These were the women whom Figman remembered apart from the flavor of their lipstick. Occasionally, he'd kiss someone new, taste her lipstick, and recall some detail about a woman he'd once dated: the shine of her hair or the curve of her hip as they walked, arm in arm, about the city. He wondered sometimes if he didn't mix them up, so that what he thought he remembered of a particular lover was not a true memory at all but a fragment of some larger female composite whose features he culled from the melting pot into which all women had been poured.
"This is the mediumest pan I have," said Verdie. "You can keep it. I never use it, 'ceptin' holidays."
"Sorry it was so much trouble," said Figman. He took the pan and returned her drink.
"Sure I can't get you one?" she asked.
"Thanks, but I have to get back," he said.
Poe Titus stood up and extended his hand across the table. "Good meeting you, Figman. Good luck with that okra." Figman shook the man's hand. It felt beat up and scratchy as a fifty-year-old fence post.
"Now, remember, don't undercook it and use lots of butter and salt," said Verdie.
Figman had no butter. He'd forgotten to pick some up at the E-Z Mart but decided not to mention this lest Verdie go digging for some underneath her kitchen sink. He said good-bye and walked the thirty feet back to his spotless kitchen. His steak had burned. He yelled, "Fuck," and "Shit," and threw it into the sink, pouring water on it to lessen its smoking. It looked like some horrible fungus the Pontelle sisters had left for him to discover.
When the room finally aired, Figman whipped up his mashed potatoes and boiled his half-pound of okra. He set his kitchen table, poured himself a beer, and sat down to his first home-cooked meal in New Mexico. Without butter, his potatoes tasted starchy; his okra went down like snot. He dumped the whole lot of it in the sink on top of his mutant steak. Outside, the night was dark and windy. The lights went off in Verdie's trailer.
Figman awoke at daybreak to a clap of thunder. As this was the first thunder he'd heard in New Mexico, he took it as an omen, an auspicious beginning for his life as a famous painter. It was a Sunday in early February. Figman looked outside his bedroom window and saw the first signs of the changing seasons. The sky revealed clouds and wind, but not the same kinds of clouds or the same direction of wind to which he had grown accustomed. Surely these departures signaled spring.
Figman brewed himself a cup of coffee and pulled his book on oil painting down from its perch in his living room. He started reading at the beginning. His book told him to first pick a subject. He looked out his window; the Rodriguez house beckoned to him from across the highway. That was easy. Next, his book told him to study his subject in terms of light and composition. It was morning light, the best light in which to paint the east-facing Rodriguez house. The structure itself was nothing more than a box, but its drooping clothesline offset its otherwise static form. Best not to start with something too complicated, thought Figman. The Rodriguez house would make for a fine beginning.
The canvases he'd purchased had come ready-stretched and primed, but Figman would need to lay down an imprimatura, a thin layer of paint on top of the primer to tone the work surface. It was not unlike washing one's paper before beginning a watercolor. Reading further, he discovered that famous artists often used an imprimatura: Constable preferred red; Holbein, dark blue. Figman admired the work of Holbein. He squeezed Thalo blue onto his palette.
Figman had chosen oil as his medium because all great painters painted in oil. He knew of no famous watercolorists, but museums were full of masterpieces in oil. As his book suggested, Figman diluted his Thalo blue with turpentine. With a squared-off brush, he applied a thin coat of paint, completely covering his canvas. He was careful to check for any buildup; many canvasses whose imprimaturas were applied too thickly later cracked.
Once his underpainting was completed, Figman checked his book for the next step in the process. It said, "Wait twenty-four hours to let dry." He'd forgotten that detail. Outside, thunder rumbled off in the distance and the sky grew darker. There was nothing to be done about it. His art would have to wait a day.
Figman fixed himself breakfast, then sat down at his kitchen table to write a letter to his mother. Figman loathed letter-writing; his words were brief:
Dear Mom,
Got your card. Thanks. Things are going well. I like working in the field, especially not having to deal with L.A. traffic. My work is highly confidential, so it's still important not to tell anyone my whereabouts. There are even people at Goetschke who don't know what I'm doing out here.My new boss is terrific— a regular guy who's already given me some pretty intense assignments. Sorry I can't be more specific. Please give my best to Dee if she calls again.Got to dash. Say hello to Virginia. That's great about her granddaughter.Love, F.
P.S. Next time please write to me in a letter. My landlady and I share the same mailbox and any postcard you send is likely to be read by her.
Figman had never asked his mother to call him Figman. She, alone, he allowed to call him Louis, but only because she had given him the name. Still, he had trouble signing "Louis" so he wrote just "F." He knew she would understand, for understanding was what his mother did best. She'd understood him when he lost his father at the age of three. When he was caught stealing eight years later. When he dropped out of college at nineteen. When he reenrolled at twenty-three. She'd even understood when he moved to New Mexico the year before he turned forty.
His mother was the person Figman trusted most in the world not to abuse his emotions. Still, he'd had difficulty informing her that he was leaving his job, his girlfriend, his home town (and her) to drive to some obscure western state to make a name for himself. So he'd concocted a small falsehood. His company was transferring him and there was nothing he could do. A lot of his friends were being laid off. If he didn't go, he'd lose his job. Besides, it was a better position, in fraud investigations. More money and more responsibility. He'd grown tired of AD&D.
It was the first lie he had told his mother since he was seventeen, and though he'd forgotten what that lie had been about, the guilt from having told it still lingered. He felt terrible about having to lie to her again and wished she would stop inquiring about his work. Outside his kitchen, the clouds were an angry swirl. Verdie stepped outside her trailer. She was alone. Perhaps Titus had left during the night, or maybe he was still asleep on the sofa bed in her living room. Figman watched from his window as Verdie climbed into her green Impala and drove off down the driveway. He wondered where she was headed.
When the dust from her tires settled, Figman noticed a small, hunched figure at her trailer's far corner. It was Bobo Rodriguez with his bucket and spoon. Figman watched as the child filled his bucket with dirt, then emptied it into a pile a short distance from the flower bed. Bobo worked meticulously, first excavating, then carefully refilling each of the holes he had made. He dug with intensity, with a sense of purpose Figman had rarely seen in adults, let alone children. When he'd filled his last hole, Bobo gathered up his spoon and bucket and headed back across the highway. He was followed by a large orange cat that Figman had not previously noticed. It was nice for a boy to have a cat, especially one that followed you around. Figman wondered what to do for the rest of the day; he knew what Bobo would be doing.
He decided to go see Oma. He'd buy another steak, a different vegetable, and tell her how right she'd been about okra. Figman stamped and addressed his envelope, then dropped it off at his mailbox on his way into town. The flag was up; Verdie had left an outgoing letter face down inside the box. Figman resisted the urge to turn it over. He tossed his letter in on top of hers and headed north on the highway.
At Lester's, Figman bought top sirloin and a head of fresh broccoli. Oma was not there. Instead, he found Gert behind the counter, a woman whose name said it all. It was an omen, he concluded, his second that day. If his time in this life were indeed limited,