A loud “Heh-hem” interrupted my murmuring. Nadine was standing in her office doorway looking superior. “If you’re finished communing with the dead, Lucy.”
“Isn’t it in my contract that you have to respect my religious beliefs?”
Nadine shook her head. “It’s in your contract that if you screw up, you’re out the door. In fine-print legalese.” She peered at me more closely. “Whatever have you been doing?”
“What do you mean?”
“Your face is all smutty. Go and look at yourself.”
I went into the bathroom and stared into the mirror. I looked like a chimney sweep. Paul Bleeker’s charcoaly fingerprints were on my face. I probably had smudges all over the rest of my body as well. I scrubbed myself with wet paper towels, brushed my hair and put on a little lipstick. A nice dark shade.
When I’d finished cleaning up and was back at my desk, Nadine said, “I’ve got an IT expert here. Jacques needs to examine your computer. He’s going to be putting in some new software.”
“Jacques? Jacques who?” My heart skipped a beat. A computer whizz would be able to see where I’d been on the Net, see all the hours I’d frittered away checking out eBay, Big Brother sites and Lonely Hearts Web pages.
“I’m upgrading,” said Nadine. “Jacques, this is my assistant, Lucy Madison.”
Jacques came into view and I laughed.
“Hey, Luce, how’re ya doing?”
“Jacques. What are you doing here?”
Jacques came over, picked me up and whirled me around. I only came up to his chest. Next to him I was a sylph.
He put me down and glanced over at Nadine’s raised eyebrows. He said, “Miss Thorpe wants to buy the farm, add a few more gigabytes. And some fancy stuff for showing off artists’ work to full advantage. That right, Miss Thorpe?” I could tell by the way Nadine was looking at him that she wanted a few of Jacques’s private bits and bytes as well. It was understandable. Jacques was six feet four inches of broad-shouldered barrel-chested male sweetness. Because he didn’t have to impress anyone, he always wore the same uniform: jeans, lumberjack shirts and long straight black hair that went past his shoulders. He had a hint of local native blood and an easy smiling expression. Like Geronimo on tranquilizers.
He was a computer genius. He’d been finishing his studies when I first met him. In university days, he’d been lost in love with Madeline from the art department. Madeline was his only defect. He would come looking for her, his dark eyes puppy-dogging along all the routes Madeline might have taken, checking out all the places where Madeline might be. We made friends during his long waits for her. What Jacques didn’t know back then was that Madeline was a very busy girl, very popular, with a lot of extra-curricular men, and she loved having Jacques as a personal six-foot-four doormat.
“So what are you doing these days, Jacques?” I asked.
“Working at the university, rescuing departmental techno-dummies all over the campus whenever they melt down. Hey, you still painting, Luce?”
“Mmmm-hmmm.” It was neither a yes nor a no. I hate lying to friends. “How’s Madeline? She still making…”
“Heart art. Yeah. She’s doing some really great stuff.” He sounded slightly panicky, the way the less-loved partner in a relationship sounds when they are afraid of losing the other. “She’s selling quite well in New York.” He sighed. “She’s there right now. Gonna be there for a couple more weeks.” He sighed again.
These words crushed me like a ten-ton block. Back then, Madeline had been into this mock-sixties pop art stuff using a lot of pink and hearts and doe-eyed Twiggy-like female figures. The worst part was that there were professors who thought she was the great promise of the art department.
Hearts.
She still had Jacques’s heart after all these years, and it looked like she was still reducing it to pulp.
I reached for my caffe latte and knocked my bag off the desk. Its contents, including my virgin peach lace underwear, spilled all over the floor.
Jacques smiled and raised his eyebrows quizzically. Nadine looked peeved. I would like to have told them that it had been a great night, a masterpiece of lovemaking, but the fact was, the Maestro had barely dipped his brush.
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