By Marilyn Baron & Sharon Goldman
CHAPTER ONE
The Wild Thing in the Bushes
Alexandra Newborn hurried past what her husband Mark called the Great Wall of China, an imposing oak cabinet that housed her grandmother’s Wedgwood® fine bone china, her own Lenox Christmas pattern, and her latest purchase—a set of Vera Wang Blue Duchesse dinnerware from Bloomingdale’s—which they were still paying for. According to Mark, she was single-handedly trying to jumpstart the U.S. economy.
Bloomingdale’s was Alex’s Cheers. Everybody there knew her name. They called her in advance to notify her of sales. She was a premier customer. An ultimate insider. She was entitled to unlimited complimentary gift wrap and free local delivery as well as other special store services. The salespeople at Bloomingdale’s appreciated her. She even got a birthday card from Stephen, the Ralph Lauren domestics specialist, and she was on a first-name basis with Scott, the general manager. She was trying her best to wean herself away from her shopping addiction, but her Bloomie’s habit was a hard one to break.
Alex’s eyes skipped over the clutter—the half-squeezed tubes of paint, the bills and junk mail littering the kitchen countertops, and the clothes and purses the twins had haphazardly scattered around the living room. One day she was going to get organized.
Rabbit droppings left a Hansel and Gretel trail across the worn green carpet from the girls’ “had-to-have” pet, Joplin, who was now Alex’s responsibility since Ella and Emory had gone off to college—a responsibility she didn’t mind. Joplin was much more than a pet. She was a companion that helped Alex get through the lonely days while the girls were away. Alex reached down to stroke Joplin’s soft, brown dappled fur. The animal’s unusual coloring made her look more like a cow than a rabbit.
On her way to the door, Alex picked up a pair of black flats and hurled them into the pile of shoes in the foyer that overflowed the wicker basket she had purchased to house them—more shoes than any good end-of-season shoe sale at Bloomie’s. One day she was going to repatriate those shoes to the proper closets or donate them to Goodwill. Okay, so she wasn’t exactly Suzy Homemaker or even Martha Stewart. But in Alex’s mind, being a good mother meant spending quality time with her kids, not just picking up after them. She was proud of how the girls had turned out. And she was proud of her work as an artist, even if her husband didn’t appreciate her talent.
She smoothed her hands over the top of Mt. Laundrymore, the carefully folded and stacked tower of laundry stored under the staircase, which was waiting to be distributed.
Frowning, her eyes rested on the unfinished, unframed canvases leaning against the wall; there was no time to complete them and no space left to hang them. Space was at a definite premium in the Newborn household.
So was civility.
The clutter barely bothered Alex anymore, registering only as a subconscious blip, but it set Mark’s nerves on edge. What grated on her nerves was that Mark didn’t seem capable of putting a dirty dish in the dishwasher, clearing the table, or changing a roll of toilet paper. Chores were not in her husband’s job description.
Alex liked order, especially on the canvas, but clutter was just part of the never-ending circus of chaos she had to contend with every day. And most of the mess was hers. Painting was a messy business. Lately, the clutter seemed to be painting her into a corner. She wondered what it might be like to seek refuge in one of her landscapes, varnish over it, and vanish forever.
Alex opened the door to the garage just in time to wave goodbye to Mark as he backed down the driveway in his sporty new red Jaguar convertible—a fortieth birthday present to himself.
She walked to the flower bed by the mailbox and picked up the newspaper on the pavement. The neighborhood was silent, except for the background chatter of birds. She couldn’t see a soul on the street. The sun peeked through a wispy stack of clouds against an otherwise clear French blue sky. The light was just right. It was going to be a beautiful day, a great morning to set up her easel and canvas on the deck and paint her backyard landscape.
Returning to the house, a noise shifted her attention toward the azaleas near the front door. It sounded like a trickle of water. Then it grew louder, like a distant waterfall. Had she forgotten to turn off the hose? Irresponsible behavior since the upscale golf development in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, a stylish beach community east of Jacksonville, was under severe watering restrictions. Mark certainly hadn’t left the hose on. The outside of the house was not Mark’s jurisdiction. Neither was the inside. Mark was more concerned with his personal domain.
The steady stream of water continued to flow. Alex moved in carefully to investigate, angling her body deeply into the bushes. As she leaned down to turn off the hose at the source, something rustled in the surrounding thicket. A big something. A raccoon? Possibly a squirrel on steroids? She’d had it with those flower-eating deer. Who knew Bambi could be so destructive? Hopefully it wasn’t one of those huge feral pigs that had been plaguing the neighborhood. If it was, she needed to be armed with more than a newspaper to defend herself. She could almost detect the ominous outline of the wild thing’s shadow.
Brandishing her newspaper, Alex advanced on her prey. Jolted by a sudden flash of movement, she dropped the paper and froze. The breath caught in her throat. Her heart thudded madly in her chest just like Joplin’s did whenever the rabbit encountered a stranger. When she opened her mouth to scream, no sound came out.
She spied the man, a creature of sorts, shirtless, pants unzipped, relieving himself on the wall of her house.
“Oh, my God,” Alex gasped.
Startled, the intruder jumped, spinning to face her as he shouted out his apologies in rapid fire bursts.
“I’m sorry,” he repeated. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” The man’s sunburned cheeks colored as he closed his briefs and hurriedly zipped up his dirty blue jeans. But it was too late.
Panicked, Alex whirled around and covered her eyes but couldn’t get the sight of the man’s bare chest and his grip on what looked like the nozzle of a bulging garden hose, but obviously wasn’t, out of her mind. Or the unmistakable stench of fresh urine.
“I apologize. I was—”
There was no need for a further explanation of what the man was doing. Giving a name to it would have made things infinitely worse. Alex inched back in retreat when what she really wanted to do was rush into the house, lock the door behind her and call the police. She ventured a nervous look back at the man. Something stopped her. Following her instincts, she stood her ground.
The man looked guilty. He also looked positively humiliated, and for a moment, Alex chastised herself for putting that look on his face. Perhaps she had been unnecessarily harsh. Maybe she was rushing to judgment.
But these days, you had to be cautious. There had been a rash of break-ins in the neighborhood recently. Someone had stolen a set of golf clubs from a garage across the street. And an intruder had grabbed a priceless heirloom diamond ring and necklace from an elderly woman two blocks over.
An unemployed lawn man had just been convicted in the brutal assault of a wheelchair-bound woman in the next subdivision. Did this man have murder on his mind? She may have just interrupted another burglary in progress, moments before the perpetrator prepared to smash the glass in her front window. A sinister-looking steel tool, an edger, rested against the brick wall.
“What are you doing in there?” Alex whispered hoarsely, clenching her shaking hands. “I mean, besides the obvious. Who are you?”
Inside, her girls, just home for spring break, were sound asleep, snug in their beds, unaware of the possible danger lurking outside their door. Her husband was gone and this man had surely just seen him leave. She was the grown-up here. It was her responsibility to protect her family. She didn’t have a cell phone with her or she would have dialed 911. But this man didn’t know that.
“I’m going to report—” she threatened, temporarily immobilized.
“Don’t call the police,” the man pleaded. “I’m with Reed’s Yard Service and I need this job.”
Alex wondered if urinating was part of his job description. Ponte Vedra Beach was in the middle of a drought but this was ridiculous. Next, she supposed he was going to try to tell her this was some kind of new irrigation technique.
Now that she’d somewhat recovered her composure, she remembered seeing the lawn man around the yard, but she hadn’t really noticed him. Lean, but muscular, unshaven, with a long brown ponytail, she’d dismissed him as one of a number of nondescript yard people, itinerant painters and day laborers, mostly immigrants, who serviced houses in her upscale neighborhood.
As an artist, Alex’s website portrayed her mission as “painting the beauty of light on everyday things in nature that other people walk by and never notice.” That’s just what she had done to this unfortunate-looking lawn man. She’d looked at him but not really looked at him. Looked through him, looked around him, looked every which way but at him. And she realized she was still staring at the man.
Then fear got the better of her. She had to get to her girls. If she ran now she could make it to the door before he made his next move—if there was a next move. Her eyes signaled her intentions before her legs could move.
The man grabbed her hand.
“Let go!” Alex shrieked.
“Alexandra, wait.”
Startled, Alex twisted painfully in the man’s solid grip as she gave him a closer look.
“Do I know you?”
Alex focused on his face, which was vaguely familiar, and tried hard to bury the image of the rest of the man’s body, which, although she’d only been exposed to a flash of flesh, was oddly disturbing. And when she did, she got another shock.
“P-Professore Anselmo?”
The man released her hand and came out from behind the shelter of the bushes, smiled shyly and nodded.
Although she hadn’t recognized his accent earlier, there was no mistaking his identity. But the last time she’d seen him, his smile had been almost smug and his mouth had been busy doing more than smiling. She’d buried the recollection of their last encounter so deep even she wasn’t clear about the details of just how far they’d gone and how far she had been prepared to go.
It was hard to reconcile the man of her dreams and this nasty-looking person standing in front of her. Professore Dominick Anselmo had been her college art teacher, her inspiration, her secret crush, until he’d been exposed for improper behavior with his graduate assistant and expelled from the university. The scandal had rocked the Art and Architecture Department and blasted a rift in Alex’s personal world.
“Professore?” she repeated, her jittery voice rising a level. “What are you doing here?” All the old feelings came flooding back. She had often daydreamed about Nick Anselmo, mostly while she painted. To see him here, literally in the flesh, was a shock in more ways than one.
“I’m your lawn man.”
“Is this some kind of a joke?”
“It’s no joke.”
“I don’t understand. What happened to you?”
“Life.” This accompanied by a slight European shrug.
Nick Anselmo had been larger than life in presence and in reputation. He was a world-renown artist whose paintings hung in all the best galleries and museums, and in private collections across the world. After he was fired, he had literally fallen off the face of the earth. And now he wasn’t painting landscapes, he was planting them.
“What I meant was … why are you working at Reed’s?”
“The same reason everyone works. To make money.”
Alex frowned. Artists, real artists, artists the caliber of a Nick Anselmo didn’t take odd jobs for money. They painted because they had a fire in their souls. That’s what Professore Anselmo had taught her. And now the very same professor was admitting he was a sellout. He was taking this starving-artist routine a little too far.
“You’re a great painter. What could you possibly be thinking, wasting your talent as a lawn man?”
“I have my reasons.”
Alex stared at him again, studying the man he had become. He had certainly changed dramatically. He was still ruggedly handsome, his face all perfect planes and angles, but it was lost in a beard that was untrimmed and ragged. Just like the rest of him.
Although he was well preserved and fit for his age—he must be at least fifty—he looked like a common street vagrant, someone you’d pass in an alleyway and turn away from, in disgust or for fear that some of what he was might contaminate you. His clothes were rumpled. He had definitely slept in them, most likely in her bushes. His eyes were still the warm brown she remembered, but they had lost their flash and fire.
Her Professore—he’d insisted that his students use the Italian pronunciation—would never have apologized to anyone. He had been brash and sexy and wickedly funny. This man’s spirit was broken. He appeared haggard and gaunt and, well, infinitely sad.
She was dying to ask about Samantha Bennett, anxious to solve the mystery of his disappearance from the art scene and their sudden departure from the university.
Alex had been fiercely jealous of the graduate assistant her Professore had allegedly slept with—and later, rumor had it, married.
“What have you been doing all these years since you left the university?” Alex asked.
“Getting by.”
“Do you still paint?”
“I’ve been known to paint the occasional house.”
“That’s not what I meant.” At least he hadn’t lost his sense of humor.
Nick raised his head and fixed her with his compelling eyes. Her usually glib Professore was having difficulty speaking. She detected his emotions were close to the surface.
“The answer is no, not since Sam—” he said, hesitating. “Even if I did want to paint, I don’t have a place. I’ve been drifting. I’ve got a nice spot now at the homeless shelter in Jacksonville. It keeps me off the streets.”
It was inconceivable that such a proud man and celebrated artist as Professore Anselmo had no place to go and no one to come home to.
“What were you going to say about Samantha?” Alex asked.
He pursed his lips, pointedly ignoring her question.
Maybe he sensed the pity in her eyes because he started to turn away, but looked back at her.
“Still tender-hearted, I see, bella. That soft spot could get you into all kinds of trouble. I’m grateful to have this part-time job with Reed’s, so you don’t have to worry about me. I’m fine.”
“But you’re homeless.”
“Right now, the simpler life suits me. No ties. No demands. I come and go as I please. Where I live is not important. The things I once valued are meaningless. The life I used to live is over. It wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. Well, I’d better get going on your lawn before it gets too hot. Sorry about this. It won’t happen again.”
“That’s all you’re going to say?”
“What do you want me to say?”
“I don’t know. I guess I want to know what happened to my brilliant professore?”
“They’re not paying me to talk. I get paid to work.”
The lawn man lifted his power edger from its place against her wall and walked away.
CHAPTER TWO
It all Started with a Canvas and a Kiss
While the lawn man set about edging her property with a vengeance, no doubt trying to finish the job in record time so he could flee the scene, Alex stumbled into the house. Still shaken by the close encounter with Nick Anselmo, she needed time to collect her thoughts.
Her first instinct was to hide out in the house until he was gone. But if he wasn’t too embarrassed, then why should she be? It was her house, after all. She hadn’t done anything wrong. He had a job to do and she had a landscape to start before the twins got up. Both girls were late sleepers, although it would be a miracle if they weren’t already awake with all the racket the man was making with his infernal lawn equipment. Joplin was shaking and cowering in a corner under the table.
She swooped down to pick up the rabbit and cradled Joplin in her arms.
“There’s nothing to be afraid of, Joplin,” Alex cooed. “It’s just the lawn man making all that dreadful noise.” She wondered if the rabbit knew she was lying. Nick Anselmo was anything but just the lawn man. She lowered the rabbit carefully onto the rug and moved to the staircase.
Placing her palm on the stair rail, Alex paused to listen for the sounds of doors slamming or water running in the girls’ bathroom. She heard nothing.
Purposefully, she walked out the back door to set up her paints and spread out a few small sheets of heavy linen canvas on a portable work table next to her easel. Too agitated to start a major project that day, she decided to focus on some studies of the foliage in her lushly landscaped backyard. Her short-term game plan? Ignore the lawn man and the lawnmower he rode in on.
Squeezing out bits of paint on her pallet, Alex found it increasingly difficult to focus on the task at hand as the hum of the leaf blower, moving from the front yard to the side yard, grew louder. The closer it came, the closer he came, the more her thoughts turned to Nick Anselmo and the last time she’d been alone with him.
Hard to believe it had really been twenty years. It had all started in the classroom with a canvas and a kiss.
Alex had worshipped the refined package that was Professore Anselmo, complete with his European pedigree and his charming Italian accent that brought Botticelli, Leonardo, and Michelangelo to life in lectures, as the names of the Masters of the Renaissance tripped off his honeyed tongue. She could listen to her professore for hours as he summoned visions of the red-tiled roofs of Florence and the canals that wound languidly through the island city of Venice. She could almost picture the glint and shimmer of gold and silver in shops that lined the Ponte Vecchio. Taste the flavor of rich gelato. Soak up the romance as the turquoise water lapped against the sides of the sleek gondolas on a quiet moonlit night.
Alex was nearing the end of the first semester in her senior year of college. She’d spent extra time trying to get the color right on her latest portrait and she’d been slow packing up her paints. All the other students had left the building, yet she had lingered in the classroom. Was she encouraging her professore’s special attention? Definitely. Today was the day she was going to put her plan into action and make her move.
She’d been flirting shamelessly with Professore Anselmo all semester. Of course, so had all the other girls who were just as smitten with him. So far he had resisted her advances, but something in his eyes had betrayed him—a thinly-disguised hunger, an awareness, a longing, an almost electric connection that passed between them whenever he was near, trapping them in a force field that held them both captive.
He treated her like she was special, like he really cared for her. He must have admired her work or he wouldn’t spend so much time around her easel, offering advice, leaning in to caress her arm, her shoulder, guiding her brush from behind, standing uncomfortably close. It was probably just the European way. Professore Anselmo was very demonstrative. Always gesturing or touching. And today she was determined to touch back.
“You’re really very good, Alexandra. You know that, don’t you?”
How was she supposed to answer that question? If she said “Yes,” he’d peg her as conceited. If she said “No,” he might accuse her of false modesty. He could simply be testing her. She wanted to make an impression, not a mistake. She was intensely infatuated with the man. She thought she might even be in love with him. She needed him to view her not simply as his student, but as a sophisticated woman who could match him passion for passion. Noncommittal had always seemed the safest way to go, but she was tired of playing it safe.
“I’m glad you think so. Do you like what you see?”
“Very much.”
“On the canvas or off?”
The professore hesitated, seeming to sense a trap.
“Both,” he admitted warily, his emotions, at war, flitting across his face.
Her instincts were right. He was interested. It wouldn’t take much to push him over the edge.
“Am I beautiful enough to paint, Professore? Would you like me to pose for you?”
The professore shook his head and sighed like he was about to scold a naughty child.
“I imagine many young men have told you that you are beautiful. So many you are probably tired of hearing it. I would go a step further and say you are a painter’s dream. You have the look of an angel. Your scent is like the heavenly fragrance of the lemon tree. Your skin is as smooth as alabaster. The blue of your eyes mirrors the waters off the Gulf of Amalfi. Of course, bella, I would like to paint you. Perhaps someday I will.”
Alex turned away from her canvas and stared deeply into her professore’s eyes, almost bumping up against him.
“You could give me private lessons,” she suggested, leaving the offer open to interpretation.
“I’m afraid that would be a very bad idea,” countered the professore, wearing a strained expression. “I’m a decade older than you. It would be a very costly lesson for both of us.”
“But a worthwhile one,” Alex persisted.
“That’s a very tempting offer, one I’ll probably regret not taking. You’re playing a very dangerous game, bella. How do they say it in America, ‘Be careful what you ask for?’”
“Wish for,” Alex corrected. “Are you asking for permission?”
“Are you trying to agitate me, Alexandra?”
She laughed. “Yes. Is it working?”
He took a step back. She closed the distance smoothly. He hadn’t misinterpreted that move.
“You’re not afraid of me, are you, Professore?” she challenged.
He didn’t answer.
This was the now or never moment she’d been waiting for. It was up to her. With a little encouragement, she could make all her dreams come true.
She rubbed her bare arms gently and shivered, cursing herself for not wearing a sweater in a classroom that felt frigid even in the Florida heat. She wanted to feel his arms around her, to taste him. She yearned for his touch. He probably noticed since she wasn’t wearing a bra.
“Your work shows a great deal of promise,” said the professore in a gravelly voice. That delicious Italian accent made her insides melt. Not to mention the man had the body of a Donatello sculpture that was a work of art in itself.
She wondered if he knew what kind of effect he had on her. Looking at him made it hard to concentrate, on anything.
“Just my work?” Alex answered softly.
Her lips were parched and she purposely moistened them with her tongue. Taking that as a sign to proceed, he responded in a flash, uncontrollably, igniting a flame, stepping in until their bodies were touching, until she could feel his trembling heartbeat against her breast.
“Alexandra,” he groaned.
He reached down and caressed her face, tipping her chin up with his fingers, leaning in ever so slightly for a kiss. A kiss she wanted desperately. A kiss she’d dreamed about more than once. A heart-pounding kiss. A kiss that quickened her pulse and made her feel like she was going to faint on the spot.
His lips brushed hers in a way that seemed very practiced, a way that made her want him even more. She leaned her body into his to give him better access, and wrapped her arms around his neck involuntarily as he deepened the kiss.
The Gates of Heaven opened, complete with the blinding light and magnificent chorus of angels. And still, he held her lips. She opened her mouth for the professor’s hungry tongue and he teased and tormented her, continuing to stroke her expertly. Then he tentatively trailed his calloused fingers, his rough artist’s hands, underneath her tight tank top.
“You’re driving me crazy, bella,” he murmured against her lips. “I think I’m in love with you. Do you feel the same way?”
She couldn’t answer but she didn’t have to. He loved her. She’d never felt so glorious in her life.
He smiled, a wide, self-satisfied grin, and kept up the torture.
“Do you want me to stop, Alexandra? If you do, tell me now.”
She loved the way he said her name.
“D-don’t,” she gasped, leaving both of them to wonder whether she meant, “Don’t stop,” or if she was warding him away with an admonition. But she made no attempt to pull away.
Then he focused all his white hot energy on her eyes, holding her captive in his strong arms. She had always harbored fantasies about her professore, but they were just that—vague, big-picture longings, in league with the fantasies she’d had about distant movie stars. The dreams never went beyond the moment she actually connected with the object of her affection.
She could feel his desire and no longer wondered what was coming next. The professore was in complete control. But she had unleashed the monster. Did he realize how inexperienced she was at this game? He had a lot to teach her, inside and outside the classroom, and she was ready to get carried away.
She felt his hot breath linger tantalizingly over one of her breasts and, just as he leaned in to taste her, he pulled up abruptly.
“Oh, God,” he moaned.
Alarmed, she asked, “Why did you pull away?”
“Because this is wrong in so many ways, Alexandra. Surely you can see that. I am your professore, your much older professore. I let things get out of hand, move too far and too fast in the wrong direction. I should have resisted my feelings. My behavior was reckless. Some lines should never be crossed. Please forgive me. It won’t happen again.”
Alex tensed, jerking down her tank top. He was rejecting her, using their ten-year age difference as an insurmountable barrier. She was a grown woman, not a child. A woman who knew her own mind and knew what she wanted. He may have been her professore, but he was also a man. She wondered why he thought what they had been about to do was so unthinkable. She had offered herself to him and he had carelessly tossed her aside like a piece of drawing paper he’d balled up and thrown in the trash. An unfinished sketch that wasn’t quite up to his standards. She could hardly bear the embarrassment. She didn’t understand how could he claim to love her in one breath and turn off his feelings so abruptly.
“I-I have to go,” she said curtly. “I forgot, I’m meeting someone and I’m late.”
At that moment, the classroom door burst open and Alex froze. Mark Newborn, a boy she’d been dating on and off for the last few months, swept in like a summer rainstorm and shook her out of her stupor.
“Alex? Where have you been? I’ve been looking all over for you. We’ve got that thing, remember?”
Mark was a funny and charming boy her own age, with movie star looks. A boy who liked her. A down-to-earth boy, not an unattainable older man. But, for the life of her, she couldn’t remember what “that thing” was.
Professore Anselmo recovered first and introduced himself.
“Hello, I’m Professore Dominick Anselmo, Alexandra’s art teacher. And you are…?”
“Mark Newborn, Alex’s boyfriend. I hope I wasn’t interrupting anything.”
Boyfriend? Mark had never put a label on their relationship before, but he’d never had his territory invaded. It didn’t seem the time to dispute Mark’s claim. Right now she was grateful for the interruption.
Professore Anselmo narrowed his eyes in Alex’s direction.
“No. We were just finishing up our lesson,” the professore murmured, his mouth a disapproving frown, his eyes signaling sincere regret. “I was just giving Alexandra a few pointers, but I see she really doesn’t need my help.”
The professore extended his hand, the same hand that had just been engaged in giving her so much pleasure, and Mark shook it.
He was probably enjoying her discomfort. He was nothing but a player, feeding her a line about love he probably used on all the naïve coeds. She had totally misread his intentions. She was in love with her professore and she’d gambled that those feelings were reciprocated. She realized now she had been hoping for the impossible.
“Alexandra, I will see you in class tomorrow. We’ll continue our lesson then.”
Alex muttered something, grabbed Mark’s hand and practically pulled him out the door.
• • •
She didn’t go to class the next day, or the day after that or the day after that. She dropped Professore Anselmo’s class, a class she needed to graduate, and would need to make up with another, less brilliant professor. But she couldn’t face him after what he’d done. She’d practically thrown herself at him and he had made it quite clear he wanted nothing to do with her.
Sometimes, when she looked back on that day, she thought she had only imagined their interlude. She had painted him as the aggressor, convinced herself he was a lecherous professor who had come on to her. In reality, she had been the instigator. Ultimately, he had refused her advances and made a fool of her.
It wasn’t until months later that she’d learned Professore Anselmo had started an affair with his graduate assistant. In Alex’s mind, Samantha Bennett was nothing special. Alex wondered if the professore had given her private lessons and praised her talent. And she wondered what would have happened had Mark not burst into the studio at the exact moment he did.
She could have convinced Professore Anselmo to stay with her, perhaps moving their “private lesson” to a more private place. He would have gone along with the seduction. She knew he would have. She’d never felt so alive, so satisfied, so sexy.
Samantha Bennett dropped out of the art program only months before graduation. There was talk that she’d followed the Professore to Florence, his birthplace. If things had been different, Alex would have been the one running off with her professore to Italy. In all the years since, Alex had never been to Italy, although she longed to go. It was every painter’s dream. But going there with anyone else wouldn’t have been the same.
Alex pursed her lips. She had been so sure Nick Anselmo had seen something in her, in her work. But then he had chosen Samantha Bennett, destroyed her dreams, colored the rest of her college career, and shook her confidence as an artist and a woman. Mark’s attention was just what she’d needed to fill the void.
Seeing Nick again made her aware she still had lingering feelings for the man, no matter what he’d become. He was still the same person who’d made her art and her spirit come alive, and that spark was sorely missing in her life today. She’d been holding a grudge for twenty years. She didn’t think she could hate a man who was homeless.
The door of the Reed’s Yard Service truck slammed shut, startling Alex out of her reverie. How long had she been daydreaming? Had he been watching her the whole time?
On impulse, she ran back into the house, opened the front door and signaled to him.
“Wait, Professore Anselmo,” she called, running out to the street, pleased to see the truck still idling outside.
“I’m not your professore anymore,” he said, eyes sparkling in the sunlight, and she thought she caught a glimpse of her former mentor as he stowed his gear into the back of the truck. “I have nothing left to teach.”
Alex seriously doubted that.
She ran back into the house and rummaged around her laundry room where she gathered up an old Strathmore 9-inch x 12-inch sketch book, a partially used pad of newsprint paper and some grey charcoal paper sheets, a handful of professional grade HB, 4B and 8B pencils, some black charcoal pencils and a set of 36 NuPastel color sticks. She threw in some sanguine-colored Conté crayons, so he could draw in the style of Picasso and Degas, two of the Professor’s favorites, if she remembered correctly. She’d have to replace these essential supplies but it would be worth it. She placed everything in a large, durable canvas bag. He could probably find a good use for that too.
She wasn’t sure if he’d welcome the gifts or be wary of the kindness. As an afterthought, Alex grabbed some non-perishable groceries and placed them in the bag in case Nick got hungry. It was never good to work on an empty stomach.
She approached the back of the truck where Nick was standing.
“Please take these in case you get the urge to start sketching,” she said, handing the professore the bag she had prepared. He looked through it and made no mention of the groceries. Probably the thought of charity didn’t sit right with him.
“Thanks,” he said. “I miss my old Ticonderogas.”
“These pencils are designed for different densities,” Alex explained. “The HB is lighter and the 8B is darker.” The world was topsy-turvy. It had changed and gone on without him. Here she was explaining techniques to her former Professore. He must think she was an idiot. Of course he already knew about densities. The man had probably forgotten more than she could learn in a lifetime.
“I appreciate it,” Nick said sincerely. “Most people don’t talk to me on the job. I guess I just fade into the background and think that’s where I was always meant to be. I’ll do a drawing for you and leave it next time I come to do your lawn.”
“I’d like that,” Alex said, smiling in anticipation, wondering if she could wait that long to see him again. She stared at Nick’s straining muscles as he hoisted the bag into the cab of the truck and jumped up into the driver’s seat. Her eyes continued to follow him as the vehicle rumbled down the street to the next stop in the neighborhood.
“An Anselmo original,” she called out. “I’ve always wanted one of those.”
CHAPTER THREE
Thank God for Lint
Alex rolled over, pressed her face against the pillow and executed a medal-worthy mid-air breast stroke, pulling the cozy comforter over her head to block out the annoying light that streamed in from the bathroom. But that didn’t shut out the irritating sounds of running water that punctuated her husband’s morning shaving, showering and flushing ritual.
“Mark, could you please close the door! I’m trying to sleep.”
“Sleeping is your best state,” Mark said sullenly.
Alex grimaced. The man was full of insults this morning and it was only 6:00 a.m. She’d never get back to sleep now, not with Squawk Box blaring on TV loud enough so Mark could hear it from the bathroom. She had been in the middle of a glorious dream. A very vivid dream about a clean, but barely-clothed Professore Anselmo before he had shown up on her doorstep in his present incarnation as her lawn man.
Since she’d caught him doing his business in her bushes yesterday, she could barely think of anything else. She was debating whether she should bring the incident to her husband’s attention. But now she had some questions of her own for Mark.
“Why do you have to get up so early every morning anyway?” she asked.
“Because I work for a living.”
Alex tensed. She should have seen that one coming. After the girls had gone away to college in the fall, Mark had been on her case to get a real job.
No matter how serious she was about her painting, Mark had always considered it a worthless pastime, and in tax terms, a hobby loss. While she didn’t have a full-time job, Alex painted portraits, landscapes and seascapes to make extra money for the girls’ college expenses, and supplemented her meager earnings by teaching art classes in her home to children and housewives. Unfortunately the children were more captivated by the rabbit than they were by the canvas. But she barely made enough to cover the cost of her art supplies. In her spare time, she was a decorative artist, specializing in distressed furniture, which made perfect sense considering how distressed her life had become.
She couldn’t seem to finish a painting. She just needed some inspiration to build a portfolio.
“When I have my own show, things will be different,” Alex promised.
“How many years have you been telling me that? You’re just fooling yourself. You have about as much chance of getting your own show as you do of winning the lottery. It’s never going to happen.”
“A lottery is based on luck, not talent.”
“Well, maybe you don’t have any. I mean you’re pretty good, but you’re no Michelangelo.”
Alex stiffened.
“My acrylic and oil paintings take first place in juried shows all around Jacksonville.”
“Blue ribbons don’t pay the rent,” Mark replied.
Mark’s cruel remarks made her more determined than ever to make her dream come true. All she needed was someone to take a chance on her and a place to showcase her work.
Some support from her husband might be nice, but she’d given up on that particular pipe dream a long time ago. Painting gave Alex the satisfaction she craved, satisfaction her marriage no longer did.
“Well, if you’d build me a real art studio where I could create and teach art, I could get more accomplished.” Alex said.
“It’s a waste of money. What’s wrong with the laundry room?”
The laundry room was where she painted because it was directly under a skylight, which she preferred for its natural light on her canvases, and the tile floors were easy to clean. But the long galley-like space felt as confining as a jail cell. It also doubled as Mark’s workout room, her art supply storage area and the kids’ junk room, so it was much too cramped to accommodate her art classes. She thought about posting a sign outside the laundry room: “Enter at Your Own Risk.”
Multitasking did have its advantages. She could throw in a load of wash between brush strokes, toss the clothes into the dryer while her canvas set, and after she folded the clothes, cross that task off her to-do list.
Thank God for lint.
It was the one area in Alex’s life where she was able to achieve closure. Opening the lint catcher, peeling back a glorious, thick, colorful strip of lint, and throwing it into the wastebasket was one of the highlights of Alex’s hectic day. And her dryer gave really good lint.
The fact that Alex had turned lint-making into a fine art was not an indication of insanity. Lately, lint, not canvases created, was the current barometer by which she measured accomplishment in her life. She’d let everything else in her life slide. She was blocked. Whenever she did finish a painting, it wasn’t her best work.
Since she was already awake, with her bladder tugging desperately at her subconscious, Alex slid into her comfy slippers and padded across the sea-green leaf-patterned carpet to their recently remodeled bathroom.
She’d have liked to grab another sixty minutes of sleep before her roller-coaster day got started, but as soon as the girls got up, she’d promised to take them to the mall.
“Mark, do you want to meet us for lunch? The girls have hardly seen you since they’ve been home.”
“I can’t, not with my tight schedule. I’m going to be tied up all day.”
“The girls will be disappointed.”
“They’ll get over it.”
When it came to her children, Alex did most of the heavy lifting. She’d practically raised the twins alone. Oh, Mark was there, but he was hiding in plain sight, present, but unaccounted for.
He had been going in to the office early every morning for the past five months. Her husband had always been a workaholic, but his latest schedule was ridiculous even by his standards. She didn’t know whether he stayed away to avoid being sucked more deeply into the stagnant world their lives inhabited, or to avoid her specifically. When she’d questioned him about it, Mark said economic times were tough and he had to put in more hours to keep up with the bills. That explanation made sense.
Mark stared into the mirror, admiring his classic good looks as he adjusted his tie. Alex breathed in his masculine scent and wondered how anyone could look so good this early in the morning. He’d aged well. She, on the other hand, was experiencing middle-age spread. Glancing into her own mirror, she felt inadequate and looked every bit her age.
She yawned. “Where did you say you were going?”
“A breakfast meeting.”
“That’s the third one this week. Who are you meeting with? Anyone I know?”
“Just an associate.”
“This early?”
BUY LINKS