Chapter 25

THE STUDIO WAS SILENT when I arrived. If anyone aside from Franny and Robyn had been there while I spoke with Caroline Scaramuzzi, they were gone now. Setting my knapsack on the coat hook and my jean jacket over that, I felt the deadweight of two sets of wide eyes focused upon me. Breathing deeply I made my way across the paint-stained floor toward Franny’s corner with the same enthusiasm a condemned prisoner might face the electric chair.

“Let’s see it Fran,” I said in the place of a hello.

“Bec,” Robyn said, her face a painted mask of awe and wonder. “I don’t know how—”

“Don’t,” I broke in. “Don’t try and explain it.”

As I came around to face the canvas, Robyn stepped off to the side, as if the corner wasn’t big enough for the three of us.

“Don’t, don’t.” Franny mumbled to himself.

“It’s okay, Franny,” I said, “I think I know what’s happening now.”

Before entering the art center just minutes before, I’d wanted to scream at Franny. What kind of game are you playing? Why are you playing it? I wanted to know if he was the one who walked to my parents’ house, dropped the photograph to the porch floor. I’d wanted to know if he was the one who tried to break into the house. But looking at the newest painting (the third in three days), I could only feel myself breaking down. I felt my limbs tremble, my throat close up on itself. I felt my heart lodge itself inside my sternum.

A tear rolled down my cheek.

“How is it possible to know these things, Fran?”

Painted on the canvas, an oil portrait of two blonde-haired girls, down on their knees at the edge of a stream. They were surrounded by deep woods. To their left was the even deeper forest. To their right, a waterfall bound on both sides by an open cliff face. Beyond that, an open valley that led further into the country. You saw only the backs of the girls, their long blonde hair draped down their narrow backs like silk veils. The girl to the left—Molly—had her hand dipped in the rushing stream water as though about to take a drink. The girl to the right—me—was looking down at the hand, curious but at the same time, afraid to drink. At least, that’s the way it had happened in real life.

That’s the way I remembered it.

I stood back, pressed my spine up against the wall, my eyes glued to the painting. I took a more focused look at the woods, the girls and the stream. Inside the water I made out the faintest of words: ‘Taste’.

I shifted my eyes to Robyn.

She appeared even more shocked now that she could see that I was crying, her normally happy-go-lucky tan face having turned pale, her expression tight-lipped and bug-eyed.

“Is that you and Molly back when you were kids?” she softly posed.

I nodded, swallowed.

She raised her right hand, pointed to the stream in the painting.

“T-a-s-t-e,” she spelled out. “I see the word this time, Bec. I see the word.”

My eyes focused on her.

“Do you have a date tonight?” I whispered.

“Yes,” she said, her eyes still focused on the painting.

“There’re no more classes today,” I said, wiping the tears from my face with the backs of my hands, composing myself. “I’m going to close up shop for the rest of the day. Franny and I need some privacy to talk alone.”

“Alone,” Franny softly spoke in rhythm with his rocking. “Alone.”

Robyn shot me a pensive glance. Then, without a word, she grabbed her jacket and her bag. Silently she walked the length of the studio toward the exit. She turned, looked not at me, but into me.

“Bec, what’s going here? Why is Franny making these paintings for you?”

“I can’t tell you that now. But soon I’ll tell you everything.”

With that worried expression still masking her face, my partner turned and disappeared out the door.

Drying my eyes once more, I swallowed a breath, tried my best to regain my equilibrium and my sanity.

“Franny,” I said. “It’s time you and I talked the truth.”