Chapter 7 #3
“Welcome, Jason Jason Jones,” Mehdi held a curtain aside to invite them in the back.
“Please, join us for tea.” Amina slipped past her husband.
The modest table in the back held a steaming pot of tea and a ring of doughnuts. Vivian’s stomach cheered. Sfenj were delightful treats. Not too sweet and perfect for dunking in tea.
“What’s new?” Vivian prompted. “Any shows on the horizon?”
“Always so impatient.” A cloud of mint enveloped them as Amina poured tea into small cups. “Tell us, Jason Jason Jones. Is this your first time in Casablanca?”
According to the passport she swiped from the office, this was Jason Jones’s first time here. It had recently been stamped in Canada, Mexico and, inexplicably, Djibouti.
“Yes,” he said. “And it’s just Jason.”
“Will you stay for dinner?” Mehdi asked.
Jane blew on her tea, then sipped. “Not this trip, but maybe the next one.”
“I’d like that.” Amina laid a paint-spattered hand on hers. “We haven’t properly chatted in ages.”
“Umi!” A curly-haired boy flew through the curtains.
Mehdi caught Omar, their eight-year-old son, in a hug. Vivian spoke enough Darija, aka Moroccan Arabic, to travel confidently, but couldn’t keep pace with the boy’s excited babbling.
“In French, please.” Amina tapped him on the nose, then smiled at Vivian and John. “We’re teaching him French to haggle with tourists.”
The boy restarted, this time in perfect French. “Coach Daouda showed us a move called the Elastico. Baba, come. I’ll show you.”
He slid from Mehdi’s lap and tugged his father’s hand.
“Not now, sweet boy,” Mehdi said. “After our guests leave.”
Mehdi had left Vivian to catch up with Amina dozens of times. Unsurprisingly, he did not want to leave his wife in the company of a strange man.
“It so happens,” Vivian said, “that Jason is an amazing footballer.”
Omar’s eyes widened.
“It’s true,” John said in halting French. “I play both of you? But sorry, my words is bad.”
Omar spun the soccer ball. “We can practice talking, too!”
“Okay with you, my love?” Mehdi asked Amina.
“Indeed. Jane and I have much to discuss.”
Omar held the curtain open. “Let’s go! The field is this way!”
Something about a man happily playing with a kid hooked Vivian’s heart.
Brady, Kyle and Alaina all had kids. As cute as her niece and nephews were, Vivian held babies like a sack of potatoes that might shit on her.
Her siblings teased her about it—because of course they did—but that’s why she planned to start a family with someone who was already good with kids.
“This is new.” Amina’s fingers grazed Jane’s ring. “Has the young man with stars in his eyes asked you to marry him?”
Vivian nodded. “He wants to call it off, though.”
Assets shared more if she shared more. Made herself vulnerable. Secrets were seeds that sprouted into intimacy.
“Bah.” Amina swept her hand through the air. “He adores you.”
“Not anymore.” Vivian sipped her tea. “I lied about my job. Now he doesn’t trust me.”
“When Mehdi was courting me, I kept my painting secret. I worried he’d tell me to stop or lose interest in me. But I could no sooner stop painting than I could stop breathing. If we were to be married, he needed to know.”
“And he accepted it?”
Amina tipped her head back and laughed. “Absolutely not! He ended his courtship as soon as he saw them. He worried about the danger they would pose to any family we created.”
Amina had never shared this part of their story. Vivian’s heart ached for her friend and what she must have felt. Now she understood the crushed-soul sensation caused by the person you loved pulling away so quickly.
She prompted, “So what happened?”
Amina sipped her tea. “He yearned for me. We talked, and talked, and talked again. Moving away from Rabat helped. Here, we can be our own people. Our families love us, but it’s difficult to fit within their restrictive frames. So, we stopped trying.”
A lump rose in Vivian’s throat.
If Mehdi could accept Amina’s calling and career, could understand his then-fiancée’s initial deception, maybe John could accept hers.
Forgiveness was possible, but it would take time and effort on her part.
She needed to loosen her grip on protocol.
Agency rules were agency rules, but to hold onto John, she needed to figure out how to bend them.
“Cheers.” Vivian clinked her teacup against Amina’s.
“Now that there are no extra ears around…why’d you signal me? ”
“I thank Allah every day for you. Since my Dali Museum exhibit in Paris three years ago, my online sales have grown rapidly. It’s improved my family’s quality of life.
Omar is at L’ecole Francaise Internationale de Casablanca, and Mehdi was able to reduce his hours.
Even those in my family who do not approve of my venture happily take the dirham I send home each month. ”
“I’m glad to hear it,” Vivian answered.
Conversations with Amina always involved lots of backstory, but eventually they’d get to the point if Vivian didn’t push.
“As a result of your efforts on my behalf, I am accustomed to interest in my work. But yesterday was unusual.”
Amina tore a sfenj in half and bobbed it in her mint tea.
Patience.
“Tourists come through often, but yesterday, a woman entered the souk to speak with me specifically. She was tall, blonde, and looked as though she’d been cut from ice. She offered me twice my normal rate for a painting.”
Prices were rarely posted in the souk. The vendors shared them verbally to kick off Morocco’s national past-time—haggling. If Amina had the transaction on paper, the provenance for this particular work could increase her entire portfolio’s value.
“What did you sell it for?”
“Oh, you misunderstand. I refused to sell to her.”
At this stage in an artist’s career, each increased price is a rung on the ladder to a bigger stage. Few can afford to refuse sales, but Amina was built differently.
“Why?” Vivian asked.
The sfenj’s sweetness combined with the tea’s mint was heaven in her mouth. Her stomach rumbled. Maybe John was on to something with his regimented schedule.
“This woman was rude to Omar. Called him a little shit in Croatian when his ball bumped into her fancy outfit. Who wears Chanel to the souk?”
“Hang on—you speak Croatian?”
“No.” Amina shook her head. “My Croatian great-grandmother spent her last years with us and frequently swore. She made me laugh. Mehdi urged me to reconsider, but I would not.”
“Do you know anything else about this woman?”
“Yes.” Amina rose from the table and flipped through a stack of paperwork on a small desk. “She gave me her information in case I reconsidered selling a painting to her.”
She handed Vivian a business card. Simple yet elegant, it read Lola Vorlicek in embossed gold. No title, no business listed. But there was a +377 number—Monaco.
Once again, there was no such thing as coincidences. A Croatian art broker based in Monaco approached one of Jane Davis’s clients. A Croatian crime boss is the painting’s seller in which she’d found a drive. This was related—she could taste it. But how?
Not enough information to see a pattern, but she’d get there.
“Thank you.” She pocketed the business card. “This has been helpful.”
“My pleasure. And you’ll stay for dinner next time,” Amina declared.
Vivian leaned in to kiss her friend on the cheek. “Yes, next time.”