CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

In the Aftermath Comes the Karma

“These are fabulous.” I swear there was a tear in Olivia’s eye. “He broke your heart for your own good. Our readers will love him.”

“That’s what his mother is hoping,” I confessed.

“Mothers.” The one word was full of such meaning that I realized for the first time that the Dragon Lady had probably sprung from a Mama Dragon Lady. The idea was mind boggling.

She was so elated that she rattled off orders with the speed of a machine gun.

“Tina, put Nick on speed dial #1. He’s our go to for the heart breaker shots.”

“Nick, do you have a passport? Can you be in Paris tomorrow?”

“Tandy, you’ll take Nick with you to Paris.”

“Tina, switch the photographer scheduled for Paris to the origami yoga shoot.” She didn’t wait for an answer, just assumed that everyone would hear her and make her wishes happen, like magic.

I tried to catch Nick’s eye, but he was looking at Tandy, who was staring at the photographs with bewilderment. My breath caught in my throat. He wasn’t going to take the Paris job. Was he?

“Did he sell many paintings?” Tandy asked, clearly trying to understand why Olivia was so pleased.

“According to the gallery owner, he sold one.”

“Only one?”

I spoke up in defense. “He’s made arrangements for a couple more of them to be used in some window displays on Fifth Avenue.” Even if Brian didn’t want to be a famous artist, he’d appreciated having his work admired — and requested — by his friends and business contacts.

“Window displays?” Olivia’s opinion of that option was clear. She’d have understood it more if Brian had made arrangements to display his paintings on city dumpsters. That, at least, could be termed ironic.

“Tandy, “ Olivia snapped. “This is a love story, not an art story. I would expect you to get that by now.”

“Of course, I just thought the point of the piece was to show Brian that he should not have broken Diana’s heart and left her at the train station. Shouldn’t one of these photos show him on bended knee, proposing to Diana, with one of his paintings in the background — a nice ‘Sold’ card prominently displayed?”

“That would have been nice.” Olivia flicked through a few of the pictures. “But that’s not the story is it?” She looked thoughtful. “Of course, Diana. You could pretend there was a spark for a few weeks. It would put our ratings into the stratosphere.”

I pointed to the photos. “Hey, Nick’s work doesn’t lie. Brian and I are friends again. But that’s it. He’s a man in love with his community, his family, and his antique shop.”

Tina stood up. “That reminds me.” She put a receipt on Olivia’s desk. “Sign this.”

Olivia signed. “What is it?”

“The authorization for the two busloads of community members who came in for the showing.”

“You bused all those people in? I thought they came in on their own.” Olivia looked at the photos as if they were suddenly suspect. But as she clicked through, we all saw what she saw. The Little League team posing in front of Brian’s vivid depiction of a night game with two strikes on the batter and the bases loaded. Brian’s mother blushing in front of his somewhat Picasso like rendition of a nude in vivid strokes of cobalt blue, red, and green. There was honesty in every one. They all loved Brian, for Brian, not for his paintings.

It was a very uncitylike sentiment.

Tina shook her head. “Oh no. They were going to come in on their own. But I was afraid with so many suburban people taking trains, and buses, and driving in…” She shrugged. “His mom and I just decided it would be safer for everyone if we arranged a tour bus or two. She was going to pay for it. But I told her we’d cover it.”

Olivia shuddered. “Wise of you. I can’t imagine this woman,” she pointed to a Little League mom with a team cap and a backpack, “being able to handle double parking with any grace at all.”

Now that, that was a very citylike sentiment.

I glanced at where Nick had been sitting. He was gone.

<<>>

After two glasses of wine and an entire Milky Way bar, I went to Nick’s apartment to give him the page. There may even have been a few tears shed before I knelt down and slipped it under his door. A deal was a deal.

Would he ever trust me with his key again? Was this page of mine the same kind of relationship ender as turning down a proposal had been? It didn’t feel as final. Pages could be revised, burned, forgotten. Well, maybe not forgotten.

I stood there in the stillness of the night, listening. Would he open the door? Would I hear the creak of his footsteps? The swish of paper? Nothing. Had he already left for the assignment in Paris with Tandy?

I went back to my lonely apartment and stared at our shared wall. Who knew how hard it was to make a wall come tumbling down when there was only one person trying. No wonder my mom had given up on my dad. No wonder she’d been so quietly, seethingly, angry with him.

Would Nick burn the page without reading it? Read it and hate me forever? Or worse. Would I cease to matter to him. Be less than the lint on the rug of his life?

Whatever he did, I’d have to make my peace with it. He’d done exactly as I’d asked. He’d broken my heart. Smashed it to smithereens with those pictures that told me what I most did not want to know. If I hadn’t believed Brian when he told me himself, the pictures made the point utterly clear. Brian had been right to stay, just as I’d been right to go. He’d listened to his gut, even thought it meant he’d had to break my heart in the short term.

And now I was about to break Nick’s heart with words I’d written long ago, words I’d never have spoken aloud to him in a million years. All because — I sat up and stared at the common wall. Brian had chosen to let me go rather than hold me back. Nick had chosen to show me the truth because it would help me move on past my hurt at Brian’s betrayal-that-wasn’t-a-betrayal.

I was showing Nick the page because he’d asked to see it and…. I was such an idiot.

I got a wire hanger from the closet and made a hook. I walked as quietly as I could down the hall to Nick’s door and put my face against the floor. I thought I saw a flash of the white paper under the door. Good.

I tried to fish the page back, my nose pressed against the bottom of his door, my fingers trying to force the wire hanger hook into as wide a sweep of the floor inside Nick’s apartment as I could.

The door opened. I looked up. Nick stood there, the page in one hand, his suitcase in the other. “Just what is it you think you’re doing?”

“Looking for my key.”

He reached down and took my hand to help me up. “Idiot.”

“I know. I want the paper back. It doesn’t matter. It’s just a piece of paper with some silly words. Don’t read it. Don’t—”

He stepped out into the hallway and closed his door. “Too late.”

“I’m sorry.”

He leaned against his door. “You rated me unreliable. You said I’d never be able to provide for a family. You said I was unrealistic in my belief I could have a successful life with cobbled together odd jobs.” There was muted outrage in his tone.

“I said you had potential to change. That you were mega-talented.”

“Like Brian.” He sighed. “How many times have you thought about seeing if you could get my photos into a showing?”

That was not a question I wanted to answer, so I tried evasion. “What makes you think I have?”

“Diana.” His tone reminded me that he’d seen me with every one of my exes. There was nowhere for the truth to hide. “How many?”

“Countless,” I admitted. “But I’ve never done it.”

“What stopped you?”

“My gut. It said you didn’t want that.”

“Do you know why I didn’t want it?”

“No.” I reached out for him. “But I don’t need to know why to know that you know why. Like how I knew not to say yes to Clay, or Henry, or Alejandro.”

“I noticed the little note you underlined three times on my page. “Would ruin The Plan. JF. Just friends.”

“I’m sorry, I—”

He shrugged. “Hey. I’m honest with a camera, you’re honest with a pen.”

His expression was unreadable. I wanted to ask him to forgive me. To forget what I’d written. I looked at his suitcase. “Are you going to Paris? You don’t have to. You won our bet. Remember? You break my heart and I’ll break yours? That means you don’t have to take a job if you don’t want to.”

“I want to go to Paris.” There wasn’t a crack in his expression to help me interpret his words. “Paris is fun.”

Fun. I was going to cry. I didn’t want him to see me cry. “Have fun in Paris.” I turned around and ran back to my own apartment. It was only seven o’clock in the evening, but I went to bed. Curled up in the dark I could pretend that Nick would forgive me. That things would be normal between us when he got back from Paris. We would laugh about things. After all, it had only taken me a dozen years and a faceplant of a gallery showing to forgive Brian.

<<>>

Turns out the white noise machine doesn’t disguise the sound of a car accident on the street below, or the sound of someone opening my apartment door at midnight. Or footsteps cautiously moving around my apartment, either.

I slowly reached for the bat I kept by the bed, prepared to use it if needed. The landlord hadn’t sent me any repair notices, Emily was happy in suburban land with Phil. My mom had a key, but she had a policy of calling before she came by. And Nick was on his way to Paris.

I keyed in 9-1-1 on the phone, but didn’t press send, just in case my mother had decided she needed to see me. “I’ve called 9-1-1 and they’re on their way,” I lied, as convincingly as I could.

“Diana?”

Nick.

I turned on the light, brandishing the bat. “You better have a good reason for sneaking up on me.”

I just needed to give you something before I left.”

His key? Was he going to give me his key back. That would mean everything was forgiven.

I looked for a key, but saw only a battered cherrywood jewelry box under his arm.

“Jewelry? You needed to give me jewelry?”

He held out the box. “Remember when you told me that true love was silly but true friendship could survive someone knowing the worst thing ever about you?”

“Yes.”

“I saw your Nick page. Only fair you see my Diana box.”

“What?” I took the box, sat it on the bed, lifted the clasp and flipped back the lid, to see — junk.

“What, exactly, is your Diana box?” I sorted through the box, picking things up and putting them back down in the jumble of ticket stubs and broken glass, and twisted bits of metal. There was even the random photograph or two.

He watched me pick through, and said. “Sometimes you just have to see that one beautiful little angle, or glow, or curve. That thing that makes something special. I wanted to make you something with it all. Something that shows the Diana I see to everyone who looks at it.”

I thought about asking how a bolt with a crimp in it represented me, but art is 1% intention and 99% interpretation. So I didn’t. And then I saw something I did recognize. His key.

I lifted it up out of the rest of the bits and pieces that represented Nick’s view of me. “You forgive me?”

He didn′t answer.

I winced, thinking about how much honesty can hurt. “Are you going to Paris because of what I wrote? Because you’re mad at me? Or because you want to go?”

“I like Paris. I need the money.” He sat down on the bed next to me. “This isn’t some symbol of me seeing the light. Don’t get me wrong. A steady job changes you. Look how you try so hard to please Olivia.”

“I didn’t fall in love with Brian for her.”

He laughed and took hold of my hand. “Okay, so it is possible to work and not let your soul get completely corrupted. I’ve always known that. I’ve always been willing to work for what I want.”

I pulled him toward me, but he resisted. “What if I don’t mind eating in soup kitchens a few times a month? What if I like being able to work when I want and walk around the city taking photographs the rest of the time? How can that fit into The Plan?”

I held tight to his key, feeling the hard edge against my palm. “Maybe The Plan is like your Diana box. Bits and pieces that fit together. Some you have to discard.” I tossed the torn triangle of fine sandpaper onto the floor. “And some you need to polish.” I pointed to the rusty crimped bolt. “And then you have a work of art.”

He closed his eyes. “You do have a way with words. Almost as clear as a photograph.”

The weirdness hadn’t quite disappeared yet. I didn’t want him to go. I wanted to chase away the last little bit of awkwardness. “Do you really have to go to Paris?”

“There’s a painting I need to pay for.”

“A painting?” I felt the punch in my gut. “What painting? Was it one of Brian’s paintings?”

He nodded. “That vibrant Picasso-esque nude. There was something so familiar about it.”

I took his hand. “Don’t go to Paris. I’ll talk Brian into letting you have it for free.”

He grinned. “I have a better idea. Come to Paris with me.”

Olivia would fire me. Maybe. “Tandy will think I’m trying to steal her piece.”

“Definitely.” He nodded in agreement. “It will be fun.”

Fun. How could I say no?