Stony River (50 page)

The change in her was unmistakable, like a flower wilting or the moon going behind a cloud. “This shepherd—” Willy said carefully, “was he a good friend of yours?”

“Yes,” she said wistfully, “a very good friend.”

“Well,” Willy said briskly, bringing the subject back to his own ground, “I was right, Sevana. From the look of it, I might have a student in class rivaling the teacher.”

“Not at all.” She was able to smile. “I know how much I have to learn from you, and I’m looking forward to it. How did you learn to paint, Willy?”

“I grew up painting. My father was a painter—a good one. When he died, he left me enough money I was able to open my own shop—something he’d always wanted to do.”

“It’s been very successful, hasn’t it?”

“Well—I’ve got a name in Lethbridge, at least. But I don’t know if that’s saying very much.” He gave a smirk as he considered it. “Well, I guess I should be going. Goodnight to you, Sevana.”

After she’d seen him out, Sevana picked up the mountain picture again. She felt very far from the time when she’d sat in the pasture painting that composition. Fragile as a fantasy in its shining goodness, that life was already being overshadowed by the reality of her life here. She was afraid for it, lest as a dream upon waking, it vanish and be lost altogether.

No, she thought suddenly, vehemently—she wouldn’t let go the memory of it. Even if she had to live one life in the real world and one only in her heart, she would never forget that time which had opened her eyes to a whole new existence. For what was life without it?

As if part of the obvious sequence of her thoughts, she sat down and wrote Joel a letter. The words poured out. She told him everything that had transpired since the move—the apartment, the job, the thrill of having her sights on a goal that now seemed real rather than visionary. She knew he’d want to know. What was happening in her life was an extension of the things they’d talked about over the summer, and so in that way, he was part of it too.

She confided her recent disturbing discovery regarding Fenn, which she had not mentioned that last night at his cabin. “Anything could happen to him when he’s not all there,” she wrote across the paper in her neat script, biting her lip. “Isn’t there some way you can keep an eye on him for me?”

It was an eight-page letter when she was done. And if something in her questioned how that letter would be received in comparison to the letters he kept above his bed, she told herself that no matter how he felt about Chantal, he couldn’t deny that they, too, had shared something that would always be theirs—two souls who had forged a mysteriously strong bond because of the unique setting they found themselves in…a setting that doubtless could make any two people feel and share in the glory of life.

CHAPTER 33

Before work, Sevana walked to the corner mailbox so her letter would go out first thing. The sky was palest mint blue, the air cold, the sun just rounding up over the edge of the town. What was he doing today? she wondered, as she retraced her steps along the sidewalk with cars passing only a few feet away. Chopping the woodpile by his cabin? Sanding a fiddlepiece in the early morning meadow? Her heart rose in sudden, desperate longing to see him, and she bent her head and hurried along the street—back to the haven of the art shop.

Len Sterling put in an appearance at the store that morning. “Well, Sevana!” he said, walking up to the counter. “Is this how Willy bribed you to stay, by offering you a job?” His voice was raised for the benefit of the shop’s proprietor, who was rearranging pictures on the back wall.

“Not quite,” Sevana chortled. She put down the employment forms she was filling out for Willy’s file, to give him her attention.

“I wouldn’t be so flippant if I were you,” Willy warned him, coming over. “I was upstairs looking at some of her work last night, and I’d say if you want her to remember you when she’s famous, you’d better show her your respectable side now—if you can still remember where to find it.”

Ignoring him, Len set his painting on the countertop. “Like it?” he asked Sevana confidentially, as if Willy wasn’t even there.

“Oh, yes!” And she let her eyes dance at Willy just a second as she gave it her attention.

Willy came round to see. “Not bad. That fence gives a nice touch. Glad I thought of it.”

“A pity you didn’t paint it, or you’d get the credit,” Len retorted—but they went off companionably enough to find a prominent place to hang it.

That first week at the shop passed pleasantly. Sevana took to heart all that Willy told her, and tried to uphold his high standards, for despite his flamboyant personality she had observed he was a careful businessman. She knew he was impressed by her dedication, for he told her outright on several occasions, and frequently demonstrated his confidence in her ability by leaving her to run the shop while he worked on projects in the back room.

But as much as Sevana enjoyed the job, she was always glad when the workday was over. She liked to change from dress shoes into hiking boots and roam the quiet prairie before darkness fell, traversing as far as she had time for through the dry grass. Sometimes she even got up early and went for a walk before work. The low, bleak rises held something of a fascination for her, their treeless horizons inviting her to wander. And wander she did, finding in those wide stretches a place to collect her thoughts away from the fast-paced life of the city.

By the end of the week, Sevana was able to put faces to most of the painters whose works were displayed on the shop walls. There were Len and Ralf, of course, who were seen in the store almost daily. Len had a section of the wall he kept supplied with landscapes of his own choosing, but he was also popular as a contract artist, painting subjects for clients on request. By contrast, Ralf painted only when inspiration struck, and took up to a year to complete a single picture—for which he never used a subject, but painted it solely out of his head.

And there was Jillian Vale, whom Sevana gathered was Ralf’s longtime girlfriend, even though they were frequently seen independent of each other. Jillian was a graphic design editor by day and an avid freelance artist by night, painting impressionistic pictures Sevana did not care for. But she did like Jillian—sophisticated at first impression with her avant-garde clothes, sleek molasses-brown hair, and long oval cat eyes, but actually very merry and down-to-earth. She took time to talk with Sevana when her busy schedule allowed her to visit the shop.

Willy had warned Sevana about a quirk of Jillian’s, that she lived one hour ahead of the time zone. Not that it was a problem, for she was good about showing up at the correct time, but you didn’t want to call her too late in the evening. He said it was her way of beating pressure—if she was running behind schedule, she always had that extra hour to fall back on. Sevana was to learn that was not Jillian’s only idiosyncrasy.

Then there was Thad Helding, the white-haired gentleman who had been in the first morning, who produced pastoral scenes of barns and cows and pastures in amazing proliferation; and Frank Larkin, a retired conservation officer who carried on his love for animals in realistic wildlife portrayals. Frank actually knew Randall Radnor, and said—as Sevana was hardly surprised to hear—that he was a legend even among other game wardens. There was also the affluent Audree Bourdon who painted only ocean scenes—an odd thing for a landlocked prairie dweller—but painted them brilliantly. Were there other people living dual lives, she wondered, carrying longed-for places in their hearts?

All these and others dropped in regularly to see if their pictures were selling, or to bring in their latest contributions—or just to catch up on things in the world of art, as artists do. And Willy was always there for them, appearing out of the back room in a magical way for the latest exchange of information or banter, showing he valued it as much as any of them. Sevana couldn’t have asked for a more desirable work environment.

But there remained one persistent flaw in her happiness, for the place she had left behind so recently still possessed her heart to a territorial degree. At any time, visions would appear unbidden in her mind’s eye, like a secret world only she knew about—lush carpets of swordfern and maidenhair illuminating the deep woods with viridescent light…majestic rainforests casting their slumberous spells of primeval silence…the river cutting a transparent golden path through the hidden, high-walled valley. Sometimes she saw the pika singing in a rockpile, or carpets of alpine flowers flung across the ridges in riotous splendor—even peeking out of rock crevices in the most startling colors where you’d think nothing could grow. And because the loss of such rarefied beauty was too devastating to face, she had to force the thoughts away, locking them back in a place where they couldn’t reach through to hurt her. And yet that same loss was a sacrifice she was willing to make, an impoverishment she was determined to bear, for the greater importance of her lifework there.

Saturday was a busy day, and Willy helped alongside Sevana, taking a share of the work. It wasn’t until closing time that he had a chance to see how she’d managed in the rush. “Looks good,” he approved, thumbing through the receipts. “You’re doing a fine job. It’s a load off my shoulders, having you here.”

When things had been put away and they were getting their coats at last, he said, “Seeing as we never got around to lunch, what say we head out to the Roadhouse for dinner? Len and Ralf and Jillian will be there, and we’ll have a good time.”

Sevana met his confident, playful eyes—wary of the nightlife that went on out there, and yet having an admitted desire to be included in that select group of artists. “It sounds like fun,” she agreed.

By the time Willy and Sevana entered the bar, the others had already taken a table. “Hey, Willy!” Len and Ralf held up their tumblers to him, as if his appearance signaled the start of the party.

Willy seated Sevana beside Jillian and went off to the bartender on some unexplained business. He returned with two drinks, one of which he placed before her. Sevana looked at the glass, opened her mouth to protest, then closed it again without saying anything. Willy put his head close to hers. “Made a little deal with the bartender,” he said reassuringly.

Since it was in front of her, Sevana resigned herself to sipping the strawberry-flavored drink without knowing what was in it. She didn’t have much to say as the others in her party talked and joked, but she felt at ease in their company and shared in their laughter. She could sense by their friendliness that she’d been welcomed into the group—if not on the basis of her artistic merit, at least because she was with Willy. For regardless of the way his friends pretended to disrespect him, in reality they admired him no end for his success in something they were all striving to excel in. It was his statements that drew the most attention, his jokes the loudest laughter, his opinions that were taken as the final word. She even felt a bit heady to be associated with such a popular and important man, whose attentiveness made it clear he regarded her as more than just a working assistant.

Over dinner Len regaled them with tales of woe concerning the series he was painting for an exacting client—an elderly lady with decided notions of how she wanted her heirloom farmstead represented on canvas. Then Jillian, fresh from a day of design layout at the newspaper, contributed an item from the town news: a natural-food store was opening not far from the art shop, so Willy no longer had any excuse to live on doughnuts and caffeine. Ralf, who worked at the same newspaper as a writer, told of sitting in a meeting that morning with the editor-in-chief, a gruff-and-bluff storyteller type who had adopted the baffling habit of saying ‘and everything else’ in almost every sentence. Both Ralf and a buddy had separately gotten the idea to keep track, and after the meeting tried to enlighten each other of the same thing: the chief had used the phrase fifty-three times in a twenty-minute talk. Ralf was now living in mortal fear that he would pick up the expression through simple familiarity, had caught himself saying it twice that afternoon.

A talented man in a tuxedo took a place at the piano and began to play classical jazz. Willy called for another round of drinks.

Listening to the music, Sevana became aware that someone was watching her. She looked over and met the eyes of a young rough in a leather jacket at the bar. He had aquiline features and crew-cut hair, and was looking at her with an unswerving stare. Quickly she looked back to those at the table and resolved not to glance his direction again, but later she inadvertently brushed his gaze and the black eyes were still riveted on her. Something in his manner reminded her of the night visitor at the homestead, and with a shiver she turned her back more squarely to the disturbing stranger.

As the rounds of drinks continued, Willy and his friends became less and less sensible, and there was much dissolving into laughter which Sevana at first joined, for she found them entertaining in the state of hilarity that had overtaken them—Willy haranguing Jillian for ordering coconut-cream pie if she was so all-fired health conscious all of a sudden, and Len throwing ‘and everything else’ into almost every sentence to aggravate Ralf, with superb effectiveness. But she was feeling increasingly unsettled from the two drinks she had consumed before refusing any more, and after a while she quit laughing for she felt rather sick. The thick, warm atmosphere of the place was getting to her, the loud voices and laughter drilling into her head. She desperately wanted some fresh air.

While Willy—in the center of much gaiety, for his fun-loving nature drew more than merely artists—was standing on a chair proposing a toast to the bartender, who in a rush of goodwill had just distributed a round of free drinks, Sevana found it a good time to slip out onto the back porch and shut the door on the din. It was blessedly cool out there in the dark, and quiet. She went to the edge of the porch and steadied herself against a corner post, breathing the night air while she gazed up at the stars twinkling between the maple trees. Then the door opened, emitting a shaft of light and a snatch of revelry before it closed again. She looked around to see who had come out. It was the tough who had been staring at her. She had forgotten about him.