A Slender Thread by Katharine Davis Read Free Book Online

considered his cell phone a useful tool for small emergencies, such as letting her know if he might be late. At his studio, he checked e-mail but didn’t answer the phone, preferring to spend his days in his own silent, uninterrupted world.
    Margot tried Jenna’s apartment next. The answering machine came on and she left a message wishing them all a happy Thanksgiving and then hurriedly adding that she sent her love to all. There was so much to tell Oliver, but she would wait until they were both home in New York. He needed to have these two days away without such unsettling news.
    Margot had looked forward to this visit with her sister and a few days away from the city. Oliver had been in one of his moods. It was as if a shadow had fallen over him, and as much as he wanted to come out from under it at the end of the day, it seemed to follow him home every night from the studio. He had been hoping that the Croft Gallery in San Francisco would give him a one-man show in the spring.
    The Van Engen Gallery, where Margot worked, represented Oliver, and he was included in a group show that would remain up throughout the holiday season. Margot and Mario, her assistant, had just hung Patio at Twilight , a painting Oliver had finished earlier in the fall. The huge canvas, six by nine feet, depicted a group of people standing around drinking cocktails in a suburban-looking backyard against a yellow sky. A naked man sat slumped in the foreground on the grass. The others in the painting paid him no notice at all.
    â€œYou don’t like it, do you?” Oliver had said.
    He had stopped by the gallery the morning of the opening. Mario was coming in later to help adjust the lighting. Margot needed to unpack the catalogs and oversee the caterers later that afternoon.
    â€œIt’s a wonderful painting, Oliver.”
    â€œWhat’s that supposed to mean?”
    â€œIt raises questions. It’s haunting.”
    â€œYou think it’s shit.” He put his hands on his hips.
    â€œI would never think that.”
    â€œI see it in your face.”
    She looked away from him and back at the painting. “Carl says it’s the key piece in this show.” Carl Van Engen, the director and owner, always gave Oliver the plum spots.
    â€œHe’s not showing my triptych.”
    â€œIt’s too big. He has to have enough room for the other artists’ work too.”
    Oliver shifted his weight, sighed, and stepped back. “None of it feels right anymore. I spent months on this, but it’s not what I’m after.”
    â€œIt’s a brilliant painting. You know it.”
    She looked away from the canvas and back at him. His deeply set eyes focused on his own work as if he were trying to see it for the first time. He smoothed his hair back, revealing the worry lines across his high forehead, then looked nervously down at his feet. His paintings were powerful, provocative, and she could understand their attraction. She moved close to him and laced her arms around him under his jacket. “You’ll be fine,” she said.
    He bent and kissed the top of her head. “Forgive me. It never gets easier. I’m being my nasty bastard self.”
    â€œI love you,” she said. “Why don’t you get some air? I’ll see you here at seven.”
    â€œYou’re right,” he had said abruptly, and moved off toward the door.
    Margot opened her eyes. She must have slept. A streak of late-afternoon sun fell across the dresser on the opposite wall. Lacey had set a vase of bittersweet there, and the curving branches and berries made a lovely shadow on the wall. She sat up and reached for the small tablet of paper that Lacey had thoughtfully left on the bedside table along with a freshly sharpened pencil in case her guests needed to jot down a note in the middle of the night or make a list. Lacey always thought of such details, like the guest bathrobe Margot had worn earlier. She studied