One Year by Mary McDonough

Author:Mary McDonough [McDonough, Mary]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kensington
Published: 2015-03-05T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 62

Alexis was dressed in her best pair of dark skinny jeans, a new white T-shirt, and a fitted black blazer, an appropriate outfit she thought for an afternoon visit to an art gallery—and not an outfit she had bought at Anne’s shop. She had taken extra care with her hair and makeup, not for the intention of attracting male attention—no, not even Morgan Shelby’s—but for her own pleasure. It had been ages since she had been anywhere outside of Oliver’s Well other than to a garden supply center in Waterville with PJ and his grandfather. Try as she might, she just couldn’t get excited about backhoes and garden gnomes.

At 9:15 she got behind the wheel of her car and set off on her adventure. She couldn’t remember when she had last experienced that delicious mix of guilt and excitement that accompanied doing something you knew that you shouldn’t be doing. But why shouldn’t she be going on a little excursion with a friend? There was nothing whatsoever wrong in that.

At exactly ten o’clock Alexis arrived at the gallery in Somerstown. Morgan was waiting for her, wearing slim black pants and a taupe linen shirt. Alexis thought he looked great.

“Punctual,” he said, opening the door of the gallery for her.

Alexis smiled. “It’s one of my many talents.”

There were two categories of prints on display at the Foss Gallery. In the first room were Binjin prints. Each depicted a beautiful woman dressed in a traditional Japanese kimono. She was always alone, sometimes contemplating her image in a mirror, sometimes applying her makeup or giving herself a pedicure. At other times she was in a landscape. One of these, a portrayal of a woman in a veritable storm of cherry blossoms, particularly charmed Alexis.

“The colors are really amazing, aren’t they?” Morgan said. “So luminous.”

“Mmm. And the mood is so serene. They’re just lovely.”

In the second room were landscapes. These images were just as beautiful; they depicted specific sites in Japan—rivers and towns and monuments—at sunsets and sunrises, in rainstorms and in snow showers. Morgan was greatly taken with a print of a spectacular waterfall. “I’m overwhelmed by the sheer beauty in this room,” he told Alexis. Her own appreciation was keen, but Alexis suspected that Morgan, having gone to graduate school, was seeing things she wasn’t trained to see. As for the names of the artists—Ito Shinsui, Kawase Hasui, Natori Shunsen—she had no idea how to pronounce them and hoped Morgan wouldn’t ask her to try. She didn’t want to appear foolish.

When they had finished viewing the exhibition—and Morgan had been in no rush to leave the gallery—he suggested they have lunch. “I know this little place a few blocks away,” he said. “They have great soups. Do you like soup?”

“Who doesn’t?”

“My college roommate. He couldn’t abide soup of any kind. Bisques, broths, cream of whatever. Hated them all.”

Alexis laughed. “Maybe he was traumatized by a soup at an early age.”

“Or maybe,” Morgan said, “he was just weird.”

When they were seated at

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