Anita de Monte Laughs Last

New York City, Winter 1987

Jack’s trial is approaching, and he is consumed by stress and by his own feelings of victimization. He sees the widespread support for Anita as an assault on his own innocence, even though he did kill his wife, and he is enraged by the number of women publicly calling for his conviction. His state of mind is so fragile that he sees Anita’s battered, bloody body everywhere, and although he tells himself that these visions are just manifestations of his own guilt, he is often sure that she actually has come back to haunt him.

The Ceiba Tree

After her death, Anita divides her time between Cuba and various other places. She resides on a beach at the bottom of a Ceiba tree. Her spirit is able to visit, to haunt, and to pursue. Sometimes she appears to Jack, and sometimes she takes the form of a bat. She especially enjoys haunting Jack while he is having sex with Ingrid, the woman with whom he cheated on Anita and then brought to her funeral. Anita is enraged to learn that Jack is trying to wrest control of her estate from her sister. Even in death, he wants to control and silence her art.

Providence, Summer 1998

Nick’s mother calls Raquel at work. She wants to invite Nick and Raquel out for drinks, and Raquel is forced to explain that Nick has not called her in a week. Nick’s mother explains that she is well aware of this fact; she wants to smooth things over between the two. Raquel reluctantly agrees to meet them later that evening. After the call, she talks to her boss Belinda about some issues that she is having with her thesis project. She cannot figure out why Jack Martin stopped showing his work in the mid-1980s. Aghast, Belinda asks her if she is aware that Jack murdered his wife, another famous artist named Anita de Monte. Belinda is stunned that Raquel’s advisor did not share this well-known fact with her. She describes the way that Jack tried to discredit Anita even after her death and recounts the fact that a judge found him not guilty after an explosive trial. Belinda protested at the trial and remembers thinking that Jack’s treatment of Anita represented patriarchy in both the art world and in romantic relationships.

Later, as she has drinks with Nick and his family, Raquel brings up Anita de Monte. Nick’s parents are huge fans of Jack’s work and have a low opinion of Anita, describing the artist as “loud” and a “Cuban thing.” It is obvious to Raquel that they value the work of white artists more highly than the work of artists of color. After Nick’s parents leave, Nick and Raquel have a chance to talk. She is angry with him for not calling all week. He explains that meeting her family scared him because he realized that they were from “different worlds.” Still, he claims that he has never felt supported by anyone as much as Raquel in the past, and he wanted to make their relationship work. Despite the fact that he only mentions her support for him and not her actual personality, Raquel forgives him.

New York City, Winter 1987

News that Jack is trying to seize control of Anita’s estate from her sister has gotten out, and it is all over the papers. Jack’s attorney, Ron, is fuming because Jack is already unpopular with the press and the general public, and the optics of him bullying his sister-in-law are not good. He advises Jack to forgo a jury trial and let a judge decide his fate. He also notes that juries are always made up of both men and women, and he does not know a single woman who thinks that Jack is innocent. Most judges in the county are men, and the attorney feels that Jack has a better chance of being acquitted by a male judge. He also wants Jack to stop meddling in the affairs of Anita’s estate. He suggests that Jack release a public statement clarifying that he does not want to prevent his late wife’s work from being shown and that her retrospective has his blessing. Jack, who is fuming because Anita is getting more attention than he is, worries that his own work will never again be seen as favorably as it was in the past. He asks Tilly to use her influence to stop Anita’s retrospective from happening.

Tilly’s Apartment, Winter 1987

Tilly does indeed call around to various museums to try to prevent them from showing Anita’s work at such a “sensitive” time. Anita hears these calls being made, and her spirit descends upon Tilly, taking the form of a bat in the same way that she has done on several of her visits to Jack. Angrily, she flies around Tilly’s apartment, dive-bombing the woman and sending her glassware cascading to the floor. Tilly has successfully killed her retrospective, and Anita is furious that her memory is going to be extinguished.

Providence, Summer 1998

Raquel reads more about Anita de Monte’s death. Anita had been Latina, like her, and had lived in a part of New York that Raquel knows well. Raquel is moved and fascinated by what she reads. She realizes how unfairly Anita has been treated by the art world, both during her life and after her untimely death. After poring over news clippings for hours, Raquel begins to wonder about Anita’s work. What she finds astonishes her. Colorful and beautiful, the pieces speak to her on a visceral level, and in Raquel’s estimation, Jack’s work pales in comparison to Anita’s.

New York City, Spring 1987

Anita’s work is shown in one retrospective, at the Museum of Contemporary Art of the Americas. Anita finds the exhibition exhilarating and beautiful and desperately wishes that she were alive to attend. Anita learns from another spirit in Cuba that artists like her can only visit the living in living forms (like her bat) while their work is still seen and appreciated. After she is forgotten, she will no longer be able to move with such ease through the world of the living. She will, however, be able to move objects around, he tells her. She thinks that she can work with that.

Madrid, Spain Summer 1989

Jack has a new show in Madrid that is lauded in the press. Tilly is thrilled, but Jack is not. Anita’s spirit moves his pieces around, changing the rigid, 90-degree-angle shapes that he creates and softening them. He sees vaginal imagery in his work and knows that Anita is responsible for the subtle yet pointed shifts. He is livid that this work is better reviewed than his past pieces— the pieces that Anita had not “fucked with.” When he reads that some of Anita’s pieces are going to be shown, he is even more livid. He once again asks Tilly to put a stop to the exhibition.

Under the Ceiba Tree

With Tilly’s help, Jack continues to prevent Anita’s work from being shown. As a result, she fades from the public eye and from memory, and her spirit weakens. She can no longer move objects or visit the living. Occasionally, a women’s studies student or art major will find her work in the archives, and she will experience a temporary ability to release her spirit, but as the years pass, even these moments become increasingly rare.

Providence, Summer 1998

Raquel and Nick’s relationship remains troubled. On the surface, their relationship seems normal, but there is an underlying tension. Nick is nervous about his upcoming show and gets angry when Raquel spends any time away from him. In public, however, he is dismissive and treats her like “an accessory.” He is even more controlling about her appearance than usual, and although she admits that he has good taste, she does not quite feel like herself anymore. Even so, she tries to make things work, and on a whim, she tells him that he can cut her hair. She knows that he does not like how long it is, and she thinks that she might enjoy a change. She tells him to cut off 12 inches of her waist-long hair, but he takes off much, much more. It is now above her shoulders, and he cuts it in a way that does not flatter her curls. He has seen his own, straight-haired mother get haircuts and thought that he could copy her stylist’s approach. Raquel is enraged and saddened by the disastrous result. She reflects that her hair represented her entire life, and she thinks that he has somehow stolen it from her. Because he has cut it so unevenly, she trims it even shorter to make it look better, and she is left with a pixie cut. Raquel is bereft.