Mrs. Leibowitz died.”
“Who cares about some old lady?” snarled Guy.
“Art is what matters. Get me the fucking million-dollar skull.”
A moment later, I did just that. It was in my kitchen cabinet exactly where Brian had said it would be. I pulled it out and it winked at me, as if acknowledging our old secrets. I handed it to Guy.
Guy took a last drag from his cigarette and then flicked it into my sink. He never took his eyes off the skull. “I have a buyer who’ll pay $200K. Our old arrangement, Tessa, you get half. Though you’ve caused me so much trouble, I should impose a pain and suffering tax.”
“That’s blood money,” Brian said fiercely.
“What limitation can prevent not only the reduction of things but also of people to the level of objects that can be manipulated, exploited, modified, or quantified?” asked Guy.
“It’s art money,” I said wearily. “It doesn’t mean anything. It has nothing to do with how good the art is.”
Just then, a pounding sounded at the front door.
“NYPD, open up!” ordered a stentorian voice.
Guy slipped the skull into a bag, ran to the living room window, and climbed out.
I grabbed Brian’s arm. “Brian, you go, too!”
“I have to take care of you,” he demurred.
“I can take care of myself.”
The pounding got louder. I dragged Brian to the window.
“Whoa, we’re four floors up? I never learned how to climb, and force equals mass times acceleration.
If I fall—”
But I wasn’t going to pander to him. He had to leave, now, that was what was best for him. And I always knew what was best for other people. “There are big hand-holds all the way down. Decohere yourself out that window, Professor!” I shoved.
Brian scrambled out. He took a last pleading look over the ledge at me. “My wife would never push me out the window.”
“For the last time, I’m not your wife!” I snapped.
I took the painting off the table. I ran to the bedroom, threw open a drawer and found another piece of paper, written and signed by none other than Cliff Bucknell. I rolled the two pieces of paper together and slid the narrow tube inside the waistband of my skirt. Then I ran back and opened the door to two of New York’s finest.
“Tessa Barnum? You are under arrest for the theft of valuable merchandise from the Gates Gallery. You have the right to remain silent … .”
As they snapped handcuffs around my wrists, I consoled myself with the thought that they had called it merchandise, and not art.
* * *
* * *
32
The oldest profession: forgery
I sat in a holding cell with a trio of hookers. They were eying me with interest. I eyed them back with equal curiosity. Somehow, incredibly, given the situation, I felt buoyant. I was a little sad and a little angry, but mostly I was more alive and more determined than I had felt in years.
The first hooker, wearing fishnets, a pleather mini-skirt, and a tube top, said, “You must be high class. Whaddya get, a thousand bucks a night?”
“I’m in here for taking art,” I said.
She giggled. “Is that a new name for it? Fancy!
How much do you get?”
“I took a piece of art. Literally.”
Hooker number two, who sported an Adam’s apple and extravagantly feminine curves showcased by a black spandex catsuit, had been staring quizzically for the last hour. A light broke on her face.
“I know you. You’re the Internet porn girl with the tattoo on her ass!”
“My sacrum,” I said. “It’s not a tattoo.”
The third hooker, dressed in a slinky gold frock, sat upright on the bench. “Yeah, that’s you. Didn’t see much of your face in that YouTube video, because of all the different positions, but now I recognize you.
Did you raise your prices after that?”
Fishnets winked at me. “Great location for a tattoo. Very sexy.”
“It’s a birthmark. Above my ass. Not on it.”
“You’re too good to have a tattoo on your ass?”
demanded Slinky Gold Frock, defiantly. The other two murmured things about my snobby attitude.
I laughed shortly. If only they knew. “I’m not good enough to have a tattoo on my ass.” That quieted them.
“You have a great ass,” said Adam’s Apple, after a few minutes. “I need to do something about mine.
It’s huge.”
Now I couldn’t help but smile sadly. Didn’t I just have this conversation? “Your ass is perfect,” I assured Adam’s Apple, earnestly. “A friend of mine says men like big asses. I think she was right.”
“Thanks honey,” she said.
“I’m going to make my ass bigger,” decided Fishnets. “Your ass really did look all plump and fine in the video. Did it get you more business?”
“The Internet thing was an accident.”
“No such thing as accidents, honey,” said Adam’s Apple.
“I don’t think the video would get me more business, if I was in that business,” I mused with my old sense of deflation. “I think it showed me as, well, enthusiastic and idealistic, but hackneyed. Not very good in bed.”
The ladies giggled.
“Are you kidding?” asked Fishnets. “That’s all you need.”
“Ninety percent of what men want in bed is enthusiasm,” added Adam’s Apple confidentially.
“The other ten percent is head.”
I gave her a hard look. “Are you sure? I always think there’s some secret skill that other women have that I don’t.” Some secret skill in bed, some secret skill in life, I thought, but didn’t say aloud.
“Trust me,” Adam’s Apple said. “Enthusiasm and head.”
“Trust yourself more,” said Fishnets. “Don’t be so self-conscious. Just go for it.”
The other two liked that advice and murmured similar comments.
Frances Gates stormed up to the cell. Today he wore a turquoise suit of nubby raw silk to go with his expression of outrage and indignation. He glared at me. “I can’t believe you’d call me, of all people, to bail you out. I’m the one who wants you in jail!”
I gripped the bars. “You want to hear what I have to say. Frances, I have legal claim to that head. I have a letter in Cliff’s writing stating that I made it under his auspices and that he gives it to me.”
Frances emptied out like a balloon with the helium released. “I hate forgers.”
“But I have a proposition for you,” I continued.
“Honey, he ain’t interested in your proposition,” Adam’s Apple said. “You got a brother?”
The girls chortled. I stifled a grin and shushed them. I turned back to Frances. “I can get you a head.”
“I want my head,” wailed Frances, looking woebegone.
“Remember, they all want head,” called Fishnets.
“It cheers them up.”
More giggles. I waved at them: did they mind? I was having an important conversation. I was, after all, following their advice: I was going for it. “Frances, do you remember three years ago, the rumors about Bucknell forgeries? During his breakdown.”
Frances looked like he was about to cry, but he was wary, at the same time. “I remember he had a breakdown.”
“I was his student then. The pseudo-Warhol prints. I’m the model. Look at me. Don’t you recognize me?”
Frances leaned close to the bars and perused me. Slowly his face changed.
“I was the forger, too.” I sighed. “When he couldn’t get out of bed. I didn’t mean to be. But Cliff was incapacitated. It ripped out my heart to see him that way. I was trying to save him, to get him back on his feet. So I finished his commissions.”
“I heard all this wild gossip,” Frances mused.
“No one was ever sure which of his pieces were forgeries. I mean, his style is distinct.”
“He has no st
yle,” I cried before I could stop myself. I banged my head against the bars. “Argh!
That’s the point. It’s ugly derivative crap.”
Frances uttered a sound of disgust and swiveled on his heel and sashayed away.
“Better talk to him about head again,” said Fishnets. “If you want him to stay.”
“Wait, Frances, please,” I cried.
He paused and tapped his foot, then stared at the time on his iPhone.
“What if you do a show about me, as Cliff’s model, student, forger, and protégé.”
“A show about you?” Frances snorted.
“His influence on me. You have the Warhol prints. I’ll remake the skull. And I have photographs of the other forgeries. It can also be an exposé on the forgeries.”
Frances stepped closer. “How would you recreate the head?”
“Same way I did it in the first place,” I said, shrugging. “Sculpt it in clay, make a mold, cast it in resin. Patina it and glue on the rhinestones with Elmer’s.”
“I couldn’t get a million dollars from that.” Frances looked doubtful.
“You’d get a million dollars worth of PR,” I noted, baiting the hook. “Worldwide attention. Cliff is an international figure. There was a lot of gossip about the forgeries. Everyone was titillated and appalled at the same time. Viciously appalled.” I winced. “I found that out the hard way.”
Frances bit. “I would be the gallery who revealed the untold secrets.”
“It’s a great angle,” I sang. “Everyone would cover it, general media and arts media. Vogue, Arts and Antiques, W, Fine Art Connoisseur, American Arts Quarterly, the morning show … ”
Frances’ face actually paled with glee. “People would come from everywhere to visit the gallery.”
“People would talk about it for years. You’d be famous.”
“Not famous. Infamous.” Frances smiled. “I always wanted to be infamous.”
“You would show my work, too,” I said, lightly, but pointedly and carefully.
“Ugh. Everyone’s an artist. Sorry, sister, no.
That I can not do.” Frances made a dismissive hand motion.
I reached under my skirt, which brought a chorus of approval from the girls, and pulled out the rolled-up papers. I passed them through the bars to Frances.
Frances made a moue of impatience, but he opened them up. First he saw the handwritten letter from Cliff, and he was crestfallen all over again. He kind of moaned.
Then he saw the painting. His head lifted and his eyebrows raised and the light of dawning pleasure radiated over his face.
So help me God, homeless, broke, discredited, starring in Internet porn, and locked up in jail, I had the best moment of my entire life right then: seeing Frances captivated by my painting.
It was worth everything I’d been through just to see the true pleasure on his face as he beheld my work.
“You did this?” Frances asked with some disbelief. “Oil on paper?”
“Oil on eviction notice,” I clarified.
“Turner influence,” he noted. “Interesting use of color. Almost old masterish, in a good way, the palate. Florentine. But absolutely contemporary, too.”
The ladies crowded around me, trying to see.
“I have dozens of canvases,” I said. I was suddenly aflutter with nervousness and excitement. Was I really going to show my work to an important gallerist? Was I really setting up a show for myself?
Was I really going for it, finally?
“All landscapes?”
“Yes. I have figure drawings, too. I always thought they were just doodles, but recently I was told they were good. They could be framed and shown.”
“Hey, baby, let us see,” pleaded Fishnets.
Frances held up the painting.
The girls fell silent, then oohed and aahed with admiration. They were now, officially, my new best friends.
Frances squinted at me fiercely, then shook his head and marched out.
I collapsed onto the bench and cradled my head in my arms. “Oh crap. Well, I tried.”
“Honey, your painting’s real good. He’s coming back, you’ll see,” said Fishnets.
“You ain’t a forger, you’re an artist,” said Adam’s Apple reverently. “You should be proud.”
But I was past that kind of pretension. I was just me, same ole screwed up Tessa, now jailed Tessa.
“I’m a forger, all right. And a kind of art thief, sort of. I took something I shouldn’t have, even if it was rightfully mine.”
“I’d steal something beautiful like that,” said Slinky Gold Frock. “Usually I only steal money from my guys, but I’d take that painting. It kinda gets you in the gut, makes you want to own it.”
“Really?” I asked, gratefully. “You mean that?” It was one of the nicest things anyone had ever said about my work: that it elicited the lust for acquisition. They all three nodded.
“If you can paint something beautiful like that, what’s all the commotion about the head and forgery?” asked Adam’s Apple.
I slumped again. “That’s the sad part. I can paint like that, and instead, I forged really, really ugly stupid crap. How pathetic is that?”
“We all done sad stuff,” said Fishnets. “The secret is to say you’re sorry and make amends if you can. Then you shake it off and move forward as best you can.”
● ● ●
A few hours later, Fishnets was painting my toenails while I sketched my new friends’ faces on the cell wall with a tube of Nars Shanghai Red lipstick.
The sketches were remarkably poignant, if I said so myself. The girls certainly did.
Adam’s Apple wanted to take pictures of them and was hollering for her cell phone.
But when the cops returned, Frances trailed them. I dropped the lipstick and we all scrambled upright.
“Turns out there’s a lot of paperwork when you drop charges,” Frances said.
A police officer unlocked the holding cell door.
“Come on, Picasso. You’re sprung.”
“Raphael, not Picasso!” I said. Then, because I couldn’t help it, I pulled a Brian. I launched myself at Frances and squeezed him in a giant hug.
“Get off me,” wheezed Frances. “There’s no telling what diseases you picked up in there!”
“You won’t regret this, I promise!” I said. “I’ll make you lots of money.”
“I’m taking 65 percent on your canvases, and all the profit on the new head,” Frances said.
“Give him all the head he wants,” called Adam’s Apple.
I giggled. Then, because Brian would kill me if I didn’t stand up for myself, I patted Frances and shook my head. “You can take 65 percent of the first couple of sales. Then we go to fifty-fifty. And you can take 60 percent of the head.”
“First ten sales,” Frances said. “Seventy-five percent of the head.”
“First three,” I responded. “Sixty-five percent.”
“Five, sixty-five,” he countered. We looked at each other and grinned, and then shook hands. “I am sorry about the original skull,” he said with some regret. “Even if it does belong to you and I can’t sell it. It was something special. I’d love to show it.”
“Well, I do have an idea about how we might get it back,” I drawled, having a flash of inspiration.
For once, it was practical inspiration. I almost didn’t recognize myself.
“Now you’re talking,” said Frances.
“I’ll call Guy and say I’ve got a buyer willing to pay $750K. We’ll set up a sting.”
“More paperwork,” rumbled the cop.
“I think I’m starting to like you,” Frances said.
“But don’t breathe on me. Ugh.”
“Bye, ladies,” I waved. “Call me for those portraits. But I do have to charge you.”
“No freebies,” called Fishnets. There was a chorus of assents.
“I’ll text you the name of the lady who waxes me,” said Adam’s A
pple. “Your guy in the video will appreciate it. He seemed like a real sweetheart. Eager to make you happy, you know. He put your pleasure first. That would make anyone enthusiastic.”
“Brian,” I said. Where was he?
* * *
* * *
33
Channeling Tessa
He wasn’t at my place, where I retrieved my cell phone. Nor was he at Ofee’s apartment.
He wasn’t at Central Park, which was lit up and full of people streaming toward a concert on the great lawn. He wasn’t at Rat Rock.
He wasn’t at Riverside Park. I was standing by the tree where I’d seen him hiding that day I walked Mrs. Leibowitz. Oh, Mrs. L. But I couldn’t dwell on heartache right now.
Then my cell phone rang. It was Ofee, bursting with information that he just had to share with me immediately. But I already knew, because my heart knew.
“Ofee, I love you!” I said. “I know. It wasn’t Brian Tennyson who took the pictures and wrote that stuff and was put away in an institution. It was some other professor. I figured that out.”
But where would Brian go?
● ● ●
It came to me in a flash of obviousness once I stopped to think deeply about Brian. And I knew he was nearby because I could feel him as I ascended the steps to the great marble plaza at Lincoln Center, where masses of people milled about, surrounded by the Opera House, the theaters, the ballet halls, and Juilliard. The plaza was bathed in white lights. The scene was festive, lush, and vibrant.
There was Brian, a solitary observer of the panoply of people and traffic. A twinkly sphere of light seemed to play around him, distinguishing him from everyone else here in our world. Our rich, bursting, imperfect but wonderful world that was more beautiful because he had visited it.
I crossed over to sit next to him.
“She wanted to play here,” he said, softly. He paused for a few beats. “She played at Carnegie. But she wanted to play here. The cultural institutions all in one place. It was a thing with her.”
The Love of My (Other) Life Page 12
