Chapter 22 – Our First Date
If somebody had told me I was acting stupidly by getting involved with Tommy Crown, I’d have told them to take a hike, as I’m a confident person. But it was the dog that had said this, and that’s different. He’s special. I sat looking at the painting, wondering if he really could communicate with Gwendolyn or if he was playing games with me, trying to seem more special than in reality he is. This line of thought went nowhere, so I shook myself out from it and looked at the clock, hoping it was wine time. We’re liberal in that regard in this house, meaning Roger and me, but eleven am is a little too liberal. I made the bed on the sofa, gave Gwendolyn a smile as I left the living room, gave the dog a dirty look as I left the house, climbed into the Mustang and fired it up. Ten minutes later I parked it on the street near the museum, having decided that parking it on the plaza between the flower beds and the flagpole again would be in poor taste.
First I went into the gallery where the museum thieves who had stolen the painting from my great great great great granddaddy Manigault until recently had kept it, and was pleased to see the faded rectangle of paint on the wall. Let them suffer with that disgrace through eternity. Then I looked at the silver tea service in the exhibit case and wondered if I had been wrong in not letting Gale pinch it that night. It would look great on her dining room sideboard. I decided to talk that over with her soon, and if she was up for it, offer to pay another nighttime visit to this place. Gotta keep Gale happy. Then I went and looked at the Gershwin piano, trying to imagine George sitting at it in his underwear over on Folly Beach in the dead of summer, no air conditioning, sweating up a storm. How could he compose something so great under those conditions?
By this time it was noon, and I wondered if they sold those small bottles of wine in the museum cafe. They did, but I could see it was rotgut, so I bought a salad, sat down, and proceeded to pour five thousand calories of blue cheese dressing on it, triple my allotment of calories for an entire day. A few pieces of lettuce and carrots floated in the bowl like seaweed out in the ocean. What was going on here? Wanting to drink in the morning; calling the dog a rat; this mess on the table in front of me? I said, ‘Get a grip, girl,’ tossed the salad in the trash, debated again buying three or four of the little bottles and downing them consecutively, one after another, walked out of the cafe and went to the Curator’s office.
“Hi,” I said.
He got up from his desk where he was working on a brace of dueling pistols made in Italy in 1799, came around to the front of the office and said, “Ms. June. Hello. How can I help you?”
I didn’t know this guy, but he knew me. I said, “Have we met? You know me?”
He blushed, looked down at the carpet, then back at me, said, “Well, not exactly. Sort of. I know of you. A lot of people in Charleston know of you.” And he blushed again.
“Which book do you know me from? Or think you know me from?”
“Umm....all of them. I’m a fan. My favorite is The Lost Ballet. I love ballet, and the way you guys got Pete Townshend to play the Stravinsky score on synthesizer, that was great. Really great. I went to two performances.”
Now he was flushing, not blushing. There’s a difference. I said, “What makes you think I had anything to do with that story? Those are novels, you know. Fiction.”
He stopped flushing, looked at me straight, and said, “Yeah, right.”
“You think those books are good?”
“Great books. I love caper novels. And to have a series set right here in Charleston, that makes them special. We know all the places, and everyone who lives here thinks it’s America’s most beautiful town. And the stories are fun, and he mixes in all those cultural references. What’s not to like?”
“You think that guy is a good writer?”
“Westlake? Richard E. Westlake? Yeah, he’s good. Fun.”
This visit to the museum was going from bad to worse. The temptation of the little bottles, that fat girl salad, and now a plug for Richard the snoop, my neighbor, Anna’s sometime boyfriend and the blabbermouth who writes about Roger’s and my going-ons. Sherlock Holmes hated that about Watson, and we hate it about Richard. Now I had a rat of a dog and a rat of a neighbor. I didn’t like that ‘Yeah, right,’ comment; that was telling. And the fact that I’m standing in this guy’s office and letting him get to me also is telling. I haven’t told myself to get a grip once in the last five years, and here I’m saying it twice in one day. ‘Get a grip, girl.’ I said, “Tommy Crown around?”
The Curator had gotten a grip on himself, was done with the blushing and flushing, and looked me in the eye, a glint there of the mischievous. Now it was my turn to blush, which I haven’t done since I was ten. What is going on? He said, “Maybe. He's working on the theft of the painting. The Bedgewood painting. The painting of the wife, which now that I mention it....” He stopped talking and changed to inferring, inference, which was quite an effective tactic, the little rat. Now another one, another rat, I am turning cynical about the human and canine races.
I got it together, stepped close to him, and turned it on. “Where is he? I want to see him.”
It felt good to see him blubber a little, jelly in the knees, the quivering lower lip, hear him say, “Yes Ma’am, I’ll call him, right now.” Which he did.
“Tell him I’ll meet him in the gallery.”
I went into the gallery, removed the small sign from a hundred and fifty year old Duncan Phyfe chair that said Please do not sit, and sat down. I was being a real pill today. Ten minutes later Tommy came into the gallery, walked up to me and said, “You break that chair, it’s going to cost you. We insure it for $150K.” And he smiled at me the way McQueen did to Tuesday Weld in The Cincinnati Kid. This was the first good thing that had happened to me all day, and I felt like myself again.
I stood up, put the sign back on the chair, looked at him and said, “Do you play chess?”