MORNING SERIAL
“MY boyfriend and I had a fight. My partner. I mentioned him.” “Yes.”
“I am trying to make up by showing a more active interest in his work, as he is so very helpful with mine.”
“And what is your business?” I said.
“Well here’s the test,” Tara said.
“A test?”
“Of whether I was right in thinking you were more my type.” She sat on the bench next to me in the booth. “I am an art dealer.”
I let out a short bark of a laugh, half-expecting this to be some kind of put-on.
“That is one helluva coincidence,” I said. “I am an artist.”
She grabbed my forearm and swayed back and fore, her eyebrows curving and those lines erupting all over her face. “You are f***ing with me.”
“I am not.” We were both sniggering.
“The waiter – Angelo, I think – he said my type didn’t really come in here, because my type only come to Napa in the daytime and are home to bed by the time the vodka shots come out.” She shouted HA! and waved her fingers toward Angelo like a firing pistol. “We don’t get many artists in Napa and I spotted you a mile off.”
She appeared to make herself comfortable at the table, took a cigarette out of a box of Sobranie Blacks and offered me one.
“So what brings you here, a dealer with no-one to deal?” I said.
“Oh, love brings me here. I came here for love. Love love love. And now I have my own gallery. Just up on the top road. The classy stretch of Napa.” She winked. “It’s just my base. But I do business all around – Athens, Sofia, Rome, Tel Aviv. Ha! It always sounds so stupid saying that in here.”
“You have a gallery?” I said. “You knew Francis Benthem?”
Her smile dropped but not mirthlessly. It was in recognition of the continuing coincidences.
“You know Francis,” she said. “You are in Cyprus for him – this is making sense now. How is he?” > The Golden Orphans by Gary Raymond is published by Parthian www.parthianbooks.com