Owned: A Mafia Menage Romance(84)

“So you’re saying that looking all around,” he gestured with his long fingers, “at all this wonderful work, you would buy this? Why is that?”

“Well, she’s very technically proficient, and I respect that work. She’s been honing her craft for decades…” I looked at each of them to see how my mini-speech had been received. So far, so good.

“It’s like a jazz musician,” I continued, encouraged by their incessant nodding. “They study for years, know their instruments inside and out and every note and technique. So when they play, you just hear their intention, the real thing they wanted to express. All that technique is so perfected that it just melts away. It becomes effortless.”

“Ahhhh,” the young woman sighed, and I grinned happily under her approval. I could see why her date found her so charming.

He leaned toward us conspiratorially, his eyes dancing with mirth. “So if this is jazz, then some of that modern stuff in the other room is just, ha ha, noise? Am I right?”

I waved my hand in the air like Oh You Are Too Much.

“And this other stuff, haha,” he continued, gesturing at my pieces behind me, “is like, uh, nursery rhymes haha?”

Wait, what?

“Oh gee I don’t know,” I laughed gamely. “Nursery rhymes?”

“Right?” he said to his date, cuffing her arm. “You see what I mean? How simplistic?”

“Simplistic?” I repeated as lightheartedly as I could.

“Well, let’s just say… unoriginal,” he conceded grandly. “I mean obviously it’s very good, but the artist just has nothing new to tell us, you know? Like a nursery rhyme!”

I felt the smile on my face go all rigid and weird, threatening to crack into an uncontrollably ugly expression at any second. I teetered on my heels and said Huh thoughtfully a few times as my mind whirled in a panic.

“I don’t know… I guess I see what you mean,” I said, hearing the enthusiasm leak from my own voice as I began to realize I could see what he was saying. Exactly.

“You know, I think Annie is actually here tonight!” I blurted out with a manic tremble.

“Oh? She is?” he said, craning his neck as though he expected her to materialize behind me.

“I think so! You know what - why don’t you get the story straight from the horse’s mouth, so to speak!”

The woman clapped her hands very fast under her chin and he beamed happily. I excused myself politely, congratulating myself silently on how I didn’t fall over or burst into tears or anything. It was her sale; I figured the least Annie could do was close the deal. I could only hope he would begin his speech anew for her.

I found Annie hiding out by the ladies room, all big eyes and Olive Oyl elbows. She stared at me as though she did not understand the words that were coming out of my mouth until I finally just turned around and left her there with her mission: go sell your work, lady.

Turning on my heel, I caught Bridget’s eye again as though she had been waiting for me. She raised her hand over her head in another come-hither gesture and I begrudgingly started to trudge across the polished concrete floor.

“Practically a done deal,” I reassured her when I was in earshot. “I need wine. Do you need wine?”

“No I need you keep doing what you’re doing. Oh god, is Annie talking to them?”

“Um yes probably?”

“Sonofabitch,” she hissed, hanging her hands on her hips and leaning her weight on one knee.

“God, you really do look like a mermaid, you know that?”

“I need you over by Adam’s sculptures.”

“Geez, Ma, no!” I bawled with my head thrown back dramatically.

“God, don’t do that. You look like a toddler. Umm…”

“No, seriously, Bridge. Selling is so not my thing--”

“Quiet,” she muttered under her breath.

“What?”

She froze like a statue, her eyes cast over my shoulder. I watched her posture slowly inflate. She was excited, I could tell. I stayed completely still until she could tell me what was happening, ready to catch her, run away, or whatever else the situation required.

“Gentlemen?” she purred. “Thank you for coming. Are you enjoying the show?”

“Just arrived,” came Declan’s voice over my shoulder, and with it a concurrent ribbon of chills up and down my spine. I took a deep, calming breath and turned around.

“I like your shoes,” Jackson winked. I stood still while my heart thrummed like a hummingbird. Both their eyes wandered over my shoulders, my arms, the curves of my dress... on down to my knees, ankles, and the exposed glint of my red toenail polish in my buff-colored heels.