“They tell me you’ve started painting with something unusual. Tell me about it.”

“Uh, they must have told you I painted those pictures with, uh, wild mushrooms because I, uh, like the texture.”

I can picture her pushing her pale hair behind her ear. I look up and see Catherine pushing her hair behind her ear, though it’s too short to push. She seems to have edged toward the radio, though in reality she hasn’t moved.

“When I use different things for brushes I, uh, feel like I’m in new territory, exploring new territory. But I’ve stopped using the mushrooms because, uh, it’s difficult to talk about but I have to tell the people why. You see, this one day I, uh, had this basket of wild mushrooms sitting in the studio on a stool and Tatum, that’s my daughter, wandered in and ate them. I don’t know why she did it because she’s seen me painting with them before, and I’ve explained to her. But I’d had to go out for a while, and when I came back there she was, uh, eating them like . . . the mushrooms were poisonous you see . . . I’d explained to her . . . And there we were, staying in this place with just one telephone, this little town in Mexico. I’d gone there to try to get back to work again, to real work, you know? This place had just one telephone and I ran with her all the way . . . If she hadn’t eaten the whole basket . . . I felt like a real bastard.”

“There was nothing you could do. The folks understand.”

“She’d seen me painting with them before, and I explained that they were the kind that couldn’t be eaten.”

“It must have been devastating.”

“It was.”

“But as I was saying, the art world is certainly glad that you’ve reemerged with your fantastic imagination . . . This is really a sexy show, folks, excuse me, erotic . . . Dali with juice. You’re wild, and I say that in the nicest way . . . And you should see her, people, the same beauty we remember.”

“Thank you.”

“Why were you in Mexico?”

She snaps. “I told you: so I could get my work done. I also wanted to be there because I’d been studying Aztec art. You see, I like to mingle non-Western effects in my work. I like to, uh, so to speak, hang out around the work of primitive artists.”

“You’ve got some really wild colors, wow. I can see the influence. With you on the scene again . . . Well, let’s say modern art is in for some surprises . . .”

Catherine grunts and shrinks down in her peacock chair. The rug, looking like a coat of many colors, stares up from her lap.

“The poor little girl,” I say.

She looks at me; surprise and rage.

“She did it.”

“What are you talking about?”