Free Warpaint by Stephanie A. Smith Page B

and repeated this to the paramedics, to the emergency room, and once again to Quiola, who showed up at St. Matthews, furious.
    â€œYou said the same thing this morning. From now on, I don’t believe you. And you’re not driving yourself anywhere.”
    C.C. stood up. “Let’s go. The less time I spend here, the better.” Then she made a wry face. “I’m not driving, without a car. You should have seen the Heap. Crumbled like tin foil. Totaled. And I couldn’t have been doing more than thirty.”
    â€œWhat happened? They didn’t tell me, other than that you were all right.”
    â€œStupidest thing. I feel so dumb. I was driving back home. I was fine. I mean it. At our usual exit off the highway, I just passed out. Next thing I know, this nice man is talking at me but I can’t hear him over my horn. It was stuck. So was the car. I’d driven right off the ramp and into a tree.”
    â€œJesus.”
    â€œWish I could’ve seen it,” she added. “Must have been a sight!”
    â€œYou,” said Quiola, pulling on to the highway, just as C.C. had done earlier. “You are a menace.”
    â€œOnly to myself. I’m grateful you weren’t in the car. You might have been hurt.”
    â€œMe? If I’d been in that car with you, I would have been driving and none of this would’ve happened. Where’d they take what was left of the Heap?”
    â€œOver to Mike’s garage. He’ll be impressed.”
    â€œOr pissed. He’s worked hard to keep that old thing running for you.”
    â€œI’ll miss her, won’t I? Never find another Heap like that.”
    â€œA blessing, if you ask me. That car was twenty years old.”
    â€œI like them well-seasoned.”
    â€œYeah – unlike your girlfriends.”
    Stung to quick tears, C.C. said, “Where did
that
come from?”
    â€œSorry. I really am. I just – you’ve scared me. First you say chemo isn’t worth the effort, and then you fly off the road. I just – it just came out.”
    â€œIt was cruel.”
    â€œI know.”
    For a few moments they drove up the highway in a guilty, bruised silence. As they neared the off-ramp where C.C.’s car had died that morning, Quiola picked up speed. Neither of them spoke again until they were off the highway and pulling into the shed’s drive. That’s when C.C. said,
    â€œOf course it is also true.”
    â€œWhat is?”
    â€œWhat you said. Cruel or not, it’s true. All my girlfriends were young. Including you. Not well-seasoned at all.”
    Quiola smiled, leaned across the gearshift and gave her ex a long, reminiscent kiss. “There,” she said. “A bit of spice.”
    C.C. laughed. “Yowza.”
    Â 
    â™¦

    â€œI’ve never done this before,” murmured Quiola, her long hair veiling her face. April 1978. After a Legal Seafood supper, and several drinks, C.C. finally persuaded the young editorial intern she’d been wooing to come over to her large studio on the first floor of a Cambridge brownstone, not far from the Riverbed Press, then in it’s heyday, which is why C.C. had introduced herself to Arthur Rivers, owner and publisher, on Liz’s behalf. Rivers had agreed to arrange for a Moore catalogue raisonné, along with a short biography Liz would commission – if she was going to discovered at last, she said, let someone get the story right. The instant C.C. had laid eyes on Quiola, she’d begun a strategic seduction: after hours, a casual drink; a week later, a select luncheon spot; tonight, champagne (which she’d been chilling for almost a month, in hope). She sat down on the only place anyone could sit in that apartment, on her large caramel-colored sofa bed. She toed off her loafers, kicked them out of the way, and tucked her feet up. She’d worn khaki pants and a black blouse because she thought the