Country Roads (39 page)

“I needed to grow, but not just in my art. In my life. My
Night Mares
are all about fear. No wonder you hated them. But my fear was holding me back, and I had to pull it out of me and trap it on
the canvas.” She knew she sounded delirious. “You did me a huge favor, Tío. You forced me out into the world.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. The last thing I wanted was for you to take off in an untrustworthy car without any word of where you were going.”

She locked her gaze with his, willing him to understand. “When I started to change the style of my work, you told me you didn’t like it. I wasn’t sure I liked it, either, but I knew I couldn’t go back to what I had been doing. I had to keep going in the direction I had started. As the paintings got darker, you liked them less and less, but to me, they were becoming better, stronger.” She waved her arms around, trying to pluck the right word from the air. “They came from a place inside me that I’d never visited before, a place I needed to explore.”

“A place of nightmares,” her uncle said. “Not a place art patrons want to visit.”

Julia shook her head. “I was wrong to call them
Night Mares
. They’re about taking risks, about facing the unknown. That’s not a bad dream. That’s real life.”

“They are not beautiful like your other work.”

“They have a different kind of beauty, one that comes from power.” Her eyes burned with tears as she remembered the days of despair when she had to force herself to go to her studio. The times when the thought of painting another pretty pastoral landscape made it impossible for her to even pick up a paintbrush. “It was a terrible time for me, Tío, when you didn’t believe in my work. I nearly stopped painting.”

Carlos’s fork clattered onto his plate. “You have a brilliant talent. It would be a terrible crime to stop using it.”

“I think it would have killed me,” Julia said simply.

Her uncle rubbed at his chest. “I never intended…you should have told me.”

“I tried, but I felt so beaten down and alone.”

Carlos lowered his head. “I never wished to cause you such pain. You are the daughter of my heart.” He shrugged in regret. “I am terribly sorry,
mi niña
. I do not deserve it, but can you forgive me?”

She reached across the table and touched the back of his hand, her smile tremulous. “Of course I can. I love you very much, but I am not a
niña
anymore. That’s the problem. It’s been so easy to let you take care of me, but it’s not healthy for either of us. If you hadn’t threatened the one thing I can’t live without, I never would have realized that.”

“I was trying to protect you.” Carlos shook his head. “You are fragile.”

“No, I’m not.” She sat up straight in her chair and thought of fighting through her panic on the back of Paul’s motorcycle, of facing down Darkside when he tried to intimidate her with a thousand pounds of out-of-control horse. “I’ve learned that about myself.”

Her uncle shook his head again. “You have not had to watch the child you love crash to the ground, her body convulsing, her limbs flailing, and know you cannot do anything to help her in her torment.”

“No, I haven’t,” Julia said, seeing his genuine anguish in the tic of a muscle in his cheek. “But neither have you for seven years.”

“It is hard to banish those images from my mind.”

“For my sake, will you try?”

He made a restless gesture with his hand. “I will do my best.”

“Good,” Julia said, giving a decisive nod. She’d walloped Carlos with some pretty emotional stuff and he seemed to have heard her. Now came the hardest part. She spilled it out in one long rush. “This situation has shown me the necessity of putting my career on a more businesslike footing. I appreciate everything you have done to build my reputation as an artist, but I need to look outside the family now. Claire Arbuckle has agreed to be my agent.”

She waited, her hands clenched around the wadded-up napkin in her lap.

Carlos rocked back in his chair. “I see. This is my punishment.”

“No, it’s business. Nothing more or less.”

She expected an explosion, but he merely picked up his fork and calmly took a bite of trout. “If you hire Mrs. Arbuckle, you must tell her about your condition,” he said, after he swallowed.

She stabbed a crab cake and shredded a piece from it. “I see no reason why it’s necessary.”

“She must keep you out of situations like Friday night.”

Julia put down her fork. “You’re missing the point. I
want
to be in situations like the reception.” She took a deep breath and reminded herself to make this a
business
discussion. “I’ve reached a point in my career where I need to broaden my customer base. As you pointed out, my current work might not appeal to previous buyers. Claire Arbuckle has contacts in New York City so she can put my paintings in front of an audience more accustomed to edgier art.”

“I thought I was protecting your reputation, not limiting your customers,” her uncle said. Her plan to distract him from her epilepsy had worked. “Mrs. Arbuckle simply wants to make money from what you have given her now. It will sell because of the popularity of your older work, but she does not care about the long-term view of your career as I do.”

His implication that her
Night Mares
were not good enough still stung. Then she remembered Paul’s reaction the first time he’d seen her painting; it had given him a good wallop. He’d wanted it and he claimed never to have wanted a work of art before. Her chin angled higher. “Mrs. Arbuckle understands I have to move forward in my work.”

“Then perhaps it is best I don’t represent you.” He flaked off another bite of trout.

Her mouth nearly fell open.
That was it?
He was taking his dismissal that calmly?

“Fortunately, I have invested your earnings carefully so you will never be without resources.”

He must be desperate if he was invoking the gods of financial ruin. She spoke softly, trying to project the love she felt for him across the table and into his heart. “Let’s go back to being family, not partners.”

“We have been both for years.”

“I love you, Tío. Don’t let business drive a wedge between us.”

Carlos put his fork down and raised his napkin to his lips. When he looked at her again, she saw hurt in his eyes. “You mean this,
mi querida
?”

She nodded, tears welling. She hated to cause him pain, but it was better to make a clean break now than to let it fester.

“Your paintings hang in the homes and offices of governors and movie stars and CEOs,” he said, drawing himself up in his chair. “Why you feel that is not good enough I don’t understand.”

The tears spilled down her cheeks. “I—”

He waved his hand for silence. “I love you as a father loves a daughter, and I understand that children must rebel sometimes. So I will step aside.”

“This will be better, I swear,” Julia said, nearly choking on the lump in her throat.

“You know she will charge you forty percent commission?” he said, giving her a mock warning look. “I worked for only twenty-five.”

Her laugh was shaky, but it was a laugh. She and Carlos would be all right.

“Verna, can you give me a lift to my house?” Paul said, as he closed the door after his last client before lunch.

“That fancy car of yours break down in the parking lot or something?” his secretary asked. She opened the bottom drawer of her desk and hauled out a purse the size of an overnight bag, ornamented with silver fringe and rhinestones. “Course I can give you a lift.”

“Thanks, and the ’Vette is running fine.”

She didn’t ask why he needed the ride in that case, just walked out the door he held for her and waited while he locked up. It was one of the things he valued about her; she knew when not to probe.

Fifteen minutes later, he stood in his garage with the door open, stowing the cover for the Harley in one of the bike’s storage compartments. He shrugged out of his suit coat and folded it into another compartment. He took his helmet and leather jacket off the hook on the wall and slipped both on.

Running his palm over the curve of the fairing, he let his eyes drift along the sweep of the exhaust pipes. It was a beautiful machine, and someone else needed to own it now.

He kicked in the stand and straddled the seat as he started the engine. For a moment he just stood there, feeling the power vibrate deep in his bones. Then he gunned it and peeled out of the garage with a squeal of tires.

Minutes later he turned into an alley stretching behind the block of buildings that included the theater. Parking the bike by the stage door, he removed the helmet and rapped loudly, hoping someone in the office would hear him.

The door swung open and an older man poked his head out. “Paul Taggart, as I live and breathe. What brings you to our back door?”

Paul waved at the motorcycle. “I brought in my auction donation, Lester. Is Belle here?”

“She sure is, but the auction’s not till Saturday.” Lester opened the door wider to let him in. “Don’t you want to keep ridin’ it for a few more days?”

Paul followed him along a dimly lit hallway. “Belle wants to put it on display in the lobby to drum up interest.”

They walked into an office whose walls were plastered with brightly colored posters of plays the theater had produced in the past, some classics, some written by local talent. “Belle, Paul’s brought his Harley for you.”

The tiny woman behind the desk practically leaped from behind it. “Aren’t you a generous donor? Letting us have your precious motorcycle early!” She clasped her hands to her breast and raised her eyes to what would have been the sky had they been outdoors. Her short, straight hair was bleached almost white except for the ends, which were dyed a deep teal. “I’ve already had Vincent set up a spotlight in the lobby to make it positively gleam. Can you two big strong men roll it in there for me?”

Paul held out the helmet and the leather coat. “You can add these to my donation.”

She accepted the two articles of clothing as though they were the crown jewels, widening her eyes in admiration. “Maybe you could autograph the helmet,” she said. “Mayor Paul Taggart.”

“I’m not the mayor anymore,” Paul said. “And nobody wants my signature except as a witness to their will.”

“You’re too modest, but I won’t pester you.”

“That’s a first,” Lester muttered under his breath. Paul gave him a wink as they followed Belle back down the hallway.

The two men wrestled the big bike into place under Belle’s supervision. The chrome gleamed in the artfully placed spotlight, and Paul felt a jab of regret. The Harley had been his dream since he was a teenager. He took his suit jacket from the storage
compartment, sliding his arms into it and settling it on his shoulders.

“Ah, I know what this needs to make it the perfect display,” Belle said, trotting back to her office. She returned with the helmet and jacket. “We’ll create the sense that you’ll be back at any minute to roar off into the sunset.”

When Belle draped the leather jacket over the seat and positioned the empty helmet atop it, Paul turned on his heel and headed for the door.

“Hope it fetches a good price,” he said over his shoulder.

As the door swung shut behind him, Belle looked at Lester and then at her artistic arrangement. “What did I do wrong?”

Lester just shook his head knowingly. “A man and his hog. It’s not something you’d understand.”