Jamison (Beautiful Mine #3) (16 page)

“You ready? Car’s waiting downstairs.”

I fastened a faux mink stole around my shoulders and grabbed my clutch before locking up. I thanked my lucky stars with careful step downstairs that I didn’t fall flat on my face in those sky-scraping heels.

A black town car was parked outside in the street, the door ajar and a white-gloved driver waiting next to it.

“You going to tell me where we’re going?” I asked.

“You’ll see soon enough.”

I hoisted my dress and slid across the buttery leather of the backseat, Jamison following. The second the driver pulled into traffic, Jamison took my hand and tenderly raised it to his lips.

“Tonight is all about you, Sophie,” he said with a twinkle in his eyes. The sun had retreated over the horizon and night stars filled the sky above, but even with all the beauty and enchantment of a frosted February evening, all I saw was him.

A few moments later, the driver pulled up in front of Beacon Art Gallery, coming to a gentle stop. He hopped out.

“What’s going on?” I peered out the window. Beacon’s was supposed to be closed, but it was filled to the brim with people dressed to the nines. “What’s this, Jamison?”

The door opened, ushering in a cool wind, and Jamison climbed out first. With a smile on his lips and an outstretched hand, he helped me out.

“Surprise,” he said, watching my face. “A grand opening.”

“You planned all this?” I stood frozen, wanting to remember everything about this moment. I watched from the street as perfect strangers stood in groups around my paintings, pointing and discussing.

“With Mia,” he said.

“You two,” I sighed, unable to fight the smile on my lips.

Jamison extended his arm. “Come now. They’re waiting for the guest of honor.”

The second I entered, Mia rushed across the room and a silent hush filled the gallery.

“Everyone,” Mia called out in her boisterous voice, “if I could just have your attention…”

The last of the chattering stopped and all eyes were drawn toward us.

“As some of you may know, I’m Mia Beacon,” she said with a charming smile. Her platinum hair was flat-ironed and reflected the soft lights of the gallery, her body hugged by a tight, alabaster Herve Leger dress. “I want to thank you all for coming tonight to Beacon Art Gallery’s grand opening. To the right, you’ll find watercolors painted by yours truly, and to the left, you’ll find oil paintings done by my partner, Sophie Salinger. All paintings are for sale, and we have associates around the gallery who can help with your transactions. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask them. Carry on!”

Mia turned to me, bouncing lightly on her heels, excited and full of bottled energy. “Surprised?”

“Um, yes!” I said.

A man walked by holding a tray of champagne flutes, and we all grabbed one.

“This was all Jamison’s idea,” Mia said, nudging his arm. “All these people here? I don’t know them. They’re all his people.”

One swift glance around the room was all it took to tell me these people were all upper crust, old moneyed Manhattanites. I didn’t know a single soul.

“How’d you get them to come?” I asked him.

“Easy,” he said. “You tell them the hottest new artist is having their grand opening and they come in droves. Everyone wants to be the first to own a Sophie Salinger original.”

I shook my head in wonderment. “How do you know all these people?”

He shrugged. “In my former life, I attended lots of parties. You meet people. You make connections.”

“Jamison.” A staunch older man walked up, placing his hand on Jamison’s shoulder. His thick black mustache and paper thin glasses told me he was a man who lived by his own rules.

“Dr. Valotti,” Jamison said. “Good to see you. Glad you could make it.”

I tuned out their small talk as my eyes scanned the room. I wanted to remember every little detail about that night.

“Excuse me,” I said, slipping away from their conversation and heading toward one of my bigger pieces, where two women in head to toe Chanel were discussing it.

“Here she is,” the older of the two said. “The artist herself. Maybe she can clarify some things for us?”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“It says here the name of the painting is ‘Pirouette,’ but I don’t see anything ballet-related in this picture,” she said.

I smiled. I’d painted it for Rossi. “You can’t see it, but underneath everything is a pink ballet slipper. It’s buried. But it’s there.”

The older woman’s lips drew into a smile.

“Beneath all of my paintings is a single object,” I said. “I start with an idea or an image. I paint that first. And then the rest of the painting goes over top of it. So in this painting, the ballet slipper is the heart.”

The older woman clutched her hand across her chest. “That’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard.”

“How much?” the other woman asked. “I have to have this for my guest room in the Hamptons.”

“No,” the older woman said. “I must have it. My daughter was a prima ballerina for the American Ballet Company about fifteen years ago. She would love this.”

I paused, unprepared for this sort of thing, as I watched them bicker back and forth.

“Ladies,” a gentleman in a suit interrupted them, “may I help you?”

Apparently, there were people hired to deal with the sales and negotiation side of the evening. I breathed a sigh of relief and graciously slipped back over toward Jamison.

“I think I just got my first sale,” I said to him.

“No,” he said. “Half your paintings have received bids tonight.”

“What?”

“That’s what Mia was just told. Hers are selling well, too.”

“You’re joking?” It took all the strength I had not to jump up and down like a giddy schoolgirl.

The door behind me opened and a chilled gust of wind sent pinpricks up my backside. I turned to see who the new arrival was. Two middle-aged, out of place guests with ashen faces and coffee bean, salt-flecked hair. My parents.

I turned to Jamison and then to Mia, panic rising in my chest and restricting my speech. Mia and Jamison exchanged looks, but my brain was running on overdrive, unable to process anything besides looking for the nearest exit.

Without thinking twice, I jetted back to my studio and slammed the door, locking myself away from the chaos so I could gather my thoughts for two seconds.

“Sophie,” Jamison called from the other side. “Can I come in?”

“No,” I cried back. “I need a minute.”

“Sophie, please. Talk to me.”

“Why did you invite them here?”

The door flew open, thanks to Mia not thinking to install locks on our studios during renovations, and Jamison let himself in, much to my dismay. His wrinkled forehead and kind blue eyes showed a sort of compassion that almost made me change my mind about being mad at him.

“What are my parents doing here?” I crossed my arms, spitting my words. “Did you invite them, or did Mia?”

“I did.” He didn’t cower. He didn’t flinch. He owned it.

“Why?” I could feel my lips beginning to pout as the skin of my face flushed hot and my eyes burned. “Why would you do that, Jamison?”

“You need them.”

“You don’t know a damn thing about me.” I hated speaking to him that way, but I spoke from the deepest parts of me.

“I know you better than you think I do.”

“I was perfectly fine until you came along,” I lied.

“Bullshit.” He stepped into my space, and I could feel his body heat on my exposed shoulders. “You were dying.”

I huffed.

“You were dying, Sophie. And I don’t mean physically,” he added.

I swallowed the lump in my throat. He couldn’t have known about my attempted suicide. I hadn’t told anyone. Not even Mia.

“So, you have me all figured out?” I asked. “You think you know what’s good for me? You think you can just come into my life and fix everything?”

“You asked me to fix you. I made a promise.”

“I meant my aneurysm.” I hated that word. It was so textbook and scientific, and it brought pause to any conversation.

“I knew something was up when you didn’t put your parents down as emergency contacts,” Jamison said softly. “And when you told me about your sisters… well, I started piecing things together.”

“Guess that’s why they pay you the big bucks. You’re just so damn smart, aren’t you?”

“When I asked Mia for your parents’ number, she let it slip that you’d pushed them away after your sisters passed.”

I wanted to slap Mia. She had no business telling him that.

“My parents blame me for what happened, you know.” My eyes searched up into his, hoping he’d understand where I was coming from.

“They said that?” His forehead wrinkled in disbelief.

“Not exactly. It was mostly implied.”

“I have a hard time believing that the people who raised you into the beautiful woman you are today could possibly blame you for what happened. And I have an even harder time believing they’d want to be cut from your life completely.” He wrapped his hands around my waist, anchoring me to the ground so I couldn’t slip away. His words carried weight, and I knew he had a point.

“It’s just…” My voice broke. “When they look at me, they look so sad. And… I just think they see my sisters. And… I think they associate me with that night. And I…”

He lifted his hand to the back of my head, pressing me into the comfort of his solid chest as he shushed me.

“Your parents aren’t perfect,” he said, his voice a low vibration against my ear. “But you have to stop punishing yourself.”

His words ceased, as if he suddenly caught the irony in his statement.

I released myself from his hold and wiped away the remaining tears from my cheeks as he cupped my chin.

“You look beautiful,” he said with a smile. “This is your night. Trust me when I say that inviting your parents was the right thing to do.”

I nodded, plastering a half smile on my face and stepping back out to the gallery.

“Sophie,” my mother said, lifting her thick fingers to her mouth. Her salt-and-peppered hair was windswept and out of place, and her navy twin set and khakis were ill-fitting and made her stand out like a sore thumb, but she was there. In the flesh. The brown eyes I’d gazed up into as a child were watering as she walked closer to me. She hesitated a bit, almost scared to wrap her arms around me.

“Hi, Mom,” I said, accepting her hug. It’d been well over a year since I’d seen them last. The year after The Incident, every time I’d come home, I’d see my parents in worse shape than before, as if they were deteriorating before my very eyes. The way they’d look at me, all misty-eyed, their words few and far between—it all told me they were better off without me around. They didn’t need that constant reminder.

A jolt of pain dashed across my stomach as I saw my father standing back a ways. He shifted uncomfortably, his eyes darting around at the fancy guests. He didn’t want to be there. He’d have much rather been sitting in his easy chair, sipping his whiskey and coke and catching the evening news until he passed out for the night.

“Dad,” I said, releasing my mother and walking to him. His bulbous nose, reddened from recent years of hard drinking, seemed bigger than I remembered, and he had more gray in his temples than the last time I’d seen him.

“We missed you, Sophie Doll,” my dad said, instantly softening the resistance between us. I rested my cheek on his shoulder, breathing in the “Old Man Cologne” I used to tease him for wearing. He smelled exactly the way I remembered, except for the smallest hint of whiskey on his breath.

“Thanks for coming,” I said.

“Your friend invited us,” he replied as I stepped away. His eyes danced over to where Jamison stood back, silently observing our little reunion. “Hope we didn’t upset you by coming.”

I turned to my mom, who couldn’t take her eyes off me, and she smiled. I hadn’t seen her smile since long before The Incident.

“Your work is beautiful,” she gushed. “Just beautiful.”

“Come home,” my father said. “We’d love for you to visit like you used to.”

My stomach churned at the memory of the last time I’d gone home. The warm, nostalgic feeling I used to get when I went home during school breaks had dissipated into thin air the moment my sisters died. The door to their bedroom stayed locked tight, untouched. The house was too quiet, and my parents sat like vacant shells with empty eyes in front of a glowing T.V. every night. I stopped going home when it stopped feeling like home, and I had never intended to go back.

But seeing the way my parents looked at me was a clear indication that the old Ken and Julie were in there somewhere, hidden behind a mountain of pain and years of hurt, begging to be released. Begging to move on, to live again. And now I understood that only I had the power to free them.

“You guys staying in town tonight?” I asked.

“Jamison put us up in a hotel,” my mother said with a gracious smile.