must tell me everything! How is life on a plantation? And your marriage, are you loving every blissful moment of it? How long can you stay with us? You must have dinner with me—and Nina of course—at the Auberge; I simply insist on it. We’re getting the most delicious oysters! What time did you arrive this morning? Was it a difficult drive down? Did you come via the interstate? The interstate is so fast, and there are so many trucks, huge trucks that run over everything in their path. But on the smaller roads there are the speed traps. It’s never easy to…”
And then Alanna, her eyes darting upward to watch for angels that might have been attracted by her enthusiasm, saw the paintings.
There was silence in the room while she studied them, her head swiveling.
“Oh my God,” she finally whispered.
Nina spoke, but nothing came out.
She felt like the proprietor of a horrible prison camp, upon opening its doors to the victorious army.
“They’re all the same painting!” gasped Alanna.
“Well, actually they’re from my class. We…”
“We have to take them down.”
“Margot and I were just talking about that. I thought…”
“We have to take them down! Margot, I’m so sorry that you had to see this. In your shop.”
Margot nodded, weakly:
“If I could have been warned…”
Alanna embraced her again, and the two women seemed to weep on each other’s breasts for a time.
“None of us knew. None of us knew.”
The embrace lasted an interminable amount of time.
Then finally, the three of them—Nina, Margot, and Alanna––took the two small ladders that the shop possessed, and, much like Roman soldiers standing before the cross, took down what they saw before them.
The process of taking down the identical seascapes, wrapping them carefully, and preparing them for the safe return to the Monets and Pisarros who’d painted them by numbers—and then rehanging the actual paintings that had preceded them on the walls of Elementals—took almost an hour.
That made it lunchtime.
Sergio’s by the Sea.
Where they found themselves seated beside a large plate glass window that would have overlooked the Gulf of Mexico if Sergio’s had actually been located by the sea, but, since this was not the case, actually overlooked the parking lot of a supermarket that happened to be next door.
No matter.
The shrimp cocktail was supreme as usual, and the remoulade sauce went far toward healing Nina’s hurt feelings.
“Nina darling,” said Alanna, sipping some of the cold iced tea that accompanied the shrimp, “I did not intend to imply that your painting, and those of your fellow students, were insipid or uninspired.”
“But that’s what you think, isn’t it?”
Alanna nodded, so that her purple turban came dangerously close to the flame of a candle that burned uselessly in the center of the table.
“Of course, I think that the paintings are insipid and uninspired. What I meant to say was, it was callous of me to imply that. I should simply have said nothing at all. After all, what are true friends for, if not to ignore the peccadillos of other friends.”
“Here, here,” said Margot, taking a twist of lime from her gin and tonic—all right it was early, but it had been a traumatic morning—and laying it carefully on a small dish that the waiter had provided for just such a purpose. “My thoughts exactly.”
“You both,” asked Nina, “think I have peccadillos?”
“Not many peccadillos,” said Alanna, consolingly. “And frequently what in others might have seemed peccadiloish has proven in your case to be good solid instinctual reasoning. Hence the fact that you have basically saved Bay St. Lucy and the rest of the coast twice in the past year or so.”
“Here, here,” said Margot, who apparently had decided to pay a majority of her attention to her gin and a smaller part to the creative responses expected in scintillating conversation.
Nina continued doggedly
And then Alanna, her eyes darting upward to watch for angels that might have been attracted by her enthusiasm, saw the paintings.
There was silence in the room while she studied them, her head swiveling.
“Oh my God,” she finally whispered.
Nina spoke, but nothing came out.
She felt like the proprietor of a horrible prison camp, upon opening its doors to the victorious army.
“They’re all the same painting!” gasped Alanna.
“Well, actually they’re from my class. We…”
“We have to take them down.”
“Margot and I were just talking about that. I thought…”
“We have to take them down! Margot, I’m so sorry that you had to see this. In your shop.”
Margot nodded, weakly:
“If I could have been warned…”
Alanna embraced her again, and the two women seemed to weep on each other’s breasts for a time.
“None of us knew. None of us knew.”
The embrace lasted an interminable amount of time.
Then finally, the three of them—Nina, Margot, and Alanna––took the two small ladders that the shop possessed, and, much like Roman soldiers standing before the cross, took down what they saw before them.
The process of taking down the identical seascapes, wrapping them carefully, and preparing them for the safe return to the Monets and Pisarros who’d painted them by numbers—and then rehanging the actual paintings that had preceded them on the walls of Elementals—took almost an hour.
That made it lunchtime.
Sergio’s by the Sea.
Where they found themselves seated beside a large plate glass window that would have overlooked the Gulf of Mexico if Sergio’s had actually been located by the sea, but, since this was not the case, actually overlooked the parking lot of a supermarket that happened to be next door.
No matter.
The shrimp cocktail was supreme as usual, and the remoulade sauce went far toward healing Nina’s hurt feelings.
“Nina darling,” said Alanna, sipping some of the cold iced tea that accompanied the shrimp, “I did not intend to imply that your painting, and those of your fellow students, were insipid or uninspired.”
“But that’s what you think, isn’t it?”
Alanna nodded, so that her purple turban came dangerously close to the flame of a candle that burned uselessly in the center of the table.
“Of course, I think that the paintings are insipid and uninspired. What I meant to say was, it was callous of me to imply that. I should simply have said nothing at all. After all, what are true friends for, if not to ignore the peccadillos of other friends.”
“Here, here,” said Margot, taking a twist of lime from her gin and tonic—all right it was early, but it had been a traumatic morning—and laying it carefully on a small dish that the waiter had provided for just such a purpose. “My thoughts exactly.”
“You both,” asked Nina, “think I have peccadillos?”
“Not many peccadillos,” said Alanna, consolingly. “And frequently what in others might have seemed peccadiloish has proven in your case to be good solid instinctual reasoning. Hence the fact that you have basically saved Bay St. Lucy and the rest of the coast twice in the past year or so.”
“Here, here,” said Margot, who apparently had decided to pay a majority of her attention to her gin and a smaller part to the creative responses expected in scintillating conversation.
Nina continued doggedly
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