Emerald Windows (12 page)

“Then your parents were the only ones who visited you in the hotel room?” Abby asked as if she didn’t believe a word.

“Absolutely,” Brooke said. She turned to the other council members, her brows oppressively drawn together. “Why is it that I feel like I’m on trial here? Why am I having to defend everything I’ve done since I came into this town? Hayden is my home too. I came into this project against my better judgment, because I wanted a chance to work on something that meant something.” She turned to Horace, who listened with a deep, ponderous frown. “You asked me to come here, Pastor. I didn’t ask for the job. If we’re wasting our time on this, tell us now. I’ll just get right back to Columbia and pick up with my life.”

“No, wait a minute,” Horace blurted, halting her with an outstretched hand. “That isn’t what we want. I personally want you to do what you were hired to do.” He rubbed his weary eyes and looked around at his congregation. “Look, if they provided sketches of the windows and made some kind of presentation to show us what they’re planning, would that put your minds at ease?”

Some of the members agreed that it would, so the pastor turned back to Nick and Brooke, who now stood side by side, allies against the world. “All right then. This time next week, bring us eight or ten sketches, and I’m sure we won’t have any more discussion about revoking the budget.”

“Eight or ten?” Abby asked. “There are twenty windows. Let them bring sketches of all of them.”

Nick and Brooke looked at each other, astounded, then turned back to the council. “All of our sketches?” Nick asked. “Each window has four parts. We’re talking about eighty panels. We can’t sketch all of those in enough detail to convince you people in one week!”

“We start with crude drawings called cartoons,” Brooke tried to explain. “They look like puzzles. Unless you’re used to looking at such things, you won’t—”

“Do the best you can,” Horace said. “We’ll have to go by whatever you can show us.”

Nick sighed and gazed at Brooke with troubled eyes, as if silently asking her if she was ready for the round-the-clock work
it would take to prepare such a presentation. Her answering look told him she was.

“All right,” he said. “We’ll do the best we can.”

T
he hallway was dark when Nick and Brooke left the conference room, leaving the church members to conduct other business. Light spilled from the doorway of a room being cleaned a few doors down, filtering just enough light for Brooke to see Nick. She slowed her step and looked up at him, unable to stop the tears from filling her eyes. “They think we went to a motel together,” she said. “As long as we live, Nick, whatever we do, whatever choices we make, right or wrong, they’ll see us that way.”

“I know it’s hard for you, Brooke. But not everyone believes it. Horace didn’t.”

“Most of them do.” Her tears began to flow and she covered her mouth with her hand and turned away from Nick. “It isn’t fair.”

“No, it isn’t.” Nick touched the back of her shoulder, and this time she didn’t shrug him away. “We can’t let it cripple us,” he whispered. “That’s what Abby Hemphill wants.”

“Why?” Brooke turned back around, wiped at the tears in her eyes. “What have we
ever
done to that woman? Nick, we can’t do all this in one week. It’s physically impossible. Eighty panels?”

“We’ll do what we can,” he said. “I’m not willing to give up easily. We’ll start working tonight. At my place.”

“No!” she said again. “How many times do I have to tell you? We can’t be caught alone at your house or anywhere except the church. And then we’ll
still
be gossiped about.”

He threw up his hands in frustrated surrender. “Sorry. I just thought since I had coffee there, and food…. We’re going to be at this around the clock, you know. There’s no avoiding it.”

“Still,” she said, putting him off with a trembling hand. “I just…I can’t. Maybe tonight we should just work independently. I’ll work at my parents’, and you work at home.”

Nick’s discontent with the proposed arrangement was clear, but he didn’t argue further. They began walking down the corridor, past the lighted room where the janitor was cleaning.

Brooke sensed the weariness in Nick’s muscles, the heaviness in his stride. Idly, she recalled the ragged condition he’d been in that morning, as if he hadn’t slept in days. She doubted tonight would provide him with much relaxation either.

They rounded the corner where Mrs. Hemphill’s office was and came to the door marked “Records,” where Roxy worked every afternoon. The lights were all off, creating an eerie, lonely atmosphere. The sound of their shoes against the floor was soft and rhythmic, but another sound, the sound of muffled voices inside the Records office, caught her attention.

Brooke’s feet slowed. “Wait a minute,” she whispered.

Nick stopped. “What?”

“I heard voices in my sister’s office.”

Nick wasn’t concerned. “It was probably the cleaning woman.”

Brooke listened for another moment, staring into the darkness, concentrating. The hall had fallen quiet. “I guess it was,” she said, and started to walk.

Before they reached the glass doors that opened into the parking lot, Brooke could see the light from the street lamps surrounding it. Only a few cars were still there, most belonging to the church members. But one, set apart from the cluster of others, caught her eye.

Roxy’s car.

“That’s my sister’s car.” Brooke turned back toward Roxy’s office, trying to decide whether to barge in. “What if she’s in trouble in there? She wouldn’t be in some dark office this late at night if something weren’t wrong.” She started back up the hall. “I’m going to check on her.”

Nick followed her back to the Records room, and again they heard two distinct but muffled voices—a man’s and a woman’s.

Brooke knocked on the closed door, though there was no light shining beneath it. “Roxy?” she called.

The voices instantly stilled, but no one answered. “Roxy? It’s Brooke,” she said again. When there was still no answer, Brooke shoved open the door and snapped on the light.

The couple moved apart—Roxy and a man with blond hair. Roxy’s hair was tousled and her expression panicked. She stumbled back.

“Roxy?” Brooke asked, astounded.

As if the confrontation were too much for her to deal with, Roxy snatched up her purse and started for the door.

“Roxy!” Brooke said again.

Brushing past, Roxy said, “Leave me alone, Brooke! Just leave me alone!”

Before Brooke could speak, Roxy was halfway down the hall, with the man fast on her heels.

Brooke stood numbly in the doorway, reeling from the hatred she had seen in her sister’s eyes. Nick’s face mirrored her pain. “I have to go talk to her,” Brooke said.

“You can talk to her tomorrow,” he whispered. “But not tonight, when she’s in this mood. Tonight, we’re going to my house. No arguments, okay?”

The emotional warfare of the day had drained all the energy from Brooke’s spirit, making her too weak to fight. She released a deep breath and nodded. “No arguments,” she said. “What have I got to lose, after all?”

T
he ride to Nick’s house in his old Buick was too quiet.

Nick gave her a sidelong glance as he drove through town. “What are you thinking?” he asked softly.

She shook her head dolefully. “Nothing, really. Just wondering what’s going on with Roxy. Worried she’s messing up her life. She learned from watching me how complicated things can get.”

“I’m not going to complicate things any more for you, Brooke,” he said. “It’s very simple. We’re two artists working together for a few months. That’s all.”

“I know that, and you know that,” she whispered.

He let out an aggravated sigh. “When are you going to stop letting them get to you?”

“When are you going to
start?”
she returned. “It all seems to roll off your back.”

“Would you rather I let it
break
my back? I’m not going to cower in a corner just because some people have nothing better to do with their time than to throw stones at me.”

“Are you saying that’s what I’ve been doing? Cowering?”

Headlights from a passing car illuminated his face, then quickly disappeared. “I’m saying that there are a lot of excuses in life to keep from doing the hard things. I don’t need excuses, Brooke. Maybe you do.”

Nick pulled into his driveway, but Brooke didn’t seem to notice. Instead she glowered at him in the darkness, silently denying his accusations. He let the car idle for a moment, but when she didn’t say anything, he got out to open the garage.

Brooke stewed as she watched him walk to the garage door and pull it open with a jerk. His words still stung, but deep in the back of her mind, she realized that she couldn’t find a comeback because she feared he might be right. Maybe she did need excuses. Maybe she was afraid.

She exhaled deeply as he got back into the car and pulled into the shelter of the garage, next to the Duesenberg. When he had killed the engine, they sat quietly for a moment, neither of them making an attempt to get out.

“Look, maybe I was out of line,” he said, the lack of enthusiasm in his tone making the apology seem less sincere.

“It’s okay,” she whispered, not sure she meant her words either. “It’s time I stopped hiding behind Mrs. Hemphill and all the others. It’s time I really did grow up.”

He looked at her in the dim garage light and offered a weak smile. “Let’s go in.”

They stepped into the kitchen from the garage. Brooke glanced around at the cluttered room that looked like a stop-off place for quick on-the-run meals. It was clean, though here and there lay a wadded napkin, an empty milk carton, a watered-down drink.

The faint, familiar smell of oil paints drew her deeper into the kitchen as Nick closed the door quietly and laid his things on the kitchen table. She peered through a door on the other side of the kitchen, where the strongest of the scents seemed to originate. “Is that your studio?” she asked.

“That’s it,” he said. “Go on in, if you want.”

She turned on the light and tentatively stepped inside. The room was larger than the kitchen, and much more cluttered. Paintings in progress leaned against the wall. One back wall was made entirely of glass, overlooking a small canal lit with lanterns on either side. An easel dominated the middle of the floor, with a stool next to it, and a small table where dozens of colors of paints waited in tubes to be used. Paintbrushes soaked nearby in mineral spirits.

“I think this is exactly what I pictured,” Brooke said with a self-conscious smile. “The room even smells creative.”

She turned back to the kitchen and saw Nick making coffee. His expression was still sober. “Canvas seems to be your favorite medium,” she said. “Why did you get interested in stained glass?”

He plugged the coffeepot in. “I had ideas for some things that I thought would turn out better in glass, and I like the freedom to be versatile.” He got two coffee mugs out of the cupboard, and set them on the counter. “What made you specialize in glass?”

Brooke leaned against the doorway, suddenly feeling at home surrounded by an artist’s tools, an artist’s work, and an artist’s understanding. It had been a long time since she had experienced such a sense of comfort in anyone else’s home. “It’s just such a beautiful art,” she said. “The only one that sunlight plays a direct part in. I worked with it a lot in college, and I guess I got hooked. I was never that good at other media.”

Nick stopped what he was doing and turned back to her, his eyes dark with disbelief. “Not good? You’re kidding, right?”

“Well, maybe good enough to win a scholarship, but I don’t think I could have ever produced anything good enough to sell.”

Nick closed the cupboard door and turned to face her squarely. An astounded smile sparkled in his eyes, removing all traces of his earlier ire. “Brooke, has your memory really faded that much?”

“What do you mean?”

Nick abandoned the coffeepot. “Come here,” he said.

Brooke followed him into his living room, a breathtaking showcase for some of the finest works of art she’d ever seen. The white carpet added contrast to the colors of the pieces hanging on the walls, and even the furniture served to accent the sculptures surrounding it.

Brooke’s wandering eyes swept over each piece in turn, absorbing the richness of the beauty accumulated there. But Nick touched her shoulders and gently turned her around, where a piece of sculpture provided the centerpiece for the room.

It was
Infinity,
the sculpture of two hands, gently embraced, their touch so poignant that even now she could feel the emotions that had driven her as she’d worked on it. She inclined her head in a moment of awe. “You kept it,” she whispered.

“Of course I kept it,” he said. “What did you think I would do with it?”

Brooke laughed softly and brought her hands to her face. “I don’t know. I guess I thought it was lying in your attic or something. Or that you’d thrown it away.”

He led her to the sculpture, picked it up and set it in her hands. Immediately, she remembered the sweet familiarity of every line, the cool warmth of every vein chiseled there. She slid her hand over the male hand, then across the smaller hand it embraced.

“Does that look like something that could be thrown away?” he asked quietly. “Brooke, you have no idea how powerful this piece is.”

She had some idea as she realized that
Infinity
held the key to her past, the lock on her future. It was both the beginning and the end. But it was
her
beginning,
her
ending, and as bittersweet as it was, she cherished it in a way that—she was certain—no one else ever could. “I don’t know what you mean,” she whispered.

“I’ve had offers for it,” he said. “People see it, and they want it. It strikes so much emotion within them. That’s what art does, Brooke. That’s why you were a born artist.”

She frowned down at the hands, trying to see the work more objectively. “You had offers?” she repeated. “What kind of offers?”

“Helena at the gallery saw it a few months ago and offered me $25,000 for it,” he said, watching her face carefully for her reaction.