CHAPTER 6
Jane
“You totally underpriced that one,” Miranda says lazily as she nods her head to the painting. It’s a thirty-by-thirty watercolor in a simple wooden frame painted a distressed gray. I’ve got it propped on a tabletop easel. It’s by far the biggest painting I’m displaying, and, frankly, it’s my best one too. I have six others remaining on the display wall behind us, with the hope I can tempt some art enthusiast to give my work a shot.
The Misty Harbor Music and Art Festival is a great way to start summer and serves as the official opener to the short tourist season we have here. We’re not big enough to have just a music festival. Even less people are interested in art than music so they got thrown together, but it’s a pretty fun time. Various artisans set up booths where everything from art to cupcakes can be bought while bands alternate on an elevated stage on the town square.
I’ve participated in this event as an art vendor for the past six years—ever since I graduated from college. It was only then I felt I had the necessary chops to exhibit my work, because even though I’d been painting since I was a kid, it was only having an art degree behind my name that gave me the confidence to show my stuff to the public. Each year, I’ve made some money. Some years were better than others, but no artist truly does it for the money. I mean, it’s great to have the extra cash because teachers make squat, but I know I’ll never be rich from my art. And that’s fine by me, as I never had those aspirations. For me, life is exactly perfect. I live in a community I love, have family and friends close by and a kick-ass job where I get to pursue my passion every single day. I couldn’t want for more.
“Underpriced?” I ask as I turn my head to Miranda. “It’s not even been seriously looked at all day. I should be cutting the price, particularly because I didn’t glass it in and the frame is pretty cheap.”
I had opened for business at ten AM. Miranda met me here at nine to help me set up, so now we’re just relaxing in a pair of ratty beach chairs she’d brought along, waiting for my more potential customers to perhaps saunter by. I’d sold four paintings so far, but they were small and only thirty bucks a piece. It was getting close to dinnertime, though, and things would really start to get busy soon.
“It’s magnificent and you know it,” she returns dryly, her eyes flicking to the painting and back to me again. “And glass is easy to add. People aren’t purchasing that frame. They’re purchasing the art inside. It is merely for display so it can rest on the easel.”
She’s right about that, and it’s a lot nicer looking than just the painting, which is done on watercolor paper taped to a board. Right now, it looks pretty nice as it sits on the easel at an angle, so I can clearly see it from where I’m sitting. And truth be told, it’s probably my best work so far. It’s of the Gray Birch Lighthouse. I did it a few weeks ago, inspired perhaps by the fact I’d stared at that old lighthouse a lot knowing that it was now inhabited by a sexy, mysterious man. But he really has nothing to do with the painting itself, for he’s not in it. I just happened to catch it one morning as the sun was rising on the Atlantic, so there are swirls of orange, pink, and yellow stacked on top of a grayish-purplish ocean. That’s all in the background. The focal point is the lighthouse as the white stucco exterior soaked up the colors of sunrise, even reflecting off the glass panes surrounding the light at the top. I made the frame myself, including the distressed gray paint job, and priced it for one hundred and fifty dollars, which I thought was reasonable. Sadly so far, no one was interested in shelling that out.
“I bet no one is even looking at it seriously because it’s underpriced,” Miranda suggests. “You need to give it a price that proclaims to the entire world that the buyer is getting a priceless piece of art.”
I stare at her for a moment, seeing she’s not bullshitting me, and I figure she might be on to something and I really didn’t have anything to lose.
Scrambling out of my seat, I round the table and pluck up the little index card resting at the base of the easel where I had carefully printed the price in black sharpie. As I crumple the card up, I move back around the table, sit on my chair, and reach under the table where I’d put my purse. Nabbing my black sharpie and some extra index cards out, I carefully print out a new price after tossing the old card into my purse.
“How about… two hundred?” I ask just as I finish the last zero on the price.
“Still too low,” Miranda says.
With a huff, I toss that card into my purse and poise the marker above a fresh one. Turning my head, I look to my best friend in the world and ask her, “What should I ask for it?”
“Three hundred and fifty dollars,” she says earnestly. Firmly. With total belief that I can get that for my work.
It’s one of the many reasons I love her.
Miranda and I went to school together from kindergarten up, but we hadn’t been close from the start. I mean, we knew each other because our school was small, but she had her friends and I had mine. We were acquaintances, I guess.
That all changed in the middle of our eighth grade year when Miranda’s parents went through a very bitter and nasty divorce. Worse yet, it was public fodder because Miranda’s mom had cheated on her father… with another woman. Our town is so small that it wasn’t a subject that would get swept under the rug. People whispered and hypothesized about what could drive her mom to become a lesbian, and sadly… all those whispers hit Miranda’s ears because kids tend to be more vocal than adults.
Miranda got mercilessly teased. She got viciously bullied.
Then the worst thing happened. I found myself in a group of friends who started bullying her. I was quiet at first, usually awkwardly walking away when they started in on her, because as long as I wasn’t saying those nasty things to her face, she’d surely understand I wasn’t a part of it.
It wasn’t until I walked by Miranda in the hall one day—alone and without my friends—that I smiled at her and asked how she was. She glared at me, tucked her head down, and sped past me. It was then I realized I was guilty by association.
The very next day during our lunch break, I spied two of my friends standing behind Miranda in the lunch line. They were clearly harassing her, as they were leaning in toward her and her shoulders were hunched forward almost protectively.
I didn’t even think.
I just walked straight up to my friends and laid into them good. I did it loudly so everyone heard, and I did it with as much derision as I could muster so they would have the unequivocal realization that I was disgusted by this bullying.
That was the day Miranda and I became best friends. I could narrow it down to that exact moment and the way her eyes watched me warily as I told my friends off. It was also the day I lost those other friends and was shunned, but that was fine by me. Miranda was enough. She was a handful, in fact, and to this day… I still have no clue what those other girls were saying. As far as I know, they could have been discussing the weather at the moment I walked up to them, but I don’t regret a moment of my actions.
The funny thing is… Miranda and I are like night and day. She’s a pessimist, and I’m an optimist. She’s wild and crazy, and I’m calm and sedate. My humor is quirky and adorable, hers is biting and sarcastic. She’s got hair the color of midnight, while mine’s the color of the sun. But the one thing we have in common despite all those differences is love and loyalty, and it’s never wavered since eighth grade. Even when I went away to college—which was really only forty miles away so I was home often—Miranda and I never drifted apart. I made new friends at college while she went to cosmetology school, but we never let distance or new interests drive a wedge between us.
So when she looks at me and honestly tells me this painting is worth three hundred and fifty dollars, I totally believe her, because she believes it about me.
“Three fifty it is,” I say as I neatly print out the new price and then rest it against the easel.
When I’m seated again, Miranda says, “This is pretty fucking boring, Janey. We’ve been here for hours and only sold four paintings.”
Chuckling, I lean over and nudge her shoulder with mine. “I know, and I love you for keeping me company.”
“Let’s talk about Kyle then,” she says, and my insides immediately go warm at just hearing his name. Of course, because Miranda is my bestie and I tell her everything, she’s very much aware that I’m crushing on my elusive neighbor who I haven’t seen hide nor hair of since he helped me with my pipe problem earlier in the week.
Obviously, I had to hear every dirty innuendo from Miranda, but my favorite was, “So Janey… did he really plow your pipes?”
Sadly, he did not, and I didn’t learn much about him at all. The next morning, my two baskets were sitting on my front porch, so he effectively removed any reason for me to go over and knock on his door. This was disheartening, and I know it’s foolish to even be thinking on these things. He’s totally out of my league, as completely scary as he is sexy, and would probably hurt me very badly in the long run.
Still, I can’t resist her offer to gossip like silly girls. “So, I told you about his tattoos, right?”
Miranda shakes her head. Clearly, I missed some crucial details. “Are they bad ass?” she asks.
“So bad ass,” I tell her. “He’s got this really scary-looking skull on his chest with the words ‘Fear Me’ written underneath, so I’m thinking that’s probably a valid warning. I should stay away.”
“No way,” Miranda says knowingly. “As you well know, I’ve been with lots of men—”
I roll my eyes at her because she really hasn’t… I mean, not comparatively to some of the looser women in our town.
“—and men who have tattoos just know how to fuck. And they know how to do things with their mouths. Oh, and they’re usually really hung.”
Just as Miranda says that, an older couple strolls by my booth. I give her a sharp nudge. We both turn our heads and give them a welcoming smile. They in turn glare at us as they walk right by, not even giving my paintings a glance.
“Okay, we are changing the subject,” I hiss at her. “You’re going to drive away any potential customers.”
“Nah,” she says dismissively with a wave of her hand. “Just the prudes. Anyway, men with tattoos are where it’s at. Trust me on this.”
“I trust you on most everything, but I don’t know,” I tell her dubiously. “It’s seriously not normal for someone to be that reclusive and shut off from society. What if he has mental issues?”
“What if he has a big dick?” she counters.
“Okay, we are now absolutely changing the subject,” I growl at her as I push out of my chair and turn to face her with a mock glare. She just looks back up at me with a knowing grin.
Knowing that I’ll now be wondering about the size of his—well, you know.
“And what were you two just talking about?” I hear a distinctly male, distinctly annoying voice ask from behind me.
I slowly turn around and stiffen my spine as I lock eyes on my ex-boyfriend, Craig Bartles. My asshole ex-boyfriend, I should clarify.
And true to his sleazy form, he’s standing there with Patty Dubois, the floozy he was cheating on me with. He’s got his arm draped casually over her shoulder, and she’s pressed into his side with her arm clinging tight around his waist. She gives me a nasty smile as she smacks at her gum.
We broke up over a year ago when I found him in my house, in my bed, giving it hard to Patty Dubois. When I gave him a key to use, I honestly didn’t think he’d use it like that.
Weirdly though, it wasn’t a difficult breakup. At least, not in the long run. While I had fashioned myself really in love with the man, it was about three days after our breakup that Miranda observed, “You know… you’re not even sad that Craig is gone.”
And I realized… she was right.
I was mad at what he did. And, as a woman, I was very hurt that he betrayed me. But I didn’t pine for him. In fact, I almost felt light and free after we parted ways.
I moved on and didn’t look back.
Craig couldn’t seem to do the same.
Because this is a small town, we run into each other a lot. And every time, he has something nasty to say. Most times, he’s with Patty, and he enjoys flaunting her in my face. I can’t figure out what I did to deserve his ire, other than breaking up with him, but I always tried to take the high road.
So I lift my chin up and prepare to polite the two of them to death when Miranda sneers at them. “Sorry… you two are going to have to move it along. We don’t serve patrons who have crabs.”
Craig just smirks, but Patty takes great offense. “I do not have crabs.”
“Yes, you do,” Miranda says. “Henry over at the pharmacy told me that you routinely have to get a prescription medication for your problem. So, if you would just move it along… I don’t want your creepy crawlies anywhere near me.”
Patty screeches in outrage, but Craig merely removes his arm from her shoulder and steps up to the table. His gaze goes to the Gray Birch Lighthouse painting, and he studies it for a moment.
“Nice work,” he says as he picks it up from the easel. My body immediately goes tight as he puts his grubby fingers on my work. He turns to look at me, holding the painting up. “I’ll give you five dollars for it.”
I don’t take the bait because he wants me to verbally clash with him. His tongue is sharper than mine, and he knows he’ll cut me down. Instead, I step around the table, push past Patty, who’s glaring daggers at Miranda, and I jerk the painting out of Craig’s hands. The move is so forceful that he’s caught off guard, and it easily comes free.
“It’s not for sale to you,” I tell him firmly.
And that should have been the end of it. But I’m completely stunned when his hand flies out and he jerks it right back out of my hands. He gives me a superior smile, and then purposefully lets it drop to the ground. I watch it tumble end over end until it falls facedown on the dirty pavement.
“Oops,” he says with a shrug of his shoulders as he raises his eyebrows innocently. “My bad.”
Normally, Miranda would be the one in this situation who would go apeshit. Instead, a wave of fury and frustration sweeps through me and I slam my hands into his chest, pushing him back a step. “You asshole,” I hiss at him. “You motherfucking asshole.”
“Tell him, girlfriend,” I hear Miranda egging me on.
Craig’s eyes narrow at me, but not so much that I don’t see a glint of malice shining through. I’m unprepared when his hand shoots out and grabs me by my upper arm. He jerks me toward him and snarls, “Better watch out who you hit, Janey, because I’m likely to hit back.”