"So what do you think?" Curtis said finally, shaking me out of my reverie.
"Sorry," I said. "I sort of got lost in there. Yeah, I think you chose pretty well. I just wish I had something better to give you."
"Don't be ridiculous." Curtis sat down, tucking an e-cigarette between his lips and taking a long pull. "I wouldn't have given you an installation if I didn't think your work merited one."
"Well, that's comforting." I glanced up at the walls, noticing for the first time that they were plastered with little drawings, sketches, and watercolors - exactly the type of thing I wished I could do, but could never quite achieve. "See, that kind of thing -" I pointed to a portrait of a young man lounging on a windowsill, staring out at the landscape beyond. "That's what I wish I could do."
He smiled faintly. "You and me both," he said. "That was…well, still is, I suppose. One of my wife's drawings. That was me, once upon a time. Believe it or not."
I stood up, moving closer to it. The man's face was mostly hidden, but the physique certainly matched. "I can definitely believe it," I said. "I'm…she was very talented."
"Yeah, she was." He exhaled a lungful of vapor. "You want to hear the most pathetic story you'll be told all week?"
I chuckled, sitting back down. "Okay, I doubt that. But okay."
"We met in college. I was an artist. Well. An 'artist.' " He made air quotes around the word. "But she was an artist, you know what I mean? I was ashamed to even look at her. We had some of the same classes, figure drawing, you know, whatever…and I'd look over at her sometimes and her hand would just be f**king flying across the paper. I had no idea how she was even doing it. It was like the ideas came so fast that her pencil couldn't keep up. I looked at the shit I was drawing, and then I looked at her, and I thought to myself…there's no way she'll ever take a second look at me. All predicated on this idea of me being a worse artist than she was, you know? Now, in retrospect, I have no idea if she would have been immediately turned off at the idea of dating someone who couldn't draw as well as she could. I mean, I have no idea if that was even on her list. But for some reason, at the time, I was utterly convinced that my inability to draw was going to ruin my chances with this girl. So, do you know what I did?"
"What?"
He was chuckling a little at the memory. "I knew that the one hot commodity - the one thing that every artist wanted, was a connection with a gallery owner. I'm sure I don't have to tell you how hard it can be just to get a placement. And no matter how good she was, she was still going to end up in the same slush pile as everyone else, right? So I figured - the one sure way to get her attention would be to just go ahead and…buy an art gallery."
"Oh my God." I was already laughing. "Please tell me you didn't."
He shrugged, grinning. "Well, I managed to sell it to my dad as a business opportunity. This space was up for sale, and it was a complete dump, so it was cheap. He had the money ten times over, so he fronted me and I bought the damn thing. I spent all my nights and weekends renovating it, to the point where my grades suffered even more than they already did. But by the end of it, it was worthwhile. I was able to do my first showing, and when I approached my wife with the proposition, of course she said yes. It was an amazing opportunity. I didn't have nearly enough spots for all the students, so it was going to be a stiff competition for my first showing. And I was straight up offering her a spot."
"And she fell for it?"
"Well." He took another puff. "What kind of sociopath would buy an entire art gallery just to impress one girl? Of course she bought it. It was much easier to believe than the truth."
I grinned at him. "I'm deeply troubled," I said.
"Don't worry, I told her before we got married. By then, she already knew I was a little crazy, so she took it all in stride."
I had to laugh. Really, it was nice to know there was someone out there with an even more f**ked-up origin story than Daniel and me.
"Did you ever wonder?" I looked up at her paintings again. "I mean - did it ever occur to you that maybe…manufacturing things like that…did you ever feel guilty, like she wouldn’t have ever been with you otherwise?" I realized how bad it all sounded, and I quickly began to backpedal. "I’m sorry," I said. "I don’t mean to be…that was a really rude thing to say. It’s just that…" I hesitated and took a deep breath. Curtis was watching me closely, concern on his face. "Daniel’s got this weird…thing. I think because he was my boss, and because of his money, he thinks I somehow felt obligated to be with him. Or whatever."
It was close enough to the truth without revealing our secret. Curtis was nodding.
"So it makes some kind of sense to you?" I asked, fiddling with my purse strap.
"Sure," he said. "I mean - not at this point, how long have you been together? Years, right?"
"Just over two." I cleared my throat. "But I mean…you know, there have been some rough patches."
Curtis sipped from a mug on his desk. "Of course," he said. "But some people are just a little more, you know, insecure. And odds are, he’s dealt with it before - people who were just sort of intimidated by his status, or they’re after his money, or whatever. It’s probably his default mode to just be bitter and suspicious." He took another drag from his e-cigarette. "Still, though," he said after a moment. "You’d think, after all this time."
I smiled, wanly.
"Yeah, you would think, wouldn’t you?"
***
The next time I got an unexpected phone call, it actually was Kelly. I only knew because I remembered her voice - she didn’t bother to introduce herself when I answered the phone, leading instead with:
"So, what do you know about this stolen prototype business?"
"Uh…" I quickly walked into my studio and shut the door. "I’m sorry, what now?"
"The prototype. The original…" she drifted off, for long enough that I was just about to check to see if the phone had disconnected. "Wait, do you really not know about this at all?"
"I guess not," I replied. "Care to enlighten me?"
"Okay." She sounded like she was shuffling through some papers. "So I’ve been doing a little digging, and I came across a little bit of a kerfuffle in your husband’s past. It happened back in college. The court records were sealed, but…well, you know, I wouldn’t be very good at my job if I couldn’t get to them anyway."
"Hold on, hold on. I hired you to investigate Florence, not Daniel."
"Yeah, well, I leave no stone unturned. And it’s a good thing, too. Listen to this. The details are all a little bit muddled, but the accusation is that Daniel pretty liberally…’borrowed’ a pocket organizer prototype from some college buddies, and ended up using a lot of the specs when it came time for him to develop the very first Plum device. Remember that monstrosity?"
I forced myself to speak. "Yes," I said. "But…"
"But," Kelly repeated. "So here’s the deal, the case settled in court, and one of the conditions was that nobody involved could talk about it. So that kind of explains why no one ever brings it up." She hesitated. "But, that doesn’t mean they’re not thinking about it."
"Who?" I switched my phone to the other ear. "Who’s thinking about it?"
"The guys," she said, patiently. "From college. The ones he…maybe, sort of, kind of, might have stolen from."
All of a sudden, I remembered our honeymoon in St. Lucia. I remembered the journalist, and how he’d alluded to this very thing.
"Shit," I said aloud, as it all clicked into place.
"Now, granted," Kelly went on. "I don’t know if there’s any connection here. I was actually sort of hoping that you could shed some light on it, but…"
"I’m sorry," I said. "I mean, he doesn’t talk about it."
"Understandable," said Kelly.
I hesitated. I wanted to tell her about the journalist, but I was also slightly terrified about starting a shitstorm over something that Daniel clearly wanted to forget about. I was already starting to regret getting Kelly involved at all. I didn’t know her. I couldn’t trust her, really. What if she decided to go public with what she found, capitalizing on a short-term payday from the media? It might end her career if anyone found out, but if she played her cards right…
"You want to tell me something," said Kelly, after my long silence. "I can tell. Just spill it. Nobody’s going to find out. I take my detective-client privilege very seriously."
"Is ‘detective-client privilege’ even a real thing? I don’t even recall signing a contract."
"Do you really want a record of this on paper?"
"Okay, fine. But I still think you made up the ‘privilege’ part."
"Yeah, maybe. But I want to keep working in this town. I won’t betray you, Scout’s honor."
I sighed. "Okay, so there’s this thing. When we were on our honeymoon…" I hesitated again.
"Go on," said Kelly. I could hear her grinning.
"Ha ha," I deadpanned. "This journalist came up to us while we were eating. Well - before that, he’d been taking pictures of us on the beach. He claimed it was just a coincidence that he was there."
"Yeah, sure," Kelly cut in. "But he knew something about the lawsuit, you think?"
"Oh, he definitely did. He sort of led Daniel into the topic, and then started asking about it. Daniel got really upset and we left, but he wouldn’t tell me anything - he just said it was a long time ago, and it was settled with a non-disclosure agreement. That’s literally all I know about it."
"You got a name?" I could hear papers rustling on her desk.
"Whose, the journalist’s? I think…Ryan Brewer. That sounds right. He introduced himself to us before things went south. Of course I don’t know if it’s real."
"I’m sure it’s real," said Kelly. "Or at the very least, it’s what he uses on his byline. He wouldn’t resist the opportunity to plant his name in someone’s head."
"I wouldn’t even venture a guess as to how he found out about it," I said. "I looked it up online afterwards, because of course I was curious. But there was nothing."
"Sure," said Kelly. "If you don’t know where to look."
"Granted." I plucked a pencil from my desk and examined it like I’d never seen it before. "Obviously Mr. Brewer does."
"Could be," she said. "Could be. Well, thanks for the information. I’ll call you once I have something."
"Thank you," I said.
I’d been so absorbed in all of this mess that I’d completely forgotten about Ryan Brewer, freelance journalist. It hadn’t even occurred to me that he might be involved in this, or even that it might have something to do with the lawsuit he’d alluded to. But now, I couldn’t help but wonder.