Chapter Thirty-Two
Isobel sat out the front on a folding canvas chair at a makeshift table, enjoying the birthday breakfast Maria had prepared. During Isobel’s absence in LA, Maria had taken it upon herself to decorate the house with balloons, banners and bunting celebrating the special day. Mercifully, her efforts did not extend to the front garden, and inside she had opted for generic birthday messages rather than blazing the big four-zero around the house. Isobel had only one present to open, from Maria, a gold friendship bracelet. “It’s beautiful. I’ll treasure it.” She leant across the table and gave her friend a kiss. “Thank you, you don’t know how much your loyalty means to me.”
“Any interesting cards this morning?”
“Nothing special so far.” She reached for the final envelope, her hand screeching to a halt above it as she noticed the stamp. The Queen’s head.
“Something from home at last,” she said, ripping it open. She sat staring at the message, emptiness gripping her stomach.
“Bad news or something?” said Maria.
“Just a happy birthday message. Signed by Peter…and Rachel.”
Maria put out her hand and stroked her shoulder. “The bastard. What a shitty way to let you know.”
“Revenge is a dish best served cold, as they say.” She stood the card on the table amongst the others. “He has to move on, too.”
The phone rang from inside the house. “Your boyfriend? Or one of them?” said Maria, holding a cup to her lips with a smile that suggested she had meant to lift her friend’s spirits.
“I need to update you on my relationship status,” said Isobel, “which is that I don’t have one. And Ryan doesn’t ring on the home phone.”
The caller rang off before Isobel could get to it. She saw the missed call came from the gallery and hit the call-back button. She expected to get Juanita, but Pauline answered.
“I could do with some help today, I wonder if you could come in?” It seemed to Isobel that the power balance in her relationship with Pauline had shifted over the weeks she had known her, to one more of peers than of master and servant. Where once the question might have been delivered in the tone of a command, this morning it was respectful, but tinged with urgency nevertheless.
“I’d love to, but it’s my birthday. I’ve made plans.”
“I do appreciate that but I’m quite desperate, that Mexican girl of yours has let me down. Today of all days, even though she knew there were important appointments in the diary. And she hasn’t even rung in to let me know. Hung over on cheap tequila, I expect.”
“That doesn’t sound like Juanita.”
“She isn’t answering my calls, I’ve been trying her all morning.”
“I know it’s not perfect, Pauline, but how about you close up and do what you need to do. In the meantime, I’ll try and raise Juanita.”
“That’s what I would like to do, but I have important people coming in from Torrey Pines at eleven and it is too late to reschedule them. It’s their second visit and I have every expectation they’ll buy.”
Isobel thought to ask what pressing matter prevented Pauline from changing her own schedule, but she let it pass. Juanita now worked four days a week in the gallery, and the more weight that she took off Pauline’s shoulders, the less committed the older woman appeared to be to her business. “Give me fifteen minutes, I’m okay to cover for an hour or so but I can’t stay beyond midday.”
“Ryan or Lance or another beau?” asked Maria, determined to tease her.
Isobel still held the phone in her hand, her mind elsewhere. “It was Pauline. Juanita hasn’t shown up today. I’m worried something might have happened.”
“With that brute of a man of hers, you mean?”
“Yes. I’ve been encouraging her to move out but she keeps coming up with excuses not to.”
“Maybe she likes a strong hand. Some women do.”
“Believe me, no one likes a hand as strong as Pablo’s. Anyway, I’m going to need to change our plans this morning and pop in to the gallery for an hour. Will you be okay here on your own?”
“It’s your birthday, not mine. And I’d prefer to come to the gallery and enjoy your company. It’ll be fun, watching you toil on your birthday, I am sure.”
While Maria changed out of her nightdress Isobel dialled Juanita using both the home phone and her cell, thinking that she would be less inclined to reject her calls than one from the gallery. Neither were answered and she left a long message imploring Juanita to call back. She had no sooner finished her message than the phone rang.
“Juanita, thank God, I’ve been worried sick.”
But where she expected Juanita’s soft Mexican voice, instead came Lance’s amused tone. “I’m sorry to disappoint you, have I rung at a bad time?”
“Yes, you have,” she replied hurriedly, more flustered than irritated, and already searching for her keys.
“You’re worried about Juanita? Is she in some kind of trouble?”
“Please, Lance, this is bad timing. I’m already late for the gallery. I’ll call you later. I think we need to talk.”
“Hold on a second. I only just heard that today’s your birthday. I wish you’d let me know.”
“I’ve got more important things on my mind right now than my birthday. So, if you don’t mind, I must dash.” She hung up and turned to find Maria standing behind her.
“If I may say so, I think we need to work on your telephone technique. A woman whose relationship status is a blank might want to think whether dismissing handsome suitors out of hand is the way to go.”
Isobel had not yet told her about the events in LA but didn’t think this the best time to do so. “You know my feelings on the lothario that is Lance.” She grabbed her bag and dropped her phone into it. “Now if you’re ready, let’s vamos, amiga. We’ll ride there, if it’s all right with you.”
“I expected nothing else. I’m beginning to like bumping up and down on that saddle.”
Isobel and Maria leant their bikes against the front of the gallery. Pauline, she knew, would not be in a position to get on her high horse this morning. They entered to find her pacing the gallery, car keys in hand.
“Hi Pauline, this is Maria, the friend staying with me. She’s going to keep me company.”
“Of course, of course, she’s more than welcome, thank you so much for helping out. I’ve been rushed off my feet this morning and the couple from Torrey Pines will be here at eleven, maybe sooner, all the details are in the appointment book. Now I’m afraid I need to fly.”
Isobel scanned the room. “Has my painting of the Del been moved?” If it had been, and if Juanita had been minding the store, Isobel knew it would likely as not be in the front window. But she had not sought Pauline’s explicit position to show the painting and suspected it had been shifted to the stockroom in pique at her presumptuousness.
“If you check the book, you will find Juanita sold it on Saturday. In and out in less than twenty-four hours! Never happened before. If that girl put as much effort into her timekeeping as she does to selling your paintings, then we wouldn’t be in the mess we are this morning. Now I must be off.”
“Wow, what a fabulous birthday present,” said Maria the second the door swung shut. “If it goes on like this you’ll be needing your own website.”
“Yes,” said Isobel, puzzled and almost incredulous, yet pride glowing within her nevertheless. She flicked the appointment book back to Saturday. Other than some prints, nothing apart from her painting had been sold that day, again at full price. The book recorded the buyer as “Hotel Del Coronado.”
“The Del bought it! Someone important at the hotel must have been taken by it. She made a mental note of the name—“Rodriquez”— against the sale details.
Whatever had been going on in the shop before she arrived had caused Pauline to move pictures back and forth wholesale. In Isobel’s experience, that was a sure sign of time-wasters who ask about everything, but buy nothing. She set about putting the place back in order. “You want me to help, or shall I go get us two coffees?”
“Coffee would be great.” Isobel threw Maria a bunch of keys. “And do you mind securing our bikes, or we’ll be walking home along with everything else.”
As eleven approached Isobel went to the stockroom to retrieve the painting the Torrey Pines couple had asked to be reserved, a canvas reproduction taken from an aerial photograph of Coronado. It had caught Isobel’s eye on her first day in the gallery and, had it not been for the outrageous price, she might even have considered buying it. Instead, she determined she would paint her own version as her next project. She caught her reflection in a mirror and grimaced, setting about brushing herself down and tidying her hair as best she could. The doorbell chimed.
“I’ll be right with you,” she called out. “I’m in the backroom.” She had left without any makeup and, as a final touch, set about applying her lipstick.
“May I come into your boudoir?”
She looked up to see Lance’s image in the mirror, Maria standing behind him with her arms out and palms up. Like a bad penny, he had turned up again, as she knew he would, and she greeted his arrival with philosophical resignation.
“I thought I’d pop by, it being your birthday and all.” He brought a bunch of flowers from behind his back.
She pursed her lips and dropped the stick in her bag. “If you come in, then how will I get out?”
“With difficulty but it might be fun trying.”
She bent to pick up the painting she had entered to retrieve and he stepped back to allow her through.
“You're a shameless opportunist, you do know that?” she said as she turned sideways with her load to pass him.
“That’s an improvement on the ‘errant playboy’ you last described me as.”
Isobel ignored him, instead directing her gaze and attention to her companion.
“This is Maria, the friend I told you about.”
“Yes, we already introduced ourselves on the way in. You have a most charming guest, and a native Spanish speaker too. Did I detect a Colombian accent?”
“Venezuelan,” said Maria, basking in the attention.
“And perfect English too.”
“Her husband is from Texas,” said Isobel smartly, producing a scowl from Maria.
“Perhaps I should have brought two bouquets,” said Lance grinning, offering Isobel the flowers.
“Thank you, but it wasn’t necessary.”
“Peonies, your favourite,” said Maria, with a glare that implored her friend to at least be civil, if not for her own sake, then for Maria’s.
“Yes, they’re beautiful.”
“I’m afraid at such short notice I could not do justice to a present, so now all I can offer you is a card.”
She accepted it gracefully and would have opened it had a middle- aged couple with deep brown tans not interrupted them with a polite cough. So distracted had she been by Lance that she had not even noticed their arrival.
“Mr. and Mrs. Silverman?” said Isobel, extending her hand and silently chiding herself for having allowed Lance to remain this long. “I’m awfully sorry, Lance, but business calls.”
“Sure, go right ahead. I’ll chat with Maria because…now how did you put it…ah yes, I have no pressing engagements.”
Isobel turned her attention to her customers and to closing the sale, keeping one ear tuned to the cosy exchanges in the corner. To her annoyance, Maria soon dropped into Spanish, speaking at a rate of knots, and Lance followed suit. Though she had a reasonable grasp of the language, she struggled to follow their conversation while also conducting one of her own, and soon gave up trying. Whatever they were chitchatting about they were doing it a little too intimately for Isobel’s liking, Maria seeming to find some amusement in every utterance from Lance.
Isobel expected closing the sale would be straightforward, but the Silvermans made a play of procrastinating in a bid to haggle down the price. By the time she shook hands on the deal midday approached. Lance sat through it all, his attention half on the flirting Maria and half on Isobel, seeming to be interested in how she managed the process and looking for all the world like a master enjoying the work of his apprentice.
“As well a talented artist, I see you’re an accomplished saleswoman and negotiator,” said Lance. “If it had been me, I would have folded on price half an hour ago.”
“But you don’t have to answer to Pauline, who insisted on a fixed price,” said Isobel. She wanted to be mad at him, for his smugness, for dating Chrystal behind her back, for flirting with Maria in front of her, and for a thousand other perceived sins, but the drama in LA had somehow taken the edge off her anger. But still she had no intention of succumbing once more to his charms. “And as far as selling goes,” she continued in an attempt to claim some high ground over him “Juanita did all the hard work.”
Lance, undeterred, continued to play the gentleman. “You’re too modest by far. But tell me what’s the problem with Juanita? Maria says she might be in some kind of trouble.”
Isobel flopped into the chair behind the desk. She recounted as much as she knew before bringing matters to a head. “Now, Lance,” she said, standing, if you don’t mind, I do want to shut up shop and go over to El Cajon and see if I can find out how she is.”
“El Cajon, it has good parts and less good parts, but I can hardly imagine you wanting to spend a birthday there. Is this a search and rescue mission, or do you have her address?”
“Yes, in my phone.”
“Do you mind if I see it?”
She brought up Juanita’s contact details and held the screen in front of him. “Do you know it?”
“I know the district. And I have to tell you it’s not one I would be comfortable in. If you’re determined to go there, even if it’s still daylight, you really should let me go with you.”
“I think we’ll manage.”
“Isobel, this is no time for amateur heroics,” said Lance, suddenly stern. “Juanita is in trouble and, living where she does, I’m not surprised. You will be a target, believe me. Although nothing bad will probably happen, something very bad could possibly happen. Let me at least take you in and out, for your own safety.”
“I think I’d prefer that,” said Maria, cutting the ground from under Isobel.
“Then close up here, I’ll get my jacket and a couple of things from the car and then I’ll sort out a cab.” He turned to leave, shouting back over his shoulder. “Even if all we risk is a few hubcaps, it’s better it’s on someone else’s car.”