Art is the Lie (A Vanderbie Novel) (19 page)

“I’m not going to crash your party. I’m just trying to get a visual on your evening.”

“Canlis. We’re meeting at Canlis.”

I lied. I couldn’t stay home. Curiosity took an irrational hold of my senses and the plotting began. I told myself I would just take one quick look. Nothing more. I Googled Canlis. The restaurant was far beyond my normal stomping grounds. The pictures dripped with beauty and elegance. I dug through my closet, trying on every outfit I thought might be appropriate. I needed something that would allow me to disappear amongst the other patrons.

There was really only one choice. My year old vintage inspired sleeveless dress from a winter formal come and gone. The form
-fitting waist, scoop neck, and all over lined lace, were dainty enough to pull off as upscale, but subtle enough for me to become part of the background. I grabbed the matching heels and slid them on, teetering uncomfortably. I kicked them back off and replaced them with my tennis shoes. I’d worry about balancing on them once I got to the restaurant.

I stood in the middle of the room, my resolve faltering. What was I doing?

No. I could do this. I was just going to look.

One quick little look.

I stepped over to my dresser and opened the top drawer. My hand slid under my bras and underwear, searching, feeling. My fingers touched down on velvety softness and clasped around a black box. I pulled the hidden box from its resting place, and with care, pried it open, revealing a long strand of black pearls nestled on a bed of creamy satin. Beads of pain strung together, beads Mom always wore out, knotted at the end.

For strength, I slipped them over my head. They had been a gift from Dad to her on their wedding day. A gift Dad had re-gifted to me the day
of her funeral.

I stood in front of the mirror, my imposter status staring back at me. Who was I kidding? I would never blend in. One look from anybody with an ounce of sense and I would be called out for who I was. A chicken. A teenage chicken, who had no business being at an upscale restaurant, spying on a family I knew nothing about.

“Quit looking,” I muttered to myself. This wasn’t a night of espionage. It was just one. Quick. Peak.

I covered the tell
tale signs of my plan with my coat and headed down the stairs, grateful for once, that Dad could not see me.

I grabbed my keys off the rack and snatched up my messenger bag, slipping my heels inside. “Where are you off to?” he called out from the couch.

I spun around. My blood pumping. What am I doing? What am I doing? What am I doing? “Grace’s. Just to Grace’s. We’ve got a project due tomorrow we’re working on.”

I waited. My breath lodged behind closed lips. I crossed my fingers and prayed he’d accept the lie as truth and not ask too many questions. “Let’s not make it a late night.”

Air blew freely from my nose. “Sure, okay.”

About to turn for the door, I hesitated. Dad’s frame sat completely still on the couch. Doing nothing. Seeing nothing. Trapped inside his own spinning thoughts. He wasn’t all that different from me. The dove floated by and I bravely stepped off the train track and walked over to where he sat on the couch. I bent over
the back, my lips landing softly on the top of his head, my words a whisper. “Good night, Dad.”

His voice was a croak. “Night, Cee.”

I hustled out the door and sped to the ferry, boarding the six-twenty. It was a thirty-minute crossing and a twenty-minute drive to the restaurant if I didn’t get lost. I was rolling the dice on when Quentin might be meeting his parents for dinner. Six-thirty. Seven. Seven-thirty. It was a bit of a crapshoot, but parameters I could work in. They would either be deep into dinner or deep into deciding on what to eat. Either way, everyone would be too distracted to notice me.

Valet parking. I was completely unprepared for valet parking, and the attendant who was at my car door opening it before I’d decided if I was staying.

“Good evening, miss. You can just leave the keys in the car.” And he waited, trained perfectly not to smirk at my old car as he held the door open.

So much for blending in. I was committed now. “Um, thanks.”

Self-consciously, I pulled off my tennis shoes, tossed them into my messenger bag, and replaced them with the heels. I slung my bag over my shoulder and stepped out swaying. Every muscle in my legs worked to keep me upright and not turn my ankle on the first step.

The attendant reached his arm out to steady me. “You okay?” he asked.

Damn. “Yes. Fine.”

My walk was slow and purposeful through the columns of stone, wishing to embody their rock strength.
What was I doing?
It had felt like a good idea moments ago.

I swung the door open and stepped into a different world, wood paneled in the warmth of nature and the fortunes of the clientele. Eveyln should be here. She probably has been here. She would walk in and own the place. I tried to channel the self-confidence she naturally oozed.
             

“Good evening, ma’am. May I help you?” the maitre’d asked.

“Um, yes.”

He stepped from behind his podium and held his hand out to me. I stared at his outstretched arm. Why was he holding his hand out to me?

“Your coat. May I take your coat?”

“Oh, sure.” I shrugged it off, my dress suddenly feeling old and out of place. I needed to recalculate my exit strategy, adding time in for a coat check. I quietly asked, “Could you please tell me where I would find the Stone party?”

He folded my coat over his arm. “Are they expecting you?”

“Yes,” my voice croaked as I kept my fingers clasped tight around my bag so I wouldn’t fidget. “Yes, they’re expecting me.”

“Right this way, please.” He handed my coat to another attendant I hadn’t noticed standing next to him and signaled me to follow him. We passed table after table. The view of Seattle and Lake Union sparkling through the wall of angled glass. I had not planned on an escort and had no idea how I was going to ditch him before he walked me straight into the hornet’s nest.

I vigilantly scanned the room, trying to spot Quentin before he spotted me. But we didn’t stop. We kept going through the restaurant to the far side where a staircase was tucked away. Violent waves of uneasiness surged through my stomach as we began to ascend the steps. Step after step, bile rose to a threatening level in my throat. At the top, we walked down a long corridor and stopped in front of a closed door.

This was not good. My heart was threatening to pound out of my chest. No part about this was good. I opened my mouth to tell the maitre’d that I’d made a mistake. I wasn’t really supposed to be here. They weren’t expecting me. But before any words could fall out of my mouth, a voice from down the hall turned both our heads.

A burly guy, with dark, slicked back hair and a pinstriped suit was striding down the hall, talking on his cell phone. “This is not going to happen. I did not okay . . .” His feet stopped, as did his mouth when he saw us. “I’ll call you back.”

“Good evening, Mr. Stone,” the maitre’d said with a nod after he’d ended the call.

“Good evening.”

Mr. Stone? My body was a mess. It couldn’t be Quentin’s Dad. He was too young. Maybe thirty. Maybe not even. I tried to shift behind the maitre’d undetected, but it backfired.

“I was just showing, Ms
.,” the maitre’d turned around to me, “your name was?”

“CeeCee,” I choked out.

“I was just showing Ms. CeeCee to the penthouse.” We stood there. The silence hung heavily around us. Finally, the maitre’d asked, “She is a guest of yours, correct?”

Burly guy’s wolfish eyes roamed the curves of my exposed skin, the dress suddenly feeling like a slice of sheer fabric. “If she wasn’t, she is now. I’ll take her from here.”

“Very well. Enjoy your evening, Mr. Stone.”

“Thank you. I intend too.” A shady smile filled his face as he held out his arm to me. “Do you have a last name, CeeCee?”

“Vanderbie.” It was barely a whisper.

His brow shot up quizzically. “Vanderbie?”

I nodded. This was not good. Not good at all. My hand tentatively came to rest on his arm, shooting the temperature in the hall up an extra hundred degrees.

His face curled back into a wily smile and said, “Well, well, CeeCee Vanderbie. Welcome. I’m Tony.”

He grabbed the handle and flung open the door to a private sanctuary hovering high above the dizzying view below. I was dizzy, struggling to focus on his outstretched hand, one that swooshed the air in fanfare. “And this is my family.”

My eyes focused in on three bodies that rose from the L-shaped couches near the window. Two foreign to my eyes. The other familiar. Too familiar. Except for the savage expression that pulled harshly on his face. He too, was dressed in a dark suit, finely cut to enhance every taunt line of his body.

My mind reeled. I was trying to visualize where I’d turned left instead of right. A step backward instead of forward. I was paralyzed. Tremors began to quake through me as Quentin stalked across the room. Gauging from the anger that radiated off every hard line on his face, I was certain his plan was to tear me from limb to limb.

Tony was talking but I had no idea what he was saying. His words washed over me like white noise, whirling around with the rest of the chaos in my head. I completely missed the excuse of my arriv
al. On his arm of all places. “ . . . she appeared out of nowhere, so I invited her in.”

“Remove your hand from her,” Quentin seethed at my side. I finally dared to look up and realized his eyes were not trained on me, but on the person holding tight to my arm. A grip that tightened with every ticking second.

“Ah, the mystery is revealed. You’re a little friend of Quentin’s.” His condescending tone splashed down on us. He patted my hand lying on his arm but did not relinquish it, sending a flood of crimson to my cheeks. I was trapped. I wanted my arm back from Tony. I wanted Quentin to take my hand. I wanted someone to vaporize me. “Such surprising news for you, little brother. You have a friend. But not so surprising that you would make her walk into the den on her own.”

His brother? This was Quentin’s brother? I pulled hard on my hand, freeing it from Tony’s grip, which only made Tony’s smile widen further. I turned, intending to apologize to Quentin, but his eyes silenced me. A brutality I’d never seen poured out of them, setting
alarm bells off through my entire body.

“She was not invited.”

A painful truth for everyone to here.

“Enough!” The bellow came from across the room. A commanding presence also dressed in a dark pin-stripped suit took two steps forward. He was as tall as Quentin with blue eyes sunk deep beneath his thick, dark eyebrows. The lines on his face were chiseled and sculpted by a half-century of time. So much so, I didn’t think a smile could alter them. “There is a guest in the room and I will not have you two airing your petty
grievances.”

Quentin’s dad strode over to me and held his hand out, his towering stature intimidating. “Welcome, CeeCee. We don’t often meet acquaintances of Quentin’s. We would be happy to have you join us.” My gut wrenched as I shook his hand.

A soft voice from behind, balancing the testosterone in the room, called out. “Quentin, will you please introduce me to your friend.” All eyes turned to her. She was beautiful. Her dark brown hair fell straight to her shoulders, perfectly framing her Mediterranean features. She was petite, fragile in appearance. Her body fitted perfectly in a gold and chocolate brown dress, the two colors merging at an embellished band.

Quentin grabbed my hand. It was neither caring, nor possessive, as he pulled me toward his mom.

“Mother, this is CeeCee Vanderbie.” His eyes touched mine for the first time. His face a perfect blend of his parents—hard lines etched on a soft hue of olive skin. “CeeCee, this is my mother, Theresa.” I couldn’t read his eyes. I couldn’t ascertain what was pulsing through him at this moment besides surprise and pissed-off-ness.

“Vanderbie? Any relation to Evelyn Vanderbie? Or Gretta?”

I hesitated, unsure if I should claim them as relatives. As my delay drew out, Quentin said, “Evelyn’s her grandmother. Gretta was her mom.”

A barely perceptible surprise glided over Quentin’s mom’s face. Her eyes darted for a split-second before they returned to me. “CeeCee, we are happy to have you here with us tonight. It has been too long since Quentin has invited a friend to meet the family.”

I didn’t know how to answer. I wasn’t invited. “Thank you,” I replied meekly.

“If you would please excuse us,” Quentin said, pulling me toward the door.

Safety was beckoning me to stay in the room. I knew if I walked out the door, I risked a berating by Quentin I didn’t care to hear. My head couldn’t take it. Or my heart.

“Quentin,” his brother called out with a snarky smile, “try not to scare her off.”

“Tony, stop,” Quentin’s mother admonished with quiet authority.

And stop he did. But it wasn’t by any of us. It was by the new person who entered the room, whose presence stopped all motion.

A man in his mid-fifties strode in. His charcoal suit and blue shirt made his steal eyes glisten in the defused light. I looked up to Quentin for understanding, but his eyes were vacillating between his brother and his dad, his savage lines falling back into place.

“Anthony. Tony,” the man said, walking toward the couches with his arms out wide. “I had heard rumors you were both in town. How nice to see you.”

“Bernard, what a surprise.” Tony’s voice was animated. He walked in front of Bernard, impeding his progress into the room. “We’re just up for a short family dinner, otherwise we would have called you.”

“Ah, the family,” Bernard said, stepping around Tony. He moved in front of Quentin’s mom and held his hand out to her. “Theresa, it has been too long. You look lovely.” She lifted her hand to his and he brought it up to his lips for a kiss that seemed to linger. Quentin’s dad took a step closer to her with a menacing look in place. The movement added to the already thick tension chocking the air.

“Bernard, as always, it is nice to see you.” Her reply was quiet. Polite. Gently extracting her hand from his, she looked up at Quentin’s dad and wrapped her hand around his arm, unshaken by the intrusion. Her demure features seemed to pacify the tension in his shoulders.

Bernard turned to Quentin and said, “I do not believe we have met. I am Bernard Kaplan.”

Tony came around to Bernard’s side and said, “Bernard, this is my little brother Quentin and his girlfriend, CeeCee. Which is why we’re in town. Quentin lives here. We all came up for an early Christmas dinner.”

Bernard held out his hand, but Quentin made no move to shake it.

Unfazed, Bernard turned to me with his stretched out hand. I didn’t know what do to. Shake it. Not shake it. Politeness won out. I lifted my hand to his like Theresa had done. He, in turn, lifted it to his lips and brushed a soft kiss across the top of my knuckles. “CeeCee. The pleasure is all mine.”

I pulled my hand away as faint tingles began to prickle at the base of my neck. I knew what it meant and I knew what I needed to do. And quickly.

Catching everyone off guard, I quietly said, “If you will please excuse me.” I briskly stepped from the room before anyone could react, not daring to look back.