Whatever the case, it’s clear I might actually be angry with Tobey and that aside, the interest that Harvard has shown in me, must be controlled before my Denver sanctuary is destroyed. “You can join me,” I say, “but only because I’m trying to save the rest of the place from the attorney in the house.”
I am pleased when Harvard laughs, where Tobey would have scowled, proving that Harvard has a sense of humor, which is rare for those in my life. I’ve barely completed this thought when he moves forward and claims the seat next to me, not across from me, settling his briefcase on that chair instead. In the process, his leg brushes my leg and for the briefest of moments, I’m transported back to the place that I’m now trying to forget: to Austin, to Drew’s leg next to mine, his wink, and I do now what I did then. I jerk back. If Harvard notices he doesn’t react. “Since we haven’t been formally introduced,” he says, resting his naked hands on the table. “I’m Logan. Logan Casey.”
“Logan Casey,” I repeat trying to ground myself in the present, at least for now, but some part of me is still swimming in that memory, which naturally has me wondering if this man is a shark in the water around me. “Two first names,” I add. “Sounds like your parents fought over who got to pick your first name. Did they draw straws for which choice became your middle name?”
“You’re actually right on target,” he says, laughing again, and it’s a nice, masculine laugh, and oddly this thought feels familiar while Logan does not. “No one has ever guessed that,” he adds. “My mother won the name war. The women always win. Speaking of names. Do you have one?”
“Hailey Anne Pitt,” I say, “and in my house, my father won the name war.” Because in my father’s world, I add silently, the women don’t win the wars. At least, not that he knows, not in an obvious way. I’ve learned this well.
“Well then, Hailey Anne Pitt,” he says, “what’s a Stanford girl like you, doing in a place like this? You’re a long way from school.”
I’m smacked in the face with a lesson I’ve long ago learned and forgotten with this man; strangers do not always remain strangers and all offhanded remarks can come back to haunt you. “That was a joke,” I say, shutting the door connected to my real life, and a path that leads to my father. “I hate attorneys remember?”
He narrows his eyes on me, and for no reason other than instinct, I believe he’s looking for a lie that he won’t find. I’m simply too well-taught from birth, too skilled at being more than one person to allow such a detection. Well that, and the fact that I really do hate attorneys, which is why I’ll be a good one.
“That was a joke?” he confirms.
“Yes,” I say. “Are you amused?”
“Yes, actually. I am. What does a lawyer-hating smart ass like yourself do for a living?”
“When not busy taunting those who went to law school,” I say. “I’m an aspiring artist.” Both honest answers, if you put a “was” in front of the “aspiring artist” which I’d thought that I’d come to terms with, but the knot in my stomach says I have not.
Logan motions toward the art room. “Your career explains why you ended up here.”
“I guess it does,” I say, as this place serves me well to reconnecting to the Pitt part of my life, which is a place I really need to be right now, for all kinds of reasons.
“Are you good?” Logan asks, as if he’s read my mind.
My father’s words answer him in my head. Art is useless unless you’re famous, he used to say often, because of course, it was inconceivable that I might be good enough to be famous. “Art is like movies and food,” I say, shoving aside that bad memory. “Good is subjective.” I don’t give him time to reply. I ping the conversation back toward him. “What kind of law do you practice?”
“Corporate,” he says, and this time he pings back to me. “Do you live in the neighborhood?”
“Yes,” I say simply. “Do you?”
“I bought a building a few years ago where I live and work which means this is my home turf, and why I know you’re new here.”
“I am,” I say and since he’s clearly going to ask for details, I quickly preempt with an on-the-fly story. Actually, it’s the suggested story, Rudolf included in my file. “I came here for a job, and my new boss owns a house he’s rented to me for dirt cheap.”
“And what does an artist do but create art for a living?”
“I’m working for a private art acquisitions firm. I now hunt for treasures for a living.” This lie is actually my dream job that I’ve never been allowed to entertain.
The horror flick loving waitress delivers my coffee and brownie. “Thank you,” I say, because every politician’s daughter has manners beaten into her.
“No problem,” she says, “but if you come to your senses and want a better version of that coffee, just shout.” She eyes Logan. “I already know you want a crappy tasting coffee, on endless pour and a chocolate chip cookie. Coming right up.”
“Thanks, Megan,” he says, giving her a wink that I don’t classify as flirtatious, just friendly, and Megan is gone.
“Obviously you’re a regular,” I comment, “and they even like you.”
“And they like me,” he confirms, “despite knowing I’m an attorney.
“Because you’re good looking and use it to your advantage.”
He arches a brow. “You think I’m good looking, do you?”
“Oh, come on,” I say, crinkling my nose. “Everyone thinks you’re good looking. I’m simply stating a fact. We use what we have and those of us that are smart, know what we have.” I move on from what is really quite inconsequential. “Why work here, not at home, or in the office?”
“I find I get a lot of work done with a cookie, coffee, and no access to streaming television,” he explains.
No one in my D.C. crowd would make an admission of being human and distractible. Some people in my situation might take comfort in that fact, but I don’t. Logan’s an attorney, and my gut, which I’ll confirm with research, says he’s a powerful one, the kind that radiates toward my father. Maybe that’s a coincidence and maybe it’s not. Maybe he’s testing how well I execute my cover story. The possibilities are many. Though in all fairness to Logan, perhaps I’d lean toward his innocence, if not for the laundry list of recent events such as Tobey being gay and the FBI agent I slept with to prove I was a) still desirable and b) not a killer, is likely working for my father.
I decide right then that my father’s saying of “shut your mouth” applies to me with Logan as easily as his other favorite saying of, “keep your friends close and your enemies closer.”
“Can I leave my computer with you?” I ask, establishing that friendship.
“Of course,” Logan agrees graciously, warmly, and I find myself hoping that warmth is real, as real is something missing in my life.
I stand up, intending to walk to the ladies’ room but I find myself walking toward the room labeled “Art,” and even when I tell myself to turn away, I do not. There is a flutter in my chest that tells a story; one of heartache, loss, and even love lost in all kinds of ways. My art. My mother. My life. I pause in the archway, willing myself to turn away, only to find Michelle placing a sign on the front easel that sits center stage that reads: Classes cancelled until further notice.
Frowning, I walk down the aisle framed in the center of the room, a few random people sit with coffee and paintbrushes to join Michelle at the front of the room. “Why are classes cancelled?” I ask.
She puffs out a breath, her light brown hair fluttering over her brow. “Our instructor quit without notice.” She throws up her hands, seeming to need an outlet I’ve become. “I don’t know why I opened a place that revolves around creating art. I mean, yes. I love art but as far as creation, I can’t even get stick figures right. It’s very upsetting. It’s a part of what we are here. And yes, I know. It was stupid to open a place with a premise that I can’t fulfill.”
Seeing her
fret, makes me fret when I don’t fret. The next thing I know, I’m spurting out, “I can do it,” in a rare moment of spontaneity. “I’m qualified.”
“Really?” she asks, her tone one part hopeful, one part skeptical.
“Really,” I assure her, the idea of doing this expanding my chest with the first real excitement I’ve felt in a very long time.
“Show me,” she says, pointing to a blank easel.
This will be the first time I’ve touched an easel since my mother’s death, but I don’t hesitate. This is my craft. This is what I love and it’s like riding a bike. Certain skills never go away and I’m at home with a brush, or any artistic tool, in my hand. I sit down, grab a thick art pencil and in a quick few minutes, I’ve sketched her. “Wow,” she murmurs. “You’re good.”
I stand and face her. “Thank you. Do I get the job?”
“It doesn’t pay much,” she warns.
“Keep the money,” I say, remembering my father talking about the poor return on a coffee shop investment some years ago. “I have income. I need a hobby. I’m free for a few months. Use the extra cash to grow your business.”
She blinks. “What? No. I have to pay you.”
I wave that off. She’s giving me a gift. I’ll give her one back. “You don’t have to pay me. Coffee and art make me a happy girl.” Happy. I used the word happy. “I need the class schedule,” I say, excitement welling inside me.
“A hobby is something you do and forget,” she says. “I need someone who can be here and be reliable.”
“A hobby is something you love and don’t get paid for performing,” I say. “I’m reliable but get a replacement if you must. I’m here until you do.”
She hesitates. “You’re sure?”
“Completely.”
“Okay then. We can set it up to meet your schedule, but Wine and Painting on Saturday nights is big.”
“It’s Saturday now.”
“Exactly. Tonight’s our big night.”
“I’ll start tonight.”
“Really?”
I laugh. “Really.”
We chat a few minutes, and she promises me unlimited free white mochas, which based on my consumption capabilities could get expensive for her. She brings me an application, which I fill out with my new identity, and a fake Denver phone number, deciding I need a temporary phone. When finally the formality is done, Michelle departs and I’m left standing in the middle of the art room, my room now. A place where art will be my world again. A place where I must face all the broken pieces of myself, but I know now that I have no choice. I cannot discover what I do not know or understand about my mother and her motivations without discovering what I don’t want to see or know about me, the real me. What if she wasn’t as pure and good as I think she was? What does that make me? Who does that make me? I need to know.
I sit back down on a stool, staring at the paper covered canvas with Michelle’s image, without seeing her. I just see the darkness of my mind, where there should be light. I need that light, I need the answers it will deliver. I tear away the page with Michelle’s image and with a new plain white sheet exposed, I pick up a pencil, and this time, I intend to do what I’ve always done in the past; let the instrument in my hand answer to the questions weighing on my mind. Let my craft become a tool that reaches inside me, and touches all those dark places in my mind that I never allow myself to touch. It’s what my mother wanted, for me to confine all of my uncontrollable impulses on the canvas, not in the world.
I intend to draw my mother, hoping that in my creation I’ll find the answers to the questions I have about her life, and therefore the questions I have about mine. From the first stroke of my pencil on the canvas, I am lost in my work, in creating for the first time in so very long that I lose time. Footsteps sound, jolting me to the present and suddenly Logan steps behind me to study my work, and so, I study my work. It’s then that I discover my brush has a mind of its own. My mother is not on the canvas. Instead, it’s Danielle.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
A secret; defined by the dictionary as something that is kept or meant to be kept unknown or unseen by others. We all have at least one secret, if not more, most likely. Stating the obvious here, but a secret is yours to keep and yours to share until you actually share it. Owning a secret wholly to yourself though, is lonely. It can make you alone in the middle of a room. Alone in the middle of the world. Looking back, alone is what started wearing me down. I, of course, knew that once my mother died, I was alone in the plastic world of Washington, but once I was in Denver, once I was so easily displaced, by all those who knew me, I started to realize how empty that really feels. How empty I was. I began to see that no one truly missed me. I began to not just see the token I was to them all, but feel it. That’s how cold and guarded I’d become before Denver. I didn’t know how cold I’d become. I didn’t know what I was becoming. I realized then too, that if I was being watched by my father, it wasn’t out of concern. It was out of his need to control me and protect himself.
Knowing this had long clawed holes in me, that sealed and reopened on a quite regular basis, but once out of his direct spotlight, I was so hungry, so very hungry, for someone who saw me and not my father, that my guard began to lower. That’s dangerous when you have a secret shared with someone who is missing. Someone in the back of your mind, you fear you somehow made disappear. I didn’t protect her. I didn’t save her. I hurt her. I had no idea at that point what happened. I had no idea if someone else knew what I should know.
And yet, as I stood in that art room with Logan staring at my work, at Danielle instead of slamming shut a door on him, I felt as if a tiny piece of my armor began to peel away, like I shoved it open just a tiny bit. I gave him room to open it. I, Hailey Anne Monroe, the political warrior, started to become Hailey Anne Pitt, the woman and artist. The problem though was that both people were me, and I still had a secret or perhaps, more than one secret.
Which brings me back to Logan, staring over my shoulder, at Danielle, the root of all of my secrets, at least back then…
***
THE PAST…
“You’re talented,” Logan says from behind me, close enough that his energy crackles along my shoulder blades. Close enough that he can trace every line of Danielle’s face with his intelligent eyes. “Downright gifted,” he adds.
It’s something my mother would say to me and I swallow the tightness in my chest, angry with myself for just standing there, when there is so much on the line. When Danielle, who has been on the news, and by my side often, is on my canvas. Angry with myself for feeling the compliment like a balm to my hungry soul; a soul that wants to live with a paintbrush in my hand.
Jolting myself into action, I murmur, “Thank you,” tearing away the disposable paper off the easel and folding it in half, not about to leave it behind, “but,” I add, turning to face him, “right now it’s not brilliant to me. I don’t like anyone to see my work until it’s done.”
“Just like I don’t like to read my closings to anyone until they’re being delivered.”
I seize this as an opportunity to turn the conversation to him. “You don’t practice your closing?”
“You ask that likes it’s unheard of, and like you know from experience.”
“I didn’t decide I disliked attorneys by watching them on TV,” I say, quick with my rebuttal.
“Who was he?”
Who was he? I laugh bitterly, because somehow this man has hit yet another nerve. “Who wasn’t he?” I ask, only now admitting to myself that Tobey’s betrayal, his silence now after this betrayal tells a painful story of who and what we were together, that I denied until I couldn’t any longer; we were as fake as a billboard sunrise in a Hollywood parking lot.
“You come from a family of attorneys,” he assumes. “And therefore, you’ve dated attorneys.”
“Smart observation counselor,” I say. “Closing statements—”
> “Have to be magical to win, which is why I need to choose mine with you cautiously. Come have that coffee with me so I can assess you and decide what my next move should be. Tell me more about your work, as I’m certain now that the last thing we should talk about is mine.”
I stare into this man’s once penetrating, now warm, blue gaze, and I feel that spark of attraction to him I’ve denied by brushing him off until this moment. I do not want to connect with anyone right now. I can’t be cut again and aligning myself with someone who could be with my father, or become a token that my father later uses against me, is as good as handing that person a knife, when I’m already bleeding. “I’m the new instructor here now,” I say. “I really want to paint, and get ready for class.”
“New instructor,” he repeats. “What happened to the new buyer’s position?”
“This is more of a side gig,” I say. “I think they need me here.”
“Well judging from the work you did, I do as well. Paint. I’ll be here when you’re done but I want to see your next masterpiece.” He pauses. “When you think it’s ready, of course.”
When I’m ready. When has anyone in my life ever cared if I was ready for anything? If he’s with my father, he is his best pick, his best actor.
Logan turns and walks away. I watch him, something bothering me that won’t materialize fully in my mind, something obvious but out of reach. Wait. Wait. It is obvious. He didn’t ask who I’d painted which means he either already knew—or—or maybe he didn’t care, because he was too interested in me, but I dismiss that fantastical idea. I hate that I’ve allowed myself to have that thought. I hate how much I crave being just a woman with just a man attracted to her.
I turn away from the door and face the blank page I’ve left myself. Staring at it, I pick up a pencil, and start sketching. This time, it’s Logan I draw, Logan who has me looking for his perfect lies but when I’m done, when he’s on the paper, the way he is in my mind, I don’t find them. I’m not sure what I see but it is not what I expect. I’m not clear at all on this man but then, I considered myself a master at reading agendas, but missed Tobey’s true alignment with my father. It hurts. I didn’t love Tobey though, I remind myself. I didn’t. I knew. He was just my comfort zone. The one person, outside of Danielle, that was there for me after my mother died. Now Danielle is dead, and Tobey is gone.
A Perfect Lie Page 16
