False Impressions

by Laura Caldwell

  I felt bad for him then, and I put my lawyer hat on without actually telling him I was a lawyer. “Just out of curiosity—because I have a friend who is an attorney—what family lawyer did you go with?”

  It wasn’t a lie, I reminded myself when I didn’t feel so good about not being completely honest with Jeremy. The truth was I had a lot of friends who were attorneys.

  Jeremy told me the name of the divorce lawyer I’d heard had a reputation for being one of the best—he would try to settle, and he would try to be nice, but he could also come out of the cage swinging if you needed him to.

  But then he mentioned the name of his ex’s attorney. I tried not to wince. That lawyer had a reputation for being one of the biggest jackasses around. I didn’t know if I should tell him that, given the lawyer, their wrangling would likely continue, despite his best efforts.

  “Hey, let’s move on to a lighter topic,” Jeremy said then, smiling. “I hear Madeline wants to get Axel Tredstone to paint you.” He raised his eyebrows in a slightly lascivious and yet charming way.

  If it weren’t so dark out, he would have seen me blush. “Yeah,” I said. “Like really paint me.”

  “I think you should do it. How many members of the public will ever get a chance to be the subject of a famous artist?”

  “Uh, let’s see. I’m going to guess about three percent.”

  “Maybe. If they’re lucky. I’m going to say it’s less than that. Plus, let’s face it…” He got closer to me, and he smelled like something you rarely smelled in the city’s winters—warm sun. “You being painted nude?” Jeremy said. “I don’t think I have to tell you that that sounds really, really hot.”

  But now that I had my lawyer hat on, I couldn’t get it off. It dawned on me—if I did this, could I be disbarred for being photographed nude? What if I didn’t appear nude? The point of the photos was to paint the persona, making each subject look clothed. And maybe I could get Axel to paint my face so no one would recognize me?

  I imagined myself, maybe ten years in the future, deciding to go back to a big law firm. “Yes,” I would say while being interviewed again at Baltimore & Brown. “You heard correctly. I was, in fact, the subject of a work of art.” I then imagined the partner, while interviewing me, pulling the photo up on his computer and promptly dismissing me.

  On the other hand…some of the criminal defense clients that Maggie had…the ones that I was now partially representing, and would be mostly representing as soon as she had that baby… What would their reaction be to a technically naked photo? I laughed out loud. We would get more business than we could handle.

  “Why are you laughing?” Jeremy asked. “You are hot. You have to know that.”

  I shook my head. I couldn’t tell him about my law gig. “I’m just thinking of something else. Look, I’ll think about this Axel Tredstone thing. I mean, who knows if he’d want to work with me?”

  He was yet closer. “Trust me. As an art aficionado and a personal fan of Tredstone’s? He would want to work with you.”

  With a quick intake of breath, we had one of those moments, one where he was close enough to smell me now, too, and we both wanted to kiss, no more fleeting wonders or doubts. The only question would be who would lean first. It wouldn’t be me. It was never me. I don’t know why, but while I could be very impatient in other areas of my life, I could be forever patient with those first few kisses of a relationship. The wanting and wondering made the air thick.

  He didn’t lean. He held the moment.

  And so I kept talking. “In the meantime, they got me into some installation tomorrow called Pyramus.”

  “Who’s they?” he asked.

  “Madeline and Syd.”

  “Ah, Syd.” Jeremy turned the slightest bit away from me then, the moment broken.

  “Why do you say his name like that?” I asked. “Like he’s trouble?”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t say anything like that. He seems like a cool dude. It just sounded like Madeline had a hard time getting rid of him.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, if I remember right, he got kind of stalker-ish.”

  I felt my eyebrows lift. “In what way—stalker-ish?”

  “Writing her fucked-up emails.” Jeremy made a dismissive gesture with his highball glass and took another sip.

  Writing her fucked-up emails? Wasn’t that something Madeline should have mentioned to me? Why hadn’t she told me that Syd could be like that? Could he have sent the recent email she received?

  “So anyway,” Jeremy said. “The installation? Pyramus? That’s excellent. So many people want to be a part of that, but they can’t get in. Of course, Madeline could.”

  “But what am I’m getting into? You climb into some space and then…?”

  “No idea. But I’d roll with it.” He looked happy then, like he was excited for me to have been fortunate enough to fall into an adventure.

  I liked the sound of an adventure.

  I took another sip of wine. “So, back to your art,” I said, raising another part of the topic I’d been waiting to approach. “Does your ex know yet about the forgeries?”

  “I tried to hide it for Madeline’s sake,” Jeremy said, “but she was waiting for the asset allocation. I had to tell her they were worth nothing.”

  Or did you want to tell her that? I wondered. Had you stumbled on the perfect crime—saving the art work for yourself and having it faked so you wouldn’t have to pay the Fex anything for it?

  “What was the reaction?” I asked.

  “Displeasure?” Jeremy said, clearly understating.

  “So, the Fex was not happy.” Immediately I covered my mouth with my hand. “I’m sorry. What’s her name?”

  Jeremy laughed. “Corrine.”

  “How about you?” I said, leaning a little closer. “How do you feel about owning forged paintings?”

  He turned to me. “I’m feeling like I really enjoy my circle of friends right now. Even if it means having to reveal that I am the owner of fake artwork.” He stepped closer to me. I could breathe his scent again. “Can I just show you how much I’m enjoying this?” he asked.

  I nodded. And he kissed me.

  29

  The papers the next morning, all blazed with the same story. “Blizzard to Rip the Windy City!” one headline read. “Snowmaggeden!” said another.

  I rolled my eyes. Sure, Chicago had some tough winters, but really, the old snow was half gone. Plus, the news media tended to exaggerate when it came to the white stuff, and most of the time nothing much happened. “Snowwhere Near Expectations.” That would be a better headline, I thought. Or “Snowvereaction.”

  Plus, it was bright and sunny out. I decided to walk to the gallery.

  I don’t particularly remember the walk because the whole time—and I mean the whole time—I thought about Jeremy. Kissing him on the back deck of the Museum of Contemporary Art. Kissing him in his car. Letting him walk me to my building. And kissing him on the steps. And then moving just inside the front door of the building and kissing there.

  Eventually, I told him I had to go to bed. I had to meet Madeline at the gallery in the morning, so I could be part of the art installation. I needed, I said inanely, my “art beauty sleep.”

  “You’re already stunningly beautiful,” he said, and he said it with such conviction that the next kiss nearly flattened me, nearly made me swoon, nearly made me drag him up to my condo. But still something stopped me. Was it the memories of Sam and Theo? I considered that for a second, but the answer was no, not really. I just wasn’t ready.

  I pushed his chest gently away. “Absence makes the heart grow fonder, right?”

  “Uh…” He cleared his throat. “I don’t think I could get much ‘fonder’ right now.” He took a deep breath.

  We both laughed. And then I’d gone upstairs and gone to bed. Alone. But fine with that.

  Now, walking to the gallery, I replayed it over and over and over in my head, treasuring the delici
ousness of it.

  But just as I walked down Wells Street, my phone started ringing in my bag, breaking into my mental reenactment of the way Jeremy had—gently—bit my bottom lip, and held it there for a moment when we were kissing on the stairs.

  It was Madeline. “Are you almost here?”

  I looked at my watch. “Probably fifteen minutes.”

  “Okay,” she said, her voice tiny.

  “What’s up?”

  “I got a letter.” Nothing else.

  “In the mail?” I prompted.

  “No, it was on the floor of the gallery. I found it today. Right inside the front door, but off to the side.”

  “So someone pushed it under the door while you were gone?”

  “Or maybe yesterday, and I didn’t notice it when I left.”

  “Was it written by the same person who wrote the email or the comments?”

  “I don’t know.”

  I switched my cellphone to my other hand and crossed the street. “Any chance Syd sent it?”

  “No. Why would you say that?”

  “Jeremy mentioned something about him sending you what he called ‘fucked-up emails.’”

  Madeline tsked. “Syd was simply telling me how much he loved me and missed me.” A pause. “In truth, they were love letters.” She exhaled hard. “But this one isn’t.”

  The concern in Madeline’s voice was enough to make me hail a cab. Within five minutes, I was sitting on the tufted chair in front of her black desk, reading the letter. It had been typed in a font that looked like Times New Roman. The text was centered in the middle of a white piece of paper and was italicized.

  Madeline, I saw you here. I saw you there, the letter started. It almost sounded like a children’s poem.

  Then it continued. I saw you at the bar at the Ambassador East, the pharmacy on State and Division, the opening at Andrew Rafasz gallery, and on it went.

  After a list of about fifteen places or gatherings was a space that set off the last locations on the list—dining at Henri on Michigan Avenue. By yourself. And you didn’t even notice me. As usual.

  The letter ended, But I always see you.

  30

  Madeline and I walked down Franklin, headed for a gallery a block or so away—the gallery that held the Pyramus installation. The truth was, I couldn’t be completely sure that I even knew what the word installation meant in this situation. And right now, my mind was on the letter that Madeline had found only two hours ago.

  “Are you sure you want to do this today?” I asked her, belting my coat tighter against the wind that had gone from friendly to decidedly cranky. “I mean, I know it’s a huge deal in the art world, and it’s amazing you got Syd and me in today, but don’t you think we should wait, since you just got that letter?”

  Madeline stopped, midstreet. She wore a cashmere coat of the lightest blue. She looked like a cloud on the street. “Isabel, we’ve done everything we can with the letter for now. Right?”

  “Well, we’ve scanned it, but haven’t handled it. We sent it to Mayburn and Vaughn. We read it about eight hundred times.”

  “And it’s not Syd.”

  Madeline had said many times already that she didn’t think Syd wrote the letter or the email. He’s not like that.

  But I wasn’t entirely convinced. So I wasn’t unhappy that I was going to have Syd to myself. I just wanted to make sure Madeline would be all right.

  She smiled. “Act like we haven’t received that letter.”

  “But we did receive the letter, and that changes things. Someone needs to stay with you.”

  She said nothing, but looked a little scared.

  “Because, Madeline.” I stepped a little closer to her. “That letter makes it clear that someone has been following you.” I’m not sure why, but we hadn’t spoken this truth out loud yet.

  “I know.”

  “Maybe we should call Mayburn to come over.”

  She shook her head. “John is doing enough by having you work with me. You’ve been an immense comfort.” She put her hand on my arm. “Izzy,” she said. It was the first time she’d called me that. “I think that life is a piece of art. And the more you let it unfold as it wants to, as it does, the more beautiful it is.” She took a breath. “So let’s just allow this to be.”

  Madeline linked her arm through mine, and led me down Franklin toward the art gallery. Toward the Pyramus.

  31

  As I climbed the white steps of the pyramid, heading toward the square hole at the top, my heart rate increased.

  I took deep, deep breaths, hoping I didn’t get one of the flop sweat attacks that occasionally hit me. After last night’s date, my sexual tension at that moment was, let’s just say, healthy. That was all I needed—to be stuck in a pyramid with a hot guy while I sweated my ass off.

  The installation truly was a pyramid shape, and as promised, it took up nearly the entire gallery. I’d been to the gallery once before, when a friend of Sam’s had been a DJ for a party. It was large and normally held a number of collections by both local and international artists. But now there was nothing inside except this white pyramid that looked as if it was constructed out of papier mâché.

  We’d been greeted by the gallery owner, who said Syd had not yet arrived, and that we could simply sit down next to “the book.” The book was like something out of Alice in Wonderland. It was huge—maybe three feet long and two feet wide. The cover was made by hand of what looked like a tight silk weave, all black except for the white letters in the center, at the bottom—THE PYRAMUS.

  “Go ahead,” Madeline said, nodding at the book for me to open it.

  I lifted it from the glass coffee table in front of us. It was lighter than I had expected. I hesitated before opening the cover. I don’t know what I expected—flying monkeys?—but inside was a huge ivory linen page that held the same two words—THE PYRAMUS—this time in black. The next pages were blank, except for where people had written their names and the date. Some of the pairs had written a phrase or two. One read Strange, Sublime, Superb and all other Superior S words.

  Another was more matter-of-fact. We didn’t know each other before. We still don’t now. But we get each other. Thanks, man!

  Syd arrived. Like Madeline, he carried with him an energy that was palpable once he was within a few feet from you. And the longing, awestruck energy he directed at Madeline was even easier to feel, to see.

  Seeing that gave me a serious pang. I had been adored once. No, more than once. Sam had adored me, I was suddenly certain, as had Theo, and I adored them. I missed that feeling.

  Now I was climbing a pyramid.

  It was such a strange thought, one I’d never expected to have—I’m climbing a pyramid—that I lost myself for a moment, turning it over in my mind.

  Then I looked up and quickly came back to the present when I saw Syd climbing the steps on the other side of the pyramid. He glanced at me and our eyes met, then our gazes darted down. It felt strange—as if I was about to do something illicit with this man. When we both reached the top, we looked into a square hole. Inside the hole, attached to the top and leading down, was a ladder. Farther inside, at the bottom, was a wood-clad room and a couple of chairs.

  Syd looked at me. His black hair had partly fallen from the headband he wore.

  A quick thought went through my mind—how many men look good in a headband? Syd was the only one I knew. He rocked it. A shiny hank of hair hung near his eyes.

  “Let me go first,” he said.

  I appreciated his chivalrousness.

  He swung his legs over, then climbed down the ladder, gesturing for me to do the same once he’d reached the bottom.

  Right then, I could only think that I was glad I’d worn black jeans rather than a dress. My legs trembled a little as I descended the ladder, my body seeming to fear…what? The unknown—both from the perspective of the art and also from Syd. Could this be dangerous? I didn’t know. Syd stood below me, arms up in case I f
ell. We were in it together, I supposed. Whatever it was.

  Finally my feet felt the floor. I looked around. It was almost like being in a treehouse—a well-made treehouse with two modern designer chairs made of curved wood and a coffee table. That was it, nothing else in the room. There were no instructions. There didn’t seem to be any cameras or recording devices. Syd and I were, it seemed, alone. As Madeline said before we’d started the climb, “It’s just you two, nothing else.”

  I looked at Syd. “This is kind of strange,” I said.

  He smiled. “This is just like the kind of thing Madeline loves to see artists create,” he said. “Something eye-opening, meant to be aesthetically pleasing but also to allow people to enter a space or a plane they didn’t know existed.”

  His words sounded kind of cool, kind of weird and eerie at the same time.

  “So, what plane are we in?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “Madeline just likes to make people aware of how many ways there are to look at the world.”

  He seemed to be able to work Madeline into nearly any topic. I thought of what Jeremy had said about Syd being “stalker-ish.”

  I looked down at the chairs. “Shall we sit?”

  We did. Syd put his arms on the chair, crossed his legs and he looked at me—patiently—as if he’d seen something, and now was waiting for me to do the same or perhaps to see something all on my own.

  But I wasn’t struck by anything in particular. “Let’s ask each other questions,” I suggested, thinking of no particular casual conversational opener. “Or something like that.”

  “Yeah,” Syd said. “Free association. Look at me.”

  I took in his appearance once more.

  “What do I look like to you?” Syd asked. “Don’t think it, just say it.”

  “An Arabian therapist,” I said. Then I blinked. “What did I just say? Arabian therapist?”

  We both laughed. It felt as if the words had come from someone else, but Syd did have the feel of a therapist—open, understanding, nonjudgmental, mysterious.