Do you listen to music while you work? I would if I were a painter. You know the way children ask which of your senses you would give up if you had to make a choice—your hearing or your sight? Before I saw your paintings, I would have given up my sight. It is the choice I used to make.

* * *

Warren and I watch reruns in Little Egypt, seventies sitcoms. A man tries to teach his friend a lesson. He says, Do you see what happens when you assume? You make an “ass” out of “u” and “me.” But what is a life without assumptions?

Failing to engage us with clothes, Chatty makes us talk to her about men. As many men as we remember. Some, like you, have been painters. Maybe all of them have been painters. Even the gardener here, when he isn’t numbing our minds with endless talk of bud count and petal length, will set up an easel during his break, and produce a passable landscape. He will tell us the story of the Chinese paintings in which the time of day could be ascertained by the dilation of the cat’s pupils and the degree to which the peonies had opened. Happy pastime, painting. And when it is a man’s work, it is work he will enjoy. Although Warren feels it isn’t work if it isn’t hard. “Why do you think they call it work?” he says. With no need of segue, Chatty is off on Edward, the man she says we will meet when he comes to call on her here.

“Edward is bad,” Chatty says, not without pride. “But he doesn’t think he is bad. He thinks I can’t see things clearly.”

“And you can’t,” Warren says.

“You think the moment he behaves untenably, you’ll leave,” Chatty says. “But you find yourself saying, ‘He’s been so nice until now …’ So you think, ‘I’ll ignore it,’ and pretty soon you’re ignoring New York City. And then watch—he’ll have to put me out the door.”

“He could change.” My tentative entry into the conversation.

Chatty looks at me as though she does not know where to begin. She says that instances of change are anecdotal, deep-seated fantasy. “The New Testament has versions of it over and over: the whore becomes a saint, Paul on the road to Damascus. I mean,” she says, “Christianity acknowledges that for a person to change his nature is miraculous.”

“It’s not as if we change, either,” Karen puts in.

“What I think,” Chatty says, “is that if a man loves a woman more than a woman loves a man, then they’re even. The thing to remember,” Chatty says as though reminding herself, “is that a man is not obligated to love you. Once you reach that philosophical state, he feels your grip loosening, and you retain your dignity. Otherwise, you go nuts, you’re subject to the dark undertow of it all.”

And I say, “Can’t a normal person take a walk on the dark side? If she watches where she took her last step?” Thinking of you, and thinking this is the moment when Chatty will ask, What is the deal with this guy? And knowing if I told her your parting words to me—“We’ll see each other again”—she would look at me with pity, not giving your words the right spin.