Drawing Lessons

by Julia Gabriel

  They were moving.

  “Where are we going?” she asked. She willed herself to wake up.

  “To the hospital, remember? Inova Loudoun. In Lansdowne. It’s not far. We’ll be there in a minute. Can you tell me your name, dear?”

  “Marie. Marie Witherspoon. Where is Richard?”

  “Who’s Richard?”

  “My husband. We were having dinner in my apartment.”

  “Can’t tell you anything about that, sweetie. We got a call about a woman lying unconscious at the corner of Ashburn Village Boulevard and Farmwell Road. Showed up and found you.”

  When the bright lights of the emergency department hit her eyes, Marie realized she wasn’t dreaming. But how did she end up on the street? She was having dinner with Richard in the apartment. That was the last thing she remembered.

  The EMTs lifted her onto a bed, then swished the green curtain shut around her. She closed her eyes and tried to think it through. It made no sense. Where was Richard? Maybe that had been a dream? Maybe Richard had never been at her apartment. That had certainly been weird anyway. But it still didn’t explain why she wasn’t at home.

  There was a commotion out in the hallway.

  “I need to see her. I know she’s here. Marie Witherspoon. She’s a senator’s wife. Yes, you have a senator’s wife here. How do I know? It’s on the freaking wires.”

  Nishi.

  Marie called out for her, weakly.

  “I hear her. Marie? Where are you?”

  She heard other curtains being swished open followed by Nishi’s hurried apologies. Finally, her own curtain was swept aside.

  “Marie! What’s going on?”

  “I’m not sure ... I woke up and some people were putting me into an ambulance?”

  Nishi swiped and tapped at her phone, shrugging off a young nurse.

  “She can stay,” Marie said to the nurse, who stalked off.

  “The wires are reporting that you were found unconscious on an Ashburn street. Were you out for a walk? Did you get hit by a car?”

  “No. I was having dinner ... Richard sort of broke into my apartment—”

  “Wait? He broke into your apartment?”

  “Well, he got the building manager to let him in.”

  “What the hell did he want?”

  “To talk. Apparently, my parents put the fear of God into him yesterday or something. I don’t know. I was so tired, all I wanted to do was go to sleep. He had Chinese and wine. That was weirder than this.” She waved her arm at the curtain. “Maybe I dreamed it. I don’t know.”

  An ER doctor came in and Nishi excused herself. Marie heard her talking on the phone while the doctor poked and prodded her, drew some blood and made her pee in a cup. Nishi was waiting with her when he returned.

  “Your urine sample tested positive for rohypnol. That explains your blackout. Were you at a party or a bar? This stuff often gets dropped into drinks.”

  “I was just at home ...”

  “Richard brought the wine?” Nishi asked, then fell silent as the rest of it sunk in.

  “He poisoned me?” Marie said quietly. “Why would he do that?”

  “The bigger question is how you ended up lying on a sidewalk in the middle of Ashburn.” She turned to the doctor. “Could she have walked out of her apartment? Like sleep-walked?”

  “No. Rohypnol knocks you out cold for hours.”

  “What time is it now?” Marie asked, looking around frantically for a clock.

  The doctor checked his wristwatch. “Nearly eleven.”

  “I got home around six, six-thirty. How long was I outside?”

  “Don’t know. Not long probably. You were found at a pretty busy intersection,” he said.

  “Oh my god. He must have stayed with you in the apartment for a few hours, then took you to ...” Nishi’s words trailed off as two other familiar voices leaked in beneath the curtain.

  “He was supposed to stop with her, Bill. I won’t ask my donors to help him if he continues to cheat on my daughter. It makes me look bad.”

  Nishi raised an eyebrow at Marie and mouthed, “Your mother is pissed about Maya.”

  The curtain swished open to usher in her parents. Both were impeccably dressed in slacks and sweaters, when anyone else would have thrown on jeans and a sweatshirt to run to the emergency room to see their only child. Her mother’s face was tight and unhappy.

  “Marie! What happened?” Eileen turned to glare at Nishi, who was already backing out of the exam room. “What was she doing here?” Eileen asked as soon as Nishi was gone.

  “She has a Google alert set up for me. Anytime I turn up on the wires, she knows about it.”

  “I see.”

  Yes, Marie was beginning to see too. Nishi wasn’t supposed to have been the first person here. Clearly, her parents forgot that Nishi and Imran lived in Ashburn.

  “You got here quickly from the city,” Marie pointed out.

  “We left as soon as Richard called.” She looked around. “Where is he?”

  “Probably back at my apartment. That’s the last place I saw him.” She rolled her eyes at her mother’s expression. “Oh come on. He breaks into my apartment with dinner and wine, and the next thing I know I’m being transported from some street corner to the hospital in an ambulance. I’m just hoping you two were in on it and I wasn’t just dumped on the street and left there alone.”

  The enormity of what had happened was beginning to hit her. The diciness of the scheme. She’d been in real danger, lying unconscious on the sidewalk. What if some good Samaritan hadn’t called 911? She could have been hurt—or worse.

  The doctor looked from Marie to her mother and back again, clearly confused by the conversation. “Are you the parents?”

  “Yes,” her father answered. “Senator Witherspoon. And this is my wife.”

  Marie rolled her eyes again. Her father still referred to himself as a senator, when he deemed it necessary or it would prove useful. The doctor looked taken aback.

  “I see. Well, I can’t let her go tonight by herself. But if you’re here to take her ...”

  “Actually, we’re waiting for her husband. He’ll take her home,” Eileen replied.

  “I’m going back to my apartment.”

  “You heard the doctor, dear. You can’t go home alone.”

  “Then I’ll go to Nishi’s house.”

  Her mother gave her a pitying stare. “Richard will be here shortly and will take you home.”

  Marie looked at the doctor for help, but he was filling out paperwork on his clipboard.

  “Great. I’m supposed to trust the man who poisoned me and dumped me on the street to take me home safely.”

  The doctor was pretending not to hear.

  “Marie, I don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re still a little ... under the influence. Richard did no such thing. If anyone, it was that artist friend of yours.”

  “Don’t you mean my artist lover?”

  Her father pulled his phone from his pocket and read a text. “Richard’s here. He just pulled into the parking lot.”

  The situation was sinking in. Richard hadn’t come to her apartment to make nice. He had come to prove a point. If he could drug her and dump her on a street at night, he could drug her and take her to a rehab facility.

  Chapter 24

  Below him, Manhattan looked like a toy city. Luc was speechless, even though there was no one around at the moment to speak to. When Sam had told him that a collector wanted to meet with him, she hadn’t mentioned that the collector was a Russian bazillionaire with a penthouse condo. Luc couldn’t even begin to imagine what a place like this must cost.

  A young woman in a painted-on dress and ridiculously high heels had brought him up, and then disappeared. Wife? Daughter? Girlfriend? Personal assistant? He wanted to laugh at some of his clients in DC. Their wealth was pocket change compared to this.

  Well, whatever this guy wanted, Luc could charge him a princely sum for it
. Which wasn’t a bad thing, considering. When he’d told Marie that the press coverage didn’t change anything for him, that wasn’t entirely the truth. Some of the sales from Sam’s gallery had fallen through because the buyers were upset about what had happened to Grace. So a commission from someone wealthier than God wouldn’t be entirely unwelcome right about now.

  “Monsieur Marchand.”

  Luc turned to see a youngish man—no more than thirty, certainly—wearing dark slacks and an elegantly tailored shirt. Bespoke, Luc guessed. An untied tie was draped around his neck as though Luc had interrupted his dressing, though he knew that not to be the case. The man himself had stipulated the date and time of their appointment. Black Friday, eleven am. The man’s feet were bare, and bony.

  “I am Vitaly. People call me Max.”

  He strode across the gleaming floor of the vast room, simultaneously shaking Luc’s hand and clapping him on the back. “What a view, eh? Was it worth fifty-eight million, do you think?”

  Luc wondered what Max’s line of business was. He seemed altogether too young to have fifty-eight million dollars, period, let alone to drop on a New York condo.

  “Ah well.” Max didn’t wait for Luc to reply. He waved an arm carelessly at the window. “Even that can’t compete with your paintings.” He lead Luc over to a cabinet, pulled out a bottle of scotch and two glasses. “I can’t tell you how excited I was to see that you had a show of new work. Total random on my part. I just happened to be in Washington that week.”

  “Why is that?”

  Max handed Luc a glass. “Why I happened to be in Washington? Ah, business. You know.”

  Right. Luc knew better not to ask. In Washington, when someone was evasive about their work, you just let it drop. Better not to know these things, sometimes.

  “No. I meant why were you excited that I have a new show? I’m not exactly a household name.”

  Max knocked his whiskey back. “Ah, but in this household, you are. Come.”

  He set his glass back on the cabinet and headed down a long hallway. Luc followed, intensely curious. Truly, he wasn’t being modest. He was a household name nowhere. At the end of the hall was a cavernous master bedroom with the same floor-to-ceiling windows that the rest of the unit had. Luc followed Max to the middle of the room, mesmerized once again by the view.

  Max laughed. “No, no.” He gestured toward the back wall of the bedroom. “Only drawback to these buildings. You can’t hang art on the windows.”

  Luc turned around to see what Max was pointing at.

  Grace. The two interior walls were hung with his paintings of Grace, all five of them. Sam had sold these for him years ago, not in a show but in a private transaction. Luc had just wanted to be rid of them. Now here they were again, in some stranger’s bedroom.

  “This is my favorite.” Max walked over to a portrait of Grace sleeping, a thin white sheet pulled up to her waist, her lovely budded breasts exposed. Her yellow hair swam around her delicate, serene face, her cheeks flushed like the first moment of sunset. “I have these on my wall for couple of years now. But—well, it’s not so much that I am tired of them, because she is lovely, eh? But your Marie Witherspoon, now she is more interesting. Yes? Senator’s wife? Ooh la la?” He laughed. “You’re in big trouble for that, right? No trouble for me, though. More valuable, too, right?” He waved his hand dismissively at Grace. “Grace McKinley, pretty but no one important. Died before she could do anything in life.”

  Luc was nearly in shock. The whole point of having Sam sell the paintings of Grace was so he would never have to see them again. And Max had mentioned Marie. He knew where this was going.

  “So I’ll take these down,” Max continued. “Put them in storage, maybe. I don’t know. Sell them, perhaps. What do you think? They’d probably sell for more than I paid for them these days, thanks to CNN. And they’re nice, sure. Nicer than internet porn when you want to go to sleep.”

  Luc was in danger of vomiting. And then after that, of punching this obnoxious Russian in the face.

  “Then I’ll put your Marie paintings up in here. Only thing, I need five. See? To replace these. And I only have four that I’ve purchased. Wrote Samantha Smith a check on the spot, just so you know. So I need one more and I don’t want the ones of her sitting outside drawing or eating. Or those little ones that show just a shoulder or something. Those are cute but not appropriate for—”

  Max tilted his head back toward the gigantic bed which was, Luc now noticed, positioned closer to the paintings than normal furniture placement would imply.

  “So what are you asking for?” Luc asked, knowing full well that he was going to turn down whatever this piece of shit kid wanted.

  “Putain, I need a fifth painting, man. That’s what I’m asking for. Another nude. Preferably a part of her body I don’t already own. I have her tits, her ass. What would something a little more explicit cost?”

  Luc lunged at the man, but Max was both faster and stronger than he’d anticipated. Max pushed him off and laughed.

  “Oh come off it,” Max spit out. “You paint your women and then put them up for sale. Kill the outrage, dude. I’ll give you double what I paid for the other four. Deal?”

  * * *

  Outside, Luc gulped in the cold air then coughed it back out again. New York air. Car exhaust and urine and garbage. He couldn’t bear to get back on the subway. He’d walk back to the hotel.

  He called Sam’s cell.

  “Luc! Are you in New York?”

  He grunted in assent.

  “So how’d it go with Vitaly?”

  “Max, to his friends, apparently. I won’t sell him those paintings.”

  “Why? What does he want?”

  “He wants a fifth painting of Marie to go with the other four you’re selling him. Refund his money. I don’t want him to have any of them.”

  “Oh whoa whoa, Luc. He’s already given me a check. And we have people backing out of other sales. You can’t really afford to lose these four, too.”

  “I don’t care. Did you know he has the paintings of Grace, too?”

  Sam was silent on the other end. Then, “No. I didn’t know that. Honest, Luc. He didn’t buy those directly from me. The original buyer must have resold them.”

  The wind between the buildings was slicing painfully against his face. It felt good. Luc considered staying outside all day.

  “Luc?” Sam was still on the other end. “Why don’t you sleep on this? I’m sure it will look different in the morning. I know it must have been a shock to see those other paintings after all these years.”

  “That’s not it, Sam. He has his bed set up right in front of them. What do you think he’s doing with them?”

  He heard a long sigh on the other end. “I don’t think about what people do with the paintings I sell them. You know, if you don’t want to share your women with the rest of the world, then don’t paint them. It’s like taking photographs. Once you do it, they’re out there. Someone will own them eventually, unless you destroy them.”

  “I don’t paint to share with others. I always got marked down for that in nursery school. Does not share well with other children. I paint people in order to see them.”

  “Well, you’re not the only person with eyes, Luc.”

  * * *

  Luc lay on the rumpled hotel bed in his underwear, a bottle of whiskey on the nightstand. He was well and truly drunk. He hadn’t gotten wasted on hard alcohol like this since the first anniversary of Grace’s death. He was more of a wine drinker, normally. Grappa, at the hardest.

  It was nearly two in the morning and he was tired but wide awake. He clicked on the television and began flipping through channels, settling on CNN after finding nothing else remotely interesting.

  That was a mistake.

  The wife of Senator Richard Macintyre was admitted to a hospital after being found unconscious on a street in Ashburn, Virginia. Mrs. Macintyre is suffering from exhaustion and addiction to prescript
ion painkillers, according to the senator’s office, and will be entering a rehabilitation center for treatment after the New Year. Mrs. Macintyre has recently been at the center of a minor scandal in the nation’s capital, when it was revealed that nude portraits on display at the Samantha Smith Gallery are of her.

  Marie was in the hospital. He stumbled across the room, looking for the patch of floor where he’d left his pants. He tripped over them before he saw them.

  “Putain,” he swore as his big toe made contact with his phone in the pants pocket. He kneeled down and fumbled with the tangle of cloth before finally extricating the phone. He hit dial.

  “Hello.” Marie’s voice was quiet, barely audible in fact.

  “Marie!” His voice sounded muffled, like his mouth was full of oatmeal.

  “Luc,” came the whispered reply, then nothing. The call was dropped.

  He hit redial again but got only her voice mail. Before he could think better of it, he hurled the phone across the room. Luckily, it landed on the hotel’s plush luxury bed, where it began ringing.

  He lunged for the bed, as best he could in his state. He didn’t want to miss her call.

  “Marie?” he slurred into the phone.

  “No.” The voice was not Marie’s. He couldn’t place it. It was clear and clipped, with a slight accent. “Mr. Marchand? I am Marie’s friend, Nishi.”

  “Nishhhi.”

  “You sound drunk.”

  “Mariesssinthehospital?”

  “Not anymore. She’s fine.”

  “I need to talk to her, Nishhhi.”

  “Don’t call her anymore tonight. Call me at this number tomorrow morning. When you’ll actually remember what we talk about.”

  “Nishhhi?”

  “Yes?”

  “I love her.”

  “Don’t call her, Mr. Marchand. Let her sleep.”

  The next morning, Luc awoke with a splitting headache. He tried to sit up, then collapsed back into the gazillion thread count pillows, moaning in pain. This was why one shouldn’t fall in love. There always came that morning when you woke up wrapped around a hangover instead of a lover.