Chapter 11

We did, indeed, go slow. For one thing, our schedules wouldn’t permit it happening any other way. I painted the portrait of the boy and his chameleon complete with the floral pattern shirt. It was very well received. The boy went out and bought a shirt as close as possible to the one I painted and put his pet on it. Even as versatile as the animal was, he couldn’t quite blend in but it made no difference.

Sissy completed the final leg of her publicity tour; told her management in no uncertain terms she was taking the next six months to write and was not to be disturbed. She also gave her agent and assistants a royal tongue lashing, telling them they were all out on the street contracts be damned if she missed one more message from me. We usually talked at least once a day, even if it was just a quick “I love you” before ringing off.

We didn’t live together at first. Sissy took up residence in Henry and Chelsea’s guest cottage. I’d travel up when she was there if I wasn’t working on a painting and spend time with them until one or the other of us had to leave

Before we knew it was time for school to start. Katie couldn’t wait, showing us her new school uniform. Plaid skirt, white shirt and tie, and a blue blazer with the school logo on it. It was of the most prestigious and expensive schools in the country. She was driven to school and back by one of Chelsea’s employees, a retired bodyguard who was still in good shape. Places like that were prime target for kidnappers, anyone they grabbed had wealthy parents or grandparents. Originally an open campus, now it was surrounded by a tall security gate, had armed guards, and every class had a steel door and shutters that were automatically lowered in case of an intruder.

The guards tried to remain as unobtrusive as possible and the children gradually forgot they were there or the reason for the fence. Katie flourished and made fast friends. She even had her two best friends over for a weekend, and riding was a big reason. Henry bought a few extra air vests and put them on the gentlest of the small horses he was raising.

Sissy had become an excellent horsewoman and the sight of her in that tight white shirt and skintight jodhpurs never failed to impress me. I had to ride every weekend, and Daisy and I became good friends. She was remarkably calm, and her top speed seemed to be an ambling trot.

I did little pen sketches of her friends riding and gave them to the girls as a remembrance. Their parents were duly impressed when they found out who did the sketches. I got thank you notes and invitations to dinner as a family, so we all went. I was impressed with the mansions, and one hak a very nice art collection. There was probably twenty-million-dollars’ worth of paintings hanging on the walls.

One woman commissioned me to do a family portrait but she wanted something other than the usual formal poses. Katie and I spent a weekend in their guest house, watching them interact. The mother was an internationally famous chef who owned a string of restaurants spanning twelve cities and three continents. The father worked on Wall Street. I studied the photos I had taken, and Katie was the one who suggested the picture that got picked.

They had a formal dining room that could hold eighteen, but unless they were entertaining, they ate at a small kitchen table. There were no electronic devices, no phones, no televisions allowed to play at dinnertime. That was their time to relax, connect with each other, relate the news of the day.

I did a portrait of them sitting around the table, the man passing a platter while the woman was waving a fork in the air to make a point and the child laughed. She cried when it was done, saying every time she looked at it, she would remember how grateful she was for her family. The man smiled and said it was the happiest he’d ever been to write a check that large. The little girl thought it was cute. I thought it helped my bank account and was a job well done.