Candra returned her attention to the paintings, tapping one elegant nail on her bottom lip as she considered them. Sweeney’s stomach knotted again.
“They’re almost surreal,” Candra murmured, talking to herself. “Your use of color is striking. Several shades seem to glow, like light coming through stained glass. A river, a mountain, flowers, but not like any you’ve done before.”
Sweeney was silent. She had spent hours, days, staring worriedly at those canvases; she knew every brushstroke on them. But she looked at them again, wondering what she had missed, and saw that nothing had changed. The colors still looked strangely intense, the composition was a little off in some way she couldn’t explain, the brushstrokes were a touch blurred. She couldn’t tell if it was surreal, as Candra said, or exuberant. Maybe both. Maybe neither.
“I want more,” Candra said. “If this is an example of what you’ve been doing, I want every canvas you’ve completed. I’m doubling your prices. I may have to come down in price, but I think I’m judging it right.”
Kai nodded in agreement. “There’s energy here, a lot more than I’ve ever seen in your work. People will go nuts over these.”
Sweeney dismissed the bit about energy; that was just a buzzword. His last statement was more honest, an assessment of their marketability. Relief swamped her. Maybe she hadn’t lost her talent, just her ability to judge it.
“What’s that?” Candra said, indicating the folder holding the sketch of the hot dog vendor.
“A sketch I made of a street vendor,” Sweeney said. “I want to give it to him.” She shivered suddenly, a chill roughening her skin. Damn it, she had been enjoying feeling warm, but the warmth hadn’t lasted long.
“I’ll have these framed immediately,” Candra said, turning back to the paintings. “And bring the others. I’d like to make a full display of them, place them close to the front so the light is better and they’re the first thing clients see when they come in. I promise, these are going to fly out the door.”
* * *
Walking back home, Sweeney hugged herself against the cold. She was relieved at Candra’s reaction to the paintings, but for some reason she couldn’t enjoy her relief. The uneasy feeling was growing stronger.
She reached the corner where the old vendor had always been, but it was still empty. She stopped, a great sadness welling in her as she wondered if she would ever see him again. She wanted to give him the sketch, wanted to know if she had accurately deduced his childhood features from the facial structure of an old man. She wanted to see that sweet smile.
“Hi, Sweeney,” said a soft voice at her elbow.
She looked around, and delight speared through her. “There you are,” she said joyfully. “I thought you must be sick—” She halted, shock replacing delight. He was faintly translucent, oddly two-dimensional.
He shook his head. “I’m all right. Don’t be worryin’ about me.” The sweet smile bloomed in his dark face. “You got it right, Sweeney. That’s just how I used to look.”
She didn’t say anything else. She couldn’t. She wanted to weep, she wanted to say she was sorry she hadn’t gotten it right sooner, so she could have given him the sketch.
“Do me a favor,” he said. “Send it to my boys. David and Jacob Stokes. They’re lawyers, my boys, both of them. Fine men. Send it to them.”
“I will,” she whispered, and he nodded.
“Go on now,” he said. “I’ll be fine. I just had some loose ends needed takin’ care of.”
“I’ll miss you,” she managed to say. She was aware of people giving her a wide berth, but they were New Yorkers; no one stopped, or even slowed.
“I’ll miss you, too. You always brought the sunshine with you. Smile now, and let me see how pretty you are. My, my, your eyes are as blue as heaven. That’s a mighty nice sight...”
His voice became gradually fainter, as if he were walking away from her. Sweeney watched him fade, becoming more and more transparent until there was nothing left except a faint glow where he had stood.
The chill was gone. She felt warm again, but frightened and sad. She wanted to be held the way Richard had held her that morning, but he wasn’t here, and he wasn’t hers. She didn’t have him. She was alone, and for the first time in her life she didn’t like it.
CHAPTER SIX
Candra took the early shuttle from New York to D.C. the next morning. The capital suited her purposes better, so she didn’t mind the inconvenience. For one, seeing him in D.C. was easier than seeing him in New York, where he was seldom in his office. She would have had to either go to his house or call him there for an outside meeting, and she preferred not to.
Perhaps Margo knew about her affair with the senator, but perhaps not. Despite her own stupidity in telling Richard about the abortion when she should have kept her mouth shut, Candra didn’t believe in unnecessarily hurting or humiliating anyone. Margo might not care how many women Carson banged, but she definitely wouldn’t want him banging them in her house. Knowing what she knew about him, Candra wouldn’t be surprised if he insisted on having sex right there in the office, before he even knew why she was there. She smiled thinly, humorlessly. First he would fuck her, then she would fuck him; she thought that was fair.
She had taken extra pains with her appearance that morning, not to attract attention but to avoid it. On went the black business suit, the staid black pumps with one-and-a-half-inch heels. Her earrings were plain gold hoops; she left off all rings and exchanged her wafer-thin, impossibly elegant Piaget wristwatch for an old Rolex, one her father had given her when she was sixteen. She doubted it had cost more than a couple of thousand. A Rolex wouldn’t stand out in the capital, where status was everything and Rolexes were as common as embassy plates.