“Okay,” she says, nodding again.
“We will keep a close eye on him,” Dr. Russo says, reaching out to touch her elbow. “You try to get some sleep tonight.”
Valerie musters a smile. “I’ll try,” she says, lying again.
Later that night, Valerie is wide awake on her rocking chair, thinking of Charlie’s father and the night they met at a dive bar in Cambridge, mere days after her big fight with Laurel. She had come in alone, knowing that it was a bad idea even before she saw him sitting in the corner, also alone, chain-smoking and looking so mysterious and beautiful and thrillingly angst-ridden. She decided that she needed a mindless hookup, and if given the chance, she would leave with him. Which is exactly what she ended up doing, four glasses of wine and three hours later.
His name was Lionel, but everybody called him “Lion,” which should have been a red flag. For starters, he looked like a lion, with his striking gold-toned skin and green eyes, his thick mane of curly hair, and huge, callused hands. Then there was his temperament—remote and languid with flashes of anger. And like a lion, he was perfectly content to let the lioness in his life do all the work—be it his laundry, the cooking, or taking care of his bills. Valerie chalked it up to his preoccupation with his work, but Jason insisted his laziness stemmed from a sense of entitlement typical of beautiful women. She could see her brother’s point, even in the throes of infatuation when most women are blinded by their attraction, but she simply didn’t care, and in fact, found his flaws compelling, romantic, befitting a sculptor and painter.
“He’s an artist,” she told Jason repeatedly, as if it were a blanket excuse for all his shortcomings. She knew how she sounded, knowing that Lion was something of a cliché—a temperamental, selfcentered artist—and she an even bigger cliché for falling in love with him. She had visited Lion’s studio and seen his work, but had not yet seen him in action. Still, she could perfectly envision him splattering red paint on giant canvases with a flick of his wrist. The two of them together, reenacting the Demi Moore-Patrick Swayze pottery scene in Ghost, “Unchained Melody” playing in the background.
“Whatever,” Jason said, rolling his eyes. “Just be careful.”
Valerie promised that she would. But there was something about Lion that made her throw all caution to the wind—and condoms to the wind, for that matter, as they had sex everywhere, all over his studio, her apartment, the cottage at the Vineyard where he dog-sat (which turned out to be his ex-girlfriend’s house and dog—the source of their first significant argument), even in the back of a taxi. It was the best sex Valerie had ever had—the kind of physical connection that made her feel invincible, as if anything was possible. Unfortunately, the euphoria was short-lived, replaced by jealousy and paranoia as Valerie discovered perfume on his sheets, blond hair in his shower, lipstick on a wineglass that he hadn’t even bothered to put in the dishwasher. She interrogated him in fits of rage, but ultimately believed his stories about his visiting cousin, his professor from the art institute, the girl he met at the gallery who he swore up and down was a lesbian.
All the while, Jason did his best to convince Valerie that Lion wasn’t worth the angst. He was just another troubled, not very talented artist, a dime a dozen. Valerie pretended to agree, wanted to agree, but could never really make herself believe those things were true. For one, Lion wasn’t that troubled—he didn’t have a drug or alcohol problem, had never been in any trouble with the law. And for another very unfortunate thing, he was talented—“brilliant, clear-eyed, and provocative,” according to the critic in the Boston Phoenix that reviewed his first exhibit at a Newbury Street gallery, incidentally a gallery owned by a saucy, jaunty young socialite named Ponder, the very girl Lion would next conquer.
“Ponder? How pretentious can you get?” Jason said after Valerie spotted Lion kissing her on the street outside his apartment and rushed home, devastated, to give her brother the news.
“Lion and Ponder,” Jason continued. “They deserve each other, with names like those.”
“I know,” Valerie said, taking some solace in her brother’s scorn.