17. Exhibition

Her stomach aflutter with butterflies, Bonnie toured the rooms of the Tremont Art Gallery, stopping now and again to examine the array of paintings newly-installed on the featureless gray walls and to congratulate those of her fellow seminar students who hovered near their work, anxiously squaring canvases that already hung straight or flicking invisible specks of dirt from pristine frames. Her own submissions, so much smaller than most of the paintings on display, had taken next-to-no time to hang, leaving her free to wander the exhibition and admire her classmates' talents. Styles varied widely, ranging from the purely representational, such as her own, to the unabashedly conceptual, with some impressionist, abstract and multi-media pieces thrown in for good measure. Something for every taste, Bonnie mused happily, as she retraced her steps. The show was bound to be a great success.

When the gallery doors swung open precisely at five o'clock, allowing access to the large crowd that had been milling on the sidewalk, Bonnie was more than ever glad she had organized a private showing of her work for her grandfather the previous evening. She had issued a blanket invitation to the household, of course, and her brothers had looked in for a few minutes, primarily to scarf down the pigs-in-a-blanket appetizer she had prepared for the occasion, but the real motive behind the dry run had been to give Grandpa B the feel of the exhibition without exposing him to the jostling and cacophony of the actual event. Once the boys, having praised her work in the most perfunctory of manners, had raced off, she and Gramps had remained in the quiet studio, standing before the paintings arm in arm and taking the occasional sip of sparkling wine.

Grandpa B shook his head in wonder. "I've got to hand it to you, Bonbon. These are really spectacular pictures. I only wish Grammy could have lived to see them. She always said you had the makings of a fine artist."

"That was the doting grandmother talking, Gramps. I'm a competent painter, that's all."

"Well, if this is just 'competent,' I'd like to see what extraordinary looks like! I'm telling you: this is really outstanding work, and that's not grandfather-speak, either, Sweet Tart."

Bonnie gave his arm a squeeze. "Thank you, Gramps. That means the world to me."

"Now, to decide…" He stepped closer to the paintings, and subjected each in turn to a minute inspection. "No," he said, finally. "Can't do it. Can't pick a favorite. I'm going to have to bid on all of them."

Bonnie laughed merrily. "Gramps, you old schemer! You just want to make sure I'm not embarrassed by having none of my paintings sell."

He huffed scornfully. "As if that would happen. I'll be lucky to get one of them."

"The paintings will be sold by silent auction, remember? If you're serious about bidding, you're going to need a representative on site."

"All taken care of," Grandpa B said smugly. "And don't ask me who, because I won't tell you."

"Such secrecy! You and Grammy A are really working the mystery angle. That's right," she said, when her grandfather cocked an eyebrow in interest. "One of Grammy's coterie just happens to be in D. C., and he — or she — has agreed to serve as her proxy. You and Grammy might wind up bidding against each other!"

The prospect did not appear to trouble him. "The money goes to a good cause, doesn't it? Scholarships, and the like?"

Bonnie nodded. "What doesn't go to cover the costs of the exhibition will be used to provide financial aid for future sessions. So, the more funds we raise, the better. But it doesn't all have to come out of your pocket, Moneybags!"

Her grandfather shrugged. "Can't take it with me, after all."

Now, as she watched the visitors stream in, she found herself revisiting the intriguing question of who her grandparents might have tapped to represent them: a member of the family, no doubt, in her grandfather's case, but the other proxy would be a French national and, potentially, a stranger. She kept an eye out for a Booth connection, or an unusually stylish individual with Continental flair, but no one fitting either description approached her in the opening minutes of the show. There was, in the first wave of people to stop by her installation, a familiar face, but it was as startling to see as it was unsettling. "Ms. Dunbar," she said, more surprise than pleasure in her greeting.

The woman had the nerve to lean in with a sly look and teasing smile. "Miss Bonnie!" She chortled at her little joke. "I just had to stop by and thank you for looking after my son so well last weekend. He simply raved and raved about you! It got to the point, let me tell you, if I wasn't absolutely sure of Danny's complete devotion to me, I'd've been a bit jealous."

There was nothing in this speech, or in Val's chummy manner, to improve Bonnie's opinion of her. "Danny is a wonderful little boy," she said, as neutrally as she was able. She might have added, and he deserves better from you, but she managed to hold her tongue.

Val did not fail to detect the chill beneath the politeness, however. She schooled her features into a pretty moue of contrition. "I see you're holding my little trick against me, Bonnie, and you're right: I owe you an apology. I took advantage of your decency, and I'm sorry, I really am. It's just…" She shook her head helplessly, setting the chandelier earrings she wore twinkling against her long neck. "Dolph can be so infuriating, I just go crazy some times and act on impulse. And you have to believe I knew he'd check the work room before taking off for the day; he's perfectly anal when it comes to things like that. So, you see, leaving Danny with you wasn't as bad as you might think. It was more of a stupid prank, really, just to get a little of my own back.

"Look," she hurried on when Bonnie showed no sign of warming to her, "I know we got off on the wrong foot and all, but I'm really hoping we can get past that, and be friends, you know, for Danny's sake. He's taken such a liking to you. It would be a shame if he had to miss out because of a little misstep on my part. So, how about it?" She attempted a hangdog look. "Bygones?"

Bonnie could only stare at the woman, appalled beyond words. At best, Val Dunbar was clueless past redemption, and at worst, a mistress of effrontery. Either way, Bonnie wanted as little to do with her as possible. "Ms. Dunbar," she began cooly, only to be distracted by the sight of a tall, broad-shouldered man dressed entirely in black weaving his way in her direction. She would have sworn the leather-clad gentleman turning heads as he passed was her favorite cousin, but, with his keen eyesight, Eddie had no need for prescription glasses and wouldn't have chosen such a nerdy style of spectacles if he did. Still, there was no mistaking the lady-killer smile he flashed her when their eyes met.

"Tootsie Pop!" Arms outspread, Eddie closed the distance between them and caught her up in a bone-crushing hug. "How's my best girl?" He released her only to salute each of her cheeks with a noisy smack. Stepping to her side, he draped an arm cosily over her shoulder, and looked around. "Nice party. Glad I could make it after all."

For the second time in a very short while, Bonnie was dumbfounded, but then she glimpsed out of the corner of her eye the heavy gold bracelet circling Eddie's wrist and the massive gold signet ring on his hand, and concluded that, for some reason, Eddie was running some kind of scam. When he turned his head to smile down at her, she saw, sure enough, the telltale pinhole in the bridge of his glasses: against the specifically-posted prohibition at the gallery's entrance, Eddie was sporting a hidden video-recorder. Through the clear glass of his lenses, she read the familiar admonition, Ask me no questions, and was intrigued enough to follow his lead. "Hope you came prepared to spend big, cousin of mine. I'm expecting you to bid on not one, not two, but on all four of my paintings."

From the answering gleam in Eddie's eye and the deepening of his dimple, Bonnie knew she had set him up handsomely. "Those're my instructions, Sugar Baby. My client wants those little beauties of yours, and he's willing to shell out whatever it takes to get 'em. Plus, he's given me carte blanche to buy up whatever else looks promising. Art's a great investment, he's always saying. Better than stocks and bonds."

Val Dunbar had sidled smoothly up to Bonnie's elbow, and now cleared her throat delicately. "Cousin did I hear you say, Bonnie?"

Eddie appeared to notice Val for the first time, and, if his widening grin was any indication, he very much liked what he saw. "Well, hello, there! Where'd you come from? Say, I didn't just horn in between you two lovely ladies, did I? My lousy manners!" He removed his arm from around Bonnie's shoulder, and extended his hand. "Name's Eddie Booth."

Val returned his smile with interest, and willingly surrendered both her hand and her name. "Not Booth-Hodgins?" she asked, with the hint of a purr in her voice.

"No, no. Bonnie's mom is my dad's half-sister, so we're not even full first cousins, and still the girl won't marry me. Imagine that? I mean, so what if it's against the law in thirty states? It's legal in the great state of Virginia, and that's good enough for me."

Bonnie did not have to pretend to be scandalized. Whatever was he playing at? She swatted him on the arm and scolded, "Enough of that!"

Eddie rubbed the abused spot, and slanted Val a mock-rueful look. "Love the girl to death, but she can get pretty handsy. Say," he went on, making a show of taking Val in from the shoulders of her leopard-print wrap dress to her pointy-toed shoes, "a gal with your great style must know what's what in the art world. Now me, I know what I like, but I'm not what you'd call a connoisseur. I've made some really bonehead buys over the years."

"Like the time you bought that Vanderklempt," Bonnie improvised, getting into the spirit of the game. "Your client took a bath on that one."

"Geez," Eddie winced, as a poorly-suppressed shudder rocked him. "Don't remind me! Anyway, onwards and upwards, that's my motto! So, what do you say, Val? Care to help a guy out, and give me the benefit of your exquisite taste?" He gestured to a quartet of visitors awaiting their turn to approach Bonnie and her paintings. "Time we clear out of here in any case. We're keeping Bonbon from her adoring public."

Val tossed her long locks, lifted her chin and smiled archly. "I'd like that, Mr. Booth."

"What, Mr. Booth!" Eddie objected roundly, as he began to steer her away, his gaudily-bejeweled hand at the small of her back. "My buds call me Eddie. And I've got a feeling, Val, you and me…"

Bonnie strained after them, but the words were swallowed in the general hubbub, and her attention commanded elsewhere as they moved out of sight. What in the world had she just witnessed? she wondered even as she accepted congratulations on her work, and answered questions about her media and technique. Had Eddie, usually so discriminating when it came to the opposite sex, been genuinely smitten? She would have liked to dismiss the possibility out of hand, but might Eddie not have inherited, along with their grandfather's spectacular good looks, his fatal predilection for sexy blue-eyed blondes with long hair and even longer legs? She took comfort from the fact that Eddie, given his art-dealer pose, had been up to something and play-acting from the start, but, come to think of it, what had that all been in aid of, anyway? He was annoyingly slippery, that cousin of hers, and it didn't help to realize he would probably never let her in on the secret. Bonnie was confident of only one thing: Eddie had been Grandpa B's proxy, and would enter his bids as directed. As to the rest, maybe time would tell.