Frame Change: A Nina Bannister Mystery (The Nina Bannister Mysteries Book 5)

by T'Gracie Reese

  …what?

  “You will not believe her presentations, Nina,” Margot had said repeatedly.

  That, and not much more.

  Just that, because with her knowledge of computer technology and audio visual capability, she had astonished the passers-through the Chicago Art Museum, establishing, even after just a few months of residency there, a new standard in the ability to make art works come alive.

  “A lot of people,” Margot had continued, “know about holographs, and the way to create visual worlds, to put people inside planes and tunnels and walls that don’t really exist. But these people are mostly engineers and scientists. Carol is an art lover. How she learned this stuff, I don’t know. But she did.”

  Which was, Nina realized, glancing at her watch, about to begin.

  She caught a glimpse of Margot, who was scurrying here and there, and who had just enough time to return a smile.

  And she looked at Carol again.

  Silent Carol Walker, standing straight in her corner, the only grown woman whom Nina could remember seeing who looked mousier than she herself looked, and who had even shorter brown hair—and, for that matter––a shorter body.

  There––she did glance up, and around the room.

  It was not a circular room, so it could not approximate the Jeu de Palme in Paris where the real Gardens sat silently, working their magic.

  But, otherwise, it was a room of similar size.

  Several clocks scattered around the Auberge began chiming, sonorously.

  Eight PM.

  Carol Walker moved to the small podium that had been set up against the far wall of the room.

  People in the front row—somehow Alanna had been able, at very short notice, to attract a select group of art lovers, many of them French, from as far away as New Orleans––smiled at her, nodding occasionally. There were undercurrents of whispers. Nina could hear a few phrases of English, but mostly French, the long, guttural uuuuuuhhhhh that seemed to separate every three or four words, as though only in this language was space built in for thought. The women, most in their forties or fifties, were stylishly outfitted, but the men were dressed as European men always were when they came to the United States: they wore shorts and sandals, as though they were on safari in a third world nation.

  And so, it was time.

  Carol touched the first switch on a computer stand that had been set up beside the podium. Lights began to dim in the room.

  Second switch: sound. Debussy from a first well hidden speaker, then a second, then a third. Quiet, elegant, clean and dreamlike Debussy, now filling the spaces between the paintings, breathing through the room.

  The third switch created the hologram: there was a single gasp as silver light engulfed the island of people seated in its midst, and the fences, walls, paths leading to the Gardens of Giverney all opened and moved around them. Then Monet himself, his beard, his eyes, smiling, almost moving about through his rooms, his brushes…

  ….finally, all of the images in the room engulfing them, all of the holograph, all of the powers of the monitors and computer programs and encoded mathematical impersonal scientific technical amalgams stored like nuclear beauty pent up before them…all of these things exploded in color…

  …and the flowers began to dance!

  “Ah, mon Dieu!”

  “Mon dieu, mon dieu!”

  The gardens, the gardens, moved in sequence, orbiting around them. Everywhere there was light. Splendid light. Light as Monet must have seen it, clearly had rendered it. But he had rendered it condensed, captured with frames; now it gloried out as it must have existed in his own head, filling the room that now represented his brain, overwashing the walls and wires and doorways that disappeared before its heat and intensity and magnificence…the light of Monet’s mind, brush––the light of Monet’s magnificent Gardens.

  The gasp continued as the flowers appeared, darkened, emerged, budded, sang around them.

  Then Carol began to recite:

  Laforgue:

  “Au-desssus des etangs, au-dessus des vallees,

  Des montagnes des bois, des nuages, des mers,

  Par dela le soleil, par dela les ethers,

  Par dela les confines des spheres etoilees…”

  (Above the brooks, the valleys,

  The mountains of trees, the clouds, the seas…

  Beyond the sun, beyond the firmament,

  Beyond the confines of starry spheres…)

  The words were known, Nina realized immediately, rather than memorized, because Laforgue could not be memorized but simply had to appear, as the light did. Nina could never understand how people memorized poetry. Memorizing a poem violated it, hardened it, took from it its passion and birth.

  No, it was clear that Carol Walker loved this poem and thus knew it, in precisely the same way she loved and knew the pictures radiating around her.

  “La Nature et un temple ou de vivants piliers

  Laissant parfois sortir de confuses paroles;

  L’homme y passé a travers de forets de symbols

  Qui l’observent vec des regard familiers.”

  (Nature is a temple where living pillars

  Let, from time to time, confused words escape,

  Men pass from time to time through the forest of symbols,

  Observing them with familiar indifference.)

  Nina could only watch, only listen, fascinated.

  The person at the podium was not herself while reading these lines…this was not her voice, her consciousness. She had become someone else, as, probably, all great artists do from time to time. But that did not matter. Important was only that the lines be read perfectly, with the same somnolence and meter that the works themselves…that the light itself and the mirroring images, the blues and aquiline grays…demanded. The light changed; it obscured, focused, contracted, limiting itself in frame to one painting, The Waterlilly Pond, with the marvelous bridge overspanning it; the crowd turned slightly to see that the picture itself hung directly behind them––but then they forgot about the thing within the frame as the water and flowers and arc exploded outward around them and a new light flooded through the room drawing from their collective sense of wonder even more gasps, more repetitions of:

  “Mon dieu––mon dieu…”

  The Waterlilly Pond was not behind them in a box; it surrounded them. They all, under the spells of Lamartine, de Muset, Cambriole, Debussy—and of course Monet––became part of a new world that the computer had allowed them to fuse into.

  And then it ended.

  The last thing needing saying was said.

  Carol turned off the computer.

  The actual world, white and noisy and bare-floored and useless, returned.

  For a moment there was silence…

  …and then the crowd engulfed her. English, French…it all flowed over her:

  “It was so beautiful!”

  “How did you do it?”

  “C’etait merveilleuse! Vraiment merveilleuse!”

  “What––what was it, how did you make the light be so––so…all over!”

  “Your French is so wonderful Are you born in Paris? Where did you learn this?”

  “When will it be again? Does it happen for all paintings?

  “When will you do this again?”

  And on and on.

  Nina could only stand, fascinated, at the back of the crowd, while this young woman answered question after question, all with perfect aplomb.

  Until finally there was Margot standing nearby, bending, whispering harshly:

  “Nina, we’ve got to get her out of here; she’ll collapse with exhaustion.”

  “She seems,” answered Nina, “to be doing all right.”

  Margot shook her head:

  “Yes, but that has to be exhausting. Let’s spirit her away on some excuse of other. We’ll depend on Alanna to take over hostess duties, and we’ll go…I don’t know, maybe to a restaurant or something. Maybe to Elementals.�
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  “No, let’s go to my place.”

  “You’re certain?”

  “Sure I am. Carol’s a painter. She’ll love sitting out on my deck and looking out at the ocean by night.”

  Margot nodded:

  “You may be right.”

  And so the matter was decided.

  And within half an hour, the three of them––Margot, Nina, and Carol––were, in fact, sitting ensconced above the incoming tide, a half moon glowing above them, cold Chardonnay simmering in three glasses in front of them, and Carol speaking of the water in the same amazed tones that the crowd had been speaking of her presentation only a short time before.

  “How long have you had the place, Nina?”

  “Several years now. Ever since my husband passed.”

  “My God, how I envy you! I have a little efficiency apartment near the Montrose stop on the Brown Line. It’s all right, but, when I look out my one barred window, I see streetcars. You see this. I can’t imagine why you’re not constantly painting portraits of it.”

  “Well, in fact I…”

  “Ummm,” interrupted Margot.

  There was an uncomfortable silence for a time, then the crashing of a particularly large wave, then Nina:

  “I’m probably better as an English teacher than a painter.”

  This led Margot, who obviously wished to speak of Nina’s painting skills as little as possible, to say:

  “But we want to hear more about you, Carol. Some friends called me two weeks ago to tell me about the multi media grant. How much is it, exactly?”

  Carol sipped her wine and said quietly:

  “It’s a quarter of a million dollars.”

  “My God. And how are you planning on using it?”

  “I don’t think that decision has been made yet.”

  “Well, I’d assume some of it will go to pay you a much higher salary than you’re getting as a docent.”

  “My salary is going to change, that’s true.”

  “Are you getting a new title? You won’t be a docent anymore, I assume.”

  “You’re right again. No more docent.”

  “Nina, when Rebecca Simpson first interviewed Carol for the job, she asked her how much she’d expect to earn, and Carol answered…”

  “I’m fired, Margot.”

  The world stopped for a second.

  The sea froze.

  A flock of gulls that had been thinking of flying overhead and defecating on the deck, petrified and remained thirty-five feet above, awaiting instructions on what to do next.

  Margot’s mouth was open; Nina’s mouth was open.

  Furl crept onto the deck, looked up at Carol, who had not changed expression, and asked:

  “What?”

  (This was asked in cat, and so it came out something like ‘rrrrgggghhh?’ But everyone pretty much understood it.)

  Margot, having heard her cue, repeated:

  “What?”

  “I’m fired.”

  Now, for the first time, Nina could see tears shimmering behind the black horned-rim glasses.

  “That’s impossible!”

  A shake of the head.

  Now the glasses off, being wiped by the napkin on which the wine glass had sat.

  The gulls, released from their spells, continued on across and up into the inky night sky.

  “That––that simply couldn’t happen!”

  “It did.”

  “Who…”

  “Rebecca.”

  “That chicken! That, that…”

  “Margot,” said Nina, quietly, “remember you’re not Penelope.”

  “I can when I want to be!”

  “No. It doesn’t become you. You curse like I paint.”

  Margot glared at her:

  “Never say such a thing to me again!”

  Nina shrugged.

  They sat for a time.

  Nina poured more wine.

  Carol drank hers and attempted to smile:

  “Thank you. Thank both of you. It’s the first time I can remember smiling for several days.”

  “Why,” asked Margot, “did you not tell me before, child?”

  “I guess I just didn’t feel like talking about it on the phone. And I wasn’t sure you’d want me to come down here, if you knew I’d been fired.”

  “How ridiculous! Of course we’d have wanted you to come! But the question is now, what to do about your firing?”

  “I’m not sure there’s anything to do about it.”

  “There has to be! I know I’ve been gone for more than a year, but I still have some influence. There are still certain measures I can take.”

  “Like writing a letter?”

  Margot shook her head:

  “I was thinking more in terms of murdering Rebecca Simpson.”

  “You could do that?”

  “Oh heavens, yes! Or Nina could. We’ve had several murders here in Bay St. Lucy in the past year. And Nina always seems to be able to solve them.”

  “I don’t commit them though,” said Nina, thoughtfully.

  “Yes, but you could if you put your mind to it! And then it would be much easier to solve them.”

  “I think,” said Nina, “that we’re getting drunk now. It certainly sounds like we’re getting drunk.”

  “We’ve each,” said Margot, “had a glass and a half of wine.”

  “But it’s strong wine.”

  “Carol––Carol, this is simply incomprehensible. What reasons did the woman give?”

  “Factual errors in my presentations. Poor scholarship.”

  “Oh, pooh! You bring to life an entire world of paintings, and she’s worried about whether something happened in 1871 or 1872?”

  “That seems to be the case.”

  “And what about the director?”

  “Powerless, apparently. Rebecca has been working behind the scenes for months. Apparently several members of the Board are on her side.”

  Silence for a time.

  Finally Furl asked:

  “Rrrgggghhh? Reeghhh? Arg?”

  It was the question that had to be asked, of course. Nina herself would have waited to ask it, but she knew Furl to be both impetuous and undiplomatic, and so she was not surprised that he had blurted it out.

  The summer air translated it as diplomatically as possible, but it still came wafting over the table harsh and crimson in the Mississippi breeze:

  “So what are you going to do now?”

  The question that always seems to be coming up in life, usually dead on the heels of what had only moments earlier appeared absolutely certain about what we were going to do now.

  And Carol Walker looked it straight in the eye, shook her head, and gave a perfectly clear answer, which was:

  “I don’t know.”

  Furl, seemingly satisfied, padded off the deck and into the living room.

  Carol continued, trying to hold back tears, and succeeding partially.

  The sobs were a different matter, and so the next few sentences came out sounding in English the way the earlier questions by Furl had come out in cat.

  “I have––a little money.”

  Margot shook her head:

  “I know you’ve always lived in a thrifty way, Carol. You don’t do the things a good many young people do. Eat or drink. Things like that.”

  “No.”

  “But given what they paid you, you could not have saved much.”

  A shake of the head.

  Then:

  “I don’t think I’m going to get hired as a docent again. Not after what they’ll say about me.”

  “Teaching?”

  “Maybe. But not until the fall, and then only as an adjunct. There’s a little money in that, but…”

  She pursed her lips:

  “The worst thing is the situation at home, on the farm.”

  “You are,” Nina interjected, “from…”

  “Georgia. East of Atlanta. North of Athens.”

&
nbsp; “I remember Margot telling me that.”

  “Yes. The farm has been in our family for a long time. The longest time. But my mother died prematurely some years ago, and my father is now in ill health. Whether we can keep the land or not…”

  From somewhere in the center of town, the wail of a siren could be heard.

  “Well, anyway, I’ve got to do something. The only possibility is to go back to Chicago and look for something secretarial. I don’t have too much experience at that sort of thing, but surely if they see my background they might…”

  “Stay here,” said someone seated at the table.

  It was Nina.

  Margot and Carol looked at her.

  Then Margot nodded:

  “Of course. Of course, Carol. Stay here in Bay St. Lucy.”

  “But––but…”

  “Child, it makes perfect sense. You can help Nina out at Elementals. I can’t pay you a great deal, but I’ll bet it will equal what you had been making. You can go back to earning a docent living.”

  “But…but…where would I stay?”

  Nina leaned forward:

  “Stay here.”

  Carol looked at her, in something like wonder:

  “But you don’t have room!”

  “I have a couch that makes into a bed.”

  “You wouldn’t mind?”

  “Of course, I won’t mind.”

  “What about your cat?”

  “Furl will hate you for a while, but he isn’t the one who makes the big decisions.”

  More wine followed.

  Then a second bottle.

  And thus it was determined:

  Carol Walker was to be a citizen of Bay St. Lucy.

  CHAPTER FIVE: GETTING TO KNOW YOU

  The following weeks were idyllic ones for Nina. Carol Walker slipped into her life like a well-oiled bespectacled little piston, which chugged away quietly and efficiently as it worked within the machine that was daily life in Bay St. Lucy.

  She took possession of the couch and made a bed of it, having at least six inches of upholstery to spare after stretching out her slightly more than five-foot frame.

  She somehow made friends with Furl, an astonishing feat, but one which could not be doubted after seeing the animal stretched out and purring on her lap as she sat mornings with Nina on the deck above the beach, chatting about this and that, softly scratching cat dorsal hair with her small white fingers.