Frame Change: A Nina Bannister Mystery (The Nina Bannister Mysteries Book 5) (15 page)

“You solved two murders, almost won a state basketball championship, and saved the gulf coast from complete destruction.”

“I know but this is
art
! It
means
something!”

“Right! So I’m telling you, you have to celebrate!”

“How do I do that?”

“You get drunk, of course!”

“I can’t get drunk.”

“You have to get drunk; you’re a painter.”

“But I’ll be sick the next day. I’ll throw up!”

“Throwing up, Nina, is just another term for ‘the interchange of color and structure.’”

“Well. You may be right.”

“Of course, I’m right. Now where are we going?”

“You’re going to get drunk with me?”

“Of course I am. This is a red letter day, a day you’ll never forget.”

“Okay. Shall we all go to Sergio’s?”

“We’ll
begin
at Sergio’s. But what did you mean by ‘all’? Penn, you know, can’t drink. Not in her condition.”

Nina shook her head.

Perhaps getting drunk wasn’t that bad an idea, after all.

She already felt drunk, if it came to that.

But there was somebody else who would have to come with them.

Somebody else who would be oh so proud of her.

And who
might
actually understand the big intellectual words that had been used to describe the lighthouse that she, Nina Bannister, brought to life on canvas.

And, saying a brief good bye to Tom, a fellow artist—she went home to her own shack—to break the news to that person.

Darkness had begun to fall on Bay St. Lucy, and, as Nina Vespa’d through the lengthening shadows, she struggled to keep her mind on driving and away from the thousand trains of thought it seemed constantly to want to be boarding.

And speed. Keep the speed down.

Twelve miles an hour, twelve miles an hour…

…and there! Fifteen!

Fifteen miles an hour on Stonewall Jackson Drive. What are you
thinking
Nina?

She had a sudden vision of herself as the young Marlin Brando in a motorcycle cap.

But—was that so inaccurate?

He was an artist, she was an artist.
  

Different métiers, but…

Oh, and that was a good word, ‘métier.’ Perhaps she was allowed to use words like that now––French words, big three and four-syllable words like ‘visceral’ and ‘perfunctoriness’ and ‘scintillating viscera.’

She was a painter!

And she owed it all to Carol Walker.

Perhaps she was talented, genuinely talented; but she would never have known it, never probably have even gone back to the painting class—would have always remembered the scathing comments of Alanna and Margot––Margo, who after all was only an administrator and not a genuine painter—had not Carol seen the paintings and also seen something, something, special about them.

And so she found herself deliciously curious as she approached her shack, stopped in the oyster-shell driveway, locked the Vespa, unhelmeted the helmet, stowed it carefully, and looked up at the porch.

What would Carol say upon hearing the news?

‘Congratulations?’

‘That’s wonderful news!’

‘I knew it all along!’

‘What did I tell you?’

She climbed the stairs, unlocked the door, and pushed it open.

Carol and Furl were both curled in identical positions on the couch, each reading the same book.

Furl looked up; Carol looked up and adjusted her glasses.

“Hi,” she said.

“I just sold a painting,” Nina said.

The response to that was immediate:

“Let’s go get drunk.”

I’m already learning
, Nina told herself,
about being a painter.

Within five minutes, they were speeding (caution be damned! Fifteen miles an hour it is!) away from the sea and toward Sergio’s By the Sea, there to meet Tom, who was to drive there in his truck.

Carol was sitting back on the passenger seat, her arms tightly wound around Nina’s waist, as Nina’s mind sorted through the wonderful drink menu at Sergio’s:

“Digestif Spirits: Fernet Branca,” and “Liquore Strega;” “How Edward Drinker Copes,” which consisted of Speyside Scotch, Gran Classico, Blanco Vermouth, and Cranberry Bitters;” “Winter Cocktail: Rum, Fresh Ginger, All Spice, Lime, and Angostura;” “Feufollet, with Apple Brandy, Elder Flower, and Burnt Absinthe.”

Margot, of course, would ignore these delicacies and simply say: ‘Gin. A lot of gin.’

But what fun was that?

When they arrived, Tom was already standing beside the front door of the restaurant, dressed as he had been some few minutes ago.

And that caused a problem.

They were seated at a dark, corner table. They were given their menus. They’d begun to study them carefully (after, of course, the ritual of sitting down and profusely congratulating Nina, the Guest of Honor)—when the waiter arrived again, asking:

“I wonder—would Madam (this meant Nina, toward whom he was gesturing) and her guest (this meant not Carol who had the effect of disappearing into any room she entered and simply not existing until she decided to leave—but Tom, who was one of Sergio’s few guests dressed in oil-stained (at least Nina hoped it was oil), off-white pants and a sweat through undershirt—please come with me for a second?”

They did.

He led them to a quiet alcove set just off from the cash register, and said:

“Madame should know, we here at Sergio’s are not unaware of the difficulties faced by the homeless. In fact, if madam’s guest would prefer to accompany me to an area we have designated in an alley behind the kitchen, we would be able to furnish him with a hot meal made from the left overs of the previous evening.”

“Really?” Tom said, enthusiastically. “What kind of leftovers are we talking about?”

“Tom!” Nina said, almost shouting. “What are you talking about?”

“It’s free food!”

‘No! Now come with me! We’re leaving!”

The waiter was ashen-faced.

“I’m truly sorry, Madame, if I’ve failed to…”

“You certainly
have
failed! Now good night!”

They discussed the situation in the parking lot. Tom said that he thought a lot of the restaurants Nina knew might have the same attitude, so maybe it would be better if the three of them went to a place he knew on the far side (his side) of town.

They agreed to this and he drove them to the place, which was behind an abandoned Dairy Queen. But even a quarter of a mile before they approached it, they could tell that it had been surrounded by a dozen police cars, their blue lights flashing, their sirens wailing, and their bullhorns braying out the words:

“Come out with your hands up!”

This did not portend well.

And so they thought further for a time, remembered that Penelope was sitting in her own metal-corrugated shack, alone, while preparing for motherhood, and that perhaps another night might be a preferable time for the drunken debauch they had—perhaps unwisely since Nina had never previously in her life drunk more than three glasses of wine at one time—planned.
          

By the time darkness had engulfed Bay St. Lucy, Nina and Carol were sitting on the deck, watching the ocean reflect a second ocean of stars, a candle burning on the table, and two glasses of Merlot sitting in front of them.

“What are you going to do with the money, Nina?”

“I don’t know. Three hundred and fifty dollars.”

“You could buy clothes with it.”

“I don’t need any clothes. I have jeans and several sweaters and t shirts. And sneakers. That’s really all I need.”

“A car?”

“You can’t buy a car for three hundred and fifty dollars.”

Carol sipped her wine, set the glass softly on the table, and leaned forward:

“Nina, it’s not going to be just three hundred and fifty dollars.”

“What? What do you mean?”

“I mean it’s going to be more than that.”

“How?”

“Because you’re going to sell more paintings.”

She could only stare across the table. A streetlight was reflecting blue in Carol’s glasses.

“What makes you think that?”

“Because I know it’s true.”

“How is it true?”

“It just is.”

“But…”

“We’re going to select one painting a week. I’ll work with you. We’ll freshen and intensify the colors just a bit, maybe change the perspectives here or there. Then we’ll take the painting down and hang it just where the last one was.”

“You think this woman may come back?”

Carol shook her head.

“No, but there’ll be others.”

“Other people who want to buy my paintings?”

“Absolutely.
Little Red Lighthouse
#6 is just the beginning. Next we’ll hang
Little Red Fishing Boat
#4.”

“Number three.”

“Whatever.”

‘And you think it will really sell?”

“I know it will.”

“But…but, Carol, my paintings just don’t seem that much better than the other people’s paintings. I mean, the other people in the class.”

Carol took a deep breath then, shook her head, and said quietly:

“You have to learn to look beneath the surface.”

They listened for a time as the waves washed inward.

Carol continued:

“Not just paintings. A lot of other—well, ‘matters.’ Things just aren’t always what they seem to be. You have to learn to look below the surface.”

And so they sat, and talked.

They talked of the money, and how it would add up if put in a separate account.

They talked of selling ten paintings; and how that would produce three thousand five hundred dollars—and with that they renewed their earlier talk concerning THE GREAT TRIP!

THE TRIP TO AUSTRIA!

IT COULD BE DONE!

AND, BY GOD, IT WOULD BE DONE!

And, after a time, the tide had come in. It was almost washing around the support posts now.