He took a sip and grimaced. “Gaaaah. Terrible.”
“It smells okay to me. What’s it taste like?”
“Ginger. Garlic. Fish paste. Something fetid and stagnant. Fermented ditch water.” He took another sip and shuddered.
“My grandma would say if it don’t kill you it’s sure to cure you.” Kerry handed him his antibiotics. “Drink it down and then take these.”
Heinz dutifully finished the soup and swallowed his meds, placing the empty mug on the tray.
“I do feel slightly better,” he admitted. “So I suppose I should thank you for that.”
“It’s my pleasure,” Kerry said. “You really had us all very worried when you disappeared like that. Austin was beside himself. We were ready to post Wanted posters with your picture on them all over the West Village.”
Heinz reached for his glasses from the nightstand, put them on, adjusted them, and gazed at her. “I don’t quite understand why you would choose to stay here and play nursemaid to a virtual stranger, when you could be home, celebrating Christmas with your family.”
His question gave her pause. “We’re not strangers,” she said. “We’re friends. You, me, Austin, Patrick, Murphy, and Claudia. What’s that saying? Friends are the family you choose? I guess we’ve chosen you. Whether you like it or not.”
He fiddled with his glasses again and took a sip of water. “Friendship is not something that comes easily to me. I’m not used to being taken care of,” he said matter-of-factly. “As you can tell by all this…” He gestured around at the room and the apartment beyond. “I’ve been alone for a very long time. By choice.”
Kerry chose her next question carefully. “But you weren’t always alone, right?” She glanced at the nightstand and noticed that Heinz had placed the framed photograph upright again.
“No.” The way he said it told Kerry the topic was closed. For now.
“I hope you don’t mind, but I thought, as long as I was invading your home, I might as well trespass on your studio. I’m afraid I borrowed some of your art supplies. It’s an amazing space. I really got inspired, working there.”
He shrugged. “I’m not really in a position to stop you now, am I?”
“Is it all right? That I used your studio?”
“It’s fine,” he said, waving his hand in dismissal. “Tell me what you’re working on.”
“Better yet, I’ll show you.”
* * *
Heinz studied the first page of the story. He tapped the sketch of the happy camper, with its smiley bumper and porthole windows, pressed his lips together, and nodded. He turned the pages slowly, reading the text aloud.
Kerry squirmed self-consciously as she heard him murmuring the words she’d dashed off in a sort of hypnotic frenzy of creativity, and she had to force herself not to flee from the room, and the stinging criticism she was sure Heinz would direct her way.
When he’d read through all the pages, he turned back to the beginning and went more slowly over each page. “Bring me a pencil,” he told Kerry. “And an eraser.”
She did as requested, and he spent another thirty minutes jotting notes in the tiniest block print, on each page. It was torture, sitting by silently and watching him dissect her work.
Finally, he handed the sketchbook back to her, along with the pencil and the eraser.
“Well?” She was holding her breath, waiting for the worst.
“This is actually quite good.”
“It is?” She exhaled slowly.
“Your work is much improved since we first met. Looser, with a real personality. The story has humor and charm, and somehow, you had even me caring about the fate of that dreadful camper of yours.”
“It’s meant to be a children’s picture book, so I couldn’t draw something as awful as the reality of Spammy being hauled away to a junkyard,” Kerry explained.
“No. That would be too cruel, even for me,” Heinz agreed. He handed her the sketchbook. “You can see I made some suggestions. Places where the perspective could be altered, or the composition reworked. Of course, I’m no expert on children, or the kind of books they like, but I think your story has real potential.”
Kerry found herself beaming. “I don’t know what came over me. This story and the illustrations came pouring out of me while I was in your studio. It felt like something I’d had bottled up inside me for a long, long time.” She clutched the sketch pad to her chest.
“Is that what creating something new felt like to you? Back when you were still painting?” she asked.
“I don’t remember.”
“And I don’t believe you. Heinz, I looked you up. You’re famous. An art world sensation. Did you know that the nude painting of yours that Della Lowell bought back in the eighties sold last year, at auction, for one point two million?”
“Ridiculous,” he said. “Why would she sell the thing, anyway?”
“Her estate sold it. She died two years ago.”
Heinz recoiled, as though he’d been slapped.
“I’m sorry. I thought you knew. The article I read said she was in her late nineties. Her stepchildren apparently weren’t the artsy kind.”
He ran his hand over his chin. “I had no idea. Of course she died. Everyone does, and she was a very old, very grand lady. Della was a tastemaker. After she bought that nude, everything changed. My career took off. She took me to lunch one day. At a restaurant where that bodega is now. Pointed across the street, at this building, and suggested, no, insisted, I should invest in real estate. Her husband owned one of the biggest brokerages in the city. He arranged everything, managed for me to buy it at an unheard-of price. George and I, we couldn’t believe our good fortune.”
Kerry picked up the black-and-white photo from the nightstand. “George?”
Heinz nodded. “My dealer, my muse, my partner in all things. We’d been living in a hovel, really, but it was near his gallery. We had three good years here. Only three. And then, he was gone.”
There was so much she wanted to ask Heinz, the questions tumbled over themselves in her mind.
The doorbell rang. Heinz raised an eyebrow.
“It’s probably just Murphy. Bringing me my clothes and things from the trailer. Oh, and I told him I thought it would be all right if he brought Queenie here too, because he’s staying at Claudia’s and she’s got a cat…”
“Fine, fine,” Heinz muttered. “Bring all the strays. I’m too old and sick to stop you.”
chapter 50
As soon as Kerry opened the door Queenie gave a short, happy bark of recognition, then went bounding through the apartment, straight for Heinz’s bedroom.
Murphy had Kerry’s overflowing duffel bag slung over one shoulder, and a plastic trash bag stuffed with what she assumed was the rest of her belongings. Behind him, in the hallway, lay a smallish, forlorn-looking Christmas tree.
He set the baggage down inside the living room, turned, and dragged the tree inside. “This was Austin’s idea,” he said sheepishly. “Vic had to leave early, so Patrick brought him down to help me take apart the rest of the stand. This was the last tree. I guess it was so ugly nobody even wanted it for free.”