“Emaline. Being a star also requires risk-taking shoes. It’s Fashion 101. Put them on.”
I did. To my luck or detriment, we’d always worn the same size in just about everything. Looking down, I had to admit they kind of worked. As far as I knew. “I have never worn silver anything before in my life.”
“You can thank me later,” she said, grabbing the bag and zipping it up. “You better run. It’s five o’clock.”
“It is?” I looked at my watch. “Crap. Let’s go.”
I literally did run down the hallway to the main room, hoping for only two things: that the paintings were all hung and, if not, that no one had yet arrived. It was my lucky day. I got both. And then, as a bonus, something else.
“Doing the lights,” Morris called out. I looked over just in time to see him turn down the large, fluorescent ones overhead and plug in the cord connecting the smaller spots we’d been setting up all day. In an instant, the room went from bright and vast to small and intimate, each painting illuminated and defined. This was how I’d seen the Pavilion before. Such a difference, and for once, one I was more than happy to take full credit for.
“There are already people out front,” Morris reported as Robin walked past me, tying on her apron. “Want me to open the door?”
I looked at Ivy, who was standing by the cameras, a nervous expression on her face. It was weird to see her so jumpy, but at the same time kind of nice. A reminder that not everyone is what they seem right at first glance. You needed those, now and then.
“Sure,” I told him, giving Ivy a reassuring nod. “Let them in.”
* * *
An hour later, the place was packed, we were already out of meatballs (“Everyone loves them,” Robin said, sighing, before sending out more stuffed mushrooms), and, judging by the clumps of people in front of each painting, it appeared that Theo’s concerns about traffic flow were not valid after all. For this reason, if nothing else, I was happy. Or as happy as I could be with two more hours to go.
“These fish things are good,” Amber said to me, as we stood to the side of the bar, which I’d discerned had the best view of the entire room. Currently, I was watching Ivy as she took a lap around the room with Clyde, Esther following them with the camera. Theo, looking disgruntled, was sticking close to Clyde’s elbow. The only time I’d seen him brighten, in fact, was when we’d been going over the night’s schedule and Clyde mentioned he wanted to “make a few remarks about upcoming events” at some point during the evening. Best Hiring Moment Ever, I could almost hear Theo thinking. Public and showy; pomp at its best.
“They’re shrimp puffs,” I told Amber now.
“Whatever. I’ve had, like, seven.”
She popped another one in her mouth as my mom, hair still damp from her own rushed preparations, joined us. “Your dad is drinking a glass of white wine,” she reported. “I feel like we should get documentation, as it will never happen again.”
“Why isn’t he having a beer?” I asked.
She shrugged, taking a sip off her own glass. “This didn’t seem like a beer event. And they were walking past with them.”
I scanned the room again. Sure enough, over by a painting featuring broad, horizontal stripes of varying shades of gray was my dad, in a dress shirt—i.e., one that buttoned up, and was tucked in—holding, but not drinking, a glass of wine.
“I’ll be back,” I told my mom and Amber, then cut behind the bar, reaching into the cooler for a longneck. “Doing okay?” I asked Morris, who was serving drinks, as Robin’s bartender had never showed up.
“Yup,” he replied, perennially calm, even with a huge crowd of people pressed in around him. “Did Clyde find you?”
“When?”
“A couple of minutes ago. He said he needed to ask you about something.”
I looked across the room again, finding Clyde in front of the reedy painting Theo had been cataloging when we’d argued. He was gesturing at it, talking to Ivy, while Esther filmed. “I’ll go ask him. Thanks.”
“No prob,” he replied, turning to his next customer. “Red wine? Okay, coming up.”
I headed towards Clyde, uncapping the longneck in my hand on the way. En route, I stopped by my dad, who was now deep into a conversation with Roger from Finz about the slowness of the Colby building inspector. Without comment, I eased the white wine from his hand, replaced it with the beer, then patted his shoulder. He looked at it, then at me. “Oh, hey. Thanks.”
“You’re welcome,” I said. Ditching the wine on a tray, I picked my way through the crowd, hearing snippets of conversation and laughter. The room was a bit warm, but not hot, and my sandals were already rubbing a blister. I was not complaining.
“—one of the first pieces I did when I returned here,” Clyde was saying as I got within earshot. “I wasn’t really thinking of this as a series since I was basically in the midst of a nervous breakdown. I was literally painting from my bed, because I couldn’t get out of it. But in retrospect, it was key to this wider collection.”
“So different from your previous work, to be sure,” Ivy said, studying the painting as Esther moved around her. “Natural versus industrial, at the very least.”
Clyde nodded. “I wasn’t thinking that much, to be honest. Just recapturing something pure when I felt anything but.”