Dan and Sylvia
by Norm Rosolen
part 1
Rose parks in front of her dad’s house and peers out the side window. Streetlights illuminate swirls of snow that race and dance across his front yard. It snowed yesterday, and his neighbors have cleared their walks and driveways. She shakes her head. Two or three years ago, her dad would have at least shoveled out the walkway
Now, she’s always checking on him. How are you eating? What did your doctor say about your blood pressure? Your cholesterol? That has to bug him. But it’s her duty. Right? And maybe there’s a touch of guilt. And maybe she loves the old man.
The postwar house is a gray silhouette set against a dark background of trees and the night glow from the city. Two windows are lit, and she thinks she sees her dad’s shadow in her old bedroom. She calls her husband who asks how her day went.
“Why did I ever want to be a head nurse?”
“The glamour.”
“I don’t feel glamorous; I feel old and tired.”
“I understand tired, but you’re not old. You’re a beautiful woman in her prime.”
“Thank you. I need that.”
“Good luck with your dad.”
“I didn’t mention Sandy Haven when I called, but I think he knows.”
Jack says to call him when she’s done, and he’ll order pizza. Rose asks Jack to call their snow removal guy to do her dad’s place. As she peers at the snow, Jack reminds her they’re going to Jamaica in two weeks. They hang up, and she checks herself in the sun-visor vanity mirror, grunts a “Good to go,” and steps out into the slush.
“Damn!” Rose says and clambers over the snowbank and breaks a trail to the front door. The snow spills over the tops of her low-cut boots and instantly melts through to her feet. “Double damn!” she grunts as the image of a sandy beach lined with palm trees wafts away on an icy gust.
She forces her thoughts back to the purpose for her visit. After all, she’s not the only one. Jack’s in the same quandary with his mom. They’re members of the so-called sandwich generation, middle-agers with dependent kids and dependent parents, none of whom will listen to them. But really, she has nothing to whine about. She has a super husband, great kids, a nice house, a good — or is it glamorous — job, and her health. She reaches the steps to the front porch and forces a smile.
She clutches the wobbly handrail for support, struggles up snow-covered steps, ignores the defunct doorbell, and forces the storm door open. Her glove muffles the sound of her knock, so she fumbles in her coat pocket for her keys, leans against the flaking paint on the front door and pushes it open.
Meanwhile, her seventy-three year old dad is in his artist’s studio, hunched over, sitting on a two-foot high padded stool, an artist’s paint brush in his right hand, and a palette in his left. He’s swirling the smallest dab of yellow into the paint to match his model’s tan skin tone.
His apron is a hodgepodge of colors, and his work-shirt and pants are marked with paint smears. He straightens his wire-rimmed glasses occasionally and is careful to keep them clean as well as his face and thin short, gray hair. His tongue protrudes through the side of his lips.
He’s conscious every once and a while that he’s hunched over, and he straightens. Then his lower back and joints ache just enough to notice. It’s the winter, he thinks, and maybe he sits too long. And being cooped up is contributing. Even the wear and tear from the sports he played when he was a kid, and the curling twice a week up to five years ago are contributing. But he wouldn’t change that part of his life, if he could, for anything. On the other hand, sitting behind a desk for forty years, now that’s something he would change if he could go back. He’ll pop an Advil when he’s done here.
Dan’s studio is a converted bedroom with Walmart shelving along one wall holding brushes, canvases, tubes of paint, and other supplies. There’s a large art table along the window wall with an office chair, large and medium-sized sketch pads, pencils in a coffee cup, and a dog-eared text book on painting techniques. An easel, with a Playboy centerfold clipped to it, stands off to the side.
His model, Sylvia, sits near the far wall and is balanced on a taller padded stool. Her arms stretch out with her hands entwined around her right knee and her right calf crosses over her left thigh, which is kept rigid by a stiletto heel locked onto the lowest rung. She’s wearing tight bright blue jeans and her stilettos are a glossy fire-engine red. He phoned her yesterday, and they came up with the idea of a bright color theme for today’s session. An antidote to the winter blahs, she said.
She had a class in the morning, took the bus, hiked a block, and arrived just after lunch with her jeans, heels, and makeup in her backpack. She’s managed a perfect color match between shoes and lipstick, jeans and nail polish. The colors she chose accentuate her burnt-blonde hair, done in a medium-length bob cut, her sapphire eyes, and light make-up touches. Her tan is a light bronze with no bra lines, and her belly button peeks out above the belt line of her jeans.
He’s trying to do her justice with a magic realistic capture of her adventurous spirit, quick intelligence, and quiet strength, so he asked her to look aggressive for the pose. It’s worked to stunning perfection. God help him, she may be thirty-three, but could pass for a twenty-three year old fashion model any day.
Dan looks back and forth from Sylvia to the canvas and tries to capture the color of her firm breasts. He dabs a touch of brown into the skin-tone paint and swirls it. This is for her nipples. He looks up and stares. Her nipples are poised on her breasts like bullets. He feels a stirring, a regular occurrence during these sessions, and speculates once more whether she’s aware of her effect on him, not that it should matter to her. Aside from this normal reaction, there’s something ephemeral and profound going on, something he doesn’t get.
Is this act of creation, portraying a beautiful woman on canvas, his way of probing the inner mysteries of his soul? Is this soul-searching why he spent all those years going to galleries, taking courses, and painting for thousands of hours? Who knows, but what he does know, is that it was never about becoming the great artist, with shows and sales, and people fawning over his work. There was never a chance of that, and it certainly wasn’t only to kill time with a hobby. He can’t articulate what it is, that quest for meaning at the center of his being, but he senses its presence.
His paintings, mostly acrylic and a few experimental water colors, are stacked along open sections of the bedroom walls, and each one sports a figure painting or portrait of Sylvia. Many are demure enough, but quite a few show Sylvia in some state of undress.
Sylvia shakes her head just a touch. Time for a break. Sitting still for hours on end must be boring and uncomfortable, so he insists she takes frequent breaks, and he keeps the house suitably warm. He glances at his wristwatch and sighs.
“Damn, I forgot. Rosie’s coming. Any minute. Could you put your blouse on and hide in the bedroom, my dear?” They talked about this right after Rose called; it’s not quite the right time for her to meet Sylvia.
Sylvia steps down gracefully, and he stares at her bouncing breasts. Her pout transforms to a coquettish smile as she slips on her bra and turns for Dan to fasten the clasp. She heads to his bedroom, buttoning her blouse, kind of wobbly, sexy, shimmering on her high heels.
Dan peers out the studio window towards the street and sees the dark outline of Rose’s car and limps towards the kitchen. He’s sorry, but Rose invited herself, and she’ll have to deal with the snow on the front walk. Sylvia didn’t complain.
Rose didn’t say it when she called, but his intuition tells him she wants to talk about Sandy Haven Retirement Prison again. He cleans his palette and drops brushes into a jar of water, scrubs his hands in the kitchen sink, and removes his apron. Then he fills the electric kettle from the faucet, puts two orange pekoe bags in the teapot, pours some milk into a small pitcher, and looks for any cookies that Sylvia might have missed.
He chuckles. What a scamp! The girl loves her cookies. More than a model, she’s Dan’s best friend and his lifeline. It’s her physical presence and her joy and laughter that regularly transports him to an uncharted, enchanted world.
Although Sylvia is very naked and very lovely when they’re engaged, Dan is always dressed. It may be pajamas he’s wearing, or slacks and a shirt, but he always has his socks on. When she orgasms, he flies with her to the moon, the stars, and oblivion. She moans, then cries out, her body arched, every muscle taut and defined.
Dan wasn’t always such a talented lover. Marie hinted at that often enough. But a couple of years after she died, he discovered more about the art of lovemaking than he would have ever believed possible. The epiphany took place at the checkout counter of a Walmart store when the model on the cover of the Cosmopolitan magazine beckoned him to stare at her. But this time he read the titles: Sex That Rocks, Best Quickie Position Ever, Total Body Sex. That was interesting. A woman’s magazine, by women, for women, about sex. He bought it without thinking, and it was a good read, and as it happened, just in time. It was only three days later when he saw Sylvia for the first time.
He hears Rose’s knocks, then the front door opens, and he limps and hurries to the living room to greet his daughter.
The heat slaps Rose in her face. She kicks off her boots, shrugs off her coat, and glances down the dingy hall and into the living room. The TV sits on a bench against the far wall and seems to glower at her dad’s scruffy easy-chair across the room. Does the TV even work anymore? When she was a kid, the house was meticulously clean and bright. Now, everything should be scrapped.
Her dad limps in from the kitchen. He should use his cane. They cheek-kiss, and she collapses onto the sofa.
“Sorry, Rosie,” he says. “I should’ve left the door unlocked for you, and I couldn’t shovel the front walk cause you called so late. Tomorrow would’ve been better, I think.” His speech is hurried compared to its normal, old hesitant tone.
Rose pats the sofa cushion next to her. “It’s fine, Dad. Sit.”
“Let me get the tea. It’ll warm you up.”
“In a minute.” Rose pats the seat again, and Dan sits.
“Are you okay?” she asks with a relaxed smile.
“Normal, sweetheart. Why?”
“You haven’t been over for dinner in two weeks, and they miss you at Church. Kathy said you called for her to take over the collection. She hopes you get better. Soon, she said.”
“Where’d she get that idea? The weather’s been lousy. That’s all. I’ll be back at it this week. Don’t fret.”
She cocks her head like, Come on, Dad. The tone of his voice has turned defensive, slightly aggressive. Something tugs at the back of her mind. Different, strange.
“You’re trapped with all the snow.”
“It’s no problem.”
“It is, Dad. Jack called our snow removal guy to come over.”
“Thanks, but really no need. How about that tea?”
What’s going on? Rose thinks and then the answer, Sandy Haven. He’s nervous.
“In a minute. Have you been out at all? What about groceries?”
“I’m good. Really good. I keep busy with the painting, and I lose track. Say, you must be hungry. I’ll cook something up.”
“Thanks Dad, but Jack’s doing dinner.” He’s always been supersensitive to perceived slights. Let’s change tack. “What’re you painting these days?”
“I switched over to figures and portraits a few years back.” Dan’s gaze flickers to his studio, then the floor.
“I’d like to see.”
“I’m not ready to show my stuff yet.”
“Sure, Dad. What do you do for models?”
“Um. I’m still using magazine photos. I’m almost ready to move to live ones. Wanna be the first? Maybe in a few weeks?”
“Of course.”
“I’ll call you. Now, let me get the tea I promised.” Dan rises, supporting himself on the armrest, straightens, and shuffles to the kitchen.
Rose is a bit curious, and her dad’s excessively modest. A quick look won’t hurt.
Her dad’s studio was her bedroom when she was a kid, then her mom’s for a while, and now she guesses it’s full of art supplies and some paintings. She hustles, almost tip toeing, to the studio door, turns the knob, and pushes.
Copyright © 2021 by Norm Rosolen
