The Convent Rose (The Roses)

by Lynn Shurr

  “No, Sr. Helen, I’m not sure those were his words. He did say how fond he was of Amanda, how lovely she is, and how they went around a bit. I can tell Amanda is a little lonely now that the children are nearly grown. I am sure Mr. Adams was great company for her while you were at work and the children attended classes. He seems to be a talented man in so many ways.”

  Sr. Inez nodded toward Evan who regaled rather loudly a cluster of young women with tales of the San Francisco art world. Amanda Courville joined the group and laughed at one of his anecdotes with her head tilted back, her light blue eyes sparkling.

  Sr. Helen observed the scene. “Your wife is still a fine looking woman, even after giving birth to your four lovely children.”

  Hardy stared at his wife as if he hadn’t seen her in years. Amanda always kept herself thin and impeccably dressed. He watched as she put a hand on Evan’s shoulder and begged him to stop making her laugh so hard. The nuns glanced at each other, then back at Hardy like gypsy mind readers discerning his every inner thought—when was the last time she’d laughed at his jokes that way? When had he last told her a joke?

  “So if you have everything you need, Sisters, I have to take care of some business.” Red couldn’t seem to take his eyes off of Amanda as Evan gave her a fond squeeze of the shoulders.

  “I thought he was after Eve,” Hardy muttered under his breath. “Right under my nose, in my own house, and I missed it.”

  “Artists are so fickle in their tastes, don’t you think, Sr. Helen? First one style attracts them, then another,” Sr. Inez went on as if her sharp ears hadn’t heard a thing. “Hardy, dear boy, I see another of our old girls over there. Would you ask Renee to come visit with us?”

  “Sure, sure.”

  On his way to reclaim his wife, Hardy spoke a few words to Renee Hayes who stood by her three paintings and fished for compliments. Renee raised her eyebrows but strolled in the direction of the nuns, working her hips under a tight, electric blue dress with a sway worthy of a streetwalker on very high heels.

  “Sisters, have you taken a look at my paintings yet? Remember, I got my start in your art class, Sr. Helen.”

  “I remember you well, my child. We took a look on our way in, but somehow I don’t think Mr. Landrum wears his pants that low. Who modeled for the torso?”

  “Oh, my yard man. Doesn’t he have a delicious physique?”

  “Certainly statuesque. What do you think of Mr. Adams’ sculpture?”

  “I find it rather suggestive.”

  Sr. Helen choked on a bite of quiche. Sr. Inez pounded her back.

  “But worth $250,000. He told us he can get twice that on the coast. Mr. Adams must be very well off. Sadly, he and Eve aren’t compatible on the child issue. He doesn’t want any, and Eve would probably have a dozen if she could. I fear for their relationship. Now if Mr. Landrum is as—ah, masculine—as you’ve painted him, Renee, well, that’s a man who wants a family, perhaps a big family, to raise on a huge ranch in west Texas where you can see for miles and no lights shine on the horizon to blot out the stars. I’m just speculating, of course,” Sr. Helen said sweetly after catching her breath.

  “Excuse me, Sisters. I see someone interested in my pictures. I might have a sale.” Renee hurried off to where two men in white suits regarded the paintings of Bodey, his front and backside, and the black yard man with lascivious smiles on their faces.

  “Here you go, Sisters. Two white wines and two red. Take your pick.” Bodey held out the glasses of red and Eve the white. Sr. Inez seized the pinot noir and tossed it back. Sr. Helen sipped on the chardonnay genteelly.

  “Thank you, we were so thirsty from talking. If you would help us up, we’ll take a closer look at the art now. You young people go and enjoy the rest of your evening.”

  “Find me when you want to go home. Nothing ever sells at an art walk. I don’t have to stay all night,” Eve told the nuns as they hobbled away, leaning heavily on their canes.

  “Thanks, Bodey, for being so kind to them. The Sisters mean the world to me.”

  “Not their fault they’re old and helpless.”

  “I guess we’ll all be that way some day. Roger and Archie are certainly taking an interest in your portraits.”

  “Now that just gives me the willies. Can we hide out somewhere behind a potted palm or something?” Bodey led the way toward a cluster of tastefully arranged plants the size of small trees. They drank their wine and watched art connoisseurs pass by.

  “Hardy gave you the best place. He put your giant landscape on the wall nearest the food table. Lots of people are taking a closer look after they stuff their faces,” Bodey remarked.

  “We had an awful time getting it up there. Red had to send a truck and two men to move it. Then, we needed two more of his workers to mount the thing to the wall.”

  “I would have been glad to help if you’d called me.”

  “I don’t feel right about asking you for favors. Besides, Hardy paid for it.”

  “I’d like to think we’re still on friendly terms, that I didn’t offend you by proposing the other night.” Bodey watched Hardy Courville sling his beefy arm around his wife and whirl the slim blonde from the group around Evan Adams. He appeared to want to show Amanda something back in the offices.

  “I didn’t find your proposal offensive, just not…”

  “Good enough for you.”

  “That isn’t what I was about to say.”

  The Goth couple standing on the other side of the shrubbery snickered. The pierced young man spoke around the impediment of his tongue stud. “You can see her pubes and titties and everything. She looks like that blonde babe who waltzed around here a while ago with those freakin’ old nuns. Think those dried up penguins know what she does in her spare time?”

  “No way!” His sooty-eyed girlfriend exclaimed.

  “Way! Nude modeling.”

  Bodey peered between the leaves and caught sight of a very explicit nude hung at the end of a long line of Evan Adams’ abstracts. “What the hell!” He burst through the plant barrier. The pierced teenagers jumped back so fast their third glasses of wine sloshed on their black clothing making an even darker stain.

  “Hey, man! It’s art, not porno, and you said we could have the wine, so cool it.”

  “Get out of here before I yank out that nose ring. I mean now!” Bodey said through gritted teeth.

  “It’s a free country, dude,” the purple-haired guy claimed, but he backed away and drew his companion with him. Moving slowly to show they weren’t intimidated, the teens slouched toward the exit, snagging two nearly full glasses of abandoned wine from a tray of dirty dishes. They beat it out the door.

  Eve made her way through the leafy barricade. “What on earth is wrong with you, Bodey?”

  “Go get Evan. I’m gonna stand here in front of this picture till you do. The man paints ten crappy abstracts that look like the ghetto on a bad day, and the only decent thing he hung is indecent.”

  “Let me see.”

  “No.’

  “Move aside, Bodey, and let me see.”

  Bodey moved, then took up a position directly behind Eve, screening the painting from others.

  “Well,” Eve sighed. “It’s an excellent rendering, but he should have asked my permission before he showed it. Obviously, he didn’t hang it until after I left. Venus Rising from her Bath, he calls it. I suppose he meant that as a compliment to me.”

  Eve backed up a foot and tread on Bodey’s toes. “For heaven’s sake, Bodey, it’s art, totally imaginary, and very well done. Get a grip.”

  “Lordy Eve, you’re comin’ out of that big, claw-footed tub with the blue curtain. Your nipples are standin’ out like you’re real chilly. He even got the color of your short hairs right. It’s a good likeness, but there’s not a towel in sight. When did that snake paint this?”

  “You’re the one to criticize. Didn’t you paint a nude of me from memory just this week and call it Eve. And weren’t you using
art to boast to Evan that we’d been together?”

  “Well, yeah, but mine is kind of fuzzy, and you can’t make out the features. Besides, your privates are covered.”

  “Don’t you tell me those little pink dots peeking out of that white-blonde hair aren’t nipples, Bodey, because I won’t believe you.”

  “They aren’t like real nipples, all standy-outy.”

  Bodey realized he’d gotten a little loud when he turned his head and saw the two nuns, Renee Hayes, Archie, Roger, and half a room full of art walkers staring their way. As for Evan Adams, he came striding across the room toward them obviously ready to defend his masterpiece. Suddenly, he tripped, falling flat on his face. Bodey shook his head. He could have sworn Sr. Helen’s brightly painted cane whipped out for a second just as Evan passed her.

  Renee went to the sculptor’s aid. Digging deep into her cleavage, she drew out a white hankie reeking with perfume and edged in lace and dabbed at a cut on Evan’s chin made by the flying Celtic cross around his neck.

  “Are you all right, sweetie? Will you be able to sculpt and paint again because I simply adore your work? It would kill me right here if anything happened to these hands.” Renee switched her grip from his face to his wrists and began to massage them.

  “I may have sprained my wrist. I don’t know. The new flooring must be slippery. I might have to sue Hardy if I am unable to produce.”

  “Archie, love, go get Mr. Adams some ice in a napkin. Quickly!” Renee ordered.

  Much as Bodey enjoyed watching Evan Adams take a tumble, he still had a bone to pick with the man. “Eve, you stand right there. No, closer to the wall. Right there in front of the picture. I got to talk to Adams.” Bodey cut a direct line toward the fallen artist, who attempted to rise with the help of Renee and Roger.

  “Adams, I want to settle this without knockin’ your front teeth down your throat, so I’m gonna offer you a thousand dollars for that picture of—of Venus, providin’ I can take it down right now and put it in my truck.”

  “Don’t be absurd. It’s the best work I’ve done in years. I want people to see it. It represents a change for me from the abstract to a new realism. Besides, I could get ten grand for it on the coast.”

  Evan mopped his chin with the lacy handkerchief. Archie returned with the ice dripping in a paper napkin. Renee clamped it to Adams’ left wrist with her hand. Roger dusted off Evan’s rear even though the sculptor had landed on his face. The caterer’s assistant rushed over with one of the elegant burgundy leather side chairs and placed it beneath the artist’s backside.

  “Done,” said Bodey. “But it’s cash and carry. I’ll write you a check.”

  “It’s not for sale to someone like you. Do you think I want my art displayed in some isolated ranch house, only to be ogled by ignorant cowboys who won’t understand the moment I have captured?”

  Bodey jerked Evan out of his cushy seat by his black silk turtleneck. “I said we have a sale. We are going to march right over to that table and find a space where I can write you a check for ten times what that piece is worth. Then, I’ll take it to my truck.” He frog marched the artist toward the refreshments.

  “Are we talking about Eve or the painting? She might sleep with you, but she’d never stay with such a bumpkin,” Evan sneered. He’d made a big mistake.

  Bodey released Evan and drew back his fist, then hesitated just a second when he saw the horror on the faces of the nuns and Eve who now stood with them and not in front of the painting where he’d left her. Greedy excitement crossed the faces of Renee, Archie, and Roger as they looked on.

  “Shit,” he said and lowered his arm.

  Evan Adams sucker-punched Bodey in the gut. Despite his pallid complexion, the sculptor packed a greater wallop than the cowboy expected. Bodey tensed his stomach muscles, and the cheap shot bounced off, bruising but not taking his wind.

  Bodey raised his arm again, this time swiping across the refreshment table to where a plate of deviled eggs, their yolks swirled into fancy rosettes, rested. He raised the platter and ground the contents into Adams’ beaky nose.

  “Looks like you got egg in your face.”

  Bodey offered Evan a wad of paper napkins, but the artist decided to take another swing. Bodey blocked the punch with a shoulder and knocked his opponent to the ground.

  “Now, I’ll just write that check in the space I’ve cleared while you go clean up.”

  Adams wriggled on the floor with much more feigned agony than the light blow warranted.

  “You ever play basketball?” Bodey remarked laconically as he wrote the check. “You got the height and the actin’ ability.”

  Heavy footsteps pounded across the room. Bodey spun in case more trouble was coming his way. Red Courville charged to the artist’s rescue with his wife’s iris scarf hanging around his neck and his belt still unbuckled. Amanda followed him, buttoning her suit jacket over her wrinkled skirt. One tail of her silk blouse hung out the side of her outfit.

  Bodey held up his hands. “Didn’t mean to ruin your party, Red. I only wanted to buy a paintin’ and intended to pay lots more than it is worth.”

  “I’ll sue!” ranted Adams from the floor. “If I’m injured, I’ll sue.”

  “Hush up!” Hardy ordered. “Bodey, my man, you okay? I saw that traitor throw the first punch from across the room, and I’ll say so in court. No one around here doubts the word of Hardy Courville.”

  “But dear, we were—” Amanda Courville began. “Never mind.”

  “Adams, I’ll put you up in a hotel tonight. Tomorrow, you pack up your things and go back where you belong. Here’s your pay off. We’re through.” Hardy held out a check withdrawn from the pocket of his gray suit.

  Bodey offered the sculptor an arm up, but Adams threw it off. “You know Evan, all that yellow egg on your face offsets all your dark tones kind of nice.” He tucked his check for Eve’s nude portrait into the man’s tight turtleneck as he had no pockets on his shirt. No way did Bodey intend to shove it in the man’s pants, not with Archie and Roger watching.

  “Bodey, I’ll give you seven hundred for your Bull Rider. I don’t like the way Roger Ames is looking at it, but I know he won’t go that high,” Hardy said.

  Archie immediately said to Roger, “We must have a souvenir of this evening. It has been so delicious. Buy the Backside of Bodey for me, Rog. Oh, please!”

  Hearing their words, Bodey shuddered. He hadn’t gotten a close look at Renee’s second portrait of him from the rear what with running around with the nuns and surely did not approve of its title. Not to mention, he knew he’d never worn his jeans low enough to show his crack, not ever. The back had those same big muscles she’d painted on his front and also lacked any scars he knew he had there. Could be someone else named Bodey, at least that’s what he planned to tell people.

  “If Renee will take two hundred instead of three,” Roger bargained.

  “It’s a sale,” Renee said before Bodey could offer to buy it to protect his own honor. “I must go to Evan.” She crossed the small space to the west coast artist and knelt beside him. “You won’t go to any hotel tonight, Evan, dear heart. You’ll come home with me and let me treat your wounds.” She removed the check from his turtleneck and deposited in her cleavage.

  “She’ll fuck his balls off,” Roger said to Archie. “Oh, sorry, Sisters. I forgot you were standing right there.”

  “This evening has been a little more than we bargained for, Eve, dear. I think Sr. Inez and I will forgo the other galleries and ask you to take us back to the Academy.” Sr. Helen fanned herself with a shaking hand.

  “Of course, I will,” Eve answered, but her eyes followed Bodey as he crossed to the nude by the potted plants and took the painting down. He looked her way and headed the same.

  “Bodey, you really shouldn’t remove the art until the evening is over,” Eve instructed as if he didn’t know the etiquette of such things.

  “The deal was cash and carry. That’s what I’m
doing. I’m in an art buyin’ mood tonight. I want that one you painted of me, too. Name your price.”

  “You can see it’s posted at five hundred, but I owe you another picture anyhow.”

  “Fine, I’ll pay seven-hundred because I like it so much. I really do.”

  Bodey took a closer look at Eve’s work. He wasn’t sitting on a stool posing in the studio in her completed version. He sat on a fence with the gray-brown landscape of west Texas in summer stretched out behind him. The dust in the cracks of his boots showed and the sheen of sweat on his bare chest. All his scars and all his weariness were exposed to view. This cowboy looked ready to wash up and go inside after a long day’s work. Eve called it Going Home.

  “I kind of made a mess of this night. Maybe I should go on home.”

  “Back to Texas?” Eve asked with a little catch in her voice.

  “No, I plan on stickin’ here. Evening, Sisters.” Bodey tipped his imaginary hat to the nuns, waited a moment for Renee and Evan to clear the exit out to the parking lot. Then, he thanked his hostess and trailed them slowly into the spring dusk.

  “You know, Nessy, we should have been Jesuits,” Sr. Helen remarked.

  “Absolutely, Sister, absolutely, though I doubt even a Jesuit for all their wiles could have accomplished what we did tonight.”

  Eve shot them a puzzled look, but neither of the Sisters explained their remarks. “I’ll bring my car around for you,” she assured the nuns. “Wait by the door.”

  The nuns watched their former student’s white form move into the coming darkness. Leaning heavily on their canes, they wobbled toward the doorway.

  Chapter Nine

  After a sleepless night, Eve had gone to early Mass because she was up anyway. Afterwards, she attempted to settle in for a few hours of painting before going to the café to wait tables for the largely tip-free Sunday buffet. The Platos had been kind enough to give her Saturday off for the art walk, and she couldn’t complain. Even thinking about the night before made her head ache, and now, her ears rang, too. No, that was the phone. Who would call on a Sunday morning when most people were at church or in bed?