False Impressions

by Laura Caldwell

  We both fell silent at that.

  “A mom,” I repeated.

  “I know. Can you believe it?”

  “I’ve always said you’d be a good mom.”

  “And I’ve always thought that. But now, it’s just speeding toward me, and I don’t know anymore. I’m realizing I really don’t know anything!” She got up and poured herself another coffee. When she sat down again, she gave me a look I didn’t see too often. One that said, I’m nervous. Help.

  “Mags,” I said. “You’ve helped your sisters raise their kids. You’ve been there for all of it, from the birth to the near teenagers.”

  “Yeah, but except for those first few weeks, I always got to go home to my bed. Ultimately, I wasn’t responsible.”

  More silence.

  “That is intense,” I admitted. Maggie wouldn’t accept clichéd platitudes from me.

  “Right?” She nodded. “And my sisters have gone through it so long ago that they’re all, ‘Don’t worry about it! No big deal!’ But it is a big deal.”

  “You’ll knock it out of the park.”

  “I’d settle for a single.”

  “Not a problem.”

  She looked at me plaintively. “You’re sure?”

  “Positive. And hey, you’ve got a friend who is both an associate and a babysitter.”

  “Thanks, Iz.”

  “So I’ve got a question for you. How’s your bullshit detector?” I asked Maggie. “Is it off because the pregnancy?”

  “No. It’s better than ever,” she said.

  In their business as criminal defense lawyers, Maggie Bristol and her grandfather, Martin, had intensely investigated and ruthlessly cross-examined many detectives and prosecutors. They’d accused them (in addition to many other sins) of judging people based on hunches.

  The truth was, Maggie believed in her own hunches just as much.

  I told Maggie, as vaguely as I could, about Madeline’s situation. I told her that an unnamed gallery might have unintentionally sold forged artwork, and the gallery owner had been followed. I told her some of the players, rounding around to the Fex. The title came in handy, since I wasn’t using real names.

  “So it’s likely our client has had her work space invaded and the paintings stolen, then forged,” I said.

  “Or it happened somewhere in the moving process,” Maggie said.

  “Right. Or there could be something else going on altogether. For example, our client just told me she occasionally keeps artwork in her house if it hasn’t sold yet but she believes that somewhere down the line it will. The internet comments and emails she’s gotten might be from the thief or maybe not.” I told her then about the difference in opinion as to whether the author of those comments and emails was female. Vaughn was sure it was. Mayburn, who knew more about the case as a whole, wasn’t so certain.

  Maggie blinked. I waited for some brilliant shot of insight. “Did you say Vaughn?” she asked. “As in Detective Damon Vaughn?”

  “Yeah.”

  She shook her head, like, No. No. I can’t believe that. Maggie knew my whole history with Vaughn.

  I took a deep breath. “Yeah. And you won’t believe what I have to tell you about him.”

  “Oh, I think I will. Nothing that asshole does would surprise me.”

  “He arrested me Friday night.”

  That one stopped even Maggie Bristol in her tracks.

  50

  When I got to Axel Tredstone’s studio, I was distracted. I was still mulling over Maggie’s pronouncement that I should watch out for the Fex, although Maggie didn’t think Corinne had anything to do with the forgeries.

  “Your basis for the opinion that the Fex isn’t the thief?” I’d asked her, getting into witness examination mode.

  “My gut. Isn’t that what you wanted?”

  More than anything, once she got over her shock, Maggie wanted to talk about Vaughn. She wanted to rail about Vaughn, and how awful he was, “like most cops.” “They just decide what justice should look like,” she said. “And then they put it into play. They’re the judge and the jury.”

  I pointed out to her that she had essentially done the same thing by declaring the Fex someone to watch out for, but not someone who necessarily had committed the crime.

  “Yeah!” she’d said. “That’s a gut instinct. You’re right! But I’m not about to go out and arrest someone over it.”

  “Technically, I did break the law by not paying the cover.”

  “That’s not something you arrest someone over. Certainly not a member of the Illinois bar.”

  “His buddy owns the club.”

  “Why are you sticking up for him?”

  “I have no idea.”

  Maggie waved her tiny arms in the air. “And then he gets you stuck in a blizzard!”

  I had left the apartment a few minutes later, laughing, after Maggie had declared Vaughn an “immense and gaping asshole.”

  So when I arrived at Axel Tredstone’s studio, I was in a good mood. It was large, with old hardwood floors, brick walls and black-painted ductwork overhead.

  The first person I met was his assistant, a small guy dressed in skinny jeans and a studded leather belt who scurried around putting up lights and big shaded things on sticks, barely paying attention to me except to point me to another guy, the makeup artist.

  “Hi, honey,” the second guy said. He grabbed me and hugged me like we’d been friends for twenty years and he hadn’t seen me in ten. “Sit here.” He directed me to a high chair in front of a big mirror surrounded by lights. Next to that station was “the stand up area,” as the makeup artist described it, where I could be painted while I stood.

  “Okay,” he said. “Now I’m going to base you.”

  “You’re going to what?”

  “I’m going to the lay down the base coat of paint.” He raised a finger, then ran it through the air, pointing up and down the front of my body. “All at the direction of Axel, of course. And then he does the details, the creating.”

  “Okay,” I said. It sounded reasonable enough.

  He directed me to a modest, all-white bathroom, where I undressed. I felt…fine. A plain, white cotton robe hung there, and I put it on. I was surprised (and a little impressed) by my nonchalance.

  But then Axel Tredstone arrived at the studio.

  At first, the experience wasn’t as strange as I’d anticipated. After working with Forester Pickett, my former client, and a lot of his compatriots, I found I communicated well with men in their fifties and sixties.

  But Axel Tredstone was a rock-star/artist guy in his fifties. He had been graced with a lot of blondish-brown hair that crested back from his forehead and hung right below his ears. He grazed it with the fingers of one hand and tossed it to one side, a trait that was not without its charm.

  He was lean. He dressed casually in jeans and an untucked shirt, with a jacket over that and a great crimson scarf, both of which he tossed over a chair as soon as he saw the makeup artist beginning to set up the base paints.

  “Stop,” he said to the makeup guy. “I need her.”

  Need. I rather liked the sound of that.

  He was German, but he sported (if this were possible) a British-y/Chicago accent—lovely, at least to my ears. The photo assistant and makeup artist scattered, and Axel and I sat on two stools in a middle of an open studio, nothing else around, just me in a robe, no big deal.

  Strangely, that’s how it felt—casual. Normal.

  “Tell me about you,” he said. “Where were you born?”

  And we were off. I talked and talked, and Axel listened. He was an inviting listener. Every reaction to my sentiments seemed not just authentic but thrilled. He actually appeared rejuvenated by my words, fascinated by me. And I wasn’t even giving him the whole story. I left out my last name and the fact that I was an attorney. And that I was a part-time private investigator. I did mention—without facts or names—that my fiancé had taken off a few months before ou
r wedding, that we’d patched things up but never gotten married and that I’d been in a relationship since then but that was over, as well.

  “And yet you are not over,” he said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You haven’t lost your spirit or your fight.”

  “No, of course not.”

  “Why do you say it like that?”

  “Well, what else would I do but move on?” I looked around, as if searching. “Really, what else is there to do?”

  He threw his head back and laughed, then raked his hands through his blond hair. “There are many things. I like that you choose to reinvent.”

  We talked for about an hour. He told me about his process, how he’d come to it.

  Finally, he nodded, falling silent. “If you are, I think I’m ready to begin.”

  * * *

  And now I was naked. I’d been base-painted black by the makeup person—deep black, Axel had said, which I found curious.

  While that took place, there was still a lot of activity. Axel issued orders to his photo assistant in that slightly gravelly accent. The makeup person occasionally asked Axel about certain blacks he was using, which would affect later paint. For example, whether my right shoulder would be painted. And what about my quads? If so, what colors was he considering?

  It was all done so quickly and with such a businesslike manner, that I was surprised when the makeup artist, said, “Voilà,” and pulled out a bunch of fans and a hair dryer.

  And now, and now, and now…

  And now Axel Tredstone was sitting in front of me on a stool, a palette of vivid colors in one hand, brush in the other. His brush touched me. I looked down at my breast. The dot was blue, like part of my arm, which boasted curls around the bicep, reminding me of Theo’s tattoos. There was also blue on my belly, high on my ribs. Below that was a circle. A circle of flesh that Axel had achieved by washing off some of the black and painting a black tree in the circular space he’d created. It was as if I’d ingested the tree.

  “Does that feel okay?” he said, in a distracted kind of voice, dabbing the paint on my nipple.

  “Sure, sure.” What else to say?

  “I see a lot of blue in you.”

  “You do?”

  “Yes. Not necessarily blue like you Americans say, like sadness. I don’t find you sad.”

  I nodded. I didn’t see myself as sad, either, at least not on a regular basis.

  “I see blue as a mysterious color,” Axel said. “I see you as having a lot of mystery.”

  “Hmm. Do you think that’s because you simply don’t know everything about my life?” Like the fact that I’m investigating the invasion of Madeline Saga’s gallery and the forging of her artwork? I looked down at the peach-colored heart shape on my left shoulder. It struck me that this body painting was a kind of art that would be impossible to forge.

  “No,” Axel said. “It’s true that I’ve only had the briefest amount of time with you, so of course, I don’t know even a fraction of you. Yet, I believe you don’t know everything about yourself, either.”

  That one stopped me. But he was right. I was discovering new things about myself all the time. My quickly changing life kept shifting things around, causing random revelations and never-before-imagined passions.

  I had certainly never imagined being part of the art world before, not like Pyramus, not the gallery and certainly not like this. Axel kept painting my breast. A cloud was there now, blue and lit with white. A plain red banner ran over the other side of my chest and twisted past the tree on my stomach, and down my right leg. One of my feet resembled a tangle of vines, laden with green grapes. My other was still black.

  “You seem like you know yourself very well,” I said. “You know what art you want to create, what it means, who you will work with.”

  He paused, brush in the air, the tip now coated white. Then he laughed. “I don’t feel that way.”

  “You don’t?”

  “Not most of the time. I worry that my artwork will begin to be viewed differently. I worry my best work is behind me.”

  I cleared my throat. “Excuse me, but you have your paint brush on my, um, breast. Please don’t say your best work is past you.”

  He laughed and laughed. So much, he had to put his palette down. He clapped his hands and looked at me. “No, this…” He drew a hand toward me. “This is going to be some of my very, very best.”

  He looked at me then. “You know you are an artist.”

  “How do you figure?”

  He pointed to my face. “You had done your own makeup before you got here. I saw it. You did that makeup. You selected colors, determined how much or how little. You shaded, you blotted. You made certain aspects of your face stand out.”

  I thought about it. “I guess that’s true.”

  He nodded, then pointed at my hair. “And you did this.”

  After the base painting was done, Axel had said he wanted my hair “massive and fiery.”

  Since I was always trying to tame my hair, I knew exactly what would pump it up. I’d teased and teased, and now it stood about six inches away from my head.

  A comfortable pause. I smiled at him. We started talking again, and we didn’t stop.

  51

  When it was over, it was a shock, as if a door had been opened fast, forcing cold to barrel inside. In reality, nothing about the studio or the physical surroundings had changed. But after finishing the painting, after Axel had been snapping with different cameras for two hours, it was simply over.

  I said as much to Axel. “This is just the death of this particular experience,” he replied. “At this point in time. That is all.”

  Still, a wave of sadness overcame me, then the feel of cold. Axel handed me a present wrapped in shiny silver paper. Inside was a thick, silk robe that bore a tag, Made by hand in Germany. The color was a burnt orange.

  “I always get these for my subjects. But I’ve never bought this color. I chose this for you before I knew too much about you. Only what Madeline had told me on the phone. But I see now the color is perfect.”

  I thanked him and slipped it on. “The color is perfect. Funny that you didn’t use this color at all in your painting.” I waved a hand up and down my body.

  “Too obvious.”

  We smiled at each other.

  “So you have some options,” Axel said to me. “We can take the paint off now or tomorrow or the next day. We can give you a special soap and you can do it yourself at home. Whatever you want.”

  Under the robe, I could still feel the paint, and strangely, I enjoyed it. Somewhere in the hours of the painting and the shoot, I had grown into the paint like a second skin. It felt like me—like all of me was represented in the images (even the parts, Axel had pointed out, that I didn’t even realize I had).

  I decided I wanted to show Madeline the painting. She was the one who had gotten me into this, after all.

  I told Axel I’d take the soap home. Eventually, I went back into the restroom, took off the robe and put on the dress I’d worn to the studio. I slipped on my long, black cashmere coat and my boots. I pulled my hair back. However, my face was painted black, covered in tiny stars. It would have to go. Using Axel’s soap, I took off the facial paint, then wound a scarf around my neck. When I was done, the body painting was completely covered.

  Before I left, Axel stood in the doorway and faced me. “May I say something?” he asked.

  I looked at him, nodded.

  “You are all these things,” he said, pointing to my body, referring to his painting. “You are all those things. And we must not be afraid of ourselves.” He said “our” and “selves” distinctly like two separate words. “You, Izzy, should certainly never be afraid or ashamed or angry at yourself. You are remarkable.”

  “So are you,” I said.

  We hugged and I thanked him. It was one of those goodbyes that might be the last or might be the beginning of many in a friendship.

 
; Outside, the city was abuzz with activity—many people still digging cars out of the snow, others ready to let off stress, packed the bars and restaurants.

  It took me a while to find a cab. Once inside, on the way to Madeline’s gallery, I kept thinking of Axel’s words. We must not be afraid of our selves.

  When I reached the gallery, it was dark. I looked at my phone and realized that it was more than an hour after closing time.

  “I didn’t realized how late it was,” I said to the security guard. He was there five nights a week. His brother took the other shifts. Because he was the evening guy, I didn’t know him except to say hello and listen to talk about his wife’s tamales (which sounded delicious).

  “She just came back, actually,” he said, jerking a thumb toward the gallery.

  “Madeline? Oh, great. Thanks.” I felt the paint then, and I wondered if he sensed something different in me, some shift, something lurking below the surface. But he just clicked the button under the desk to open the gallery door.

  When I stepped inside the gallery, I saw a light in the back. I walked toward it, feeling strange and wonderful in the dark gallery—a painting myself.

  When I reached the back room, Madeline was standing at the drawers where she kept various canvases. Unlike her usual daywear, Madeline was dressed in black jeans, black shirt and vest.

  When she looked up, she seemed surprised to see me.

  “I know it’s after hours,” I said, “but I just finished with Axel.”

  “Axel,” she said, blinking.

  “Axel Tredstone.”

  “Yes. Of course.” She didn’t seem as enthusiastic as before about my being painted.

  “So anyway, I just wanted to thank you,” I said. “It was such an incredible experience. I don’t know what the final images will look like, but the process was… it was exquisite.”

  Madeline nodded. “Exquisite. That is good.”

  She said it in a flat way. I didn’t know where her excitement for the project had gone. But then again, Madeline had more to worry about than her assistant’s fun-and-sexy foray into body painting. Suddenly my impulse, to show her Axel’s work, seemed silly and self-centered.