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Show Moon - 202 more reason why James didn't like me. I get excited, leap about. I forget to be composed." For James, it was a virtue never to be astonished, as if one ought to know everything beforehand and never be taken off guard by something unexpected like the jolt of an electric fence or a leap into a snowmelt lake. David opens the studio door, gestures her inside with an exaggerated bow. In the dimness is an oak floor spreading golden, as inviting as a ballet studio. Joy feels drawn to it the way she still feels drawn to expanses of lawn for turning cartwheels. Once inside, she turns a little pirouette. David flips on the lights. She sees large canvasses propped against the walls, on low easels, on platforms. Circles, enormous acrylic circles. The circles spiral into human bodies bigger than life, bodies tangled together, spinning into mirage-like landscapes that reach toward the distant dark edge of the world. Sometimes there are flowers among the people, throbbing reds and purples. These, too, are carried to destinations both dreadful and liberating. She thinks she has come home. But she thinks this is not a comfortable home, nor one she can linger in. There is an intensity no one could tolerate for long, the story of living on the brink of intolerable loss. David moves close to her, his body taut with energy, his eyes demanding and hard. She is frightened, for he suddenly reminds her of James, ready to take everything from her, as if the reason she was born was to fill his empty cup like a woman at a fountain. But then she sees that her real father simply wants her to love him, or to love his paintings, which is perhaps the only way he knows love. "Me," she says finally. "What?" |