‘Not you. I didn’t say it was you. But it might as well have been you. You’re a man.’
‘I don’t follow that at all.’
‘Of course you don’t. You’re a man. With all your common sense, you can’t follow anything that isn’t as perfectly linear as a line of dominoes.’
‘Do you have issues with men?’ he asked, and the self-satisfied, back-at-you look on his face made her want to smack him.
‘Quite as it should be, m’lord.’
Simultaneously and with equal relief, Jilly and Dylan said, ‘Twenty-eight!’
In the backseat, all teeth tested and found secure, Shep put on his shoes, tied them, and then settled into silence.
The speedometer needle dropped, and gradually so did Jilly’s tension, although she figured she wouldn’t again achieve a state of serenity for another decade.
Cruising at seventy miles an hour, though he probably would have claimed that he was only doing sixty-eight, Dylan said, ‘I’m sorry.’
The apology surprised Jilly. ‘Sorry for what?’
‘For my tone. My attitude. Things I said. I mean, normally you couldn’t drag me into an argument.’
‘I didn’t drag you into anything.’
‘No, no,’ he quickly amended. ‘That’s not what I meant. You didn’t drag. You didn’t. I’m just saying normally I don’t get angry. I hold it in. I manage it. I convert it into creative energy. That’s part of my philosophy as an artist.’
She couldn’t repress her cynicism as skillfully as he claimed to manage his anger; she heard it in her voice, felt it twist her features and harden them as effectively as if thick plaster had been applied to her face to cast a life mask titled Scorn. ‘Artists don’t get angry, huh?’
‘We just don’t have much negative energy left after all the raping and killing.’
She had to like him for that comeback. ‘Sorry. My excrement detector always goes off when people start talking about their philosophy.’
‘You’re right, actually. It’s nothing so grand as a philosophy. I should have said it’s my modus operandi. I’m not one of those angry young artists who turns out paintings full of rage, angst, and bitter nihilism.’
‘What do you paint?’
‘The world as it is.’
‘Yeah? And how’s the world look to you these days?’
‘Exquisite. Beautiful. Deeply, strangely layered. Mysterious.’ Word by word, as though this were an oft-repeated prayer from which he drew the comfort that only profound faith can provide, his voice softened both in tone and volume, and into his face came a radiant quality, after which Jilly was no longer able to see the cartoon bear that heretofore he had resembled. ‘Full of meaning that eludes complete understanding. Full of a truth that, if both felt and also logically deduced, calms the roughest sea with hope. More beauty than I have the talent or the time to capture on canvas.’
His simple eloquence stood so at odds with the man whom he had seemed to be that Jilly didn’t know what to say, though she realized she must not give voice to any of the many acerbic put-downs, laced with venomous sarcasm, that made her tongue tremble as that of any serpent might flutter in anticipation of a bared-fang strike. Those were easy replies, facile humor, both inadequate and inappropriate in the face of what seemed to be his sincerity. In fact, her usual self-confidence and her wise-ass attitude drained from her, because the depth of thought and the modesty revealed by his answer unsettled her. To her surprise, a needle of inadequacy punctured her as she’d rarely been punctured before, leaving her feeling… empty. Her quick wit, always a juggernaut with sails full of wind, had morphed into a small skiff and had come aground in shallow water.
She didn’t like this feeling. He hadn’t meant to humble her, but here she was, reduced. Having been a choirgirl, having been churched more of her life than not, Jilly understood the theory that humility was a virtue and also a blessing that ensured a happier life than the lives of those who lived without it. On those occasions when the priest had raised this issue in his homily, however, she had tuned him out. To young Jilly, living with full humility, rather than with the absolute minimum of it that might win God’s approval, had seemed to be giving up on life before you started. Grown-up Jilly felt pretty much the same way. The world was full of people who were eager to diminish you, to shame you, to put you in your place and to keep you down. If you embraced humility too fully, you were doing the bastards’ work for them.