Salem starts to speak, but Luís is practically vibrating with excitement, and he blurts out a single, surprising word.
“Finally!”
* * *
IFit were possible for someone to design my literal, exact opposite when it comes to meeting strangers, talking about oneself, or receiving surprising news, that person would, I think, be a lot like Luís Acosta.
The friendliest person alive. The most comfortable person alive.
The calmest person alive.
We’re back in the art studio, all of us—except for Luís’s employee, Asha, who’s gone out to watch the front of the shop—gathered around one of the tables that, Luís has cheerfully explained, usually gets used for the various classes he hosts throughout the week. Mondays, watercolors; Wednesdays, oils; Fridays, clay sculpture; Saturday mornings, still-life sketching.
He’s told us all about it, excitedly and in detail.
He hasn’t even seemed in a hurry to know about what we’re doing here.
Yesterday, this might’ve made me angry or frustrated; it would’ve seemed to me—like I’d told Curtis MacSherry—a waste of time. But in the first place, Luís isn’t like Curtis MacSherry. And in the second, I keep thinking of the things Adam has said to me.
Even the little pieces you find sometimes end up being worth something
It’s one of the angles you tried
Just say if you want to take a break
All of it, somehow, seems to help.
Sitting next to him helps. Tegan not having bad-day-at-school-face helps.
Also, not facing the painting helps.
“So you’renothere to take it?” Luís says, once Salem has finally managed to coax him back around to it.
Salem pauses meaningfully, catching me off guard by looking my way. “Jess? Do you want to . . . ?”
She gestures behind me at the portrait. I’m not sure if she’s manipulating the situation or if she’s trying to be deferential to the fact that I’m the one who showed up here to see my own face on a gigantic canvas.
Beneath the table, Adam’s knee presses lightly into my thigh, a question.Anything you want, he said.
“Well, obviously, that’s our mom,” I blurt.
Inelegant, but Luís doesn’t seem to mind. He nods encouragingly.
“But we—my sister and I—we didn’t know about this painting until today. We only knew that our mom was in this area around ten years ago.” I decide I shouldn’t mention any tips from MacSherry, so I say, “We’ve been checking out places we thought she might have visited when she was here.”
Luís lifts a hand and strokes at the thick stubble on his chin, his brows lowered in thought.
“Ten years ago is about right, for when I did it. I’ve got the date on the back of the frame. But you’re saying Libby never told you it was here?”
Libby?I think, at the same time Tegan actually says it aloud.
Luís sits back in his seat, for the first time looking confused. “Is that not . . . ?”
“Luís, if you don’t mind my stepping in and providing you with some background?” Salem says, and as she starts—as she tells him her credentials, and her interest in Lynton Baltimore, a name Luís clearly doesn’t recognize—I feel Adam’s knee against my thigh again. He’s checking in. He wants to know if, already, it’s all I can take: finding out my mother used a fake name when she was here. When she sat for that painting.
I’m so grateful that I do something that later, I’m sure I’ll think is absolutely off-the-rails.
I set my hand on his leg. Close to his knee. I don’t pinch, because I know that’s the signal for stopping. I sort of . . . pat. Once. AnI’m okaypat. He has a really nice leg but I definitely know I can’t keep my hand there.
