Page 11 of Flirting with Forever

“An email from the board. ‘In anticipation of Lamont Packard’s revised retirement date—’”

“Revised retirement date?”

“‘—the board has made the decision to end the search for executive director early. The deadline for applications is now November twenty-sixth, interviews will follow immediately, and the new director will be chosen by the board at a special session to be held December fifteenth, the day after the gala opening of the new exhibit.’”

Cam’s heart sank as she looked at her calendar. It was November fifth. She had exactly three weeks to sell her book. A number of panic-filled visions rocketed through her brain—sleepless nights as she stuck in new chapters, standing in front of a table of twenty stone-faced rich people with the power to make or break her, and waiting by her desk for the phone to ring with the decision. But the worst, the most horrible vision that passed through her mind, was that of reporting to her older sister.

A sound made her stop, a sound that could only be made by a pair of Christian Louboutin booties being driven down the hall like Herefords to the slaughter. Only the Herefords weren’t the ones about to get a bullet between the eyes. Cam dove under her desk just as the door flung open.

“You meddling, manipulative bitch! If you think you can have me dragged out of—Where is she? Where’s Cam?”

She could see Anastasia’s seething form reflected on the armor breastplate—a fun-house mirror in a medieval house of horrors. Jeanne straightened papers on her desk with the cool of an ice cube. You could certainly tell she didn’t have a narcissistic older sister with a Darth Vader temper. You could also tell she was trying not to look at Cam.

Jeanne said, “She’s under…a deadline.”

“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”

“Her book’s almost done, you know. Finishing touches. Her editors talking the New York Times bestseller list. First print run: twenty thousand.”

Bless that woman!

Anastasia’s eyes narrowed into battleship gun ports. “Well, take a message to her for me. Tell her she’s to call me the instant she sets foot in here, that if she thinks I wasn’t going to talk to Tim Lockport and figure out what the hell happened, she’s got another think coming. And you can also tell her if they printed a million copies of her stupid book, it still wouldn’t get her one step closer to the executive directorship because that spot belongs to the woman who has demonstrated time after time that she can grow a complex collection, manage the fundraising needs of an organization, demonstrate academic excellence, and eat without getting condiments on her shoes. Did you get all that?”

Jeanne read back from the message pad. “‘Cam, call your older sister.’”

Small tendrils of smoke curled out of Anastasia’s ears, or maybe it was just the coffeemaker. She picked up Jeanne’s bowl of pink paper clips and reared back.

“Oh, for God’s sake, Stacy.” Cam crawled out of the kneehole and dusted herself off. “Get over yourself.”

“You heard all that?”

“Squirrel Hill heard all that.”

“You have a lot of nerve.”

Cam mimed an introduction. “Pot. Kettle. Kettle. Pot. By the way, Ball loved the new wing.”

Anastasia drew herself up into full Hydra horror. “You don’t own Ball!”

“Well, it’s not like I need the warning. You slept with my first boyfriend. You slept with my second boyfriend and told me he was gay. You stole my major in college, and now you’re working at my museum. I’d offer you an apology, but I’m pretty sure you’re going to take it whether I give it to you or not.”

“Oh, for God’s sake, Campbell. Man up.”

“Yes, clearly I ought to keep a pretty deep inventory.”

Anastasia gave a howl of frustration, reared back again, and threw the bowl, but not before half a dozen paper clips tumbled down her arm and attached to her bracelet. The bowl smashed into a dozen pieces, and Anastasia shook her arm like two attack dogs were hanging there. When the pink wire didn’t release, she stormed out.

“Wow,” Jeanne said. “It must have been a red-letter day for you when Anastasia left the house to start kindergarten.”

“Why does she have to be so mean? You know, I remember it killing me when she ignored me in high school. Who’d have thought I’d look back on those days so fondly?”

Cam plopped in her chair and returned to the computer. There, on her monitor, the manuscript she’d been kicking around for two months looked out at her. Sex it up, eh? She supposed there were a few ways to do that. She could add sex. Lord knows there was enough of that in the art world even then, and she knew Van Dyck had had a long affair with a woman named Margaret Lemon. She could add a competitive rivalry, going for the Shaquille O’Neal/Kobe Bryant sort of thing. Even better, though, would be a competitive rivalry over a woman.

Hmmmm.

Cam scanned her memory banks. Surely there had been some woman somewhere who’d been shared by Van Dyck and another artist. Unfortunately most of Cam’s research had been about the man and his work. Sure, there had been the various bits of information about his life, but Cam had used that to flesh out the story of his painting. The sources she’d found had been somewhat dry regurgitations of where he studied and how he progressed to being the chosen painter of Charles I. If she was going to sex this puppy up, she needed something else. She was just starting to clear a path to her keyboard when her cell phone rang. She dug it out of her purse and checked the display. It was Joe. She hit the answer button. “How’s my favorite sibling?”

“Gee, I’d feel more flattered if I didn’t know my only competition was Stacy.”