“It was a receipt for a diamond bracelet. And it had a hefty price tag. I guess I’ll be getting that for my birthday this weekend.”
“Maybe Mark’s not such a jerk after all,” Vicky said, turning down the speed on the treadmill. “Or maybe he’s cheating on you and he feels guilty. He’s going to give you the bracelet right before he dumps you.”
“That’s pretty cynical, although he is gone all the time, and he’s been leaving the house early almost every morning for months. But that’s because he doesn’t want to lose his job. I have no proof he’s having an affair.”
“I don’t need proof. I know your husband.”
Mark could be impossible sometimes, and he wasn’t there for her most of the time, but she doubted he was cheating. Flirting, maybe. He loved to flirt, especially with Russian waitresses and department store clerks.
The Russians weren’t coming. They were already here, and they had established a beachhead in Ponte Vedra.
Mark had a thing for big-breasted Russian women. It didn’t matter if they had auburn tresses or they were buxom blondes. And they gravitated toward him, with his dark, swarthy looks. Alex called them the Olgas. There had been a long line of more than willing Olgas. Pretty soon Mark could start his own Bolshoi Ballet or Olympic gymnastics team. Maybe the Olgas were just looking for a good time, but more likely an American husband. Well, they couldn’t have hers.
If she and Mark were in a restaurant, the Russian servers would fawn all over Mark and ignore her. Inevitably, they would leave their telephone numbers on the customer copy of the charge receipt, and whisper, “Call me.” Alex had learned to be quick, picking up the receipts and crumpling the paper, crushing their hopes right in front of them.
Now Mark was fixated on Tatiana Soloyev, the weather girl on the Jacksonville television station, whose ratings soared in relation to the tightness of her sweaters and the skimpiness of her skirts. Mark developed a sudden fascination with the local weather the day Tatiana joined the station.
Alex didn’t see the big attraction. Whatever the reason, these women seemed to scent his Russian genes. But Mark was too lazy to cheat. Cheating required a commitment. Not that Mark would ever cheat on her. He was too busy working.
Alex caught Vicky watching her, and her friend seemed to hesitate before she ventured into hostile territory.
“You’ve just as much as admitted your sex life leaves something to be desired…”
Alex sighed. “We’re both very busy people.”
“Mark’s a good-looking, successful man. If you’re not sleeping with him, then someone else probably is.”
“How do you know all this?”
“I read it in a magazine article about ‘the other woman.’ And, in case you’ve forgotten, I was the other woman once. So I have first-hand experience with being a mistress.”
How could she have forgotten? Vicky and her husband, Zachary Taylor Scott, a retired Judge Advocate in the U.S. Army JAG Corps and a full colonel, had a storybook marriage. But before they’d become man and wife, her friend had dated the colonel when he was married to his first wife. True, the colonel’s ex-wife was rumored to be the kind of woman who’d slept with a number of her husband’s junior officers—like the Deborah Kerr character in From Here to Eternity. Nevertheless, to an outsider it might look like Vicky had broken up their marriage.
Alex adored the colonel. She saluted him every time she went to visit Vicky. It was a standing joke between them. And she always called him “The Colonel,” even right to his face.
When Vicky first started seeing the colonel, Alex had warned her friend about dating married men and expressed her concerns that he was too old for her, their relationship a mismatch. She suggested Vicky might be looking for a father figure. But once Alex got to know the man, all her misgivings had evaporated. The colonel had always wanted children, but his ex-wife hadn’t been interested in accommodating him. He and Vicky now had three wonderful children. He’d proven to be a loving husband and an adoring father.
Vicky’s opinion of Mark was not quite as flattering.
“I didn’t want to mention this, but Mark came on to me once,” Vicky admitted.
Alex grimaced. Vicky’s accusation was hard to believe, but her friend wasn’t a liar.
“I’m sure he was just flirting,” Alex said in the most confident voice she could muster. “You know how men are.”
“You mean, you know how Mark is.”
Alex laughed, but the news came as a surprise, another chink in her marital armor. She guessed it was part and parcel of being married to someone as good-looking as Mark. It was probably innocent, but the possibility of her husband panting after her best friend left a queasy feeling in the pit of her stomach.
“Why do you even stay in that marriage?” Vicky said. “You should just take the girls and leave—or throw him out. The girls are in college now anyway. They’re not that close to him, from what I can see. As far as I’m concerned, his sell-by date has expired.”
“That’s a little harsh.” Leave Mark? They had problems. But she still loved him, and so did the twins, and the prospect of being alone was not a welcome one.
“Okay, let’s get off that subject,” Vicky said lightly, sensing her friend’s distress. “Five more minutes on this baby and we have to start the weight machines.”
Alex let Vicky boss her around because she was tired of taking charge at her own house. She gladly obliged when Vicky wanted to make all the workout decisions.
“I’m tired. Do we have to keep exercising?” pleaded Alex, anxious to get off the subject of her husband and off the treadmill.
“Yes!” said Vicky. “If we slack off, we’re going to turn into that guy.” Vicky pointed to a heavyset man who waddled by on his way to the machine next to Alex’s. “That guy needs a butt transplant.”
Gossiping about people was the only way they could survive cardio for forty-five minutes. They also talked about petty things that pissed them off about their husbands, their kids’ daily dramas, and where they were going to go for lunch after they worked off all those calories.
The most fun they had was coming up with names for people in the gym so they could talk about them anonymously. After all, Ponte Vedra Beach was a small town.
They could hardly contain their laughter and disgust at Sweaty Man, who was always drenched and never wiped down his machines when he finished his workout. And Ted Danson who, of course, was not the real Ted Danson but looked rather like the TV star, except there was nothing “Cheers-y” about him.
And Spider Woman, who was very nice, but when she caught you in her conversational web she could talk for hours, and you couldn’t get away. Her husband traveled a lot, so she was obviously desperate for company.
Alex and Vicky knew they weren’t perfect either, and people probably had names for them too, but they had to entertain themselves at the gym because just going there to work out was not much fun. So they played the game until the ordeal was over. Dish. Sweat. Dish. Sweat. Dish. Sweat. Laughing between all the huffing and puffing proved cathartic.
“Vicky, do you see that woman over there on the elliptical, the one with the great body?”
Her friend’s gaze followed Alex’s to a woman with ice-blonde silky hair gathered up into a perfect swinging ponytail and glacial steel-blue eyes that cultivated a pristine image of cold superiority.
“The one wearing the latest Brazilian workout outfit? I mean who wears hot pink on the bottom? I thought tight stretch pants were only made in black. Aren’t those a little short? It’s like a bathing suit bottom. And those boobs can’t be real,” Vicky commented. “They’re not bouncing at all.”
“Mark likes big boobs,” whined Alex, “but I’d never get a breast enhancement. I hate the whole idea of it. I think it objectifies women, and I wouldn’t want to set that example for my girls.”
“I wouldn’t either, but you’d be surprised how many women in this town, right here in this gym, even, have had their boobs do
ne. Now, when are you going to play the pick-out-my-body-type game? Go on, which lady in the gym has my body type?”
“I’m not going to play that game because if I’m honest you’re going to sulk,” said Alex.
“Okay, I’ll pick your body type out,” said Vicky.
“That’s even worse. Now back to Fake Boobs over there. I’ve seen her before. She owns a gallery in Jacksonville Beach that specializes in local and regional art. I wonder what she’s doing here. I’m surprised she’s not working out at that fancy gym at the beach.”
“Haven’t you heard?” Vicky said. “They just closed for remodeling. All of their clients are coming here to work out.”
“That explains it,” Alex said. “She’s too cool for the Y. She’s slumming it.”
“Have you tried showing your work at her gallery?” Vicky wondered.
“I’ve been in her gallery several times to check the place out. It’s the best gallery in town. I haven’t gotten up the nerve to approach her, though. I’m dying for a shot at getting a one-woman show there. I’m tired of exhibiting one piece here and one piece there. I’m ready for a challenge, and I want a whole show to myself.”
Now that her wish was out there in the cosmos, Alex hoped she hadn’t jinxed it.
“Do you think it’s out of line to corner her at the gym?” Alex asked.
“Not at all,” answered Vicky. “This is the perfect opportunity. Park your butt on the machine next to hers and strike up a conversation. Tell her you want to bring in some samples of your work.
“That woman next to her is sweating like a racehorse on the last turn at the Preakness. She’ll be off in forty-five seconds. Now get ready to pounce on that machine as soon as Racehorse Lady gets off…4-3-2-1 aaaand she’s off! Go!” barked Vicky.
“Yes, ma’am!” Alex answered obediently, practically flying off the machine, heading in sneakered feet across the textured industrial carpeting, hell-bent on pursuing her dream.
It probably was rude to bother the woman during her workout. She was invading the woman’s personal space and privacy. But Alex craved her own gallery show so much she’d do almost anything, short of murder, to get it.
Besides her collection of half-finished art, Alex already had what she considered a diversified collection of paintings to offer—her “House Portraits” series, building reliefs, an interesting deco-era lifeguard station, environmental paintings, landscapes, seascapes and abstracts. She had nothing to lose but her pride.
Ten minutes later, after Alex had concluded her brief conversation with the gallery owner, she sought out her friend to deliver the latest news.
“Fake Boobs and I are now on a first-name basis,” Alex said excitedly. “Her name is Elizabeth Diamond. But she told me her friends call her Bitsy.”
“Bitchy?”
“No Bitsy. Bitsy Diamond.”
“For real? I guess she’s referring to her waist, because there’s nothing bitsy about those boobs.”
“Nothing real about them, either. I saw them up close. She asked me to guess what college she went to.”
“Where did she go?”
“It’s a little place in Boston. Harvard. Maybe you’ve heard of it?”
“She really said that?”
“In those exact words. I guess she thinks she’s really hot stuff.”
“Well, she does have some magnificent stuff,” Vicky agreed. “I wonder who her plastic surgeon is.”
“I didn’t ask her,” Alex said dryly. “She told me to come by her gallery next week and she’d take a look at my work.”
Vicky grinned. “How about that? See, obeying me always pays off.”
“You’re a good friend,” Alex acknowledged.
“You too.”
Apparently Vicky was not a good enough friend for Alex to confide in about the incident with her lawn man. She was dying to share that juicy tidbit with Vicky, but it was too personal. And she was embarrassed for Nick. He’d caught some bad breaks and had come a long way down since she’d last seen him at the university. But his current situation didn’t lessen her fascination with the man.
That was one secret she was determined to keep to herself—at least for now.
Chapter Six
The Drawing Took Her Breath Away
A week later, on the Newborns’ scheduled day for lawn service, Alex came home after her daily grocery-shopping run, arms full of a lot of food she didn’t need. Mark had been aggravating her so much lately that she had to find comfort in double stuffed chocolate crème cookies, pecan sandies, and slice-and-bake chocolate chip cookies. Cookies were great companions. They spoke to her but they didn’t talk back. That might explain why she wasn’t losing weight, even with all the grueling hours at the gym.
She wasn’t exactly Betty Crocker, but she was going to “whip up” a batch of refrigerator chocolate chip cookies to offer Nick today.
Barely able to put the key in the door with the two fingers that were not holding bags, she noticed a thick white piece of paper carefully torn from a sketch pad on the mat on her front porch. It was anchored by a beautiful conch shell. She couldn’t have been more intrigued if it had been store-wrapped and festooned in ribbons. Alex put away the perishable items in the refrigerator and rushed back to the front steps to retrieve the gift.
Just as she thought, it was from her former professor.
When she looked at the sketch, her legs buckled and she dropped down on the front stoop to study it further. The drawing took her breath away and made her feel faint under the beating sun. Color flooded her cheeks. She was overcome with emotion. Jealousy? Regret? This drawing was worthy of a master illustrator. The life and spirit the artist had breathed into his subjects was palpable. They seemed to jump off the page, but it was more, much more. And Nick had let her prattle on and on, explaining the difference in pencil densities. She felt embarrassed whenever she thought about the day he had come back into her life.
Why was this man squandering his gift when he was capable of so much more? If anyone should have a show, it was Nick Anselmo. The quality of his work mimicked his edging style: precise, confident, and fluid. It looked as if he had started drawing and never lifted pencil from paper until he was done.
He drew with self-assurance and without a trace of hesitation or self-doubt, relying on his instincts. In the shadows, he put more pressure on the charcoal pencil and in the highlighted areas he lightened his touch to almost a whisper. And he’d used the charcoal she’d given him to great advantage to distinguish the light from the shadows. There were no second thoughts or correcting imperfections. The proportions were perfect. For someone who hadn’t painted in years, he wasn’t even rusty. Drawing came as naturally to him as breathing. This drawing, however, represented a departure from his usual style.
The subject matter was unexpected and provocative. She’d thought that, in his new life as a lawn man, Nick might just draw a tree, or a garden, not a couple caught in a passionate embrace—her face against his cheek, his face buried in her neck to hide their identities and keep the world at bay.
He had captured them in a clinch that seemed to portray more lust than love. The sketch spoke of forbidden moments. The lines revealed movement, as if the couple had had to love and leave. All that sexual desire was combustible. And yet there was love there. Maybe not love between this couple, but Nick had obviously transferred his own feelings of lost love and longing onto the paper.
“Always leave something of yourself in your work.” That’s what Professore Anselmo had taught his students in college. And he had managed to do that brilliantly in this drawing. The passion was raw, and it exposed everything that was missing in her relationship with Mark. And everything that was missing in her art.
Something vaguely familiar about this couple tugged at her memory, but she quickly dismissed it. Alex knew great art could have that effect on your soul. It was similar to a writer who paints word pictures that draw you into the story and elevate the everyday into the sublime�
��word pictures that are often too close to home, too real to examine too closely.
Art can create a sensation that makes you recognize yourself and your raw inner needs, an image that’s at once breathtakingly lovely and notably discomforting.
Gazing at the sketch, she knew she was in the presence of genius. Nick was a Michelangelo, a Rembrandt, while she was simply a run-of-the-mill commercial artist. He was gifted. She was just a step above competent, and only because he’d been her teacher and had transferred some of his brilliance. Nick was better than Alex would ever be on her best day. In his presence, she knew she could become more, wanted to become more.
She was at once struck by the intimacy of the subject in the sketch and how it had invaded her senses, exposed her own inadequacies and her stabbing jealousy of his technique and talent. She labored so hard to produce one piece, and he had probably pulled off this masterpiece without breaking a sweat.
Alex walked around the backyard and plopped down on a lounge chair to study the drawing and her lawn man. He would make an excellent model. She focused on the beads of sweat that still stuck to his body from his morning labors in her yard. She’d already spent far too much time watching him, her eyes mesmerized by his every movement, when she should have been painting for her possible show at the Diamond Gallery.
Removing the straw hat she wore to ward away the heat, she slowly rubbed the heel of her hand across her brow and repeated the motion to capture the trickles of sweat that coated the space between her breasts.
There was something different about Nick today. He had bathed and shaved. His T-shirt was bleached white. He wore a brand-new pair of blue jeans. He had taken care with himself.
The drawing had changed the man, breathed new life into him. At the same time, it had stirred a fire within her. She looked up at Nick and stifled the urge to caress his smooth face. That craggy but still handsome face.
He was a true inspiration. She felt a desire to get back to her art as soon as she put away the rest of the groceries and stored the drawing in a safe place, away from suspicious eyes.
Groundwork for Murder Page 5
