“Don’t make me scream,” Robyn said.
“Now there’s a challenge,” I said, as she bolted through the exit.
She was hardly out the now open door when Franny’s ride pulled up, those familiar round headlights spotlighting Robyn’s voluptuous frame as she tossed a wave at Franny’s mom.
“Time to pack it in, Fran,” I announced, turning to him.
But he’d already beat me to the punch. In the short time it took me to bid farewell to Rob, Franny managed to seal his paint canisters and jars of turpentine. He also packed up everything that needed packing. Except his new painting, that is.
I swallowed something sour.
“Fran, don’t forget your piece.”
“Painted this for you,” he mumbled, big brown eyes peeled to the paint-stained VCT. What disturbed me more than his gifting me yet another painting was how his voice took on that same odd tone that had first revealed itself last night. The tone that revealed the man locked inside the perpetual boy. His face also took on the look of a man who knew something I did not. That voice, that face; they were enough to fill my spine with ice water.
A horn blared.
I nearly jumped through the concrete block wall.
The horn blared again.
Franny’s mom was growing impatient. It occurred to me that I should follow him out to the Scaramuzzi pickup truck, pose a few questions to his mother. Were you aware that he’s given me two of his paintings? Did you know that I’m seeing words in the paintings that no one else seems to see? That is, if I don’t point them out first? Did you know that today’s painting very much resembles the setting of a recurring dream I’ve had? That it matches the place where my twin sister and I were attacked by a monster who lived in the woods thirty years ago almost to the day?
I wanted to ask her these things and more. But Franny would overhear our conversation. Franny went for the door, the ratty, old, cuffed dungarees dragging along the floor.
Out the corner of my eye, I spotted the new painting resting on the easel.
“What do you call it?” I called out.
He turned, slow, awkward, the open glass door pressed up against his stocky shoulder.
“The title,” he mumbled. “The title. The title.”
“See.” I swallowed.
“Goodnight, Rebecca.”
“Goodnight, Franny.”
And then the artist was gone.
Chapter 14
The dark evening had become shrouded in a thick, foggy mist. Broadway was empty of motor vehicles, its sidewalks empty of people.
I climbed the parking garage ramp to the second level where I’d parked the Cabriolet. The concrete garage was brightly lit with sodium lamplight. It was also damp, cold, lonely. I walked with my knapsack hanging off my right shoulder, Franny’s ‘See’ painting tucked under my left arm.
My footsteps echoed inside the cavernous garage.
I was all alone.
I didn’t like being that alone; the vulnerability that went with it. My body was a live wire, my senses picking up every nuance of sound, movement and smell. It wasn’t as though I were being watched. It was more like being totally naked and exposed.
The Cabriolet could not have been more than seventy or eighty feet away from me. But it might as well have been a mile. That car was my safety zone-four walls and a retractable roof.
I walked, boot heels click-clacking along the concrete floor.
Then I saw a shadow.
Just up ahead of me, the shadow projected itself onto the concrete floor, as though coming from a man concealing himself behind a concrete column.
I stopped.
I opened my mouth to speak. But no words would come.
The shadow moved.
It moved backwards, forwards, the person behind the column shifting position.
That’s when I found my voice.
“Who is it?”
It came out as a shout. So loud and adrenalin charged, I startled myself.
“Who’s there?” I shouted again, voice echoing inside the concrete garage.
I felt the blood leave my head, sink down my neck, pour down the insides of my body. I felt the blood spill out the bottoms of my feet. Fear blinded me like a black hood pulled over my head. I stumbled, my balance shifting from one side to the other. I’m not sure how long I stood there exposed, eyes closed, body swaying, breathing hard and fast.
I closed my eyes.
But when I opened them, the shadow was gone.
I could only guess that whoever had been behind the column was gone now. That is, if there had been someone there in the first place.
Had I imagined the shadow?
Was my imagination running away with itself?
God, get me out of here.
I made a mad dash for the car, at the same time pulling the keys from my knapsack. I dropped Franny’s painting as I thumbed the unlock button on the key-face. The car came to life, door-locks unlocking, headlights flashing.
Bending at the knees, I picked the painting back up, ran for the Cabriolet. I threw open the driver’s side door, tossed in the bag, tossed in the painting. Jumping in behind the wheel, I fumbled with the ignition key until I managed to slip it into the lock. Pumping the gas I turned the engine over until it started with a resounding roar. To the immediate right of me was the concrete column that had hid the figure of a person. A person who’d been watching me. A man. Or so I imagined.
I pulled out of the spot, the tires squealing against the smooth concrete floor. I made for the area designated EXIT. For a quick moment I thought about looking into the rearview.
But I resisted the urge.
Better not to see what was behind me; what might have been stalking me.
Chapter 15
I didn’t enter my apartment so much as I burst through the back door.
The sudden intrusion was enough to make Michael jump out of his chair.
“You scared the crap out me, Bec!”
I dropped the art bag to the floor, leaned today’s ‘See’ painting up against yesterday’s ‘Listen’ painting, then made a beeline for the kitchen. I made it back into the living room along with two open bottles of Corona, set one of them down besides Michael’s laptop.
“Work’s over.”
“Yes ma’am.” He grabbed hold of the bottle. “Nail officially bitten.”
I took a long pull of the beer and felt the cool carbonation against the back of my throat, the magic of the alcohol calming me.
Michael closed his laptop and sat back in his chair.
“Explanation.”
I put myself back beside the ‘See’ painting. “This happened.”
Stealing another sip of beer, Michael got up from his desk. He approached the painting with squinty, focused eyes, the fingers on his right hand smoothing out his mustache. After a time, he nodded, cocked his head toward one shoulder, then the other as if to carefully choose his words.
“This is what I see,” he said. “I see Franny’s version of a rural landscape.” He tossed me a glance. “But I’m guessing you’re seeing something inside the landscape that I’m not.”
I took another drink and bit my bottom lip.
“Yes,” I said. “And no.”
“Which is it, Bec?”
I gazed down at the painting, used extended index finger to point to a specific area of tall grass that appeared to be swaying in the wind.
“There’s a word in there,” I said. “See… S-e-e.”
He stood back as though to gain a different perspective. It was not unlike the way someone might look at their own image in a funhouse mirror. He dug into his pocket for his Chapstick. He uncapped it, ran it across his lips, capped it back up and returned it to his pocket.
“Ah, don’t you think you’re stretching it a little?”
He thought I was bonkers. No two ways about it.
I started to cry.
Setting the ‘See’ canvas back down against the ‘Listen’ canvas, I stormed into the kitchen, pulled a paper towel off the rack, dried my eyes, and blew my nose.