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“Good morning.” His voice is velvet against my ear, stirring something in my middle. “Was just looking at my schedule for the week. You still interested in seeing my collection?”
I’ve never been more interested in seeing anything in my life.
But I can’t tell him that.
“Sure. What day did you have in mind?” I play it cool, nervously brushing toast crumbs off my counter and into the sink. Half of them stick to my palm.
“I could leave the office early on Thursday—three o’clock. Would that work?”
I have no idea if it would work for Margaux, but it’s going to have to. If she protests, I’ll tell her I’ll take this in lieu of her firstborn child like she promised years ago.
“I’ll make it work,” I say.
“Great. Pick you up then.” He hangs up without an awkward or even subtle goodbye—without any kind of goodbye, actually.
I’m sensing a pattern here.
The man hates to say goodbye.
Which only makes the reality of this situation all the more crushing.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
ROMAN
“Circle around for a bit,” I say to Antonio when he drops me off outside the Hartsfield Galleria. “I won’t be long.”
I’d almost forgotten about the invite-only exhibit until a reminder popped up on my phone this morning. Pietro Palomar’s work is notorious for being the stuff nightmares are made of. I’d never hang one of his pieces in my personal home, but I’ve always been fascinated by the way his creative mind works. He thinks in a way most people don’t.
That and I have good reason to believe he microdoses hallucinogens when he paints.
I took a hit of acid in college once. While it was my first, last, and only time dabbling in such things, I’ll never forget the colors I saw—colors that don’t exist in nature as we know it. Colors I couldn’t even begin to describe because there are no words accurate enough to convey their otherworldly beauty.
Sometimes when I close my eyes, I can imagine them, but they’re often gone within seconds.
I feel the same way about Emma sometimes. Our time together was so brief yet intense. And when I close my eyes and think of her, it’s like trying to remember a distant dream. I know it was real. I know what I saw. But it’s not the same. It’s surreal. And I hate that.
“Good morning, Mr. Bellisario,” the gallery owner greets me the instant I step inside with a smile as phony as his toupee. “How are you on this fine Saturday morning?”
Rick Hartsfield is a schmoozer. A hustler. A face-lifted, veneer-wearing Muggle of a man desperate to look half his age. But the man knows his stuff, and his connections are second to none.
“The Palomar exhibit is straight back.” Rick points behind him before plastering another fake grin on his face to greet the couple who comes in behind me.
Heading back, I stop to admire a series of Hortensia Hayward ink sketches—a raisin, a pear, and a carrot that look so hyperreal you could almost grab them off their cardstock paper. A descriptive placard below mentions they were all drawn with Pilot gel pens. Seems like the trend lately is to create art with unconventional materials. Many artists are growing bored with tradition, desperate to set themselves apart from their competition or challenge themselves in new ways. The price tag below each sketch lists them at $1,000 apiece. I imagine some new-moneyed soul will walk away with these at some point in time, but they’re far from the investment-quality works I prefer.
I follow the sound of voices, soft chatter and idle conversation, until I get to the Palomar exhibit in the back of the gallery. It’s the usual crowd—a trendy couple from Brooklyn, a middle-aged man in head-to-toe Patagonia, a woman in a vibrant, asymmetrical red dress that looks like an FIT student sewed it together for a final-exam project, two lanky runway models with matching high cheekbones, a group of ageless women lost in conversation. In the corner are two more women—one with hair as dark as midnight, and the other with the same honey-blonde locks as Margaux.
My heart catches in my throat.
It can’t be her—she’s at a bakery opening . . .
Still, it wouldn’t be the first time I’ve sworn I spotted her in the proverbial wild. Lately I’m seeing her everywhere I look.
“Roman, hi.” An old classmate of mine, Stacey Bronstein, saunters up to me with a smile so wide it stretches from ear to ear. A lifetime ago, we lived on the same floor and were in the same study group (which later evolved into a party group). “I haven’t seen you in forever. How have you been?”
Before I get a chance to answer, she places her hand on my arm and leans close.
“I heard about Emma.” She bites the inside of her lip, and her eyes are half-squinted as if she’s attempting to convey emotional pain, but her Botox-paralyzed facial muscles won’t allow her such an expression. “So tragic. I’m so sorry. I can’t even imagine . . .”
