very important thing. I beg you to go and see Connie. I’m begging you on bended knee Lucy honey. When you talk to her you’ll know why. She can be a little stubborn, so if she tries to slam the door in your face or anything like that, you jam your foot in there. Don’t go away till she talks to you. Tell her I sent you.
I’m signing off now. You’re a great kid and I love ya.
Jeremy
The tears were rolling again but this time I just let them come. I went to the fridge looking for some wine to cry into, but there was none left. However, there was a half bottle of some strange Swedish liqueur that Anna called Glug. So I glugged and cried until I was too exhausted to think anymore.
The next morning I put on my power suit in an attempt to dress up for business and hide my hangover. Knee-length, gray wool, very stern. But with just a hint of lace peeping from under the jacket. Just in case Paul Bleeker happened to come in, he was going to see what a no-nonsense woman I was, and not the wet-faced ninny of the day before.
I had my own set of keys and was the first to open up the gallery each morning. This suited me fine. It meant that the dragon lady could simmer in her lair a little longer before fuming into action. She needed a lot of time to put on her makeup and, oh yes…consume a couple of breakfasts.
It was just after nine-thirty. I sat at my desk in the Rogues’ Gallery and yawned. I took small sips from my caffe latte forcing myself to make it last. I checked my e-mail. The usual load of forwarded jokes were there from Sky. When the postman came, I tried flirting with him but he didn’t even flinch. If he thought I was cute, he wasn’t letting on. I was definitely out of practice.
I yawned some more and opened the envelopes addressed to the gallery. There were a lot of bills, from transporters, caterers, insurance companies and a cheque from a customer. Surprisingly, we were selling pieces that season. Nadine had taken a big risk on exhibiting all those phalluses, but she’d succeeded. The platoon of pizzles actually had buyers.
After four months, though, the subjects were getting to me. I hadn’t seen a live one in ages. Another month of staring at them, and they would have started talking to me, their little singsong voices taunting me, “We’re having more fun than you-oo, nah nah nah nee nah nah.”
I stifled another yawn and let my mind slide into reveries about Paul Bleeker. Then I remembered Jeremy’s letter.
“Damn.” I said it loud enough that my voice ricocheted through the empty gallery. Connie. There was no avoiding her. If Jeremy said I had to go and see her, then I had to go and see her. But the thought of it was like a freezing-cold bath. It was like Sunday night when you had school the next day and hadn’t done your homework. As the prospect of visiting Connie loomed over me like a big black cloud, disaster struck.
3
Disaster, dressed in a Superman costume, lolloped, cape a-flutter, past the huge plate-glass window of the gallery and vanished from view. I ducked down behind my desk and peeped out from under it. The superhero stepped back into view, examined his reflection, flexed his limp biceps in a superhero-like way, and whizzed out of sight.
It was happening again. Just like a really bad déjà vu. And once more, it wasn’t happening in Cedar Narrows, where the damage could be contained, but in downtown Vancouver, where the repercussions could travel a lot farther.
I immediately called my mother.
“He’s here,” I wailed. “I thought you said he was in Hawaii.”
“He’s…? Oh. Well, he was in Hawaii for a while. And he’s there, is he? I see. Well.” My mother’s voice was so calm I wanted to scream.
“Well?” I whined.
“Don’t be melodramatic.”
“Numbers. I need the phone numbers, Mom. The Vancouver ones. Mine are all at home. Quickly.”
“Calm down,” said my mother.
“I am calm. Under the circumstances.”
My mother hummed under her breath as she searched. Her casualness unnerved me. “Yes, here they are. But I don’t know how useful they’re going to be. They’re a couple of years old.”
“Just give them to me. Quickly.”
“Don’t be rude, Lucille.”
“I’m sorry. I can’t help it. This whole business affects me that way.”
I could hear my mother sigh just before she began to read off the numbers. I scrawled them down and hung up.
I tried the first number on the list and got an answering machine. With panic in my voice, I left a very long message and hung up to wait. I was too edgy to do anything practical, so I got out a flannel rag and began to dust. Moving nervously around the empty gallery, I buffed frames, glass cases, pieces on pedestals, in short, the entire phalanx of phalluses. As I was rubbing away at an all-too-lifelike marble sculpture of one, a voice from behind me made me leap out of my skin.
“You do that with a practiced hand.”
“Paul…”
“In the flesh,” he grinned. He was looking very sharp in black jeans, black sweater, black leather jacket.
Oh God, I thought, don’t let Dirk come back this way dressed as Superman, not while he’s here.
“What can I do for you?” I asked.
“You can come and have a drink with me sometime.”
My heart did a double-flip. I didn’t want to seem too eager. “Just let me check my agenda,” I said, very smoothly. I didn’t have an agenda. I didn’t need one. My life wasn’t so hectic that I needed to write things down to remember them. I found an old address book in the bottom of my purse and flicked through it with an efficient air.
He said, “How about tonight? The Rain Room? Eight o’clock?”
For years I’d dreamt of someone asking me out to the Rain Room. No one ever had. Unfortunately, I had to take care of Dirk first and that could take time. “I can’t tonight. How about tomorrow. We’ll have to make it nine. I have another engagement tonight.”
“Fine. Tomorrow, then.” Tomorrow was Wednesday and I was free. He grinned again and was gone.
I sank into my chair. It had all happened so fast. I had a date for a drink, a real drink with the real Paul Bleeker. My next thought was, I have nothing to wear. My mental shopping spree was interrupted by the phone.
“Lucy Madison, please,” said a man’s voice. It was a deep voice, frayed with exhaustion.
“Speaking.”
“Sam Trelawny here. You left a message on my answering machine?”
“Hello, Mr. Trelawny. You must be new.”
“Why do you say that?” Sam Trelawny sounded harassed.
“Because I know everybody else. Or at least I used to.”
“I
