Faking It d-2

by Jennifer Crusie

  “Uh,” Tilda said, not sure how she was going to lie her way out of this one.

  “I knew he would,” Clea said, coming closer. “He always gets what he wants.” She smiled down at Tilda, not unfriendly. “He’s gone, isn’t he?”

  “Just for a day or so,” Tilda said, lifting her chin.

  “No,” Clea said. “When he goes, he’s gone. But he left you the paintings, that’s like him. He’s a very generous man.” She looked regretful for a moment. “It’s such a shame he’s not rich.”

  “He’s coming back,” Tilda said firmly. “Now what are you doing in my bedroom?”

  “I’ve come for the paintings, of course,” Clea said.

  “And I would give them to you because…?” Tilda said, amazed by her gall.

  “Because if you give them to me, I won’t tell the world you’re Scarlet,” Clea said. “And those people you conned out of the paintings, they won’t find out who you are. And you won’t go to jail. And since you’re pretty much supporting your entire family, they won’t starve. I think it’s a good trade.”

  She sounded perfectly friendly but there was ice in her eyes, and Tilda thought, She knows about Gwennie and Mason.

  “You think these paintings are going to get Mason back?” she said, and Clea’s face twisted.

  “I think it’s none of your damn business,” she snapped.

  Tilda nodded, trying to buy time to think it through. “They need to be cleaned. And I have to get the cheap frame off the first one. Mason would spit on that frame. And…” She turned back to the last painting, the dancers she’d smeared with her brush and thrown at her father when he’d told her she was born to paint, not to love. “I have to finish this one. I’ll bring them to you tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow,” Clea said, clearly suspicious.

  “The paint will be dry by tomorrow,” Tilda said. “I’ll bring them to the house.” She looked up at Clea. “You can trust me.”

  “I can’t trust anybody,” Clea said. “But I guess I have to here. Tomorrow morning then.”

  “Yes,” Tilda said, looking at the last Scarlet. “Tomorrow you can have them.”

  DOWNSTAIRS, the afternoon passed with a respectable number of customers, and when the last one left the gallery at five, and Gwen had sent Mason home, she locked the front door and turned to Nadine. “Do we have a number for Thomas the Caterer? His stuff is still here. Oh, and can you take the garbage out?”

  “Sure,” Nadine said, patting her on the back. “I don’t know about Thomas, but we have to take Steve out anyway so we can do the garbage then. Wasn’t he a good gallery dog today?”

  Gwen looked down at Steve, who lay down on the floor and sighed. “I know,” she told the dog. “Hell of a life.”

  “He loves it,” Nadine insisted and held the office door open. “Come on, puppy, let’s go take the trash out and pee on the Dumpster. You like that.”

  Steve trotted out after her and so did Ethan, and Gwen shook her head at her granddaughter’s mastery of her life. Nothing bothered Nadine.

  Except a minute later, Nadine was back, shaking. “Call 911,” she said, and Gwen froze. “There’s a dead body behind the Dumpster.”

  “Davy,” Gwen said, her heart clutching.

  “No,” Nadine said. “Thomas the Caterer.”

  AN HOUR EARLIER, upstairs in her new studio, Tilda had finished cleaning the paintings and taking the frame off the first one. Now she set the last unfinished one up on her drawing table, tilted the light to see it better, and studied it. She was going to have to match her style to her old way of painting. No careful sketches or underpainting, just free strokes. It was the worst kind of painting to forge because any hesitation would be caught in the paint, scream out “I’m a fake,” and ruin the painting.

  She didn’t want to ruin the painting.

  Practice, she thought, I need to practice who I used to be. She tried a few sample strokes on newsprint, but it wasn’t the same, they looked stupid, clumsy. She wasn’t Scarlet anymore. She wasn’t sure who she was.

  Davy knows who I am, she thought. But he was in Temptation. She was on her own, faking again, out in the cold.

  I can do this, she thought and looked around the all-white room. I just need to remember. She picked up her largest chunk of charcoal and drew the outlines of leaves in big slashes on her walls, channeling Scarlet, keeping her arm free and fluid. When she had walls full of outlines, she started to paint in the colors, making them round and full and warm, leaves you wanted to touch. That was what Scarlet had done, she’d made paintings you wanted to move into. She’d been young and happy and in love and she’d painted it all into…

  That was the key to the last painting, Tilda realized, in the middle of a leaf stroke. Scarlet had stopped because Andrew loved Eve and she couldn’t paint joy anymore. She’d stopped because she couldn’t love Andrew; maybe it was time to start because she loved Davy. Maybe it was time because she believed in the future again. Because Davy was coming back.

  She looked at the jungle drawn on her walls.

  And because she’d been born to paint like this.

  She brought the last Scarlet into the light, and this time she saw exactly how to finish it, two dark-haired lovers with the moon behind them, reaching for each other, forever.

  It was going to be the story of her life.

  GWEN HAD dialed 911 and then run out to the parking lot. It really was Thomas the Caterer, stretched out behind the Dumpster, looking pale as death with blood on his head.

  “Are you sure he’s dead?” Gwen said to Nadine. “Never mind. We’ll wait and we won’t touch the body and…” She stopped. “I have to go upstairs. Turn your back on him or something and don’t touch anything.”

  “We’re not idiots,” Nadine said, still shaking.

  “Just don’t look at him,” Gwen said and ran back inside and up to the second floor.

  “Funniest thing,” she said, her voice trembling, when Ford answered his door. “Nadine just went to take out the trash and there was a body behind the Dumpster.”

  “Anybody we know?” Ford said.

  “That’s it?” Gwen said, her heart sinking. “You don’t sound surprised.”

  “I’m surprised,” Ford said. “Anybody we know?”

  “Thomas the Caterer,” Gwen said. “Except he wasn’t a caterer. He was with the FBI.”

  That got him, she saw with satisfaction. It was only for a minute, a flicker in his eyes, but it was there.

  “He catered for the FBI?” Ford said, deadpan.

  “Oh, funny,” Gwen said. “The police are on their way. You might want to do better than mat.”

  “You’re a little hostile today,” Ford said.

  “Yeah. Finding a dead caterer behind my Dumpster will pretty much do that for me.” She folded her arms across her chest, took a deep breath, and said, “You don’t, by any chance, know how he got there, do you?”

  “Haven’t a clue,” Ford said. “How’d he die?”

  “There was a dent in his head,” Gwen said. “I’m guessing that was it.”

  “Pretty much rules out natural causes and suicide, then.”

  Gwen set her jaw. “Did you kill him?”

  Ford looked at her, disappointment plain on his face. “You think that little of me?”

  Gwen was taken aback. “Well-”

  “Hell, Gwen, if I’d killed him, he wouldn’t be behind your Dumpster,” Ford said. “I’m not stupid”

  “Oh,” Gwen said, appalled and relieved at the same time. “No, you’re not.”

  “You could give me a little credit,” Ford said.

  “Right.” Gwen took a step back. “I’m sorry.”

  “Anyway, the only guy I want to kill is Mason,” Ford said. “He still walking around?”

  “I think so,” Gwen said, not sure what to do with that.

  “Too bad,” Ford said, stepping back. “Send up the cops when they get here.”

  He closed the door before she could
say anything.

  “You know,” she yelled through the door, “I’m not feeling better about this.”

  After a moment, when he hadn’t answered, she drew a deep breath and went downstairs to meet the police.

  TILDA FOUND out about Thomas when the police found her in the attic. She went downstairs to Gwennie and said, “What the hell?”

  “It’s not as bad as we thought,” Gwen said brightly over her vodka and pineapple-orange. “He’s not actually dead.”

  “You thought he was dead and you didn’t come get me?” Tilda poured herself a drink and tried to be upset. Poor Thomas. The man was practically a piñata.

  I want to paint, she thought.

  “He looked so awful,” Gwen said. “Of course, he’d been lying behind the Dumpster for twenty-four hours. The police think he was talking to somebody out there and the other person just bashed him with a rock. Unpremeditated.”

  “Oh.” Tilda nodded. “So how’s Ford?”

  “He says he wouldn’t have left a body behind my Dumpster,” Gwen said. “And I really think if he tried to kill somebody, they’d die. I mean, he’s efficient.”

  “Right,” Tilda said. “So who do they think did it?”

  “Well, there’s us,” Gwen said. “And everybody at the gallery. They’d like to talk to Davy and Michael since they took off like that.”

  “Davy,” Tilda said.

  “I think they called the police in Temptation,” Gwen said.

  “Oh,” Tilda said. “Maybe that’ll bring Davy back.”

  “That’s good,” Gwen said “Concentrate on the important stuff.”

  “I have to go paint,” Tilda said, and went back upstairs to the jungle in her studio.

  TILDA FINISHED the last Scarlet as the moon rose overhead in her skylights. When it was done, she looked at it, feeling tired and peaceful and finished, the end of one chapter and the start of a new one. Then she looked around at the charcoal lines on her walls, while Steve lay in the middle of her bed, exhausted from watching her. “We should keep painting, Steve,” she said to him. “We’re on a roll.”

  She turned the stereo on and painted to Dusty Springfield singing “I’d Rather Leave While I’m in Love” and Brenda Holloway doing “Every Little Bit Hurts.” She remembered Davy saying she needed music from this century and switched to the Dixie Chicks, mattress-dancing while she applied gold leaf to her headboard, and ended up at four in the morning painting huge, happy, non-insane sunflowers over her bed as Pippy Shannon sang, “I Pretend.”

  “Our song,” Tilda told Steve, tired enough to be able to laugh, until Pippy sang, “Who am I foolin‘? I’m foolin’ myself.”

  “Really my song,” she told him. “I should pay more attention to what these women are saying.”

  She stepped back to look at the sunflowers, and they made her think of Clarissa, waving her Sharpie, saying, “Sign it bigger.”

  “Steve,” she said, and Steve picked up his head from the bed and looked at her blearily. “It’s very important to sign your work.”

  She put down the broad brush she’d used to lay in the leaves and picked up a number 1 paintbrush instead. She hunted out a tube of cadmium red from her paint box, squirted out a dime-sized drop, dipped the brush into the paint, and took a deep breath. Then, with a trembling hand, she signed the first painting again, writing “Matilda” above the “Scarlet” and “Goodnight” under it.

  “Matilda Scarlet Goodnight,” she read out loud. “Her work.”

  She dipped the brush into the paint again and moved to the cows. Her hand was steadier this time, her strokes surer. “Matilda Scarlet Goodnight,” she read, conviction in her voice this time. “Her work.” She kept on until she signed the lovers, and then she sat back and looked at what she’d done.

  She felt wonderful.

  “These are my paintings,” she said to Steve. “Nobody’s ever going to take that away from me again.”

  Except for Clea, she remembered bleakly. Well, she’d think about that tomorrow.

  Then she put her brushes in water and climbed into bed with Steve and fell into a dreamless sleep.

  WHEN TILDA woke up at nine the next morning, she packed up the paintings, put Andrew’s “Bitch” cap on for good luck, and dropped Steve off with Eve and Gwennie, telling them where she was going.

  “You shouldn’t do this,” Eve said. “This is wrong.”

  “Maybe not,” Tilda said. “Maybe this is right. Maybe I was just supposed to get them back so I could sign them.”

  “No,” Eve said, but Tilda hugged her good-bye, drove to Clea’s in Jeff’s car, and parked outside.

  I don’t want to give these up, she thought as she looked at the case she’d packed the paintings in. I don’t want to stop painting like that.

  And I don’t want to do any more murals.

  She sat there for a moment, and then dug in her purse for her cell phone and her day planner and turned to her work list: six more murals scheduled with the contact numbers written beside them.

  She dialed the first one and said, “Mrs. Magnusson? This is Matilda Veronica. I’m going to have to cancel your mural. Something has come up and…” She went on, soothing her wounded clients, offering them paintings or furniture, feeling the tightness between her shoulder blades ease. It took her over an hour, and when she was done, she looked at the case and thought, If I have to give these up, I should get more for them.

  And even though she was late, she shifted deeper in her seat and began to plan.

  “WHERE’S TILDA?” Davy said, when he came through the office door.

  “Where have you been?” Gwen said, annoyed with him. “All hell’s been breaking loose here and-”

  “The police,” Davy said. “They’re still talking to Dad. Where’s Tilda?”

  “At Clea’s,” Gwen said miserably. “She’s taking her the Scarlets.”

  “Why?” Davy said, exasperated.

  “Somebody told Clea she was Scarlet,” Gwen said. “It’s blackmail, but there’s not much-”

  “Fuck,” Davy said. “I leave for one day and you people fall apart.” He went out again before Gwen could think of something cutting to say.

  “Well, the hell with you,” she finally said to the empty doorway and went upstairs to get her puzzle book.

  Ford met her in the hall. “What now? I heard you yelling.”

  “Davy,” she said.

  “He’s back?” Ford said. “Good, I need him. Where is he?”

  “He left again,” Gwen said. “He’s going to Clea’s to save Tilda.” She felt waspish about that.

  “Clea’s.” Ford went back inside his apartment and Gwen followed him.

  “What are you doing?” she said, and saw him pick up a shoulder holster. “No, I can’t let you do this.” She stepped in front of the door.

  “Do what?” Ford said. “I’m running late here-”

  “Look, I know that the people you’ve… well, I know if you showed up at their door, they were probably asking for it-”

  “Grosse Pointe Blank” Ford said.

  Gwen deflated.

  “All hit men know that movie,” Ford said. “It’s our Casablanca.”

  “It’s not funny,” Gwen said. “That’s what Tony always used to say, ‘If they’re going to buy art they don’t like just to show off, they’re asking for it.’ But it’s wrong, and I…” She shook her head at him. “Can’t you just move to Aruba and open an orphanage?”

  “Why the hell would I want to open an orphanage?” Ford said, clearly mystified.

  “To atone,” Gwen said. “If you stop now, maybe-”

  “Gwen.”

  “Because Tilda really loves Davy and we don’t want him…” Gwen stumbled over the word again. “Like Thomas.”

  “Catering is no life for a man,” Ford agreed.

  “Damn it, Ford.” She slammed the door behind her. “I have had enough of you goddamn men not taking me seriously. First Tony patted me on the head for thirty years, a
nd then Mason wants to marry me for my gallery, and now you’re making jokes before you kill my future son-in-law, and I’m sick of it. I am somebody to pay attention to, damn it, and I am not putting up with any more goddamn patronizing and mediocre sex and…” She stopped as she saw his face change. “If you make fun of me,” she warned him, “you’re a dead man.”

  He walked toward her until he had her trapped against the door.

  “Mediocre sex, huh?”

  Gwen sighed. “I’m not going to marry him.”

  “That I already knew,” Ford said. “And I am not patronizing you. But you have to get out of my way so I can finish this one last job.”

  “No,” Gwen said, sticking her chin out. “You’ll have to go through me to get to him. He’s my daughter’s future and nobody messes with my daughters’ happiness.”

  He stared down at her, his face inscrutable. “Gwen, how much do you want to save Davy Dempsey’s worthless life?”

  Gwen swallowed. “Quite a bit.”

  He bent his head until his lips almost touched hers. “How much of a sacrifice are you willing to make?”

  Gwen bit her lip to keep from kissing him. “Damn near anything,” she said nobly.

  He moved around to her ear, and she closed her eyes. “What if you didn’t have to sacrifice anything?” he whispered.

  Gwen took a deep breath. “I’d insist,” she said.

  “Davy Dempsey owes you,” Ford said, and dropped his holster.

  ❖ ❖ ❖

  DOWNSTAIRS, Simon caught Davy on his way out. “You’re back. Good. We can leave.”

  “I’m staying,” Davy said. “Gotta go. Talk to you later.”

  “I’m not staying,” Simon said. “I had a chat with Eve yesterday.”

  Davy stopped. “Right. Meant to tell you, Louise is Eve.”

  “I know,” Simon said, looking grim. “Do you have any idea of the things I did to Nadine’s mother?”

  “Roughly, yes,” Davy said.

  “I’ll never be able to face that child again,” Simon said.

  “Get over it,” Davy said. “I have to go. Come back for the wedding.”