Jennifer Crusie - Faking It

That was the key to the last painting, Tilda realized, in the middle of a leaf stroke. Scarlet had stopped because Andrew loved Eve and she couldn’t paint joy anymore. She’d stopped because she couldn’t love Andrew; maybe it was time to start because she loved Davy. Maybe it was time because she believed in the future again. Because Davy was coming back.

She looked at the jungle drawn on her walls.

And because she’d been born to paint like this.

She brought the last Scarlet into the light, and this time she saw exactly how to finish it, two dark-haired lovers with the moon behind them, reaching for each other, forever.

It was going to be the story of her life.

GWEN HAD dialed 911 and then run out to the parking lot. It really was Thomas the Caterer, stretched out behind the Dumpster, looking pale as death with blood on his head.

“Are you sure he’s dead?” Gwen said to Nadine. “Never mind. We’ll wait and we won’t touch the body and…” She stopped. “I have to go upstairs. Turn your back on him or something and don’t touch anything.”

“We’re not idiots,” Nadine said, still shaking.

“Just don’t look at him,” Gwen said and ran back inside and up to the second floor.

“Funniest thing,” she said, her voice trembling, when Ford answered his door. “Nadine just went to take out the trash and there was a body behind the Dumpster.”

“Anybody we know?” Ford said.

“That’s it?” Gwen said, her heart sinking. “You don’t sound surprised.”

“I’m surprised,” Ford said. “Anybody we know?”

“Thomas the Caterer,” Gwen said. “Except he wasn’t a caterer. He was with the FBI.”

That got him, she saw with satisfaction. It was only for a minute, a flicker in his eyes, but it was there.

“He catered for the FBI?” Ford said, deadpan.

“Oh, funny,” Gwen said. “The police are on their way. You might want to do better than mat.”

“You’re a little hostile today,” Ford said.

“Yeah. Finding a dead caterer behind my Dumpster will pretty much do that for me.” She folded her arms across her chest, took a deep breath, and said, “You don’t, by any chance, know how he got there, do you?”

“Haven’t a clue,” Ford said. “How’d he die?”

“There was a dent in his head,” Gwen said. “I’m guessing that was it.”

“Pretty much rules out natural causes and suicide, then.”

Gwen set her jaw. “Did you kill him?”

Ford looked at her, disappointment plain on his face. “You think that little of me?”

Gwen was taken aback. “Well-”

“Hell, Gwen, if I’d killed him, he wouldn’t be behind your Dumpster,” Ford said. “I’m not stupid”

“Oh,” Gwen said, appalled and relieved at the same time. “No, you’re not.”

“You could give me a little credit,” Ford said.

“Right.” Gwen took a step back. “I’m sorry.”

“Anyway, the only guy I want to kill is Mason,” Ford said. “He still walking around?”

“I think so,” Gwen said, not sure what to do with that.

“Too bad,” Ford said, stepping back. “Send up the cops when they get here.”

He closed the door before she could say anything.

“You know,” she yelled through the door, “I’m not feeling better about this.”

After a moment, when he hadn’t answered, she drew a deep breath and went downstairs to meet the police.

TILDA FOUND out about Thomas when the police found her in the attic. She went downstairs to Gwennie and said, “What the hell?”

“It’s not as bad as we thought,” Gwen said brightly over her vodka and pineapple-orange. “He’s not actually dead.”

“You thought he was dead and you didn’t come get me?” Tilda poured herself a drink and tried to be upset. Poor Thomas. The man was practically a piñata.

I want to paint , she thought.

“He looked so awful,” Gwen said. “Of course, he’d been lying behind the Dumpster for twenty-four hours. The police think he was talking to somebody out there and the other person just bashed him with a rock. Unpremeditated.”

“Oh.” Tilda nodded. “So how’s Ford?”

“He says he wouldn’t have left a body behind my Dumpster,” Gwen said. “And I really think if he tried to kill somebody, they’d die. I mean, he’s efficient.”

“Right,” Tilda said. “So who do they think did it?”

“Well, there’s us,” Gwen said. “And everybody at the gallery. They’d like to talk to Davy and Michael since they took off like that.”

“Davy,” Tilda said.

“I think they called the police in Temptation,” Gwen said.

“Oh,” Tilda said. “Maybe that’ll bring Davy back.”

“That’s good,” Gwen said “Concentrate on the important stuff.”

“I have to go paint,” Tilda said, and went back upstairs to the jungle in her studio.

TILDA FINISHED the last Scarlet as the moon rose overhead in her skylights. When it was done, she looked at it, feeling tired and peaceful and finished, the end of one chapter and the start of a new one. Then she looked around at the charcoal lines on her walls, while Steve lay in the middle of her bed, exhausted from watching her. “We should keep painting, Steve,” she said to him. “We’re on a roll.”

She turned the stereo on and painted to Dusty Springfield singing “I’d Rather Leave While I’m in Love” and Brenda Holloway doing “Every Little Bit Hurts.” She remembered Davy saying she needed music from this century and switched to the Dixie Chicks, mattress-dancing while she applied gold leaf to her headboard, and ended up at four in the morning painting huge, happy, non-insane sunflowers over her bed as Pippy Shannon sang, “I Pretend.”

“Our song,” Tilda told Steve, tired enough to be able to laugh, until Pippy sang, “Who am I foolin‘? I’m foolin’ myself.”

“Really my song,” she told him. “I should pay more attention to what these women are saying.”

She stepped back to look at the sunflowers, and they made her think of Clarissa, waving her Sharpie, saying, “Sign it bigger.”

“Steve,” she said, and Steve picked up his head from the bed and looked at her blearily. “It’s very important to sign your work.”

She put down the broad brush she’d used to lay in the leaves and picked up a number 1 paintbrush instead. She hunted out a tube of cadmium red from her paint box, squirted out a dime-sized drop, dipped the brush into the paint, and took a deep breath. Then, with a trembling hand, she signed the first painting again, writing “Matilda” above the “Scarlet” and “Goodnight” under it.

“Matilda Scarlet Goodnight,” she read out loud. “Her work.”

She dipped the brush into the paint again and moved to the cows. Her hand was steadier this time, her strokes surer. “Matilda Scarlet Goodnight,” she read, conviction in her voice this time. “ Her work.” She kept on until she signed the lovers, and then she sat back and looked at what she’d done.

She felt wonderful.

“These are my paintings ,” she said to Steve. “Nobody’s ever going to take that away from me again.”

Except for Clea, she remembered bleakly. Well, she’d think about that tomorrow.

Then she put her brushes in water and climbed into bed with Steve and fell into a dreamless sleep.

WHEN TILDA woke up at nine the next morning, she packed up the paintings, put Andrew’s “Bitch” cap on for good luck, and dropped Steve off with Eve and Gwennie, telling them where she was going.

“You shouldn’t do this,” Eve said. “This is wrong.”

“Maybe not,” Tilda said. “Maybe this is right. Maybe I was just supposed to get them back so I could sign them.”