Some Other Town by Elizabeth Collison Page A

MaryBeth read by that tree. “Good pacing,” he said. “The woman can certainly enunciate. Just the ticket for our new tapes.” And then he gave her a call at her studio, offered her grant money the next day. And withinthe week, MaryBeth arrived here at the Project to negotiate her contract with Steinem.
    â€œNegotiate, right,” Lola says. And then says what all of us think, that most likely the affair began right then, MaryBeth’s first day at the office. “It does throw a new light on the Christmas special,” she adds, sadly shaking her head.
    Frances coolly watches Lola. “Well, that may be,” she says. Then straightening herself and getting back to the point, “But now the Personality wants to read our readers, don’t you see?”
    She turns, looks sharply at me. “Margaret, we must talk.” And when I stare back at her like I have no idea why and try for a bemused sort of smile, she adds, “About that little secret of ours.”
    Secret? Good lord. I can’t believe Frances brought up our secret. And in front of Celeste at that. It is something we don’t speak of in public. Frances has got to know better. And I look at her now and I hold my smile dead hard on her.
To Paint Light
    The students grow restless. They rush to paint, they do not first try to see. He knows he must stop them, slow them down.
    He points them to paintings he was taught to teach. He brings in museum slides, throws images large and grainy on the walls. Stand back here, he tells them. Soften your gaze. Do you see?
    This one, he says. Cathedral in morning light. The cathedral, its great doors, yes, but it is the light that you see. It is thatone early morning. Look, he says. Do you see? Even now it is there, rising from that wall, the ghost light of that one day just beginning.
    Imagine, he says. To paint light.
    They stare. They do not understand.
    He walks to a window, opens it wide. Then here, he says. Look. Look here. He points to the line of oaks just outside, the great oaks that circle their building, shielding it from the river.
    Look. What do you see?
    Trees, they tell him. Oak trees. Branches. And leaves. Black branches, black-green leaves.
    Look harder, he says. What more?
    Sky? someone says. There’s sky.
    He nods. And?
    They stand, looking.
    And light, he says. Do you see the light? There through the branches, through all the leaves, there. The trees are on fire with that light. It is the light that’s to see, not the trees.
    They look. They do not see a fire. They do not even know what they are looking for.
    One day, he tells them, you will. When you are thinking of nothing at all, you will look up and you will see the light in the trees.
    But how? they say. How will they know when they see it?
    He smiles, says only that they will know. It will possess them, it will make them want to begin. So that then they must paint with all that is in them. It will pretty much be their one chance.
    They do not understand.
    You must paint what you saw, as you saw it. Not a copy, butrather a moment, just that one instant you saw. And then you will understand painting.
    He looks again at their faces.
    The way in is the way out, he tells them.
    They do not understand.
    He closes the window. Turns up the lights. Asks them to return to their places.
Janice!
    I hold my hard smile for Frances. I’m still angry, it’s true, she has so casually brought up our secret, something on which our work lives depend. We do not any of us just go spilling the beans here. We’re a team, after all: Steinem Associates, Unified. The point here is unification. If one of us slips and our secret gets out, most likely the whole Project is through.
    That’s how it is at the Project, Frances. Surely I don’t need to remind her.
    But I look now again at Frances and realize it is not easy smiling so hard for so long. My mouth is beginning to ache. And I realize besides that Frances is