Free Sandman by Sean Costello Page B

for the dimples Jenny might not have recognized him.
    They got their cars disentangled after that, Jenny pulling hers back into its slot, Richard parking his in an adjacent row. Sitting behind the wheel, Jenny had a brief urge to flee, but she resisted it in favor of another urge, one less well defined but infinitely sweeter. She switched off the engine and joined Richard in the heat.
    “Got time for a coffee?” he said.
    Say yes. “No, sorry. I’ve only got a minute. My daughter will be home from school soon.”
    Richard’s smile faltered. “You have a daughter?”
    Jenny felt the reality of her life tugging her out of this warm fold in the fabric of time and a part of her resisted. In her heart, in this moment, she was just as startled by the fact of her daughter and her marriage and the dissolution of the past sixteen years as Richard seemed to be.
    She said, “Yes. She’s fourteen. Her name is Kim.”
    Richard’s smile was returning, and Jenny wanted so much to hold onto this moment that filled her with memories of young love and shining dreams that she damned herself for what came out of her mouth next.
    “And I’m four months pregnant. I’m going to have a baby.”
    Richard’s smile clung bravely to his face, but Jenny could feel the moment slipping away. It made the gap of years seem suddenly unbridgeable.
    He said, “Hey, Jen, that’s great,” glanced at his car...and the moment was gone. “And look what you’ve done to my baby.”
    Jenny accepted the escape hatch. “What do you care? It’s obviously stolen. Where does a hippy-for-life get the loot for a car like that?”
    Richard drew a plain white card out of his hip pocket and handed it to Jenny, face down. Jenny flipped it over and examined it with widening eyes. It was an embossed invitation to an R. J. Kale gallery opening. She’d read someplace that this world renowned artist planned to open a gallery in the city, but hadn’t thought much of it at the time.
    “Wow,” Jenny said. “Are you working for this guy?”
    “You could say that.” Grinning, Richard reached into another pocket and produced a thin eel skin wallet. He opened it and began fingering through the compartments. “We have to exchange insurance information anyway.”
    “Forget it,” Jenny said, only half joking now. She could feel the heat working on her nerves again. “I’m not...”
    She trailed off. Richard handed her his driver’s license and Jenny examined it in disbelief.
    “ You’re R. J. Kale?” Richard affected a spry matador’s bow. “But, why...?”
    “The name change? My agent’s idea. She thought it looked better in lights.”
    “You’ve got a female agent?”
    “Yeah,” Richard said, a blush creeping into his cheeks. “My mother. She always had a better head for business. Kale’s her maiden name.”
    Jenny looked at the invitation again. “Wow. R. J. Kale.”
    * * *
    Jenny agreed to have coffee after all. A quick one. The nagging sense that she had to get away never quite left her, it was only blunted by the shock of Richard’s alter ego.
    While he ordered coffee and biscuits, Jenny reflected that had she been paying more attention the few times she’d seen Kale’s work, she might have recognized Richard’s unique style: the big, apparently careless brush strokes that became living, breathing reality when you stepped just a few paces back; a quality of light that seemed to emanate from the very canvas.
    That was one of the things that had so annoyed her about Richard when they were dating in high school: he had so much talent —the man was truly gifted—but all he wanted to do was lounge on the grass by the canal, smoke pot and talk philosophy. His lack of ambition drove her mad. It was the single, niggling thing that finally sent her searching for someone else. She’d met Jack that same year, her last as a senior, and Jenny had been easy prey. Jack had been all Richard could have been and more. Or so she’d believed at the