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Alexis closed the door behind him, then parted the drapes to watch him walk away. For all his personality problems, she thought, watching the easy movement of tight, lean hips, he had few physical ones.
Disgusted with herself for noticing, she closed the drapes, then spent the afternoon being domestic.
She put a load of laundry in the wash, checked the contents of the kitchen cupboards so that she could pick up what she needed on tomorrow’s walk. She discovered a decided lack of chocolate, pastry and peanuts.
Dotty was an excellent cook who provided good home-style healthy meals. While Alexis appreciated that, she knew that left to her own devices, she would eat mostly what didn’t have to be cooked and could be carried around in her hand. Of course, she had to find something for the boys to eat for dinner.
Then inspiration struck. She would take them for hamburgers or for pizza! She couldn’t do that every night, but a small adventure tonight would help them get acquainted.
She put her clothes in the dryer, then took Ferdie out into the yard for a game of fetch. He played eagerly.
The wind picked up and Alexis decided to add a jacket to her shopping list tomorrow. Sunny Italy didn’t require one, but fall in cool, rainy Oregon would.
The scent of pine and salt air brought back tumbled memories of her childhood, though, and she stopped a moment to inhale. She remembered picnics with Aunt Sadie on the beach, Alexis and her sisters playing with their dolls in the front yard, and when that grew tiresome, climbing trees and playing hide-and-seek in the woods behind the house.
She’d always tired first of the playing-house games, though Gusty could have fed and diapered her dolls forever. Alexis and Athena would eventually escape her scenarios of adult sisters in suburbia having babies and dinner parties and run to the woods for more physical exercise.
Gusty would eventually join them when she grew lonely, but she didn’t enjoy running and climbing like her sisters did.
Alexis experienced a paralyzing pang of desperation. Where was she? What had happened to her? And who was the “scary-looking man” Brandon and Brady had seen with her at the airport?
Unable to pursue that thought without going crazy, Alexis called Ferdie to her and went back into the house. She filled the dog’s bowl, gave him fresh water, then went to check on her laundry.
She folded it, then carried it upstairs and placed it on the dresser. She had the room Athena had occupied before she moved in with David. The bed and the dresser were different, but she enjoyed the familiar sight of the Mickey Mouse alarm clock on the bedside table.
She opened the sketchbook she’d brought with her from Rome and looked through all the studies of faces she’d done on the plane. Since she’d arrived, she’d done sketches of the boys, both reaching up to dunk the ball in the basket, and several of Ferdie running, sleeping, leaping in the air for a Frisbee.
The work was skillful, but she knew when it came to putting paint to canvas, she would be devoid of ideas, lacking in inspiration and, after three long months of that, without the will to try.
She would have wallowed in self-pity, but she’d taught herself to combat this mood over the past year. All she had to do was remember the artists she revered. Michelangelo, who painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel while lying on his back on scaffolding over a period of four years; Matisse, who painted by attaching his brush to a long stick when he was too old and ill to get out of bed; the contemporary Chuck Close, who was paralyzed and used a forklift to raise himself to work on his huge portraits and had a device attached to his hand to allow him to paint.
A slump was hardly the same as an infirmity. She would recover from this, if she could just figure out what had caused it in the first place.
In the meantime, she had to keep working.
She called one of her studio partners in Rome and asked him to mail the large wooden box in which she kept all her paints, the jar that held her brushes, her roll of canvas.
“Bella!” he exclaimed worriedly. “You are not coming home?”
“Not for a while, Claudio.” She wanted to tell him that this was home, but he was just twenty and he’d known her only in Rome. He wouldn’t understand. “I’m sending you money to cover the postage.”
“Money? What is money?” he demanded. “The studio is cold without you, Lexia.”
She smiled at his impassioned voice. She thought he had the potential to be a fine artist, but so far he had more emotion than skill. Still, skill could be learned and emotion couldn’t, so things were in his favor.
“Don’t try to charm me, Claudio,” she teased. Flirting was second nature to him. “We both know you’re in love with Giulia.”
“Giulia,” he said, his rich accent putting scorn into the name, “has gone to Palermo with Ponti. My heart is a stone. It beats no more.”
“Oh, Claudio.” She was sure he was heartbroken. He and the vintner’s beautiful daughter had been friends since they were children, and Claudio’s adopted father had worked for Giulia’s. Their romance had blossomed only a year ago, just before she went to spend six months with relatives in New York. When she returned, Ponti, the son of a famous Italian designer had pursued her relentlessly. He’d also been a childhood friend who’d noticed her beauty and maturity when she’d returned home. “I’m sorry. I thought she’d have more sense.”
“The whole world is mad,” he declared, then added with theatrical tragedy, “and I am alone.”
“Well, now’s your chance to make a date with that pretty little waitress at the trattoria. You’ve always admired her.”
He sighed. “I pine for you,” he said, “and you send me to other women.”
“I’m too old for you, Claudio,” she said practically. “How many times do I have to tell you that?”
“What is age, bella,” he asked, “when the heart yearns?”
She smiled to herself. She should be lucky enough to find a man closer to her own age who was this persistent. “Then consider the fact that I’m almost six thousand miles away, my friend. You may dismiss age, but distance must be dealt with. Now, go ask that pretty waitress for a date tonight and stop this foolishness. Let me know how it goes. And don’t forget to send my paints and brushes.”
“You wound me.” He was silent a moment. “Very well, I will send your things. But when the night is quiet, you will hear my heart beating for you, no matter how great the distance.”
“Unless Giulia comes back to you,” she taunted.
“You are a devil woman,” he accused, a smile in his voice.
“Goodbye, Claudio.”
“Goodbye, bella.”
Alexis hung up the phone, longing for her fourth-floor studio in the heart of the noisy, busy city. But only for a moment. She remembered quickly the frustration she’d felt there the past year, and though she’d been very upset about her missing sister, she’d also been grateful for an excuse to come home.
She turned in the direction of a soft whine just in time to see Ferdie burst from the room and race downstairs. She heard excited barking as the front door opened and closed and the boys’ voices returned his greetings.
Alexis went downstairs to welcome them home and found them already in the kitchen, rooting through the freezer. They emerged with softball-sized blueberry muffins.
She watched Brandon wrap his in a paper towel and place it in the microwave with obvious experience. Then he nuked Brady’s muffin while his brother retrieved two cans of pop and the butter from the refrigerator.
“How’d everything go today?” she asked.
Both boys looked up with smiles then returned to the serious task of “filleting” the muffins into thin slices that allowed more buttering surfaces.
“Good,” Brandon replied.
“Yeah,” Brady agreed.
“I thought we’d go for pizza tonight,” she said, wondering if they’d have room for it after that muffin. “Or burgers if you’d like that better.”
Brandon was already chewing the first slice as he buttered the last. He swallowed and said, “Cool.”
Brady picked up his stacked plate and pop can and asked hopefully, “Can we watch TV?”
She smiled. David had coached her on this. “Until five o’clock, then you have to do your homework. I thought we’d go to dinner about six.”
“Okay.” Brady was already past her and on his way to the family room. Brandon put the butter back into the refrigerator, wiped the counter clean of crumbs, then turned to Alexis before closing the refrigerator door. “Did you want something to eat?”
She hadn’t spent much time with children the boys’ ages, but she didn’t think tidying up after themselves was usual behavior.
“No, thanks,” she replied. “And thank you for cleaning up.”
“You’re welcome.” Brandon followed in Brady’s wake.
Alexis watched him go and wondered how they’d achieved such confidence and competence. Athena had told her a little about their wealthy mother, who went from one husband to another, having children in an attempt to hold them to her then ultimately losing them anyway.
A careless mother had left Alexis feeling inadequate and adrift.
She tried to remember if she’d had confidence at that age. No, she’d been reckless and wild, but that had been intended to conceal the fear that she had no value.
Her art had helped give her a sense of self. Getting back to it again was the only solution. It would be painful to see inadequate work take shape, but it would consume her while the boys were at school and that would help her maintain her sanity, such as it was.
She would buy a disposable camera tomorrow and photograph parts of downtown Dancer’s Beach. There was beautiful scenery, buildings with interesting architectural detail, streets lined with park benches and old-fashioned streetlights.
Perhaps she could capture the heart of small-town life that was disappearing all across America. Schmaltzy idea as paintings went, but it was a place to start.
BRANDON AND BRADY SPRINKLED a jumbo three-meat pizza with red pepper flakes and Parmesan cheese and ate the entire thing, going back twice for refills at the salad bar.
She allowed them three turns each on a video game car chase, then drove home, stopping for a carton of ice cream along the way.
When they arrived home, there was a message from David and Athena saying that they’d arrived in New York and were staying at the Plaza. They had left the number.
“Let’s call them!” Brady suggested eagerly.
Alexis glanced at the clock. “Brady, it’s well after eleven in New York. They’re probably fast asleep.”
“Maybe not.”
“We’ll call tomorrow when you come home from school.”
“Maybe they’re not asleep,” Brady insisted. “Dave works late lots of times.”
“But he’s married now, doofus,” Brandon said, heading for the stairs.
“So?” Brady demanded.
“So, they’re probably…you know.” Brandon cast a knowing but embarrassed glance in Alexis’s direction and waved a hand to replace the words he couldn’t quite say.
“What?” Brady insisted.
Alexis opened her mouth to suggest a diplomatic explanation when Brady’s eyes suddenly widened and his expression made it clear that he understood. He looked horrified for a moment, then shoved Brandon aside and ran up the stairs.
Brandon heaved a long-suffering sigh and shook his head. “He’s still kind of young,” he said, and followed him, Ferdie trailing behind.
Alexis was stunned by that reaction. She knew that children Brady’s age discussed sex among themselves, but often hated the suggestion that their parents or guardians practiced it.
But she was fairly sure that hadn’t been disgust on Brady’s face, but fear. She didn’t understand what that meant. Judging by his behavior with Athena, he seemed to adore her.
“Let me know,” she called after Brandon, “before you turn the lights out.”
When Brandon called shortly after nine, Brady’s room was already dark. Alexis tucked Brandon in, then patted the dog lying on a blanket across the boy’s feet.
“French toast for breakfast?” Alexis asked before flipping off the light.
“Just cereal, please,” he said, snuggling into his pillow. “We’ve got Graham O’s.”
“And you don’t trust my cooking?”
He laughed. “Nope. Good night.”
“Good night, Brandon.”
She went across the hall to Brady’s room, braved the quiet darkness and looked down on him. She suspected he simply pretended to be asleep, but she tucked his blankets in anyway, then went to the door.
“I’d like French toast,” a voice said in the darkness.
Relieved to have some response from him, though still worried about his unusual behavior, Alexis replied briefly, “You got it. Should I get you up a little early so you’ll have more time?”
“More time?”
“To spread butter and drizzle syrup. You have to cover all the corners, you know, or it isn’t as good.”
“Yeah,” he said. “That’s true.”
“Brady?” she blurted, moving surreptitiously back toward the bed. “Are you worried about something?”
Silence.
“Because if you are,” she went on intrepidly, “you can tell me and I’ll do what I can to help. I know I’m not as good as having David and Athena here, but I’m sort of like your aunt now. So you can tell me if you’re worried. Or afraid.”
There was silence for another moment, then he said finally, “No. Nothing.”
“Okay.” Dispiritedly she reversed directions. “Two pieces or three?”
“Three.”
“Good night, Brady.”
“Night,” he replied.
All right, she told herself as she walked down the stairs to look through the kitchen and make sure they did indeed have syrup. She hadn’t exactly conquered Everest, but she’d given Brady something to look forward to in the morning. And that might help the curious fear he seemed to be dealing with.
She was relieved beyond words to find a bottle of syrup on a shelf in the refrigerator door.
Chapter Three
Trevyn had the nightmare again. Something told him Farah would try to come along on the raid on the campsite despite his insistence that she shouldn’t. The feeling had swelled inside him until fear began to permeate the calm, deadly edge that was so important to his work.
