on, you two. Archie, I’ve been so eager to show you the new work.”
Dressed to the nines in a beads-and-lace dress, she pulled us through the crowd to a room to the left of the action. We walked through dancing and music and laughter, and I wondered if everyone was high from the strong fumes of oil paint and turpentine that filled the space.
Art of all kinds was everywhere—half-finished on easels, on the walls, stacked on the floor. But in the smaller room the paintings were dark and somber—gritty scenes of poverty and desperation in streets and speakeasies that I recognized.
“Hey, I’ve walked by that place!” I said, pointing to a dingy bar scene with barkeeps tending to patrons. “McSorley’s. I heard the beer is terrible. Basically water.”
“Ladies don’t drink beer,” Gertrude chided me. “And they wouldn’t let a lady in even if you paid them.”
“Speaking of,” Archie said, “I’ll be right back with refreshments,and it certainly won’t be beer for you two,” and he went off to find us some juice.
“It’s a John Sloan piece,” Gertrude went on. “Really captures the ambience, doesn’t he? And I love his figures. I know what’s going on in that barkeep’s head by the slump in his shoulders.”
It was a bit moody for my taste. I didn’t know much about art, but I preferred things a little more vibrant.
“Is that a portrait of you?” I asked, pointing across the room to a huge painting of a woman lounging in a green-and-blue pant ensemble on a purple-draped velvet sofa. “It’s fabulous.”
“Isn’t it just! It’s a Robert Henri. My husband won’t let me hang it at home because he doesn’t want his friends to see his wife ‘in pants’!” she said with a mock gasp. We both laughed. “Really! It’s absurd. So I hung it here, in my haven.”
Archie and I had a grand time mingling with all of Gertrude’s guests. Archie was fascinated by her artist friends, some of them intent on showing the truth, as they called it: real life, people working, hardship instead of the “elite idealism” that they said other artists portrayed.
On our way back uptown at God knew what hour, I snuggled into Archie in the back seat of the car. I loved that he wanted to show me every corner of his varied world. It was one of substance: artists, creators, people not afraid to speak their minds. I couldn’t believe I’d gotten so lucky to be with a man who was able to talk to me about the arts and didn’t care if we were kicking the sawdust-covered floors at a downtown speakeasy or climbing into bed at the Plaza.
We made love that night on the soft white sheets, the smell offresh winter air in his hair and the taste of gin on his lips. And when I was just about to drift off to sleep, he pulled me into him.
“I have an idea,” he said, brushing the hair off my face, my eyes half-closed. “What if we move back to Cincinnati after we get married?”
I didn’t bother opening my eyes, just half chuckled and pulled the sheets around me. “You’re hilarious,” I whispered.
“I’m serious. You saw all that beautiful art tonight, wait until I show you my collection. It’s all in storage at my mother’s house.”
I pushed myself up on one elbow and stared at him. Surely he was joking.
“This Plaza arrangement is temporary,” he said. “Once we’re married you won’t need your apartment and I won’t need this. We’ll need a proper place to call home. I’d like to have my art on display, especially since you are so creative yourself. It thrills me that we can enjoy it together.”
“Bring it to Manhattan,” I said.
“There aren’t enough walls in New York City.”
“Don’t be absurd,” I said.
“And besides, the city is no place to raise a family—”
“Archie,” I quickly cut him off before he had a chance to finish that sentence, “we can live our lives any way we want. That’s what I love about us, we’re not your average couple, we’re unconventional. We dance with the dancers and drink with the drinkers, remember?”
“That was Frank who said that, not me.”
“Who cares? We march to the beat of our own drum, we don’t have to follow those guidelines about marriage, and all that peoplethink it entails. As long as we’re happy and in love, we can make any arrangement work.”
I kissed him, hoping it would seal my words, persuade him to believe me.
“I don’t know, Olive,” he said, sighing and lying back on his pillow. “I—”
“I’m tired,” I said, suddenly feeling wide-awake. “Let’s just talk about this in the morning.” I turned onto my side and hoped to God that we’d never talk about this again.
One thing was clear: something in Archie had changed. When we’d met he’d said he didn’t want to become a father, I was sure of it, not after what he’d been through with his first wife. I’d specifically taken hold of this information, storing it away, while recalling all too well what the doctor had told me, that my uterus had ruptured, that I couldn’t bear more children. But now small tears were starting to appear in what I thought had been an impenetrable bond, an ideal courtship, two people who thought the love they had for each other was all that mattered, the only thing they needed. Maybe I had been wrong.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
