The Art of Stealing Hearts (8 page)

“You
can always make the choice to see the bright side, the bright spot
that lets you get up tomorrow. Choosing to be happy doesn’t
mean you get up and dance whenever things go wrong. It means you
refuse to allow the sadness to rule your life, refuse to allow other
people’s
actions to dictate your emotions.”

She
hugged me.

“Do
you have to wait for happiness to find you?”
I said. “Or
can you chase it?”

“You
can chase it, baby,” she
said, smiling wide. “Chase
it your whole life.”

I
wish my mom were here, but I know what she would say about this freak
out: it’s
just fear. And she’d
be right. Don’t
give up on this happiness because it seems too good to be true.

I
head back out to the table determined not to let my insecurities ruin
the sparks between St. Clair and me, but my heart sinks when I see
him standing by the exit, his phone in his hand. The table’s
been cleared, and he has an apologetic look on his face.

“I’m
terribly sorry, but I’m
going to have to cut our evening short,”
he says.
“Something
urgent has come up at work.”

“I
understand,” I
lie, forcing a smile. “No
worries.”

The
waiter comes over with bags of food, packed up in to-go boxes.

“I
didn’t
want this delicious feast to go to waste,”
St. Clair
says. “My
driver will take you home. It’s
the least I can do for disappearing on you.”

As
we take the elevator down together, I wonder if there really is a
work emergency. But St. Clair seems genuinely regretful for bailing
like this. “At
least you didn’t
spill coffee on me,” I
say, trying to lighten the mood. “I’m
still waiting for you to get even.”

“Damn!
That was on the agenda for later.”
He grins and
moves closer to me. “I
guess we’ll
just have to do this again sometime.”

I
let my body drift closer. “I
might be into that.”

St.
Clair rests a hand gently on my arm, and then he’s
leaning into me, so close I can feel his breath on my lips the moment
before his mouth finds mine.

He
kisses me slowly, taking his time as if savoring me like a fine wine.
His lips roam over mine, and then he grazes my lower lip, biting
lightly. My whole body comes alive, demands to touch him, and I press
against him, eager for more. He eases my lips open and slides his
tongue into my mouth, and I melt at the sensuous feel of him—

Ding
!
The elevator doors open and I blink back to reality, the spell
broken.

St
Clair. clears his throat. For a moment he looks dazed, before
regaining his composure. “My,
uh, driver, will take you home and get your number.”
He lands a
brief kiss on my forehead. “Sweet
dreams, Grace,” he
says and then he’s
gone.

His
driver appears and leads me to the limo, but I barely notice a thing
all the way home. I’m
lost in the memory of his kiss.
Our
first kiss
.

I
only hope it’s
the first of many.

Oh,
the joys of a day off!

It’s
still early when I awake to the familiar sounds of the restaurant
downstairs. I make myself coffee and get back in bed. I roll under
the covers and replay pieces of last night’s
date over and over in my mind: when we talked about art, when he
understood and took my hand across the table, when he kissed me in
the elevator.

God,
that kiss knocked me for a loop. Talk about hot. I mean, I don’t
have a ton of experience, but I could barely walk after a ten-second
kiss. Imagine what he can do with the rest of his body…

My
phone pings. It’s
him.

Apologies
again for ending our date so abruptly. I had a great time and hope
you did as well.

He
had a great time! I feel like doing cartwheels, like I’m
back in middle school.

Be
cool, Grace, be cool.

I
did,
I text back. Paige would be proud.

It’s
a beautiful sunny Sunday morning, a rarity for North Beach, so I
throw back the covers and get out of bed. I’m
feeling good, basking in the warm glow of this week. Even if things
didn’t
go exactly as I’d
planned, I feel happy and hopeful about my new opportunities,
Carringer’s
and St. Clair too. After feeling trapped under a dark cloud for so
long, it finally feels like there are blue skies ahead.

He
texts again as I’m
getting out of the shower.
Looking forward to seeing you again
.

“I
want to see so much more of you next time, preferably out of your
clothes” is
not an appropriate response, so instead I write back,
Can’t
wait
.
I give up on removing the sappy grin from my face, and decide to use
this positive energy for more good.

I
get dressed and pack my sketchbook as well as some of the leftover
dim sum from last night and take the bus up to the Legion of Honor
Museum, one of my favorite places in the city. The bus takes a
winding dirt road up a steep hill overlooking the San Francisco Bay
and drops me off in front of the gorgeous museum building, done in
the French neoclassic style. There’s
a big white stone archway with intricate carvings, huge stone lion
heads with majestic carved manes on the pillars as guards, columns
ringing a courtyard with Rodin’s
The
Thinker
poised atop a pedestal in the center.

The
other tourists all head into the museum, but I wander through the
archway that leads out back to the lawn. Here, the cliffs overlook
the bay and the Golden Gate Bridge: one of the best views in the
city. I stop as soon as I see the blue expanse of the ocean. It takes
my breath away every time—and
today is a rare treat, shimmering sunlight dancing on top of the
cerulean water, sparking like fireworks under the massive orange
bridge.

It
was winter when I scattered mom’s
ashes in this exact same spot. Mom didn’t
want to be buried. She always said she didn’t
want to be put in some grave in the middle of nowhere that I would
feel obligated to visit, so she left instructions in her will to be
cremated, and for me to scatter her ashes in a place I loved. I could
almost hear the unspoken suggestion: someplace we both loved,
somewhere we loved going together.

I
deliberated for months after the cancer finally took her. It happened
so fast, Mom didn’t
even tell me about the diagnosis at first, she thought she’d
have more time. I was already away at college on the East Coast,
settling in to the demanding schedule and trying to keep up with my
classes and my part time job. Mom didn’t
want to ruin my college experience, so she kept quiet about it during
our phone calls, delaying the inevitable as long as she could.

But
she couldn’t
put it off forever. Near the end of my freshman year, a neighbor
called me and said Mom had collapsed while out grocery shopping, that
she was too weak to keep taking care of herself alone. I was so
confused. “What
do you mean?” I
asked.

“With
the cancer, dear,” she
said.

I
couldn’t
even say the word out loud. “She’s
sick?”

I
was on the next plane back to Oakland that same day. But the cancer
was already advanced too far to treat. “There’s
nothing the doctors can do,” Mom
told me, looking so pale and weak, laying on the sofa. “There’s
nothing you can do.”

But
she was wrong. I could be with her for the time she had left, so she
wouldn’t
go through it alone. I came home, giving up my summer abroad in
Italy. I did my best to care for her body and keep her spirits up. I
would drive us up the Oakland hills to vista points so she could see
the view from the car windows when she was too weak to walk, and take
her on trips into the city for architecture tours. I fed her clam
chowder in bread bowls at the pier, and listened to the bark of the
piles of sea lions, let the sun warm our faces while the wind cooled
our fingers. We sat for long stretches, just watching the world: the
beauty, the art in the everyday movement of light on water, of birds
in flight, of love on people’s
faces – all
the way to the end.

Now,
I look out at the ocean, and know she’s
somewhere there, a part of her at least, forming the beauty that we
all enjoy every day. “I
love you, Mom,” I
whisper and blow a kiss to the air I like to imagine is still
swirling her ashes along in beautiful faraway places.

I
almost imagine I hear her say she loves me back. Even if it’s
just a trick of the wind, it makes me smile.

“You’re
it!” a
kid behind me yells, pulling me out of my painful memories. Several
more children run by, laughing and calling “not
it!”

I’m
reminded that the past is resting now; that it’s
a beautiful day, and I can’t
let a moment of it go to waste. So I head back inside to immerse
myself in the gorgeous art, revisiting each room like old friends:
the Monets and Cezannes, the mottled brushstrokes and bright vivid
colors, the flowers and garden scenes like something out of a fairy
tale, and of course, the sculpture garden. I have a seat under
Rodin’s
masterfully emotive sculptures, faces that look like real people. He
manages to evoke the feelings in his subjects, the expressions frozen
in place in a way that is only possible with the utmost attention to
detail and skill with his hands.

I
unpack my picnic, which thanks to St. Clair is a cut above my usual
sandwiches. The leftovers from dinner are still moist and delicious,
and as I eat, I find myself thinking about St. Clair again. He was
thoughtful to have the wait staff wrap this food up for me, but
that’s
him to a T: always the gentleman, even texting today despite his busy
lifestyle.

I
can’t
imagine what goes into running a massive successful corporation like
he does. How can a person ever feel settled with his hectic schedule?
Always traveling, hardly ever sleeping in his own bed, never able to
just veg in his pajamas and watch TV or have dinner with a girl
without getting called out for a work emergency.

I
can still feel his lips on mine.

I
wonder what he’s
doing now, if he’s
thinking of me. He’s
probably handling some financial transaction worth millions of
dollars, but I’m
glad to have the opposite of that lifestyle right now: a free day
with my sketchbook and yummy dim sum, salty ocean air and vista
views, and art all around. What more could a girl ask for?

I
lick some plum sauce off my fingers and pull out my pencils, and soon
I’m
busy shading and sketching the statues, the white stone columns of
the Legion of Honor building, the iconic golden bridge above the
shining blue bay. The world melts away, and for a moment at least,
I’m
totally at peace.

Monday
morning, I arrive at Carringer’s
to find police cars parked out front, their red and blue lights still
flashing. The huge doors are propped open and police officers are
milling about on the front steps.

“You
can’t
go in,” one
of them says as he blocks my path.

“I
work here!” I
protest, digging out a security badge. He studies it suspiciously,
then finally stands aside and lets me pass.

Inside,
the scene is even more chaotic. There are at least a dozen more cops
in here, speaking into walkie talkies, standing around looking
official. There’s
even a German Shepherd cop dog sniffing around.

What
the hell happened?

I
see Chelsea rush by, a panicked look on her face. “Hey!”
I catch her
arm. “What’s
going on?”

“You
didn’t
hear?” She
blinks. “There
was a robbery, Saturday night, they think.”

“Oh
my God,” I
gasp. “What
was stolen?”

“
The
Judgment of Paris
,”
she says as
two cops pass us, carrying boxes of files.

“But
what about security?” I
ask, confused. “This
place is like Fort Knox.”

“I
know, right?” Chelsea
leans in, whispering, “There’s
no sign of forced entry, nothing suspicious on the tapes. It’s
a total mystery.”

“The
police must know something.”

“They
have no idea what happened,” she
says, looking around. “Everybody’s
being interviewed, they were quizzing me for like, an hour.”
She suddenly
seems to realize who she’s
talking to. “But
they probably won’t
bother with janitorial staff,” she
adds with a smug smile. “It’s
not like you’d
know anything.”

We’re
interrupted by Stanford, looking stressed.

“Chelsea,”
he says. “Get
back upstairs, now. Those papers need to be dealt with. And Grace,
there is still filing to be done.”

“But…”
I gesture at
the police presence. Everyone is whispering, but the voices and
footsteps echo through the big rooms and columned lobby. “Are
you going to just pretend all these guys aren’t
here investigating?”

“We
are going to work as long as we can,”
he says,
shaking his head at me. “Now,
get!”

I
head downstairs. The basement is crawling with cops, too, and I have
to squeeze through four different uniforms and show each of them my
badge to get to the giant filing room. To my surprise, Lydia is here,
directing the traffic flow of file boxes being carried in and out by
policemen and Carringer’s
employees. I’m
about to ask if she needs help when a tall, rugged-looking man walks
in. He’s
wearing dark jeans and a crisp shirt, and although he looks casual,
he’s
clearly in charge. “Nick
Lennox,” he
says to Lydia, flashing some kind of badge. “Interpol,
special projects.”

She
doesn’t
hide her impatience. “How
can I help you?”

He
clears his throat and plants his feet wider on the floor. “I
need all your security footage from the last month as well as
blueprints for the buildings. Plus a list of all employees and
delivery drivers, and anyone else who had contact with this building
in the last thirty days.”