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“I hate to leave you, Mom,” Francesca said uncomfortably, but it was more that she didn’t trust her. She had no idea what she’d say to Marya, or how she would behave. And she didn’t want to offend Marya, who looked totally at ease with her mother.

“Don’t be silly, dear. I’ll call you later.” Thalia had stopped complaining about the other tenants, and Francesca really had to leave. The client she was meeting had been referred to her by a satisfied client. She had never met him before, and she didn’t want to be late.

Francesca gave a last anxious glance at Marya as she left, and hurried up the stairs to get her purse, and a moment later, she was hurrying down the street, thinking about her mother. She was sure she was going to get an earful about all of them at some point, except maybe Marya, whom her mother seemed to like.

At that very moment, the two older women were bonding in the kitchen. Marya was amused by her, but it didn’t show. She could hold her own with people like the countess, and had with people who were infinitely worse.

“You have no idea how I worry about her, especially with this insane arrangement,” Thalia was confiding to Marya. “She should have married Todd instead of buying real estate with him. He would have had to pay her a decent alimony, and she’d own the house free and clear. Living with all these people is just a crazy thing to do.” Thalia looked distressed, and Marya was very calm.

“It seems to be working out very well. Chris is respectable, he seems well educated, and his son is very sweet. And I think the little girl upstairs is just young and a little silly. She’s fresh out of school. She’s all excited about being in the city and meeting men. She’ll calm down.”

“Her friend looks like he’s fresh out of prison,” Thalia said, near tears. For the next hour, Marya reassured her, and by the time Thalia left to see her new skin doctor, she was feeling better. Marya sat in the kitchen for a few minutes, smiling to herself after she left. The Countess di San Giovane was definitely a handful. She couldn’t help wondering how Francesca had managed to be so normal and down to earth with a mother like that. But more than anything, Thalia seemed foolish to her, and most of what they’d talked about was her desperation about finding a man and getting married again. She had confessed shamelessly that without a husband, she didn’t even feel like a woman. Her entire identity was wrapped up in who she was married to. And without that she felt like no one at all. She was the exact opposite of Marya, who was self-respecting, confident, knew exactly who she was, and didn’t depend on anyone for her identity. The two women were as different as black and white. And in Francesca’s opinion, her mother’s obvious obsession with finding another husband had been scaring men away for years.

And at the gallery, Francesca had taken out nearly every painting she had in the racks. She kept a good selection of her artists’ work in stock. The client she was wooing wanted to buy a large painting, he said he had a fondness for emerging artists, but didn’t seem sure of what he liked. And whatever direction Francesca steered him, it didn’t feel right to him. He said he was divorced, and his wife had always selected all their art. He wanted to make a statement of his own now, but had no idea what it should be. He was a fifty-year-old dentist from New Jersey, and Francesca was utterly fed up with him by noon. He seemed to be incapable of making up his mind. He finally promised that he would think about it, and call her the following week if he made a decision. He said he liked everything she had showed him, but he was nervous about buying the wrong thing. It was always frustrating dealing with clients like him.

She handed him photographs and information on all the artists he was interested in, and he looked even more confused, and then he looked up at her.

“You wouldn’t like to talk about it over dinner, would you?” he asked, looking far more interested in her than in her art. But nothing about him appealed to her, she didn’t like him, and she wasn’t in the mood.

“I’m sorry,” she said pleasantly, smiling at him, “I don’t go out with clients.” It was the perfect excuse.

“I haven’t bought anything from you yet. I’m not a client,” he said cleverly. And she’d have much preferred to sell him something than go out with him. She was beginning to wonder if he had looked at the art as a ruse. And if so, he had wasted her time, and his own.

“I’m sorry, I can’t.” She shook her head.

“You have a boyfriend?” he asked, and she hesitated, and decided that a lie was better than the truth. Particularly if it got her out of an awkward spot with him.

“Yes, I do,” she said with a look of innocence.

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