by Alex Dolan
When Paire first met Derek Rosewood, he’d spoken about the role of the artist as a social agitator. She’d believed him at the time, and she was sure that others still thought of him that way. When they took a gander at this illustration, those people would marvel at the biting commentary on how the privileged gawk at humans behind glass cases while ignoring the real crisis of humanity happening right outside these tourist attractions. They would be indignant at others’ inclination to objectify the disenfranchised. Before she really knew Rosewood, she would have been one of those people. Now, she saw it for what it was—a mischievous prank. She loved it.
“If you’re not already moving, get moving,” Rosewood’s voice said through her radio.
She realized she’d been lingering, and headed toward the exit. Momentarily stopping in a corner between the cameras, a corner they had identified in previous walkthroughs, she went into the same bathroom where she’d changed. In the handicapped stall, she stripped off the uniform top the way she had in practice, along with the belt. Pinching herself as she undid the clips, she slid off the wig, bunched it all, and stuffed it in the trash. At the mirror, she undid her ponytail, shook out the red hair, and hastily applied scarlet lipstick.
When she came out of the bathroom, people looked at her differently, the way she liked being looked at in New York.
She had to pass the Hall of Human Origins to get to the exit. A collective of people had already gathered to see Homeless Erectus, and a few camera flashes reflected off the glass case. Real guards in real uniforms kept people at bay with outstretched arms, and Paire felt some pride that she had aped their mannerisms accurately.
She continued out through the Grand Gallery, underneath the sixty-foot Native American canoe that hung from the ceiling. She almost made it through the doors when a guard called to her. “Ma’am. Ma’am. Ma’am!”
She froze in her tracks and slowly pivoted. A large guard stood within arm’s reach. She saw the embroidered museum shield before she looked up at his face.
He gave her an expectant look. “You know this is an exit only. If you want to come back, you’ll have to go through another entrance.”
Paire exhaled.
“That’s all right. I’m ready to go outside.”
Chapter 12
Abel Kasson marched into the Fern Gallery. “I enjoyed the bit at the museum. I especially liked how Derek Rosewood chose not to mock his benefactor this time.” He cast his eyes down at her legs. “You look healthy, like you’ve been getting some exercise.”
“I’ve been rock climbing,” Paire said.
Kasson patted his stomach fat. “You’d never know it, but I was a handsome man when I was younger. An Olympian body. I may have packed on some insulation, but I’m still strong all over.” He winked at Paire, and she broke eye contact. Unable to control herself, she shivered. “See? That’s what I mean. I can’t spark any magic in you. But the day you walked into the gallery, I saw how you changed when you saw Her. You were bewitched by that painting. You still are. I can see it in you.”
“You’re the one who wants to buy it.” Normally, this would have been Mayer’s sort of response, but his impatience with Kasson had rubbed off on her. Her tone had changed since she’d last spoken to Kasson and was rougher, more defiant.
Paire suspected Kasson had chosen this time because he knew Mayer wouldn’t be there.
“Of course I want to buy it. The empress bewitches me, same as you.” He stole a lingering glance at the portrait behind her. “This is why I want to talk to you. Because you understand as I do the—well, unnatural allure of this work. And because you have Mayer’s ear.”
“So you’re hoping I’ll pass a note to Mayer for you?”
“He will listen to you. She will too. The fact that she was willing to talk to you and not Mayer is telling. She’s comfortable with you, or at least, more comfortable with you than the rest of us. She might listen to reason.”
In truth, Paire hadn’t spoken directly to Melinda Qi since that awkward kiss.
She thought, If you really wanted Mayer’s ear, you’d talk to Lucia. She wondered if Kasson knew that Mayer and Lucia were a couple, but she would never hint at it aloud. “I think you’d be better off making your own arguments.”
“There’s something in it for you,” he said.
“A bribe?”
“In your profession, they would probably call it a commission. But I’m not talking about money.” He leered at her. “I’m saying that it’s in your interest to get rid of that painting.”
“How’s that?”
“You see what happens to people around it. Mayer’s been able to shut himself off from it, but you haven’t. You’re never going to own it—you must realize that—and if you don’t own it, all you’re left with is a constant temptation eating away at you. It will slowly poison you, like living next to a power plant.”
“Do I seem like I need help?” She sounded as tough as she could.
Kasson shook his head in mocking amusement. “You’re going to wake up with six toes and a prehensile tail, and you won’t even understand how they got there.”
“If you know it’s so dangerous, why do you want it?”
“I have two things in my favor. First, I can control my own urges. I’ve reached an age when I’m not governed by my passions. Others—like you, for instance—will surrender to them like an addiction. And second…” he savored this, “…you’re never going to have her. Because I will.”
“You have as much chance of owning that painting as I do.”
“Is that a fact?”
“That’s what I’ve been told.”
At this point Kasson must have understood that she was not going to help him. “There’s always a way, Miss Anjou. Just don’t get too attached. You’ll miss her when she’s gone.”
Chapter 13
Early that evening, Paire and Rosewood lay on their mattress. She could smell the toxic stench of fear on herself. Her armpits reeked of skunk and spoiled milk. She didn’t usually smell like anything, and this was a point of pride for Paire. Stress was giving her B.O. To cloak it, she’d borrowed some of Lucia’s perfume.
Rosewood was too polite to call attention to the bad smells, so he asked about the good ones. “Are you wearing new perfume?”
“It’s Lucia’s. For what it costs, it could be liquid gold.”
Over the last few weeks her stress had mounted. Kasson had been right. The painting seeped into her day by day, heightening her preoccupation with it.
Her escapades with Rosewood and crew gave her a whiff of elation that lasted a few days, during which she stopped dreaming about the Empress Xiao Zhe Yi. But then, as they always did, the dreams returned. The same dream with the rushing river, where Paire drowned in the current. Starting on the banks of the river, and ending when Paire was lost in the tangle of lobster traps. When she woke, the imagined smell of the empress clung to her, a complex perfume of babies and the lilacs she’d remembered from Abenaki.
Paire had continued compulsively rendering hand and foot sketches, as if every day might be the last time she saw the portrait. When she drew the face, the lips were too thick, the eyes slightly Europeanized. More like Melinda. She despised her sketches, and referred to them as “cave paintings.” Just the same, Rosewood taped them up on the walls, a vast feathering of drawings on the eggshell plaster across the bedroom. The face seemed a composite of the Chinese empress and Qi’s daughter, and failed to capture the essence of either. But it was enough to remind Paire of both.
Paire had become insatiable for Rosewood’s mouth, and when he went down on her, his tongue circling her clitoris, she stared at the hand-drawn face on the wall, a distant cousin of royalty. When she came it was sometimes with the woman, not the man.
She had felt closer to Rosewood after his guerrilla stunts, bonded together by ordeal. Sex intensified with the thrill of the crimes. They wore each other out, eager to celebrate the success of their survival.
They
lay naked on top of the sheets, Paire feeling pungent. In her guilty reverie, chest still billowing from the sex, she said, “My dad was in prison.” She had shared this with Melinda Qi, but not with him.
“I’m sorry. That’s the worst thing that can happen to someone.”
She was surprised. “The worst?”
“To be captive? I’d rather die,” he said. “So he’s out now?”
“They let him out when I was thirteen. He was in for twelve years.”
Normally someone might have asked, So, what did he do?, but Rosewood said, “Is that why you’re afraid to take that painting? You’re worried you’ll get put away like your dad? Worried you’ll be like him?” They had joked about stealing the Empress Xiao Zhe Yi. In passing. Nothing serious. Maybe she liked to joke about it more than Rosewood.
“That’s part of it, sure.”
“Was he a thief?”
“Not exactly. But he was a criminal,” she said.
“Did he hurt people?”
Now that she’d come out with it, she regretted having said anything. “Tried to hurt someone.”
“Twelve years. That’s a big hurt.”
“Yes, it was.”
“Was it your mom?”
“No, she was already dead.” Again, she immediately regretted having said this. The street sounds from Pierrepont suddenly seemed louder. Traffic, random shouts, and dog barks distracted her like gnats.
Rosewood gently pressed his palm against the side of her head, stroking her cheek with his thumb and then coiling her hair around his fingers. “Do you think we’re hurting anyone with these installations?” he asked.
“On the contrary.”
“It’s not so different,” he said.
“You’re trying to convince me to commit a crime.”
“I’m trying to get you to make a decision. I’d be satisfied with whatever choice you make.”
By now, Paire had told him everything she knew about Qi and the Kasson family. She’d assumed that as a prominent artist, Rosewood would have heard the story, but he hadn’t heard squat. He’d only been to the MAAC once, and other than receiving money from Abel, he had no interaction with the Kassons.
She had also told him about the kiss with Melinda. This wasn’t a confession. Paire didn’t feel like she’d betrayed Rosewood, but she felt strange about the experience. How abruptly she left, and whether she had hurt Melinda’s feelings. Of course, in the retelling, Paire had been a passive participant, which was mostly true. But she omitted that once the initial shock of the other woman’s lips passed, Paire Anjou might have, for just a few moments, kissed back, softening her own lips and even opening her mouth just enough so her tongue might flick against Melinda’s. Paire didn’t know what purpose it would serve to tell Rosewood this—either it would titillate him or it would hurt his feelings. When she asked, “What do you think?” he had said, “I’m in the art world…I’ve seen two women kiss. How do you think she feels?”
In that moment, when Rosewood worried about Melinda rather than stewing about the relationship, or worse yet, succumbing to erotic fantasy, Paire knew that she loved this man.
She thought about how safe she felt resting beside him. How easy it was to play with dangerous ideas.
He asked, “Kasson said he was going to steal it himself?”
“Not exactly, but there are only so many ways you can acquire a piece of art. If not by purchase or trade….Do you think he would? He’s mostly hot air.”
“I don’t know. You don’t get to where he is without doing something bad. He has influence, and he makes things happen. I’m not saying he’s going to break into an art gallery himself—although I’d sure like to see what that would look like—but he’s got enough people on payroll to do it for him.”
“So I should steal it before he does?” Her brain spun as she imagined herself in the Fern, dressed in some head-to-toe unitard.
“Melinda Qi told you that painting is a burden. I think you’d be doing her a favor.”
She teased, “How do I know you don’t want it? Something to hang up next to the Murakami.”
“I couldn’t care less about the painting. It’s just a painting. If you learn nothing else from me, learn this—a piece of art only has value because of what people ascribe to it. Qi’s work is impressive, but the world will keep spinning without it. I’m more interested in seeing you become the person you want to be, and that happens when you take risks. Sometimes big risks. And I’m warming to the idea because it would have more value to you than it would to either Melinda Qi or Abel Kasson. You draw inspiration from it. That says something.”
Paire couldn’t believe he was talking so casually about this. “I can’t do it.”
“Then don’t.”
They lay in a comfortable sloth, where the words spilled out effortlessly between them. She said, “I get the sense that Mel’s going to get rid of it somehow—she’ll either cave to Kasson’s bid, or it’ll go somewhere else. Maybe a museum. Maybe storage.”
“You might not see it again,” he said, without much emotion. “That’s the upshot, isn’t it?”
This was exactly the dilemma. At some point, that painting would be sold, stored, donated, or stolen, and Paire’s inspiration would vanish. Selfishly, she allowed herself the delusion of picturing what the empress would seem like here in the apartment, hanging over the bed, serving as an aphrodisiac to them, and steering her ability to find her creative voice.
“I thought you didn’t want me thinking about the painting. I thought that’s what the rock climbing and the guerrilla stuff was all about.”
“All that stuff was giving you a taste for what you can do on your own. The more you become your own person, the less likely you’ll be to obsess over someone else. All I’m trying to do is help you make your own choices. That is the very essence of independence.”
“You think I obsess over it,” she said.
“I’m teasing you a bit, but there’s a bit of truth to it, don’t you think? If it’s gone, you might pine over the thing even more. She’s the one that got away!”
She poked him between the ribs. “Stop it.”
“I’m just trying to get you to recognize it for what it is—an impressive piece of work, but not the be all and end all. I think it’s important that you demystify it, so you can move on.”
He was being gentle with her, but it still stung. It stung because she couldn’t deny the obsession. Paire afforded the luxury of weekly manicures and pedicures now, to try and perfect her hands and feet the way she’d seen those depicted on the birch board. “Another pedicure,” Rosewood would comment each time.
Now he said, “You think that painting is magical. In the short term maybe that’s not so bad, because it’s motivated you to create your own work. But sooner or later, you’ll realize it’s not all magic. Something is going to prove it to you. That’s not a bad thing either, because at that moment, you’ll realize that creating something that good doesn’t have to come down from the mountaintop. It’s just as human as eating and crapping—and that means it’s within your reach too. But the downside is that I’m worried it’s going to wreck you when that happens. Now, maybe Melinda Qi will take it back into her collection where no one will ever see it again. Maybe she’ll sell it, and you’ll realize it’s just another commodity that gets bought and sold. When that happens, your heart is going to break.”
Paire imagined how she would feel hearing that news, and knew he was correct.
“Something is going to pop the bubble. If it has to happen, and I think eventually it will happen, maybe it’s not so bad that you have a hand in it, so you can prove to yourself that great art is human and not divine.”
She stared at the wall across the bed, the blank space next to where the Murakami hung. The empress wouldn’t feel right next to Mr. DOB. She would need her own wall. Paire pictured how the woman would look, red cheongsam daringly open, confidently presiding over them. How that would look when she woke up, an
d how it might energize her. The work she might create. The endorphins made her tremble, and that surge of pleasure scared her. She made excuses for why they shouldn’t steal the painting. “I’d get caught.”
“I’d help you.”
“We’d get caught.”
Rosewood laughed and softly pinched her earlobe. “We infiltrated a national museum. Do you really think we couldn’t get in and out of a tiny gallery? It’s not the Met.”
“The security system is good.”
He feigned surprise. “Oh, they have one of those? So they don’t keep the door open at night and let the raccoons in?”
“No. It’s seriously good.”
“You set the alarm at night. So you can disable it.”
This had recently changed. Paire had now worked at the Fern Gallery long enough for Mayer to trust her. Whoever was closing with Paire, be it Lucia or Mayer, took turns shutting down the computer and gathering up paperwork while the other person went to the back and armed the system. In theory, she could leave it disarmed. It would be quite simple, really. “They have cameras.”
“I have a ski mask,” he said.
“So now you’re the thief, instead of me.”
“If you want me to be. I would do it for you. I just need you to ask. Embrace your freedom of choice.”
The hair on her arms rose. Talking like this made her feel a little drunk. Paire’s heart jumped. She was struck by how easily Rosewood might risk himself for her. They kissed softly with wet, open mouths. “So I would unlock the back door too, I suppose?”
“No, too obvious. You lock the back door. I would bust open the door with a crowbar. A break-in like any other. Except when I get inside, the alarm won’t sound. I could steal a few pieces, a few Derek Rosewoods,” he sniggered, “so it wouldn’t be too obvious someone was just after the red queen. It’d just seem like a straight-up art robbery. You’ve already had one attempt. Is it so hard to imagine someone would try something more sophisticated than a rock through the window?”
