ERNIE AND ERNESTINA: The Writer, His Wife, and their Afterlife
Book One, Part Two, Chapter 34: Only Reminders
The man-in-the-moon oil. Do I want it, or don’t I?
If I do want it, how can I pay for it? With a monthly income not much more than my monthly needs, how can I justify spending seven hundred dollars on something I don’t need? Plus, I know property-tax bills will arrive the first of November. If I buy the oil, I may not have enough saved to cover the taxes. Then I’d have to borrow from Joshua, and I don’t want to borrow from Joshua.
Me, buy art?
Before I met Ernie, I remember going to an art fair and being drawn to a clown’s face painted on black velvet. I didn’t know good art from bad art. But Ernie did. At one time or another he had a Whistler etching, a Chagall etching, a Miro litho, a Picasso litho poster, a tiny Renoir etching. He treasured Cor’s oil — the only oil Ernie owned — of a Paris bridge under moonlight, shadowy figures leaning against the balustraded pont.
Shortly after Ernie and I married, I took out books on artists. I wanted to see good art, to train my eye. I wanted a feel for it — I, who grew up in a house with only three framed prints on the wall: the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Blue Boy, and Pink Lady. Me, buy art? Buy Beth’s oil?
But maybe Ernie orchestrated all this. It’s too much of a coincidence, isn’t it? He has to be behind this. But how to pay for it? Or, what can I exchange for it? What do I have of value that I can sell?
The diamond ring. The vintage ring, set in platinum, that Ernie called “your debutante ring.” The ring he bought me just before our QEII trip. The ring I wore to dinners on the ship.
I take the ring to the small jewelry shop it came from. I talk to the shop’s owner, Les. “Will you buy this back from me?” I ask him.
“Do you have the receipt?”
“I do.”
He looks at the receipt, then says: “I’ll give you four-fifty for it.”
That’s three hundred less than Ernie paid for it, but what more can I expect? I rarely wear the ring. It’s so dressy. No wonder Ernie called it a debutante’s ring. But I’m not a debutante. Never was. Only in Ernie’s fantasies.
I e-mail Beth, telling her about seeing my man in the moon in her painting. I tell her I’m on a tight budget. She drops the price to five-fifty. Close enough!
I go back to the shop and take down the oil. I give Nancy the money. She wraps the painting in heavy brown paper, and I carry it back to my place, propping it on a chair. Then I move the chair close to where I eat and read and write and sleep. Now Ernie’s near me — at least, one version of him.
“Hello, Ernie. It’s good to see you again.”
But I’m fooling myself. The oil’s not Ernie. The Russian man Ernie saw in the full moon isn’t Ernie, either. Just reminders. Even I, whacked-out as I am, know they’re only reminders.
