One Grave Less

Diane.
    “Mike said you’d say that,” Neva said.
    “What’s this Big Deep?” said Gregory.
    “The deepest cave in the world,” said Diane. “It’s about eight thousand feet deep.”
    “Good heavens,” said Gregory. “It sounds treacherous. And you would find that relaxing?”
    “It is and I do,” said Diane. “Wow. Wow. He got pictures, I hope. The rat,” she added.
    “Loads of pictures,” said Neva. “All the cavers had really great cameras on their helmets and, of course, they had their official photographer. Mike has all these ideas for an exhibit.”
    “I can’t wait.” A wave of regret washed over Diane. What if she weren’t working at the museum then? What if she were banished to some deserted island? God, she loved her job.
    “So tell me, Neva,” said Gregory. “You cave too. Do you find it relaxing?”
    Neva shook her head. “Diane goes for the calm of it. I go for the excitement. My heart beats too fast in a cave for it to be relaxing.”
    “You and Mike are an item, is that right?” asked Gregory.
    Neva nodded. “I suppose. I’d marry him in a minute if he would ask.”
    “Don’t girls ask these days?” said Gregory.
    “I’d be too afraid of a ‘no,’” said Neva. She sighed. “Mike is way more educated than I am.”
    “Really?” said Gregory. “Talking to you, you sound very educated.”
    “Working where I do, I can’t help but pick up all kinds of knowledge about a lot of things, but . . .” She shrugged.
    “It appears to me that you are selling yourself quite short,” said Gregory. “Education is more than a piece of paper with special letters on it. It’s the content of your mind and your awareness of it. You have all that.”
    “You are such a nice man,” said Neva. “No wonder your wife is crazy about you.”
    “Is she really? I’m glad to hear it. It’s hard to tell with Marguerite sometimes.” Gregory smiled at Neva.
    Diane was staring at the bones of the wooly mammoth as Neva and Gregory spoke, remembering Milo Lorenzo, the man whose dream was behind the museum, the love of Vanessa Van Ross’s life, and the man who hired Diane as assistant director. It was here he had a heart attack and died. He was much younger than Vanessa and it was a shock and a tragedy.
    “Neva, you are an artist,” Diane said, still staring at the mammoth.
    “Yes,” she said.
    “Do you ever do drawings of Mike?” she asked.
    “Are you kidding? All the time. I’m working on a series from the cave photographs we have. You know that one where we just came out of that cave and we were so tired, he’d taken his shirt off and was taking a drink of water? I’m doing a painting of it. I think it’s going to be one of my best.”
    Neva took her cell phone off the loop of her belt and called up her photos. “Here is a head study I did of him.”
    Neva handed it to Diane and she and Gregory looked at the pencil drawing of Mike’s face. She had caught him well, the planes and angles of his handsome face, the intense expression he often had, but with a spark of humor that you could see mostly in his eyes.
    “My dear, you are quite good. Do you do commissions?” Gregory said.
    “Whenever I can get them,” said Neva.
    “I have this favorite photograph of Marguerite that I’d love for you to do.”
    Neva nodded and grinned. “Sure.”
    “Neva,” said Diane, “would Madge draw someone she was in love with, even if it was unrequited?”
    Neva’s eyebrows shot up. “Yes, she would, she sure would. I would. I do. Damn, I didn’t think of that. She should have lots of drawings of him, if there is a him. If you like to draw, and she did, you just can’t help yourself.”
    “Could you recognize drawings of someone that the artist was in love with as opposed to, say, a commission she may have been doing?” asked Diane.
    “That’s a good question. Hmmm. At my house it would be the sheer quantity of drawings of Mike. Except that I also have lots of Jin, David, you, Andie. I like to draw. And that’s an element too. You fall in love with whatever you’re working on at the moment. But can you tell if it is someone you’re in love with? I don’t know. What did you see in that photograph of the drawing I did of Mike?”
    “I saw Mike,” said Diane. “Him and his personality. I saw who he is. Maybe that’s it.” Diane shrugged and looked at Gregory.
    “I was reminded of this photograph I love of my wife. Not that she looks like this bloke, Mike, but I