Page 8 of Flirting with Forever

“No.” She ground her teeth. “So glad to see you, Mr. Ball.” Then, in a move she’d learned from Thomas the Tank Engine, Cam did a one-eighty just as the walking threesome reached her, neatly uncoupling Anastasia from Ball’s arm. “How was Florida? Did you and Mrs. Ball have a good trip back?”

Ball was finishing the story of the flight delays just as Jeanne arrived.

“You may remember my assistant, Jeanne Turner. Jeanne, this is Mr. Ball.”

“Ha’d’yadew.” Ball bowed.

Cam looked down to avoid Jeanne’s eyes and caught sight of her pumps. In her effort to manage the hose situation, she must have inadvertently mashed her shoe into the hot dog, because most of the zebra stripes on the left toe were covered in mustard.

“Jeanne has a few papers for you to sign,” Cam said, tucking one foot behind the other. “Nothing major. Just permission to examine the painting, et cetera.” She felt Anastasia’s critical gaze drop even farther and she began to flush.

Anastasia coughed. “Good Lord, Cam, is that—”

“Mustard is very hot this year.”

“Only in Vogue, dear.”

Cam wished the soaring George Segal sculpture of a tightrope walker, which had once balanced high above the heads of Carnegie patrons, would choose this moment to return to its former haunt long enough to drop on Anastasia’s head.

“That’s fine,” Ball said. “Whatever you need me t’do. Just take good care of my countess.” He winked.

The vaunted painting was a gorgeous three-quarter-length portrait of Theresa, Countess of Morefield, that had once been owned by Catherine the Great.

“You know, we already have a fantastic spot picked out for the painting,” Packard said. Cam could almost see the saliva running down his chin.

“It ain’t yours yet, Lamont.” Ball laughed, and Packard looked like someone had just peed on his Gucci loafers. “Not until I hand it over at the gala.”

Ball had taken his grandfather’s struggling headache powders business and turned it into the bestselling college study tool simply by adding enough caffeine to make a hippo run a marathon, then sold it to a Big Pharma company for six times its annual earnings. He divided his time between a villa in Tuscany, an antebellum estate on a river outside Gainesville, and a century-old former industrialist’s mansion not far from the Carnegie. Ball had converted the mansion’s sixty-foot-long carriage house into a well-fortified, temperature-controlled warehouse for his beloved art collection.

Cam and Ball had known each other for years. She’d put him on the trail of a number of fine paintings and other works for sale in the art world, including Jacket’s. Ball’s tastes were wide-ranging and constantly changing, and his pockets as deep as the steam tunnels under the museum. He was returning the favor by letting her get credit for the donation of the Van Dyck, a piece in which he had lost interest.

“Sure was good to get back up north,” Ball said. “It’s been hot as Hades down in Flow-da.”

“In Flow-da,” Jeanne repeated.

“But so, so beautiful.” Anastasia nodded her violently bobbed head. “I remember the orange blossoms—oh God, the orange blossoms.” She closed her eyes and clasped her breast as if she were having a small religious epiphany. “I used to live and die for orange blossom time when I lived in Florida.”

Cam rolled her eyes.

“Ah didn’t know you were a Flowidyan.” Ball beamed.

“Yes,” Packard said, “Anastasia’s been almost everywhere. We were very lucky to steal her from the Getty.”

Cam remembered the day clearly, and lucky was not the word she would have chosen.

“Did you know,” Packard went on, “Anastasia is the author of the definitive critical book on Caravaggio, and—do you want to tell Mr. Ball the news?”

Oh boy.

Anastasia took a deep breath. “You probably don’t know this, but I’ve always been absolutely enraptured by El Greco.”

Another epiphany, larger than the first. Soon she would be on her knees, recounting secrets from the Virgin Mary, in the grotto-like overhang of the fountain outside.

“Well,” Anastasia went on. “I’ve just signed the contract with Harvard Press today for a biography.”

Cam felt like she’d just taken a fount of holy water to the gut.

Ball nodded. “Now that’s a purdy milestone.”