Chapter 2

• “Liz, we have to run.”
• I turned to Robert and sighed. “Sure.”
• “It was wonderful meeting you, Elizabeth,” Olivia said. She waved to me and disappeared into the throng of pretentious fakes who reeked of smoke and irony.
• Robert made a noise and I tore my stare away from where she vanished.
• “What is it?”
• “That’s the artist. Olivia Beringer.”
• Holy shit. “I had no idea.”
• “I only know because my buddy pointed her out before.” He gave me a smile that was supposed to be alluring. “She’s a dyke, you know.”
• My eyes rolled and I didn’t bother hiding it. I’d accepted the date with Robert, a fellow lawyer at the District Attorney’s office, because I was bored, and because my best friend Jacqueline reminded me I hadn’t been out with someone in over a year. Now I was regretting my decision to pick this idiot something fierce.
• “I don’t know anything about her, so no. I didn’t know that.”
• “Funny she chatted you up.”
• She wasn’t chatting me up but I didn’t feel like correcting him. Now I knew why she was so curious about my response to the painting.
• I took a peek at the price tag and confirmed my suspicion; I couldn’t afford it.
• “I need to get going,” I told him.
• He nodded absently and guided me by the small of my back.
• As we left, I could have sworn I felt someone’s eyes on me.
• A few days later my doorbell rang. The FedEx man waved when I opened the door and drove off, leaving a huge package behind.
• After I dragged it in and tore open the tape, I pulled out a painting wrapped in layers of plastic. It was Olivia’s painting, the one I admired so much. My dog, Toronto, sniffed it and looked up at me, wearing a matching expression of wonder.
• When the shock died down a bit my eyes flicked to the card attached to it.
• “Elizabeth, Got your address from a mutual friend. Hope you don’t mind. I’d love to discuss the painting more with you over dinner.—Olivia”
• On the bottom of the card she gave me her cell phone number, written crisply against the stark white of her business card.
• This was the strangest thing to ever happen to me. I thought back to what Robert said. She was a lesbian, he’d heard. He suggested she was coming on to me, and now that she gave me the painting for free with only a dinner offer, I was beginning to wonder if he was right.
• I pulled out my laptop and googled Olivia Beringer. A few impressive links came up, detailing her two decades in the art world. I checked her birthdate and saw she was 38. No boyfriends were mentioned, but I didn’t see anything about girlfriends, either.
• Then I stumbled upon an interview she did a few years ago about how she survived breast cancer. My beloved grandmother had suffered and died from the disease. I was stunned the vivacious and healthy woman from a few nights before had endured the same horror.
• My eyes scanned the laptop’s screen in a furious rush; I had a strange desperation to know every detail about her.
• The artist sits with a cigarette, arching an eyebrow when I cough meaningfully.
• “Does it bother you?” she asks.
• That seems to be the theme of her recent project. I point this out to her and she laughs, the smoke billowing out from her red lips.
• “Yes, well, I found out I had breast cancer last year, you know. And I was bothered and I wanted everyone else to be, too. Not necessarily in a bad way. I wanted to disturb the air. Disturb people’s molecules. Get them going.”
• “I wasn’t aware you had cancer. How are you doing?”
• For the first time since we sat down, Olivia looks vulnerable. “In remission, thank God. It was a tough battle and it took a lot out of me but I’m still here. Still painting. Still smoking. You’ll be relieved to know I’m trying to quit.” She grins and puts out her cigarette. “If something bothers you, darling, you only need to tell me.”
• And that sums up Olivia Beringer. Never eager to please, but equally never eager to hurt you.
• I yanked the painting out of its box and looked around at my dingy, empty apartment wondering where the hell to put it. I had “Starry Night” over my bed but it didn’t really go with the decor, and considering this painting was about sex I figured it belonged in the bedroom.
• Not that I would know anything about sex. It was coming up on a year I’d gone without, a frightening reality I didn’t like to think about.