Faking It - Crusie Jennifer (электронные книги без регистрации .TXT) 📗

“Oh.” Gwen sat down on her counter stool. That explained why Mason had it even though he’d given his Homer collection away. So how had he gotten it?

“Did you get that from Clea Lewis?” Thomas said, sounding stern in his white jacket.

“I don’t know what painting you’re talking about,” Gwen said. “It’s, in the office? We don’t store paintings in the office.”

“It was stuck behind the desk,” Thomas said.

“What were you doing behind the desk?” Gwen said.

“What are you doing with this painting?” Thomas said.

“Is there a problem?” Mason said, and they both jerked their heads around to see him standing on the other side of the counter. “Thomas,” he said severely, “you shouldn’t be annoying Mrs. Goodnight with catering details. Just handle whatever it is.”

Clea drifted up, her face grim, as she linked her arm through Mason’s. “You know, every time I go looking for you,” she told him, smiling tightly, “I find you over here.”

Mason disentangled his arm from hers, and Thomas, his face pale under his bruises, said to Gwen, “I’ll talk to you later.”

“I need to talk to you later,” Mason said to Gwen as Thomas turned away. “In the office. Privately.”

Clea’s face went stormy, and Gwen said brightly, “Oh, good. I’ll look forward to that Now if you could move, there’s a lady with an armadillo footstool behind you.”

By the end of the evening, Gwen had a raging headache, due in equal parts to Mason revolving by every fifteen minutes to pat her arm, Clea sending her death looks every five, Michael selling Finsters with outrageous promises (“Is she really going to be the next Wyeth?” one woman whispered to Gwen, and Gwen thought, Oh, hell, Michael, and smiled), and Ford looking bored and temporary as he hauled furniture out to waiting cars. Always on your way out the door, she thought as she watched him carry a ferret chair. Which is good because you’re a doughnut. Not to mention the hit man thing. Across the room, Louise, back early from the Double Take, looked at Simon as though he was the answer to her prayers, which was very Eve-like of her, and over by the butterfly chairs with the big sold tag, Davy kissed Tilda’s cheek and made her blush. No good, Gwen thought, neither one of these guys is going to stay. Why can’t my daughters see that? Doughnuts. They’re all doughnuts. By the time Thomas went AWOL around ten-thirty, she really didn’t care.

“Do you know where Thomas is?” Jeff said. “We’re out of potstickers. I asked Mason, and he said the last he saw of him, he was talking to Clea Lewis, and now she’s gone, too.”

“Maybe they’re having sex in the basement,” Gwen said, watching Tilda lean into Davy. “That’s popular lately.” Then she shook her head. Enough whining and negativity. Her family had been amazing all night, especially Nadine, back in full form from the night before, and Tilda, wonderfully gracious and efficient, the center that held things together.

Davy, though, was the real revelation.

“That Davy,” Andrew said to her at the end of the show. “The last person I knew who could con people into buying like that was-”

“Tony,” Gwen said.

Davy smiled and people nodded. He leaned forward and spoke, and they considered the furniture. He leaned back and spread his hands and they bought, clearly delighted with their purchases, themselves, and him.

But there was no tension in Davy when he approached people. And when Tilda talked to someone, calm and knowledgeable, he stepped back and smiled at her, listening to every word. Tony would have shouldered her aside, but Davy brought people to her. “You have to talk to Matilda,” she heard him say to one buyer. “She knows everything.” He revolved around the room all night, selling everything in his path, but Tilda was his sun, the one he kept turning to.

He’s not Tony, Gwen thought, and felt relieved and wistful at the same time. Thinking about the past could do that to a woman. She turned the cash register over to Nadine and said, “I think we’re almost done. Check with Tilda, and if she says yes, we’ll start closing up.”

“Cool,” Nadine said, surveying the money.

“Was that Kyle I saw earlier?”

“Michael scared him off,” Nadine said. “Those Dempseys.”

“Good for Michael,” Gwen said. “Don’t let him near the cash drawer.”

Back inside the office, she was pouring vodka into her pineapple-orange, when Mason came in.

“This was great,” he said, rubbing his hands together nervously. “Gwen, honey, this was really good.”

“I know,” she said, toasting him with her glass. Mason had spent the evening reinforcing her suspicions that he was the most abysmal salesman she’d ever met in her life. On the other hand, the last thing she wanted was another salesman, and he’d paid off her mortgage, and he was a muffin. And he’d gotten “peccable” right Clearly that was a sign.

“The only thing is,” Mason said now, darting a glance over his shoulder, “we’re going to have to watch that Davy.”

“Davy?” Gwen said, her glass at her lips.

“He doesn’t understand gallery etiquette,” Mason said. “He kept laughing and talking like he was just anybody. He doesn’t realize how serious a gallery is. He has to go, Gwen.”

He’s jealous, Gwen thought.

“I mean it,” Mason said, trying to sound stronger and only sounding weaker. “He has to go.”

“That’s pretty much up to him and Tilda,” Gwen said. “So where’s Clea?”

“She went home a while ago,” Mason said. “I saw her talking to Thomas, and then she said she was going home and that’s the last I saw of either of them.” Mason took a deep breath. “I didn’t want to tell you this, I was hoping Davy would just move on.”

I’m going to hate this.

“He’s a con man, Gwen,” Mason said, and he said it gently enough that she knew he wasn’t lying, wasn’t trying to sabotage Davy, not that Mason would. He wasn’t that kind of man. “Clea knew him in L.A. He scammed everybody out there with these bogus land deals and movie deals. She said the last she saw of him, he was working for a porn producer, kind of his right-hand man. He’s not the right guy for Tilda.”

Oh, hell, Gwen thought. And he was so good tonight. Of course, if he was a con man, he would be good. And poor Tilda, so happy. “Maybe he’ll leave on his own,” Gwen said. “Don’t tell Tilda.”

“Of course not,” Mason said. “I wouldn’t have mentioned it to you except…” He trailed off, clearly upset, and she moved over to him, putting her hand on his sleeve.

“I appreciate it that you told me,” she said. “It’s right that I know that.”

“Thank you,” he said, moving closer. “I really didn’t want to be the one to tell you.”

“You’re very sweet,” she said, and he bent and kissed her again, and it was nice. He was such a nice guy, not a con man or a hit man or anything but a good man, and it was time she stopped falling for the flashy cowboy doughnuts and grew up.

Then he said, “I was going to wait for this, but…” and pulled out a ring box.

“Oh,” Gwen said, and she said it again when he opened it and showed her a rock that lit the room, at least ten carats.

“We can run the gallery together, Gwennie. It’ll still be the Goodnight Gallery. Everything will be the same as it always was. It’ll just be with me instead of Tony. Marry me, Gwennie.”

Mason’s voice shook a little when he said it, and Gwen said, “Did you pay off the gallery?”

“What?”

“I know it’s rude to ask, but somebody paid off the mortgage,” Gwen said, “and I know it must be you.”

“Oh,” Mason said, looking taken aback. “Uh, well, yes.”

That’s it then, Gwen thought. It was a good offer. It wasn’t as if she was ever getting out of here anyway. Mason was very sweet, he wasn’t bragging about the mortgage at all. Tilda would be free. Nadine could go to college. She leaned forward and kissed him again, grateful but depressed.