Fix It Up - Mary Calmes Page 0,51
Jamie isn’t in danger of having neighbors.”
“I heard my name,” a man said, walking from the tent where the bar and a buffet would be laid out. “And it was spoken by one of my favorite people.”
I had assumed that Jamie was my mother’s age, but he appeared to be somewhere between me and Nick. He looked to be about my height, lean, handsome, with long, rangy muscles, shaggy blond hair, stubbled jaw, weathered, and with eyes as green as spring grass.
“Jamie,” she said happily, going into his arms to hug him. “So nice that you invited me, and I’m thrilled you had room for the boys.”
He was my age, and she used the word boys. Christ.
“Yes, of course, I—Nick Madison?”
Nick grinned and stepped forward, offering him his hand. “It’s a pleasure to—wait,” he said, staring at Jamie. “You’re not James Reider, the photographer?”
“I am, indeed,” he said, his voice low and husky as he took a step closer to Nick.
Who used indeed in a sentence?
“Oh,” Nick said with a mischievous grin. “I saw your exhibit on the fragility of women at the Fraenkel Gallery in San Francisco. It was stunning.”
He nodded.
“And of course, it was just one badass woman after another.”
Jamie smiled wide and shrugged.
“Very clever,” Nick praised him.
“Well, I do like to get people talking,” Jamie quipped, chuckling.
I had the sudden urge to hit him.
“I also saw your retrospective on fashion at the Photographers’ Gallery in Soho when I was there, what, last Christmas I think it was.”
“Yes,” he admitted, wincing. “That one was––”
“Amazing,” Nick gushed, and I watched Jamie melt with his words. “I actually bought two photographs for my lake house.”
Lake house? He had a lake house? I thought he only had one home.
“You didn’t,” Jamie said, taking hold of his forearm.
“I did,” Nick said, clearly in awe of the man. “Centennial, the gorgeous black-and-white, and Couture, which I had to outbid a friend for.”
“Oh my—Nick,” he said, his voice faltering, “I—I’m overwhelmed. You paid a small fortune for that.”
“Worth every penny,” Nick assured him. “And people who see it always love it, though that same friend has made me an offer on the house, and I think part of the deal is that the photograph stays where it is if the deal goes through.”
Jamie laughed, and of course it was deep and husky, not high and tinny or snorting like a horse. The longer I stood there with them, watching them flirt, the more I was reminded that Nick’s life ran on a track that I could never be on.
“Tahoe?”
“Sorry?”
“Your lake house?”
“No,” Nick said playfully, and the way Jamie was looking at him, completely smitten, was easy to see and, more importantly, understand. Here was a young, talented, gorgeous man who thought Jamie hung the moon. Of course you would fall for that. Who wouldn’t? “It’s on Lake Como. It’s tiny, but I love it.”
“Oh, I’d love to see it.”
“You have an open invitation,” Nick assured him.
“You know, I was at your concert in Paris in November, and you were sublime,” Jamie gushed, taking hold of Nick’s bicep. “Can I get you a drink? Let’s get you a drink.”
“I don’t actually do alcohol anymore, but maybe you have some sparkling water?”
“Oh no, I don’t drink either,” Jamie said happily. “I can’t—it really messed with my creativity. The highs and lows were no good.”
“Really?”
Jamie nodded. “Oh yes,” he began, leading Nick toward the tent. “But I have these amazing teas that…”
They were too far away for me to hear any more. I could only see the body language, the touching and smiling, the way Jamie was crowding close and, more importantly, that Nick was letting him.
“Oh, I wanted to introduce you to him,” my mother said, joining me, having gotten sidetracked with another friend of hers.
“That’s okay,” I said, kissing her temple before I took her hand in mine. “But I’m glad that we have this time, just us, because I need to talk to you about these rings of yours.”
“Pardon me? What about them?” she asked innocently, smiling too big.
“Mom, I think we’re gonna have to stage an intervention.”
Her laughter, always, was so good to hear and made everyone turn to look. She was enchanting, my mother.
“What is this?” I asked, looking at the newest ring, a huge teardrop-shaped labradorite on the index finger of her left hand, easily three inches long and two inches wide. On her right she wore two, one on her pointer finger, an enormous polished rectangle of black tourmaline, and