Death of an Artist Read Online Free PDF

office.
    â€œHe said you knew.”
    â€œAnd you believed him? Give me the key to the van. I’m taking everything home with me.”
    Without a word Freddi handed Stef the key. Her prayer was almost answered, she was thinking, when Stef came from the showroom with a few charcoal studies, the last of the lot, but at that moment Dale entered.
    â€œStef, what a surprise!” He smiled and extended his arms as if to embrace her or possibly to prevent her leaving.
    â€œGet out of the way, asshole! Get out of my life, you low, lying piece of shit! Sell my art? Go behind my back? You’re done, finished, you fuck of a dickhead!” Her voice rose with each word, and her face flared red as she yelled.
    â€œStef, let me explain—”
    â€œJust shut your fucking mouth! Get out of my way! And don’t come back with your sniveling explanation! Tell it to that cute little twenty-year-old you have tucked away. I don’t want to hear it. I never want to see you again, you bastard!”
    She pushed past him and out the door, then kicked it shut. Seconds later the van tires squealed as she pulled out of the parking space.
    Freddi slipped back into her office and closed the door softly. There was a door slam, and she assumed Dale had gone into his own office. In a minute, she thought, she would go to the showroom and hope for the best, that no customer had been there during the past few minutes.
    She was still at her desk when she heard the back door open and close, and cautiously she went out into the hall to see if Stef had returned. Dale’s office door was open and he was gone. She breathed a sigh of relief, squared her shoulders, and went to the door of the showroom.
    *   *   *
    D ALE DROVE TO an apartment complex on Eighteenth. Jasmine would be home that time of day, and he needed a drink, which she could provide, and a little sympathy and comforting, too, which she could also provide. She was not a twenty-year-old, but thirtysomething, and it didn’t make a bit of difference.
    She was tall and beautiful, the most beautiful woman he had ever been comforted by. When they danced in the club where she worked, people stopped what they were doing to watch because they looked so great together. She was the singer in the group that called themselves the N.O. Jazzmen, a successful group that had been in Portland for the last six months. That day when she opened her door, she was wearing an expensive silk apricot-colored kimono. He knew how expensive it was because he had given it to her. Her skin was velvety, the color of café au lait, her eyes as melting as milk chocolate, and her hair dark auburn with deep waves. The kimono was exactly the right color for her. His taste in clothes was impeccable, his own and hers as well.
    â€œJasmine, sweetheart, the scarecrow bitch came and took out all of her stuff,” he said, entering the apartment.
    Jasmine shrugged. “Tough, but I’m pretty busy right now, and I’m expecting someone.”
    â€œWho is he?”
    She walked ahead of him into the bedroom, where a partly packed suitcase was on the bed. “She, it’s a girl. She’s going to sublease the apartment for the next few months, apartment-sit, something like that.”
    â€œYou’re going somewhere? Where?”
    â€œAustin first, then Shreveport, and finally New Orleans. Didn’t I tell you? I thought I did.”
    â€œYou know damn well you didn’t,” he said angrily. “Just like that, you were going to hightail it out without a word? What about us?”
    â€œDale, baby, there is no us. You know that and you’ve always known it. You’re a married man, remember? And I’m with a group that hits the road now and then. It’s now time, baby. Back to our roots for a while.”
    â€œJesus God! First Stef, now you. Both running out on me.”
    Jasmine took a blouse from her closet, folded it, and added it to the