Art
Art
Art had fallen to pieces for a while after the show. He’d felt the loss of Kerry, her twin sister, Katie, and his wife as if they were fresh wounds. But this time, instead of hiding from the pain and the shame, he’d faced them head-on.
William had sat with him while he wrote and rewrote a long, tortured email to Kerry, which a sympathetic assistant at the production company had promised to forward on to her. And then, a few weeks later, she had called him. She still wasn’t ready to meet, she said, and wasn’t sure she ever would be. But that phone call was, at least, a start. The smallest of leaves on the tiniest of olive branches.
Art’s agent, Jaspar, had been in touch, too, eating significantly large slices of humble pie. His phone had, apparently, been ringing off the hook with requests for appearances from Art and Maggie.
So, Art was busier than he’d ever been. But, strangely, he missed Daphne. Really missed her. For someone who’d been in his life so briefly, she’d made an incredibly large impression. He often wondered where she was, and if she was safe. He’d wake up in the morning realizing he’d been dreaming about her. Replaying in his sleep their dinner at Le Pont de la Tour, her rescuing him from the store detectives, and, of course, the night they had spent in that store cupboard.
Art picked an envelope off his doormat. It had a foreign stamp and postmark. He turned it over and ran his thumb under the flap, prying it open. Inside was a postcard.
On the front was a picture of the sun setting behind a dramatic, rocky island, jutting out of a clear cerulean sea. On the other side were words in block capitals, reading:
BEST WAY TO DIE: BORINGLY, IN HAMMERSMITH, OR IN IBIZA WITH STYLE?
And below the words was a phone number.