by Eve Paludan
“And you can’t wait to see him again?” I said, trying not to let jealousy rear its green, spiky head.
“Yes. I can’t wait to see my old anthropology professor again. This was Diego’s dream from way back, to open an eclectic art gallery with other artists, a co-op to share his art and to encourage the artistic endeavors of others.”
“Sure you aren’t just eager to meet another ghost?” I teased her.
“This is about shopping. I’m on vacation from paranormal investigations,” she assured me, as we entered the lobby of the gallery and stopped at the building directory. “But if we cross paths with that ghost, so be it. It’s not like I can stop from seeing them, even with my blue chalcedony pendant.”
“You may be on vacation but your psychic senses are always on the job,” I teased her.
“You love that about me and you know it,” she teased back.
“I have the EMF in my man purse,” I informed her, patting the bump of it in my messenger bag.
“You do not!” she replied.
“I do, too. I have everything we need. It’s pretty heavy but it makes me feel secure to be carrying it all with me.”
“You are too much, Monty! You tell me to take a rest from working our paranormal investigations and here you are, bringing all of your working equipment.”
I smiled at Ellen. “I know we’re on vacation but I thought I might carry my electrical magnetic field detector, and my other gadgets, just in case we get spooked.”
“Spooked? Is that what you call it in your head these days?” She laughed. “Did you bring the extra battery?”
“I did. And I have my audio recorder, too. I have my gadgets like you have your makeup.”
“Monty, we work too hard. Thank goodness for this retail therapy trip.”
“Yeah, thank goodness,” I said, wondering how much she was going to spend in this art gallery. She was planning on running up a pretty penny with the things for redecorating the house, but I wasn’t complaining. Yet. It was still cheaper than a psychiatrist for her, and a lot more fun; the hunt for house makeover items was what I considered some well-deserved retail therapy after our encounter with the Dark Master, an experience that sucked away some of my wife Ellen’s feeling of safety and well-being. And then in New Orleans, our encounters with ghosts on a military base seemed to drain her even more. She deserved some pleasure and relaxation. I wanted her to have it. Hopefully, the ghosts would leave her alone today.
In the lobby of the building, Ellen put her index finger on the name “Diego Francisco, Eclectic Accoutrements for Home and Office” on the glass front of the directory board. “Third floor,” she said.
As I walked toward the elevator, we saw a sign next to it that read: ‘In case of fire, use stairs.’
“I did smell ghost fire,” she said. We looked at each other and took the stairs. Ellen climbed them easily in her Victoria’s Secret heels. As we got to the top floor, the third, I was huffing and puffing, and busting a sweat. She looked fine. Not even breathing hard. How did she stay in shape?
“You okay?” she asked.
“Perfect. Just catching my breath from all the crepes I ate.” I asked her, “Before we go in there, is this place really haunted?”
“Oh yeah, big time,” she said. “But they’re hiding from me right now. Or trying to. The hot ghost is here somewhere and he’s angry and stalking us and hiding in corners.”
“Wow,” I said. “Should I take out the EMF and check it out?”
“No, let’s go shopping first and just wait and see if anything paranormal unfurls on its own,” Ellen said. Priorities.
As we entered the Diego Francisco gallery, my wife oh-ed and ah-ed aloud at the “eclectic” collection of paintings, sculptures, baskets, rugs, and custom furniture. I think “eclectic” was really a code word for “expensive.” She parked her tight little butt on a burgundy velvet chaise, popping a 1940s starlet pose and sighed happily. She crossed her legs, trying it out for comfort and style. She looked so gorgeous in that black dress, half reclined on the chaise, that I gulped.
“You look like a work of art yourself on that furniture, my dear,” I said. She smiled and turned over the price tag. She laughed and got up from the chaise. “Thank you, but we’d better not pick this one. Despite your little fantasy and where it was going with this piece of furniture, it’s a four-figure price tag.”
Oh, she knew my sexual fantasies so well. And my financial boundaries, too. Someday I wanted a chaise, but not one that cost more than a grand. Not for what I planned to use it for.
A tall, fit and handsome man strode over to us from the back of the gallery and my back stiffened a bit. I didn’t expect her old professor to look like a movie star. What was it with this town? I felt like a schlub next to him.
He held out his hand and I was struck at how much he looked like Ricardo Montalban from the old TV show, Fantasy Island. Damn him. I had imagined, from my wife’s descriptions of him, that he would by now, be a nerdy-looking former college professor turned artist. Not this old guy who looked like a freaking film star with perfect silver streaks in his dark, full head of hair and perfect teeth that were a blinding-white hue.
“Ellen! That cannot be you,” Diego gushed and he even sounded like Ricardo Montalban. “Why, you haven’t changed a bit since our fieldwork in Oaxaca, too many years ago. If anything, you are even more lovely now.” He and Ellen shook hands and I steeled myself as he leaned down and kissed her cheek. That rat.
Ellen giggled, a little embarrassed at the effusive welcome, and said, “Thank you. There were some great findings from that anthro fieldwork. That was a fun way to get summer college credit, as your assistant for the paper on cultural revivalism.”
“Ah that! It was the paper that sent me over the edge and got me tenure, thanks to your help and insight. And editing.”
She paused, looking at him intently and he finally let go of her hand. “Diego, you haven’t changed since that summer in Mexico. Not a bit!”
“Ah, thank you for saying that,” he said nonchalantly and stretching his spine a bit, so that he was even taller. “Truthfully, I’ve had work done on my face and I have an old Nordic Track that keeps me from getting too much of a belly. It’s L.A., you know? As dog-eat-dog in the art world as it is, I have to hold myself to the standards of my young competitors. After all, our business is about making beautiful things, and it’s not just our work, but the artists have to be beautiful, too. As much as I can be at seventy.”
She grinned. “You do not look your age at all!”
“Believe, me, I feel my years every evening when I lay down and call it a day.”
“Well, you’ve done some marvelous things, making this old warehouse building into a co-op gallery. I can’t wait to see it all.”
“Thank you. It’s wonderful to have you here. I hope I didn’t bite off more than I can chew with this artists’ co-op gallery. Some of the artists downstairs are even more talented than me. I want to make this gallery a showcase for them, too. I strive to support the arts, not just for myself, but for those who will come after me.” He shrugged humbly and his conversation was so down to earth that, suddenly, I decided that I did like him, after all.
“I’m sure it’s going to be the talk of the town, with many artists gathered in working studios and galleries in the same building. I think it’s brilliant that you are finally bringing your lifetime dream into reality. I remembered how you shared that dream with me in Oaxaca. It’s been a long time coming and I am so happy for you.”
They clasped hands for just a moment again and the look in his eyes for my wife made a lump rise in my throat. He loved her! Gah! No! It was a horrifying recognition of another man’s feelings for my wife.
“Thank you, Ellen. You are so kind,” he replied. His eyes crinkled at the corners as he smiled at me, waiting for her to introduce me.
She turned to me, “I’m so sorry. What was I thinking? Monty, I would like you to meet Diego Francisco, artist
and anthropologist and an early mentor of my life. Diego, this is my husband and my soul mate, Monty.”
Ellen always knew the right thing to say. She knew how to draw polite boundaries with other men who admired her and even compliment them while doing it. And they were many admirers. She was accomplished at keeping other men at arm’s length. I smiled as Diego and I shook hands.
I said, “It was wonderful of you to invite us to your gallery before the big opening on First Friday in Venice Beach. My wife has been telling me for years how much she liked your work and she said you wanted her to have first choice of your pieces when you finally got your collection assembled. When you sent your gallery catalog, Ellen went through it with great excitement, using Post-It notes to show me what she wanted. And then we looted our retirement fund.”
He laughed at my joke and his teeth were even more perfect than I first noticed. I still liked him anyway. He was a nice old guy who’d mentored Ellen in college, and had obviously had made a great impression on who she was today. From her gushing accounts of him, I gathered that he was always a gentleman with her. I didn’t trust him completely, but he was alone with her for a summer of fieldwork and never took advantage of that sweet and innocent girl that she was. Pretty damn full of morals, apparently. A rarity in this modern world.
Ah, they were still talking about the art thing. I put an interested expression on my face. I liked art. But really, Ellen was my favorite art. I could look at her 24 hours a day.
“Thank you, Ellen, from the bottom of my heart, for your support of my lifelong dream. As much as I liked being a college professor of anthropology, I have always been an artist in my mind and now, the time is here to launch myself at my age, into the art world. For real.”
“Well, you’ve worked hard for it,” Ellen said. “Paid your dues in academia first. It’s been a long haul for you and I am so happy at what you are doing with this next part of your life. It’s come full circle, from dream to fruition.”
“You sweet woman. I have thought of you as a daughter all of these years.”
Ellen blushed. “Oh, Diego!”
Oh, brother.
“I’ve made you something.” Diego took a small jewelry box out of his pocket and my stomach sank slightly. He had a gift for her. Darn, he had no way of knowing that it was our anniversary, but still! I wanted to be the only one to give her pretty things.
Diego had his eyes on her. “When I knew you were coming, I picked something out of my jewelry collection for you, Ellen. I cast it in silver myself. I wanted to say thank you for the many people you have invited to the opening night next week. I have already gotten many R.S.V.P.s and phone calls. It is going to be a packed house! I am overwhelmed by your support. Thank you for helping me set up my Facebook fan page for the co-op gallery.”
I didn’t even know that she had done that. Ellen blushed even more. “I was happy to help you. You’ve helped me with things over the years, too.”
He had? I had no idea.
Diego handed her the box. I held my breath as she opened it and took a dainty silver necklace out of the box. It was beautiful, tiny horse. Simple and elegant, just like my wife.
“Thank you so much,” she said. “It’s very beautiful. You must have remembered that I liked the horses we rode in Mexico on the fieldwork site.”
She handed it to me and I fastened the chain around her neck. The rearing horse pendant fell just between her cleavage and I squirmed for a moment that this man had given my wife such a personal gift. I squirmed even more when she took off the chalcedony necklace and handed it to me, in order to wear his gift. I almost panicked that she was unprotected from ghosts by my necklace. I put her chalcedony necklace in the box that his had come in, and pocketed it so it wouldn’t get lost. Now my stomach sank even more.
Ellen looked at me apologetically and I knew she just wanted her old friend not to feel bad so she would wear his necklace today, instead of mine. Only Diego didn’t know that the chalcedony pendant that she’s been wearing was more about protection from malevolent ghosts than about ornamentation.
“You’re welcome, Ellen. It looks lovely on you with that dress. Please, let me show you two around and then you can browse to your heart’s content. Then perhaps, we can end the day by doing dinner together on the walled courtyard patio around sunset. I have an outdoor kitchen and the Santa Ana wind should calm down for grilling by then. It usually subsides at night.”
“That sounds wonderful,” Ellen said and looked at me, hope in her eyes. I had planned to be back at the Viceroy for our anniversary dinner, but Ellen’s big blue eyes did me in.
I nodded my agreement to Ellen to do dinner with him. “Thank you for the invitation. We would love to join you for dinner,” I said, as graciously as I could muster. I really wanted to make a stink about the necklace and ask Ellen to put the chalcedony pendant on again, to protect her from evil ghosts, but I acquiesced to her quiet grace to accept a gift from her old professor and wear it for him without drama or explanation. I hoped that she would be safe here without the chalcedony pendant around her neck.
While Ellen followed Diego deeper into his gallery, I texted Sandy, our driver, to let her know that we would be in the art gallery co-op for a while and to take a break from sitting in the parking lot and do whatever she wanted for a few hours. I also called canceled our anniversary dinner reservation at the Viceroy for tonight. So much for the romantic dinner I had planned to please Ellen.
Then I hurried to catch up to Diego and Ellen. He was steering her to the handmade area rugs. I needed to run interference at that point. I’d seen the guy’s catalog and prices. I was scared of more than wicked ghosts.
Chapter Four
Ellen’s eyes tracked something in Diego’s gallery that I could not see. And then, yet again, in another corner. So, I assumed she was seeing more than one entity. Yeah, she was seeing dead people here and I knew it. I would wait for her to say something about it when she was ready.
Diego said, “When you get the delivery of everything, if you aren’t happy with something, just tell me and you can return it and get your money back or exchange it for something else. I want you to love what you have chosen, in your home.”
“Thank you,” I replied, my American Express card getting sweaty in my closed hand. Ellen was looking at the impressive pile of purchases that were being shrink-wrapped on a wooden big pallet by Diego’s gallery assistant, for delivery next week, when we would return home from our vacation. Ellen had a look of awe on her face, the kind that I hadn’t seen since we’d opened our wedding gifts and she was overwhelmed almost to tears, long ago, by her grandmother’s china dishes.
Ellen’s choices for our living room and dining room redecorating included a modern sectional sofa upholstered in a butter-soft red leather, a hand-beveled glass-and-steel dining room table with boxy chairs whose seats matched the leather of the sofa – ‘…because we have a great room,’ she had said—several large abstract oil paintings, two of which I liked very much, one of which I wasn’t sure about because I didn’t understand it, a cast-bronze sculpture of a horse rearing, just like the necklace she wore but much larger, a couple of hand-woven area rugs, intricate coiled Native baskets, and a spectacular chandelier constructed almost entirely out of field-found deer antlers, wrought iron, and thousands of twinkling lights for our dining room’s vaulted ceiling.
“What do you think, Monty?” Ellen was almost beside herself with happiness at the purchases. I could see it in her face.
“Wonderful!” I said, my eyes moving to my favorite purchase of the day. Best of all, there was a bunch of the kind of wedge pillows that could be arranged in different ways, but the upholstery again matched the butter-soft leather sectional couch. It was obvious to me what the puzzle pieces of those pillows were for, the moment I saw them. I occasionally bought stuff from the Hustler online store for playtime with Ellen, and these pillows for “decorating” came with a discreet booklet of ways to arrange them for different s
ex positions. Forget the rest of the stuff, the naughty pillows had my man vote.
“I think so, too,” she said. “I can’t wait to see how everything looks in our living room.”
“Me, too.” If she wanted to redecorate the bedroom, too, I think I needed to tell her that we had better hit Ikea for the cheaper stuff. But in my head, I could see the vision unfolding; the new living room décor was going to make our living room into the new passion pit at our house in gorgeous surfaces and textures, with my Ellen as the glowing centerpiece. I would arrange the wedge pillows to delight and amaze her. And, maybe we could have naked pillow fights…
“Thank you, Monty,” she said, as Diego calculated the purchases. My man-head fell back to earth when Diego showed me the total without saying it out loud to Ellen. It was a very old-fashioned and discreet sales move. I had no way to protest that it was too much money. It was a done deal.
“You’re welcome, Sweetheart,” I replied, keeping my face from broadcasting my shock at the total. “Just enjoy it with me.”
Ellen had stars in her eyes for me and she clung to me like a new bride. There was no way that I could say no to whatever she wanted now. A usually joyful woman, my lovely Ellen had been left traumatized by the aftermath of the Dark Master’s terrorism. Lately, I knew she had been upset because she was doing a lot of compulsive organizing of things at home that were already organized. She had not quite been herself, and had been trying to hide that from me, to no avail. I missed her sparkling joy.
This vacation was a quest to see her get it back. And this redecorating spendapalooza would refresh our nest with some passion as we broke in all of the new furniture, piece by piece. I was looking forward to seeing her draped over that red leather sectional sofa or her laying on top of the glass and steel table, wearing nothing but a smile. Yeah, we weren’t too old for that.
Hell no!
“I am so impressed at your lifetime of art creations, all saved up for this gallery opening,” I said to Diego. “It’s a treasure trove. I was prepared for the art appeal because I saw the catalog, but seeing everything in real space, in 3-D, I can see the function and depth of your art, as well as the beauty. I see you inside your vision, how you want to make these beautiful rooms and how you did it.”
