Page 55 of Scarlett and the Big Bad Billionaire
I thought it was much ado about nothing. I mean, yes, it was good, but it was just street art, after all.
One afternoon later that week, it was windy and overcast and a little too cool to sit out on the loggia, so Vivi and I went back to the sitting room to work on her puzzle some more. She turned on Action News 3’s early newscast.
The news anchors were talking about, what else, the Inksy mural. It had been authenticated as genuine. They tossed to a reporter for another live report.
This time the young woman was surrounded by a crowd pushing at the ropes that cordoned off the wall.
She interviewed several people, including art students and some collectors who were practically frothing at the mouth in their enthusiasm about the mural and what a rare and special opportunity it was to see the artist’s work with their own eyes.
“Apparently this Inksy guy—or woman—is a really big deal,” I said to Vivi.
She beamed. “He is. I read in today’s paper that collectors from around the world are competing to have the wall removed and shipped to them overseas. They’re willing to pay tens of millions for it.”
“Wow. That’s so crazy. Where’s the article?”
“Over on the table next to the tea service. I saved it for you.”
“Thanks.” I got up and retrieved the newspaper. A small photo of the mural was featured on the front page with the promise of more photos and an article in the Arts section. I turned to it and gasped.
There was a large, color photo of the full mural along with several others highlighting its individual sections. I recognized the Salvador Dali simulation and the cityscape from the TV report I’d seen, but there were two more sections I hadn’t seen before.
One featured soldiers returning from war to an unfriendly reception. Its mood, naturally, was dark and mournful.
The other segment had a completely different feel. It was brighter and filled with vibrant color. There was the turquoise of the ocean, azure skies, pink sand like the beach I’d marveled over in Crete, and creamy white bedsheets.
In the center of the bed was a woman. A very curvy, sexy woman. She was mostly in shadow, but it was pretty obvious what was going on.
She was tempting someone to join her in bed.
Suddenly I was blazing hot as a spark of recognition set my brain and body on fire. The woman… did she look like… no.
“Vivi, did you look at these pictures?” I took the paper to her and lay it atop the puzzle.
“I did. They’re quite something, aren’t they?” she responded.
“Did anything about them look familiar to you?” I asked.
“Well, I recognized the State House of course and the Superman building downtown. And there’s Waterfire lighting up the rivers.”
“What about the woman in this section?” I tapped a finger on the mural featuring the sea and sky and the sexy silhouette. “Does she look familiar to you at all?”
Vivi leaned forward, studying the newspaper photo. “I can’t say that she does. She’s quite a saucy siren, isn’t she?”
For some reason, I felt embarrassed, like I’d been spotted in public in my underwear. “I guess so. I wonder who she is?”
She chortled. “Inksy’s dream girl—that’s who she is. Maybe if those reporters figure outheridentity, they’ll finally figure out who he is.”
I squinted at the photo a little longer. The grainy nature of the newsprint made it impossible to make out small details. I wanted to see the mural in person.
Reading the article that accompanied the photos, I learned the journalist had spent some time mapping out Inksy’s street art pieces across the United States and trying to match them to known sightings of various artists with similar styles.
None of them seemed to be exact matches.
The street art had popped up in various locations, mostly along the coasts, but there’d been a concentration of them along the East Coast. With this information in hand, the reporter speculated Inksy might actually be a New England resident or own a vacation home here.
There were several quotes attributed to RISD art students, Brown students, and Providence residents, all of them excited at the idea that Inksy might have walked by them on the street at some point.
“It’s like he’s a rock star or something,” I mused aloud.
