When the two women came face to face, it was awkward at first. Elizabeth had her baby girl with her, Mark’s baby. And she wondered if Alex would like to see her.
Elizabeth carefully lifted the baby out of her car seat and held her while they talked.
Why had she come? Was she going to stammer out a weak apology for any pain she had caused Alex? Maybe she thought if Alex saw the baby it might bring back a part of Mark that Alex might be missing. Unlikely. It was probably just another example of cruelty on Elizabeth’s part, and she thought she could use the baby as a shield against Alex’s anger.
But when Alex saw the child, wrapped in a soft, pink blanket, she couldn’t help but be enchanted.
“What’s her name?”
“Hope,” Elizabeth said.
Hope Diamond, Alex thought, but didn’t say. Unbelievable. But then Elizabeth had always been outrageous. She was going to saddle that adorable little child with a name like Hope Diamond, which would probably send her into therapy forever. But she would no doubt turn out to be a stunner, like her mother and her father, and live up to her name.
“That’s a pretty name.”
Alex made the proper fuss over the baby, who was sleeping soundly. She was secretly glad Elizabeth wouldn’t be around as a constant reminder of how wrong things had gone in her marriage. Maybe one day she’d tell the girls they had another sister, but not now. The wounds were too fresh. Mainly she didn’t want to tarnish the image the girls had of their father.
“You’re good,” Elizabeth admitted. “I never told you that before, but you have real talent. My first reaction to you was just personal. If things had been different, I would definitely have given you your own show. So don’t give up on your art.”
“Thank you,” Alex said, surprised at the compliment.
“And there’s one more thing you should know,” Elizabeth added. “At the end, Mark was never really mine. He was leaving me to come back to you.”
Alex didn’t betray her feelings, but if Elizabeth didn’t walk away soon, she was going to lose her composure. The other woman’s words meant a lot.
“May I?” Alex asked. Elizabeth nodded, and Alex gently pulled back the baby’s blanket and took another peek. The baby’s eyes flew open. What a beautiful child. She looked exactly like Elizabeth, but strangely, not a thing like Mark.
“My girls are both dark like their father—dark hair, dark eyes, olive complexions,” said Alex. “There are no blondes anywhere in our family. She looks just like you.”
“You’re trying to find a resemblance, aren’t you?” Elizabeth guessed.
Alex nodded.
“Well, you won’t find any. This baby isn’t Mark’s.”
Alex’s jaw went slack. “I don’t understand.”
“It’s simple. I was already pregnant when I met Mark. He was at Harbor Island Jewelers looking for a birthday present for you. I gave him some advice.”
So Mark really was going to buy her jewelry for her fortieth birthday.
“I’d just found out I was pregnant by a married man I’d been dating,” Elizabeth explained. “It’s a story as old as time. He wouldn’t leave his wife. I didn’t care. I wanted this baby and I went to the shop to buy myself a gift, to celebrate the new little life inside of me. But my baby needed a father. Mark was in the right place at the right time. He was easy prey.”
Alex was shocked.
“Didn’t it bother you that he was married?”
“That didn’t factor into the decision. After Mark died, I had my attorney check into his portfolio to see if I could get child support. That’s when I found out Mark didn’t have a job or a cent to his name. He had been very generous to me. I guess I thought—”
“You thought you’d get yourself a rich husband. Somebody else’s husband,” Alex stated.
“Yes, I guess he betrayed us both. He was worthless.”
Alex would have slapped the other woman had she not been holding a baby.
“He was not worthless,” Alex insisted, “not to me and not to my children. He was just misguided.”
“I never thought I’d say this, but I’m actually jealous of you.”
“Jealous of me?”
“Yes, because I’m the kind of girl men sleep with. You’re the kind of girl they marry.”
“Has it ever occurred to you that if you had left him alone, he’d still be alive?”
“It has. And that’s the closest thing to an apology you’re ever going to get from me.”
As Elizabeth left, Alex choked back tears and called, “Good luck.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Lighter Than Air
Alex enjoyed her part-time job at Beachside Gallery in Jacksonville Beach, working three mornings a week. Now that she was the sole breadwinner for the Newborn household, she had to supplement the income she earned teaching art classes to adults and children in her home in the afternoons and the paltry painting profits she made on her occasional sales or commissions from wealthy Ponte Vedra Beach couples for her custom house portraits. She dabbled at Venetian plaster, Etruscan stucco, metallic, and other applied finishes, but that didn’t generate much income.
Alex allowed herself a few minutes before work to enjoy her coffee, with one sugar, one tablespoon of fat-free Half and Half, a bowl of whole wheat cereal with blueberries, and a side of newspaper.
Her day began as every other day. Quiet, in stark contrast to the tumult that had surrounded a typical day when Mark was still alive and before the girls had gone off to college.
Back then, Alex’s kitchen had resembled Grand Central Station in the cramped five feet of space everyone needed to be in at once when she was getting the girls ready for school. It was a waltz Alex used to do five mornings a week to make room for everyone on the dance floor.
She actually missed all the drama. Was she crazy? Too much quiet allowed too much time to focus on her losses and what might have been.
Halfway through the Metro section, she realized the women from her Ladies Art Class would be arriving later that afternoon. She still had to convert the dining room table into an art studio.
She spread a plastic cloth on the table and ran down the task list in her head: Open up the portable easels and place the unfinished paintings on each one. Set out three different-size paint brushes, a pallet, and the tubes of acrylic paint for each of the three ladies. Nicole needed cadmium red and cadmium yellow medium hue for one of the flowers. Michelle was working on the stems of the flowers, so she’d need hooker’s green hue, and she’d have to practice mixing colors using cerulean blue hue and primary yellow to make her own green. Caroline was almost done with her painting and just needed some titanium white to emphasize the highlights a little more. Each student needed a large plastic cup of water.
Mark would roll over in his grave if he knew she was using his University of Florida souvenir Gator cups. If he were alive, she would be gator bait. There was a roll of paper towels. She precisely placed the vase of flowers where it had been for the last five weeks.
These ladies had never painted before and were meticulous when they were actually painting. They only had so much time for painting because they squeezed their art classes in between their tennis lessons, their personal training sessions, and their volunteer activities. They stopped painting to talk about their kids and how hectic their schedules were, shuffling their offspring between music lessons, ballet recitals, and their own art classes.
The women in her class frequently took cell phone calls from babysitters, husbands, and swimming teachers. They checked their calendars to coordinate play dates and dinner dates. Alex kept reminding them that they could talk and paint at the same time and that at this rate each flower they painted was costing them $20.
She told herself she shouldn’t really care how many weeks the women spent on one painting because they were paying her by the hour. And she needed the money. But she did care, and she wanted to offer value for what they paid her. She hadn’t put anything aw
ay in the kids’ college fund since Mark’s death.
Amy, the gallery owner, occasionally let her display her paintings, and she got some nice sales. Anything to bring in some extra cash. She still had her heart set on doing another show one day. This time it would be a show she would achieve on her own merits. She worked every chance she got to prepare for it. But she missed her weekly lessons and visits with Nick. She missed Nick terribly.
Working in the gallery, Alex perfected the art of framing and had a good rapport with the customers. She had a keen eye for color and which mats worked with what frames, how thick the frames should be in relation to the paintings, and how not to overpower the paintings with an overly ornate frame. Repeat customers began to request Alex and even called in advance to see if she was working that day before they brought in their prints or paintings.
A few months after Alex started working at the gallery, Amy invited her into her office. There was something important she wanted to discuss.
Alex dug her teeth into her bottom lip. She moved slowly past the worktables and the walls covered with art, other people’s art. She knew the economy was bad, but she couldn’t afford to lose this job. She was sure that was what Amy wanted to discuss. She was prepared to beg for her job, if necessary.
She composed herself as she took the seat across from Amy’s. She smoothed her black slacks to wipe traces of sweat off her palms, and forced herself to look up into Amy’s eyes. The sooner she found out the truth, the sooner she could start looking for her next job.
“Alex, don’t look so nervous.”
She laughed. “How can you tell?”
“You’re white as a ghost, and you look as though you’re waiting for the other shoe to drop.”
She looked down at her scruffy flats and kneaded her hands on her lap.
Amy laughed.
“Alex, this is good news,” she assured.
Alex ventured a look at Amy as her boss cleared her throat.
“I want to tell you that I was at the Dominick Anselmo opening last summer and saw your Bald Cypress series and was very impressed. I can’t believe I’m just mentioning it to you now. I guess we’ve been working different shifts, and I kept forgetting to tell you.”
“You were at the show?”
“I think everyone in town was at that show, at least every other gallery owner. We’re always on the alert when it comes to the competition. Well, I loved that series. I wanted to buy one, but they had already sold out. I was wondering, have you been working on anything new lately?”
Alex blew out a sigh of relief. She wasn’t going to be fired. Good.
“As a matter of fact, I am,” she answered. “I don’t have much time to do my own work, but I’ve been inspired and feeling happier lately, and I’ve been trying to translate that emotion onto the canvas.”
“It sounds like a departure from the darker, dramatic Bald Cypress series,” said Amy.
“It’s not that it was dark, really,” Alex explained. “It was literally heavy with paint, yes, but it had a lot to do with my state of mind at the time. That series had a burdensome feel because it reflected my emotional state. Everything in my life was weighing me down—my responsibilities at home, the girls’ needs, and I was lonely, even when my husband was still alive. I was doing the same things day after day, and subconsciously injecting it into in my Bald Cypress series. I used different light, shadows, color and time of day, thinking I would find what I was looking for, and unknowingly trying to find the true me.
“I discovered that it didn’t matter if the painting was done at dawn or dusk, I still felt unfulfilled, until now,” Alex said.
“What’s different?” Amy prompted, nodding as if she understood.
“I think I found my place, my center,” Alex said. “I’m at peace with myself and I feel flexible and free. Not that I still don’t get lonely at times, but I’m happy and secure with myself, finally. For the first time in my life I’m calling my own shots and no one’s discouraging me. In my art, I’m painting what I want, and it reflects what I feel right now. Don’t get me wrong, I loved my Bald Cypress series, and it was some of my best work, but that series reflected the old Alex Newborn.”
“Can you describe some of your new work?”
“I can do better than that. I’ve added some of them to my website, and I can pull it up for you on your computer.”
Alex rounded the desk and typed in some commands which led her to the proper section on her site.
“I call the new series Lighter Than Air,” said Alex.
As she pulled up the pictures, Alex described some of the finished paintings in her series.
“The series is clean and hopeful, like these water lilies in bloom; laundry hanging on a clothesline, gracefully lifted by the wind; a young girl on a swing, pointing her flip-flops to the sky; a heavy man experiencing a momentary feeling of weightlessness while leaping into a spring; dozens of lustrous, rainbow-colored bubbles floating across the canvas, waiting until the last possible moment to pop; and a single cloud floating by. My new work reflects the new Alex Newborn, lighter than air, yet strongly rooted, and I like her a lot better.” Alex beamed. She hadn’t analyzed her new work before or told anyone how she felt about it, not even Vicky.
“Have you shown or sold any of the new series?” Amy asked.
“No,” Alex said. “I-I’ve—”
She didn’t know how to tell Amy she’d lost her confidence somewhere along the way. She had gotten her own show at the Diamond Gallery only because her work was tied to Nick’s, not based on her own merit. She had essentially resorted to blackmail, and she wasn’t proud of it.
“Well, I think it’s time the new Alex Newborn paintings see the light of day,” Amy announced. “I would be thrilled if you’d permit me to show them right here at Beachside Gallery.”
“What do you mean?”
“What I mean is I’d like to give you your own show.”
Alex looked at Amy, tears welling in her eyes.
“Well, what do you say?”
“Yes, I say yes,” said Alex, overjoyed when Amy spoke the words she had been longing to hear.
“Let’s arrange a meeting sometime this week so I can take a closer look at some of your new work,” Amy said. “But I’m going to pencil in a date for your one-woman show so we’ll have something to shoot for. We have a lot of work ahead of us if we’re going to launch this series properly.”
Alex didn’t know or care if it was professional as she jumped up, threw her arms around her boss and hugged her.
“Thank you.”
Amy smiled.
Alex could hardly make it through the rest of the day. She couldn’t wait to go home and call the girls. She had a lot of work to do to complete the series. But right now, she felt lighter than air, just like the theme of her paintings. But this time she’d gotten a show all on her own, and it felt wonderful.
Epilogue
The following summer
It was summer, a year after Mark’s death, when Alex next saw Nick. She didn’t remember the exact moment she invited him back into her life, into her house, and into her heart. The moment when she blurred the lines between the lawn man and the man himself. When she forgave him for wrongs, real or imagined. When her passion and spirit reawakened feelings she hadn’t experienced in over a year as the green shoots in her backyard sprouted and she began to show signs of life.
She’d been certain Nick would come to the dedication of the brand-new Samantha Bennett-Anselmo Residential Center. She’d attended the opening, hoping to catch a glimpse of him. She’d held her breath throughout the ceremony, looking into the face of every homeless man, searching for Nick and coming up empty. He was out of her life. Gone. Like he’d never been there in the first place.
He eventually came around, after what he considered a proper period of mourning. In her opinion, he’d been gone too long. She couldn’t help but notice the changes. He was clean-shaven and as handsome as she’d ever remembered
him. He was obviously through living the life of a homeless man and a hermit.
He couldn’t contain his excitement about his new job as head of the department at Sarasota College of Art. He’d traveled upstate from Sarasota and had dropped by because he was “in the neighborhood.”
He looked beautiful and happy. Dressed in fresh jeans and a T-shirt, he sauntered over to where she was putting the finishing touches on a new painting. He nodded approvingly.
“Why didn’t you try to get in touch with me?” Alex asked, flexing her fingers. “I was furious. I was hurt. I was worried about you.”
“Didn’t you get my note?”
“Nick, I needed more than a note.”
“When I read about your arrest in the newspaper, I was going to turn myself in.”
She blanched.
“You killed Mark?”
“No, but I wasn’t able to save him, either. As much as I didn’t think he deserved to live, I tried my best to rescue him. And I would have preferred it to be me sitting in that jail cell rather than you.”
“What happened? You were there?”
“I saw it all. Mark went over to Elizabeth’s to end the relationship, and he went after her with a knife. She told him she was pregnant, and he lost it.”
Alex winced.
“I’m sorry,” Nick said.
“I already knew about that,” Alex said. “But guess what? It wasn’t Mark’s baby after all. Elizabeth came to see me on her way out of town. She was already pregnant before she met Mark.”
“Mark didn’t know that,” Nick said. “He believed the baby was his. And he felt trapped. He kept trying to stab her, so she defended herself. His wounds weren’t fatal, but he got turned around. He was weak and drunk when he walked toward the beach and got knocked over by a deck chair flying in the wind. The ocean used him as its personal punching bag. The waves bashed him around a little. That’s when his head hit those ocean rocks. I tried to go in after him, but I was too late. He was distraught. You know, for a moment, I wondered whether he was trying to end his life intentionally.”
Groundwork for Murder Page 21
