Now Mitch opened the door of his truck and removed her portfolio and handed it to her. “I’m sorry, but it is my duty to inform you that you’re a fraud.”
“Just exactly what do you mean by that?” she demanded.
“I mean you’re an artist, not a cop.”
She leaned her long frame against the truck and sighed, hugging the folio to her chest. “Please don’t be doing a number on my head right now, okay?”
“I’m totally serious. You should be doing this full time. You have to. Your technique needs refining, and you need to start thinking about color, although there’s a lot to be said for how the black and white captures the immediacy of a news photo. But just think of what’s in store for you. Look at Munch’s career. He got into nature painting, etching, printmaking, lithography… He also had a nervous breakdown in 1908 but, hey, that was him. Besides, he was Norwegian. The point is, you have a gift.”
“How do you know?” she asked, squinting at him uncertainly.
“I just do. But if you don’t believe me, let’s march on down the street to the Art Academy. They’ve got world-renowned artists teaching classes there. Classes you should be taking. We’ll show your portfolio to them. Come on,” he said, grabbing her by the wrist.
“Let go of me, Mitch.”
“They’ll tell you the same thing. I’m positive.”
“And I said let go!” she cried, wrenching her hand free of his. “I really don’t like people tugging at me.”
“Well, you’d better get used to it, because I come from a long line of great American tuggers. And I would kill to have one tenth of your talent. Christ, don’t you realize just how gifted you are?”
She stood there in wary silence, her eyes probing his. At that moment, she reminded Mitch of a big cat that suddenly found itself on unfamiliar turf-feet wide apart, hackles raised, ready to run Or to strike. Depending on what happened next.
“Tell me something,” Mitch said to her in a low, calm voice. “Exactly why did you decide to show it to me?”
“I’m beginning to ask myself that same question.”
“Okay, I think I know why you did.”
She let out a brief laugh. “Somehow I had a feeling you would.”
“You were hoping I’d tell you that you were no good-so you could forget about the whole thing. Not a chance. I won’t do it. You are good. And you know it. And you’re scared to death. I don’t blame you, believe me. Talent is a very frightening thing.”
“Now why do you say that?”
“Because if you have it, you have to do something with it. You owe it to yourself. Wasting talent is one of the deadly sins. Maybe it didn’t make the Bible’s top seven, but it’s right there at the top of mine. You must study and work and grow. And that’s where it gets scary. Because the people closest to you will think you’ve gone a little nuts. They will not understand why you’ve quit your job-”
“Wait, who’s quitting her job?”
“And they for sure will not approve, because it’s impulsive, impractical, selfish and all of those other things we’re taught not to be when we grow up. There’s big-time risk. Most of us never take that kind of a risk our whole lives. But most of us don’t have your kind of talent. Am I getting through to you, Lieutenant? You are not a cop. You are leading somebody else’s life.” He broke off, watching her closely. She looked shaken. In fact, she looked like she was about to be sick. “I’m not telling you anything you haven’t already thought of, am I?”
She considered this for a long moment before she said, “Nice words. Every single one of them.”
“But…?”
“What makes you think there’s a but?”
“I hear a but.”
She glowered at him. “But art doesn’t pay the bills.”
“You’ll get by.”
“You’re dreaming. This is real life-not some Robin Williams movie where everybody hugs everybody at the end.”
Mitch shook his head at her. “If you don’t watch out you are going to make me really angry at you.”
“Why, are you a big Robin Williams fan?”
“Don’t play games with me, Lieutenant!”
Her eyes widened at him in surprise. “You’re totally serious about this, aren’t you?”
“Totally,” Mitch confirmed. “And unless you’re prepared to be as serious about it as I am I don’t ever want to discuss it with you again.”
“I don’t take well to bullying,” she warned him.
“I’m trying to encourage you.”
“Well, try a different way before that lip of yours suddenly starts bleeding again.” Four helmeted school girls on rollerblades went teetering past them on the sidewalk, giggling. She watched them. She seemed bothered and distracted. “Look, I don’t mean to be ungrateful. I appreciate you saying what you said. I’ve just got a lot on my mind right now, okay? Something I have to do. And I’m not looking forward to it.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
She hesitated before she gave him a shake of her head.
“May I ask you something personal?”
“What is it?”
“Why did you draw me?”
She immediately tensed, clutching her folio tightly. “It was… an attempt to try to understand a certain situation.”
“What situation?”
She ducked her head, didn’t answer him. She seemed very uncomfortable.
“Are you saying that you think I’m dead inside?”
“No, no,” she said hastily. “Not at all. It was more about me than about you. I-I probably shouldn’t have shown that one to you.” She raised her eyes to his. “I’m sorry.”
“No need to apologize. None at all. You don’t ever have to…” Mitch swallowed, his Adam’s apple suddenly feeling as if it were the size of a musk melon. He gazed at her. She gazed back right at him, her eyes large and lustrous behind her horn-rimmed glasses. “I’m genuinely honored that you chose me to show your work to, Lieutenant,” he said. “It’s an experience that I’ll never forget.” Then Mitch got in his truck, started it up and eased away from the curb, glancing back at her in his rearview mirror.
She remained there on the curb, watching him pull away. She was still standing there, watching him, when he went around the bend by the public library and was gone.
CHAPTER 14
AN ATTEMPT TO TRY to understand a certain situation?!
Jesus, how could she have said something so stiff, so impersonal, so outright lame? Des could not imagine as she piloted her slicktop up the Post Road toward Uncas Lake. Hell, compared to her the IRS sounded positively warm and fuzzy. What on earth had she been thinking? She’d wanted to tell him she was trying to sort out her feelings, that’s what. But she hadn’t wanted to spring that particular f-word out into the open air and so she got all bollixed up and wham, out came the Notification of Pending Audit.
I do not know how to talk to a man anymore. I am hopeless.
Des slowed her cruiser way down as she rolled past the seedy cottage where Tuck Weems had lived. He was scheduled for burial that day, same as Niles Seymour. Same minister. No doubt a lot of the same mourners. Dolly Seymour would be there, for one. That rusty pickup was still up on blocks in his driveway. No other vehicles were parked there. There was no actual sign that anyone was around.
Des kept on going past more shacks and bungalows, wondering if Mitch Berger were right. Had she wanted to hear that she was no good? She didn’t know. All she knew was that her life was starting to feel as if it were
