Glass Slipper Bride

by Arlene James

  Camille gulped down a bite of cantaloupe in order to say, “It”s just a showing. She’s not actually getting paid.”

  Zach wanted to kick Camille, but to his surprise, Jillian smiled and calmly explained, “It’s going to be displayed in Deep Ellum, for sale, and if...when it sells, I’ll be able to buy materials for several more pieces to go on display. It’s really a neat concept. It’s called the Art Bar, and it’s sort of a combination gallery and club. Eventually I hope to have eight or nine works on display at all times. My friend Denise is contributing paintings, and we have some glass and pottery and other things coming in.”

  “Sounds exciting,” Zach said, impressed.

  “Sounds hopeless to me,” Camille commented. “The kind of patrons that Deep Ellum draws is a party crowd, not an artsy crowd.”

  “I’m part of the Deep Ellum crowd,” Jillian said, just a hint of defiance in her tone.

  “Me, too,” Zach said, though in truth his activity in Deep Ellum was limited to driving through it and sitting stakeout on a particular corner.

  “That’s two,” Camille said mockingly.

  Irritated, Zach decided it was time to put Miss Camille to some useful purpose. Retrieving his cell phone from his belt, he punched in a number from the memory menu, hoping he could catch his friend before he left the house. The brusque answer that cut off the sound of the telephone ringing told him that he had just managed to do so.

  “Hey, Del. I know you’re on your way out, buddy, so I won’t keep you. Need a favor.” He went on to explain that a client of his had called Del’s company a few days earlier to have her home security system activated but had failed to decide on an access code, and as a result he’d found it necessary to spend the night keeping guard. “I need it settled before I leave here, so I thought I’d give the code to you and have you see to it personally first thing this morning. Does that work for you?” Before Del could answer him, a horn honked and Camille hopped down off the stool.

  “That’s my car. Gotta gol”

  “Whoa!” Zach grabbed her by the wrist, twisting around on his stool in order to do it. “Code. Now.”

  She shook free of him. “I’ve got to go!”

  “It’s five digits, for Pete’s sake! Either you choose them or I will! Now, do you want to be able to get into the house when you come back or shall I alert the police to expect a false alarm? It’s a fining offense, by the way.”

  Camille groaned in exasperation and mentally began ticking numbers off on her fingers. Finally, she stomped one foot in frustration and exclaimed, “Seven one seven...seven four!”

  Releasing her, Zach repeated the numbers into the telephone. Camille shot a loaded glance at Jillian, grabbed her things and rushed from the room. Zach gave Del the necessary information to activate the security system, thanked him and hung up. “Pays to know the right people,” he said to Jillian.

  “I suppose it does,” she agreed, smiling wanly.

  He sat there a few seconds longer, fighting the urge to ask her about her sculpting and wondering what that parting look had been about. Camille, no doubt, blamed Jillian for the two-minute delay needed to pick and communicate the code. Well, he was detecting stirrings of growing self-respect in Jillian this morning, and, oddly enough, it made him proud. When she started cleaning up their light breakfast, it occurred to him that he had no reason to linger.

  “Guess I’ll be going. Thanks for breakfast.”

  “I think it was the least we could do, don’t you?” she replied, stacking plates.

  “I get paid for this,” he reminded her.

  “But you wouldn’t have to be paid if we had done what we were supposed to.”

  “More importantly you wouldn’t have that bruise on your cheek.”

  “True.”

  She carried the plates to the counter, rinsed them and stacked them in the sink. He kept sitting there, admiring that little dress and wondering why he didn’t just get up and go. Unbidden, the memory of her breasts, free beneath her nightshirt, pressing against his chest, came to him. He cleared his throat and started to get up. Gerry came flip-flopping down the hall then in her terry-cloth scuffs. Her turban had been replaced by a sleek blond hairstyle that made it clear to Zach that she wore a wig.

  “Oh, Jilly,” she called as she came, “I forgot to tell you that I need the car today.”

  “But it’s Saturdayl” Jilly exclaimed. “You know I have the studio on Saturdays.”

  “Oh, please,” Gerry scoffed. “I have a friend in the hospital. Which is more important—that or you pretending to sculpt?”

  “I don’t pretend to do anything,” Jillian said quietly, “but I guess I can take the bus.”

  “Just so,” Gerry confirmed, pouring herself another cup of coffee.

  Jillian sighed and moved to wipe down the bar top with a sponge and some spray. Zach heard himself say, “I’ll give you a lift.”

  She looked up as if shocked to find that he was still there. He was pretty shocked to find that, too. “You don’t have to drive me around,” she said, but even as she said it, her face lit up.

  Unexpected words just kept coming out of his mouth. “No problem. I wouldn’t have offered if it was a problem. I don’t often get a chance to escort a real artist.”

  She laughed, her face positively beaming.

  “She’ll just have to take the bus back,” Gerry pointed out sourly.

  “Maybe not,” Zach heard himself saying.

  “I don’t mind,” Jillian said at the same time.

  Zach shrugged, and Jillian added, “Just give me a minute to make a phone call, okay? If I don’t at least try to get this place cleaned up, Camille will fry me.”

  Zach shook his head. Camille’s safety was threatened, but the cabinets were a higher priority than activating the home security system. He’d never figure that one. As Jillian disappeared into another part of the house, he prepared himself to wait. After spending a few minutes explaining to Gerry how to activate the security system when she left the house, he poured himself another cup of coffee. She flopped off to finish dressing, and he settled down at the bar, but he’d barely cooled his coffee enough to start drinking it when she returned, a little white leather purse with a long chain slung over one shoulder.

  “All done?”

  “Umm-hmm. He’ll come on Tuesday and take a look.”

  “I think most of it will just wash off,” Zach said, pushing aside his cup.

  Jillian held a finger to her lips. “Shhhh.”

  “What?” he whispered conspiratorially. “You don’t want to spend your weekend scrubbing walls and cabinets?”

  “I probably will anyway,” she replied, wrinkling her nose, “but not today.” Grinning, she grabbed his hand and ran with it the end of the counter, spinning him around on his stool. He hopped to his feet and let her pull him toward the front of the house. As they hurried through the rooms, his spirits seemed to lift incrementally for no reason whatsoever. Jillian herself seemed ebullient, so much so that they were both laughing by the time they hit the front door.

  “Let’s put the top down,” she said eagerly as he let her into the passenger seat of his car.

  “Absolutely.” He ran around to the driver’s side and let himself in, then snatched his sunshades from the visor overhead. Seconds later they were driving down the street, just a little too fast to be strictly legal, the wind blowing through their hair. When she reached up to pull down her glasses, he noticed that the lenses were the kind that turned dark in bright light. They made better sunglasses than regular glasses, and she looked absolutely charming with her butterscotch hair whipping in the wind. He punched on the radio, and vintage rock competed with the rush of the wind for supremacy. She leaned forward and turned up the volume. When she started to sing along in a surprisingly husky contralto, Zach put his head back and laughed, feeling young and impulsive and way, way cool.

  Too soon they were pulling up to the curb in the funky eastside neighborhood known as Deep
Ellum. The loft turned out to be one of several on the top floor of an old hat factory. He switched off the music and smiled at her. “Guess I’ll see you later.”

  She nodded, then bowed her head. “Would you like to come up? Denise and Worly won’t mind.”

  “What’s a Worly?” he asked, laughing.

  “That’s Denise’s husband. He’s a musician.”

  “Why am I not surprised?”

  “The Art Bar was Worly’s idea,” she said. “He talked the club owner into it.”

  “An enterprising musician. Now I am surprised.”

  She laughed. “Come on up. I’ll show you what I’m working on.”

  He knew that he shouldn’t. He’d spent too much time with her already. “I’d like to,” he said, “but I have work to do. After last night, I really have to get on Eibersen’s trail.”

  “Oh. Right,” she said. She smiled, but her disappointment was palpable. “will, thanks for the lift. I really appreciate it.” She reached for the door handle, and he found himself reaching for the ignition.

  “Heck, I can spare a few minutes. Besides, the curiosity is killing me.”

  Laughing, she sat back and waited until the top electrically descended, then she helped him latch it into place. She hopped out, and he locked the doors. As they walked up the sidewalk he used the remote to turn on the alarm. They stepped into a small foyer at the front of the building and climbed the metal stairs.

  Zach took inordinate interest in the old light fixtures dangling overhead. It was either that or watch the sway of Jilly’s slender hips and those long bare legs as she climbed the stairs. By the time they reached the top, his heart was beating much too hard. Jilly turned left and stopped before a shocking orange door bearing the life-sized painting of an angel in blue jeans who bore a striking resemblance to Jilly herself with long, pale-blond hair. Extracting a key from her purse, she unlocked the door and opened it. The room beyond was a shambles of stained furniture, dusty rugs and musical instruments, lit by the harsh sunshine pouring through a wall of bare, grimy windows.

  “This way.”

  Jillian led him through the maze of instruments, furniture and amplifiers. The walls, he noticed were painted with a jumble of forest and jungle scenes where butterflies sported the heads of tigers and tigers the heads of humans. They passed through a small kitchen piled with empty pizza boxes and rows of neatly arranged empty beer bottles to a small, glassed-in room beyond. Paintings in various sizes and stages of completion were stacked haphazardly around the floor and on easels. Paints in every conceivable type of container, from half-gallon cans to fruit jars, were scattered over every surface, including the long, narrow table standing dead center of the clutter. Beneath the table was a contraption that looked like a boxed fan slanted over the top of a wooden box. Oddly, the fan seemed to blow into the box. He barely had time to consider the purpose of that, however, for his attention was immediately captured by what sat atop the table.

  It was a chunk of pale stone about sixteen inches tall and nine to ten inches across. Most of the outside of it was rough and natural, just as it must have come out of the ground, but one side had been cut away as the artist had carved her way inside the stone, fashioning an intricate vale of roots and warrens filled with a tiny world of mushroomlike villages.

  “Holy cow!” he breathed.

  “Actually, I call it Treasure,” she said.

  An apt title, he decided. He couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing. He was still studying it, finding new bits in which to delight, when she moved on to another piece, this one only about the size of his fist. She picked it up and handed it to him. He was shocked at how light it felt as he turned it over in his hand. A little study revealed a sort of gnome emerging from the rock. He didn’t have time to see more as she handed him yet another piece and another. He realized belatedly that she was speaking.

  “All part of my fantasy period,” she concluded, and moved on down the table. The pieces she handed him now were heavier and smoother. “I’d like to cast these in bronze,” she said as he studied the graceful arch of one piece and the intricate swirl of another. He came to a piece of reddish stone striated with blond streaks that might have been a three-petaled flower not yet opened to the sun, a kind of tulip maybe, and yet not a tulip at all.

  “What do you call this one?”

  “Trinity,” she said.

  He lifted and turned it, watching the three “petals” swirl and flow into one. “It’s a religious piece?” he asked.

  “You could say that.” She pulled a covering from a larger piece and leaned forward on both palms, studying it with a frown. “This is the new piece.”

  With a small shock of recognition, he noted the power tools surrounding it but the sculpture itself pulled too strongly at him to allow him time for reflection. It was a shape, nothing more, emerging from a hard, almost crystalline gray-blue stone that literally beckoned his hand. He reached for it, pausing at the last moment. “May I?”

  “Absolutely.”

  He ran his hand over it, feeling the contrast of polished smoothness and rough cuts. “What is it?”

  “I don’t know. It’ll tell me before long.”

  He was completely captivated, totally enthralled, so much so that he didn’t notice the approach of another person until she drawled, “Good God, it’s a man!”

  He looked up, both hands on the stone, to find a freckle-faced woman with long, wildly curly red hair standing out at odd angles around her head and shoulders. Her eyes were a dark, chocolate brown. Her perfect oval face and shocking hair neatly offset the heavily muscled, squat body gloved in a lime-green tank top and cutoff jeans that were more unraveled fringe than actual shorts.

  “Denise,” Jillian said warningly, “this is Zachary Keller.”

  He took his hands off the sculpture self-consciously, dusted the right one on the seat of his pants and offered it to her. She just grinned and put her hands to her ample hips. “Establishment type, but at least he’s very good-looking.”

  He felt nothing but warmth, friendliness and some rather intense weirdness emanating from her, and since handshakes were obviously too “establishment” to be acceptable, he pointed a finger at her and said, “Flower child born two decades too late, but at least she’s very, very interesting.”

  Denise laughed and threw out her arms. “So what do you think of our little studio?”

  He scratched an ear, trying to find a diplomatic way to say it. Jillian said it for him. “Our messy little studio, you mean.”

  Zach disciplined a grin, saying, “I don’t know how you manage it, either of you. How do you create art out of all this chaos?”

  Jillian shrugged. “You know what they say, beggars can’t be choosers.”

  “What she really means,” Denise said, bracing her forearms in the doorway, “is that witch sister of hers won’t let her work out of her spacious home because chiseling stone leaves a little dust.”

  “A-actually, it leaves a lot of dust,” Jillian said, quick to defend her sister, as always. “That’s why I rigged up this.” She moved to the end of the table beneath which the fan-in-a-box arrangement stood.

  “I was wondering about that,” he said. “Isn’t the fan in backward?”

  “Which is what makes it suck in the dust,” she explained.

  “Ah.” He moved back there and went down on his haunches beside her, peeking into the box. He saw a series of screens and beneath them, in the very bottom, a pile of dust several inches deep. “Very clever.”

  “A clever, talented throw rug,” said Denise. “That’s our Jilly.”

  Jillian pushed up to her full height, and Zach followed suit. “Cut it out, Denise.”

  “Sorry, sugar, but you know perfectly well that you could set up shop in your sister’s house without causing the Great Talking Head a moment’s inconvenience, but you’re going to continue to let her walk all over you.”

  “Are you saying I’m not welcome here anymore?” Jillia
n asked quietly.

  “Don’t get cute,” Denise drawled.

  “Then why the lecture?”

  “I’m hoping that the fine bod here will have a tad more influence over you than I do, that’s why. Besides, if you had your own place I wouldn’t have to tell you that you can’t work here today. Worly’s got a gig, and the band has to practice.”

  “Think my power tools will throw a kink in things, huh?” Jillian said, grinning.

  “Not the way they play,” Denise cracked. Then she made a face. “Listen, kid, I’m sorry, but this is important.”

  “I understand,” Jillian said. She picked up the cloth and she once more covered the work in progress, then looked at Zach. “Sorry you drove me all the way over here for nothing.”

  “It wasn’t for nothing,” he protested. “I got to see some of your work.”

  She smiled at that. “Well, I’ll just hang out here for a while and then catch a bus home.”

  “I’ll drive you,” he told her, no longer surprised by what kept coming out of his mouth.

  She shook her head. “No, that’s all right.”

  Denise yawned loudly. “You two work it out,” she said, turning away. “I’m going back to bed.”

  Jillian seemed a little shocked by the abandonment. Zach fastened a hand around her upper arm and turned her toward the door, saying, “I’ll walk you out, at least.”

  Nodding, she let him steer her through the cluttered, dusty apartment and out onto the landing. She went down the stairs and out the door ahead of him, then stood on the sidewalk, staring at the bus stop on the corner, while he unlocked the car and went back for her.

  “Get in.”

  She turned a considering stare on him. “Are you going after Eibersen today?”

  “I’m going to try to track him down.”

  “I want to go with you.”

  Her statement caught him by surprise. He reeled mentally for an instant, then opened his mouth to refuse her.

  “I can help,” she stated hopefully. “If I go back to the house I’ll just feel obligated to start washing walls. I’d rather help this way.”