44 Charles Street Read Online Free PDF Page A

years. Her father was far more relaxed and free and easy. It was his nature, but he also had Avery at his side. Her mother hadn’t had a serious relationship in years. Francesca had a theory that she wanted one too badly, and it showed. It was a good lesson for her to remember herself now, as she had to face the dating world again, for the first time in five years.
    The thought of it depressed her profoundly, and she wasn’t even remotely ready to think about going out with other men yet. She couldn’t help wishing that she would never have to face dating again. She wasn’t looking forward to it. As far as she was concerned, it was the worst of all possible worlds. She had to look for three roommates to share her house if she found the money to keep it, and eventually she’d have to start dating again, if she didn’t want to be alone for the rest of her life. It was a big decision, but not one she had to face in the immediate future. Todd hadn’t even moved out yet.
    Her lunch with her father the next day went smoothly. He hopped out of a cab in front of La Goulue, just as she was arriving, after a brisk walk from the subway. And as always, he was looking very dashing. He was wearing a black and white tweed coat he had bought in Paris years before, the collar raised against the wind, a battered Borsalino hat he had bought in Florence, boots, and jeans, and he looked half GQ and half artist. He had a lined, craggy face with a square chin with a deep cleft in it that had fascinated her as a child, and he instantly put an arm around her and hugged her. He was a much warmer person than her mother, and he looked delighted to see her.
    It was easier to tell him about Todd than she had expected, and he admitted that he wasn’t surprised, and told her that he had always thought they were too different. Francesca had never thought so. She thought they had everything in common. And in the beginning they had, but no more.
    “He was just a tourist in the art world,” her father commented as their lunch arrived. He had ordered onion soup and a dish of haricots verts, which was how he kept his long, lean, slim figure, not unlike her own. And he thrived on Avery’s good healthy cooking. Francesca was always more haphazard about what she ate, especially lately with Todd gone. Most nights she was too lazy to cook herself dinner and had been losing weight since the breakup. “I always figured he’d go back to Wall Street eventually,” her father said as he started in on the onion soup. Francesca had ordered the crab salad.
    “That’s funny,” Francesca said pensively, “I never thought that. I guess you were right. He says he’s tired of being poor.”
    Her father laughed at that. “Yeah, so was I, until Avery saved me.”
    She told her father then about trying to buy Todd out of the house, and with a guilty look, she told him that she might sell his paintings, and he was very nice about it. It was easy to see why women had always loved him. He was easygoing and charming, rarely critical, and all-forgiving. He made her feel better about it immediately, and assured her he wasn’t upset about it at all. By the time their coffee arrived, she had gotten up the courage to ask him about the gallery, and he smiled at her across the table. Avery had warned him about it cryptically, and said she needed his help, and told him to be nice. But he would have been anyway. She was his only child, and however unreliable he had been as a father, he was essentially a kind man.
    “I’m very flattered that you would ask me,” he said simply, as he sipped a café filtre. “I’m not sure I know any more about running a gallery than you do, probably considerably less. But I would very much enjoy being your silent partner for now.” She told him how much money she needed to satisfy Todd, and it wasn’t a great deal, but it was more than she had. “You can always buy me out, when the gallery takes off,” he said confidently. “You’re