Free Duby's Doctor by Iris Chacon Page B

price
tags and few vulgar negotiations. Price was not a consideration for
true collectors of fine art. Only an uneducated tourist or a common
lowlife would try to finagle a bargain, in front of God and
everybody, right there in the gallery.
    And frames were not for sale at the Barnacle
Gallery, just the art. Collectors preferred to have their purchases
framed by their own framers in accord with their own interior
decorator’s specifications, so that the decor of the edifice
maintained its harmony of design.
    The saleswoman refused to haggle with this
ignorant troll.
    Sometime later, Frank Stone emerged from the
gallery with a scowl and a tubular package containing a carefully
rolled canvas. “Girl With Rabbits” had disappeared from the
gallery’s display window.
     
     

CHAPTER 12 – DO
BEE
     
    Weeks of hard work, since his graduation from
St. Luke’s Daycare, had transformed Jean’s room into the studio of
a full-time artist. Somewhere in there, a bed sank beneath a sea of
sketches and canvases. Jean would have to dig himself a place to
sleep later tonight, but until then, he stood near his south-facing
window and added careful brushstrokes to the painting on his
easel.
    Downstairs, the front door slammed and
Mitchell called, “Mommy’s home!”
    Jean heard mail dumped on a table, footsteps
crossing a tile floor, the refrigerator opening and closing, and
the pop-fizz of Mitchell opening a can of soda. Moments later,
Mitchell entered his studio carrying a diet soda and unbuttoning
her white lab coat. She commented on the watercolor on his
easel.
    “Ah, that’s what I like to see: the working
artist turning out more inventory. What is it this time?”
    “Boats. The gallery says all the tourists
want boats.” Jean continued to paint.
    Mitchell studied the canvas. Something seemed
familiar. “Is that the marina at Dinner Key?”
    “Dinner, breakfast, lunch, I don’t know. I
just thought of boats, and this is what came.”
    “Hmm,” she said. “Oh, I talked to Hector. He
says he’ll help us build our booth.”
    “Great!”
    “Yeah,” said Mitchell and sipped at her soda.
“So, I’m going down to the library on Saturday to get the paperwork
finished. Arts Festival, here we come!”
    “Dan wants to help, too.”
    Mitchell stopped in mid-sip. “Dan
Kavanaugh?”
    “ Oui .”
    “The guy who beat the stuffing out of you –
and vice versa – at the Daycare? That Dan Kavanaugh? Are you
nuts?”
    “He’s okay. He’s in counseling.”
    Mitchell had no response.
    All she could think to do was drink her soda
and enjoy the scenery: the tight shorts made from cut-off jeans,
the sleeveless muscle shirt, and the muscles under it. Personally,
she liked the shaggy hair and the five o’clock shadow.
Professionally, she appreciated that the rebuilt left knee was
itself a work of art.
    He painted, and she watched him, until the
light from the window began to fade. Then, while he cleaned his
equipment and brushes, she went downstairs to prepare dinner.
     
    Saturday morning found Mitchell, true to her
word, parking her car at the Coconut Grove Public Library near the
broad lawn and palm trees of Peacock Park. A placard taped on the
library window advised of Arts Festival Applications, Room 23.
    Mitchell stepped from her car and looked at
the library. Then she turned 180 degrees and looked across the park
to the Dinner Key Marina.
    She shook her head, locked the car, and
walked toward the library entrance.
    Halfway there, she reversed course and headed
for the marina instead, suppressing a mental picture of mechanical
ducks abruptly switching direction in a shooting gallery.
    She walked along the marina seawall and
scanned the crowded anchorage until she saw what she had only half
expected to find: a sailboat moored many yards from shore. A
sailboat exactly like the one in Jean’s most recent painting. She
aimed her phone and snapped two pictures of the distant vessel.
Then she searched for a way to get out