*
“So what have you been working on?” Clara asked Paulette. They’d been chatting for a few minutes. About the weather, of course. And Clara’s show. Given equal weight by Paulette and Normand. “Still doing that wonderful series on flight?”
“Yes, in fact a gallery in Drummondville is interested and there’s a juried show in Boston we might enter.”
“That’s terrific.” Clara turned to Myrna. “Their series on wings is stunning.”
Myrna almost gagged. If she heard the word “stunning” once more she really would vomit. She wondered what it was code for. Crappy? Hideous? So far Normand had described Clara’s works, which he clearly didn’t like, as stunning. Paulette had said Normand was planning some powerful pieces which, she assured them, they’d find stunning.
And, of course, they were both simply stunned by Clara’s success.
But then, they’d admitted to being stunned by Lillian’s murder.
“So,” said Clara, nonchalantly picking at a bowl of licorice allsorts on the table in the sitting room, “I was just sort of wondering how Lillian came to be here yesterday. Do you know who invited her?”
“Didn’t you?” asked Paulette.
Clara shook her head.
Myrna leaned back and listened closely as they speculated about who might have been in contact with Lillian.
“She’d been back in Montréal for a few months, you know,” said Paulette.
Clara hadn’t known.
“Yeah,” said Normand. “Even came up to us at a vernissage and apologized for being such a bitch years ago.”
“Really?” asked Clara. “Lillian did that?”
“We figure she was just sucking up,” said Paulette. “When she left we were nobodies but now we’re pretty well established.”
“Now, she needs us,” said Normand. “Needed us.”
“For what?” asked Clara.
“She said she’d gone back to doing some art. Wanted to show us her portfolio,” said Normand.
“And what did you say?”
They looked at each other. “We told her we didn’t have time. We weren’t rude, but we didn’t want anything to do with her.”
Clara nodded. She’d have done the same thing, she hoped. Been polite, but distant. It was one thing to forgive, it was another to climb back into the cage with that bear, even if it was wearing a tutu and smiling. Or, what was the analogy Myrna had used?
The frying pan.
“Maybe she crashed the party. Lots of people did,” said Normand. “Like Denis Fortin.”
Normand said the gallery owner’s name lightly, slipping it into the conversation, like a sharp word thrust between bones. A word meant to wound. He watched Clara. And Myrna watched him.
She sat forward, curious to see how Clara would handle this attack. Because that was what it was. Civil and subtle and said with a smile. A sort of social neutron bomb. Meant to keep the structures of polite conversation standing, while slaying the person.
Having listened to this couple for half an hour now, Myrna could say she wasn’t exactly stunned by this attack. And neither was Clara.
“But he was invited,” Clara said, matching Normand’s light tone. “I personally asked Denis to come.”
Myrna almost smiled. Clara’s coup de grace was calling Fortin by his first name, as though she and the prominent gallery owner were buddies. And, yes, yes, there it was.
Both Normand and Paulette were stunned.
Still, two very troubling questions remained unanswered.
Who did invite Lillian to Clara’s party?
And why did she accept?