Page 27 of The Top of Admiration
“I found it on Facebook,” I yelped. “I mean, I stalked you because … well, I didn’t stalk you. I found it to thank Mr. Bishop for the money … Oh God, I really need to leave before this gets worse.”
Seamus gently pried the painting from my hands, holding it like it was a live grenade. “I’ll just … take this. Sorry for the interruption. She’s jet lagged. Artists, you know?”
Mr. Bishop was sweating bullets, Mrs. Bishop looked ready to interrogate him until sunrise, and I wanted the earth to swallow me whole.
Dragged out into the hall, I groaned. “So … it wasn’t him.”
“No, Miranda,” her brother-in-law whispered furiously. “It wasn’t him. It was Cam Whittaker. Cam paid for your retreat. Quietly. Anonymously. Which is how we are supposed to keep it until the day I die. Why would you come here?”
I blinked at him. “Well. That explains a lot. And what do you mean ‘why did I come here?’ I came here because I thought this man gave me a huge donation and no way was I not going to say thank you. Thanks for making me spend hours painting a heartfelt thank-you portrait for some random man who is now probably facing a divorce battle! Fucking hell. I love this for me.”
Behind them, they could hear Mrs. Bishop’s sharp voice and Mr. Bishop’s frantic backpedaling. Seamus muttered under his breath.
“Please, Miranda,” he said, pinching the bridge of his nose. “For everyone’s sake, do not ever walk into my boss’s office again. In fact, don’t even come to this block again. And do not sayanything to Cam. This is a fucking mess. I told Jules I wanted no part of it. Why is it that every time one of you gets an idea, it feels like I’ve been drafted into a spy novel? Normal families drop off casseroles. You three drop off chaos with a side of drama.”
“Oh, come on. Without us, your life would be mind-numbingly boring. Just you and your quadratic equations. And we’re not that dramatic.”
Seamus spluttered. “Accountants don’t do quadratic equations, Miranda, and not that dramatic? You once roped me into pretending to be a French art dealer because you thought it would make Lucy’s ex jealous!”
I shrugged. “That was one time. And you looked very convincing in the scarf, by the way, Jean-Luc.”
“And let’s not forget Juliet’s fake-book-club-slash-intervention debacle. I had to host twelve women in my living room while you all staged … whatever that was supposed to be.”
“Technically, that worked. Emma did break up with that pig, didn’t she? He was not good enough for our cousin.”
Seamus rubbed his hand down his face, muttering something about early retirement. I just patted his arm sympathetically. He was so fragile!
“Remember when you kept a notebook full of surveillance on the neighbors? You wrote ‘Highly suspicious gardening habits’ about a man who just really liked dahlias. And who had to confiscate it before your parents found out you’d drawn a map of their alleged ‘escape tunnels’? Me.”
“Well, you have to admit he was a weirdo. I mean, those ridiculous shirts, and I—”
“Or the séance you staged in your parents’ living room when you were fifteen because you were sure the house was haunted? I hadto convince your mother it was just a phase and not evidence of you dabbling in Satanism.”
“Oh, come on. I was young. Every young—”
“I still haven’t forgiven you for the time you convinced me to drive you across town in the middle of the night because you thought your Latin teacher was being abducted. Turned out he was just moving house. How did you even know what was happening at his house? Do you know how hard it is to explain that to your in-laws when their teenage daughter is in my passenger seat at 2 am clutching a baseball bat like she’s in a crime drama?”
Why did Jules have to stay with her childhood sweetheart? Most of the “crimes” he’d listed were from when I was a teen. Not fair.
“Those are all years old, Seamus. Years old. And what if he was being kidnapped? We’d be sitting here years later mourning his loss and wishing we’d done something.”
“I’m not in the CIA, Miranda. We will not be talking about this again. I think given the help I’ve given you over the years has earned me a pass out on this one.”
I grabbed my painting back, cheeks still burning. Fuck knows what I’d do with this painting of random strangers I’d plucked off Facebook, but no way was I leaving it here after that. “Deal. But just so you know, that wasdefinitelyin the top five most humiliating moments of my life.”
“Top five?” he asked, exasperated.
I nodded solemnly. “Maybe top ten.”
I did a well-practiced walk of shame out to my car, but despite the humiliation, I felt buoyed and overcome. Cam parted with fifteen thousand dollars so I could go to France. Me. We were just friends, and not even close friends. When I thought Ianwas my donor, I was comfortable. In my mind, he was a businessman, likely looking for a company tax break. Cam was just a guy, who had nothing to gain from helping me.
What could I do for him to thank him? Seamus wanted me to keep this quiet, and I would honor that, but I’d have to do something nice for him anonymously. I wasn’t about to mess with karma the way Embarrison had.
Chapter 22: Miranda — Good karma
So shines a good deed in a naughty world
The Merchant of Venice, William Shakespeare
