Sally leaned in close to her favorite painting, Boulevard St.-Denis, Argenteuil, in Winter.  Muddy colors danced amid swaths and flecks of white—brush strokes cascading all around.  Studying the brush strokes offered intimacy, immediacy—Monet could have painted it moments ago in this very room.  More than a hundred years and thousands of miles collapsed in an instant, connecting her and the genesis of this masterpiece.  The brush strokes seemed arbitrary, chaotic, haphazard.  How had Monet created something at arm’s length, the true beauty of which could only be admired from a distance?

“The sun looks like dried snot,” said Jackie.  “Do you think it’s Monet’s?”

Sally’s hands wrung the sleeve of his thick biker jacket, fishing for the arm underneath as she drew Jackie backward, bringing the snowy street scene into focus.  They stopped shy of the gallery’s centered bench; Jackie’s snot transformed into a sun struggling to break a prison of thick winter clouds—small wonder that it was her favorite piece.  Strokes of black, grey and brown transformed into umbrella-wielding pedestrians slogging along a fenced path, the green slats of fence held together with snow-crowned twine.  A wall along the main road in the distance resembled the one surrounding Harvard yard; the huddled figures shuffled toward it as the snow continued to fall.

Sally studied Jackie’s face for recognition of the painting’s transformation.  His profile was a charcoal sketch on bone-colored paper, the sole deviation a layer of brown roots at the base of his spiked, shoe-polish hair.  The three weeks since last she’d seen him had not been kind.  Jackie turned to her.  Bold lines formed his gaunt cheeks with lighter smudges below his eyes—weary dark orbs in retreat.

“Regardless of whose it is,” he said, “Monet was a master with snot.”

“You look tired Jackie,” said Sally.  “You need to take care of yourself.”

Jackie snickered.  “That was your job darling.”  His dark eyes flashed only half-jest.  “You gave it all up for the bright lights of 9 to 5 remember?”

His words stung to distraction; Sally turned away and was caught by the Duchessa.  When Degas’ The Duchessa di Montejasi with Her Daughters, Elena and Camilla had gone out on loan, Sally came to this gallery every day for a week like a teenager left behind by vacationing parents.  Morose eyes matching the black gown, the Duchessa recognized something Sally could not.  Was the somber expression one of resignation?  Disappointment?  Was Jackie her neglected responsibility?  The expression was one of affectionate exasperation, wondering whether Sally would ever get it.  Sally turned back to the center of the gallery for rescue.

Regal, angular features, almond skin and nutmeg hair cropped tight to her head, Nadine resembled one of the Egyptian queens from the museum’s other galleries.  Sally moved around the double-sided bench to sit next to her friend.  An elegant crème sweater draped Nadine’s lithe frame and a thin gold chain adorned her swan’s neck.  Olive-colored cargo pants rolled up close to the knee—as if she were about to paint a friend’s apartment—with slender ankles rising out of a worn pair of Keds completed today’s ensemble.  And it worked.  Wrapped in the rags and plastic of a homeless woman, Nadine would still resemble a Nordstrom model in languid repose.  It was her most annoying quality.

Facing Monet’s twin paintings of Morning on the Seine, near Giverny, they floated together through the serene haze of dawn as a shadowed poplar loomed overhead.  The bench was a pew, the Impressionist gallery their church.  Sally was like a weary migratory bird, and here, each painting was an island upon which to rest.

Several minutes later, Nadine looked at her watch and sighed.  “We’d better collect Mr. Stardust if we hope to have time for the pre-shift cordial.”

They found Jackie in the next gallery evaluating La Japonaise, Monet’s full-length portrait of his wife modeling an ornate Japanese robe.  Moving to either side of him like pet starlings, Sally and Nadine each clasped one of his hands and rested a chin on the matching shoulder—six eyes soaking in the luxurious crimson robe and the blonde’s playful smile.

“Is mayonnaise a French word?” asked Jackie.

“I sometimes like to imagine myself in that robe,” said Sally.  “The object and the subject of the master’s great passions.”

“Oh Sally-mander,” said Jackie.  His voice was tender.  “Baby, that’s not you.”  She felt his hand slide from hers and point to the left.  “That’s you.”

Degas again.  Dancer with arms crossed.  Presented from the waist up, the stark black lines made a normally tranquil pose rigid.  The face lacked definition but rough, crimson strokes forced the emotion to the surface.  This dancer watched the main stage with envy.  Waiting for a moment that might never come.

 

The air smelled of damp leaves and earth as they stepped from the museum into the cool September dusk.  Sally felt an elbow in her side and turned to find a pack of Newports jangled in her direction, one jumping out like an eager child.

“I told you I quit.”  She extracted a shiny pack of gum from the inner pocket of her leather coat.  One of three packs.

“Cut the shit.”  Nadine took the cigarette between her lips and extracted it with the seductive care of a jewel thief.  “You didn’t say you quit smoking with me.”  She shook out another cigarette and pushed the pack at Sally.  “C’mon.  After a ménage with Claude?”

Sally’s lips clamped onto the cigarette and her hand quivered as she cupped it over Nadine’s lighter.  Smoke burned her mouth, her throat, her lungs with a delicious sting; the ecstasy of a maddening itch being ravaged by sharp, ruthless nails.  That was the hellacious paradox of shaking an addiction—the only sense of freedom came from surrendering to it.  Sally closed her eyes and took another long drag.  I fucking love cigarettes, she thought.

“Ménage à trois?” said Jackie.  “I count four darling.”

“You’re the sad, impotent voyeur,” said Nadine.  “Stick to your Rogers and Hammerstein.”

“The voyeur counts if you know that he’s there,” said Jackie.  “I don’t have to tell a nasty whore like yourself that.”

Across the street a small crowd waited for the inbound trolley as traffic lights, the Boston skyline and fervent voices produced the anticipatory buzz of the curtain lifting on another Saturday night.

“How’s life at the restaurant?” asked Sally.

“Fuck the restaurant,” said Jackie, “Let’s talk about things we don’t all know.”

“I’ve been gone for two months.”

“And that’s all that’s new about the restaurant,” said Nadine.  She squinted, lifting her chin to peer over Sally’s head for the trolley.

Nadine’s lips released the cigarette and Sally turned back to see the trolley approaching.  The lines of track collapsed together toward the twin aureola of the trolley’s headlights, drawing her eye to the dark line of horizon, lightening in layers into the twilight.  She sucked in the last of her own burning ember and considered devouring the filter.  They clamored aboard and clutched a common section of handrail, swaying like three monkeys as the trolley pulled away.

“How’s Hookmeup.com treating you?” asked Nadine.

“Match.com,” said Sally.  “Clifford and I are still clunking along.”

“You’re shitting me.  The baker can’t be the soul-mate?”

“I’d hardly call Clifford my soul-mate,” mumbled Sally, avoiding her friend’s incredulous expression.

“Small wonder,” said Jackie, bumping her hip from the other side.  “Clifford?  Jesus, woman, give the boy a chance.  Lose those three letters and let him be Cliff.”

Nadine swiveled her body around.  “So what’s the problem?”

Sally sighed.  “I don’t mean to sound like a bitch but—”

“God help us if you didn’t have reservations,” said Jackie.

“Blow me,” said Sally over her shoulder.  “I don’t know.  Clifford would never appreciate Claude like we do.  Confectionary is his idea of art for Christ’s sake.”

“So what?” said Nadine.  “Appreciating Claude is my job.  Your mother covers antiquing and this freak has musical duty.”

“I don’t know,” said Sally, “he doesn’t get me the way you guys do.”  She leaned back against Jackie and he buckled; she hadn’t put on weight.  She pulled herself up and let just her head fall back onto Jackie’s shoulder.  The bone around his temple pressed against her cheek.  Something between a laugh and a sigh escaped her.  “Because getting laid doesn’t suck.”  She laughed again.  “Imagine what I’d be like if I wasn’t getting any?”

 

Exiting at Park Street station they skirted along Boston Common and shared a comfortable silence as they crossed over Tremont Street toward the theatre district and the restaurant.  The lights of the Wilbur theatre peeked out as they turned onto Stuart Street.  By daylight this lane was a lonely watercolor, bleakly lit and barren; but at night it still thrilled with its sparkling hues and carnival atmosphere.  She missed the Tuesday tradition where she and Jackie would see every new run—the musicals more than twice.  They would host a critical review show during Thursday’s shift, comparing casts from different runs of Les Mis, Guys and Dolls, Miss Saigon—any of the standards that enjoyed repeat visits and that they never tired of.

Nadine stopped halfway down the street and pulled at a solid oak door, her body curved like a bow.  Dingy white blinds covering the windows and the lack of a sign made the establishment resemble the abandoned storefront of a small-claims lawyer.  Rock music two decades old growled from an archaic jukebox as they stepped inside, competing with smoke and college football blaring from bar televisions.

They headed toward the usual table, where a new spectral figure sat haloed by the filtered light of the blinds and waving frantically.  Jackie slid in next to her and patted the remaining bench space as Nadine took the chair at the end of the table.

“Sally-mander this is Ana-Rhonda,” said Jackie.  He snatched the lit cigarette from the girl’s mouth with pedagogic flair.  “Ana-Rhonda, Sally-mander.”

“Hi—Rhonda?” asked Sally.

Rhonda smiled and nodded, a new devotee to Jackie’s Warhol-like following.

A startling knot of bone protruded from Jackie’s wrist as he brought the cigarette to his lips.  His real surname was Kieslowski, but only Carl, the ball-busting assistant manager, used it in the vain hope that Jackie would quit the restaurant.  Everyone else, even the older cooks and the accounting staff, called him Jackie Stardust.  A self-proclaimed ‘lifestyle artist,’ Jackie planned to make the name change legal once he did something exceptional.  So far his only noteworthy skill was to flaunt the rules everyone else seemed bound to, which made him irresistible to most.

The sullen waitress placed a beer before Nadine, followed by a gin and tonic and what looked like a shot of whiskey in front of Jackie.  The empty tray fell to her side as she turned to Sally.

“Oh—I’ll have a rum and Coke,” said Sally.  ‘Regular’ status had apparently evaporated in her two-month absence.  “Check that—give me a beer.”  She nodded toward the flavor Nadine was drinking.

The waitress brought the beer and Sally accepted another cigarette from Nadine.  Mick’s had become a haven for nicotine anarchists who refused to take it outside.  Jackie’s Adam’s apple did a slow dive as he threw back the shot.  The custom had been to knock back a single social at Mick’s before the shift—not get lit.  He swirled his other drink with a bone-white finger and made a popping sound with his mouth as he sampled it.  A strict diet of cigarettes and alcohol didn’t eat flesh this fast.

The demands of Nadine’s two-year-old used to leave Sally and Jackie to do the hard partying after work.  Sally was the one who’d scope out other things for them to do—to take a few nights off.  The boys and girls like Ana-Rhonda were too young, too worshipful, for such a task.  Sally couldn’t go back to that lifestyle—of that she was sure.  But was some part of her shriveling, just not evident to the eye as with Jackie?  A part malnourished by time away from those that knew her best?

“I love Monet but Renoir really stokes my oven,” said Rhonda.  She and Nadine had obviously been discussing the day’s excursion.

Jackie’s face flashed its usual mischief.  “Baby-doll, you’re much too young to have your oven stoked.”

“What about you?” said Sally. “Have you finally picked a team and gotten your oven stoked?”  She chuckled through a mouthful of beer—it was always ice-cold at Mick’s.  The beer, the smoke, the darkness—a deep part of her still called these things home.

“I would think Mr. Lifestyle artist would be free to tryout both teams,” said Nadine, “and whatever in between.”

“Please,” said Jackie, looking bored.  “People aren’t happy unless they’re allowed to color everyone in and sexuality is always the first crayon selected.  I’m not about to be defined by a couple of low-class skanks such as you two—love you though I must.”  He took a long sip of gin and tonic, followed by a longer drag off his cigarette.  “Please leave me out of your nasty, voracious, fixation on cock.”

“Oooo,” said Nadine, “jealous, jealous.”

Rhonda started to giggle and Sally felt as if they were adults talking dirty in front of a twelve-year-old.  Jackie had to feel it too—his entourage was growing younger, but he was not.

Nadine finished her beer.  “We better get moving.”

They all rose, begrudgingly, and Jackie hugged Sally again.  “Are we still on for La Cage aux Folles next Friday?  I’ve lined up our schedule for the clubs afterward.”

“Shit,” said Sally.  She’d agreed to dinner with Clifford and another couple.  “I have something but I should be able to get out of it.”

Jackie’s face dropped a little and he kissed her.  “You’re lucky I love you, you incorrigible bitch.”

Outside, Sally watched them ramble off toward the restaurant; she turned back toward Tremont, burdened with an ache of loneliness.  She had always believed her tightness with Jackie and Nadine impervious to time and space.  Maybe she had been wrong—maybe she needed constant connection to keep the bond vital.

Sally found herself accepting change in a convenience store with a fresh pack of Newports and three new packs of gum piled on the counter.  She must have actually said ‘Newports,’ ‘Newports, please’ or some other variation of this theme but couldn’t remember doing so.  Rolling with fate, she grabbed two books of matches.  Clifford was at a bachelor party so she was on her own.  Considering his amateur drinking status, she would have to craft her own dance card for Sunday too.  Having Saturday nights free came with a new pressure to make them fruitful—the weekends were now pockets of freedom from a cruel alarm clock.  The brilliant glow of the Loews movie theatre coaxed Sally inside but only got as far as the lobby before discomfort turned her around.  Riding the train home she contemplated a cable pay-per-view, lobbied her conscious for the guilty pleasure of Chinese food, and still found time to condemn her inability to attend a movie alone.

 

Sunday night, Sally arrived at Clifford’s loft around seven with a pint of mint chocolate-chip and the latest screen gem staring Julia Roberts; ice-cream and a chick-flick—a carrot and stick for her hung-over lover.  Clifford may not be her soul mate, but that was no excuse for passing him along to the next woman without improvements.

“Do you like this?”  His face was frozen in a wince.

Clifford’s indefatigable efforts to not offend exhausted Sally, leading her to feel like a translator. “Of course not,” she said, “it’s terrible.”

The television and its components separated the bed they sat on from the rest of the moderately-sized loft.  The opposite corner contained a junkyard of black baking tins of every imaginable shape and size and the welding equipment used to create them.  A slab of marble on two sawhorses sat in the center of the room, flanked by plastic drums of flour, sugar and yeast.  A coarse chandelier of mixing bowls and utensils hung overhead.  Clifford still owed money on the three steel industrial-sized refrigerators.  The dream was to expand his disturbing ‘erotic confections’ business enough to leave the day job at the bakery.

Clifford still hadn’t mustered the willpower to turn off the movie.  The empty ice cream container rose upon the wave of his bulbous stomach with each labored breath, a metal spoon as its sail.  Like a mother snake, Clifford ate any imperfections he created.  Sally often wondered why arranged marriages were so accepted in various parts of the world.  Did the parents do a better—more objective—job of selection, or were expectations simply lower?  She tried to imagine a mate the Bronsteins would pick for her and couldn’t.

The credits finished, returning the DVD menu to the screen.  “Do you want to watch the deleted scenes?”

Sally glared at him, incredulous.

Clifford smiled.  “Think about it—what had actually been so bad that they had to cut it from this piece of shit?”

She laughed despite herself, feeling relieved and defeated all at once.  She huddled closer as Clifford put the container on the floor.

 

Wednesday night was dinner with her parents as usual.

“Honey, I bought cola for you,” said Mrs. Bronstein.

“I like Diet Pepsi Mom.”  Sally dismissed the six-pack of generic cola to make room for her preferred vintage.

“How’s the new job going Sal?” said Mr. Bronstein.

“The job’s fine, Dad,” said Sally.  She stood and kissed him on the cheek.  “It gets a little slow during the middle of the month.”

“It’s all the same thing,” said Mrs. Bronstein.  She closed the oven door and pulled off her oven mitts.  “No one else is going to drink that—I bought it for you.”

“I asked you not to buy it,” said Sally.  “Maybe you can donate it to the synagogue.”

“What are you working on?” said Mr. Bronstein.

“Searching for inventory patterns across the business units,” said Sally, “you know, for potential new synergies.”  Current buzzwords scared her father off the ‘shop talk.’  Intimidating him was shitty but otherwise he would rattle on with business advice or worse, boast about Jeff’s meteoric rise up the corporate ladder.

“I don’t see a difference,” said Mrs. Bronstein.

The cola conversation was over but Sally’s mother would act as its echo for a statement or two.  Conversations with her parents never involved all three of them–Sally always the center of two separate discussions.  The Bronsteins hadn’t stopped talking to each other, they had simply stopped listening.  The Bronsteins were in their seventies—Sally was a mistake of late winter passions—and at this stage in their relationship they acted as a radio for each other: soothing background noise filtering in and out of one’s consciousness.

“Pumpkin, can you take a look at the computer, again?” said Mr. Bronstein.  “I can’t get the damn thing working.”

“Sorry Dad, but I’m not much better with the damn things than you are.”  The discovery of mild bondage web sites on her father’s computer made Sally determined never to go near it again.  Being the fortunate product of her father’s unflagging libido didn’t make her a fan of it.  “Ask your son to do it.  It will give Jeff an excuse to visit his parents.”

Nadine and Jackie adored the Bronsteins; they considered them the paradigm of growing old together.  Compared to their parents it might actually have been true, which was depressing.  Is it delusional to think you can find someone you truly bond with?  Mr. Bronstein began patting himself down, asking Mrs. Bronstein where he put his glasses.  Mrs. Bronstein checked the oven and claimed dinner would be served in ten minutes and told Mr. Bronstein to get out the wine glasses.  What glue kept these two people under the same roof as their minds sailed toward different shores?  The discomfort that had pushed Sally from the movie theatre on Saturday night bubbled up from her memory and she tried to dismiss it.

“Your mother finally made éclairs again,” said Mr. Bronstein.  “I had to load her up with scotch to get past her imagined arthritis, but we’re back in desserts.”

“Nonsense,” scowled Mrs. Bronstein.  “If I didn’t need liquor to put up with your father all these years, I certainly don’t need it for my arthritis.”

“Ah,” retorted Mr. Bronstein.  “Mice must be getting at the scotch again.”

Sally turned toward her father with an eyebrow raised in a mock reprimand.  A sense of relief warmed her chest.  “Éclairs and scotch sounds great.  Let’s have that for dinner.”

“I’ll get the glasses,” laughed Mr. Bronstein.  They both stared at Mrs. Bronstein who stood by the oven, arms crossed and shaking her head.

Sally’s mother shook her scowl into a smirk and she turned the heat off a chicken that was probably already turning into dust.  “Get out the good stuff Henry, not that swill you serve during the rabbi’s visits.”

Sally laughed as she extracted her mother’s specialty from the refrigerator and her father retrieved the glasses.

 

Saturday morning crept into Clifford’s loft like a mischievous child.  The sun seeped around the window blinds and painted bright blobs of light upon the floor as Sally timed her breathing with Clifford’s.  Wrapped around her under the blanket, his belly was a proper fit, pressed snug in her back.  The scent of the candles still lingered from a late, erotic tussle and mixed nicely with the dollops of sunlight on the floor.  It had been a relatively painless night with Clifford’s friends, nice even.

“Shit!” Sally threw off the covers and Clifford’s arm in one heap.  The clock and her clothes presented some kind of conundrum—energy without a plan.  “Shit,”  She jumped up and pulled on her pants.

Clifford ironed out his face with his hand.  “What did I do now?”

“I forgot to call Jackie,” said Sally.  “Forgot to tell him I couldn’t go last night.”  She dug under the bed for her left shoe.  “Shit.  I blew him off.”

“How come we never hang out with your friends?” said Clifford.

Sally paused, staring at the odd cake tins shaped like body parts.  Jackie and Nadine would love Clifford’s creations.

He shifted onto his elbow and stared at her intently.  “Is there something going on with you two?”

The anxiety and honesty in Clifford’s face prevented Sally from laughing.  If Clifford ever met Jackie he would realize what a ridiculous question that was.  “God, no,” she said.  She went to put on her other shoe and stopped.  Clifford had met Jackie—at the restaurant a couple of weeks after he and Sally had started dating.  In a million years nothing remotely romantic would pass between her and Jackie—yet there were ways in which they connected that she and Clifford never would.  What was the definition of a soul mate?  What about Nadine?  Could you have more than one?

“You should have invited him out with us last night,” said Clifford.  He fell back on the bed and gazed through the crack between the blind and the window frame.

Sally chuckled.  The image of Jackie at last night’s dinner was too much.  Maybe the group could grow into an Oprah book club on heroin.  Sally put on her other shoe.  “I’ll call you later.”  She kissed him and left.

 

Enduring a seventy-minute adventure on public transportation, Sally stepped off the bus hunched with a strange unease.  In the past, indiscretions of this sort could be trampled with a quick apology, followed immediately by time wasted together.  The impulse was still there, but her confidence in Jackie’s reaction was not.  Sally had always considered the three of them forever linked; misfits that fit together.  Jackie, Nadine and Sally—that was who she was.  Suddenly the stakes seemed much higher: last night’s missed appointment might be interpreted as abandonment.

Sally turned onto the cramped street of Jackie’s mother’s house and noticed the extra cars immediately.  The neighborhood street was a tiny dead-end but the cars seemed centered around his house.  It would be all the tougher to extract Jackie from a family gathering.  Entering the gated fence, she considered ringing the front doorbell, but veered toward the side door as usual.  She skipped up the short set of wooden steps, took a deep breath, and knocked on the tin bottom of the storm door.  Heavy, unrecognized footsteps could be heard coming from the kitchen.

Suddenly, Mr. Kieslowski’s broad shoulders filled the doorway.  This was a surprise in itself; the Fuhrer hadn’t lived here for three years—Jackie’s parents were divorced.

“I’m Jack’s father, I’m afraid I forget your name.”  His face was without emotion—closed like a casket.

“S-Sally.  Sally Bronstein.  I-I’m a friend of Jack’s—of Jackie’s.”  She felt like a little girl.  Maybe that’s what she was.

Mr. Kieslowski opened the door as if to invite her in but Sally didn’t move.  “I don’t know how to tell you this Sally,”

Then don’t, then don’t, then don’t—please don’t.

“As you may know my son was fighting a drug addiction,” said Mr. Kieslowski. “My son—”  He paused but his face remained expressionless.  “Jack is dead, Sally.”

Sally clamped a hand over her mouth and felt her limbs grow thick roots, tying her to the spot.  She didn’t know what might come out of her mouth, a scream or vomit, but it would be out of her control.  The open storm door wavered in Mr. Kieslowski’s hand, his face withering as his eyes fell to the doorframe.  Sally stepped back and almost fell down the stairs.  She shuffled toward the gate and once outside the fence ran up the street.

Destinations raced through her mind—her apartment, Clifford’s loft, her parents, the restaurant, Micks?  Settling upon the spot under her feet, she collapsed on the curb and fell back against a telephone pole.  The base of her skull drummed against the hard wood with a soothing repetition.  Her hands trembled as she pulled a cigarette from her purse and managed to light it.  Smoke drifted up into her brain amid the whispered echoes of that was your job, darling.

 

Two nights later Clifford flinched and Sally loosened her grip on his hand.  Floating toward the front of the line, she was relieved to find a closed casket.  Jackie had collapsed on the family couch sometime around four in the morning and choked on his own vomit—the amount of heroin in his system would most likely have killed him anyway.  A person on such a self-destructive bent could only save himself—she stood no chance against such determination.  The casket seemed to absorb the light like some dreadful piece of nihilistic modern art.  She could have saved Jackie that night—could have distracted him from injecting that shit into his system.

The wake was mobbed.  The swelling crowd diminished her—made her more insignificant, more distant from Jackie.  No sign of Nadine.  Sally scanned the room with trepidation; she still felt frozen, dumbstruck—seeing Nadine might solidify Sally’s desolation.  Nadine and the crew from the restaurant probably came earlier—together—and had already left.  Sally imagined Rhonda and Nadine sitting in Mick’s crying together.

Jackie’s younger sister and brother stood bewildered in the somber spotlight and Mr. Kieslowski watched over them like a stoic father hawk.  Jackie’s aunt managed to keep Mrs. Kieslowski upright.  Sally abandoned her practiced condolences, clutching their hands and mumbling ‘sorry.’  Moving toward the casket a photograph amid the flowers forced her to stop.

The first was a collage of baby pictures, grammar school, First Communion—Jackie as an adorable and barely-recognizable child.  But Sally locked onto the second collage—one picture in particular: Jackie and her outside the Colonial for Guys & Dolls—Jackie had handed his disposable camera to the doorman.  Jackie’s shoulders hunched like Picasso’s Don Quixote—bold, simple lines forming a mystic complexity.  She the dancer with arms crossed, but here the face was in focus and the dark eyes of the Duchessa peered out.  Yet, she remembered being happy in that moment—for however long it lasted.  Sally’s attention expanded to include more pictures.  Where had they all come from?  There had to be almost fifty images covering the last five to seven years.  The three of them on a couch, Nadine, the watercolor, in Jackie’s coat laughing.  Her seductive yet innocent smile—Nadine was Monet’s wife, she was a Monet.  Maybe they all were.

A gentle touch on her shoulder brought her back to the cramped room.  She peeled her palms from her chest and belly, and let Clifford guide her toward a pair of empty seats.  He took Sally’s hand and she felt a sense of calm, content to stare at the flowers.  It was as if she’d stopped fighting something she didn’t have to.  Maybe she’d simply run out of energy.

Someone entered the funeral home through a side door and Sally recognized the stealthy gait of a smoker.  She signaled Cliff to wait for her and moved toward the door.  Outside, Nadine sat doubled over on the concrete stoop against the metal railing, staring at her shoes.  Sally stepped off the stoop and Nadine’s head rotated slightly, her gaze moving from her own shoes to Sally’s.  Nadine didn’t look up as she held out a pack of cigarettes—the filters a flock of perfect white circles.  Sally removed an orphaned stick of gum from her pocket, popped it into her mouth and nestled in beside her friend.