False Impressions

by Laura Caldwell

  “Are you okay, Madeline?” I asked.

  “Yes. I’m okay.” She looked back at the drawer, avoiding my gaze. She was speaking a bit strangely, using few words.

  “I’m sorry you’re going through this, Madeline,” I said. “I know the thefts and forgeries have been very painful for you.”

  Her eyes stared intently into mine now. “Painful. Yes.”

  “Well, let me know if you want to talk about it.” I made my voice as welcoming as possible, but in truth, I was feeling the same way as I had when she told me she’d given Syd information about the forgeries and our investigation—like I had less faith in her than before.

  She said nothing.

  “I’ll get going,” I said.

  She nodded. “Yes. I’ll go soon, too.”

  52

  The next morning, Sunday morning, I lounged in bed thinking about my time with Axel Tredstone. But often my thoughts returned to Madeline. Was she cracking under the pressure? Was she all right?

  Yet, as I thought of her in her back room after hours, at the drawers where canvases were kept, that image kept striking me, or maybe it was that fact that she was in her gallery, after hours, with canvases that could be rolled up and easily taken away.

  What if…what if…what if Madeline, herself, had something to do with the paintings going missing and being forged?

  Maybe she needed money. Or maybe she loved art as much as Mayburn said she did, and she wanted to keep the real things for herself. I’d never even been to her home. It was near the lake, I knew, somewhere around Astor Street. Were the walls in those rooms laden with the most amazing collection of original art, stolen from her own gallery? What if the inheritance money was gone, or she had exaggerated the amount? Or made up the whole thing? Did she need money? If so, had she quickly rid herself of the originals on the black market?

  I got up, padded into my kitchen and called Mayburn.

  “It’s not Saga,” he said, even before I could get out my potential theories.

  “No, listen to me.” I laid out my thoughts.

  “She absolutely does not need the money,” he said.

  I kept talking.

  He interrupted with a sigh, frustrated and, I sensed, disappointed in me. “I can’t believe you don’t see it,” he said.

  “See what?” I asked.

  “That she would never do what you’re saying. And I can’t believe that you don’t see her love for the art.”

  “I have seen it. And I wonder if it’s so strong it could cause her to do something she wouldn’t usually.”

  He said nothing. He didn’t refute me. “I can tell you that she wouldn’t send herself a sculpture of a knife in flesh, or whatever that shit was.”

  “Well, we know the sculpture was created by someone with talent, right? Madeline and Syd both said as much—that it required skill to make.”

  “So?” Mayburn said.

  “So someone either commissioned it or made it.”

  “It’s not…” He paused, and then that pause went on, as if he were seriously considering something. “It’s not Saga.”

  I said nothing. I didn’t have to. I’d heard the pause. And he had, too.

  “Hang with her,” he said. “As much as you can.”

  53

  I called her cellphone.

  “Okay,” Madeline answered, without any other greeting. “Tell me about the shoot.”

  She sounded like her good mood was back.

  “Feeling okay today?” I asked.

  “Great,” she said definitively.

  She sounded so different from her remote mood of last night. I was happy to feel the connection I had thought was building between us again. I summarized the experience as best I could, and as she responded I felt excited, too, at being able to share the experience, especially with someone who understood it well. Maybe better than I did, myself.

  “Are you still wearing the paint?” she asked.

  “I am. I slept in the silk robe that Axel gave me and it doesn’t seem to have rubbed away.”

  I thought about Mayburn telling me to spend as much time with Madeline as possible. I also thought about that pause of Mayburn’s. What if this whole “investigation” Madeline had brought to him was an elaborate hoax to cover up the fact that she was the thief?

  But aside from the suspicions that had slowly grown, I didn’t need Mayburn telling me to hang out with Madeline. In fact, the more time I spent with her, the more I realized how much more I wanted to know about her. I really liked her.

  “You really should see Axel’s work,” I said.

  “I absolutely want to see it. Meet me at the gallery?”

  The gallery was closed on Sunday, so I’d have time to talk with Madeline for a while.

  “Sure,” I said.

  “I’ll see you in an hour.”

  When I got there, Madeline was in the front of the gallery, and I could tell immediately that she was truly back in her usual form.

  “Tell me all the details,” she said. She was dressed in orange jeans, boots and a gray sweater. She was smiling. She asked question after question, wanting to know more about the painting and the shoot.

  I had worn a long skirt with a sweater and my silk scarf. Finally, Madeline gestured at my outfit. “Are you going to show me?” Something about her voice was sultry, fun.

  I laughed.

  “You don’t have to, you know,” she said. “You really don’t.”

  “I want to show you,” I said. Living in the skin Axel had painted had grown more and more art. And maybe viewing it would draw out something in Madeline, something that would help me determine if she was part of the theft.

  “Come on back,” Madeline said.

  In the back room, in the far left corner, was a green-lacquered screen that sometimes hid equipment and installation props. Madeline nodded at it.

  I stepped behind the screen, moving aside a large, round photography light. I slipped off my boots then my skirt. I pulled the sweater over my head. I hadn’t worn a bra for fear it would rub off the paint. I had brought the robe from Axel, and I hung it over the screen.

  When I was nude, I covered my painted breasts with one arm in a half-hearted show of modesty, then stepped from behind the screen.

  Madeline turned. She gasped, her hands flying to her heart and took a few steps toward me. “This is some of his best work.” She took my hand gently, and the movement seemed to cause my own hand and arm, those that covered my chest, to slowly unfurl from my body.

  Madeline studied the arm she held, taking in everything. “These,” she pointed at a series of lavender teardrops. I hadn’t quite figured out what those meant. “These are…” She sighed, seemingly unable to find words.

  She peered at the painted blue ribbons that wound around my biceps. “And these,” she said, cocking her head. “Do these mean anything to you?”

  I laughed. “I didn’t tell Axel anything about him, but my boyfriend…ex-boyfriend…Theo—”

  Madeline nodded. I’d mentioned Theo the first night we went out.

  “Well, Theo had red ribbons tattooed on his biceps. It was one of the things that fascinated me about him.”

  Madeline shook her head in wonderment. “Theo is a part of you,” she said.

  I nodded. “He is.”

  Slowly she went through the other parts of Axel’s painting—murmuring brilliant about the circle of flesh on my stomach and the black tree painted inside. She exclaimed over the vines on my foot, the peach heart on my left shoulder.

  I pointed at that heart. “This color reminds me of the way the light sometimes comes in the studio. You know when it gives off orange-ish flashes.”

  “I do know what you mean. I thought I was the only one who noticed. It only started happening in the last few months.”

  “Maybe that’s because you got your first snow at your new gallery, and it reflects the sun differently.”

  “Exactly,” Madeline said, and I felt proud that I ha
d contributed to the discussion.

  Madeline took a step back. “Truly one of Axel’s best works,” she said, sighing happily. “How long are you going to keep the paint on?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. What’s the protocol?”

  “There isn’t any. But you know…” Her voice was mischievous. “Some women have said they’ve left the paint on. And had sex.”

  I felt my eyebrows shoot to my forehead. “That would require the right kind of guy, I think.”

  “Yes, a worthy and interested recipient.” She nodded. “What about Jeremy?”

  I shook my head. “We’re not there yet. And after Corinne’s visit…” I told Madeline what I’d been thinking about yesterday, that maybe Corinne could have been the cause of the forgeries and thefts.

  Madeline paused. For a long time. “Perhaps. We’re not friends,” she said. “She, not her husband, has been the driving force behind their purchases here. She has an excellent eye. But it was Jeremy I became friends with.”

  It struck me then that Corinne might have another motive. “Do you think she was angry about your friendship with him?”

  “I don’t know.” Madeline’s brow furrowed. Her lips pursed. “On one hand, it would make me feel better if that were the case, because I’m under the impression that someone I know did this to me. And yet, as I told you, to my knowledge, none of my friends would do this.”

  But would you do it, Madeline?

  Madeline shook her head, taking short, fast breaths. “Let’s return to the topic at hand.” She smiled, glanced up and down my body. “So Jeremy is out.”

  “Right. In addition to everything else, I wouldn’t want to be wearing this—” I waved a hand up and down my body “—the first time I was intimate with someone.” I noticed that I still felt entirely comfortable nude, discussing the paint on my body.

  “I see what you mean,” Madeline said. “The sex would be fabulous, but you’d never be able to get it out of your minds.”

  “Never. And it could be difficult to top. I mean, where do you go from there?”

  “Yes, I see.” We were both quiet for a second. “Theo?” she said. “Could you reach back into the past?”

  “Theo would be perfect,” I said. The idea of it was so powerful I almost swooned. I would have fantasy material for the rest of my life with that one. “But he’s out of the country.”

  Out of habit, I thought of Sam and mentioned him. “But I don’t think this is his thing,” I told Madeline. “And we’re not friends with benefits like some exes are.” Like you and Syd are.

  Then, for some bizarre reason, I thought of Vaughn. Body art? Definitely—definitely—not his thing. And why was I even thinking about Vaughn in this context? Apparently, Axel’s work had opened me to even more possibilities than I thought.

  Madeline studied me again. She crouched and looked at a flag that covered one of my calves. She spent some time behind me, studying my back, most of which was covered with stars.

  I checked in with myself to see if I was starting to feel awkward, but I felt nothing of the kind. One of the reasons for art—I’d learned from Madeline—was to open up your universe to those different planes. On me, Madeline was seeing something different, and in the act of her appreciating me, I was doing that, as well.

  “It is too bad,” she said, when she’d reached the front of me again. “That Theo is out of town.”

  “Oh, it is. It really is.” I almost couldn’t let myself think about what that experience would be like. I might self-combust.

  “You do not seem angry,” she said, “to have had him move away?”

  “No. I understood why he had to move.” I slid my arms back into the robe that Axel had given me as I talked, but left it open. I told Madeline more about Theo, that he was a wanderer right now, a seeker, moving from Australia to Thailand. I told her that he was an only child and mentioned that he’d been betrayed by his parents.

  Madeline listened, very carefully, an ear sometimes leaning toward me as if to soak up my words as much as she could.

  “He’s been through a lot of things that are going to leave their mark,” I said.

  “Yes,” Madeline said. “Of course. I loved my adopted parents very much. I am even glad that I did not grow up in Japan—I love America—but I have always felt something was missing. Always.”

  She stopped and looked at me. “But perhaps everyone feels that way as a child?”

  I thought about it. I had grown up without my father, and yet I’d never felt that something was missing from me. I told Madeline as much.

  “Now, my mom,” I continued, “she always had this…”

  “…this sense,” Madeline finished for me. She nodded deeply.

  “I don’t know that Theo felt that missing element,” I said.

  “I not only knew something was missing,” Madeline said, “but I felt betrayed by my Japanese parents, too. At least until the inheritance.”

  “What happened then?”

  “That gift made me realize that I was someone who had mattered to my biological family. They just couldn’t be with me when I was born.”

  “Yeah.” I nodded. “I understand why my father left.” I shrugged. “It’s complex.”

  Madeline’s mouth lifted in a small smile, her eyes meeting mine. They were deeply brown, but they had a ring of hazel. They were like pieces of art.

  “Yes, Isabel,” she said. “It’s complexity you speak of. And you’re right. I believe that we, as humans, have more capacity for this trait than we think. We have evolved to the point where, with practice, we are able to hold all those things—love, lack of trust, disgust, wild-eyed surprise and more—at the same time.”

  I thought about it. “I agree. But that’s pretty hard.”

  She nodded again. “Of course. You must stay open.”

  I thought about that, too. “I keep parts of me open, I suppose. I love both Sam and Theo, for example, and yet if I look deep and I admit it, I am still a little angry at each of them.”

  “Precisely,” she said. “It might have been easier to have shut Sam or Theo out of your life.”

  I nodded. “I could have just lopped them off, told both of them that I didn’t want to speak to either of them.”

  “Like cutting off a big hunk of meat,” Madeline said. “And with it so might have gone that anger.”

  We both paused then. I think we were both thinking of the sculpture with the knife in it that she’d received at the gallery.

  “But it is so much more interesting to test the limits of what you can handle,” Madeline said. “And so you chose the harder road, by staying open to experience. And yet that is the experience that, I hope for you, is more enjoyable.”

  I didn’t have to think about it long. “Yes, that’s true.”

  “You do not have to kill a part of your life in order to pass by it. Or enjoy another part of your life. In my estimation,” she said, “tolerance is an honorable guest to have at the table in your world.”

  I smiled at her. I’d grown fond of the way Madeline spoke in images, fashioning them and other concepts from whatever raw material was around her.

  She caught my smile and returned it. Once again, I could see who Mayburn had fallen in love with—a beautiful woman who, when she wanted, turned every bit of her energy onto you. And bathing in that felt good. It was an alive feeling—fierce but gentle, private but all-inclusive, as if you could somehow feel all of yourself, all of her. And really? All of everyone in the city at the same time.

  Madeline glanced down for a second and a shiny pane of black hair swung over her face, momentarily hiding her from view.

  She took a step toward me, one barely perceptible.

  Even if I hadn’t seen Madeline step closer to me, I would have felt the nearness of her. My body tingled suddenly, as if every cell had realized that we were here for a reason. For something special. Another step and another and suddenly Madeline was immediately in front of me. She was shorter than me, bu
t wore high-heeled, patent-leather booties. And so we were nearly eye to eye.

  What is happening here?

  I closed my eyes for a moment, and felt Madeline’s hair brush my cheek. It felt like the softest silk, the most fragile strands of life. She smelled exotic and delicate at the same time. I decided not to open my eyes.

  The next thing I felt was her mouth. On mine.

  54

  I had never kissed a woman before.

  I was used to men—men like Jeremy, who placed his hands on my face, bringing me to him. And Theo, who would use his own hands to raise me up as we kissed, my legs wrapping around his waist. But this kissing with Madeline? It was curious, young, fun, sweet, new. In a way, it felt like I did when I was thirteen and I kissed a boy for the first time in his parents’ closet.

  The experience had the same surreal qualities—What is this? Is it really happening? Why?

  That last question was one I hadn’t actually thought the first time I kissed a boy. That thought—why?—was only here. With Madeline.

  Somehow we were drawn into the front room of the gallery. She kissed me again. Again, I had some ringing bell that said, Why is this happening? Why now?

  I pulled back from her, looking at her face, wanting to be suspicious and yet feeling strangely comfortable, the way a dream is when you know it’s just a dream and it’s okay to enjoy it while it lasts.

  And then the light shifted, introducing a tangerine color from outside. We both pulled back, a little surprised. We both turned and blinked at the window.

  “That’s it!” I said. “That’s the orange flash of color we were talking about.”

  “Exactly,” Madeline said. But then she frowned, peered. She moved quickly to the glass and put her hands and face to it. “Jacqueline?”

  “Jacqueline?” I repeated, not knowing who or what she meant. Then, when it hit me, “Jacqueline Stoddard, the owner of the gallery across the street?”

  Madeline nodded.

  When I looked closer, it was apparent. Jacqueline Stoddard, wearing her orange-peach coat, was standing outside the gallery. She looked startled. She spun around.

  That was when Madeline broke the spell, when she turned away from me and walked outside.