Death of an Artist (4 page)

Stef had snatched up her purse and was pawing through it. She pulled out her car keys, and when Marnie tried to block her at the door, she pushed past her. “I'm going to get my paintings!” she cried.

A minute later her car tires screamed as she roared out of the driveway. Marnie sank down into a chair and drew in a long, shuddering breath. After a few minutes she pulled herself upright and called Freddi Wordling at the For Arts Sake gallery.

*   *   *

“O
H
,
DEAR
G
OD
,” Freddi said softly.

“Amen,” Marnie said in total understanding. “Is Dale there?”

“No, and with any luck he won't come in until after she's been here and gone. Thanks, Marnie.” Freddi hung up and closed her eyes, praying that this would be one of the days that Dale chose to drive in late, stay a few minutes, and leave.

Stef was icily calm when she entered through the back door. “Why didn't you tell me?” she demanded when Freddi stepped out from her office.

“He said you knew.”

“And you believed him? Give me the key to the van. I'm taking everything home with me.”

Without a word Freddi handed Stef the key. Her prayer was almost answered, she was thinking, when Stef came from the showroom with a few charcoal studies, the last of the lot, but at that moment Dale entered.

“Stef, what a surprise!” He smiled and extended his arms as if to embrace her or possibly to prevent her leaving.

“Get out of the way, asshole! Get out of my life, you low, lying piece of shit! Sell my art? Go behind my back? You're done, finished, you fuck of a dickhead!” Her voice rose with each word, and her face flared red as she yelled.

“Stef, let me explain—”

“Just shut your fucking mouth! Get out of my way! And don't come back with your sniveling explanation! Tell it to that cute little twenty-year-old you have tucked away. I don't want to hear it. I never want to see you again, you bastard!”

She pushed past him and out the door, then kicked it shut. Seconds later the van tires squealed as she pulled out of the parking space.

Freddi slipped back into her office and closed the door softly. There was a door slam, and she assumed Dale had gone into his own office. In a minute, she thought, she would go to the showroom and hope for the best, that no customer had been there during the past few minutes.

She was still at her desk when she heard the back door open and close, and cautiously she went out into the hall to see if Stef had returned. Dale's office door was open and he was gone. She breathed a sigh of relief, squared her shoulders, and went to the door of the showroom.

*   *   *

D
ALE
DROVE
TO
an apartment complex on Eighteenth. Jasmine would be home that time of day, and he needed a drink, which she could provide, and a little sympathy and comforting, too, which she could also provide. She was not a twenty-year-old, but thirtysomething, and it didn't make a bit of difference.

She was tall and beautiful, the most beautiful woman he had ever been comforted by. When they danced in the club where she worked, people stopped what they were doing to watch because they looked so great together. She was the singer in the group that called themselves the N.O. Jazzmen, a successful group that had been in Portland for the last six months. That day when she opened her door, she was wearing an expensive silk apricot-colored kimono. He knew how expensive it was because he had given it to her. Her skin was velvety, the color of café au lait, her eyes as melting as milk chocolate, and her hair dark auburn with deep waves. The kimono was exactly the right color for her. His taste in clothes was impeccable, his own and hers as well.

“Jasmine, sweetheart, the scarecrow bitch came and took out all of her stuff,” he said, entering the apartment.

Jasmine shrugged. “Tough, but I'm pretty busy right now, and I'm expecting someone.”

“Who is he?”

She walked ahead of him into the bedroom, where a partly packed suitcase was on the bed. “She, it's a girl. She's going to sublease the apartment for the next few months, apartment-sit, something like that.”

“You're going somewhere? Where?”

“Austin first, then Shreveport, and finally New Orleans. Didn't I tell you? I thought I did.”

“You know damn well you didn't,” he said angrily. “Just like that, you were going to hightail it out without a word? What about us?”

“Dale, baby, there is no us. You know that and you've always known it. You're a married man, remember? And I'm with a group that hits the road now and then. It's now time, baby. Back to our roots for a while.”

“Jesus God! First Stef, now you. Both running out on me.”

Jasmine took a blouse from her closet, folded it, and added it to the suitcase. “Honey,” she drawled, “maybe the scarecrow doesn't like being pushed around. And I sure as hell don't. Now, why don't you run along and let me get on with my packing.”

He took a step toward her, his fists balled, and she laughed. “Baby, don't even think about it. I have insurance, honey. Four big, strong guys who'd slice and dice you into so many little pieces they'd never reassemble the package.”

He wanted to strangle her, but he knew the guys. Growing up in Newark, he had seen enough guys like that to know what they would do to a blond white man who messed up their woman. He had even worked with guys like that when it suited his purposes and theirs. He well knew what they would do, and she was their woman, their singer. Then he thought, Insurance! That was it, insurance.

He turned toward the door, where he paused and said, “Jasmine, sweetheart, have you noticed the lines at your eyes? Botox time, sweetheart. And your tits are hanging a little low, don't you think? See you around.” He smiled maliciously as she stopped moving.

*   *   *

I
T
WAS
A
torturous afternoon, one that stretched minute by laborious minute. At five-thirty Marnie closed the shop. She went to the market and bought two thick steaks, a nice bottle of wine, and lettuce. She knew that Stef would have eaten nothing and would, in all likelihood, be home drinking with no thought of food for the rest of the night.

To her surprise, when Marnie entered the driveway at home, she saw the gallery van parked near the entrance of the rear house. She went straight to the house and let herself in without knocking. Just inside the door on both sides of the entryway the paintings were leaning against the walls along with the charcoal studies and sketches. Stef had cleaned out the gallery of all her work. She was sitting near the window, her back to the room. She didn't move or speak when Marnie said hello. On the counter separating the dining area from the kitchen was a bottle of Jack Daniel's. Marnie set her grocery bag down on the counter and took off her jacket, then joined Stef at the window.

“Are you all right?”

“Sure. Got them. Safe and sound where they belong.”

Stef held a glass of bourbon and water, too dark to have much water in it. Marnie could tell from her voice that it was not her first such drink.

“I made Freddi give me the key. I would have killed her with my bare hands if she'd tried to stop me.”

Talking about the van, Marnie guessed, and nodded. “In a few minutes I'll make us some dinner. Have you eaten anything today?”

Stef shrugged. “Why didn't Van tell me herself? Why you?”

“I suppose she thought you knew about it.”

Stef shook her head. “Why does Josh always stay at your place when they come home?”

“Well, you know how crazy he is about Tipper,” Marnie said, suppressing a groan. Stef was going to get maudlin, go into her self-pity mode.

“They hate me,” Stef said in a low voice. “Dale, Van, Josh, you. No one in town will even speak to me. They all look somewhere else when they see me coming. I don't blame them. Or Van either. Poor little Josh, even poor little Josh.” She looked at Marnie then, her eyes red rimmed. “I'm his grandmother, not you. You always do that, take my place, elbow me out.”

“Stef, don't torment yourself this way. You know we all love you. You're my child, I've always loved you and always will. I'll fix dinner and you'll feel better with some food in your stomach. Wait and see.” Marnie stood and took a step toward the kitchen, but at that moment Dale came into the room.

“Hello, Dale,” Marnie said, more in warning to Stef than in greeting. At the sound of his name Stef twisted around in her chair, instantly aflame again.

“You! Get out of my house! Get out of here! I never want to see your face again, you fucking asshole!”

“I won't stay,” he said in a grating voice. “I just came to tell you something you need to hear.”

Marnie took another step, prepared to leave, and he said, “You need to hear it, too. And pass it on to Van. Both of you treat me like the Boston Strangler, and I'm fed up with it. Yes, I put price tags on those paintings. I had to, to get insurance. How much is a van Gogh worth, five million, six? Who sets that price? A buyer, that's who. I tried to get the work appraised and it can't be done without someone setting a price first. How much is a willing buyer prepared to spend? That's the test, and without it, they're worth the canvas they're painted on. You know damn well I can't sell any of them without your consent, but I have to get some insurance. That work in that damn gift shop is there for the taking. What will you do if someone breaks in and lifts one? Call Humpty Dumpty to climb off his wall and waddle over?”

He raked Marnie with a cold, mean look. “Try to talk some sense into her, if you can. I came to get the van. We need it at the gallery. I brought her car back. Call me sometime,” he said to Stef, still sitting in a twist glaring at him. He stalked out.

For a moment or two neither Stef nor Marnie moved or spoke. Then Marnie said, “I'll go make dinner now.” Stef had turned back to face the window, the sky dimly reflecting a lowering sun through clouds.

In the kitchen, with Tipper at her feet, Marnie scrubbed potatoes and started to dice them. She had thought to have baked potatoes, but changed her mind. Something faster than that, she had decided, hash browns with onions, something Stef was fond of, something quick. Soon she stopped cutting the potatoes, rehearing Dale's words, seeing his stance, everything about that scene. It wasn't right, she thought, thinking about his words
Boston Strangler.
She had involuntarily glanced at his hands when he uttered those words, and they had not been clenched in anger. Nothing about him had suggested real anger except the words and the harsh way he had uttered them. It had been as if he had rehearsed those lines, refined them for effect without a thought about body language. She began to dice the potatoes again, and she felt certain that Dale's performance had been exactly that, a performance.

When she collected Stef to come to dinner, her glass was empty again, and she was unsteady on her feet. She picked at her food and ignored the bit of wine Marnie had poured for her. Marnie searched for something to talk about, nothing to do with Josh and his prowess at reading, nothing to do with Van or Dale, or anything else that might set off the laments Stef had been voicing earlier.

“There's a fascinating new man in town,” Marnie said, and told what she had learned from Will. “Can you believe Dave actually hired him? Incredible. I stopped by to say hello to Harriet, and there it is, a beautiful box being held as a security bond or something. You should drop in and have a look. Harriet said it's working out very well at the shop. Dave's quite pleased with his new helper.”

Stef made no response to indicate that she had heard any of it, and Marnie began to talk brightly about a new glass bowl Bepe had left at the shop. Stef picked at her steak, then abruptly put down her fork.

“I have to pee and I want to go to bed,” she said, getting up unsteadily.

Marnie went with her, holding her arm, and when Stef went into the bathroom, Marnie turned down the bed and got a nightshirt from a drawer. She helped Stef undress, slipped the nightshirt over her head, and pulled a blanket up over her when Stef collapsed onto the bed. Marnie made sure the night-light was on in the bathroom before she left. At the door, she stopped moving when Stef said in a plaintive voice, “Frankie should have stayed. I keep screwing up because he left. I loved him, Marnie. I loved him so much. He shouldn't have left me.”

Marnie returned to the bed, sat on the side of it, and gently stroked Stef's hair. It was coarse, hard from years of bleaching and coloring.

“Hush, darling,” Marnie murmured. “That was a long time ago. It's all right. Don't brood about it. Close your eyes and rest now. It's all right.”

Stef sighed deeply and rolled over to her side and said no more, and in a few minutes Marnie rose and left her. She knew she would not return to her own house for a long time, not until Stef was sound asleep, and that never happened quickly.

In the kitchen she covered Stef's uneaten dinner with plastic wrap and put it in the refrigerator. Then, after cutting the meat from the bone, and giving it to Tipper, letting him out with it, she wrapped her own plate. Tomorrow's dinner. She took her glass of wine to sit by the window in the living room. Nothing could be seen at sea, and the town lights seemed a long distance away. She was thinking about Frankie.
A long time ago,
she repeated to herself.

Immediately after high school, which had allowed Stef to graduate only through the kindness or the relief of her teachers, Stef had insisted on going to Paris to study art, the one thing that held her attention. Marnie and Ed had given in and permitted her to do so. A year later she had returned, pregnant, and with Frankie in tow. He had been her age, nineteen, and frightened by the enormity of what they had done, just beginning to comprehend what it really meant. Stef had been ecstatic.