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“Oh, about the sixteen. Yes, well, there are sixteen couples on my arch. Sixteen pairs of gods and goddesses. So…”
“Couples, you say?”
That whole Erotikos thing was becoming clearer. And more unpleasant, all at the same time. Sixteen couples on an arch, all carved to look lusty and sensual. Bella wouldn’t have done that. Not after their mother had put her own reputation on the line with the ever-so-lofty Lady Managers to push her daughter’s work into the Women’s Building. Isabella might be foolish, but she would never abuse their mother’s trust and good name, would she?
Of course she would. With a sense of dread, hoping against hope that the sixteen couples were merely looking erotic and not acting erotic, Nick asked, “What are your gods and goddesses doing, precisely?”
“It’s a depiction of the mythology for each of the couples,” she explained. “So, for example, Apollo and Daphne are depicted wound ’round a tree, while Perseus and Andromeda are chained together. I was rather proud of that. Using the chains, I mean, since she’s chained to a rock in the myth.” She sighed deeply. “The chains give so much more urgency and tension to that particular coupling.”
“Coupling?” he echoed. That sounded so much worse than mere couple . “You have all of these Greek gods in the midst of couplings? You’ve actually thrown them together and portrayed them while they’re…” How did one say this to one’s sister? “While they’re in the act? ”
“Well, yes, actually.” His sister—his infuriating, irresponsible, reckless sister—ducked around him to pick up his brandy snifter. She held it out to him like a peace offering. “Do you remember, Nick, when we were in Italy, and you went off to Germany to look at somebody’s engine or something?”
He grabbed the brandy and knocked back the rest of it, all in one gulp. That demonstrated a reckless disregard for good brandy, but he didn’t care. “The motor-wagons, yes. I spent a few days in Stuttgart.”
“Right. That was when Franco asked if I’d like to see his private collection.”
Nick tightened his jaw. He’d never much cared for Franco, the count his sister had carried on a brief flirtation with while they visited Rome. He’d tried to keep a careful eye on her, but it appeared he had failed miserably, if she was off looking at the private collections of oily Italian counts the moment his back was turned. “That sounds ominous.”
“Not at all,” she assured him. “Franco had acquired a most intriguing volume, with sketches and poetry to illustrate something called the Sixteen Positions. Apparently it was quite scandalous in the sixteenth century, and the author and artist were excommunicated and burned at the stake or drawn and quartered or something equally dreadful.”
It sounded pornographic. Sixteen positions? He didn’t even know sixteen positions, and he was a man of the world! Nick’s hands clenched into fists. If Franco had been in front of him at that moment, he swore he would’ve knocked the count’s teeth in.
“Sixteen sexual positions, you see?” Isabella said helpfully, as if he hadn’t already figured that out on his own. “My inspiration was to combine those positions with characters from Greek mythology to say something about how earthly passion and supernatural power combine.”
As she gazed into space, enraptured by her idea, Nick didn’t know how to respond.
“It’s very strong, Nick,” she said dreamily. “Very beautiful. Simply bursting with lust and ecstasy and all of the things I wanted to—”
“Lust and ecstasy…You’ve gone too far this time,” he muttered. Clearly, they never should’ve let Isabella study in Italy. Or get anywhere near the depraved Franco Pirelli, Conte di Bassano. “Much too far.”
“But, Nick, you haven’t seen—”
“I will soon enough,” he growled. As he glanced around to find his jacket, he hastily redid his collar and began to tie his cravat. “Where is it? Where are you working these days?”
“It’s not at my studio.” She folded her arms, laying the immense puffs of her sleeves over the dainty bows on her bodice, looking defiant and stubborn, as well as about twelve years old. But twelve-year-olds didn’t create artwork bursting with lust and ecstasy and the lewd sexual encounters of Greek gods.
“Where then?”
Isabella lifted her pointy little chin, so much like their mother’s. “By now, it should already be in place at the Women’s Building. The delivery men had already arrived and carted it up before I left. So you see it’s too late for you to stop it.”
This time, he didn’t bother to keep his voice down. “How exactly do you think Bertha Palmer and the Lady Managers are going to respond to something like that? If your statue is one-tenth as lurid as I’m imagining it, there will be a scandal that even you can’t live down.”
“Nick, really,” she said indignantly. “There are nude statues all over the fair. Have you seen the naked mermaids frolicking in the fountain in the Grand Basin? Perhaps you noticed one or two of the gigantic, half-draped women called Lady Victory or Spirit of Discovery or Westward Ho or whatever it is they’ve named them. As long as they’re not real people, but some sort of symbol, nobody minds if their breasts are spilling out all over the Fine Arts Building.”
“It’s not the same, Bella,” he insisted. “And I don’t have time to discuss it with you. I have to find this monster you’ve created and get it out of there before anyone sees it. The Women’s Building, right?”
“The fair isn’t open yet,” she called after him as he dashed out the door. “Not for several hours. When you see how beautiful it is, you won’t be able to destroy it. It’s a fool’s errand, Nick!”
He ignored her. Bored no more, energized by his mission to find and do away with whatever it was his sister had created, Nick Tempest set off for the grounds of the world-famous Columbian Exposition.
3
How to Be a Scandalous Woman, Rule 3:
There are times you have to draw a line in the sand. Any crab that crosses? Dead.
“H I THERE ,” Jordan managed, doing her best not to sound flustered or guilty in front of Daniel. “What are you doing here? I thought you’d already left for San Francisco.”
“San Diego.”
“Right. San Diego. I meant San Diego.” How lame was it not to know where your boyfriend was taking off to for a week? Okay, so she was too busy cheating on him in her dreams to notice where he was going. Not exactly a good excuse. “Sorry. But I thought you’d already left.”
He stood there on the other side of her desk, holding a briefcase in one hand, shifting from one foot to the other. “I canceled my trip.”
“The whole thing?”
That was surprising. Daniel never canceled anything, especially not a trip like this, where he was combining a conference with a job interview. Unlike her, with her never-ending dissertation, Daniel had already finished up his PhD in economics, and now he was scoping out the best job prospects at the best universities in his usual precise and methodical way.
Looking him over, Jordan asked, “Are you okay? You’re not sick or anything, are you?”
“No, no. I’m fine. I just had a change of plans.”
“That’s…not like you.”
“I don’t need to go.” He gave her a small smile. “I just heard from Princeton. I’m in.”
“In? You mean they offered you a position? At Princeton?”
He nodded, his smile still firmly in place.
“Daniel, that’s amazing. Wow. When did this happen?”
“I got the call this morning.”
She blinked. “And this is the first you’re telling me?”
He lifted his narrow shoulders in a half-shrug. “I needed to get my thoughts in order, come up with a plan.” Propping the briefcase on the edge of her desk, he flipped it open and rustled around inside. “This will mean a lot of changes for both of us.”
“So…that means you said yes?” she asked slowly.
“Of course I said yes. They were my first choice.”
“Well, of course, but…” But it involved her, too. In ways she didn’t even want to think about. She put that aside for the time being. “Maybe we should, you know, celebrate.” She wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do. Leap over her desk and hug him? Pick up the phone and get some champagne delivered? Daniel didn’t seem all that excited, though. More…determined. Which was odd.
“I’d rather get things squared away first.” He pulled a sheaf of papers out of his briefcase, reaching over the laptop to hand her the top sheet. “This is the schedule I came up with. I thought we could go over it together.”
Princeton, changes, schedules, all pondered, decided upon, and neatly typed up and printed out, without even consulting her. Jordan felt her hackles begin to rise as she glanced down at the paper.
“You’ll see,” he went on, “that item one is me moving out there, item two is finding a place for us to live, and item three is the wedding. Something small, just the two of us and maybe my parents, is probably best. We could do it after we get to New Jersey, since that’s so close to where my parents are. You wouldn’t need yours there, would you?”
She glanced up from his list. “What? I’m sorry. What are we talking about?”
“Your parents. Our wedding. I didn’t think you’d want them there. I mean, no offense, but they’re sort of problematic.” Daniel grimaced. “They haven’t laid eyes on each other in twenty years, have they? And your father’s new family with Stacey…What’s the total? Four kids under five?”
He was waiting for an answer, but she was still way behind in this conversation, back where he’d said, Item three is the wedding …. “I’m sorry, but I’m lost.”
“Your dad,” he prompted. “Stacey. Four kids under five.”
Jordan lifted a hand to her head, mumbling a response on automatic pilot. “Not Stacey. Michelle. Stacey was his second wife. Then Tracy. Michelle is the new one.”
“Right. The thing is, both your parents are, well, kind of nutty,” he told her. “Your mother would probably want to write us some erotic Ode to Fertility or something, and your dad would bring his new wife who’s younger than you are, not to mention their passel of toddlers, and my parents would go through the roof. They have very specific ideas about what my wedding should entail.”
She was well aware that Daniel didn’t like her parents. They didn’t like him, either. Or each other, for that matter. They hadn’t been married very long—actually, no one was sure if they’d bothered to get married at all—and they were crazy, unconventional and high maintenance in all the ways she wasn’t and Daniel certainly wasn’t. But still…Moving to New Jersey and dealing with his parents and—
A wedding? Was he insane?
“I don’t mind postponing a honeymoon till later, do you?” Daniel rolled on. “I put that down as item twelve, if you want to look ahead on the schedule.”
She frowned. “Daniel, I need you to stop. This is…impossible! I can’t do it.”
He didn’t look pleased, but he did pause at least. Finally, he asked, “Which parts?”
“All of it!”
“Why?”
“Because…” She leaned forward to push her stomach into her drawer, just to make sure it clicked shut with Nick’s pictures inside. “Because I’m not ready. I’m teaching a class this semester. And I’m not finished with my thesis. You know all of that. I’m not at a place where I can leave Chicago, let alone think about weddings.”
He sent a pointed glance at the jumble of notebooks and folders on her desk. “Maybe it’s past time you cut your losses and moved on.”
“Cut my losses?”
“Maybe you should find another dissertation topic,” he said coolly.
“Dump my dissertation? Are you kidding?” First he blindsided her with this marriage stuff, and then he went totally off the deep end. “I’ve worked my butt off to get this far. And what I have is really good material. I’m not going to abandon it.”
He shook his head. “You still don’t have an ending, do you?”
No, she didn’t have an ending, which he very well knew. But that didn’t mean she was going to give up.
After a long pause, Daniel added, “I’ve been as patient as I can. But we had a plan, an agreement. I’m on schedule. You’re not.”
Jordan already knew the rest of it. If you don’t finish your dissertation, we can’t move on to the next step of the life we’ve so carefully planned…. Remember, full professor by forty…
It was the mantra he lived by, not just for himself, but for the two of them. Daniel wanted them to be the perfect faculty couple, brilliant in their own fields, moving toward the top of the academic ladder faster than anybody else. She’d thought that was what she wanted, too.
At some point, however, the whole idea had become suffocating. She thought of the scandalous women she’d studied and taught about. They would’ve laughed at a “full professor by forty” decree.
“Maybe I’m sick to death of living my life by a schedule,” she began, thinking things through as she spoke. It was a radical idea for her, not to have a plan set down, but this whole freedom and spontaneity thing was starting to sound really good.
Daniel just regarded her balefully.
“Maybe it’s time to rip up the schedules and throw away the rulebook,” Jordan said with more conviction than she felt. “Maybe it’s time for me to do what I want to do.”
“When have you ever done anything else?” Daniel scoffed. “I don’t know what’s going on with you, Jordan. Really, I don’t. I didn’t want to say anything, but, well, you’ve been acting strange for months. I’ve been trying to plan ahead for this new phase of my life, all the while wondering why my fiancée is dragging her heels.”
“I’m not dragging my heels. I’m just…” What? What could she possibly say to explain why she didn’t want to marry him now? And maybe not later. Because there was clearly something wrong with their relationship if the sex was way hotter with her dream lover than with her real one? “I have to point out that I’m not technically your fiancée. We agreed that we wouldn’t talk about marriage again until I was done.”
“But you may never be done.”
“I will finish, Daniel. You know I will.” She stopped, not sure what to say. “I love this project. Is it so wrong to hold out for the perfect ending?”
“I don’t think this has anything to do with the ending,” Daniel retorted. He turned away, muttering, “That’s a symptom, not a cause.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means that yes, you’re a perfectionist. So am I. But…” He spun back to face her, pinning her with his gaze. “You know as well as I do that there are a million ways to finish the damn thing whether or not you know where the twit disappeared to. Hypothesize that she fell off a cliff or ran away to Mexico or her family got tired of her acting out and stuck her in a loony bin or sent her to a nunnery. Go with one, argue it and be done with it. See? Problem solved.”
“I can’t even believe you’re saying this!” She stood up, pacing back and forth in the small area behind her desk. Who did he think he was, ordering her around? And calling Isabella a twit? The two of them prided themselves on never arguing, but this seemed like a perfect time to start. “Actually, I do believe it. You never did respect anything except your own field. As if economics is next to godliness. Ha! Heaven forbid anybody else care about their own work.”
He looked shocked. He wasn’t used to being insulted. But she couldn’t seem to stop herself.
“Numbers aren’t everything, you know,” she said angrily. “I happen to think that Isabella and her arch say something very important about women and sexuality. I argue in my thesis that she was the first mainstream female artist to give women orgasms. Did you know that? Huh?”
His sneer was very unattractive. “And you really think that’s an appropriate topic for a real scholar?”
“Absolutely. Just because you’re not interested in whether Victorian women were completely repressed sexually and even denied the right to their own orgasms—”
“Oh, please!” he interrupted. “We both know the reason you’re not finished has nothing to do with Isabella or her pornographic arch or the repressed orgasms of Victorian women.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means…” His eyes narrowed. “It means that you’ll never find the right ending. Because you don’t want to.”
“Why? Why would I not want to?”
“Because that would mean being done with him .”
The word him hung there in the air between them for a long moment. Jordan started, stopped, and started again. Finally, she hedged with, “Him who?”
“You know who! The brother. You’re obsessed with the brother.”
She backed away from her desk, shaking her head. Did he know? About her dreams? No, he couldn’t. Keeping her dignity, she declared, “My only interest in him is because he’s important to the project and hopefully to finishing the project.”
“Why?” he snapped. “Do you think he had something to do with her disappearance? What’d he do, kill her?”
“Are you kidding? Of course he didn’t kill her. Nick would never have murdered his sister!” But she broke off when she saw Daniel’s triumphant expression.
