Estate of Mind Read online

  “No kidding. I read about it in an art appreciation course.”

  “Art appreciation? But you’re a doctor—aren’t you?”

  He padded the barest suggestion of a paunch. “A well-rounded doctor, I’d say. Anyway, it was my sophomore year of college, and I needed a humanities course. The professor—I forget her name—was Dutch. She claimed there was a whole slew of van Gogh paintings out there that people don’t even know exist. Things he sold for a pittance just to keep body and soul together. Others, she said, have been lost to us thanks to war and natural disasters. At any rate, she said Field of Thistles was truly one of van Gogh’s masterpieces.”

  “You hear that?” I grabbed Buster’s other arm and practically forced him to dance a little jig. “A masterpiece! Oh, Buster, I’m going to be rich! And not just rich, stinking rich!”

  He laughed. “Rich or poor, you’re a lot of fun, Abby. So, where is this masterpiece?”

  “At home—in a safe place. You want to see it?”

  “Is rice white? Abby, this is really something. Miss…van Hoorne?—yes, that’s what her name was—even had a photo of the painting. It was black and white, of course. But even I could see the genius. Vincent van Gogh took the ordinary and made it sublime.”

  I would have hugged Buster then, but the phone rang. “Hello, the Den of Antiquity.”

  “Abby, what are you on?”

  “Mama! I’m not on anything!”

  “You sound happy, Abby.”

  “I am,” I said and giggled. Then I remembered my fiasco of a visit to the Queen. “She cancelled, didn’t she?”

  “What?”

  “It’s all my fault, Mama. No wonder you want to become a missionary to Africa—just to get away from me. Well, I’d be happy to apologize to Her Majesty if you think it would make a difference.”

  “What on earth are you talking about, Abby? Her Majesty—I mean, Priscilla—just called and invited you to dinner as well.”

  “Get out of town!”

  “Promise me you won’t do anything embarrassing, Abby.”

  “I would, Mama, but I’ve got other plans. Besides, the last thing she wants is to see me again. I told her where to get off not much more than an hour ago.”

  “But she does want to see you, dear. She made that very clear. She said you could even bring a date.”

  I turned to Buster, my hand over the receiver. “You ever dined with royalty before?”

  “My brother’s a queen in San Francisco. But that’s with a small Q.”

  “How about dinner Saturday night with my Mama’s new best friend?”

  Buster grinned and nodded.

  “I heard that, Abby. Priscilla is not my new best friend. But would it be so bad if she was? It doesn’t hurt to expand one’s horizons, dear.”

  “Whatever you say, Mama.” I said it in the same tone of voice my kids used on me whenever I lectured. I didn’t mean to sound that way; that’s just how it came out.

  The click of pearls against the phone was my only clue that Mama was annoyed. “Seven o’clock. And, Abby, for pity’s sake, try and wear something decent. Maybe that pink chiffon thing you wore to the Leightner wedding.”

  “Okay, Mama.” There was no point in arguing over the phone. Not with Buster standing there. But you can bet my choice of dress for Saturday night was not going to be pink, nor would it be chiffon. I’d sooner beg Wynnell’s forgiveness and show up in a creation rife with pins.

  “And be on time, dear.”

  “I’ll be early,” I said and hung up. I turned to Buster. “Now, where were we?”

  “You were about to show me your ten-million-dollar masterpiece.”

  I bit my tongue.

  13

  “That’s it, all right.” Buster spoke in a whisper, as if we were examining an altarpiece in some Gothic cathedral.

  “You sure?”

  “Well, I can’t be certain. I’m not an art expert, and it’s been years since I saw that painting. But that’s how I remember it.”

  “Wow! I still can’t believe it, you know?”

  “Believe it. See the brush strokes there, how they imply a field of thistle plants without hitting one over the head with realism?”

  “A man after my own heart,” I cried. I would have offered to have Buster’s baby, but I couldn’t see dealing with teenagers in my sixties.

  “And those smudges of blue—the thistles in flower. Pure genius.”

  My heart pounded with joy. “Did he paint this before or after he cut off his ear?”

  “After.”

  “Then that little dot of reddish brown—it couldn’t be, could it?”

  Buster shrugged. “I could test it in my lab.”

  “Could you?” I caught myself. Perhaps it was better to have the picture authenticated by Sotheby’s before messing with Vincent’s DNA. Hmm. I might reconsider that teenager thing if it meant raising his baby.

  “You bet I could test it. Hey, you hungry?”

  I was starved. Unfortunately, there was nothing in the house to eat except for Cheerios and a pair of bananas that had seen better days. I suppose I could have mashed the cereal and fruit together and made banana fritters, but Buster deserved better than that.

  “Yes, but let’s go out to eat. My treat. I’m the millionaire, remember?”

  “Fine by me.”

  You see, that’s another reason I liked Buster. Greg claims he’s not a chauvinist, but he wouldn’t let a woman pay her own bribes.

  “What sort of food are you in the mood for?” I asked, feeling unusually adventurous.

  “You like surprises?”

  “Love them.” Especially if they were a ten on the Mohs’ scale of hardiness.

  “Well, since you’re buying, how about I drive? Several of the doctors I consult with have been raving about this little place down in Pineville.”

  “Sounds great! Do I need to change?”

  Buster smiled politely. He was, of course, wearing a suit and tie. I, on the other hand, was wearing white shorts and a T-shirt from Cracker Barrel that said GRITS, Girls Raised in the South.

  “Be right back,” I said and dashed off to the bedroom. Five minutes later, I was wearing my little black dress and a double strand of pearls. Unlike Mama’s, my pearls are faux, but so good they may as well be real.

  “You look like a princess,” Buster said.

  I’m sure I beamed. If only Greg would say things like that. I would have been Mrs. Gregory Washburn a long time ago and would never have met Buster. I might even be happy.

  “Bubba’s China Gourmet!”

  “It’s supposed to be the best.”

  I bit my tongue again. Hot sauce and open wounds don’t mix.

  Buster insisted on opening my car door for me but then made no effort to stop me from opening the restaurant door for him. I liked that. It showed give and take.

  Bubba himself showed us to our seats. That was a first. Bubba is usually in the kitchen cooking, when he’s not swearing at the staff.

  “Got me a real chef,” he said as if reading my mind.

  “What? No more iceberg lettuce in the salad bar?”

  Bubba shook his massive head. The man is 90 percent jowls.

  “This here is a real, authentic Chinese restaurant now. I took the salad bar out.”

  “Since yesterday?”

  “Here,” he said, handing us a pair of handwritten and photocopied menus. “They’re laminated and everything. I’ve been planning this changeover for months. It was time to get with the trend, you know. Lucky for me, a real Chinese cook answered my ad in the paper.”

  I studied the offerings. Szechwan, Hunan, Fujian…there was even a small Thai section.

  “Where’s the moo goo gai grits?”

  Bubba regarded me coldly. “Like I said, we don’t do that no more. Now we cater to the ‘in crowd.’”

  I glanced around. The room was as empty as Buford’s heart the day he told me he was trading me in for a younger model.

>   “Where is that crowd?”

  Bubba frowned. “Folks been coming and going all day.”

  “So business has been brisk, has it?”

  “No, ma’am. I said they’d been coming and going, but they ain’t been staying to eat. You don’t suppose it’s these handwritten menus, do you? I mean, ’cause we’ll be getting store-bought ones next week.”

  “I don’t think it’s the menu, dear. Tell me something, are these fickle folk the same customers you used to have?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Most of them.”

  “I see. Well, Bubba, it could be that they just don’t like the change. I mean, there already is a traditional Chinese restaurant right down the road. If your customers wanted that, they would have eaten there all along. My guess is, they liked your salad bar with the iceberg lettuce and Jell-O squares, and Lord knows there’s not a soul who has tasted your Beijing barbecue and not loved it.”

  “You think so?”

  “Which is not to say it loved them,” I said remembering my lunch the day before. “Too bad you hired this chef, Bubba, because my advice would be to go back to how things were.”

  “Heck, that don’t matter. This cook I hired ain’t a real chef. He’s just between jobs. We both know he ain’t going be around for long.”

  “But he can make all these things on the menu?”

  Bubba blushed. “Maybe not all, but he can read. I got him a pile of cookbooks from the library.”

  “How clever. But you know what they say, Bubba. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

  Bubba nodded, and his jowls flapped like twin dewlaps. “Maybe you got a point. Was that what y’all were wanting? My Beijing barbecue?”

  I looked at Buster.

  “Don’t look at me, Abby. You’re the expert; you order.”

  “Beijing barbecue it is, then, and two orders of moo goo gai grits. Oh, and we’ll have one order of eggs foo Benedict to share.”

  “Coming right up,” Bubba burbled happily.

  “Why, Abby, that was right nice of you,” Buster said after Bubba disappeared into the kitchen.

  “Thank you, Bus—” My mouth hung open like a nightjar catching mosquitoes.

  “Abby, what is it? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  “It’s him,” I managed to finally say. “And he’s with her.”

  “Him who?”

  “My ex-boyfriend, Greg.”

  “Good-looking guy. Who’s the babe?”

  “Hooter Fawn!”

  “Aptly named. Although, speaking as a professional, I’d say she has a surgeon to thank for that.”

  “Aha! I thought so! And Greg tried to convince me they were real.”

  “You sound like you’re carrying a torch for this guy”

  “I am not!”

  “You want to make him jealous?”

  “Of course not!” I swallowed. “How?”

  “Well, we could neck like teenagers.”

  For some reason, that made me laugh. Which made Buster laugh. Together we laughed like two teenagers at a pajama party to which someone had smuggled a bottle of cheap wine—not that I would know about such things. At any rate, it was much easier for two vertically challenged people to laugh across a sharp-edged formica table than it would have been to neck.

  “Man,” Buster finally gasped, “is he ever looking our way!”

  I turned slightly, still laughing. Greg looked like I feel at least five days out of the month. Hooter, thank heavens, was minding her own business.

  “You know, he’s eating his heart out,” Buster said.

  “You really think so?”

  “Got to hurt like hell catching you with a studmuffin like me.”

  I laughed even harder.

  “He’s up and coming this way.”

  I jerked around in my seat. Greg was approaching with that long, loose stride of his. Cary Grant with a purpose. I willed him not to, but Buster stood. Caught, I had no choice but to make introductions. I did them my way, however.

  “Tall, dark and handsome, meet witty and urbane. Investigator Gregory Washburn, this is Dr. Floyd Busterman Connelly.”

  A look of genuine concern crossed Greg’s face. “You all right, Abby?”

  “Of course I’m all right! Buster is my date, not my physician.”

  “Oh.”

  “I see you have a date as well,” Buster said mischievously. “Would you two care to join us?”

  I tried to kick Buster under the table, but it was pointless. Unless I slid all the way down and kicked like a swimmer doing the backstroke, I wasn’t going to reach him.

  “I’m sure Heidi would rather you two ate alone,” I said gaily. Ever since my divorce, forced gaiety has been my forte.

  Greg has a dazzling smile, and he proceeded to blind us. “Her name is Hooter, and, actually, we’d love to join you.”

  “Maybe you should ask her,” I wailed.

  “No problem.”

  He was back in no time with the bottled blonde in tow. Greg introduced us all around. Although I had seen Hooter before, I had never met her. It was a pleasure I would gladly have forgone. On the plus side, however, Greg directed his bundle of silicone joy to sit next to Buster, while he slid into the booth next to me. The aroma of “Greg scent” sent my defensives crashing.

  “I spoke to C. J.,” I said, for want of anything better to say. “She’d love to be fixed up with Sergeant Bowater.”

  Greg nodded. “That was very nice of you, Abby, but I was thinking Hooter here might enjoy meeting Ed.”

  “Ed who?”

  “Sergeant Ed Bowater.”

  “You didn’t—I mean, you wouldn’t! How could you fix her up with Sergeant Bowater when she’s your…your…”

  “Friend?” Hooter had a soft, melodic voice, like water through a bamboo pipe.

  “Girlfriend,” I snarled.

  Hooter made a face. “Gregory and I are not involved.”

  “And I’m the Pope.”

  “Honest. I would never be involved with a man as besotted with someone else as he is.”

  Besotted? What kind of person used “besotted” in everyday conversation? Could it be? Did a brain lurk under that lustrous mane?

  “And just who is he besotted with?” Perhaps Greg had a whole stable of ladies with silicon-compound parts.

  Hooter turned impossibly blue eyes on me. “Why, you, of course.”

  “Tell me another.”

  “The man worships you,” she said, without blinking a fake eyelash. “You are all he ever talks—all he has ever talked about. I never even stood a chance.”

  “He paid you to say this, didn’t he?”

  “I wish. Seems all the good ones are taken.”

  “Maybe not all,” Buster said with a wink.

  “Buster,” I wailed, “are you jumping ship?”

  “You tell me, Abby. Is there room on board?”

  Before I could answer, Greg’s hand found my thigh under the table. He gave it a gentle squeeze.

  “I guess this cruise is booked solid,” I heard myself say. It was as if I were a ventriloquist’s dummy. Well, a dummy at any rate.

  Greg squeezed again. “Good girl,” he said, just loud enough for me to hear.

  Buster turned to Hooter. “Ever been snorkeling in the Bahamas?”

  “Yes, and I love it!”

  “Puerto Rico?”

  “Culebra or Vieques?”

  While the two of them chatted on about coral reefs and angelfish, Greg proceeded to tell me how much he missed me. It was all very precious, and I was wishing I had a cassette recorder with me. In fact, I was about to ask him to repeat everything so I could write it down, when the front door to Bubba’s China Gourmet opened.

  I gasped involuntarily.

  14

  “Abby, what is it?”

  “That woman!”

  “What about her?”

  “She was at my church last night.”

  “And?”

  “Well, don’t
you think that’s odd?”

  “Just because she’s black?” He stared at the beautiful woman with the cornrows and swan neck. She was wearing a long denim dress with an exquisitely embroidered bodice. The frock was tied in the back and emphasized her figure, but she would have been a knockout in a gunnysack.

  “No, silly. I mean, isn’t it odd that we’re here at Bubba’s at the same time? She’s not a member of Our Savior, you know. She was just there for the auction. And now she’s here. What are the odds?”

  He shrugged. “What are the odds that I’d be here as well?”

  “Exactly! But you live in Charlotte. You know this place.”

  “What makes you think she’s not from around here?”

  “Intuition.”

  He laughed.

  “And a West Coast accent.”

  “You sure?”

  “Well, I’m not positive, but she’s not from around here.”

  “Maybe she’s a Yankee transplant. Isn’t Rock Hill growing by leaps and bounds?”

  “Yes, and to Mama’s dismay. But that would only prove my point. If she’s new to Rock Hill, then how does she know about this place? And if she’s new to Charlotte, how does she know about the auction down in Rock Hill?”

  “You want me to get up and ask her? Maybe stick out my belly, flash my badge, and drawl?”

  If Buster had said that, I would have died laughing. With Greg, it sounded lame.

  “No, I don’t. I just think it’s weird. That’s all.”

  Greg slid one arm around me just as Bubba appeared with our orders. I casually shrugged it off. I was open to reexamining our relationship, but I wanted to take it slow. Real slow. Let what had just transpired percolate, so to speak. In the meantime, I wanted to enjoy my dinner. For the record, Bubba outdid himself.

  I had come to Bubba’s with Buster, but I agreed to let Greg drive me home. Buster, after all, now had his hands full. I politely refused Greg’s request to come inside but allowed him to kiss me. Fortunately, the man had the sense to just peck me on the lips.

  After another long, loving look at Field of Thistles, I headed for the phone. Wynnell, bless her, answered on the third ring.

  “It’s Abby,” I said. It’s hard to sound contrite in two words, unless one of them is “sorry,” but I needed to ease into an apology.