by Paula Cox
“Yes, I suppose it did.”
I offer her hand my hand. She takes it. We squeeze each other’s fingers, each other’s palms, tightly.
“Let’s go and take a look, then.”
I lead her toward the ornate double doors.
Chapter Thirteen
Hope
My chest thumps nervously as we walk into the gallery. Having my paintings stacked high in my living room is one thing; having them hanging on the wall of a gallery for anybody to see is quite another. Ever since the gallery took them, I have avoided this place, only for the reason that I might chance upon someone judging one of my paintings. I might see their reaction. The idea terrifies me.
When we approach the main desk, a face-painted, ultra-thin woman jumps out from behind it. She has short military blonde hair and wears a sleek white suit. She looks as out of place in the Cove as the gallery does. Her shiny black shoes click on the hardwood, reflective floor. Her face paint—there’s too much of it to call it merely makeup—is ghost-white.
“Hope!” she cries, in a high-pitched squeak. “It’s so good to see you!”
“And you,” I mutter.
Killian and I stop just before her. I’m wearing jeans and a checkered shirt, rolled up at the elbows, and black mini-heels. Killian’s wearing his biker leathers and jeans, with brown workman’s boots. I have no idea what we must look like to her. The woman, Kelsey, was the main opponent to having my paintings here. Not modern enough, she said. Not stylish enough. Too traditional. Too much of an actual painting.
“Are you here to look at your paintings?” she grins, a jackal’s grin. “Does this lovely gentleman wish to lay his lovely eyes on your lovely paintings?”
Killian turns to me, a bemused expression on his face. He raises both his eyebrows in question. What’s with this woman?
I shake my head, a small gesture. Don’t ask.
“Yes, Kelsey,” I reply. “Killian wanted to take a look.”
“Killian!” She shouts his name like she’s never heard a name before.
Just as I felt awkward around this woman when I first met her, when the gallery manager and I were discussing my paintings, I feel awkward around her now. She makes me feel like a small-town girl, like a nowhere girl. She’s off in the city somewhere, in a penthouse, drinking cocktails and talking about art. I’m here waiting tables.
“Oh, I’ve heard of Killian, I’m sure. And a biker, are you? Yes, a biker?”
“Yeah,” Killian grunts.
“Oh, you must be the Killian!”
She emphasizes her words randomly like a person who’s recently learned English, though her accent is American. I guess she picked it up at some fancy art conference somewhere. Maybe it’s the way super intellectual art critic type people are supposed to talk.
“The Killian?”
“You’re the leader of the Satan’s Martyrs!”
“Yeah, I am.”
Kelsey brings her hands to her chest, clutching them together. She reminds me of a clichéd sweetheart waiting for her love to come back from World War II. Then she leans in and whispers. “Please don’t judge poor Hope too harshly. She really is a fantastic artist! But she is so, so young. How old are you, Hope?” She barrels on without waiting for a response. “Nineteen? Twenty?”
“Twenty-four,” I put in.
“She’s still learning her trade, you see. Everybody has to start somewhere, you see.”
“Are you the owner?” Killian says.
“Oh, no, I’m—”
“The receptionist, right?”
“Well, I do run reception, as it were, but I’m not exactly—”
“That desk there, with the phone and the computer and all that.” Killian points to the main desk. “That’s where you work, right?”
“For the time—”
“So what the hell are you doing having a goddamned opinion about Hope’s art? What the hell are you doing telling me to not judge her? I’ve seen Hope’s paintings, and they’re beautiful. They deserve to be in this place.”
Kelsey makes a tut noise, shaking her head. Nothing shakes Kelsey. That’s what I learned during the process of getting my paintings in here. Even when the manager and the owner both told her my work was decent—that’s as much praise as they ever gave—she just made that tut noise and told them they were wrong. I was not good enough yet.
And that’s the main reason you’ve avoided this place, isn’t it? Not the public, not potential buyers, but this sleek, modern, impressive woman.
“You are a biker, sir, and I work in an art gallery, sir, so excuse me, sir, if I value my opinion just a little bit more than yours.”
Killian rubs his eyes and lets out a groan. He turns to me. “Ignore her,” he says. “Just ignore her. Someone clearly thought you were good enough to be in here. When it comes down to it, who cares what the receptionist says?”
Kelsey just smiles her fake smile, and stands there looking modern and cool and like she couldn’t care less about the whole thing.
“Come on,” I say, taking Killian’s arm. “Let me show you my paintings. They’re in the realist section.”
“The graveyard of art,” Kelsey comments.
I pull Killian away before he gets too angry.
“I wish she was a man,” Killian rages as we walk toward the realist wing. “If she was a man, I would’ve—”
“It’s okay, Killian, really,” I interrupt. “I have to learn to take criticism, don’t I?”
“Yeah, sure, but there’s criticism and there’s being a dick about it. She was looking down on you, Hope. Looking right down on you.”
I shrug. “She’s only been in the Cove for just over a year. She joined right about the time my pictures were under assessment. She was very . . . Let’s say she’s not a fan of my particular style. To be honest, Killian, she scares me a little.”
“Scares you?” he asks seriously, taking my hand. “Why would she scare you?”
“I’m just a waitress, a small-town waitress. When she looks at me, that’s what she sees. She used to live in New York, in a loft apartment or something like that, and have dinner parties and . . . I must look like a farm girl to her.”
“Screw her,” Killian says. “And screw anyone who thinks they can look down on you. Anyway, you’re not just a waitress. You’re my woman. You’re the leader of the Satan’s Martyrs’ woman.”
He smiles at me, and I can’t help but smile back.
Put like that, it seems important, massive.
I’m not just his girlfriend, I’m his woman, which around the Cove is a pretty big deal.
I bring his hand to my lips and kiss his knuckles.
“Don’t get soft on me now,” he says, pulling his hand free and tweaking my nose. “I came here for art. Not to get all soppy.”
I roll my eyes. “You’re such a man sometimes, Mr. Biker.”
“Can’t help that, can I, pretty lady? Can’t help that one damn bit.”
We grin at each other, the same way people grin when they’re falling, falling, falling . . .
Just say it. Just think it.
Love, that’s what you mean.
Love!
But I thrust the thought away, unsure.
I have three paintings in the gallery and they are each of the same thing.
There are differences in hue and shadow density and lighting position and things like that, but when you get down to it, they’re all the same. They depict Dawn sitting on the edge of a thin-mattress hospital bed, wearing a stripy blue hospital gown, looking at the floor. Her light brown hair falls over her eyes so that you can only see her mouth, which is twisted into an expression of pain.
They are all priced at $10,500 each. I thought it was a bit much, but I didn’t set the rate, the gallery owner did. He gets thirty percent, but I get the rest. If they ever sell.
Killian walks up and down in front of them, hands behind his back like an army general inspecting his troops. “Wow,” he says, more to himse
lf, so quiet I can barely hear him. “These are . . . wow. I wish I understood art more, I really do. Maybe I’d be able to see all the little tricks then. But would the little tricks ruin it for me? Man, I don’t know. But all I know is . . . wow. I can’t . . . wow. This is incredible. You’re a genius, Hope. You shouldn’t be a waitress.”
He suddenly turns to me, his lips twitching as though a smile is trying to break free but he doesn’t want to let it just yet. “Wait here,” he says.
“What do you mean—”
“Just promise me you’ll wait here. I need to go to the clubhouse.”
“Uh, okay?”
He leaps forward, kisses me on the forehead, and then paces away, swaggering out of the gallery.
I hear his bike explode into life and growl down the street, in the direction of the Satan’s Martrys’ clubhouse.
What the hell?
I mistake the clicking behind me for Killian’s boots, but when I turn I see Kelsey instead, pursing her lips at me.
“Oh, such potential.” She strokes her chin as if she is really appraising the paintings, but I know she has already appraised them a hundred times before—and found them lacking.
“I get that you don’t like them,” I say, forcing my voice to be firm. I remember what Killian said: I’m his woman now. Killian O’Connor’s woman doesn’t take this crap. “I get it, I really do,” I go on. “But do you have to be so annoying about it? Do you have to lord it over me just because you don’t like my paintings? Seriously? What happened to you that this brings you so much pleasure?”
She looks at me flatly, unfazed. “You are not a terribly talented artist,” she says plainly.
“There have been offers on these paintings,” I growl. I know it’s true because the manager told me himself, but the owner won’t take less than the asking. Somebody even offered $8,000 once.
“Offers, offers.” She waves her fingers. “They are wind.”
“Why do you talk like that?” I snap. “You sound ridiculous.”
“You are not talented,” she smiles. “That is all.”
“That’s your opinion,” I say.
“No,” Kelsey shoots back. “It is not my opinion. Look at it. What is it? A woman in a gown? Look how real it is. It’s repulsive.”
“This is the realist section,” I laugh, calming down a little. Kelsey is, after all, a ridiculous person.
“Yes, yes, you are right.” Ree-ite! “But why be so dull? My friends in New York would cackle at this!”
“Whatever, Kelsey,” I exhale. “Just know that Rocky Cove isn’t New York. People don’t take too kindly to being talked down upon.”
She shrugs. She doesn’t care. I’ve never once seen her care about anything.
“If you say so!” she squeaks, before swiveling on her heels and clicking away.
When Killian returns, Kelsey is at his shoulder, and she looks terrified. Kelsey the Critic, Kelsey who was calm in the face of the owner and the manager, looks terrified. Killian has a huge smile on his face. In his hand he holds an envelope.
“These three, sir?” Kelsey says, voice shaking. With her fear, the airs of her speech disappear. She just sounds like a New Yorker, a scared and embarrassed New Yorker.
“These three,” he says.
Then he takes more money than I’ve ever seen out of the envelope and hands it to Kelsey. “But we sort the payment first. I want you to pay Hope.”
Kelsey bites her lip as she counts the money, counts out my portion, and hands it to me.
I’m too shocked to take it at first. “What the hell?” I breathe. “What the hell?”
“I’m buying these paintings and putting them up in the clubhouse,” Killian says. “Go on, pretty lady, take the cash.”
I snatch the money and stuff it into my pocket, hands shaking.
Then I launch myself at Killian and throw my arms around him. I’m gliding. I’m gliding so high I can barely think.
“Come to the restaurant so I can cook you a thank-you meal!” I blurt. “Please, Killian. Oh. My. God. I can’t—”
More money than I have any clue what to do with!
Killian nods, laughing.
“I’ll come to the restaurant.” Then he turns to Kelsey. “Have these sent to the Satan’s Martrys’ clubhouse, will you? If you don’t know where it is, ask anyone who’s lived here longer than a year.”
Kelsey’s carefully constructed face crumbles.
She looks down at the floor, cheeks trembling, defeated.
Chapter Fourteen
Killian
No sooner have we walked through the door of the restaurant than the fat, balding man starts screaming. The restaurant is empty. It’s just before the lunch rush. It’s desolate apart from the fat man, a waitress with a rake-thin body and a makeup-covered face, and me and Hope. At first I assume he’s shouting at the waitress.
“Where the hell have you been?” he roars. He stands behind the bar, gripping two beer spouts, face shaking with rage. “What the hell time do you call this? What the hell is wrong with you? What do you think I am running here? Do you think this is some kind of charity? Do you think this is some kind of social club and you can roll up any time you feel like it?”
The makeup-faced waitress looks down, ignoring him. And then Hope walks a few steps forward and my breath catches. “It is my day off, Lucca,” she says. “Surely you know it’s my day off—I . . . I wanted to come here to use the kitchen, to cook my friend a meal.”
“You. Are. Joking.” He growls the words. “Maybe it is your day off; maybe it’s not. But now you have the—the gall to tell me you want to use the restaurant to cook your friend—whatever that means—a meal? What are you, some kind of slut? I’ve never heard of someone so—”
I pace up to him. As I pace, he watches me with a dumb, open mouth. I notice that the light from outside shines off his scalp, the worse comb over I’ve ever seen, and that his cheeks are red. But his expression is that of a bemused king’s. That’s it, I realize. He sees himself as the king of this place. He thinks nothing can happen to him here.
Ha.
“What are you doing?” the man sighs. He doesn’t sound scared, which is a damned mistake.
I leap over the bar and in one movement grip the back of his neck, digging my fingers in just enough to cause pain, but not hard enough to cause any lasting damage. He writhes under my grip, squirms, lets out a long, childish moan of pain. Then he breathes: “Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, why?”
“Why?” I chuckle. “You’re a funny man. Lucca, is it? Yeah, you must be Lucca. Hope’s told me a lot about you.”
I squeeze his neck harder, causing him to writhe like a worm plucked between forefinger and thumb from the dirt. Hope walks across the restaurant and stands just opposite the bar. She doesn’t yell at me to let him go; she doesn’t plead with me that he’s had enough. No, her eyes are wide and her lips are crooked and she licks her lips, slowly, as she watches. She looks at me with more affection than any woman ever has. What shocks me is that I’m able to identify it. True affection is usually difficult to identify for men like me. But not with Hope.
“Time to apologize, Lucca,” I say casually.
“I have nothing to apologize for—” Spit flies from his gritted teeth with each strained word.
I close my hand tougher around his neck, until he lets out another wail of pain. “I disagree,” I say. “I think you have a lot to apologize for. Now, don’t make me ask again.”
I release his neck just enough to allow him to talk. “Fine, I’m sorry, Hope. Okay? I’m sorry.”
“Good boy.” On a chopping board just under the bar lie two carrots: one half-chopped, the other intact. I pick up the intact carrot—a thick baton-like specimen—and smack Lucca across the back of the head with it. The carrot snaps in two. He screams and tumbles forward, bracing himself on the bar, and sobbing softly under his breath.
I lean into him, my lips close to his ear. “If you ever talk like that to Hope again
, you’ll get much, much worse than a carrot. Now, Hope’s going to use your kitchen to cook me a meal, okay? We’re celebrating. Don’t be so damned rude.”
“Uh, sure, yeah,” Lucca mutters, rubbing the back of his head. “Of course. Whatever you want.”
I clap my hands together and face Hope. “Let’s do it then!” I smile.
She smiles back, and now it’s not just affection in her eyes. It’s lust. I have no trouble identifying that.