The Misfortunes of Others (14 page)

“Any card? Anything to identify where it came from?” asked Snooky.

Weezy shook her head. “Just the postmark.” She picked up a long white box that was lying on the floor next to the table. “Manhattan.”

“Sent three days ago,” mused Snooky, taking the box from her. “Hmmm.”

Weezy’s name and address had been typed on a plain white label on the front.

“Word processor,” said Snooky. “You can always tell. That computer look. There was no card inside? No message at all?”

“Nothing but the flowers,” Weezy said. She was fiddling unhappily with her hair.

Maya brushed the dead flowers with her fingertip. A shower of petals came off and drifted to the floor. “Horrible,” she murmured.

“Who has your address, Weezy?”

“I don’t know. Everyone. I’ve never had any reason to keep it a secret.”

“That article that came out in the
Times
,” said Snooky. “Did it mention where you live?”

Weezy nodded tiredly. “Oh, yes. My move to idyllic Ridgewood, and so on.”

“Who do you know who lives in Manhattan?” said Snooky.

“Everyone I know lives in Manhattan. Everyone except you and Maya and Bernard. Oh, and Mrs. Castor, she lives near here, too.”

“Uh-huh. Remember all that excitement last time in class?”

Weezy chewed her lip, looking at the flowers. “Alice?”

Snooky nodded.

“I don’t know. Maybe. She does have a paranoid streak. She always accuses me of taking everyone else’s side against her. But still … this is so extreme. It doesn’t seem like her.”

Snooky was still looking at the box, turning it over and over in his hands. “You know, there’s another possibility. I wonder …”

“What?”

“Have you told anyone else about the
People
magazine interview?”

Weezy looked surprised. “Just my students. Why?”

“You told them? When?”

“I don’t know. Last week sometime. Five days ago, in class. Don’t look at me that way, Snooky, I had to tell them about it. I wasn’t bragging. I’m going to mention their names and maybe try to show some of their work in the article. You know, spread the largesse around. They deserve it … well, at least Alice and Elmo do. They could use the boost to their careers. It’s not often that an artist gets mentioned in a big national magazine like that. They were really excited.”

“Were they?” Snooky asked dryly.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Oh, come on, Weezy. Don’t be obtuse. Those phone calls started after that first article came out. Now you have a chance for more publicity. I was wondering if maybe somebody doesn’t like your career taking off.”

“Maybe it’s that gallery owner,” said Maya. “Maybe he didn’t like being turned down for dinner.”

“Thank you,” said Weezy. “Thank both of you. This is so extremely reassuring. I’m sure if we keep on thinking we can come up with two or three hundred other people who have a good reason to hate me.”

Maya looked stricken. “I’m sorry.”

“That’s all right. Will one of you please throw that thing out?” Weezy sat down on the sofa. “I have to sit down. I feel exhausted all of a sudden. Thank you, Snooky,” she said as he gathered up the bouquet and the white box and carried them into the kitchen. He came back with a paper bag and small broom and began to sweep up the petals.

“I’ll put everything in your trash can outside. You won’t have to look at it.”

“Thanks.”

“Shouldn’t we save it to show to the police?” asked Maya.

“The police?” Weezy gave a snort. “What can they do? Say they’re sorry I got dead flowers?”

“I’ll save the box with the address and postmark,” said Snooky.

“I hate the idea of you living here by yourself,” Maya said with a worried frown. “Why don’t you come and stay with us for a while?”

“No, no, no.” Weezy brushed this suggestion away with a wave of her hand. “Thank you, sweetie, but no. No way. This is my home, after all. I’m not letting some phone calls and a stupid, trashy thing like those flowers chase
me away. Anyway, I know how Bernard feels about visitors.”

“Oh, Weezy, don’t be silly. That doesn’t include you. It includes—you know—Snooky, and everybody else, but not you. You’re different. You could always come stay.”

Weezy smiled at her affectionately. “Thank you, Maya, but again, no. I’ll be fine. After all, nothing has actually happened, has it? Just some stupid flowers. Just some stupid flowers,” she repeated, half to herself, gazing absently around the room.

“Do you have a security system?” asked Snooky.

“No. No, I don’t.”

“I think you should get one.”

“I don’t want to get one,” Weezy said fiercely. “I thought I moved away from all of that when I left New York, for God’s sake.”

Snooky sat down on the couch and took her hands in his. “Listen to me. This isn’t just a question of somebody dialing a long-distance number anymore. Whoever it is knows exactly who you are and where you live. I think you’d feel a lot safer with an alarm system. I know I’d feel better if you had one.”

“All right, all right,” Weezy said miserably. She looked around her living room as if she had never seen it before; as if the familiar furniture and rugs and paintings on the wall had suddenly become alien and frightening.

As soon as Maya got home she went upstairs to her husband’s study and told him what had happened. When she was finished, Bernard thrummed on the desk with his fingers.

“Interesting.”

Maya crossed her arms and stared at him angrily. “It is not interesting, Bernard. It’s strange. It’s menacing. It’s creepy. It is not interesting.”

“Oh. Yes. Yes, indeed.”

“What are we going to do?”

“Will she come stay here?”

“No. She says she knows how you feel about guests.”

Bernard was surprised by this. “I wouldn’t feel that way about her.”

“Yes, you would.”

“Well, maybe, but under the circumstances it would be okay. What did you tell her?”

“I lied myself blue in the face and said that you wouldn’t mind at all.”

“And she still refused?”

“Yes.”

“Well, we can’t force her to move in with us.”

“So that’s it? We sit back and wait for something else to happen?”

“Maybe nothing else will happen,” Bernard said soothingly. “Be calm. Think of the color blue. Think of the sky. It’s probably somebody with some kind of grudge, and they’ve gotten it out of their system.”

“You are a dreadful liar,” Maya said, as she let herself be coaxed into sitting down on his lap and putting an arm around his neck.

“Be calm. Think of the baby.”

“I am calm. I am perfectly calm. I’m visualizing the color blue. I don’t know why I’m expected to be calm while all this stuff is happening to my best friend. I’d have to have a heart of stone.”

Bernard was staring out the window.

“What are you thinking, sweetheart?”

“I’m thinking that the phone calls started after that other interview.”

“Yes. That’s what Snooky said, too.”

“I suppose this is good for her career?”

“Well, of course it is, Bernard.”

“I think you should tell her not to mention it to anybody else.”

“She knows that already, Bernard.”

“Still …”

“Still?”

“I think you should tell her to be very careful.”

When Weezy called the next day, she made an effort to sound like her usual cheerful self. She brushed off Snooky’s show of concern.

“Thank you, thank you so much, but I’m fine. Really, I am. Yes, yes, I’ll get a security system, please stop nagging me. Are you my mother? Would you also call both the police and my seventy-five-year-old Aunt Meglet if I didn’t answer the phone for a day or two? Just curious.”

Snooky was disconcerted. “You have an aunt named Meglet?”

“Yes, yes. An accident of fate. Her real name is Margaret, and when she was little everyone called her Meglet. She simply never grew out of it, you know how it is. Sad, don’t you think?”

“Poignant.”

“Poignant, yes.
Le mot juste
. Now listen to me, sweetie, I have a favor I want to ask.”

“Anything. You know that.”

“Will you sit for my class again?”

“No. No way.”

“Why not?”

“Because, Weezy, I practically had to consult an orthopedic specialist after the last time. It was an excruciating experience.”

“Oh, come on. You know you loved it. You love being the center of attention.”

“I don’t know. It’s not like they drew anything remotely resembling me, anyway. Why don’t you just prop up a scarecrow or get yourself a store mannequin? A mannequin, now, that would really do the trick.”

“Will you sit for my class again on Thursday?”

“Why don’t you ask Bernard or somebody? Or are my cheekbones irreplaceable?”

“I can’t ask Bernard, sweetie, he’s all beard. You can’t see his face at all. And can you imagine him sitting still for an hour with people staring at him? It would be torture, poor thing.”

“But it’s okay for me?”

“You’re more sociable. You like being the focus of all eyes.”

“Well … okay. If you insist.”

On Thursday, Snooky stretched elaborately before sitting down in his chair. There was silence for nearly half an hour, broken only by Weezy’s murmured comments to her students. Just when Snooky thought he would have to either move or scream, Alice let out an audible hiss.

“Stop looking at my work,” she said to Jennifer.

“I’m not looking anywhere near you, you paranoid bitch.”

“Yes, you are! Weezy!”

“What?”

“Jennifer’s copying from me again!”

“Stop it, Alice,” Weezy said dangerously. “Stop it right now.”

“Stop it? It’s not my fault, it’s Jennifer’s, she keeps looking over and distracting me—”

“Stop it, Alice.”

Alice stared, scarlet flooding into her face. “I won’t stop it, I won’t! It’s so unfair! That talentless hack keeps on stealing
from me, copying my work, stealing my ideas, and you never do a damned thing about it—!”

“That’s it,” said Weezy. “I’ve had enough. I want to talk to you in private, young lady, right now.”

She pushed Alice ahead of her out of the studio. Snooky let out his breath with an explosive sigh and stretched surreptitiously, flexing his muscles. He glanced around the room. Elmo had an arm protectively around Jennifer. Mrs. Castor was holding a paintbrush in the air, paint dripping, while she looked anxiously out the door. Nikki was staring at the floor, scuffling her feet like a child. But it was Jennifer who caught and held Snooky’s interest. She was looking after Alice and Weezy with her dark eyes narrowed and an expression of the purest hatred on her face.

“WHAT HAPPENED with Alice?” Snooky asked later.

Weezy shrugged irritably. “I lectured her. She burst into tears. She said I never take her side. I said that was because she was always wrong. She said I was unfair. I told her if she caused a scene again, she was out of my class. Eventually she calmed down and agreed to try to be a little less difficult. I suggested that if she was so sure people were copying from her, she should work in the back of the room, where nobody could see what she was doing. She said that was a good idea.”

“Why hadn’t she thought of it before?”

Weezy gave him a pitying look. “Because she wants to be copied from. Because it feeds her ego, helps her feel like she’s a big shot and everyone else is a hack. You see? Elementary psychology, my dear.”

“She seems to be a big favorite with everybody by now. Jennifer gave her a look that could kill when you left the room with her. It was pretty scary. I assume it was meant for Alice and not for you?”

“Oh, no, no, that’s for Alice, all right. That’s Jennifer’s stock in trade, looks that could kill. Unfortunately it hasn’t worked so far.” She gave him a weary smile.

“Takes a lot out of you, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m sorry.”

“That’s all right. You’re off the hook anyway, I can’t use you as a model anymore. To be honest, the class is getting bored with you.”

“This is the story of my life. Used for whatever I can give, and then tossed aside without a second thought.”

“Sad, isn’t it? But don’t worry. You were never meant to work for a living, Snooky. You were meant to lie on a rock and soak in the sun, like a marmot.”

His forehead was furrowed. “This is too bad. The class may be bored with me, but I’m not bored with them. There’s a lot of odd stuff going on in there.”

“Oh, yes, yes. A regular soap opera,” she said lightly.

Weezy spent a week worrying over what she would wear for her interview in
People
magazine. She and Maya spent hours at a time closeted together in Weezy’s bedroom, Maya cross-legged on the bed, watching with a critical eye as Weezy discarded one outfit after another.

“How about this?” Weezy asked, slipping a black dress over her head. “What do you think? Too plain?”

“Too somber.”

“Do I want something livelier?”

“I think so.”

A few outfits later, Maya shook her head. “I don’t like that color blue on you. Too artisty. It looks like an artist’s smock.”

“Oh. How about this one? The heather-brown?”