The Masterpiece

by Fiona Davis

  Over the weekend, the news of the bet had spread throughout the school, and she’d arrived at her illustration class heady with expectation. Yet Levon lumbered in late, shaking the hands of the students he knew, like a polished politician. She watched with irritation as her tiny class fell under his spell.

  Levon seemed to think that he could charm his way to a win. “I’m sorry to be late; my apologies to our venerated professor.”

  Gertrude giggled.

  “You may take any drawing table you like,” offered Clara.

  “So many to choose from.”

  He wandered about, taking his time, as if selecting the best seat in a restaurant. The man took up too much room. Not because of his height or build but because he simply demanded more attention than anyone else, which was saying a lot in a school for artists. Clara ignored his overacting and continued describing the day’s assignment.

  “I’d like you to take a close look at Renoir’s Luncheon of the Boating Party.” She placed a print of it on an easel and slid it forward. The work was one of her favorites, the way Renoir had captured the flirtation of youth, hands almost touching, languorous looks, a man with bare arms straddling a chair. The heat of a summer’s day seemed to rise from the painting’s surface. “You’re to rework this to the modern day and place a bottle of Coca-Cola in one of the subject’s hands.”

  A murmur went around the room. Gertrude spoke up. “Do we have to re-create the entire composition?”

  “No, you can narrow down your focus to whichever character or group appeals most to you.”

  Levon stood. “You cannot be serious.”

  “I am serious. If you want to focus on only one character, I understand.”

  He gasped a couple of times, like a fish on a hook. If he had gills, they’d be fanning themselves madly. This was far easier than she imagined.

  “This is blasphemy. You’re defiling a master. You can’t ask your students to do this; it’s not dignified.”

  “It sells soda.”

  “No, it doesn’t. This is a class, not the real world.”

  “For illustrators, there is no delineation. They may be asked to do something like this, so they might as well get used to it.” She paused. “You’re lucky I didn’t choose Les Demoiselles d’Avignon.”

  At the mention of his beloved Picasso, Levon almost levitated off the floor.

  “If you’d chosen that, I would have walked right out that door.”

  “And you would have lost the bet. Now, class, please get to work.”

  For some time, there was no sound other than pencils scribbling away, followed by the soft whoosh of brush on paper. Wilbur, true to form, grumbled every so often, but the girls stayed focused on the task at hand.

  “Watercolor is like a performance,” she said, speaking to no one in particular. “The wash is constantly changing, drying with every passing minute, and you must be able to move quickly, make a large field fast if you want the color to be consistent. The preparation—the right brush, the right amount of wash, the correct mix of colors—is key, but you must work with speed and confidence.”

  Levon lit a cigarette and sat back in his chair, gazing up at the ceiling. She ignored him and watched over Gertrude’s shoulder as she painted the orange flower on the woman’s hat. “Flowers are certainly your forte, Gertrude.”

  The girl smiled. “They’re my favorite.”

  Levon stubbed out his cigarette and leaned over the drawing board, pencil in hand.

  He drew a few quick strokes before leaping up and leaving the room.

  Was he throwing the bet? She sidled over and looked at his paper, where he’d deftly captured the figure of the man straddling the chair. But he hadn’t opened up one jar of paint yet.

  She checked her watch. He had plenty of time.

  What if he regretted the wager, of using her as his model? It had certainly been an impulsive declaration. What if, upon further thought, he’d come to the conclusion it would be a waste of time? Clara wasn’t a typical model. “A pair of large feet and hands attached to a string bean,” her mother used to say.

  Levon returned ten minutes later, took his seat, and picked up a brush.

  What did it matter what his motives were? She hardly knew him at all, and this bet was a means to an end.

  Much of Clara’s time was spent with Wilbur, helping him attain the flesh-colored tone of the faces. Finally, the bell sounded for the end of class.

  Levon squirmed in his chair, stood, and put on his coat. Clara walked over to his table, standing as tall as she possibly could, her spine long and stiff, and looked down at the paper. The other students, curious, gathered around her.

  He’d made so many mistakes she didn’t know where to begin. His impatience with the amount of time it took for one color to dry before working on the adjacent hue meant that they’d bled into one another, forming what seemed to be a hazy sunset, not a human being. The bottle of Coca-Cola looked like a bouquet of roses that had wilted in the heat. No advertiser would accept this. Her own students had done much better jobs.

  And he hadn’t thrown the bet. He was red-faced, fuming, and silent.

  “Interesting.” She couldn’t help herself. “An unusual approach.”

  He twirled about, grabbing the paper and ripping it in half. “Watercolor is a child’s medium.”

  She tried, and failed, to keep a satisfied smile from spreading across her face. “So you’ll speak with Mr. Lorette in the morning?”

  He took a deep breath and gave her the slightest nod before storming off.

  She’d won.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  November 1974

  Virginia ran as fast as her high heels could take her, away from the three men huddled together in the seventh-floor hallway of Grand Central. They yelled after her, calling her terrible names. She took the corner fast, slamming her knee into the opposite wall. A door a few yards away opened slowly, and she slid to a stop. One of them must have taken a shortcut, knowing she’d never make it to the elevator in time. It was over.

  But instead of a thug, the lawyer from this morning emerged. Mr. Huckle. He was wiping down his hands with a paper towel, on his way out of the men’s room. He looked as shocked to see her as she did him.

  He looked past her to her pursuers, and in a split second, his entire visage changed. He stood up, tall. Huge, in fact. She hadn’t noticed how enormous he was back in his office, surrounded by all the papers and books. He filled the narrow hallway like a boulder in a crevice.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he bellowed. Virginia ducked behind him, not sure if she should stay put or make a run for the elevator.

  “We’re cool, man. Just trying to help out a lost lady.” The three men began backing up almost immediately. Now that she had a chance to study them, she could see they were teenagers with acne over pallid skin, raging with testosterone-fueled bluster. She imagined Mr. Huckle barreling toward them, a bowling ball aimed at three skinny pins.

  “They were going to attack me,” whispered Virginia.

  Mr. Huckle glanced around at her. “Stay put. Don’t move.”

  One of the men swore. “We’re going, we’re going. Don’t get all bent outta shape.”

  “You’re going to be bent out of shape by the time I’m done with you. Get the hell out of here before I call the cops.”

  After they’d turned the corner, out of view, Mr. Huckle put a protective arm around Virginia. It felt heavy but good. “Are you all right? Did they hurt you?”

  She shook her head. “You appeared just in time.”

  “We better get out of here. Follow me.” He led her down the hall, around another corner—by now she was completely turned around—until they reached the door to the legal department. “What are you doing wandering around up here? Everything’s empty, closed up in this section.”r />
  “I took the wrong elevator trying to get back to my coat. I left it in the closet.”

  The shock of what she’d just been through hit home now that she was in the fluorescent lights of the offices, somewhere safe. Her mind replayed the scene in her head, the dank smell of the hallway, the shininess of their black leather jackets.

  Her head felt foggy. What was she supposed to do now? Get out of here. Virginia slid her coat off the hanger.

  “What were you doing here all day?” asked Mr. Huckle. “I didn’t see you.”

  “Kathleen sent me down to the information booth.”

  “Did she?” He frowned.

  “Yes. Since we didn’t work out. I’m sorry about that, by the way, Mr. Huckle.” She turned to leave.

  “Call me Dennis. You shouldn’t go out there alone. In fact, we should go to the police and report these guys. I don’t like the idea of them wandering around up here with the other office workers. Let’s go down and we’ll make a report, see if we can actually get them to do their jobs in this hellhole.”

  She looked at her watch. She was supposed to meet her friend Betsy in an hour. But if she didn’t do anything, her would-be attackers might waltz past the information booth one day and spot her. She was safe with Dennis. Nothing was going to happen to her as long as he was nearby, so she might as well keep him nearby for as long as possible.

  They took the elevator down to the mezzanine level and walked through a set of doors with the words TO VANDERBILT AVENUE / THE CAMPBELL APARTMENT etched in the marble above them. He cut a sharp left, and she followed him up a narrow set of stairs. The placard on the door read METRO-NORTH POLICE.

  Dennis greeted a man in a blue uniform who sat beneath a row of television monitors showing grainy black-and-white footage of train platforms. Cheap wood paneling divided the entryway from another, larger area behind him. In the smaller space, uneven shelves held files and binders, messier than in the information booth. Virginia stifled an impulse to straighten them out, clean up the messy piles. She hated to see disarray, which was why she avoided going into her daughter’s bedroom as much as possible, where bell-bottoms and peasant tops were strewn about like the cast of Hair had just cavorted by.

  A sliding window looked out into a holding pen. Inside, a couple of bums had arranged metal folding chairs as beds and were asleep or, more likely, passed out. One man groaned, and the police officer slammed the window shut.

  “Dennis, what’s going on?” asked the cop.

  “We had a problem up on seven. Couple of thugs tried to attack one of our employees.” He motioned to Virginia.

  The officer barely reacted. Just another day in the city. “Sorry to hear it. Let me call the sergeant, see if we can’t have some guys go up and do a sweep. Hold on a sec.” He picked up the phone, spoke in a thick Brooklyn accent to someone on the receiving end. “They’re on it. In the meantime, let me get you some paperwork to fill out; we’ll see if we can catch these guys.” He looked around and swore. “Be right back.”

  When they were alone, Dennis looked down at her, a reassuring smile on his face.

  She pretended her neck itched, covering her right breast with her arm. Her reflexive, protective gesture. Chester had hated when she did that. He’d tell her to sit up straight, stop worrying so much, that she looked fine.

  They’d lived what she thought was a wonderful life together until he went to a party in the Village one Friday night on a whim, dragged downtown by two winsome girls from the secretarial pool in his office. What he saw there, he said, opened his eyes to his own true nature. He didn’t want to be pinned down anymore; he wanted his freedom instead. The timing of his ridiculous announcement, just a few years after her recovery, had left Virginia dizzy and breathless. He’d insisted it had nothing to do with her disfigurement, but she’d known better. He’d taken her to the Oyster Bar for dinner one night—probably on his way to some key party up in Connecticut—and told her it was over. She’d shielded herself with her arm, sat back in her chair and looked up at the vaulted ceiling, wondering if it would amplify her screams. But she hadn’t screamed. Just looked at him, agreed, insisted that they tell Ruby together.

  Chester hadn’t settled down with one woman, and for that she’d been grateful. She hadn’t been replaced by a younger, prettier version. She’d heard through the grapevine that he’d cycled through dozens of girls and was living the high life.

  “Have some water.” Dennis reached over to the water cooler propped up in the corner, filled a paper cone, and handed it to her. “You okay?”

  “I think I’m a little freaked-out, to be honest.” She took a sip, stifling a giggle. “My daughter always tells me I have the wrong reaction to things. Like laughing at a funeral, crying at a funny movie. My ex-husband would tell me that I tend to babble on when I’m nervous. Talk, talk, talk. And sometimes hum. Boy, that drove him crazy. Because I can’t keep a tune. Or is it hold a tune?”

  She was making a fool of herself.

  “Try me. Hum something, and let’s see if I can recognize it.”

  Lips pursed, she launched into the chorus of “Seasons in the Sun,” which had been circling around her brain ever since it came out.

  Dennis listened, blinking with concentration. “‘Time in a Bottle’?”

  She shook her head. “No! Oh dear. It’s that one about—” She stopped herself mid-sentence. “I’m sorry I’m taking up so much of your time; you must want to get home to your family.”

  “Don’t worry about it. I’m divorced, so there’s no rush to get back to my place in Yonkers.”

  “Yonkers?” She’d imagined him, like all the lawyers she knew, living on the Upper East Side or off in the distant suburbs.

  “Where my family’s from originally. I live near my ma, take care of her. Probably why I’m getting divorced, if you want to know the truth.”

  As he spoke, he rolled up his shirtsleeves, exposing thick forearms. She’d always been a sucker for a rolled-up sleeve on a man. Something about the thatch of short hairs against a crisp white shirt made her knees wobble. “How did you become a lawyer?”

  “Studied, got into City College and then Fordham Law.”

  “My ex-husband is a lawyer. Columbia.” Even though they’d been divorced for a year, she still sometimes dropped that into conversation, out of habit. As if they were still a unit and his accomplishments were synonymous with her own. Dennis didn’t seem all that impressed, which made her like him more. “How long have you been working for Penn Central?”

  “Since I got out of law school. Started as an associate. With this lawsuit still pending against the Landmarks Commission, it’s been crazy, but there’s a light at the end of the tunnel.”

  “Why’s there a lawsuit?”

  “The Landmarks Commission says that Penn Central has to keep the terminal exactly like it is. Which is absurd. The place is a money pit. If all goes according to plan and we win this case, I’m going to be promoted to head of the department.”

  One of the guys in the holding cell began to moan. She wondered if the cop was ever going to come back, but in a way, she didn’t mind. “What’s the big plan?”

  “Once we shoot down the notion that the terminal is protected by landmark status, we’re going to put up a new skyscraper on this very spot. Fifty-five stories. It’s going to be massive. The city will give us a huge tax write-off for improving the district, and we’ll be making serious money from the rent. Much better than this old mausoleum.” He gestured around him.

  “They’d tear it down, like Penn Station?” A little less than ten years ago, she’d been as surprised as many others in the city to find that Penn Station, a glass jewel of a train hub, was to be demolished. The few voices raised in protest had made no difference.

  “The new building will rip through part of it, the side facing Forty-Second Street, and rest on top, like a hen sitting on i
ts eggs.” To demonstrate, Dennis held out one hand in a fist and settled the other lightly on top of it. His fingernails were trimmed and clean.

  She studied the odd shape formed by Dennis’s hands, unable to picture what he described. A couple of years ago, Betsy had insisted Virginia join her in signing up for the ladies’ committee to Preserve Old New York, or PONY, as it was known. They met in a member’s overdecorated living room once a month and listened to a guest speaker, nodding with concern while getting buzzed on generous pours of rosé. The day of the Grand Central lecture, the historian described how Cornelius Vanderbilt constructed the original station, called Grand Central Depot, in 1871, and that the one that stood today was completed in 1913. He showed them photos of the pristine waiting room right after it was built and the Whispering Gallery, where the unique design of the vaulted ceiling carried even the smallest sound to the opposite corner. The historian, surveying the room of tipsy wives, had proclaimed that women, in particular, should recall that whispers carry and can have tremendous power, even if their voices were weaker than a man’s. Virginia wasn’t sure if he was being encouraging or chauvinistic.

  Still, Grand Central had such a rich history. “You’re putting a modernist skyscraper on top of a beaux arts building. Won’t that look strange?”

  “It’s the future. The city’s got to move forward. At the moment, there’s a ton of empty space in here that’s completely unusable. That’s lost revenue for Penn Central.”

  Like the art school.

  She thought of Terrence and his clerks. “What about the employees who work for the railroad?”

  “Anything to do with the trains gets buried underground. The terminal goes down ten stories, so there’s a lot of room to play with. Next time you come up to my office, I’ll show you a model of the new building. Incredible. Hey, if you play your cards right, I’ll get you a cushy job.”

  “As long as I don’t have to do stenography.”