Art is the Lie (A Vanderbie Novel) (13 page)

“He’d accompanied me on an art buying trip to San Francisco. A trip meant to be one night. Down and back. We’d flown out early and spent the entire day in and out of galleries. Never once did he complain or tire. His nine-year-old eyes were wide with wonderment. His interest piqued beyond the average viewer.”

She took a deep breath, reliving the details behind her eyes. “We’d been on the outskirts of the art district, viewing a new artist who’s work did nothing for me, but it sung out to Peter. The simple washes and muted pallet had him mesmerized.

“One piece in particular had caught his attention. He insisted we buy it. I’d stepped over to have a closer look when the first inklings of a vision waiting to be granted began.”

“In your neck?” I interrupted. “Like thousands of sharp needles being shoved under your skin?”

“Yes, dear,” she confirmed. “Always the back of the neck. Inevitably painful, as it was this day. When no amount of words would convince him to step away from the painting, I had to pull him physically out the door and down the sidewalk. The urgency of getting him back to the hotel safely pressed in as the first wave of images hit.

“I had to stop, catch my breath, and wait as the shadowy figure teetered in my mind before I could move us along. I was trying to outrun the waning afternoon light as we zig-zagged from alley to street the fastest way I knew how.”

She stopped and moved away from the watercolor. “But there was no escaping. I was never sure if it was the stench of the alley, the fading light, or Peter’s small hand in mine, but the vision hit again, catapulting words from me I had not meant to utter just then. ‘Show me.’”

Her story fit like a glove. The words so familiar I wanted to throw my damp palms over my ears and run from the room to slow the hard thumping in my chest. I didn’t want to hear more but knew I needed to know more. “What happened?”

“The vision knocked me over, my head striking something sharp on the way down. I could no longer see outside of myself, only what was being shown on the inside. Eventually, even that faded, leaving only darkness and Peter’s fearful cries. His eyes witnessing a regrettable scene as the pool of blood under my head grew, pulling me into unconsciousness.”

She moved back to the couch and reached for her drink, taking a long sip. The clink of the glass returning to the table fractured the tension in the room, along with the pain of her story. She shifted, brushed the creases out of her shirt, and regained her matter-of-fact demeanor. “Harold flew in late that night to release me from the vision, but the hospital, unable to make medical sense of my temporary blindness, insisted I remain under observation for two more days.”

“Where was Dad?”

“He flew back home with Harold before the morning light broke.”

“They didn’t stay?”

“Harold was never one for bedside manners. He did what he needed to do and returned home with Peter.”

“Why didn’t you deny the vision? Then none of it would have happened.”

Her eyes found mine and I knew she was affronted by the question. “I never denied a vision.”

“Why not?”

Her patience for my questions was dwindling, exasperation present in her tone. “Denying a vision would deny me the opportunity of making a crucial, life changing difference in someone’s life. One that could possibly alter the course of their future.”

Her words added another layer of weight onto my shoulders. My thoughts shifted to the couple in the alley. I swallowed down my trepidation and quickly asked, “What if you’re too late? What if you can’t unravel the puzzle of the images fast enough?”

“Ahem.” I spun around at the sound of the cough, to Felix, hovering in the doorway. His hovering tendency was beginning to bug me. “Excuse me.”

I turned back to Evelyn. She granted him permission to enter with the smallest twitch of her fingers.

“CeeCee,” she said as she waited for Felix to approach. “You can’t expect to successfully understand each and every vision. But to not try is a coward’s response.”

Felix leaned down, quietly relaying a message that floated to me as garbled sounds.

“Yes. Yes. You’re right. I will take it,” she replied to his words while standing, smoothing the front of her smock. “I have a call I need to take, CeeCee.”

Happy for the excuse to leave, I stood and glanced at my watch. “Oh, sure. I should get going.”

“Felix? Will you please fetch me the Gilmore piece off the wall?” she requested as we walked toward to the entrance of the room.

He scurried over to the simple watercolor, carefully removing it from its perch, an obvious hole left in the patchwork.

She took the painting from Felix and held it out to me. “I want you to have this.”

Instantly protesting, my hands came up, holding back the air between us. “I can’t take that. It’s too much.” It may not have cost much in money, but it cost much in pain. It represented everything I wanted to deny.

“I want you to have it. Think of it as a birthday present.” She pushed the framed artwork out to me again.

Dumbfounded, I reached for it and asked, “How did you know it was my birthday?”

“I may not have been a part of your life, but I knew the day you were born.”

“Thank you,” I said, walking to the door she held open for me. Curious, I turned and asked, “What did you see that day? The day you were with my dad.”

“A woman teetering on the edge, ten stories up. She was contemplating suicide.”

“Did you get to her in time?”

“We are not successful every time, dear.”

I sat in my car, tears stuck somewhere behind my eyes, unwilling to flow. My hands grasped tight around the steering wheel, a watercolor heavy with burden and responsibility lying on my passenger seat, taunting me. My plan of vision denial began to eat away at me. I leaned forward and banged my head against the wheel, trying to feel something, anything that didn’t have to do with my family or what I might see next.

Fed up, I turned over the engine and wound my way west, cutting from one street to the next as I tried to find a road to lead me off the hill. My aimless driving landed me on tenth. Without conscious thought, my foot eased off the gas, while my head made tiny shifts left and right pretending not to look. But I couldn’t help myself.

And there it was. His small white bungalow, tucked back tight between two large rebuilds. I rolled to a stop, a tightness forming in my chest. His car was nowhere in sight, the house completely still behind the windows. I was tempted to get out and ring the bell, but my rational side took over and I shifted back into first gear and drove away.

Darkness had filled the sky by the time I pulled into our driveway. Grace’s car was parked in my usual spot. I let out a long sigh. Grace. I’d forgotten about meeting up with Grace.

Gathering my wits about me, I grabbed the painting off the passenger seat and lifted myself out of the car. Grace’s outline swaying on the porch swing came into focus as I neared.

“Where have you been? I’ve been calling and calling. You had me worried you’d driven off a cliff or something.” My mind instantly pictured a woman teetering ten stories up. Grace leapt out of the porch swing, clutching a brown paper package. “This funk of yours has me envisioning all types of crazy thoughts regarding your mental stability.”

“Hey, Grace. I must have forgotten to un-silence my phone this morning.” I stepped up on the porch and she piled the rectangle shaped package she’d been holding on top of the watercolor. “You could have knocked and had Dad let you in.”

“Tried, but he’s not home. Tell me you didn’t forget we were going out tonight.” She looked at me with a look that said,
I’m going to be crushed if you give me the wrong answer.
“To celebrate you? Your eighteenth birthday? Remember?”

I shook my head no and lied. “I didn’t forget. I was just over in the city, um, looking at art, and lost track of time.”

“Well, you’re here now, thank goodness. You almost threw off the entire evening.”

God forbid,
I thought, and then squelched it, reminding myself that she was here for me. And to heap on a little more guilt, she brought me a gift. “What’s this? You didn’t need to get me anything.”

“I didn’t,” she said, pointing to my barely legible name written across the packaging. “That’s the scrawl of a serial killer. It was leaning against your door when I got here.”

“Oh, thanks.” Carefully balancing the watercolor against my chest, I turned the brown package back and forth in my hand, but there was no indication as to who or where it had come from.

Impatient, Grace snatched the package back and pushed me toward the door. “Come on. We’ve got to hustle up and get you changed.”

“Are we in a hurry?”

“Yes! You have social responsibilities, Cee, ones you’ve been shirking lately. You left me no choice but to take desperate measures to remedy the situation.” The word “responsibility” dropped on top of the ones Evelyn had piled on me earlier, causing my feet to slow under the weight.

“Scoot!” She pushed me through the door and up the stairs, muttering, “Why I bust my hump for you is beyond me. But someday, you’ll thank me for saving you from a life of spinster solitude.”

I should have been offended. Come back with an appropriate verbal lashing to counter her words, but instead, all that bubbled up were giggles, that morphed into hysterics, leaving me gasping for air. I’d just seen my future lined with walls of art, and spinster solitude wasn’t far from it.

“Glad I amuse you so.”

“Me too,” I said between gulps of air, tears streaming down my face. “And thank you. For whatever tonight is. Thank you, friend.” I threw my free arm around her, squeezing tighter than I needed to.

“About time I got a little love tossed my way.” She hugged me back before taking the watercolor from me too. “Now, think ‘warmth’ when you’re deciding what to wear.”

I looked her up and down and knew she wasn’t kidding. I moved to my closet and began rummaging for winter warmth.

“Where’s the watercolor from?”

I glanced over my shoulder. She’d dropped on the bed, the package and watercolor sitting in front of her.

“Oh, um, just a local artist over at Pike Street Market.” I tried to sound nonchalant as I continued to search through the closet for warmth. She still had no idea who Eveyln was, and I was not about to spin the tale out tonight.

“You should have told me you were going over, I would have gone with you.”

“It was a last minute thing.” Which wasn’t a complete lie. I reached up and pulled out a sweater and coat.

“Do you want me to unveil the secret of the mystery package?”

“Sure,” I said as I wandered back to the bed.

She made short work of the unwrapping process, and by the time I’d pulled my sweater over my head, my eyes locked down onto a black and white version of me, staring back through the trees. A tightness seized my chest, transporting me back to Quentin’s basement. To the row of humanity. A row that ended with me.

“Cool pic. When was it taken?”

“Um, awhile back.” He’d been here. Today. Unsolicited. Unrequested. Unasked. I looked out the window. He’d come completely of his own free will. A crack fractured through the cold, hard silence of the past seven days.

“You’re just raking in the art.” She flipped the frame over. There was a small note attached to the back. Her recital voice overpowered the soft words of the message. “‘I hope you find a peaceful place to be,’” she read. “Cryptic little note. Who’s it from?”

Racing through the possibilities, I blurted out, “Foster.”

Unimpressed, she dropped the frame on the bed and stood up. “I won’t let on that I’m completely and utterly crushed that you’ve confided your ‘whatever’s going on’ with your brother and not your best friend.”

Which wasn’t true. Foster knew nothing. I sighed. “I think the note was meant to be a joke.”

“Whatever,” she dismissed the photo with a wave of her hand. “You two are a strange lot. Is he coming home for Thanksgiving?”

“Yes.”

“Great. Strangeness times by two.” She grinned and headed for the door. “Toss on that jacket, birthday girl, we need to fly, fly away.”

I phoned a message to Dad saying Grace was taking me out for my birthday and I would be home later.

“So, where are we going?” I asked as I dropped into the passenger seat of her car.

She smiled a Cheshire cat grin that would have made a stranger nervous. “That is for me to know and you, girlfriend, to find out shortly.”

We pulled up to Sean’s house. I didn’t see any movement in the dark windows.

“I don’t think he’s home.”

“He’s home.”

Within moments, he piled into the car and we made two more stops, picking up Avery and Dylan, whom I was now sandwiched between in the back. “Is anyone planning on telling me what we are up to?”

“Nope,” Grace smiled in the rearview mirror. “You just enjoy being chauffeured around.”

Our bulky layers were adding to the smoosh factor. The heat was climbing higher and higher under my sweater, making me hyperaware of Dylan’s close proximity. “More like being squeezed between roasting marshmallows.”

“Are you likening me to a soft, pudgy marshmallow?” Avery asked with a grin.

“Not you of course, just the circumstances.”

“Then I must be the marshmallow,” Dylan said, nudging his shoulder into mine. “I don’t mind. Everybody likes roasted marshmallows.”

I swear he somehow moved closer.

“Don’t you worry your pretty little head,” Grace replied. “We’ll be in wide open territory shortly.”

We wound our way down the familiar route to Point Robinson Lighthouse. I hadn’t been back since before they’d found Autumn out in the boat.

As if reading my thoughts, Sean turned and asked, “So what’s the story with your cousin being out here last weekend.”

I had no idea. She’d avoided me all week at school and the one time we talked, she fiddled with her cast and mumbled something about a dare. “I think she got talked into it.”

“Those impressionable youth,” Sean said sarcastically, turning back around to face forward.

“It was a dumbass thing to do,” Dylan piped in, his forearm now resting optimistically in the valley where our legs were conjoined. “She could have drowned.”

“Or worse yet,” Sean added over his shoulder. “She could have been struck by lightening.”

Uncomfortable with the conversation and the close proximity of bodies, the “what-ifs” were not sitting well in my psyche. I’d already played out every scenario I could think of, leaving me to wonder what might have happened had I not seen her. What if I’d denied the vision and no one had found her until it was too late? Evelyn’s cold disproval of vision denial ebbed and flowed painfully between my thoughts.

“Are you cold?” Dylan asked as I inadvertently shivered.

“No!” It came out louder than I had intended.

Avery touched my arm. I wanted to jump out of my skin. “How did they think to search for her out in the boat?”

Before I could reply, Dylan leaned forward, casually resting his hand on my knee. “I heard the police got a tip from an anonymous caller.”

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. A sheen of sweat broke out across my forehead. The conversation felt like an out of body experience, every word producing a wave of guilt. For what I knew and what I didn’t. For what I shared and what I kept hidden under lock and key.

We finally arrived at the park. I gratefully tumbled out of the car, gulping in copious amounts of fresh air. The cold immediately sucked away the
inflaming heat and left a layer of prickly chills.

We followed the familiar path through the woods, heading across the clearing opposite the lighthouse. As we crested the grounds, a large bonfire stood before us on the beach with about thirty kids huddled around.

“What’s going on?” I asked, confused, my body still reeling from the drive over.

“A birthday celebration of course!” Grace volleyed back over her shoulder as she danced down to the fire and yelled, “Let the festivities begin
!”

The crowd responded with a tribal cheer that floated up into the air. I was certain the party was more for her than me.

“Happy Birthday, CeeCee!” Grace’s arms flew around me as I neared the roaring fire. Glowing faces watched me in anticipation, hopefully not waiting for a speech because I was currently at a loss.

“Do you like it, friend? Are you surprised?” she asked as someone handed me an orange concoction that smelled a bit like gasoline.

“Completely.” Cups were thrust into the air, arms wrapped around bodies, and everyone started singing Happy Birthday. I, at the moment, would have been happy for the ground to open up and suck me in.

With one last squeeze, Grace slipped over to Sean and scooted herself up under his arm. I took a sip from my cup, promptly fighting off a sputtering cough laced with fire. I had no idea what was in the cup, but it tasted horrible.

“Are you really surprised?” I turned to Avery’s raised eyebrows peering at me, her arm gesturing to the group gathered around the fire.

“By Grace? No.” I looked back at the fire, a new liquid warmth trickling down my arms. “The party? Yes.”

“Well, even if you weren’t, good job for not letting on because she’s been planning this for weeks,” Avery said with a knowing smile. We stepped over a piece of driftwood and sat. The heat of the flames painted our faces red. She leaned in and touched her shoulder to mine. “As she put it, she was, ‘determined to bust your funk.’”

“My funk has been officially busted.” I continued to sip the citrus, gasoline blend in my cup, the beverage pushing liquid heat down to my legs, softening the sharpness inside me. I contently watched the dancing flames. My eyes blurred them in and out of focus as they licked the night
sky and disappeared in a veil of smoke, rendering the noise around us white.

“Is everything okay?” I could see Avery watching me out of the corner of my eye. “If you ever want to talk . . .”

I interrupted her. “Thanks for asking, but really, I’m fine.” I was too relaxed to risk a step back into reality. “Just tired.”

Dylan dropped down next to me, his side pressing up against mine. “What are you girls whispering about?”

“We’re not whispering,” Avery said with a funny little laugh. Simultaneously, Grace’s laughter floated over the fire, bursting into our conversation.

I tipped my head back and forth and caught glimpses of her dancing coils, the ends tipped in red.

“But if you were whispering . . .” His gasoline laced breath wrinkled my nose.

“If we were whispering,” I said, unable to stop staring at Grace’s afro springing up and down with every shift of her body, “it would mean it was not meant for your ears.”