Perhaps she should have asked Nuala what an braddn meant, while the housekeeper had been willing to talk this afternoon.
Bettina shook her head. Oh, yes. Bueno idea. And receive yet another lecture. No gracias.
Nuala meant well, Bettina thought as she opened the door and stepped into the warm kitchen, but a mystery lay thick around her, too. Of course, that was none of Bettina’s business either, though she’d never let that stop her before. Her sense of curiosity was too strong to let any puzzle remain unchallenged for too long.
“Ah, chica, chica,” her abuela used to say. “If only you were as diligent with what I am trying to teach you as you are with your curiosity for everything else.”
Bettina closed the door behind her and leaned for a moment with her back against its wooden panels. She could almost hear her grandmother’s voice.
iPresta atencion!
Pay attention to this, to what is before you, not to every little whim and wonder the wind might blow your way.
“Teecho de menos, abuela,” she said softly. “I miss you so very much.”
6
Ellie wasn’t exactly thrilled about having to spend Saturday morning with Henry Patterson, a businessman who’d commissioned a bust of himself from her as a gift to his wife, but she didn’t see that she had much choice. Not if she wanted to keep him happy and collect her money. He was such a control freak—an exaggerated caricature of the sort of client she disliked the most. She supposed his type of person was useful in an office environment, get the job done and all that, though she certainly wouldn’t want to be an employee in that office.
Here, in her studio, his abrasive manner went beyond simple irritation.
He needed to be involved in every step of the process, overseeing all the various aspects as if he knew the first thing about sculpture, which of course he didn’t. The early stages when she was first building up a bust had been the worst. Yes, she’d told him. I need you here for this part of the process. I know there’s no likeness yet, but these things take time. If you’ll just be patient, I’m sure you’ll be more than pleased with the final results.
But patience, apparently, wasn’t one of Patterson’s virtues, if he had any, which Ellie had come to doubt. By his fifth sitting she found herself wondering why he was still alive. He was in his late fifties—surely someone would have strangled him by now?
After every session, he’d go on at great lengths to critique what she’d done so far, showing a complete lack of understanding as to the basics of art in general, never mind sculpture. She could have learned to live with his ignorance except that it was coupled with a pretentiousness that was truly unbearable; it took all her willpower to simply bite her tongue and kowtow—verbally, if not literally. Somehow she put up with his inane and uninformed suggestions as to how she could do her job so much more expediently, so much more professionally, if she’d only do this, and perhaps that, and certainly this. Never mind that none of his suggestions would work, because, you see, he knew a thing or two about art, little lady—“Don’t call me that,” she’d tell him, for all the good it did—and on and on he’d go, ad infinitum, ad nauseum.
All she could do was try to get through the sitting. She’d maintain a stiff smile and fantasize about telling him exactly where he could shove said sculpture. And how she hoped it would hurt.
This morning’s sitting was a complete and utter disaster. Bad enough that he hadn’t had time to sit for her the past week so that she’d had to work from photographs. But when he stepped through the door of her studio and saw what she’d done so far, he had the nerve to immediately begin haranguing her about how she was deliberately making the portrait as unflattering as possible. It was almost funny coming as it did from someone like him, where ugly would be a compliment.
He was a hog of a man, puffed up with his self-importance, which translated physically into a grossly overweight specimen of dubious manhood squeezed into a suit that must have cost a fortune, but might as well have been made of sackcloth for all the good its classic lines did him. She couldn’t believe he was complaining. Had he never looked in a mirror? She’d already made his nose smaller, tightened up the flapping jowls, and plied any number of other tricks to retain a likeness that would also be flattering.
“I’m sorry you feel that way,” she said, keeping her temper in check with an effort, “but—”
“Don’t you think for a moment that I don’t know what you’re doing here.”
“If you’ll calm down, we can—”
“You’re mocking me, plain and simple. This, this… thing.” He pointed a fat finger at the bust, face red, sweat beading on his brow. “I suppose you consider it to be some sort of artistic statement, a bohemian criticism of the corporate world—is that it? The creative individual standing firm against the fat cats of big business. But you listen to me, little lady. So far as I’m—”
“How many times do I have to tell you?” she broke in “Don’t call me a ‘little lady.’ ”
“Don’t you interrupt—”
That was it, Ellie decided.
“Look,” she said. “Just shut up.”
He blinked, small pig eyes widening with surprise. His flushed face grew redder, jowls quivering with outrage.
What’s the matter? Ellie thought. No one ever stood up to you before?
“If you’re this bothered by how the sculpture’s turning out,” she went on before he could speak, “I’ll simply return your deposit and we can call it quits. I’m sure we’ll both live happier lives knowing that we’ll never have to see each other again.”
He shook his head. There was a cold look in his eyes now.
“And leave you with this mockery of a portrait?” he said. “And let you display it in some gallery for all the world to see and laugh over? I don’t think so.”
Like anyone she knew would even know who he was. Like they’d care. Like she’d take the time to finish it.
Ellie shrugged. “If you don’t pay for it, you don’t get it.”
“I don’t think so,” he repeated. “I won’t be leaving here without it.”
“Jesus. Are you so cheap that you’ll pull something like this just to get it for the hundred bucks you put down on deposit? It’s not even finished yet.”
“I will have my deposit from you,” he told her in what she assumed was his boardroom voice. Cold, firm. No give. “And I will have that travesty of a sculpture, or you—” Now the chilly smile. “—little lady, can expect a visit from my lawyers.”
“Oh,” Ellie said. “Well, if you put it like that…”
She stepped over to the table and picked up her clay-cutting wire, a length of copper wire with short wooden dowels tied on either end. Pulling the wire taut between her hands, she laid it on top of the brow of the sculpture and with a quick downward jerk, sliced the face right off. The clay fell to the floor and she mashed it under her foot. Stepping back, she gave Patterson a sweet smile.
“Go ahead, fat man. Take it.”
“You—”
“And then get your sorry ass out of my studio.”
“My lawyers—”
“Send ’em by.”
The cloud of rage that swept over his features was like nothing she’d seen before. The only thing that came close was the time that she and Tommy had been forced to hold down this raging schizophrenic in an alley off Norton Street, trying to keep him from hurting himself—and anybody else—while they waited for the ambulance to arrive.