Page 23 of New Orleans Rush

The stale air thickened in her throat. Swallowing became an effort. She glanced around the dank shop sure a masked man might leap from a darkened corner.

So immersed in stage magic and painting and Huxley, she’d put her father’s loan shark out of her mind. She’d assumed he’d given up on finding her, or that he’d been paid. Her deadline had come and gone. Big Eddie was in Chicago. She was in New Orleans. The distance had given her a sense of safety, but there was no doubt the threat was from him.

She replayed their encounter in the dive bar, his shock at her arrival and comment that Franklyn’s plan wouldn’t work. There had been no plan beyond buying her father more time to gather money, and other people had been present in the bar that day. If Big Eddie didn’t recoup his money, his reputation would nosedive. He needed to save face.

She cursed herself for agreeing to help her father, but he’d begged and she’d given in as usual, after he’d painted a vivid picture of his potential torture. Big Eddie must have gotten her number from him, or he’d found her father’s phone. She wasn’t sure if that meant her father had been roughed up, a possibility that had her feeling ill. But there wasn’t much she could do to help him. At least he didn’t know where she was, three states away. Which meant Big Eddie didn’t know, either. The text was just an attempt to scare her.

She hit Delete and blocked the number. She’d double check that her GPS was still disabled later.

“Everything okay?” Huxley loomed over her, worry in his drawn brows.

She ignored the shakiness in her legs and did what she did best—she smiled. “Everything’s fine.” She was, after all, in a witchcraft shop, enjoying a New Orleans stroll. She even had job interviews lined up. Still, faint nausea persisted.

Huxley tilted his head, eyes narrowed. Could he sense her lingering discomfort? Chronic anxiety she could do without. Determined to shake her unease, she bumped her hip into his and resumed her silly fashion show. They outstayed his five-minute limit, and she didn’t glimpse his lie-detector face for the rest of their city tour. Her concern over Big Eddie took longer to fade.

9

Bea’s two interviews were a bust. Both jobs required evening shifts, and the bars smelled like rum-marinated gym socks. Sneaking back into the prop room to paint was a relief. Her phone played a mixture of swing and big band music. The volume was low, in case anyone happened into the building, but that didn’t stop her from jigging to the beat.

She was painting a small square of wood, trying to match the brightest flecks of Huxley’s lighter blue eye. Every so often, her brush would still, her mind wandering to today’s lunch and their kind-of-date. New Orleans was proving more fun than she’d imagined. Proof that when life gave you lemons they could be turned into lemon meringue pie.

Her art project was the whipped cream on that dessert.

It was possible she’d bitten off more Double Bubble than she could chew with this concept, but every stroke of paint before now seemed like practice for this main event: her self-portrait.

Similar to Monet’s work and Huxley’s unhandsome-handsome profile, she would build her portrait with dozens of tiny monochromatic paintings, small sections that, when put together, formed a different whole. Close up, each would tell her story, old and new: a slice of watermelon lip-gloss, her mother’s smiling mouth, Huxley’s eyes, a section of his cape, the tail of her childhood My Little Pony doll, a bee’s wing, the tip of an EpiPen, three numbers from her empty bank account, the key that had defiled Huxley’s car, and on and on until Bea would eventually have poured her life onto wood planks.

Lined up two-by-fours became her canvas, an intriguing surface, easy to separate and hide. Her history drove her paintbrush. The magic of the Marlow Theater inspired her creativity. It unfortunately came with construction work that woke her at ungodly hours, temperamental electricity, and a rat she’d encountered when searching for the fuse box, but she’d been a starving artist since birth. Suffering for her art gave it meaning. Plus thoughts of Huxley made her smile, and she always worked best when she smiled.

She couldn’t paint fast enough.

Huxley walked into his dark theater, heart heavy and full at once. It was frustrating meeting Beatrice while struggling to save his birthright. Having the opportunity to date a fascinating woman, only to be too overwhelmed to properly ask her out, was a cruel twist of fate. Today had been a date of sorts, eating lunch together, touring the city. But good dates ended with kisses. When Beatrice had announced she was heading to interviews, their rehearsal done, all he’d done was thank her for her work.

He sat in the middle of the empty theater now, as he often did, eyes closed, resinous scents mixing with the lavender floor cleaner they’d used forever.

He pictured the Marvelous Max Marlow on stage, making the audience laugh by finding a disappeared candy bar in his pant pocket, eliciting gasps when sawing his assistant in half, shocking patrons by locking himself into a water-filled barrel. He’d done the latter number yearly to a standing-room-only crowd. Huxley’s brothers had tired of the routine and stopped attending. Not Huxley. He’d watched every spectacle, including the last one.

The fateful one.

He wished he didn’t remember it so clearly: the barrel staying closed too long, the agitated crowd. He should have jumped on stage, but Max Marlow would have reprimanded him for ruining the illusion, so he’d delayed helping. Huxley had been too late in the end. He’d taken too long cracking open the barrel. The water had flooded out. His father’s lips had been blue. Attempted resuscitations had been futile.

Now Huxley had a face full of scars from unleashing his grief and anger on the wrong people. He also had a head filled with images he’d like to burn.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, the same two words that always began his evening confessionals.

Bea’s cadmium red was the wrong tone for the corner of her lip-gloss study. She needed to blend alizarin crimson but didn’t have the color, which meant she needed a paycheck pronto. The waitressing gigs may not have panned out, but Huxley had mentioned a market job. Asking for his help when she was squatting in his theater wasn’t ideal, but needing paints took priority.

Paintbrush between her teeth, she freed her hands to text him: Can I have Della’s number? If Fox’s friend ran a market booth, it would operate during daytime hours, allowing her time to be a zigzag girl and paint. She wasn’t sure what type of woman was friends with a sneaky Fox, but she needed cash.

Sure thing, Huxley replied swiftly. He sent Della’s info, the speed of his response revving Bea’s heart. She wasn’t looking at him or talking to him, but she had his handkerchief in her pocket, the slight connection filling her with fresh lightness. She thanked him and shot off a text to Della, buoyed by the prospect of securing work.

She chose a different section to paint and squeezed a small amount of lemon yellow on her plywood palette. Music quietly trumpeted from her phone. She mixed in a dash of white and raw umber. She touched the tip of her brush to her impromptu canvas.

Then her phone died. Its cannibalizing battery consumed her swing tunes, leaving dead air. Until she heard a muffled voice.

“I had fun with you,” Huxley murmured to his silent phone after messaging Beatrice. He was glad she’d reached out, but he should have told her how refreshing their afternoon had been. He wished she was wrapped up in his arms now, not somewhere in the city, reading his succinct reply.

He massaged his neck and locked his sights on the ceiling’s peeling paint. “Things are bleak,” he said to the empty theater. To his father. “It feels like it’s all slipping through my fingers. No matter how much I love this place, I can’t pull it together.” He slouched lower and stretched his legs into the aisle. “We’re switching up the music, which you’ll hate. No doubt about that, but I probably should’ve done it ages ago. I’m wondering if we should shake up our acts, too.”