Jamison (Beautiful Mine #3)

by DeLuca, Gia

“Jamison.” A staunch older man walked up, placing his hand on Jamison’s shoulder. His thick black mustache and paper thin glasses told me he was a man who lived by his own rules.

  “Dr. Valotti,” Jamison said. “Good to see you. Glad you could make it.”

  I tuned out their small talk as my eyes scanned the room. I wanted to remember every little detail about that night.

  “Excuse me,” I said, slipping away from their conversation and heading toward one of my bigger pieces, where two women in head to toe Chanel were discussing it.

  “Here she is,” the older of the two said. “The artist herself. Maybe she can clarify some things for us?”

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “It says here the name of the painting is ‘Pirouette,’ but I don’t see anything ballet-related in this picture,” she said.

  I smiled. I’d painted it for Rossi. “You can’t see it, but underneath everything is a pink ballet slipper. It’s buried. But it’s there.”

  The older woman’s lips drew into a smile.

  “Beneath all of my paintings is a single object,” I said. “I start with an idea or an image. I paint that first. And then the rest of the painting goes over top of it. So in this painting, the ballet slipper is the heart.”

  The older woman clutched her hand across her chest. “That’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard.”

  “How much?” the other woman asked. “I have to have this for my guest room in the Hamptons.”

  “No,” the older woman said. “I must have it. My daughter was a prima ballerina for the American Ballet Company about fifteen years ago. She would love this.”

  I paused, unprepared for this sort of thing, as I watched them bicker back and forth.

  “Ladies,” a gentleman in a suit interrupted them, “may I help you?”

  Apparently, there were people hired to deal with the sales and negotiation side of the evening. I breathed a sigh of relief and graciously slipped back over toward Jamison.

  “I think I just got my first sale,” I said to him.

  “No,” he said. “Half your paintings have received bids tonight.”

  “What?”

  “That’s what Mia was just told. Hers are selling well, too.”

  “You’re joking?” It took all the strength I had not to jump up and down like a giddy schoolgirl.

  The door behind me opened and a chilled gust of wind sent pinpricks up my backside. I turned to see who the new arrival was. Two middle-aged, out of place guests with ashen faces and coffee bean, salt-flecked hair. My parents.

  I turned to Jamison and then to Mia, panic rising in my chest and restricting my speech. Mia and Jamison exchanged looks, but my brain was running on overdrive, unable to process anything besides looking for the nearest exit.

  Without thinking twice, I jetted back to my studio and slammed the door, locking myself away from the chaos so I could gather my thoughts for two seconds.

  “Sophie,” Jamison called from the other side. “Can I come in?”

  “No,” I cried back. “I need a minute.”

  “Sophie, please. Talk to me.”

  “Why did you invite them here?”

  The door flew open, thanks to Mia not thinking to install locks on our studios during renovations, and Jamison let himself in, much to my dismay. His wrinkled forehead and kind blue eyes showed a sort of compassion that almost made me change my mind about being mad at him.

  “What are my parents doing here?” I crossed my arms, spitting my words. “Did you invite them, or did Mia?”

  “I did.” He didn’t cower. He didn’t flinch. He owned it.

  “Why?” I could feel my lips beginning to pout as the skin of my face flushed hot and my eyes burned. “Why would you do that, Jamison?”

  “You need them.”

  “You don’t know a damn thing about me.” I hated speaking to him that way, but I spoke from the deepest parts of me.

  “I know you better than you think I do.”

  “I was perfectly fine until you came along,” I lied.

  “Bullshit.” He stepped into my space, and I could feel his body heat on my exposed shoulders. “You were dying.”

  I huffed.

  “You were dying, Sophie. And I don’t mean physically,” he added.

  I swallowed the lump in my throat. He couldn’t have known about my attempted suicide. I hadn’t told anyone. Not even Mia.

  “So, you have me all figured out?” I asked. “You think you know what’s good for me? You think you can just come into my life and fix everything?”

  “You asked me to fix you. I made a promise.”

  “I meant my aneurysm.” I hated that word. It was so textbook and scientific, and it brought pause to any conversation.

  “I knew something was up when you didn’t put your parents down as emergency contacts,” Jamison said softly. “And when you told me about your sisters… well, I started piecing things together.”

  “Guess that’s why they pay you the big bucks. You’re just so damn smart, aren’t you?”

  “When I asked Mia for your parents’ number, she let it slip that you’d pushed them away after your sisters passed.”

  I wanted to slap Mia. She had no business telling him that.

  “My parents blame me for what happened, you know.” My eyes searched up into his, hoping he’d understand where I was coming from.

  “They said that?” His forehead wrinkled in disbelief.

  “Not exactly. It was mostly implied.”

  “I have a hard time believing that the people who raised you into the beautiful woman you are today could possibly blame you for what happened. And I have an even harder time believing they’d want to be cut from your life completely.” He wrapped his hands around my waist, anchoring me to the ground so I couldn’t slip away. His words carried weight, and I knew he had a point.

  “It’s just…” My voice broke. “When they look at me, they look so sad. And… I just think they see my sisters. And… I think they associate me with that night. And I…”

  He lifted his hand to the back of my head, pressing me into the comfort of his solid chest as he shushed me.

  “Your parents aren’t perfect,” he said, his voice a low vibration against my ear. “But you have to stop punishing yourself.”

  His words ceased, as if he suddenly caught the irony in his statement.

  I released myself from his hold and wiped away the remaining tears from my cheeks as he cupped my chin.

  “You look beautiful,” he said with a smile. “This is your night. Trust me when I say that inviting your parents was the right thing to do.”

  I nodded, plastering a half smile on my face and stepping back out to the gallery.

  “Sophie,” my mother said, lifting her thick fingers to her mouth. Her salt-and-peppered hair was windswept and out of place, and her navy twin set and khakis were ill-fitting and made her stand out like a sore thumb, but she was there. In the flesh. The brown eyes I’d gazed up into as a child were watering as she walked closer to me. She hesitated a bit, almost scared to wrap her arms around me.

  “Hi, Mom,” I said, accepting her hug. It’d been well over a year since I’d seen them last. The year after The Incident, every time I’d come home, I’d see my parents in worse shape than before, as if they were deteriorating before my very eyes. The way they’d look at me, all misty-eyed, their words few and far between—it all told me they were better off without me around. They didn’t need that constant reminder.

  A jolt of pain dashed across my stomach as I saw my father standing back a ways. He shifted uncomfortably, his eyes darting around at the fancy guests. He didn’t want to be there. He’d have much rather been sitting in his easy chair, sipping his whiskey and coke and catching the evening news until he passed out for the night.

  “Dad,” I said, releasing my mother and walking to him. His bulbous nose, reddened from recent years of hard drinking, seemed bigger than I remembered, and he had more
gray in his temples than the last time I’d seen him.

  “We missed you, Sophie Doll,” my dad said, instantly softening the resistance between us. I rested my cheek on his shoulder, breathing in the “Old Man Cologne” I used to tease him for wearing. He smelled exactly the way I remembered, except for the smallest hint of whiskey on his breath.

  “Thanks for coming,” I said.

  “Your friend invited us,” he replied as I stepped away. His eyes danced over to where Jamison stood back, silently observing our little reunion. “Hope we didn’t upset you by coming.”

  I turned to my mom, who couldn’t take her eyes off me, and she smiled. I hadn’t seen her smile since long before The Incident.

  “Your work is beautiful,” she gushed. “Just beautiful.”

  “Come home,” my father said. “We’d love for you to visit like you used to.”

  My stomach churned at the memory of the last time I’d gone home. The warm, nostalgic feeling I used to get when I went home during school breaks had dissipated into thin air the moment my sisters died. The door to their bedroom stayed locked tight, untouched. The house was too quiet, and my parents sat like vacant shells with empty eyes in front of a glowing T.V. every night. I stopped going home when it stopped feeling like home, and I had never intended to go back.

  But seeing the way my parents looked at me was a clear indication that the old Ken and Julie were in there somewhere, hidden behind a mountain of pain and years of hurt, begging to be released. Begging to move on, to live again. And now I understood that only I had the power to free them.

  “You guys staying in town tonight?” I asked.

  “Jamison put us up in a hotel,” my mother said with a gracious smile.

  “Maybe we can meet up tomorrow?” I proposed. “I can show you around the city.”

  “We’d love that, kiddo,” my dad said, his blue eyes crinkling at the corners.

  “I’ll get a hold of you in the morning,” I said, slowly walking back toward the party. “I need to go mingle for a bit.”

  They stood side by side, watching me like proud parents, a look I hadn’t seen from either of their faces in years. I wanted to both punch and kiss Jamison at the same time. Once again, he knew exactly what I needed.

  “You know you have to tell them tomorrow,” Jamison whispered into my ear as his hand pressed into the small of my back.

  “Tell them what?”

  “About your diagnosis.”

  “I can’t,” I said, shaking my head. “Look how happy they seem. I can’t tell them. Not yet.”

  “Have I ever steered you wrong?”

  “Here she is! The artist herself!” A woman in a long, flowing gown the color of a pink rose glided over to us, ending our conversation before it had a chance to reach a full boil. “I have to ask you about this piece over here…”

  She grabbed me by the arm, gently pulling me away from Jamison as she rambled on about a piece of mine Mia had put on display. It was the heart I’d painted the day I realized I loved Jamison.

  “I’m sorry, this one’s not for sale,” I said, trying my best to be polite. “It was mistakenly displayed.”

  I leaned over and ripped the plaque off the wall that displayed the price.

  “My dear, everything has a price,” she scoffed, slipping a manicured hand across the diamond necklace that hung into her cleavage. “I’m simply in love.”

  “If you’d like to commission a piece, I’d be happy to paint another just like it,” I offered.

  In art school, we were taught never to get too attached to our pieces. We were taught that if someone wanted to buy your painting and the price was right, you were a damn fool not to sell it to them.

  But this one was special. This one represented fresh starts. New beginnings. Budding love. Jamison.

  This one was priceless.

  “I’m very disappointed,” she huffed, her nose in the air as she walked off. I was sure to a woman of her distinction, everything had a price. If I had to guess, she was rarely, if ever, told “no,” and anything she ever laid eyes on she was able to procure.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, genuinely apologetic for letting her down. But by the time I’d said it, she was already clear across the room, eyeing one of Mia’s watercolors.

  “You all right?” Jamison appeared out of nowhere, studying my face with his worried expression.

  “That one’s not for sale,” I told him.

  It never would be.

  JAMISON

  The bed felt unusually cold for a Saturday morning. We’d stayed at the gallery until the last of the guests left, and then I took Sophie back to my place. Several glasses of celebratory champagne had knocked her off her feet, and her eyes barely fluttered open as I unzipped her dress and slipped off her shoes before tucking her neatly under the covers of my bed.

  My hand flew over to the other side. Empty. I drudged myself up, heading across the room to where the bathroom door was closed.

  “Sophie?” I knocked. I popped the door open just a crack, and the gentle splash of tub water drew my eyes to where Sophie was relaxing in a deep tub full of bubbles. Her lips widened into a smile.

  “Want in?”

  I stepped into the bathroom. “Couldn’t sleep? Kind of early for a bath, isn’t it?”

  “I slept like a champ,” she said, her dark hair spilling down the back of the slipper tub. “Woke up feeling like a million bucks. Thought I’d take a bath since my place only has a shower.”

  Clean-faced and washed in an early morning glow, Sophie radiated as if she were lit from within.

  “I’m meeting my parents in an hour for breakfast,” she said. “I never thought I’d say this, but I’m kind of looking forward to it.”

  She lifted a bubble-covered arm up and let the water drip back down into the tub, completely in the moment.

  “I’m sorry for yelling at you last night,” she said gingerly, shrinking down into the water.

  I sauntered to the tub, lowering myself down onto my knees. “You had every right to yell at me.”

  Her eyes met mine and she nibbled on her lips, which were like lush peaches against a canvas of cream, and I leaned over to kiss her.

  “You need me to go with you today?” I offered.

  “No,” she said. “I need to do this on my own.”

  “You going to tell them?”

  “Yes,” she sighed, brows raised in slight annoyance. “I’ll find a way.”

  I stood back up, tugging at the waistband of my silken pajama pants and tossing them in the hamper across the room.

  “Yummy,” Sophie teased as she ogled me from beneath the blanket of bubbles that unfairly covered her naughty bits.

  “I’m jumping in the shower,” I announced. “Going to run to the hospital this morning and catch up on some charting.”

  ***

  I rounded the corner to my office, only to find the door already open. The cleaning people had a bad habit of forgetting to lock up, so it wasn’t the first time. I pocketed my keys.

  “Oh, hello,” I said as the hospital chief, Dr. Whitehorn, and a man I didn’t recognize were going through my files. “Can I help you?”

  My heart pounded with sickening thuds, each quiet second dragging on longer than necessary.

  “Dr. Garner,” Dr. Whitehorn said. He stood up, smoothing his gray suit and locking his flint gray eyes onto mine. He always seemed more like an attorney to me than a doctor, and I never could picture him giving a damn about a sick person. He had the self-serving attitude of a politician and was unquestionably a card-carrying member of the Good Old Boys’ club of Mercy Grace Hospital. Younger guys like me made the older guys like him feel insignificant and irrelevant. They all hated me because I made them look bad.

  “Mind telling me what’s going on?” I demanded.

  “There’s been an accusation,” Dr. Whitehorn said, watching my body language like a hawk.

  I kept a stoic face. “What kind of accusation?”

 
; “Improper relations with a patient,” he said. “This is the hospital attorney, Richard Upton. We’re looking for a file on a patient, Sophie Salinger. Know where we might find it?”

  My blood boiled. The entire thing reeked of Daphne.

  “I’m really being accused of having improper relations with a patient?” I asked. If I told them she was no longer my patient, they’d interpret it as a sign of guilt. If I told them her name didn’t sound familiar, they could easily check her records and see that she’d met with me twice. “Because if so, I’d like to be questioned with an attorney present.”

  “Jamison,” Dr. Whitehorn said in his thick New York accent, cocking his head and smiling as if we were two old pals. I wanted to rip every last one of his white hairs from his scalp one by one and then slap the smug smile right off his pudgy little face. “Come on, now. All you have to do is cooperate. If you’ve done nothing wrong, you’ve got nothing to be afraid of.”

  “This is absurd,” I huffed. “You’re wrong.”

  My thoughts scattered, and I couldn’t make sense of a damn one.

  “We have to ask you to leave,” Dr. Whitehorn said. “You’re on paid leave until our investigation is over.”

  I rushed home, catching Sophie as she was on her way out to meet with her parents.

  “You’re back early,” she said, greeting me with an oblivious kiss and leaving the taste of peppermint on my lips. “Change your mind about working? Feeling like slothing it up for a change?”

  I raked my fingers through my hair, trying to figure out a way to tell her shit had officially hit the fan.

  “What’s wrong? What is it?” she asked, her smile fading.

  “I’ll tell you later. Just… just go on. You don’t want to be late.” I pushed past her, jamming my key in the lock and entering the familiar walls of my grayscale apartment.

  “Jamison.” She spun around, following me back inside. “What happened?”

  “I’m under investigation at work.” The words were gritty like sandpaper as I spit them from my mouth, and the taste of them burned my throat going down. My jaw clenched as I saw my entire life’s work swirl down the drain. My shoulders drooped and my head fell.

  “Oh, God,” Sophie said, her voice trembling. “But you didn’t do anything wrong!”