I wake to pressure at the bottom of the bed, mumbling. When I open my eyes, I see Shane. She is holding a breakfast tray with a bud vase that holds a single orchid, and a copy of today’s Times, opened to the weekend section. “Rise and shine.” I stretch, and do so. “How long have you been up?” “A few hours.” I feel like *****. She on the other hand is positively luminous, eyes bright, dark hair dishevelled. “Oh my god, I’m so sorry I fell asleep like that. I was so stressed before the show and-” “Clea. It’s okay. Read the paper.” “Okay.” I pick up the glass of juice that she’s brought me, sip it, then unfold the paper. PROVOCATION AND PROGRESSION SHOWS INTIMATE HUMANITY by Alice Pieszecki Clea Jaffee’s paintings are all about the dialectic. About basic, evolutionary processes. Provocation, the thesis. The stimulus. And then there is Progression, the antithesis. The response. And from the two comes the synthesis, the dialogue, the integration of the two. Jaffee deftly paints a series of moments, psychic vignettes wherein emotion and thought integrate and become far more powerful than their parts. At twenty-nine, the Bel-Air native shows a shocking grasp of human feeling. A previously little-known artist, she is the daughter of the late Steven Jaffee, the original Hollywood real estate tycoon. At nineteen, Jaffee moved out of the Bel-Air mansion and into the art world, dabbling in photography, sculpture, and, most notably, mixed media, before settling into painting. “Paintings are richer. A photograph is static, an instant frozen by one movement. Paintings, on the other hand, are inherently more organic. Each brushstroke a human motion, lost to the sum of its parts.” Jaffee has no formal training, she says, and her craft appears to come to her effortlessly. “Painting, when you are in that zone, has a zenlike quality. You loose yourself in it. It’s almost as if you don’t see the canvas, but you see your subject. And then the spell is broken, and poof, there it is on the canvas.” The most notable work of the whole exhibition is a painting of sought-after Hollywood stylist Shane McCutcheon, sleeping naked in warm tones and and exquisite romance that brings to mind Leighton’s Flaming June and Klimt, as well as Caravaggio. Other portraits include those of Jaffee’s family members, her late mother Cherie, and a staid matronly portrait of the artist’s aunt Dorothy. Jaffee excels not only at bringing her vision of others to the canvas. Two self portraits are emblematic of the exhibit, and were in fact used to market it, and side by side seem to be mirror images. The polarity doesn’t end there. One is reflective in neutral colors and seems almost hesitant. The other is vibrant, dynamic and conflicted. Is this an expression of opposite tendencies within the artist? “No, actually,” Jaffee says with open candor unusual for a Hollywood native. “They are from two different points in time, several years apart, and two very different mental states. Visually they read as opposites, but in reality they are two different points along the same path.” The singularly notable aspect of Jaffee’s work is the emotion underlying every piece. They scream, they croon, they murmur, but every painting says something. Provocationa and Progression: Paintings by Clea Jaffee will be at the Porter Wisneski Gallery at 8045 Sunset Blvd through May 10. I sit there staring at the color reproductions of the paintings. I always feel vulnerably naked after an opening, after having put something out there. I press my palm to my mouth and the adrenaline of the previous night comes rushing back. “Wow.” “You did good, Clee.” My gaze moves to the plate beside the paper. She’s brought me a pastry and some fresh fruit. “You brought me breakfast.” “You don’t miss a thing, do you?” She sits on one leg, looking smug in white panties and a tight white tee shirt, all long legs and arms. “Shut up.” I throw a grape at her and she catches it effortlessly. She grins and pops it into her mouth, ber body full of restless, boyish energy. “Hey, I meant to serve you breakfast, but if you want to feed me grapes I can be down with that.” “Anytime,” I smile stupidly, blushing and looking down. I’m acting like a lovelorn idiot. When I glance at her, I realize that she looks much the same. She is stretching her arms out behind her back, but her face is tucked down, and has the same dopey grin. Eating is the last thing I want to do, but I devour the food so I can devour her. “This is amazing,” I say, distracted by the flaky pastry. “Did you eat?” “Yeah, a while ago.” I pick up the last piece of watermelon with my fingers and slip it between my lips. The juice runs down my hand and she glances at me, then does a double-take as I swallow, then lick off the juice. Her eyebrows raise up and wrinkle together on her face, and she sighs, lost, staring at me. The power of it is like a drug. I gently set the breakfast tray down, pick up the orchid and leave it on the nightstand. The crystal catches the sun and throws it out onto the blonde wood in wavy patterns. I reach for her, and she is so warm and soft. “Do you have plans for today?” I ask, kissing her neck. “Nope. You?” “I’d like to never leave this bed if that’s possible.” Her eyes are on mine, liquid, transcendant. “That’s possible.” Her bravado is gone and I make love to her, wondering about her past and her name and the things that made her, wanting to cradle her heart in my own and never let her hurt. She tastes salty and a bit tangy, like a shocking fruit, in the hollow of her thin arm and below her breast, and I am so instantly in love with the taste of her. I get her on her back, after teasing and touching her whole body, and move down to the juncture of her legs. I feast and linger there in her slick pink flesh and take the last of her resistance. She lets me, and comes and flows around me, shaking. And then she returns the favor, and the balance is complete, the circuit made, and when we lie spent, fingertips moving lazily on sunlit skin, I am dizzy with the completeness of it. . That day I didn’t really believe that she loved me. My hard heart took some time to absolutely absorb it. We were like that together for sweet weeks that dragged on into one month, then two. I painted her and every time, she fell asleep, trusting me completely. I now know what she means about not loving my mother. I never thought anything could be like this. Spring in L.A. flares hot and sweet after a month of storms, of days spent indoors under the patter of rain, tasting each other, whispering words back and forth like the shuttle of a loom. “Are you coming to brunch tomorrow?” She asks me. We are in my apartment. She is eating cold pizza while I fold my laundry. It is the day before Memorial Day, the very brink of summer. “Um – yeah.” Of course her adept mind picks up my hesitation. “Do you have plans?” “I was going to go out to Bel-Air and visit my parents’ graves. I’ll go after.” “Oh.” I can see that she feels it like a brick wall. “Come with.” I say softly, pushing the dark hair from her forehead. “You’re kidding.” “Of course not.” “I can’t, Clee. That would be downright disrespectful, especially of your dad.” “What?” “He told me to stay away from you and your mom. It would be like pissing on his grave. I can’t do that.” “Shane. This is a guy who threatened to kill you.” “Still. He had a point.” “Are you guilty about being with me?” “No.” “Do you think it’s wrong to be with me?” “No!” “Look. My parents were flawed and weak in ways, and fucked up. But one thing I can tell you without a doubt is that they wanted me to be happy. And if they could see us, they would know that you make me happy. So just come with me, okay?” The next day I fuss with my hair. It is growing out of its cut and pissing me off. “Hey.” I turn around, surprised to see her there. She looks fabulous in tight jeans and a denim jacket. She has let herself in with my key, which isn’t unusual, but I didn’t expect her so soon. “Hey. Morning.” She tosses her keys onto my bathroom counter and takes the brush from my hands. Her eyes are soft as she pulls me close from behind, kissing my ear. We are reflected that way in the mirror, and I want to paint this scene. Then her own eyes flicker to the mirror. “You okay?” she whispers. I nod. “Hair is pissing me off.” “Let me.” So I do, standing there and watching as she runs her fingers through it, then knots it in several places, pinning it so it stays back. When she is done it is swept up from my face, simultaneously elegant and haphazard. “Damn, you’re good,” I say, and she smiles. “Let’s go eat. I’m starving.” The Planet is hopping. Shane has told me that it is a West Hollywood institution, created by some contessa from Italy, then taken over my Bette Porter’s half-sister. Four years ago she bought out the space next door, knocked down the wall, and expanded. Every sunday a table is reserved for Kit’s friends. I smell fresh baking and coffee and hazelnut wafting from the breeze of the open door, and follow Shane as she leads me back through the place, smiling and nodding hello at a dozen different women. Her hand is firm on mine and when there is room for us to walk side by side, she lets go of my hand and touches the small of my back. Alice is there, and Dana, and Tina. Bette is there, and so is Kit. “Hey, guys.” Shane mumbles, and they greet us. “Love your hair, Clea.” Kit says. “Thanks.” I nod my head toward Shane. “Her doing.” I say, and sit down. I love these chicks. Individually just neat people, together they are a force to be reckoned with. Shane has known them for years, and they have readily accepted me into their fold. We sit and chill and eat and talk about a half-dozen things. On an impulse I put my arm around Shane’s chair. She turns and grins at me and I idly play with her soft messy hair. “So when’s the big ***** wedding?” Alice says. “Shut up, Al.” Shane mutters cordially, a boyish lopsided grin on her face. “Are you saying I should make an honest woman out of her?” I say, causing Shane and Dana to simultaneously spit out their coffee. I laugh, cackle really, at the way they sputter. “That was ***** priceless.” Oh, I am good. “Speaking of weddings,” Tina said. “You’ll never guess who’s an item.” “Who?” Bette asks. “I just heard that one Jennifer Shecter has moved into a house in Tuscany with Marina. They’re an item. A full blown couple.” “Jennifer? Wait a minute, you mean confused little Jenny from the block, lived next door to Bette and Tina, couldn’t choose between ***** and *****?” Shane asks. “You’re shitting me!” Alice says. “You mean she actually picked a side?” “Oh, that’s interesting, coming from the resident bisexual.” “Eat me.” Alice snarks gently. “From what Marina tells me, they are a bona fide couple. Monogamous and everything.” “*****,” Shane says. “What’s this world coming to?” She doesn’t smile, but I can see a hint of light in her eyes and it warms me. . We get out of my car and walk along the sunny path to the northernmost part of the cemetary. The day is gorgeous, balmy and breezy, and I hold her hand as I lead her to our destination. We’ve stopped for fresh cut flowers, and she picked a mixed bouquet while I arranged irises, white lily and freesia for my mother. If the incongruity of her picking out flowers for my father’s grave bothered her, she didn’t show it. We walk over the quaint bridge that spans a small brook, then up the crest to where my parents are buried. “Over here,” I murmur, finding the spot. There are two sleek black headstones. My mother’s is newer. Cherie Louise Jaffee, it reads. 1960-2014. I take the blue and white flowers and unwrap them, place them on her grave. So strange to be here doing this with Shane. She hands me the other arrangement, and I unwrap that too, lay it on my father’s stone. Then I sink into the lush grass and sit. I feel her fingers running unsure over my shoulders. I take her arm and tug her downward. She sits next to me. When I start to cry, a light front of sobs that comes and blows through me just as quickly, she sits behind me, a leg on either side, long arms and legs encircling me. Her head is craned down so it covers mine, and my tears wetten her face. Her eyes don’t leave me. Each of my hands entwines with one of hers. I pull her close around me, and we sit there like that, as big clouds move over and away, casting shadows and sunlight intermittently over the warm earth. “I’m glad you came,” I say. “Me too.” “I love you.” I lean my head back onto her shoulder and breathe. “I love you too.” So strange, to be sitting here. But so right. And when we rise and walk slowly back out of the park, we hold hands and I feel lighter than I have in a long time. FINIS.