Page 69 of Single-Minded
“You’re the client,” I protest.
“I’m your date,” he says earnestly. “It’s our first actual date, if you don’t count last night. If we’re working, you can treat. If we’re flirting, canoodling, romancing, I will. Deal?”
“You always cook for me when we’re working,” I say.
“Lucky you.” He smiles. He’s sweet, chivalrous, and I find it impossible to say no to those eyes.
Once Daniel has settled the bill, he puts his hand at the small of my back and and we walk outside.
“Thank you for the lovely meal,” I say.
“Thank you for the lovely company,” he replies.
The night is warm, but the humidity has relented and downtown buzzes with activity. There are open-air restaurants, shops, galleries, and bars lining Main Street, and we stroll along taking in the atmosphere. Daniel reaches for my hand as we walk, and my heart beats faster at the sweetness of his gesture. We’ve been walking west from the restaurant, down toward the bay front, and when we’re five or six blocks away, the sky opens up and produces a torrential downpour. We’re instantly soaked, and we duck into a small co-op art gallery to escape the storm.
The place is busier than usual; aside from the usual tourists there are lots of others who were caught in the storm as well. Wordlessly, Daniel and I look at the works by local artists, from pottery to paintings.
“It’s funny, she sort of looks like you,” says Daniel. The painting is a nude, and I have to admit the subject’s face and body type look an awful lot like mine. It’s eerie, almost.
And then I spot the mole on the subject’s left hip.
Same as mine.
Oh Jesus.My face burns scarlet and dread starts to build in my gut. I glance around quickly to ascertain the artist’s name. Could this just be an incredibly awkward coincidence? Maybe lots of women who look exactly like me have moles on their hips too. Like we’re all made in the same factory or something. Finally, I spot it, on a plaque near the bottom of the display, along with a photo of the artist. Nathaniel Roche.
Oh, holy hell. Nate, the tool-belt supermodel drywaller is an artist? Jesus! I didn’t think he wasreallyan artist. Not anartistartist. I thought he just meant that in the same way every waiter in LA says they’re an actor. This can not be happening.
I feel the blood draining from my extremities, and it’s pretty clear I’m about to have a full-blown panic attack. This nude painting is ofme. My hair, my mouth, my breasts (which, I must admit, don’t look half bad), my tiny mole on my left hip. I know Nate saw the mole because he spent a good deal of time that night tracing it with his finger. Oh Jesus. Did he sketch me while I was in the shower or something? Was it all from memory? I feel so violated. And mortified that Daniel, a guy I really, really like, is essentially seeing me naked on our first real date. Not cool.
“Are you interested in this piece?” asks a female voice from behind me. She’s an older woman, maybe seventy, with curly gray hair, a rainbow-colored infinity scarf, and paint-speckled fingernails.
“It’s lovely,” says Daniel to the woman. He leans over and whispers to me, “It is incredibly beautiful, but maybe not your taste, not something you’d hang in the living room?”
“Would you like to meet the artist?” asks the woman. “He’s here tonight.”
Oh sweet Jesus. Nate is here? We need to leave. Right now.
“Not tonight, thank you,” I say, dragging Daniel toward the door. “We have to be going. So sorry!”
Daniel looks confused but smiles politely at the saleswoman, and then follows me out into the rain anyway. The torrential downpour stopped as quickly as it started, and now it is merely sprinkling.
“Do you mind walking in the rain a bit?” I say to Daniel, dragging him down the street.
“Not at all,” he says. “I love walking in the rain. Do you want to tell me what happened back there?”
“It was just… odd…,” I stutter. “It did look a lot like me, and I just felt really… awkward.”
“I understand,” says Daniel.
He probably can’t, really, unless a one-night stand happened to paint him in the nude also, but I appreciate his kindness. If he has any suspicions that the woman in the painting is me, he isn’t saying a word about it. And for that, I am grateful.
But I am going to kill Nate.
57
Daniel and I walk back to his car holding hands, and I hardly want to let go once we reach the passenger door—as though it might never happen again. Daniel closes my door and gets into the driver’s side.
As he starts up the car he says, “It went by too fast.”
