“You didn’t say Mona.”
Didn’t I? I resisted the urge to check my phone and prove him wrong. I suppose now that I thought back to the texts, they may not have been clear. “I don’t drive,” I argued. “I thought—”
“It’s fine,” he whispered as Mona was ending her hushed phone call. “I don’t mind her company. She’s super cool. I just thought this was...” He shook his head and started again. “I just had something I wanted to tell you. You know, privately. I never got around to it yesterday.”
Yesterday? It took me a second to put two and two together that he was referring to last night, when he’d asked me to ride along in the hotel van—he’d said that he wanted a private conversation then, too. Then we started talking about Clue for Couples and his bland good-bye kiss, and... Had he wanted to discuss something else? How had I not realized this?
Before I could respond, Mona put away her phone and looked over at us, a strained smile on her face. Had she heard what we were saying? I suddenly felt caught in the middle and slightly confused about how I’d gotten here.
“Ready?” she said.
“Let’s do this,” Daniel said cheerfully, as if nothing in the world were wrong. And to me, he whispered, “It’s cool. We’ll talk later. No worries.”
Right. That was what you said when therewereworries.
What did he want to talk to me about?
The entrance to Sharkovsky’s house sat on the nicest dock I’ve ever seen, behind a screen of potted bamboo trees. We stood next to a boat moored to the side of the house while Aunt Mona rang the doorbell. Then we were ushered inside by a middle-aged housekeeper, who led us through a living room with minimalist, cold furniture and walls covered in large paintings.
Daniel whistled at the artwork. “These must be worth a pretty penny, huh?”
“More than the house itself,” Aunt Mona replied in a low voice. “And it’s worth millions, much like Sharkovsky.”
I didn’t really care. I was too busy worrying about what Daniel wanted to talk about in private. But there was no chance to do that now, as the housekeeper was informing us that Sharkovsky was on the roof patio and beckoned for us to follow her. One after another, we climbed an open set of modern, narrow stairs, getting small peeks at the other floors as we passed. On the second landing, Mona halted her ascent and stared down a short hallway into what looked to be a bedroom.
“I can’t believe it,” she mumbled, a little dazed.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, trying to lean around her so that I could see what she was looking at. But the housekeeper had noticed we’d stopped, and she wasn’t happy.
“No, no! That is a private area, please,” the housekeeper admonished.
For a moment Mona had a look in her eyes I couldn’t identify, and I thought she might fail to comply. But the housekeeper shouldered through us and quickly shut the bedroom door before gesturing upstairs and saying, “Please, madam.”
Aunt Mona relented, but not happily, and as I tried to figure out what that was all about, we continued climbing two more flights and exited through a door at the top that led onto the roof—if it could have been called that at all. More potted trees, a hot tub, an al fresco dining table and grill, and an abundance of outdoor seating packed the small space. A glass railing surrounding the scene helped to buffer the wind while giving guests a clear view of the shoreline, where dozens of other houseboats floated.
I’d met a lot of gallery owners over the years; Aunt Mona often dragged me along to installations. Most of them were upper-middle class, far wealthier than the artists they represented, but none were like the person lounging in front of us.
Sharkovsky was a dumpy, middle-aged man with a severely receding hairline and overly tanned skin. Either he spent a lot of time on beaches in warmer climates, or he had a tanning bed. But all that tanned skin was on display beneath a kimono robe that hung loosely open, revealing a bare chest, a potbelly, and silky black boxer shorts.
He held out both arms. “Mona, my love,” he said in a big voice.
“Hello, Sharkie,” she said, accepting kisses on both cheeks. In heels, she towered several inches above him. “You’ve remodeled.”
“I added the patio up here a few months ago,” he said, gesturing around him to a gray, urban landscape. “Best place to enjoy the view. That’s the University District across the water.”
He patted a portable massage table that had been set up near the hot tub. Nearby, a patio heater chased away the chill. “You’ll have to pardon my rudeness. I have a masseur coming for an appointment in half an hour, so I can’t talk long. I’m having trouble with my back.”
“Sorry to hear that,” she said, frowning at him with shockingly bright Tang-colored lipstick. “But we don’t need long. This is my goddaughter, Birdie, and her friend Daniel.”
I didn’t want to shake his hand. Something about him rubbed me the wrong way. Maybe it was the fact that he already seemed to be oiled up for his massage. Folding my arms over my stomach, I lifted my chin in greeting and hung back while Daniel did the vigorous male-versus-male handshake.
“Please, make yourselves comfortable,” the man said to us, sitting in a rattan patio chair and crossing one sandaled foot over his bare knee. “Tell me about what you’re working on, Mona.”
“This and that,” she said, taking a seat across from him. “Nothing as grand asYoung Napoleon.”
“It’s hard to top that.” His smile wouldn’t have been out of place in a used-car lot. When you got this high up in the art world, it wasn’t so much for the love of art as for the love of money. And Sharkovsky projected a vibe of part greasy salesman, part sleazy socialite. Even sleazier, now that Daniel and I were seated together on a bench that gave us an unwelcome view inside the man’s kimono.
“I’ll always be grateful to you for finding it a good home,” Aunt Mona said.
