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done in kindergarten. It was all color and squiggles. I had no idea what it was supposed to be.
    A woman in shoes so high I wondered how on earth she could possibly stand in them came out from somewhere the back. I was sure the shoes had a name attached to them. Some big designer’s name. They were the kind of shoes that needed no introduction in certain circles.
    In my particular circle, I could easily identify Crocs, but that was about it. Now, don’t get me wrong, I like shoes. But I can’t imagine spending a fortune on a pair.
    Ms. Designer Shoes looked at me as if she were pondering what someone in khaki pants and boat shoes could possibly want in the gallery. “May I help you?”
    “I’m just browsing,” I said. I moved closer to the piece of kindergarten art and pretended to study it. Really, it did look like something Eli did for me once. It was probably still in his school folder. Maybe he was an art prodigy and I’d just never noticed?
    The art lady’s nose rose to an impressive height. It was so high that if we were outside in the rain, she’d drown. “Are you looking for something specific?”
    “Maybe,” I said. I couldn’t help but think of Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman . If this were a clothing boutique not an art gallery, and if I were twenty years younger and ten pounds lighter—okay, probably more than ten pounds—this would be just how she felt.
    Ms. Snooty-Nose obviously didn’t feel I belonged in the gallery.
    I pulled out Mr. Magee’s acting lessons and imagined I was Pretty Woman -ized. I imagined I had a charge card that had no limit in my wallet. That I was dressed in khaki’s just to avoid being noticed. I imagined my driver was down the block, sitting in my limo.
    “Looks can be deceiving because from the outside your gallery certainly underwhelms. But we both know better than to judge a book by its cover, especially here in Hollywood. Why, just last week, Leo came into the cafeteria in costume and in character. You’d have never known him.” Just enough name-dropping, I thought. Then I added, “If you don’t mind, I’m just going to look around. You never know when something will strike my fancy.”
    I guess my acting lessons, which had never really paid off in a steady stream of acting gigs, were finally paying off. I mean, I had done some acting. I was a dead body once and almost the face (or teeth) of a national toothpaste campaign.
    Ms. Designer Shoes gave me an assessing look and then led me into the gallery.
    “This is Jolly Master’s Ode to Sunset . He’s a new up and coming talent…”
    She droned on about the new up and coming talent, but I was stuck on the fact that someone actually named a male child Jolly. Heck, I wouldn’t name a girl Jolly. I wouldn’t even name a dog Jolly.
    Maybe it was my feeling that Jolly might be a kindred spirit to all three Mac children—a family where terrible names ran amuck—that made me take a closer look. I wanted to like his work. Alas, good old Jolly’s oil on canvas looked like a blob of orange over a line of grey. That was it.
    The only thing that impressed me about it was that the orange blob matched the color of my gown for Tiny’s wedding.
    “…and he’s someone I recommend getting in on the ground-floor. He’s got a long career ahead of him, and these early pieces’ value should only increase in the coming years.”
    “Do you have anything by Mark Kirchoff?” I asked as casually as I could manage.
    She smiled. “We do. He’s known for painting nature scenes.” She led me to the north corner of the gallery. Okay, so I have no sense of direction, it could have been the southern corner, or northwestern one. It simply felt north to me.
    She pointed with flourish to two black blobs in a bunch of green stripes. “This is Muskrat Love .”
    If I were naming this particular painting, I’d have gone with truth in advertising and simply called it black blobs in green stripes.
    Whatever happened to boats on the