The Coloring Crook

by Krista Davis

  John Bowles & Jen, in Cornhil

  Price 6J, & Colour’d 1L 1J 0d

  I didn’t see any errors. I checked the physical description. Sixty leaves of plates. Robert Sayer and John Bennett, publisher. Doing my level best not to touch the pages more than necessary, I counted them. Sixty plates exactly. It appeared they were all there. I hadn’t examined each thoroughly, but hadn’t noticed any scribbles or torn pages. Out of curiosity, I looked up persicaria on the computer. The flowers were known as knotweed. I had definitely seen them before but hadn’t given them much thought.

  The book contained a lovely introduction that began with:

  PAINTING having already had fo many eloquent and powerful Advocates, it would now feem impertinent to tire the Reader in endeavouring to prove that Art noble and delightful. That it is fo, the Ingenious have always, in the ftrongeft Manner confefs’d, by their conftant Attention and Encouragement: Therefore, the only Ufe here made of an Introduction, will be to inform the Purchafers of this Work, of the Plan on which it is executed.

  It went on to speak of shadowing and light, and then described the “COLOURS ufed in FLOWER-PAINTING.” They included reds such as lake, vermillion, and carmine; blues of ultramarine and bice; and the most curious description of brown as Gall-Stone. I shuddered to imagine why gallstones would have been common enough for everyone to know what color they were.

  We would need to get a second opinion from an expert, but as far as I could tell, Dolly had found the real thing.

  As an adult coloring book artist, The Florist held special interest for me. I had read that coloring sketches of plants was a popular pastime hundreds of years ago and a precursor to adult coloring books.

  I carried the book downstairs. Dolly jumped up as a hush descended upon the other people gathered there. All faces turned toward me.

  “Well?” Dolly’s chest heaved with each breath she took.

  “We should get confirmation from an expert, but it appears to me that you have stumbled upon the real thing.”

  Someone gasped sharply.

  Dolly reached for the pages, and stopped. Her hands still midair, she asked, “Should I wear gloves to handle it?”

  “That’s not necessary. You can, of course. But the trending thought regarding white cotton gloves is that they do more damage than good. We have some oils on our fingers, but nothing compared to the culprits that do serious damage like water, pollution, or extreme humidity. Besides, cotton gloves make it very difficult to handle a page. You’re likely to get a better gentle grip if you use your bare fingertips. Cotton gloves lead to tears.”

  Nolan rose from his seat. “Are you serious? It’s really from the 1700s? I thought Dolly was exaggerating.”

  Even shy Edgar Delaney drifted toward us. He approached the book with interest. “May we see it?”

  When Dolly placed the book on the table to show everyone, Edgar wedged in between her and Zsazsa. His slight frame made Dolly’s figure appear even more generous.

  The members of the coloring club clustered around, oohing and aahing about the book.

  Nolan clapped his hand against Dolly’s back. “You’re gonna be a millionaire, Dolly. What say I find you some new digs worthy of your status?”

  Priss gasped and Olivia’s eyebrows tanked over her nose.

  “Dolly!” said Zsazsa, “what a wonderful discovery. I’m so pleased for you.”

  Dolly giggled. “I hope it’s worth as much as you think, Nolan. Wouldn’t that be fantastic?”

  “You’ll be living the lifestyle of the rich and famous,” Nolan blathered, pulling out Dolly’s chair for her.

  I returned to the front desk to ring up some adult coloring books for newcomers to the group. Nolan followed me and waited quietly until I had finished.

  Leaning against the tall counter, he asked quietly, “So just how much do you think that old coloring book is worth?”

  “I can’t put a number on it, Nolan. It will probably go to auction and the price will depend on how much someone wants it.”

  “Museums?”

  “Probably, but there could even be a private individual with an interest in it.”

  He gazed away from me, his mouth shifting from side to side. “Could it be a million?”

  “I honestly don’t know. As far as I can tell on a cursory search, there are very few left in the world, and none have been up for sale to the general public.”

  He nodded. “Real estate can be like that. There’s always a house that’s extraordinary but not for everyone. Find the right buyers and they’ll pay a hefty price. But put it on the market at the wrong time and it will just sit there and languish. You never know.”

  I grabbed pots of regular coffee and decaf and followed Nolan back to the coloring group.

  I refilled Dolly’s mug. She sipped her coffee, clearly too excited to color. “Wait until my daughter hears about this. Maisie was always embarrassed by my scavenging. That’s what she called it. She equated it to digging through strangers’ trash.” Dolly closed her eyes and shook her head. “She just didn’t understand that I had to pinch pennies after her father died.” Her eyes opened wide and she threw her hands in the air. “But now she’ll see that it pays off. Maisie will finally be proud of her mama.”

  “What happened to your husband?” asked Edgar.

  In a flirting tone, Dolly asked, “Which one?”

  “Just how many have there been, Dolly?” Nolan ignored his coloring book. He didn’t take his eyes off Dolly as he gnawed on a slice of pepperoni pizza.

  “Four. I married the first one at seventeen. Young love is so blind. I dropped out of high school to marry him because I was pregnant. Inside of two months, I was already thinking the marriage had been a mistake. He’d punched me a couple of times, and I wasn’t having any more of that. On the day that I miscarried, he was killed in a bar brawl. Can you imagine? He was out at a bar. What kind of man doesn’t stay by his wife’s side when she’s going through a miscarriage?”

  “Good for you,” said Zsazsa. “Women should not tolerate such abuse.”

  “After that, I went overboard in the other direction. My second husband was a lovely man.” She smiled at the memory.

  “He was an artist, so sensitive and warm. They say artists are never appreciated in their time. Unfortunately, his work wasn’t appreciated during his life or after his death, either. I think I still have some old paintings of his around the house somewhere. I worked two jobs trying to keep us afloat. During the day I sold women’s clothes at a department store while he painted. On my days off and in the evenings, I helped feed people at a nursing home. Unfortunately, I stopped by our apartment at lunchtime one day and found him being entirely too familiar with one of his models. I threw him out, of course. The next day a cop showed up at my door to tell me my husband had perished in a motel fire caused by faulty wiring. He had been with the model at the time.”

  “Ouch!” Nolan’s mouth pulled back in horror. “Surely you received some money for that death.”

  “Really?” asked Olivia. “That’s where your mind went? Not to the fact that he shacked up with the model?”

  Nolan raised his palms as though he was giving in. “Of course. I’ve had three wives, but I never stepped out on any of them.”

  “Nolan, I didn’t receive a dime,” said Dolly. “I admit I felt some guilt. If I hadn’t tossed him out, he might not have been in the motel. Then again, maybe he would have been. I’ll never know but it has bothered me my whole life. I would hate to think I was the catalyst that sent him to his gruesome death.”

  “But Dolly,” cried Priss. “You couldn’t anticipate where he would go. If he hadn’t been fooling around, he would still be alive today.”

  “I agree with Priss,” said Zsazsa. “You didn’t send him into the arms of another woman, nor did you force him to go to that particular motel. His death was not your fault.”

  “Third time is the charm they say.” Nolan raised his eyebrows. “That wasn’t the case
for me. How about you, Dolly?”

  Edgar colored a little bit on a sailboat in churning waves but seemed engrossed in Dolly’s stories.

  “The third time I thought I was getting smarter. He is still the most charming man I have ever met. I thought I had finally gotten it right. He was a traveling salesman, which suited his gregarious personality. My goodness but we had fun together. I have never laughed as much since then. But it turned out that he was also laughing with two other wives, one of whom stabbed him to death when she discovered the truth.”

  Several people gasped.

  “Dolly!” exclaimed Zsazsa. “You never told me. This is terrible.”

  “I’ve said it all my life. I was blessed with beauty and cursed with lousy husbands.”

  Olivia gazed at her, and Priss giggled.

  “But you bought the brownstone. Even years ago, that couldn’t have been cheap.” Nolan frowned at her. “Insurance proceeds of some kind?”

  “Ah.” Dolly sipped her coffee. “The brownstone came from my fourth husband, Harry. He wasn’t much to look at, bless his heart. No charm, either, to tell you the truth. He looked a lot like Florrie’s old boyfriend who comes in here. What’s his name again, honey?”

  I groaned at the thought.

  “Norman,” Veronica supplied helpfully.

  I hastened to add, “But Norman was never a boyfriend. I just went out with him to make our mothers happy.”

  “That’s the one. Pale and not unlike an egg with thinning hair. Harry looked a lot like Norman, but with wrinkles. Still, he was a kind man. Harry was an accountant who dabbled in antiques on the side. He taught me most of what I know about antiques. When we married, we bought the brownstone where I live today. But when Maisie was a toddler, Harry got into some kind of financial argument with a man. At the time, guns weren’t legal in Washington, you know. When Harry went across the river to Virginia and bought one for security, I should have realized that he was in trouble. The day that man showed up at our house, Harry sent me upstairs with Maisie. I could hear them arguing. That guy managed to wrest Harry’s gun away from him and shot him dead in our front parlor with Harry’s own gun.”

  Everyone had stopped coloring to stare at her. But Dolly spoke as if it was all matter-of-fact and delicately shaded the mane of a lion. There wasn’t even the slightest bit of drama in her voice.

  “How can you be so calm?” asked Zsazsa.

  “Goodness. It’s all old hat. My life hasn’t been exactly scintillating. It’s a dreary story of struggling to get by. The narrative of man, unless you were born to wealth, like Professor Maxwell. Besides, I’ve had years of lying awake at night to think about it.” Dolly sucked in a deep breath of air. “I should have called the police right away instead of waiting until I heard the gunshot. But it all happened so fast that I have come to the conclusion that I couldn’t have prevented Harry’s death no matter what I might have done. My greatest regret was that Maisie didn’t have a daddy. I don’t think she remembers Harry at all. But I have realized that even though she didn’t know her daddy, Harry’s death influenced her more than any other thing in her life. Everything would have been different if he had lived.”

  “Now, Dolly, don’t you go kicking yourself. Priss and I lived in that brownstone with Maisie from the time she was just a grasshopper. You were a wonderful mother to her.”

  “Thank you, Olivia. I did my best. Of course, I had to do something to provide for her. Paying the mortgage and staying in our home seemed of primary importance to me, so I used most of Harry’s life insurance proceeds to chop the brownstone into apartments. Poor Maisie. Even at that age she really resented giving up her pretty lilac bedroom on the second floor.”

  “Is that my bedroom now?” asked Priss. “I never knew it was lilac once. I think I would like that.”

  Dolly nodded. “I did what I could for Maisie. The parlor on the first floor became her bedroom. She loathed it. Meanwhile, I slept on a sofa in our family room so she could have a bedroom of her own. Privacy is so important to preteens.”

  “But she never appreciated it,” said Olivia as though it was a fact. She outlined a castle in a coloring book.

  Dolly sighed. “Children have such small worlds. Everything revolves around them. Most of them don’t see beyond their own needs and wants. In retrospect, it may have been a mistake to stay here in Georgetown. I thought she would get a better education here and feel more secure in the only home she had ever known, but the real result was that she resented me because she didn’t live like the wealthy children who were her friends.” Dolly’s face brightened. “But The Florist will change everything! Now she’ll see that her old mama knows a thing or two.”

  Nolan leaned back in his chair, his legs outstretched in front of him. He hadn’t colored a thing yet. “You could make a mint off your house, Dolly.”

  “It’s amazing what they’re worth these days. Maybe years from now when Maisie inherits my brownstone she’ll be proud of her mama.”

  Nolan’s mouth twisted. “What if her mama used the money from the rare coloring book to buy a new house? One that would impress Maisie?”

  Olivia and Priss looked up from their coloring, clearly concerned. Not that I could blame them. They were Dolly’s tenants. What would happen to them if she sold her house?

  Nolan sat up and leaned toward Dolly. “There’s a fabulous house on S Street. You don’t have a garage, do you? This house does. And the garden in the back is among Washington’s finest. You’ll think you’re in Williamsburg. Four bedrooms, four and a half baths, and the most amazing two-story sunroom you’ve ever seen. What do you think? Want to take a look at it?”

  Dolly flushed the color of a ripe persimmon. “Do you think I dare? I suppose it couldn’t hurt just to have a look.”

  Nolan grinned, and his fist hit the table. “I’ll make an appointment for tomorrow morning. Excuse me, please.” He left the table in a hurry, focusing on his cell phone.

  I returned to the desk near the front door. Nolan stood outside on the stoop with his phone to his ear.

  Moments later, voices behind me in the hallway caused me to turn around.

  Olivia held on to Priss’s forearm. “For heaven’s sake, get a grip, Priss.”

  Nolan bounded back inside clearly pleased. He winked at me. “This would mean two nice commissions. One for selling Dolly’s house and another for selling her the new house. I may not even need to color anymore.”

  Chapter 4

  Olivia must have overheard him. “Need to color? That’s a peculiar thing to say.”

  Nolan seemed a little bit embarrassed. “I’m under a lot of stress. My doctor prescribed coloring. The jerk actually wrote it out on a prescription pad.”

  “Don’t most people just take a pill or something?” asked Priss.

  “Hah! That’s what I thought. I should probably change doctors. He thinks people take too many pills. So I joined this coloring group in an attempt to bring my stress level down.”

  Olivia raised an eyebrow. “But you don’t color! All you do is chat and drink coffee.”

  “Don’t you think that’s the point? To get out and talk about something other than real estate?” Nolan smoothed his hair back.

  Olivia clucked at him. “I thought you were smart. They’ve done studies that show coloring lowers stress and anxiety. There’s something about it that is healing for your brain. It calms you.”

  Nolan shrugged. “If I sell Dolly’s house my stress level will be just fine.”

  Priss’s eyes opened wide. “You can’t do that!”

  “Priss, stop it.” Olivia appeared annoyed.

  “And why not?” asked Nolan.

  Olivia snapped her fingers at him. “She’s worried about where we’ll live. We’ve been there for nearly twenty-five years. It’s our home, too, you know.”

  Nolan studied the two of them for a moment. “I don’t suppose I could interest you two in a condo?”

  Olivia snorted. “We work from home tutoring
online. If we could afford a condo in Washington, we would have bought one years ago. Maybe you could find us another rental.”

  Nolan nodded. “Sure.”

  Olivia appeared relieved and they returned to the coloring group.

  “It’s hard to find a reasonably priced rental in Georgetown. I looked for years,” I said. “If Professor Maxwell hadn’t offered me his carriage house, I would still be on the hunt for a place to live.”

  “I know.” Nolan sighed. “I don’t do rentals. They’re not worth my time.”

  He returned to the coloring table. I watched as he picked up a fancy green pencil. Sitting up straight, he made several tiny strokes with it as though he was thinking about something else.

  When they left around four in the afternoon, the members of the coloring club were all still talking about Dolly’s discovery of The Florist. A few of them were pondering what they would do if they received a monetary windfall.

  Veronica waved to Dolly and Zsazsa as they left together. When the door closed she asked, “Will Dolly really be wealthy?”

  “I don’t know. I hope she won’t be disappointed. There’s no telling what it might sell for.”

  Veronica strode toward me. “Maybe we should hang with Dolly more often. I had no idea you could find such valuable things at those yard sales. Did you see the gorgeous purse she was carrying?”

  “I wouldn’t count on getting that lucky.”

  At five o’clock, Dolly phoned Color Me Read. “Florrie, would you be a sweetheart and check to see if I left my handbag at the store? I’m at the Blackberry Tea Room with Zsazsa, celebrating. I was so excited about The Florist that I think I left my bag behind.”

  While Veronica looked for it, Dolly babbled excitedly. “You wouldn’t believe how much attention my Facebook post about The Florist has received! Zsazsa says it’s going viral. I guess a lot of people dream of something like this happening to them.”

  I wished she hadn’t posted anything. It would only draw attention to her. I didn’t want to put a damper on her fun, though.