Page 96 of Script Swap
“Okay,” he said, laughing.“I’ll think about it.”
“—your macho pride, your swollen masculinity—er, no, that sounds like a romance novel—oh!Toxic masculinity—”
He kissed me, and I forgot what I was going to say.
Come to think of it, maybe that was the whole point.
Chapter 23
One day turned into two.Two days turned into three.
Bobby spent those days busy helping build the cases against Nora, Betty, and Tinny.At night, he told me what he could.The fingerprint from forty years ago had turned out to match Nora’s, but forty years was a long time.Jonni had told her own version of events from back then—it turned out that she had known quite a bit more about what was going on between her husband and Nora than she had let on.But what sealed the deal was Betty’s confession.
“She knew,” Bobby said as he unbuttoned his shirt.“Nothing happened in that theater that Betty wasn’t aware of.Nora thought she’d managed to hide Ray’s body in that unfinished space above the dressing room, but Betty knew.She broke down today and told the sheriff everything.She’d been keeping it a secret all these years because she did love Nora.I don’t even think she thought they’d ever see each other again.She loved her, and she thought there was an explanation—that Ray had tried to hurt Nora, and it had been self-defense.And so she kept it a secret.”
“What about Kyson?”I asked.
“That’s going to be harder,” Bobby said.“But we’re doing what we can.Piece by piece.”
“Sounds like something a detective would say.”
Sometimes, Bobby gets this grin like he’s ten years old and wants to pull my hair.
Let’s say this: we didn’t talk about police work anymore that night, although at one point, I did ask Bobby if he would wear his hat.
In the lull of those few days, my life wasn’t exactly quiet.Keme decided he needed to take every opportunity to remind me that I’d been held at gunpoint by not one buttwogirls, which was apparently hilarious to his testosterone-drenched brain.And Millie was—well, the wordenthusiasticdoesn’t quite cover it—about the possibility that Ray’s ghost was haunting The Foxworthy.She played the full soundtrack fromThe Phantom of the Operauntil Indira hid what she endearingly called “the boombox,” and then we had to watchGhostbusters 1and2.(What a hardship.)
I didn’t see Fox until the show at their gallery.They were busy taking care of things at the theater—which included ending the short-lived run ofBETRAYAL!!!: THE WORM HAS TURNED: THE DANIEL DANK STORY—and helping Terrence, who was moving from critical care to a rehab facility.And although I texted a few times to see if I could help (and to find an opportunity to, you know, thank them for saving my life), Fox either didn’t respond or brushed off my messages.
Which was how I found myself Friday evening riding in the second row of the Pilot, dressed in a green polo and my nicest jeans, and wearing a pair of chukkas I thought I’d lost.(I hadn’t; Keme had stolen them, and when he got tired of them, he gave them back.) Bobby and Indira were in the front—I’d given Indira my honorary boyfriend spot because I was a gentleman.And Millie and Keme were in the back.There was alotof giggling coming from back there, but I didn’t dare turn around; every time I shifted, I could feel Keme’s eyes on the back of my neck like a particularly pointy pair of lasers.
I’d been to Fox’s gallery before, but not often.It was a frame building with unpainted clapboard siding; the weathered gray wood looked distinctly coastal.It had large picture windows, which this evening were full of warm yellow light.Wild roses climbed a split-rail fence near the road, filling the night with their perfume.Above the door, a simple sign announced MERMAID’S TEARS ATELIER, with a cute illustration of a merperson that Fox had done themselves.
A bell jingled as Bobby opened the door, and inside, the sounds of voices, laughter, and the clink of champagne flutes mixed in the air.Jazz played from hidden speakers.The gallery consisted of a large, open room with track lighting and slat-panel walls.I realized now I’d never been here at night before.The lights were carefully arranged to highlight certain pieces without being too bright.Half the town had turned out: Mrs.Shufflebottom, the librarian and my former nemesis, was pink-cheeked from one flute too many of champagne, and she was dabbing her eyes at something a bearded man was saying to her.LaLeesha was stunning with her hair up and in a dress that I could only describe assvelte—she had a good-looking young man with her, one I didn’t recognize, and he was bending over to hear what she said, almost literally hanging on every word.Mr.Cheek, who would never forgive me for stealing his favorite deputy, was wearing an outrageous amount of eyeliner that he was actually kind of pulling off; he’d stationed himself near the hors d’oeuvres—my stomach gave an interested grumble at the possibility of cocktail wienies.
Then I said, “Wait, is he holding a plastic knife?”
“I think that might be a trap,” Bobby said.“Maybe steer clear of the appetizers tonight.”
“But there are cocktail wienies!”
“Actually, nobody cares if you get stabbed,” Keme said, pushing past me as he and Millie moved into the gallery.“Do whatever you want.”
“Okay, I didn’t care for the tone, but I do appreciate that you want to enable me—” I began, but then I said, “Bobby, does that plastic knife look, like, weirdly sharp to you?”
“That’s because it’s called a shiv,” Bobby said and gave me a little push to propel me into the crowd.“Excuse me while I take care of this.”
So, I did what patrons normally do in art galleries—I explored.(Albeit with a little more thrill than the average patron; I mean, how many of them had a jealous rival setting a trap for them near the hors d’oeuvres?)
I’d seen Fox’s work before.Fox had even given me a piece for my birthday.So, I knew that Fox was talented.Maybe beyond talented—maybe something of a genius.But after our conversation the other day, I moved from piece to piece with a fresh eye, considering.A lovely seascape with hints of mica to make the waves sparkle—pretty, and some tourist would buy it.A landscape of the woods outside Hastings Rock, with dramatic rays of sunlight falling between the tree trunks.Another obvious sale waiting to happen.It wasn’t only painting, either.Fox did a lot of work with sea glass, and they had made a variety of pieces that I knew were going to move quickly: a textile piece that I wanted to say was some kind of felt, depicting downtown Hastings Rock in gorgeous detail; a piece of stone carved to resemble a cliff, with sea-glass birds nesting in it; what was either a coaster or maybe a decorative tray with the rock of Hastings Rock done in glazed ceramic.They were all lovely, all exquisitely crafted, all things I was sure Fox had enjoyed making and that had brought them pleasure.But they were also, in the end, trinkets.
The art—what they had made for themselves, even though they knew it wouldn’t sell—was different.
I spent a lot of time in front of a mixed-media piece—cloth and paint and textile—that showed the moon rising next to Hastings Rock.Something about the piece felt unfinished.The moon was too big.The town was crooked.But the longer I looked at it, the longer I wanted to look at it.
And I wasn’t even sure how to describe another of the pieces, a misshapen golden disc that was supposed to be the sun, with thin pieces of metal extending off it like sunbeams.But there were only three sunbeams, and they were different lengths, and it was somehow simultaneously childlike, like something from a kindergartner’s drawing, and sophisticated.Minimalist.Almost abstract.Fox had worked LEDs behind it so that the whole piece glowed, and the light traced the rim of the golden disc and shone like needlepoint along the thin pieces of metal.
When I saw the mobile made out of wedding dresses, I couldn’t help the grin that rose to my face.They had posed the dresses as though they were people.One appeared to be bending or bowing.Another, skirt flared, was dancing.God, those wedding dresses had spentsomuch time in Fox’s van.Months.Maybe years.And now they were here, and they were beautiful, and I couldn’t believe how happy that made me.
