Mara begins her story at a house party in Park Slope. She was invited by a friend of a friend. It’s unclear how Sydney ended up there.
“I was peering up at a bookshelf and he just came over,” Mara says. “He thought I was looking at the books, but I was actually looking at the shelves. The entire wall of this house was built-in bookshelves. I told him someday I was going to have a house with built-in bookshelves. And he said, ‘I believe you.’” She pauses, reflects. “It wasn’t the response I expected.”
I wonder how I would’ve reacted if Syd had approached me randomly at a party instead of us meeting on a prearranged date. Would I have taken him seriously? On looks alone, probably not. His allure was most apparent when he got you one on one. It was then that you discovered his special gift; he had a skill so rare that when people experienced it, they found themselves opening up to him fully. It was simple: he listened.
They talked more about bookshelves and then about books. Syd noted that The Art of Looking Sideways, which was placed horizontally on a shelf, would be better displayed vertically so the shelf peruser would actually be forced to look sideways in order to read the title. At that, Mara wondered if all books should be placed with their spines inward so that you would never know what book you were reaching for. Syd asked if this was some extreme interpretation of the old adage to never judge a book by its cover.
“It wasn’t what I meant,” Mara tells me. “I was just thinking it would be more fun that way. Like a little adventure every time you wanted a book. Syd liked that.”
This first meeting between them happened back in September. It makes sense timing-wise. As Joan already shared with me, during that same New York trip, Syd also attended a barbecue in the Sully backyard where he talked to Joan about not wanting to be the last Brennett.
“What did you think of him?” I ask.
She takes a moment. “Put it this way—before he came over I was bored out of my mind and ready to leave the party. But after we started talking, I sort of lost track of time.”
“What else did you guys talk about?”
“He was really interested in hearing about my art.” She almost flinches when she says it.
“What?”
“Nothing. I hate talking about what I do. I’m much happier just doing it.” She pulls her hand off her beer glass as if only now realizing how cold it is. “That’s one thing I don’t miss about Brooklyn. It just seemed like some people were more interested in saying they were artists than in actually making art. But anyway, I didn’t mind talking about it with Sydney. It was nice.”
Syd was great at that, making us artsy types feel important. He truly believed in the power of art to inspire, guide, and change. He also knew how effective it was at getting people to buy into something. Selling was, after all, his vocation.
“And I assume you knew he wasn’t trying to pick you up?”
She smiles gently. “He mentioned you pretty quickly. I thought it was really sweet how he was bragging about you. He was telling me all about the show and your role in it and insisting that I watch it. I told him I didn’t really watch TV and he said something like, ‘Well, darling, you better start.’”
She says it with this wistful look in her eyes. I saw the same look when she was speaking about Sydney at the arts fair. The remembering-Sydney look isn’t hers exclusively. I’ve witnessed a similar expression in Paige and many others when they talk about Sydney. And now, realizing this, I know it’s a mistake to treat Mara as a stranger or adversary or someone to merely extract information from. Because now I know, I see, that she, like the rest of us, loved him.
“I don’t know why,” Mara says, still with that look, “but he just had this calming effect on me.”
“I know what you mean,” I assure her. I long for the calm he gave me. I’m pretty sure Mara and I would both welcome a dose of it right now.
She takes her first sip of beer, leaving a faint smudge of lipstick on the rim of the glass.
“How did you guys leave off that night?” I ask.
“He told me…” She trails off. Her bag is ringing. She looks at her phone and debates whether to answer. She ignores it and apologizes. “Syd said he was going to check out my stuff online. Most people say that and you never know, but a couple months later he called, out of the blue.”
“When was that exactly?”
“Early January. Right after New Year’s.”
After our December fight.
“He said he wanted to buy one of my paintings,” Mara says. “He wanted to know if he could visit next time he was in town. I was literally dancing in my bedroom, just freaking out. I’d never gotten a call like that in my life. I thought it was too good to be true. But he called again to set a date. I was really inspired after that. By the time he got here, I had a bunch of brand-new paintings to show him.”
“You were living in Brooklyn back then?”
“Yeah,” Mara says. “He came to my apartment. He brought, like, five different kinds of soup.”
“Why all the soup?”
“I couldn’t figure it out at first either. Then I remembered I had written on my Facebook page that I loved soup.” She lifts her beer, as if Syd’s thoroughness deserves a toast. “He obviously did his research.”
I think back to my first date with Syd and the knowledge—gained only recently through Joan’s memory—that he had chosen that particular sushi restaurant based on a crude impression I’d done back in college. It seems there’s still plenty more to learn about the lengths Syd would go to when he really wanted something.
“We sat in my apartment and ate soup and talked. He asked me all sorts of questions, but it never felt like an interview or anything. It was really natural and easy, like we were old friends. He asked surface stuff, like what’s my sign, to—”
“What is your sign?”
“Leo.”
I nod knowingly.
“What?” Mara asks.
“Leos and Libras are the best signs. That’s what Syd always said. He thought they made for the most solid people.”
She reflects on it and then pats her stomach. “I could definitely stand to be more solid.”
I smile and lift my beer in agreement.
“He asked about deeper stuff too,” Mara says. “He wanted to know about my grand plan, which I had to laugh at. I didn’t have one. I told him I had a hard time believing I could really have a life as an artist and he basically told me, Hey, if that’s the way you’re going to think, you should stop now.”
“He was definitely all or nothing.”
“I get it,” Mara says. “I’m trying to be more like that.”
Syd got into her head. I don’t mean that in a negative way. He got into mine too. He made me realize that I was falling short of my potential and that it wasn’t too late to correct that. Honestly, when he first gave me that speech, I thought it was a bunch of bullshit. But then, to my surprise, it actually worked. It seems he was trying to teach Mara the same lesson. How to believe.