Monterey Bay Read Free Page B

cans.”
    â€œI don’t know anything about that.”
    â€œA rift between you, then. Was it ugly?”
    Too much talking, too many questions. He was her captor, she wanted to remind him, not her confidant.
    â€œAnd does he see the value in your art?” he continued, undeterred. “Beyond the commercial, that is?”
    â€œExcuse me?”
    â€œThe sketchbook. In the satchel. It fell out when you took your tumble, but I was too much of a gentleman to open it without asking permission first.”
    â€œI don’t think—”
    â€œIf you’re too shy, I understand completely.” He gestured at his walls. “As you can see, I have some dreadfully high standards.”
    She retrieved the satchel from the bedside table, withdrew the sketchbook, and tossed it to him.
    â€œMine are higher.”
    â€œThat’s more like it!” he crowed.
    And when he opened the book, she was surprised at her nervousness.
He’s no one
, she told herself.
He
likes Renoir.
But her pulse disagreed, her heart hammering as he thumbed the pages with the same intense, almost hyperactive concentration he had lavished on the typewritten manuscript, lingering on each image for several seconds longer than seemed necessary. Many of the earliest sketches didn’t warrant the scrutiny: a fly-haloed bowl of
pancit
, the head and torso of an emaciated water buffalo, the bloodied corpse of a fighting cock. Then there were a handful of which she was actually proud: a shiny-skinned
lechón
spinning on its milk-doused spit, trash fires burning in the alleyways, their well-contained heaps dotting the city with distant flares of orange heat. Her best work, however, took the form of two recent portraits, both of which had been completed on her last day in the Philippines. There was her father standing alone within the loamy wasteland of what should have been his tobacco fields. Then, on the very next page, there was one of Luzon’s millions of rural poor, a girl no older than herself, a newborn twin baby at each nipple, breasts swollen to the point of hard, shiny pain, the look on the young mother’s face that of suffering and startled ecstasy.
    She glanced up from the sketchbook. He was frowning at theimage, just as he had frowned at her in the seconds before her accident.
    â€œI’m sorry if it’s beneath your expectations,” she muttered.
    â€œQuite the contrary. It vastly exceeds them.”
    She didn’t know what to say.
    â€œAfter Sargent?” he asked.
    â€œThat was the idea. Yes.”
    â€œCan I have it?”
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    â€œFor my collection.”
    She looked at the wall. “I don’t think there’s room.”
    â€œThen we’ll send one packing. Your choice.”
    â€œOne of the Renoirs.”
    â€œWhich one?”
    She pointed.
    â€œI thought you’d say that.”
    Smiling, he tore the page carefully from her sketchbook and stood. He unpinned the Renoir from the wall, shoved it in his pocket, and secured the nursing mother in its place, after which he didn’t return to the crate. Instead, he sat alongside her on the bed, his hands behind his head, his legs just inches from hers. He was admiring the sketch as proudly as if he had drawn it himself.
    â€œThe Philippines?” he asked.
    â€œYes.”
    â€œHmmm. A fellow from the bureau of fisheries was here afew months ago, direct from Manila. The way he talked about it made me want to do something irresponsible. Close up the lab. Scare up the steamship fare. Go over there for a while to collect.”
    She nodded, lips between her teeth.
    â€œDid you ever see one of those horse fights?” he asked, eyes sparkling. “Rumor has it they’re downright ghastly.”
    â€œNo.” She thought he would accuse her of lying again, but he didn’t.
    â€œWell, I’m sure you—”
    â€œDoc!
Doc!
” Arthur’s voice, coming