The Moon and More (42 page)

“Thanks for your help,” I replied.

“Anytime.”

Across the room, there was another thump as a painting hit the ceiling. “Whoa,” Esther said, as Benji walked away. “This place is nuts.”

I looked at my watch again: almost four. “Yeah,” I said to Esther, gesturing for her to follow me. “Come on. I’ll catch you up.”

Twenty minutes later, with Esther briefed and acquainting herself with Ivy’s equipment, I rejoined Daisy, who was putting the finishing touches on the flowers. “So,” she said, adjusting a rosebud that was sagging slightly. “What are you wearing for this gala?”

“Wearing?” I looked down. “Oh, right. I do need to change at some point.”

“Emaline.” She sighed. “
Please
tell me you have something cute and stylish already picked out.”

“I’m a little busy,” I said, gesturing around me. “I’m just going to run home and grab something. If I don’t have to just wear this.”

She gasped. “No. No way. Give me your keys, right now.”

“Why?”

Instead of replying she held out her hand. Then she wiggled her fingers, insistent. I handed them over. “Back in fifteen,” she called out over her shoulder. “Be ready to be fabulous.”

“Nothing too crazy!” I hollered after her, but she ignored me. Of course.

Ivy, now dressed in a simple navy sleeveless shift, appeared next to me, already jumpy. “What’s too crazy? What happened?”

“Nothing,” I told her. “You look nice.”

“I didn’t smoke,” she said. “If that’s what you’re asking.”

“It was not,” I replied. “But I’m glad. Esther’s here. Let me introduce you.”

“Who’s Esther?”

“The film student,” I reminded her. “She’s been briefed and says she’s worked with equipment like this before.”

“Oh my God,” she groaned, but she did follow me. “Tell me this is not going to be a total disaster.”

“It’s going to be great,” I said. “Trust me.”

At that moment, honestly, I was not entirely convinced. At four thirty, when there was still a painting not hung and the puddle in the kitchen was encroaching on the bar area, I was sure of it. By the time Daisy dragged me into the restroom to change at four fifty, I was saying some Hail Marys of my own.

“I know you’re fashion-forward,” I told her, as she hung up the garment bag she was carrying, “but I really don’t want to look like a robot tonight.”

“I would not dress you like a robot for an art opening,” she replied, offended. “At least, not this kind of art. Hurry up, you’ve got, like, four minutes.”

I squirmed out of my clothes, kicking off my flip-flops as she unzipped the bag. “I totally planned to go home and shower and do my hair, I swear. But the time got away from me, and then there was traffic—”

“Which is why,” she said, “you need a dress that stops it. Luckily, I had one.”

As I turned I was apprehensive, half convinced that I would turn to see the pink candy number for the Beach Bash. Instead, I was surprised to see her holding a short and sleeveless ocean-blue dress, clearly vintage, with a full skirt. The color was bright but not loud; instead it looked cool, almost iridescent, like water itself. You sort of wanted to dive right into it.

“Daisy,” I said, stepping closer and touching the bodice. “This is gorgeous. But do you think it might be too, you know … attention getting?”

“You’re the one who always says you’re tired of being a background player,” she reminded me, turning it around and gesturing for me to step into it. I did, and she zipped up the back. “You want to be a star, you have to dress like one.”

She turned me around again, stepping aside so I could see myself in the long mirror opposite the open stall. I wouldn’t say I looked like a star, but I wasn’t blending in with the scenery either. Plus, that color: I couldn’t take my eyes off of it. She gathered my hair in her hands and twisted it up, securing it
with a couple of bobby pins she pulled from her pocket. “So? What do you think?”

“It’s perfect,” I told her.

“I know,” she replied, confidently. “Although I really wanted to do this metallic A-line thing I’ve been working on. But I resisted. When it comes to shoes, though, I will take no argument. You’re wearing these.”

She turned around to the garment bag, unzipped a side pocket, and pulled out a pair of silver strappy sandals. Now these were Daisy. I raised my eyebrows. “Really?”

“Emaline. Being a star also requires risk-taking shoes. It’s Fashion 101. Put them on.”

I did. To my luck or detriment, we’d always worn the same size in just about everything. Looking down, I had to admit they kind of worked. As far as I knew. “I have never worn silver anything before in my life.”

“You can thank me later,” she said, grabbing the bag and zipping it up. “You better run. It’s five o’clock.”

“It is?” I looked at my watch. “Crap. Let’s go.”

I literally did run down the hallway to the main room, hoping for only two things: that the paintings were all hung and, if not, that no one had yet arrived. It was my lucky day. I got both. And then, as a bonus, something else.

“Doing the lights,” Morris called out. I looked over just in time to see him turn down the large, fluorescent ones overhead and plug in the cord connecting the smaller spots we’d been setting up all day. In an instant, the room went from bright and vast to small and intimate, each painting
illuminated and defined. This was how I’d seen the Pavilion before. Such a difference, and for once, one I was more than happy to take full credit for.

“There are already people out front,” Morris reported as Robin walked past me, tying on her apron. “Want me to open the door?”

I looked at Ivy, who was standing by the cameras, a nervous expression on her face. It was weird to see her so jumpy, but at the same time kind of nice. A reminder that not everyone is what they seem right at first glance. You needed those, now and then.

“Sure,” I told him, giving Ivy a reassuring nod. “Let them in.”

An hour later, the place was packed, we were already out of meatballs (“Everyone loves them,” Robin said, sighing, before sending out more stuffed mushrooms), and, judging by the clumps of people in front of each painting, it appeared that Theo’s concerns about traffic flow were not valid after all. For this reason, if nothing else, I was happy. Or as happy as I could be with two more hours to go.

“These fish things are good,” Amber said to me, as we stood to the side of the bar, which I’d discerned had the best view of the entire room. Currently, I was watching Ivy as she took a lap around the room with Clyde, Esther following them with the camera. Theo, looking disgruntled, was sticking close to Clyde’s elbow. The only time I’d seen him brighten, in fact, was when we’d been going over the night’s schedule and
Clyde mentioned he wanted to “make a few remarks about upcoming events” at some point during the evening. Best Hiring Moment Ever, I could almost hear Theo thinking. Public and showy; pomp at its best.

“They’re shrimp puffs,” I told Amber now.

“Whatever. I’ve had, like, seven.”

She popped another one in her mouth as my mom, hair still damp from her own rushed preparations, joined us. “Your dad is drinking a glass of white wine,” she reported. “I feel like we should get documentation, as it will never happen again.”

“Why isn’t he having a beer?” I asked.

She shrugged, taking a sip off her own glass. “This didn’t seem like a beer event. And they were walking past with them.”

I scanned the room again. Sure enough, over by a painting featuring broad, horizontal stripes of varying shades of gray was my dad, in a dress shirt—i.e., one that buttoned up, and was tucked in—holding, but not drinking, a glass of wine.

“I’ll be back,” I told my mom and Amber, then cut behind the bar, reaching into the cooler for a longneck. “Doing okay?” I asked Morris, who was serving drinks, as Robin’s bartender had never showed up.

“Yup,” he replied, perennially calm, even with a huge crowd of people pressed in around him. “Did Clyde find you?”

“When?”

“A couple of minutes ago. He said he needed to ask you about something.”

I looked across the room again, finding Clyde in front of the reedy painting Theo had been cataloging when we’d
argued. He was gesturing at it, talking to Ivy, while Esther filmed. “I’ll go ask him. Thanks.”

“No prob,” he replied, turning to his next customer. “Red wine? Okay, coming up.”

I headed towards Clyde, uncapping the longneck in my hand on the way. En route, I stopped by my dad, who was now deep into a conversation with Roger from Finz about the slowness of the Colby building inspector. Without comment, I eased the white wine from his hand, replaced it with the beer, then patted his shoulder. He looked at it, then at me. “Oh, hey. Thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” I said. Ditching the wine on a tray, I picked my way through the crowd, hearing snippets of conversation and laughter. The room was a bit warm, but not hot, and my sandals were already rubbing a blister. I was not complaining.

“—one of the first pieces I did when I returned here,” Clyde was saying as I got within earshot. “I wasn’t really thinking of this as a series since I was basically in the midst of a nervous breakdown. I was literally painting from my bed, because I couldn’t get out of it. But in retrospect, it was key to this wider collection.”

“So different from your previous work, to be sure,” Ivy said, studying the painting as Esther moved around her. “Natural versus industrial, at the very least.”

Clyde nodded. “I wasn’t thinking that much, to be honest. Just recapturing something pure when I felt anything but.”

“Which is why,” Theo interjected, “it’s so meaningful that
he picked this particular kind of plant to do in detail. It’s not unintentional.”

Clyde looked at him, then the painting. “What isn’t?”

“That you chose
Verbus intriculatus
,” Theo told him, taking a sip of his own drink. Red wine, naturally. To Ivy, he explained, “It’s a plant native solely to this area. A sort of winter wheat, raised not for feed but for cover when the soil is overused and undernourished. It basically heals the ground.”

We all looked at the painting again. I was trying to make out Clyde’s expression, but honestly couldn’t. There were quite a few people gathered around now, although whether because of the camera or the art history lesson was hard to say.

“So on a basic level,” Theo continued, “it’s a plant that coaxes something almost dead back to life. Which echoes what Clyde was saying earlier about his mind-set, the sense of exhaustion and sadness. And that it’s captured in such close, painstaking detail … it conveys both a sense of defeat and perverse hope.”

“Interesting,” I heard someone murmur behind me.

“Defeat and hope,” someone else agreed. “I wouldn’t have ever gotten that.”

I looked at Clyde again. This time, there was no question what he was feeling, and it wasn’t defeat or hope. He looked pissed. I glanced at Ivy, who met my eyes for a second, then flicked her gaze to Esther, making sure she was filming.

“That’s a lot to get from a plant,” Clyde said to Theo. “Don’t you think?”

“Not necessarily,” Theo replied, confident as always. “You
do like to weave symbolism into your work. It’s just a matter of cracking the code.”

Clyde’s eyes widened.
Uh-oh
, I thought. Then I felt the tap on my shoulder. I turned around to see Morris, his face flushed. Immediately, I glanced over at the bar, still crowded with people.

“Amber and your mom took over,” he told me, before I could even ask. Man, things
had
changed. “Have you seen Benji?”

“Benji?” I asked. “He left at four, with my father.”

“He was supposed to,” he told me. “He never showed up at the car.”

“He’s gone?”

“I don’t know,” he replied. “He’s just not with your father, who can’t find him anywhere.”

“Oh my God,” I said, looking around. “He’s got to be here someplace. You know he wanted to stay.”

“Your mom and Amber looked already. Your dad’s searching now. Me and Daisy are heading outside right now to check the boardwalk.”

“Okay,” I said, trying to think. “Where’s my father?”

“Driving around, I think. But—”

We were interrupted, suddenly, by Clyde’s voice. “Hey! Morris!”

Everyone was looking at us. Whoops. “Sorry for the disturbance,” Morris said. “We just—”

“Can you answer a question for me?” Clyde asked him. “It’ll only take a second.”

Morris looked at me, and I shrugged. “Sure,” he said.

Clyde stepped closer to the painting, pointing to one of the plants. “What is this?”

I saw Ivy look at Theo, who just took another sip of his wine.

“Beach grass,” Morris replied.

“Where is it found, exactly?”

Morris looked at him like he was crazy. “Everywhere. You know that. You’re always complaining there’s so much of it outside your bedroom you can’t even see the water.”

I was pretty sure I heard Ivy snort.

Clyde smiled. “Exactly.”

“Can I go now?” Morris asked. “I have something I have to do.”

“Me too,” I said. “Excuse us.”

He turned, starting for the door, and I followed, taking in the crowd as I went. I was almost outside when I spotted Margo, eating a canapé by one of the gray paintings, and made a beeline for her.

“I need your help,” I told her. “Benji’s run off and my father can’t find him.”

“What?” She put her plate down on nearby table. “How long has he been missing?”

“An hour? Two? I have to go help look for him.”

“Of course. I’ve got my car right outside, I can—”

“No,” I told her. “I need you here.”

“Here?”

I glanced around the room again, then at my watch.
“Things are running pretty smoothly right now, but we’re low on food and Clyde still has to make a speech. He wants to do that in about ten minutes.”

“Ten minutes,” she repeated.

“Take this,” I said, pushing my legal pad at her. “It’s got the entire schedule on it. Check in with Ivy and tell her you’re me until further notice. She will probably yell at you, but I know you can handle it.”

“I …” She paused, then smiled. “Okay. Thank you, Emaline.”