Surviving Valencia

“I’m fine. Everything’s fine here.”

“I should be home by eight or nine. Want to watch a movie tonight?” he asked me.

“Sure, that sounds nice.”

I told him I was going to do some sewing and we said our goodbyes. I set down the phone, took a deep breath, and prepared to get down to business.

I went into his studio, poking around in the closet, coming up with nothing out of the ordinary. Then I moved on to a tall file cabinet. It was filled with folders labeled with the names of clients in the top three drawers and other artists who inspired him in the bottom two drawers. I got a stepstool and pulled open the top drawer, slowly leafing through each file. There were snapshots and slides of the work he had done for them, invoices, notes on things like the client’s spouse or kid’s names so he could look like a personable guy who remembered details. I made my way through each file folder, examining each slip of paper, not sure what I was looking for. As I went along, I came to the woman in the photos John Spade had sent, the early photos that had implied Adrian was having an affair, and the reminder of her made my stomach do a little flip. There was nothing unusual in her file, no telling notes or extra attention paid to her. It seemed she really had been nothing more than any average client.

I finished up with clients and kneeled on the floor, pulling open the fourth drawer down, the one that housed the first section of artists. I was getting a little bored, starting to think I was wasting my time, and was being less careful now. My stomach growled and I considered scrapping this whole project and going out for a really good lunch. There was nothing of importance in the top drawer to I sat on the floor and pulled open the bottom file drawer, thumbing through the folders. As I neared the final few, an out-of-place folder slowed my pace. It was labeled as Kandinksy Samples.

I looked inside and instead of loose magazine articles or photocopies I found a single manila envelope. I pulled it out and held it in my hands for a moment, biting my lip like Valencia used to do. It was a habit of hers I had copied to the point of catching it, and now and then it came back when I least expected it.

I carefully bent back the metal closure and opened the flap. The envelope smelled like cigarettes and mustiness. I hesitated, listening, and then convinced I truly was alone in the silent, sunny studio, I carefully tilted the envelope and let its contents slide out onto the floor. Postcards featuring the artwork of Wassily Kandinsky spilled out upon the floor.

I sighed, defeated. I gathered up the colorful squares and shoved them back into the envelope. I replaced it, skimmed through the remaining folders, and closed the file cabinet. I had really thought that envelope was going to be the answer to all my questions. I should have known Adrian would not be careless enough to leave any traces of his thoughts or his past.

The floor felt cool, and since this was one room where Frisky was not usually allowed, it felt clean. I was never in here by myself and it reminded me a little of being in Van’s room after he was gone. I stretched out on my back with my fingers woven beneath my head, like a kid lolling in a summer field. I breathed in the smells of the studio, torn between liking the intensity and finding it nauseating.

I closed my eyes and when I opened them, I noticed the middle drawer of the file cabinet was still open an inch or two, and a yellow line on the underside of it was catching my eye. I sat up and I pulled the drawer open a little farther, and discovered that there was a manila folder taped to the underside of the drawer. Time seemed to grind to a halt. I sat up and checked the other drawers, one at a time since the file cabinet did not allow for more than one drawer to be open more than a couple of inches without locking the others out of commission, to keep it from toppling forward. I could not see under the bottom drawer, but I ran my hand carefully over its surface and it was smooth. There was nothing else.

Then I did something awful, considering I was pregnant: I went into the kitchen, found my cigarettes, and smoked one. So what I reasoned. My mom smoked when she was pregnant with all of us. So I had another. Then I washed my hands and calmly went back to the studio, reopened the middle drawer, and peeled away the tape, freeing the envelope.

This is probably going to be porn, I told myself. But I did not believe that. And it was not porn.

The envelope was sealed shut so I tore it open. There was no way to preserve it.

Inside there were newspaper clippings about Van and Valencia. Stacks of articles. Headlines from papers in the Cities and the Hudson Star-Observer, their senior pictures filling up the whole front pages.

Local Twins Perish in Icy Automobile Accident

Prom Queen Still Missing

Car from Loden Deaths Found in Mississippi River

Valencia Loden Presumed Dead

Loden Twins’ Funeral Today

Local Students Speak about Loden Twins

And then their obituaries, neatly clipped out and placed inside a separate, unsealed envelope for safekeeping.

I’d had no idea this had been news in Minneapolis and Saint Paul. I looked at Va

lencia’s senior picture. She looked like a model. She was why this was news. I took my find to the kitchen and lit another cigarette. I was shaking and it calmed me down.

I removed the obituaries from the envelope and placed them on the table in front of me.

As far as I knew, my parents had not saved any clippings from the accident. They would have hidden them from me if they had, anyhow. I’d had some of my own, cut from our local paper and saved through the years, but nearly everything I was seeing here was brand-new to me, and fascinating.

Valencia loved animals and donated over $2000 to the Humane Society in her short lifetime, it said in her obituary. Really? Valencia, my Valencia, did that? I thought of all the money I made working for Grandma Betty, and how I had hoarded it away to buy a car.

No wonder Valencia could inspire Adrian to change his entire life path, I thought, lighting my fourth cigarette.

How had he explained these to Belinda, I wondered. An entire folder filled with clippings about two dead people.

Apparently she hadn’t been as snoopy as me.