AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I don’t know about you two, but I saw several nudes of me,” Zoë said, and the three of them laughed.
“In the Louvre,” Faith said, and that made them laugh more.
“So what happened to him?” Amy asked as she buttered a slice of bread. “He was such a talented man.”
“He married and had some children,” Zoë said softly. “I cried in jealousy when I read that.”
“But not now,” Amy said as she nodded toward Zoë’s wedding ring.
Zoë turned the ring on her finger. “No, not anymore. You see, I took Amy’s idea about descendants and I searched until I found Russell’s family tree.”
“Don’t tell me!” Amy said. “You found out that one of his descendants lives in New York, you memorized the address, and when you left your sister’s you went to him. Is he a painter?”
Faith and Zoë were looking at her in astonishment.
“When did you get so good at stories?” Faith asked.
“I think I’m like Zoë and her art. I think maybe I’ve always been good at stories, but I didn’t know it. So, am I right?”
“Yeah,” Zoë said, “but he’s not a painter, he’s—”
“A photographer,” Amy said, then when she looked at their faces, she said, “Okay, I’ll shut up. You tell your story, Zoë.”
“Thank you. But, yes, he’s a photographer. He does some commercial work but he’s made his name by…” She looked at Amy as though daring her to say a word.
Amy made a zipper sign over her lips.
“Russ photographs people in ordinary situations doing ordinary things. He’s won a lot of awards.”
“Russ?” Faith asked.
Zoë shrugged. “Last name is Andrews, but the first is the same.”
“And you are madly in love with him,” Amy said, then looked at them. “Am I allowed to say that?”
Zoë laughed. “Of course. You want to hear something weird?”
“I don’t know if I can stand weird,” Faith said. “I shock easily.”
“When Russell and I were together, back in his time, he asked me a lot of questions about my life. I couldn’t tell him about Oregon because, well, it didn’t exist back then, so I told him as much as I knew about my early family history.”
She looked at Amy as though challenging her to finish the story. Amy frowned in concentration for a moment, then her face lightened. “You didn’t! He didn’t!”
“I’m lost,” Faith said.
Zoë smiled. “It seems that the great painter, Russell Johns, sailed to the American colonies in the fall of 1797. He settled in Williamsburg, and today you can see his portraits of some of our forefathers.”
“I hope he got Amy’s friend Thomas Jefferson,” Faith said, deadpan.
“Who told you that?” Amy said. She looked at Zoë. “Who did he marry?”
“A young woman with the last name of Prentiss.”
“Your family’s name, I take it,” Amy said.
Faith frowned for a moment. “If you’re related to Russell’s wife and your husband is descended from their children, does that make you and your husband cousins?”
“Just like royalty,” Zoë said, and they laughed.
