The Seduction - Art Bourgeau Read Online Free PDF

of everyone. . . Still looking directly at
Carl, she said to Justin,
    "If it has anything to do with teenage girls in
white panties, Carl could just be your man . . . Sorry, darling,"
she said and leaned over to give him a proprietary peck. "Just
joking."
    Carl clearly didn't appreciate the joke.
    "It's supposed to be a classic fetish,"
said Justin, sounding unaccustomably pontifical.
    "Thank you, Dr. Freud," said Missy, still
looking at Carl and enjoying the way he looked away from her. "But
surely South Philly strays aren't why you're all gathered here
tonight," she said, this time shifting her attention to Laura,
Carl's new one. Laura said nothing.
    There was a silence at the table as attention shifted
to Carl. Finally he said, "We're having a . . . little
celebration—"
    "What are we celebrating?" Missy asked, as
if any birthday cake within sight would surely conceal a ticking
bomb.
    Again silence, and then in a voice, for him,
remarkably cold and strong, Carl said, "We're celebrating my
moving to New York."
    The shock of that, combined with the cocaine, gave
her a heart palpitation so strong that it felt as though someone had
jabbed her in the chest with a thumb. For a moment the shapes and
colors in the room seemed to shift out of sync, and her skin broke
out in droplets of sweat.
    She took a drag on her cigarette to calm herself and
tried to ignore the trickle of sweat between her breasts.
    "I think I must have come in on the middle of
this movie. Now tell me again, slowly. You're doing what?"
    "I'm moving to New York, Missy . . . Laura has
been helping me to set up a show there—"
    "And just how has Laura been doing that?"
    "Laura works for a paper here. She was on
assignment up in SoHo and met the gallery owner. She was good enough
to mention me. He'd heard of me and agreed to look at my work. I
guess he liked the idea I was from Denver . . . a rustic American
from the hinterlands . . ."
    "Which paper?" said Missy, zeroing in on
the heart of the matter.
    "The Globe," Laura told her.
    "How did you two meet? In a museum, I just bet."
    "Yes, as a matter of fact, we met at the
Philadelphia Art Museum when they were having that exhibition of
Texas art and culture. I was covering it for the paper."
    Turning back to Carl, Missy said, "I believe
that was last year . . ."
    When she got nothing from him, she turned back to
Laura.
    "Then you're the art critic for the
Globe?"—knowing full well that she wasn't, since she already
knew the Globe's art critic.
    "No, I do features—"
    "But you just happened to be in New York on
assignment where you met a gallery owner who just happened to be
interested in Carl's work—"
    "There's a bit more to it than that, but I guess
that's pretty much it."
    The damn woman was too cool, and she, Missy realized,
had been losing hers. "Well, Carl, you said he looked at your
work and liked it. What does that mean? Is he going to give you your
own show or just take a couple of canvases on consignment and maybe
never pay you?"
    "I thought you understood, Miss, he's giving me
my own show, and it's a good gallery so I know he's not going to
cheat me—at least not any more than any other gallery owner
cheats."
    Missy squashed out her cigarette and immediately
reached for another. Anything to keep her mouth busy, to keep her
from turning geek and leaping across the table to bite the head off
that meddling bitch.
    As she fumbled for a light she heard a calm voice
say, "May I?"
    For a moment the words didn't register. Then, turning
slightly, she found herself looking into the eyes of the newcomer,
Felix Ducroit. Now the resemblance to her late father seemed
stronger, and it first startled her, then quieted her. She put the
cigarette between her lips and he lit it with a silver Dunhill
lighter.
    Forcing a more cheerful note, she said, "I think
it's good about the show." With the possible "I" she
tried to reassert herself. "We've thought a lot about getting a
New York show. I'm really happy about it, but