Objects of My Affection (30 page)

Marva turns to go. “No problem. We'll pick another house to feature in our magazine.”

Daniel and I remain rooted, unsure of what to do. Marva nearly makes it to the SUV before the woman calls out, “Wait! Fine. Come on in.”

“Delighted,” Marva says, then strides past us and into the house. As we follow, the woman introduces herself as Lynette. Although none of us offer names in return, she doesn't seem to notice.

“Welcome to my humble home!” Lynette says with a sweep of her arms.

We're standing in a foyer that's wallpapered in a busy, faded floral. I glimpse a dining area and a family room beyond. So far as can be seen, the decor is middle-class Americana—not expensive, a bit dated, but clean and well cared for. Seeing it cements the nagging feeling in the pit of my stomach that there's been a mistake: Mackenlively got it wrong. An edgy, stylistic painting such as Marva's can't possibly be in a house that has a bench in the foyer with needlepoint pillows bearing such slogans as
BLESS THIS MESS
and
THE BEST THINGS IN LIFE AREN'T THINGS
.

“I can't tell you how excited I was to get your call—I don't even remember entering that contest! So is one of you the gal I talked to?”

This would be an ideal time for Marva to pipe in, but she's already walking toward the dining room. She's not even pretending to be concerned with Lynette, who has obviously gone to a fair amount
of trouble for us today. It smells freshly Windexed in here, and there are telltale vacuuming tracks. Plus it's doubtful she usually wears pearls while hanging around the house.

“We're only the crew,” I say, deciding that playing dumb under the circumstances will require the least stretching of my acting talents.

Daniel, however, is fully embracing his role. He pulls out his phone and snaps Lynette's photo.

“Oh, don't get me wearing this old thing,” she says, whipping off her apron as if it's caught fire. “I thought you said no pictures today.”

“These aren't for print.” He fires off random shots—snapping a photo of the corner of the ceiling, the floor, the edge of a light fixture. “But since we're not doing the shoot today, I'd at least like to get an idea of what's here. Do some poking around. See all the rooms. Right down to the basement if need be.”

“The basement?!” Lynette seems scandalized—although nice job on Daniel's part planting the idea. If the painting
is
here, it's quite possibly in storage.

She bustles us through a living room and into a dining room. There was a time, I muse—while pretending to assess a tchotchke-filled china cabinet—I'd have called this house cluttered. Tromping through Marva's mess day after day hasn't merely altered my standards; it's buried them alive. All I require now is a path and a less than 20 percent chance of something falling on me and causing a concussion and I'm happy.

“So in this room,” Lynette says when we reach the kitchen, “I decided to go with a color scheme of peach. I wanted a food color, what with it being a kitchen and all.” Marva appears pained by Lynette's nonstop chattering. Our hostess has rightfully identified Marva as the alpha in this group and has nearly been tripping over herself pointing out what to feature in our fake magazine profile. Although grating for Marva, it's allowed Daniel and me to trail after to peek behind credenzas and in closets and under couches.

At one point Daniel tugs open a door, and Lynette startles. “Goodness, that's the pantry!”

“Sorry … just making sure we see it all.” He gives her a look of a puppy trying to get itself adopted from the pound. “They give us such grief back at the office if we aren't thorough in our research. Almost got fired once because I came back after scouting a location and I hadn't gone up into the attic.”

Lynette falls for it. “Then let's not get you in trouble,” she says decidedly. “You help yourself to whatever it is you need to see. Although if we can keep the pace snappy, I'd appreciate it. Gil could be home anytime now.”

“No problem. You two ladies lead the way,” Daniel says, nodding toward Marva. She's passed right through a formal living room and is leaning her head into a den that's sectioned off by glass double doors.

Upon noticing where Marva is, Lynette trots after her. “That's my husband's den!” she calls out. “Can't imagine there's anything worth seeing there, it's so plain.” She catches up and joins Marva in the room. “You know how men can be. You set so much as a pretty doily in their man caves and they get afraid they'll have a mad urge to start sipping tea with their pinkies in the air.”

As Lynette laments to a visibly strained Marva about how her husband makes fun of her decorating efforts—if he had his way, they'd have nothing but shelves made of lumber held up by cinder blocks—Daniel leans close to me. “You thinking the same thing I am?”

“That if that woman keeps talking, Marva may not wait to see her painting before killing herself?”

“She does look miserable. But, no, that's not what I'm referring to.”

“So what then?”

“Do you think there's a chance in hell that the painting is hanging anywhere in this house?”

“Not really.”

“Me neither. The way I figure it, if it's in this place at all, our best bet is an attic or basement. So I say we divide and conquer. Keep Lynette busy with Marva in the main house and the yard. That will give you and me time to dig through storage in peace.” Without waiting
for a response, he says in a loud voice, “Lynette, in the interest of time, how about you two tour the house—and please, hit on all the landscaping in the yard. We're quite interested in foliage. I'll check out the basement, and my buddy here”—he puts an arm around my shoulder—“she'll look in the attic. That okay with you, Marva?”

Marva nods—although I'm sure she'd rather swap places with one of us—and Lynette eagerly agrees. “That
would
save us some time. Although we don't have an attic. And don't you worry. I'll sign something that says so that you can give to your boss.”

“That's very kind of you,” Daniel replies. “And the basement is … ?”

She directs us to a door near the back entrance. We click on the light and head down the stairs.

“I feel awful,” Daniel says as soon as we're out of earshot. “She's going to be crushed when we don't show up on Monday, and I'm just egging her on. I'm such a dick.”

“I know.”

He pauses, hand on the railing. “You think I'm a dick?”

Unfortunately, no—things would be so much easier if I did. “I mean I feel sorry for her, too. Which is annoying. That's all I need is to add somebody new to the list of people I'm worried about.”

We reach the bottom of the stairs and Daniel squeezes the back of my neck. “He's going to be okay. The number one on your list. He's a smart kid.”

“Let's hope so,” I say, touched that Daniel's mind leapt so quickly to Ash, but not wanting to get into it at the moment. Rather than let thoughts of my runaway son into my head, I shove them back down to where they usually are. It's hard to remember a time when I didn't have this dull ache inside me, and I wonder if that's how it is for people with a chronic illness—if after a time they can no longer recall what it's like to feel healthy and whole.

Hands on hips, I take in my surroundings. The basement is a large, open room that runs the length of the house and is smattered with shelves, piles of boxes, old furniture, a pool table—the usual
basement fodder. “Now let's find us a hidden treasure. How big is this painting?”

“Pretty large—like three feet across. So if it's here, it won't be hard to spot.”

After we've been sifting through for a few minutes, Daniel says, “This is déjà vu, huh? We seem to enjoy sorting through other people's junk together.”

“And to think we used to enjoy … uh … dancing together.”

He pauses to look at me, perplexed. “We didn't dance. Except for when you made me at weddings.”

Thank goodness it's poor lighting down here because I can feel myself going hot with embarrassment. I started to explain what I meant by
dance
, but realized midway how weird that would be. “Well, I should have made you dance more often.”

“I'd have danced with you,” he says, his voice serious. “Even without you shooting at my feet. You only had to ask—just said, ‘Daniel, dance with me.' I don't read minds.”

Wanting off this awkward subject, I walk over to a floor-to-ceiling pile of boxes and bins across the room. “We haven't looked over here yet.”

Almost immediately I'm excited that we've hit pay dirt since there's a stack of pictures and paintings against the wall behind the boxes. Alas, it turns out none of them are
Woman, Freshly Tossed
—or anything of remotely the quality that might lead us to believe these people have an inkling about fine art.

“It's not here,” I say, surprised at how crestfallen I am.

“No worries. If it's not in the basement, it must be upstairs.”

“If that's the case, then what are you doing down here?” I aim for a teasing tone, as much to cheer myself up as anything. “You could be having your big moment with Marva—basking in the glow of the famous artist. You are missing out on it
right now.
”

He shrugs. “She doesn't need me with her for that.”

“What? Isn't that the whole reason you came?”

“No.”

“All right, for that and to find out details about how and why she plans to kill herself so we have ammunition to stop her.”

“Not entirely.”

I search my mind for what he's getting at. “And to see a famous painting that's been missing to the world for years?”

“Luce, I thought you got it.”

“Got it?”

“The reason I came here today. I'm here for
you.
You were stressing about Marva, in part because I was making you stress. It wouldn't be fair to make you handle it by yourself. You shouldn't have to handle things alone so much.”

It's as if something inside me pops open, and without giving myself time to overthink it, my hand goes up to his neck to pull his face closer. “Daniel, kiss me.”

He blinks once—and I wonder if he's going to make a quip—but only the tiniest bit of a smile registers before he presses his mouth to mine. We kiss, and then again, and then our lips part slightly—and as many times as I've kissed Daniel, it feels as sweet and tentative and as tingly as the first time.

He pulls away, then leans his forehead against mine. “See, that's what I'm talking about. I'm not that bright. You've got to spell it out for me. Although sooner or later I'd have had to kiss you anyway. I've been dying to do it for a long time now. In fact, why am I talking?”

His lips barely have time to find mine again when there's a commotion upstairs, then Lynette calls down, “You two? I need you to come up … please?” It's followed by a man's voice shouting,
“Now!”

He sounds so angry that we snap apart and immediately scurry toward upstairs. “Guess we're in trouble,” I say.

Daniel gives me a mock concerned look. “You got a jealous husband you neglected to tell me about?”

As much as it would be habit to do so, I'm unable to formulate a snappy comeback because in that moment it catches up to me: Daniel and I kissed. I have no idea what it means, but it definitely means
something.
He grabs my hand to squeeze it, which tells me I'm not the only one who feels that way.

When we get to the top of the stairs, a tall, balding man in an off-white workman's uniform is there with Marva and Lynette, glowering at us. “Lynette,” he snaps, “you want to explain to me again why you invited total strangers into our house and let them run around pell-mell?”

“Gil, they're not strangers!” she says in a perky tone that doesn't entirely disguise her nervousness. “This was supposed to be … a surprise. I won a contest and they're going to put pictures of my decorating in a magazine!”

He barks such a mean laugh that I immediately want to establish a publishing company so I can start a home magazine for the sole purpose of printing a big, glossy, multipage photo spread of this house, just so his wife can roll it up and smack him in the head with it.

“What magazine would care about your decorating, huh?” Gil says. “
Too Many Stupid Fluffy Pillows Everywhere
magazine? Or
I Spend All Day Making Silly Quilts While My Husband Brings in All the Money Fixing People's Sinks
magazine?”

Lynette's mouth forms into a stubborn line. “It's
House Beautiful.
And these people appreciate my artistic sense.”

“And for that they gotta snoop through our basement?” Gil narrows his eyes at Daniel. “What sort of trick are you trying to pull here?”

“No trick. Just doing my job, man,” Daniel says, hands in his pockets. He is the picture of nonconfrontation.

“You even got ID? Lynette, you think to ask for ID? Or a business card?”

“As I told you,” Marva interjects in the manner one talks to a naughty preschooler, “we are simply here to see what might be worth photographing. Every month we do a story on clever ideas from real people. It's a very popular feature. You would have final approval, of course. Now there are a few more rooms to see before—”

“No dice,” Gil says. “Might as well put an ad in the paper, telling people what they can come and steal. I ain't a fool.”

“But, Gil!” Lynette whines.

As they go back and forth, my phone buzzes in my pocket. I pull it out and see a Chicago number I don't recognize. On the off-off-off chance it's Ash, I hold up a finger in the international symbol for
I'll be just a moment
and quietly answer, “Hello?”