Catch 26

by Carol Prisant

  “It’s quite unusual, isn’t it?”

  “It is,” she responds. “So is André.”

  “André? An unusual name, too.” He presses her hand gently. “Well, I wish you … I wish you a marriage as happy as mine.”

  For a strange, spun-out moment, Fernanda Turner envies Clary Howell’s long-gone wife.

  Then she shakes off the feeling and stands up. She tells him once more that she hopes – no, she knows – his paintings will sell well. What she doesn’t mention is that she very much hopes he’ll think of her every now and then.

  On the avenue outside, with a bitter wind stinging her eyes and making them tear, she waits while Clary searches in all his pockets for his keys, and finds them at last.

  “Well, off to the Island then. Good luck with your life, Fernanda, dear.”

  He leans to kiss her on the lips, then stops.

  “Do you mind?”

  She shakes her head. His lips feel cold.

  A gust of wind blows her hair across her eyes as she watches Clary Howell head uptown. She brushes it back. She imagines he’s limping a bit.

  She checks her phone, pivots neatly, and strides down the sidewalk toward her André. A police siren mounts to a scream, fades and disappears. She suddenly flashes on Stanley.

  She just needs to make it to Saturday now.

  Catching sight of his hair in the vestibule of “their” café, she hurries inside. They touch each other’s frozen cheeks and kiss, and this time, get their favorite booth in back. André sits across from her and takes her hands in his. Fernanda kisses his palm. He’ll be away after tonight, so they won’t be together again until Saturday morning, when they’ll see each other next, at the altar. And that’s why tonight, they’ve decided, is their private rehearsal dinner.

  She hates it that he’s going away.

  “I’ve just been with the loveliest man,” she teases.

  “A man?” He pretends to be shocked, but she sees he’s a little uncertain. “Four days before our wedding and you’re telling me now!”

  “Well … he’s an old man.”

  “How old?”

  “Mmm, thirty.” For a second or two she savors his dismay. “No, I’m kidding. Seventy. Seventy-five?”

  “Oh, really old. Okay. Then I’ll let you tell me.”

  He yanks at his tie, unbuttons his shirt collar and settles happily, expectantly, into the booth as Fernanda makes what she hopes is a compelling story about the Locust Valley house call, his collection, her suspicions about the Botticelli tondo, and the upcoming sale. She leaves out the dogs, her gaffe with Clary, and their “date.”

  “So then,” says André, “Friday night tells all?”

  “I don’t know that Friday night tells all. I only wish it did.”

  Fernanda’s quiet for a moment before reaching for his hand. “Wouldn’t it be great if there were an easy way – a painless way – to tell all?”

  André looks puzzled.

  “That sounds like a singularly unsexy double entendre. Does it mean you have something you want to tell me?”

  Uneasy, Fernanda begins to wonder if this isn’t some bizarre replay of their last meeting. Except that it’s her turn now? She looks around the room. No kids tonight, but that damned dusty tinsel is still, depressingly, there. And she’s suddenly feeling hot. It’s too stuffy here.

  And sitting in this … is this a confessional booth? She’s overcome by the conviction that if she doesn’t reveal her hideous defect, if André marries her without understanding that she’ll never give him children, then …

  Why does her life keep taking place in booths?

  Fernanda slumps, takes a couple of sips of water, and makes up her mind.

  There are too many kinds of Hell.

  “André,” she begins, “Remember the other day, when I told you how happy I am that you have children? Well, I am. I am. Because I’ve always loved children, and have always wanted my own.” She can feel herself begin to choke up, but somehow, she hangs on. “And maybe someday, yours will feel like they’re mine. But I have to tell you the truth now,” she steels herself, “a number of very strange things have happened in my life – you can never know them all – but because of those things, well … I’ve been told I can never have children, André. And because I know from painful, first-hand experience that there are men who care tremendously about that, well … you just need to know.”

  She watches his face fall apart. Surprise. Helplessness. Sorrow. Dismay. And – oh God – anger? Is he angry? She wants to melt away.

  He stands so abruptly that all the other diners are alarmed. Forks clatter onto plates. Conversation stops. Everyone looks.

  A quarrel? Someone choking?

  André moves to Fernanda’s side of the booth, and sliding towards her on the leather seat, he pulls her close.

  “Oh God, Fernanda, I’m sorry. You didn’t have to tell me this. I know you didn’t. His voice breaks and he holds her tight. He’s very still. And when he finally speaks, he’s more composed.

  Fernanda is afraid.

  “No one talks about it much,” André says, “but I guess it’s a common enough thing. Although maybe not really, these days, when there are so many medical options. I’ve read about them many times.”

  He’s working the thing through, aloud. And she’s still afraid.

  “You’ve probably done everything you could do, though.” He looks at her for reassurance, while almost inaudibly, she replies, “That’s right. I’ve done everything.” (Oh God, if she could let it out!) “You’ll never know what I’ve done, André. Forfeited. Promised.”

  “Don’t say anymore, I don’t want to know.” He kisses her hair, her lips.

  “In return, I have something to tell you, too.”

  Fernanda tenses up. Can there possibly be something else?

  “I actually don’t want more children.”

  A fizz of great heat begins in her cheeks, then it bubbles and melts and flows in a rush down her arms to her fingers and hands, which she sees, just now, have been balled into fists. And her arms, of their own volition, drop from the tabletop to her lap, where they lie, all warm and drained and limp.

  “You don’t? Why not?”

  He wants to explain. To make everything all right for her.

  “Well, I have my two, Fernanda.” He pauses, and smiles. “Although I wish I’d known you were coming into my life. In some other … different … world, I’d have wanted to have them with you.

  “But I’m so sorry for you, my darling girl.” He brushes the hair from her face and kisses the tears that glitter on the rims of her eyes. “When we first met, okay, I have to admit – it was your exquisite self that knocked me out and made me fall in love. But these past weeks we’ve known each other, there’s been this feeling growing in me that there’s so much more to you … so much more than superficial stuff. I love you for your courage now, among other things.”

  “My courage?”

  “What you’ve just said. How hard that must have been for you – to live through it and to say it. It’ll sound hokey, but more and more, since I’ve known you, I feel that so much of who you are is … brave.”

  With the back of her hand, Fernanda wipes her wet cheeks.

  In the restaurant, their fellow diners have returned to their lives.

  “Well, of course,” André goes on, smiling. “I admire your intelligence, too. The pleasure you take in your work. Your feistiness. Your energy. Your body.” He drops his hand to her thigh and smirks. “No, wait.” He’s serious again. “What I really admire – besides your body – is your sincerity. You don’t play games, Fernanda. You are what you seem to be.”

  Fernanda flinches.

  Who is this man? Can she possibly deserve him?

  “Oh André,” she humbly replies, “thank you for loving me,”

  Friday morning’s come at last, and the saleroom is filling up, mainly with dealers and curators, a few of whom Fernanda is able to recognize now
. In addition, there are several middle-aged couples and about a dozen men of miscellaneous age, accent and personal hygiene who look as if they don’t have the wherewithal for lunch, let alone Old Master pictures. She acknowledges one or two from the Russian contingent, and as ten o’clock nears (with only half the chairs filled) the expectant bank of phones waits dumbly to be juggled by Fernanda and her many black-clad colleagues, most of whom are keyed up. They’re expecting so many phone bids that her own department has been supplemented this morning by extra staff from Prints and Twentieth Century Dec-Arts. Nervous and apprehensive (her default emotions lately) Fernanda knows that while there’s been a good deal of interest – possibly as much as Peregrine’s been bragging about – the room is half-empty, and it feels like no one is ready for the game.

  The background murmur subsides as Charles slips through a side door and confidently mounts the podium. To his right and his left are his staff and their landlines, and shortly, as soon as he starts the sale, there will be a running tally of bids projected above his head. The second screen, the one that shows enlargements of each lot is currently blank, but when, like a symphony-orchestra conductor, Charles cups the gleaming onyx paperweight he uses as a gavel in his hand, when he glances left and right, crisply welcomes the live attendees and finally announces the sale, the room rustles and comes to life. A couple of stragglers drift in as he’s intoning the rules of sale, but with the announcement of lot number one – a small fifteenth-century oil on canvas of an angel (Northern France), estimate $10,000-15,000 – the audience settles in. To Charles’ right, where Fernanda now stands, a pair of efficient handlers adjusts the painting on a stand and its projected image, looking far more impressive and colorful than the tiny original, appears on the screen above his head. There’s a minimum of bidding – nothing from the floor – and the first painting goes to the phone for $55,000.

  It’s going to be a good sale.

  Indeed, as the morning proceeds, Fernanda’s overjoyed with the prices. Hanne Hein’s Cuyp, Courtney’s Canaletto, even the most problematic of pictures have been selling above their estimates, while the few paintings that have been passed were only “bought in” because their owners, Fernanda knows, demanded more than the market wants to pay. Among these unsold works is a tender campagna that, were she permitted to bid, Fernanda might have liked for herself. She hopes it finds a home post-sale.

  Clary isn’t here, but she’d known he wouldn’t be. He was simply too wound up, he’d phoned her to say. Which is why, in loco parentis, and somewhere in between handling her phone bids and trying to follow the paddles in the room, Fernanda’s been keeping tabs on his “children.” They’ve done quite well so far, exceeding their conservative estimates (all except two). She’s as pleased for him as if they were her own, as, in some symbolic way, they are.

  And finally, long before she’s ready for it, the Botticelli is only two lots away. She glances around the room and notices now, to her right, in the middle of the second row, the Getty’s May Halvorsen. When did May come in? Just yesterday, Fernanda waited patiently by her side while she examined the mother and child, front, back and sides. She’d stood there marveling at how thoughtlessly May had allowed the handlers to hold the weighty thing for a full twenty minutes while she inspected what looked like each brushstroke.

  But now she also sees Pierre Delvaux, from the Louvre. He must have slipped in late, Fernanda thinks. He’s in the very last row and looks incredibly casual, with his chair tipped back against a column. He also seems thoroughly uninterested in the proceedings, although as she watches, he extracts a pair of glasses from his briefcase, settles them on his nose, and rapidly fans through the catalogue. Just the other day – it feels like years – she’d seen him corner Charles near the tondo right before conversing, loudly, and in French, with Peregrine. Delvaux had seemed agitated, vehement, imperious. He’s the picture of indifferent boredom now, however. Will he bid?

  In less than thirty seconds, Charles hammers down a smallish Canaletto that provokes some light applause because it’s gone for $6 million against a $2 to 3 mill estimate. And now we’re next, Fernanda tells a distant Clary Howell. The room has quieted, and the Botticelli pops up on the overhead screen just as the uniformed handlers settle it on its velvet-covered stand.

  “Lot 64,” Charles announces. “A newly authenticated Botticelli tondo depicting the Madonna and Child with St. John. Do I have an opening bid of $500,000?”

  At the far right of the room, a lone paddle flies up and one of the staff calls out loudly, “Bidding here.” Fernanda has no phone bidders for this lot, but somehow, she finds she’s clutching her handset. A second and a third paddle pop up simultaneously and she hears Christina Kim across the way, her phone pressed to her ear, call out “One million, seven hundred fifty thousand.” Which was the moment, Fernanda tells Christina later on, that she lost the bidding entirely and could only stand and gape as the numbers flashed on by: two million; two point seven five million, four million … a pause, a general exhalation … and on it went. Seven million, ten million, ten million, four hundred thousand. Going once. Twice. Sold. To a smattering of applause, the tondo disappears back behind the curtain and she has a quick glimpse of the broadly grinning Delvaux sheathing his glasses as he exits the room. She catches Richard’s eye on the podium’s opposite side. It’s customary to be cool at the sales, she knows, but she holds up one hand very slightly and makes a circle of her thumb and index finger.

  The Louvre. Oh my God. The Louvre.

  Interminably, it seems, the sale goes on and on, and somewhere around lot sixty-four, she pretty much tunes out. Clary’s a multi-millionaire now. Or his sons are. And despite the devil in the details of the tondo, for the first time in her long and peculiar life, Fernanda is part of something really fine.

  The Louvre!

  And tomorrow, she’s a bride.

  CHAPTER 25

  It’s Saturday, and somewhere around 8:00 a.m., Fernanda, wet tendrils of dark-red hair splayed across her neck and back, steps, dripping, out of the shower. She walks naked to the bed, spreads the warmed towel across the duvet and stretches out, full length.

  Dreamily, she considers the fact that it’s the last time she’ll lie in this bed alone.

  And settling the pillow behind her head, she gazes down at the unbelievable length of her still-damp body and admires its rosebuds and milk. She sees creamy skin, hipbone-knives, a tufty mat of gingery pubic hair, and nothing remotely creepy. No blood-vessel spider webs, no skin tags, no stretch marks. And nothing hurts. Nothing is gray. Least of all, her current state of mind.

  Which – warm and happy – wanders just a bit.

  She’ll never have stretch marks, she muses. Or salt-and-pepper hair. But will she age at all? And if she doesn’t, what will André will think when they reach forty-five, fifty-five, sixty – and she has no laugh lines? No crow’s feet. No droopy breasts. How will she explain?

  She frowns and feels her forehead. But then she laughs. No place for any of that on this marvelous day.

  Fernanda gets up, stretches luxuriously, and gently towels her tousled hair.

  How incredibly lucky she is. She did it! She found him in time, and not Mr. Nice, but Mr. Soulmate, beyond (more) doubt!

  (And there’s that idiot voice again: “Was it luck?”)

  A little chilled, she clasps the clammy towel in her arms.

  After today, two days until the deadline.

  She takes out her phone to count again, in case she’s wrong, but noting the time, drops the phone on the bed. Courtney and Marcia will be here any minute to help her get dressed, and she needs to get moving before they come sailing in with the jokes and the liquor and the makings for their Bloody Marys. But she’d love it if they brought along something dopey, too: like dildos or lipstick-shaped vibrators or something like that, because she’s feeling like being spectacularly silly, all of a sudden. And dropping the towel on the carpet, she balletically steps into a lacy, ivory-satin teddy before tur
ning back to the mirror to fix her hair. She won’t put it up. Brides like it up, but André likes it down, and whatever he likes is, um – awesome. Totally awesome. Fernanda giggles.

  She reaches under the bed for the shoebox that holds her ivory spike-heeled shoes. They’re so really fierce and yet so wonderfully innocent in their bed of ruffly pink. She slips them on. This very morning. In the chapel. They’ll walk her into her – amazing – new life.

  The chapel.

  She would have been happy to do this at City Hall, of course, and do it a whole lot sooner, too, but André was good-natured, but, firm about having a ceremony. And having their mini-reception (with that “fabulous” band) way downtown. All alone, he’s planned their Florentine honeymoon.

  Fernanda laughs aloud at her sexy reflection in the teddy and the heels.

  Berger’s is giving her two weeks as a wedding gift. In fact, Berger’s has been great, she thinks, blotting her pale-pink lipstick as Courtney, all smiles and towing the uncharacte‌ristically forlorn-looking Marcia, rushes into the room.

  “You are the luckiest woman I know, Fernanda,” Courtney exclaims, throwing off her coat, darting around the bedroom, picking things up and putting them down. She tucks the freshly lipsticked tissue behind her right ear, where it blooms and vaguely suggests a crumply Spanish rose. Hauling Fernanda to her feet, she waltzes her around the room and into the sunny living room. “Happy wedding day, babe! And guess what? They’re promoting you. I’m not supposed to be telling you, but consider it my wedding present. Because I can’t afford a real one, as I know you know.”

  She gives the breathless Fernanda a quick, hard hug while checking herself out in the mirror.

  “No kidding. You land this incredibly hot, perfect guy. And then you get a promotion. And then you get two weeks off. Not to mention all that Poussin money. If I were the jealous type – which I am – I’d want you to go to Devil’s Island instead of Florence. It’s a damned good thing you’re leaving town tonight.”

  For the first time since the casino, Fernanda ignores the reference.