Dance: Dance of the Seven Veils

by Cris Anson

  A drop of perspiration trickled down Lyssa’s forehead. Absently she swiped it away with the back of her hand, then dipped her sable-tipped brush into a daub of burnt umber.

  “Right there,” she murmured, applying strokes with abandon at the opening between two large acanthus leaves.

  “Now the brows.”

  “Do you always talk to yourself when you paint?”

  Lyssa jumped, dropping the brush. Her hand went to her heart. “Good grief, Kat, you scared me! Why didn’t you ring the bell?”

  “I did.” Kat’s wry tone matched the slight upward curve of her lips. “Three times. That’s when I decided you must be out back in the studio. So I just let myself in through the French door.”

  “Oh. When I’m in the middle of a painting, I kind of lose myself.”

  “Yeah. You look like you haven’t eaten or slept since Saturday afternoon.”

  “Thanks a lot, friend.” Her smile softened the implied criticism in the tone of her voice. Still, she removed the scrunchie, ran her fingers through her blonde hair, and refitted the elastic band snugly on the ponytail. Bending down to retrieve the brush, she cleaned it with a turpentine-soaked cloth, then set both on the table near the easel.

  Kat moved to the wicker chair in the uncurtained bay window flooded by late-morning light and sat down, her gauzy broomstick skirt swirling around her ankles. She looked elegant as usual, Lyssa thought, mentally comparing her own paint-spattered smock and thong slides to Kat’s cool, put-together look.

  “What are you painting?”

  Lyssa knew Kat was itching to see what she was creating, but tactfully waited for an invitation. With good reason. The first time Kat had come around the easel before the painting was ready for viewing, she had laid down the law. No one will put a hex on my creativity by sneaking a peek. Not even her best friend.

  She was tempted to let the other woman stew. She still hadn’t totally forgiven Kat for talking her into going to the masquerade party two nights ago.

  Party. Hah! It was an orgy, pure and simple.

  She felt her cheeks heat. And she, Lyssa, had jumped in with both feet. And legs and arms and torso. All totally naked. And glorying in it!

  “So. What did you think of your gladiator?”

  Darn it, Kat knew her too well. She’d obviously seen the blush that natural blondes couldn’t hide and assumed, correctly, where her thoughts had strayed.

  “He’s not my gladiator,” she said in a furious hiss.

  “But you’d like him to be, hmm?”

  Lyssa stepped around the easel and removed her smock, carefully hung it on a hook on the wall. The lazy breeze from the ceiling fan felt good on her bare arms. She uncapped a bottle of Evian and took a long swallow, then carefully recapped it.

  “Okay, lady, stop stalling and sit down. As Joan Rivers would say, ‘Can we talk?’”

  It was hard to meet her friend’s gaze as Lyssa sat in the adjoining chair, the wicker squeaking softly. “I can’t believe I did what I did.”

  “You followed a natural inclination. That idiot you married had you so hoodwinked you thought you weren’t any sexier than a ten-pound sack of sprouting potatoes. But believe me, you made a terrific impression on everyone.”

  Lyssa’s blush heightened. Sure. As wanton as she’d acted, she was certain she made an impression. But what kind of impression still needed to be ascertained. What if someone who’d attended knew her? What would she say to him or her if they mentioned it?

  “Seriously, Lyss, wouldn’t you like to see him again?”

  “No! I couldn’t.”

  “Too bad. He’d love to meet you formally. He did ask about you, you know.”

  For a moment Lyssa was taken aback. But, she realized, if Kat was a member of this so-called club, she would know other members. She’d probably even talked to him about… She stifled a groan. “I don’t think I could look him in the eye.”

  Suddenly restless, Lyssa jumped up. She didn’t want to think of it. Looking him in the eye, having him leer at her, knowing what he knew of her, how quickly she popped off as soon as a stranger’s tongue touched…

  Damn! “Would you like to see what I’m working on?”

  “You bet.” Kat’s eyes sparkled as she darted to the easel. Lyssa couldn’t help but think that Kat saw right through the charade, that she’d rather have someone see a closely guarded work-in-progress than to talk about a naked gladiator who’d probably had dozens of women throw themselves at him, herself included.

  The silence lengthened as Kat studied the three-by-two-foot canvas. It was a larger format than she usually worked, but her muse had demanded it. She held her breath, waiting for Kat’s pronouncement.

  “This will be the centerpiece,” Kat declared at last.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You absolutely have to have a one-woman show.”

  “We’ve been through this before. I’m just dabbling here, Kat. Nowhere near ready for the public. I don’t even have that many pieces. After George left, I only picked up my brushes again to fill an empty spot in my heart.”

  Kat turned to her with narrowed eyes. “I’ve been in the art business for ten years, three of them in my own shop. I’ve sold millions of dollars worth of paintings. I have a pretty good feel for what the art-buying public wants. And you, Lyssa Abigail Markham, will be the next darling of the art world. Believe me, people will want to buy your work.”

  She looked back at the painting. “Especially this one.” There was a peculiar tone to her voice that Lyssa couldn’t decipher. “We’ll mark it ‘Not For Sale’. That will make you all the more desirable.”

  “I don’t think—”

  Kat rode right over Lyssa’s objection. “The conception and execution are brilliant. On first glance, it looks like an ordinary bunch of wild animals drinking at a waterhole. It took some looking, but I can see the hidden figure. First you just see sunlight bouncing off the shimmering ripples created by the tongues of those animals lapping up the water.” She gestured to the area under discussion. “But then…oh, my…”

  Her voice trailed off. She swallowed. Then her pitch kicked up a notch. “That’s your blonde hair trailing through the water. These animals aren’t drinking. They’re licking the figure. Arousing her. Arousing you.” Kat’s smile grew. “Just like your gladiator,” she finished triumphantly.

  “No, no, that’s not at all what I had envisioned…”

  “It’s what I see on the canvas,” Kat declared with a decisive nod.

  Lyssa worried her lower lip. Had she created an erotic Rorschach inkblot? Had she let her uninhibited reaction to the gladiator color what she’d poured into this painting? She’d thought it so subtle that no one else would notice the subtext. It had been like a compulsion, to put on canvas what she’d seen in her mind’s eye. She hadn’t done it by conscious design. Like a conjurer’s trick, it had appeared on the canvas when she had stopped after a frenzied day of painting yesterday and looked, really looked, at what she’d done. And this morning, she realized what it needed to complete the vision—the several pairs of eyes watching the seduction.

  It was the orgy, she knew. Her unconscious mind trying to assimilate what she’d done.

  Was her mind absolving her of her lingering guilt over her quick capitulation to the gladiator’s expert stroking? Or was it mocking her, announcing her blatant sexual foray to the world?

  Her uncomfortable musing was interrupted when the front doorbell chimed its three-note announcement.

  “I thought you couldn’t hear the doorbell from here,” Kat said.

  Lyssa smiled. “You can if you’re not wrapped up in another world.” She ran damp palms over the sides of her loose-fitting yellow slacks as she made her way down the front-to-back hall of the house her ex had been so happy to leave.

  “Sign here, please,” a man in a FedEx uniform said when she opened the door.

  With a frown, Lyssa took the clipboard. She couldn’t imagine who would be s
ending her an overnight package on a Monday morning. “Who’s it from?”

  The man shrugged.

  She scrawled her signature, still mildly annoyed that she had kept her married name because of her college-bound daughter, and exchanged the clipboard for the packet.

  Good grief, her daughter. If Michelle ever heard what she’d done… But Lyssa knew that she wouldn’t have gone with Kat if Michelle hadn’t been at her about-to-be-roommate’s home for the weekend.

  That reminded her. She’d best make sure her newest creation was inside the studio’s closet before Michelle came back today to do some last-minute packing. Lyssa hadn’t been happy her daughter had chosen to spend her last weekend before college away from home, but at eighteen she was almost an adult, and Lyssa didn’t have the heart to forbid her to go.

  She glanced at the dahlia-painted wall clock as she came into the well-equipped kitchen, where Kat was rummaging through the fridge. “Wow, it’s after twelve already. Want to stay for lunch?”

  “I’d like to,” Kat said, opening a bottle of Evian, “but I have to get back to the shop and relieve Sandy.”

  “Too bad. I have some leftover lasagna I was going to nuke.” Lyssa pulled the strip that opened the cardboard FedEx package and slid out a business-size envelope.

  “Rats. Anything you cook is worth eating, even leftovers. Who’s it from?”

  A tremor skittered down Lyssa’s back under a V-neck top screen-printed with big sunflowers. “George’s lawyer.” She reached into a drawer and pulled out a steak knife, idly wishing she had the nerve to stick it in George’s neck. Or his philandering appendage. One year divorced and he still had the power to irritate her. Opening the envelope, she scanned the letter.

  “That lousy, rotten…ooooh, when I get my hands on him…” Furious, she slapped the letter onto the granite countertop. “He can’t do that! It’s in the divorce decree!”

  “What’d he do?”

  With an angry grunt, Lyssa picked the letter up again. “Oh, it’s couched in legalese, but I can just hear the smug voice of that sleazy lawyer putting the idea in his head. Listen to this. ‘Because of the recent and continuing plunge in the stock market, the current dividends from Mr. Markham’s portfolio are insufficient to meet his obligations regarding his daughter’s tuition. Inasmuch as his assets are fairly illiquid, we require a window of three months beyond the due date to judiciously dispose of enough assets to cover this obligation.’”

  She grabbed the kitchen phone and speed-dialed. “When I get hold of him, he’ll be eating his balls for supper.”

  Impatient, Lyssa paced the tile floor while waiting for someone to pick up. Then muttered, “Naturally, I get his answering machine.” She waited a moment, then controlling the violent urge to swear at him, took a calming breath and said, “George, it’s Lyssa. This is very important. Please pick up if you’re listening. Something’s come up regarding Michelle, something urgent. Can you call me as soon…”

  She stopped as she heard someone pick up.

  “Hello, George?”

  “You’re the ex-wife, aren’t you?” the female voice said.

  “Yes, this is Lyssa Markham. Is George there?”

  “Oh, no. He took MariBeth on a cruise.”

  Lyssa closed her eyes and willed her blood pressure not to explode. “Can he be reached?”

  Gum snapped in Lyssa’s ear. “You’re kidding, right?”

  Another deep breath. Calm down. “May I ask who this is?”

  “I’m MariBeth’s sister. I’m cat-sitting for the week.”

  Lyssa rested her forehead against the refrigerator door. She didn’t believe it. He didn’t have the money to pay their daughter’s tuition but could find some spare change to take his bimbo on a cruise, for God’s sake! And cat-sitting? She almost found the energy to smile. The image of an allergic George trying to share his new home with a cat was the only bright spot in this whole mess.

  “Do you have his itinerary? What’s the name of the ship? Or at least the cruise line? When will he be back?”

  “Saturday. I don’t know where they were going, or on what ship or whatever.”

  “If you hear from him, please, I beg you, have him call me. It’s about his daughter. There’s something he’s got to know urgently. Will you do that, please?”

  “Yeah, sure. Does he know your number?” More gum snapping.

  “He should, but please take it down in case he didn’t take it with him.” George had better remember his daughter’s number, but if he’d been bedazzled enough to gift his scrawny little plaything with a cruise, he might not even remember the number of his stateroom. She recited the number and, with another plea to have him call, Lyssa hung up.

  “Bad news, huh?”

  “I don’t believe it! A cruise! And that gum-popping teenybopper who answered the phone doesn’t even know the name of the ship! What if there’d been a real, life-or-death emergency? It would serve him right if his house was robbed while he was—”

  “Hey, Lyss, calm down.” Kat thrust a glass of iced tea in her hand. Lyssa gratefully took it and drank half of it without stopping.

  Calmer now, she said, “He knew darn well he had this expense coming up. This should have been paid weeks ago and they’re just telling me now? Where am I going to get fourteen grand overnight? He knows how tight my budget is, what with taking over the mortgage payments. He’s deliberately putting Michelle’s freshman year into jeopardy just to spite me.”

  She picked up a sponge from the kitchen counter and rubbed vigorously at a spot on the faucet. “Three months. That’s practically the whole first semester. Dartmouth will never let her matriculate without payment in full, especially not freshmen.”

  She briefly closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Illiquid assets, baloney. If he hadn’t bought that mansion for that bimbo, MariBeth,” she spat the name like an epithet, “he’d have enough liquid assets.”

  “Can you call your lawyer and ask if he can legally do this?”

  Lyssa stared through the patio door at the mature pin oak in the backyard, weighing her options. She barely noticed the lush green leaves rustling in a slight breeze, or the ripe tomatoes hanging on their sturdy stems in the garden.

  “Or better yet,” Kat added, “go to that sleazy lawyer of his and demand some action.”

  “You’re right. I have to do something.” Still, she stood indecisive for a moment. Then she spun on her heel, her slides squeaking on the Mexican tile floor. “I’d better get cleaned up.”

  “Atta girl. Don’t take ‘no’ for an answer.”

  Her daughter meant the world to Lyssa. She wasn’t going to settle for anything less than a fourteen-thousand-dollar check from that shyster. One that wouldn’t bounce. Or George was going to be in big trouble.

  * * * * *

  She couldn’t be more than nineteen, Lyssa thought as she nodded to acknowledge the pretty receptionist’s invitation to have a seat. Shining black hair so straight it might have been ironed, a heavy dose of mascara around her brown eyes, a very snug beige knitted sheath… She had surely been chosen to make a statement—This law firm is for the beautiful people.

  Lyssa glanced around the richly appointed reception room as she waited for the executive assistant to escort her to George’s attorney. Cordovan leather wing chairs, large photos of the Philadelphia skyline, fresh flowers, sleek computer and phone system, all announced that Quick, Bowers & Savidge was one of the most prestigious law firms in Philadelphia. George must have paid Jack Bowers a fortune, judging from the surroundings.

  Who was she kidding? He’d have had to, the way the settlement was structured. She hadn’t wanted to “take him to the cleaner’s”, as Kat had suggested. She just wanted to be rid of him. The last ten years of their nineteen-year marriage had been loveless, and he’d become emotionally abusive. Perhaps she should have allowed her own lawyer to be more forceful and not settle for a too-large house with a too-large mortgage, refusing alimony but accepting child s
upport until Michelle graduated from college. She’d thought his agreement to pay for her college expenses had been set in stone.

  She should have known better than to trust a lawyer.

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Markham, but Mr. Bowers is in court. May I help you?”

  Lyssa turned toward the rich alto voice. The woman looked her own age, with chestnut hair cut in a sleek, shoulder-length style and artfully applied makeup. Her black Donna Karan suit fitted her tall, slender curves like Saran wrap on a bowl. It made Lyssa wish she’d worn her own power suit, but she’d had to use Michelle’s eight-year-old Acura with the nonfunctioning air conditioner. Her own Honda CR-V was packed chock-full with college-bound stuff, which she fervently hoped would be on its way to New Hampshire in two days. She’d settled for a silky A-line dress in butter yellow and bare legs in high-heeled sandals.

  She tamped down her urge to snap at the woman. It wasn’t her fault her boss was in court. Unless it was just a stalling tactic.

  “When will he be back? It’s rather important.”

  “Actually, the case is scheduled to run for the remainder of the week. May I inquire the nature of your visit?”

  Lyssa glanced at the receptionist, who was looking up something on her computer for a caller. She didn’t want the entire office to know her ex was creating a problem. Apparently reading her mind, the assistant gestured Lyssa into a conference room off a short hall whose floor boasted an Oriental runner the rich shade of rubies.

  “Thank you.” She nodded to acknowledge the assistant’s thoughtfulness. “I really need to talk to someone about your client’s nonperformance of his contract.”

  “And the client would be…?”

  Were they taught to be obtuse? “My ex-husband, George Markham. I received a FedEx letter today from your boss.”