The Ghost Painter

By Marilu Norden

Eccentric, world-famous Santa Fe artist Adelaide Moran, recently arrived in heaven, is obsessed with not having finished painting the masterpiece that she feels will be so different from all others that it will forever ensure her legacy in the history of art. Invading the dreams of her earthly assistant, Ramon Herrera, she elicits his helpand that of aTaos shaman and a psychicto steal the soul of talented young New York painter Angelina Bonelli.

Whisked to New Mexico and held prisoner as she is guided by Morans ghostly hand painting on the masterpiece, Angelina struggles against dark, seemingly immovable forces to find her way back to the reclamation of her soul as an artist and woman. Her best friend, jazz singer Gabriella Burke, and a handsome Santa Fe photographer, Troy Lundberg, join forces in a race against time to rescue Angelina.

Bonelli counts Moran as one of her favorite artists, but aches to honor her own artistic expression. Meanwhile, even in death, the spirit of Moran will stop at nothing to become as famous as Georgia OKeeffe. Two painters, but only one set of hands and an art world that may be forever changed.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Abbott Press
• Release date: Jan 30, 2012
• ISBN: 9781458201409

Marilu Norden

Marilu Norden is the award-winning author of UNBRIDLED: A TALE OF A DIVORCE RANCH. Based in Scottsdale, Arizona, she is an artist, actress, singer, director, and producer, and is the widowed mother of five grown children. Visit her online at www.MariluNorden.com.

Book preview

The

Ghost Painter

MARILU NORDEN

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The Ghost Painter

Copyright © 2012 Marilu Norden

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

ISBN: 978-1-4582-0140-9 (e)

ISBN: 978-1-4582-0141-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4582-0142-3 (hc)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2011961875

Printed in the United States of America

Abbott Press rev. date: 1/25/2012

CONTENTS

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Also by Marilu Norden

Unbridled: A Tale of a Divorce Ranch

To the art spirit in my family

and in everyone, everywhere.

Chapter 1

Why did I think things would be different at home on this visit? After I leave, I always feel anxious and inadequate somehow. Nothing’s changed, Angelina Bonelli told herself. But when I get back to the city, I hope the mural I’m working on at the Aztec Café causes a sensation. It’s the best commission I’ve had yet. She sat staring out the rain-streaked window of the train as it rattled along the tracks from Long Island into New York City.

The lights of the crowded, early-morning commuter car were still on, enabling Angelina to see a blurry reflected image of herself in the soot-stained glass. As she scrutinized her Italian features framed by the hood of her scarlet raincoat, she was reminded of turn-of-the-century illustrations of Little Red Riding Hood from an antique storybook she had loved as a child. That’s when I announced to my family I was going to be a great artist like the one who drew those fantastic illustrations, she thought. But then, like Little Red Riding Hood, I also had to deal with a wolf, even though it was not an animal, but a human friend of the family.

The thought gave her pause, as it often did. What would my life had been like if my parents had never hired that horrible Butcher Dan to work in the family business back when I was nine?

Sighing, she thought of her dad, Lorenzo Bonelli, owner of Bonnelli’s Specialty Foods, East Waytown’s old-fashioned market. A proud Sicilian, Lorenzo refused to admit it was time to hang up his grocer’s hat and take life easy, despite his doctor’s advice to quit or he could die from a coronary. Dad is so stubborn, mused Angelina, and way too trusting, especially when it comes to his employees.

Then there was her mom, Gina, the strong-willed woman who insisted on disciplined behavior and accomplishment from Angelina and her younger brother Joey. Being the eldest at twenty-six, Angelina had always known more was expected from her. Her mother was a tough taskmaster and hard to please, despite the laurels accumulated by Angelina from years of study at New York’s Art Students League and the many commissions garnered for her work. And if Mom ever knew what happened to me when I was a kid I wonder how she would react, Angelina thought. God knows I still feel guilty because of those experiences I had as a child with Butcher Dan. But I have to remember not to blame Mom because she never knew. If she did know, I’m sure it would be too upsetting for her even to reveal to our priest.

Staying in her old room in her family’s home above the garage behind Bonelli’s Specialty Foods and seeing the view of the shed from her bedroom window had brought back the familiar queasy feeling Angelina associated with her encounters with Butcher Dan. She’d never told a soul about what happened in her childhood, not even her current roommate Gabriella, with whom she shared a two-room apartment in a West Seventy Third Street brownstone.

Whistle wailing, the train signaled its impending arrival as rain hammered the windows. Now all Angelina could see was a blurred bank of skyscrapers against a plum-colored sky, reminding her of the work of her favorite artist, recently deceased Adelaide Moran, whose impressionistic paintings of the city had caused a sensation in the art world in the 1940s. During her art studies, Angelina had focused on Moran’s style as something she hoped to emulate. Now she felt determined to further explore this style through her work on the mural at the Aztec Café.

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The light was white-hot, shimmering all around her, but paradoxically Adelaide Moran felt ice-cold. The air was humid, as it was in those long ago days in the East when it had been necessary to switch on a lamp or two in order to paint her scenes of New York.

She seemed to be in a tunnel. Everything was indistinct, faraway yet somehow near. Her vision, so imperative to her success as a famous artist, had served her well until, at age ninety-eight, it finally dimmed. Now she felt like a sleepwalker, reaching out in front of herself with long, skeletal fingers to find her way due to being half-blind. And her fingers, once so clever with brush, paint, charcoal, and clay, were now arthritic and unable to create.

Suddenly a voice boomed through the light. I’ve been expecting you. Welcome.

Who’s there? she answered, confused. Whoever you are, I want it understood that I am not staying. I am extremely busy. I must finish my masterpiece. After all, I am Adelaide Moran. This was not at all where she wanted to be, with her masterpiece still unfinished, the artwork she was sure would make her even more famous than she was now in the history of art. Yes, my masterpiece, she thought. It will be like no other painting ever created.

I know, Addie. I’ve known you all your life, said the voice.

She hesitated, her hands now dropping at her sides. "Then you know that I’ve always loved light, especially the light of New Mexico’s high desert. But the light in this place is definitely overdoing it. Look, whoever you are, I can’t stay. I must leave to finish my masterpiece."

It’s Adelaide Moran, Great Spirit, boomed the voice. She says she can’t stay. She must leave to finish her masterpiece. The voice broke into laughter, tinkling like a bell and echoing endlessly in the ether.

To whom are you speaking? Adelaide demanded, stamping her foot, annoyed at the laughter. The laughter ceased. Encouraged, she continued, I need to speak to someone higher up than you, whoever you are. She brushed an unbidden tear away from her eye with the back of her ice-cold hand. For heaven’s sake, competency is lacking everywhere these days, she thought.

Then the realization struck her like a clap of thunder before a desert storm. Could this place be heaven? She shuddered at the thought, as, involuntarily, in her long white cotton nightgown, she found herself floating over a mass of fluffy clouds like ones she’d painted plein air in her landscapes of the Southwest. Soon she stopped and hovered in one spot, tremulous, like a hummingbird whose wings whir in contemplation of a quick nip of nectar.

She looked below her. There, in her bedroom, distraught by her bed, was Ramon, her faithful assistant. She thrilled at the sight of him, thinking how dark, handsome, and still young he appeared. Dear Ramon, she thought. He knew how much I wanted to finish painting my masterpiece and reach my goal of living to one hundred.

But who was that on the bed? Dismayed, she recognized the gaunt, shrunken features framed by silver hair upon the pillow. She tried to reassure herself that somehow, in this strange, new set of circumstances, she would be allowed to finish her masterpiece. For, after all, had she not worked hard to be recognized for her talents and given so much beauty to the world in her lifetime? It was a lot more than her cousin Mercedes had done, or could ever do!

Adelaide pulled herself up as straight as she could, spread her arms wide, looked around her, and in as loud a tone as she could muster, pleaded, Great Spirit, I must paint again. I must complete the masterpiece I was working on before this. It was going to be the pinnacle of my career, better than any artist on Earth could accomplish. It is a large canvas, Belgian linen, still waiting to be worked on in my studio at La Semilla. She waited for a response, but there was only silence and endless light.

She recalled how frustrating it had been to try to paint with her eyesight failing and how she’d tried to direct Ramon to help with applying colors. Already a bright cerulean blue had been blended with some titanium white for the sky in an area two inches from the top of the six-foot-high canvas. She knew the result was not yet up to her standards but the work on the huge canvas had brought back pleasant memories of when she was a young art student in New York City painting large theater stage sets.

Ruminating thus in the fogs of heaven, Adelaide was suddenly seized with an exciting idea. Why not have people in her masterpiece, as if they were on a stage set? She shivered with delight at the thought. If I do manage to finish the masterpiece, and I will … it will be like none I’m known for. It will be animated! She recalled how, years ago at the Art Students League, the famous artist Robert Henri had encouraged her to paint portraits, but she had felt portraiture was not her calling.

Then one day at her studio in La Semilla, New Mexico, Ramon had shown her a video of art works from the most famous attraction at the annual Laguna Beach, California, Festival of Arts—the Pageant of the Masters. Now, clasping her bony hands together with renewed glee, she remembered seeing how, on the festival’s stage, live people had posed like statues to create tableaus for the audience to view until the lights would dim and come up again to reveal a different tableau. Realizing she might be able to create a painting that would even go a step further than the tableaus of the festival, she asked herself whether whatever is in a painting could actually appear animated to the viewer. Why couldn’t the subject matter be experienced as real so that breezes could be felt, sounds could be heard, and viewers could interact with any people portrayed? Why not?

She recalled Ramon speculating, If this could be done, it would be different from a movie, or even interactive television, because the experience would last for as long as viewers wanted to be engaged with the artwork, after which it would become static again. Ramon is a genius, thought Adelaide. But so am I! Such a masterpiece would guarantee me a significant place in art history, putting me way ahead of my nemesis, Georgia O’Keeffe. Humph! If it weren’t for Steiglitz getting her career going, she’d be just like all the other Art Students League graduates who had to fend for themselves to stand out from the crowd. I, for one, made it on my own and am proud of it.

Adelaide started walking toward what she perceived to be the end of the tunnel, squinting as she felt her way along with hands outstretched, deep in her musings. However, we’ll need help with the figures. I can’t see like I used to, and figures were never my forte. She felt sure she could direct things on Earth, using the shamanic guidance available in New Mexico. What I need, she thought, is a young woman artist whose soul, body, and talent in portraiture I can borrow for a time to paint like me. But she knew she would need Ramon’s help in finding such a woman.

She raised her arms, embracing the light, which was now pure white like that of a primed linen canvas awaiting the touch of genius. Can you hear me, Ramon? she called, her scratchy voice reverberating throughout the bright mists.

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Adelaide Moran had been invading Ramon Herrera’s dreams ever since she’d died, to the extent he thought he might lose his sanity. It seemed to him that Adelaide was urgently trying to communicate something to him, and he was even contemplating arranging a séance to contact her. He also sensed that it might take more than a séance to deal with any interaction he might have now with the spirit of that crazy old woman.

He recalled the most recent dream in which he was in a sweat lodge with the shaman Nate Blue Hawk and two Indian pals of Nate’s from Taos. All of them were seated while Blue Hawk was chanting, when suddenly a blast of ice-cold air and a bolt of lightning hit the lodge and a voice that sounded like Adelaide’s shouted, Find her for me. The time has come. The shaman knows.

Ramon remembered how, on awakening, he’d felt sure it was Adalaide trying to contact him. He’d reminded himself of the fourteen years he gave assisting a woman who was old enough to be his grandmother and asked himself for the thousandth time if it had been worth it. The answer was always in the affirmative as Adelaide had left him property and a few assests, but he wondered if she would forever haunt him, waking or sleeping. What message could she possibly be trying to send him?

Ramon sighed as he rose from the swivel chair by his desk in his Santa Fe art business, Cross of the Martyrs Gallery, reminding himself of the fact that if he hadn’t been the companion and caregiver of world-famous artist Adelaide Moran he wouldn’t have all he had now. Adelaide had spotted him at an opening of her cousin Mercedes’ show at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, introducing herself and saying cryptically, Yes, you’ll do nicely. He’d thought she cut a stunning figure in her long white cape, her gray-streaked auburn hair pulled tightly into a bun at the top of her head. He had never seen such a distinctive, self-assured elderly woman and knew she was also a well-known painter with enormous talent, one of several, including O’Keeffe, who painted in New Mexico.

He remembered feeling taken aback and saying, I beg your pardon? as her fierce brown eyes met his and she extended a white kid-gloved hand holding her card. Be at this address at ten o’clock tomorrow … sharp, she’d said, then left so abruptly he’d not had time to reply.

His reverie interrupted by a couple entering the gallery, Ramon rose to greet them, telling them to enjoy the work and if they had any questions he’d be glad to answer them—all the while thinking to himself that it was probably time to contact Nate Blue Hawk, the Taos shaman who had appeared in his latest dream involving Adelaide, to see if he could shed any light on it. Maybe, he mused, we should have an old-fashioned séance at Moran’s house in La Semilla with a psychic and Blue Hawk.

Ramon watched as the couple in the gallery peered at a few of Moran’s works then asked, We were told you handle not only Moran’s paintings but other artists as well, for instance, the work of Mercedes DeLucca.

Over Adelaide’s dead body, thought Ramon. She always felt her cousin’s work was overrated while hers was undervalued. Sorry, we specialize in Moran’s work only, he answered, smiling and handing the couple a flyer.

Momentarily annoyed, Ramon headed for the john. Washing his hands, then reaching for a paper towel, he stared at himself in the sink’s mirror at his lean face with its high cheekbones, dark-amber eyes framed by black eyebrows, and his short black curly hair. Of course Adelaide was attracted to me. What woman wouldn’t be? A smile gradually brightened his countenance as he realized the possible benefits to him of trying to figure out what Adelaide’s message to him could be.

Hell, he mused, it might pay to do the séance and see what’s eating Adelaide in case there’s money to be made. I’m sure Blue Hawk can contact her in whatever place she’s in.

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I want to remind you again of your role in this séance, said the rotund psychic Ina Ortega, looking at the four people seated in straight-backed chairs around an oblong, pine table in the white-walled kitchen of Adelaide Moran’s La Semilla home. As your medium, with the help of Shaman Nate Blue Hawk from Taos, I want to make it clear that the success of the séance depends on each of us putting aside distracting thoughts to be of one mind. Ina also reminded them, Please have loving thoughts. Love, and only love, is the vibration of communication in the spirit world.