Loving Frank Read Online Free PDF

close to him that she could smell the fragrance of the shaving cream he’d used. He was no taller than she, and his eyes—always so direct—were level with her own and impossible to avoid. He looked to be glowing; his face was ruddy from the cold.
    “Ah, Field’s,” he said, inhaling with mock serenity, “the pinnacle of civilization.”
    “It’s always matters of taste with you, isn’t it?” Mamah teased, showing him into the dining room.
    “Well…” He rolled his eyes toward some syrupy pink carnations on the sideboard. She’d bought them at a greenhouse.
    “I know. You’d rather see some old dead branch. But I like them.”
    “That’s good.”
    “Don’t patronize me, Frank Wright,” she said, half serious. “I’m not some client’s wife who lets you dress her.” The words came out wrong, but he knew what she meant. She wasn’t one of those women who permitted him—paid him—to design her china, her linens, even her dresses so she looked
right
in a Wright house. She wasn’t going to let him tell her she couldn’t put pink flowers on her mantel.
    “I’ve never thought of you as some client’s wife. Not for a minute.”
    Already,
she thought. She sat down at the table, smoothed the drawings flat. “Where were we when we left off on this project? It’s been a while.”
    He took a chair across from her. “We were talking about true things.” His voice took on an edge. “Things that kept me sane for a time. Or don’t you remember?”
    “I do.”
    “Do you recall when you first came to see me at the studio? You had just been through Arthur Huertley’s house. You quoted Goethe. You called it ‘frozen music.’”
    “It’s true. I wanted to dance right through that house.”
    Frank shook his head. “I can’t begin to tell you the impression you made. Here was this beautiful woman, so articulate and gifted, who
comprehended
…Tell me something, Mamah. In all those hours we spent together, was I the only one feeling that wonder?”
    She stared at her hands in her lap. “No.”
    “So it wasn’t my imagination?”
    Mamah looked up at him.
So quickly,
she thought.
I am putty in your hands so quickly.
She hesitated, pressed her lips together. “Do you remember my third visit to the studio?”
    “Third?”
    “Well, I do,” she said, “vividly. Your secretary let me in. I was early for an early appointment, so it must have been about eight-thirty in the morning. A big fire was already going in the fireplace. You were up on the balcony chatting with that artist—”
    “Dickie Bock.”
    “Yes.” Mamah drew in a breath. “He was up there sculpting away. I remember that you didn’t see me because I was off in a corner. Then Marion Mahony came in, and she didn’t see me, either. I must have been in shadow.” Mamah smiled, remembering the pleasure of watching the morning unfold at the studio.
    “Marion looked so stylish,” she said. “She had on a heavy coat and a paisley turban. I can see it now. You looked down at her and said, ‘What is that thing on your head?’ I wanted to giggle out loud, but I kept quiet because she seemed wounded at first. She said, ‘Don’t you like it?’
    “You came over to the railing then and teased her. You said, ‘On a magician, I like it.’ And without missing a beat, she shot back at you, ‘I
am
a magician.’”
    Frank let out a belly laugh.
    “Do you remember what you did then?” Mamah asked.
    He shrugged.
    “You put up your hands in surrender.”
    Frank was grinning now. “She thinks she performs miracles for me.”
    “Does she?”
    “She keeps me sharp. She’s quick with the repartee.”
    “Well, let me tell you something. I wanted to
be
Marion Mahony that day, more than you can imagine. I wanted to begin every morning by making you laugh out loud.”
Here I go again,
she thought, feeling her eyes growing moist. “To sit next to you, to look up and see someone sculpting…. To feel the creative energy swirling in that