Page 17 of The Art of Vanishing

Jean

Claire didn’t actually have any idea where she was going, despite the confidence with which she led me out to the edge of the garden.

She did a small curtsy in the direction of Aurora, who responded with a pleased bow of her head.

When we’d made it to the back of our property, she turned to me and said, “Okay, where to?”

I had enjoyed her leading and prompted, “You tell me—you’ve seen all the paintings in this museum. Where do you want to go?”

She thought about it for a moment, our world unfolding before her like a map. She looked absolutely giddy. “I’ve never been to a horse race before.”

“Say no more,” I commanded as I led the way into William James Glackens’s Race Track .

The sky was bright blue, a striking contrast to the inky black night we could see through the museum’s exterior windows.

It was peppered with fluffy white clouds, the colorful flags sitting still in the absence of a breeze.

I fanned myself a few quick times, loosening the knot of my tie.

The sound of the crowd was deafening compared to the near silence of my sitting room.

The usual spectators had stuck around for the evening’s entertainment and were joined by subjects from paintings all across the museum.

I craned my neck to take in the throng filling every row of the stands. It was packed.

Our timing was perfect; a race was just about to begin.

We waited as the horses and their jockeys crossed the path in front of us, strolling onto the track to find their starting positions.

The gate swung closed behind the last competitors, and we took our places along the fence.

The two men next to us gave Claire an intrigued look, but whether that was because of her janitorial uniform and unpainted skin or because she was so excited she was practically vibrating in place next to me was unclear.

“First time?” one of them asked, his Brooklyn accent strong. Claire nodded enthusiastically. “Which one did you put your bets on?”

“Oh, I don’t have a bet! We’re just here to watch,” Claire responded.

“You’ve gotta have a bet! That’s half the fun. Hell…” He turned to his companion for confirmation.

“It’s more than half the fun,” his companion agreed. “Here, you can have one of mine. I bet with my heart, not with my head, so no promises that he gets the job done, but at least he’ll get you hooked.” He passed his ticket along to Claire.

“Thank you,” she said. “So—” She was interrupted in the middle of her sentence as a gunshot went off at the other end of the track and the horses burst forward from the starting gate.

The cacophony of the crowd swelled into a full roar as people leapt from their seats to cheer for their sure-to-win steed.

Claire’s enthusiasm could be held back no longer; a whoop ripped from her chest, echoing across the field, and the two men next to her gleefully joined in.

I could see it on their faces: they were proud of the fellow fan they’d adopted, and all three of them egged one another on.

Above the noise of the crowd, Claire yelled to the man who had given her the ticket, “Which one is ours?”

He hollered back, “That brown one right there, with the jockey in the yellow, in the middle of the pack.”

“At least they’re not at the back,” Claire cried. “What’s his name?”

“Great Sport, like you!” he replied as they genially bumped elbows.

“GREAT SPORT! GET GOING!” Claire’s sense of shyness crumpled with each passing moment. This particular world was no more mine than it was hers; I spent no time over here. As she hurled herself into this time and place, we were making something that was ours together.

Claire squeezed my hand so hard I thought it might break. Much to all our surprise, Great Sport had pulled to the front of the pack right as they approached the finish line.

“Holy hell,” the bet placer said. “He might actually do it.”

“HELL YEAH, HE’S GOING TO DO IT!” Claire cried with such certainty, I actually believed her.

Sure enough, with seconds to spare, Great Sport reached out his neck and extended his nose over the finish line, just before the horse to his right.

A synchronized gasp escaped the crowd, and the masses were stunned into silence.

Claire could be heard across the entire racetrack, shouting, “Yes! Yes! YES!”

“What happened?” I asked. “Why are they all so silent?”

Our new friends turned to us and one said, “They’ve run these races every single night for the last…”

“110 years, I do believe,” the other supplied.

“Thank you—for the last 110 years and Great Sport has never won, not a single night.”

“Why’d you bet on him?” I asked.

“I bet on him at least once a night, just in case,” he said with a grin. “And I guess all that case needed was a lovely lady such as yourself to come along and surprise us all.”

“Here.” Claire quickly withdrew the ticket from her pocket. “Here’s your ticket! I’m sure the winnings will be absolutely massive.”

“That belongs to you, my friend,” he said with a tip of his cap.

“Most definitely not. I am so, so grateful to you for lending it to me, but it was an honor just to be here.” She returned it to him with a flourish. “But I’ll make you a deal. You take this back, and I’ll promise we’ll come back another night.”

He considered for a moment before relenting. “Deal. And please, don’t make us wait too long.”

“How could I resist coming back and stirring things up again?” She winked. “Thank you for having us, gentlemen.” She gave each of them a kiss goodbye on the cheek. “Farewell!”

“Farewell!” they called in return. I’d never seen her so unencumbered. She took my hand in hers once more and led me back to the horizon.

“Where should we go next?” she asked me.

“How about the beach?”

“After you.” She gestured for me to lead the way.

We emerged on the top of a grassy bluff overlooking the beach at high tide.

Soft purple clouds floated in the sky and a warm wind blew the waves onto the shore, where they crashed with a small patch of white foam on each swell.

I took a deep breath, delighting in the way the salt in the air tickled my nose and throat.

Claire imitated me, a smile spreading across her face.

“I think this is my favorite scent in the world,” I confided.

“Did you spend much time by the shore when you were growing up?” she asked.

“Yes, this was a favorite place of my father’s.”

“I was wondering if this was one of his,” Claire said. I nodded. “It’s beautiful.”

“Let’s go put our toes in the sand.” We trekked down the path to the beach below, helping each other get through the steeper parts. When we got down to the sand, Claire kicked her shoes off and ran toward the water. She squealed when she made contact with the waves.

“It’s cold .”

“Is it?”

She dipped her toes in again, “Wow, okay, not really. I think that was just shock. It’s actually pretty comfortable.” She yanked up the bottom of her pants so as to better splash around.

Watching Claire as she was now, I was reminded of all the stories she had shared before she knew I was listening. She might feel old, but the part of her she was showing now was still just a kid. We had that in common.

My relationship to aging was complex, to say the least. Within my world, no one aged and so I did not have an immediate foil, someone to fuel a sense of jealousy from watching a person I knew or respected grow into themselves.

We were all equally frozen in time, for better or for worse.

Some might call us “immortal” and others might call us “stuck,” but we simply lived our lives.

This was our reality. We matured, but we didn’t age.

But we were not in isolation. We’ve watched thousands of patrons march through our rooms every day in ephemeral snapshots.

We’ve seen people falling in and out of love, growing old, parenting, failing one another.

We’ve become familiar with the staff, the curators, the guides, the members and repeat visitors. The collector himself.

I remember the last time I saw my father.

He visited the museum in the context of creating a commissioned piece that would be shaped to match the unique space set aside for him.

Fifteen years had passed since I’d last laid eyes on him, and while he was still as creative and intense as he had ever been, he was unfamiliar to me.

His stance, his skin, his sound were all affected by the years that stood between us.

It was like seeing a ghost. I wondered if he felt the same looking at me.

He left swiftly; in the relative nature of time, he had been there for barely a blink of how long he had been absent.

Left in his wake was my favorite work of his to date: a series of people flowing across a punchy background of pink and blue and black.

From where I sat, day in and day out, I could just see them leaping their way into and out of my field of vision.

But for the brief time that he stood in front of us, he inhabited the same position he’d been in as he put us here. I was overwhelmed with a sense of déjà vu. Once again, he was watching us the way he wanted us: safe and sound, together yet separated by the space in between us.

“Jean,” Claire said softly as she wrapped her arm around my waist, “where’d you go?”

I bent down and pressed my lips to hers. “I’m here, I’m right here.”

She laughed at me, gently. “You’re cute when you space out completely.”

“You’re beautiful always.”

Claire turned away from me and I wasn’t sure if I’d said the wrong thing. There was still so much I didn’t know about her.

“No one has ever talked to me the way you do. I like it so much, of course, duh, I just don’t know what to do with it. It makes my cheeks burn, but also I hope you’ll never stop.”

“I never plan to stop.” My brain was spiraling now. I had hundreds of unvocalized fears about how long we would be able to do what we were doing; now that we were here, having crossed every conceivable boundary, time felt like our villain, the thing that could bring our great love story to an end.

Claire turned back to look at me and suddenly, I couldn’t have her fast enough.

I was jealous of anyone else who would ever get some of her time.

I felt pressure to make an imprint of her as she was right now with my eyes, to save the feeling of her body pressed against mine into my whole being, to memorize the way her lips tasted on mine.

Her hunger matched mine; she was kissing me in the present, kissing me with no fear of what lay in the past, of what she had given up to be here.

The beach had mostly emptied out for the night, but there were still a few stragglers nearby. Eager for more privacy, I led Claire back up to the bluff and into one of the small cottages that overlooked the sea.

A gust of warm seaside air greeted us as we opened the door.

The interior was plain: wood furnishings and white linen; a writing desk with a lamp; a few sheets of paper, their edges curling in the humidity.

Most notably, we both spotted the small bed in the corner.

I froze at the sight of it. We were moving too fast. This whole thing, it was senseless.

It had been a really, really long time since I had done anything like this.

“Claire,” I said, anxiety crackling in my voice. “It’s been…”

“It’s okay, it’s been a long time for me too.”

“I don’t know—” I was flummoxed by my own words. “I don’t know if things have changed?”

“We’ll find out together,” she said.

Claire walked up to the bed and turned back to face me.

With a small smirk on her lips, she reached to her chest to unbutton her jumpsuit.

She let it fall open, and the sight took my breath away.

In a turn of the tables, she was the one waiting for me.

I took the four steps to close the gap between us.

“I know this all seems like something out of a dream,” she said. “But this is really real to me. I don’t think I’m just dreaming. I’m here.”

“This feels like— Sorry, let me start over.” I attempted to gather my wits. “This might be the only real thing I’ve ever done.”

“Then let’s do this together. Make it real,” she said as she brought her arms around my neck, connecting us once again. I took a step into her, pushing the backs of her knees against the edge of the mattress. She let herself fall onto the bed, and I let myself follow her.