The Art of Confidence

by Wendy Lee

Since then, although Sandro called nearly every day asking whether she had any leads on a sale, she diverted him to Molly. Of course she would talk to him if anyone contacted her, but although the opening had been well attended, no one was actually interested in buying one of his paintings. Maybe she shouldn’t have given him a show, but he had thoroughly charmed her—a charm that was beginning to wear thin.

  As the summer progressed, Sandro faded into the background as Caroline concentrated instead on the copy of Elegy. Now it stood finished, in her living room. At first she thought she should keep it somewhere safer, a storage locker or even temporarily in the building’s basement, but then decided there was no danger of anyone seeing it, as she hardly invited anyone to her apartment. Now that she was able to look at the finished painting every day, it began to take on an indefinable presence. She didn’t believe in ghosts, but she couldn’t help thinking that Hazel was there with her, guiding her next step.

  * * *

  Although Hazel had been dead for twenty years by the time Chelsea became the epicenter of the art world in New York City, Caroline couldn’t help wondering if her aunt had had some kind of premonition when she’d started her gallery there in the 1960s. At that time, her neighborhood was bordered by warehouses and packing plants, serviced by an elevated rail line that gradually became dismantled throughout that decade. In the mid-1980s, when Caroline moved in with her, most galleries were concentrated in Soho, although artists were being squeezed out of their loft spaces by rising rents.

  “Someday they’ll all come here,” Hazel had said. Caroline looked behind her at the skyline of dilapidated buildings, their broken windows and stained bricks, and wondered if her aunt was hallucinating.

  She and Hazel were sitting in a pocket park facing the Hudson River in the West Twenties, watching the ships come into port. On Hazel’s good days, they would venture out of the apartment and walk down the two long avenues to the water. They never saw anyone else in the park, nor signs of life in the form of litter or rats or even pigeons; this was too far west for most living creatures. However, this also made it easier for Hazel to smoke as many joints in public as she wanted, and sometimes Caroline would join her, sinking into a pleasant, muzzy haze along with the sun below the waterline.

  It was then that Caroline felt uninhibited enough to ask Hazel questions about her relationship with Andrew Cantrell, such as when they met.

  “It must have been around 1965,” Hazel recounted dreamily. “Andrew was in his thirties, so not that young, although he still had most of his hair. I remember he’d just gotten married to Naomi. Naomi Jordan, she was. Their nuptials were announced in all the papers. Of course, most people who cared to read wedding announcements were scandalized that the daughter of one of New York’s oldest families had chosen to marry a starving artist.”

  The image of the woman in an apron, meekly carrying a tray, materialized in Caroline’s mind. “What was she like?”

  “I only met her once, if you can even call it a meeting. Andrew and I were sitting in a restaurant when she came in, with her furs and jewelry, and she slapped me in the face.”

  So maybe not that meek. “What did you do?”

  “Slapped her back, of course. There happened to be a tabloid photographer following us, and he got a picture of my slap, not hers. So I was the one who became known as the hussy, the home wrecker. Sometimes both in the same headline. How they loved alliteration! Naomi, however, was infinitely worse than a home wrecker. She wrecked Andrew’s creativity. You have to admit, his two most famous paintings, Meditation and Elegy, were done when their marriage was over.”

  “He never wanted to leave her?”

  “You mean leave her for me?” Hazel laughed. “Andrew knew he could only afford to paint because of her. She provided everything for him—food, shelter, business contacts. Although she gave him terrible advice. When Andrew got the two-million-dollar offer for Elegy, she wanted him to take it. I told him to turn it down, and he became better known than ever.”

  “And you never asked him to leave her?”

  “Our relationship wasn’t like that.”

  In the mellowing silence that followed, Caroline thought about her marriage to Bob, how perhaps they’d been too compatible. They’d traveled on parallel tracks in career and life, agreeing on nearly everything from not having children to where they’d live, with no obstacles. Caroline had felt she could have followed that path until she and her husband were graying retirees, but obviously Bob had wanted something else. They’d kept in touch since the divorce had been finalized, and soon Caroline had learned that he had a new girlfriend, whom he ended up marrying within the year. Caroline had been invited to the wedding, but by that time Hazel had been so sick that she couldn’t be left. When Hazel passed away, Bob had sent his condolences, and then over the next few years had intermittently let Caroline know the more pertinent details about his life, including the birth of his two daughters. Then the trail turned cold and dark, and Caroline never heard from him again.

  But back when she was still raw and smarting over the divorce, she wondered whether the kind of relationship Hazel had had with Andrew Cantrell, even if it didn’t come with marriage or any sort of security, was preferable to what she’d had with her own husband.

  “I don’t want to be too personal . . .” she started hesitantly.

  Hazel indicated the joint in her hand. “You’d better do it now while I’m an open book.”

  “Why did you stay with Andrew? There must have been other men, other artists, who you could be with.”

  “Who didn’t have a rabidly jealous wife? I thought about it,” Hazel admitted. “More times than you know. Especially after Naomi and Andrew moved out to the family’s summer home in East Hampton. I know that makes the place sound impressive, but it was really just a farmhouse with a barn that Andrew used as his studio. He was never able to paint anything worthwhile there. And it definitely didn’t keep him from coming into the city and continuing to have shows. Naomi couldn’t stop him from doing that.”

  “Did you ever go out to their house in East Hampton?” Caroline asked, before remembering the newspaper article suggesting Hazel had set the fire that killed Cantrell. She could tell, as Hazel stubbed out her joint, that her aunt was thinking the same thing.

  “You want to know whether it’s true? That I tried to kill Andrew because he had decided to end our relationship?”

  “I didn’t mean to—”

  “Yes, I was in his home that night. Naomi was away at a charity function, so we thought it would be safe. Yes, by that time we weren’t together anymore. And yes, grief does terrible things to people. But I had come to discuss art, not our personal problems. I was as shocked as anyone to find out the next day, when I was back in the city, about the fire.” Hazel looked directly at Caroline, her vision unclouded. “Naomi found out I had been there and blamed me. I can see why. She’d just lost the love of her life. But she wasn’t the only one. I’d lost part of myself, too. And the whole world lost a great artist and some of the finest work he’d ever done.”

  “What was the funeral like?”

  “I don’t know, I didn’t go. Naomi wouldn’t let me. But I didn’t care. Part of me had already said good-bye anyway.”

  Hazel leaned back into the bench and closed her eyes against the sunlight, as if she had become exhausted by too many questions. Instantly, Caroline regretted her own nosiness. Who cared whether Hazel had played a part in Andrew Cantrell’s death? It had happened close to ten years ago, and anyone who cared about it, like Naomi Cantrell, must have made her peace with it. Or Hazel, who would soon be gone herself. Once that occurred, there wouldn’t be anyone left who cared about the details of Andrew Cantrell’s death anymore.

  * * *

  Hazel’s memorial was held in the gallery, as she had requested. There was no current show, and the white walls made a stark contrast with the somberly dressed crowd. A woman who had been Hazel’s first assistant said a few words about how much
of a mentor Hazel had been for her. An art dealer spoke of her knack for finding up-and-coming young artists. One of those artists—or at least someone who had fit that description at one time—detailed how supportive she had been of him over the years.

  Then it was Caroline’s turn. She had scribbled some notes on a piece of paper, but now that she had it unfolded in front of her, the writing seemed like it had come from someone else’s hand. Finally she crumpled it up.

  “My mother died when I was five years old,” she started. “It was a Catholic funeral, with a wake the night before and a priest. It probably wasn’t what my mother wanted, but my father insisted on it. What you see before you, however, is exactly what Hazel would have wanted. She was my mother’s younger sister, and since my mother died, she was not only my aunt, but my friend. Although there were years when we lost touch, I always knew she would be there when I needed her. And I would be there when she needed me.”

  At that moment, Caroline looked up to see a woman who had just entered the gallery and was hovering at its edge. She appeared to be in her fifties and didn’t look connected to the art world in any way or, in a colorful patterned dress beneath a tan trench coat, dressed appropriately for a funeral. Her hair was a bright blond, and gold jewelry winked at her neck and wrists. Other people had noticed Caroline’s hesitation and were starting to look at the woman, too, but she seemed unaware of their gaze.

  “So, thank you all for attending and fulfilling Hazel’s last wishes,” Caroline finished lamely.

  Afterward, as she circulated through the crowd and accepted people’s condolences, she looked for the woman who had arrived late. She noticed several people nodding their heads in acknowledgment at her, although no one bothered to engage her in conversation. When Caroline saw Hazel’s old assistant, Peter, she went over to him.

  “Do you know who that woman is?”

  Peter seemed to know exactly whom she was talking about. “That’s Naomi Cantrell. The nerve of her, right?”

  “I’ll say.”

  The adrenaline left over from her speech was enough to make Caroline march directly over to Naomi Cantrell. “You aren’t welcome here,” she said.

  “Excuse me?”

  Caroline was struck by how immediately Andrew Cantrell’s widow signaled that she was a different kind of moneyed human being in the leisurely way she turned her head, the faint whiff of expensive fragrance that came with that movement. “You told Hazel that she wasn’t welcome at your husband’s funeral,” she said.

  Naomi held up a hand with exquisitely tapered nails. “Surely you don’t want to talk about that here.”

  “Why not?”

  “Not in front of these people. Is there somewhere private we can go?”

  Ignoring the stares that followed them, Caroline led Naomi into the back office. “I’d offer you a seat but I don’t want you wrinkling your clothes,” she said, not caring if she sounded rude.

  “I do apologize for the way I’m dressed,” Naomi replied easily. “It was a last-minute decision to come here. Hazel wasn’t much for protocol anyway.”

  Caroline unconsciously clenched her fists, feeling like a five-year-old again. “Don’t talk about her like that.”

  “You don’t think that after almost ten years of being my husband’s mistress, she was completely unknown to me? I had a private investigator following them for years. I don’t suppose she ever told you this.”

  “She told me that you were a hindrance to your husband’s creativity.”

  The expression on Naomi’s face hardened. “I wouldn’t say such things about another person’s relationship. You think everything your aunt Hazel told you was true? Such as she told you that I didn’t want her at Andrew’s funeral? I invited her, and she refused to come.”

  After a while, Caroline said, “Even so, you weren’t invited to Hazel’s funeral. I’d like you to leave.”

  “If that’s what you want.” At the door to the office, Naomi turned and asked, “Do you know what will happen to the gallery?”

  Caroline shook her head.

  Naomi gestured at what could be seen of the crowd through the slightly opened door. “It would be a shame to let all this go to waste.”

  She left Caroline in the dimness with the muffled sound of people just outside. Succumbing to waves of fatigue, Caroline put her head down on the desk. She didn’t wake until Peter came in to find her and tell her everyone had left.

  The next day, Caroline took Hazel’s ashes to the pocket park they’d spent so many afternoons in and scattered them over the water. Likely illegal, but that also had been one of Hazel’s last wishes. In Hazel’s apartment, after keeping some choice outfits, Caroline gathered up decades of her aunt’s clothes—all of her elegant animal-print coats and hats, her showy embroidered caftans—and donated them to charity. The same went for her aunt’s wall hangings and knickknacks. Every night before she fell into an exhausted sleep, Caroline reminded herself that she should start looking for another place to live. As for the gallery, she hadn’t received any directions on it at all.

  But within the week Caroline received a telephone call from Hazel’s lawyer about her aunt’s will. Apparently Hazel had left everything she owned to Caroline, including the rent-controlled apartment and gallery, and the contents of a storage space in the building’s basement. However, rent on the gallery space had been overdue for months, and while the landlord was sympathetic, she needed to pay up before the end of the month.

  Caroline called Peter and asked him to come over and walk her through the gallery’s books. Apparently the last sale had been the year before, and Hazel hadn’t held a show since her diagnosis.

  “Basically you’re running on empty,” Peter said.

  “Is there anything that can be done?”

  Peter shrugged. “Miracles happen.”

  That it would take a miracle seemed about right. While Caroline was grateful that her aunt had left her a place to live and a reason to work, Hazel must have known what financial straits the gallery had been left in. What had made her think Caroline knew how to handle the situation? Although Caroline didn’t feel she was worthy of that trust, she knew she couldn’t fail Hazel’s final directive.

  Caroline asked Peter to go with her down into the building’s storage basement and help her move whatever was there upstairs. Most of it was outdated furniture and more clothes, but then Peter discovered some canvases in a corner, inadequately covered by old sheets. He and Caroline dragged them out into the light, and then Peter gasped.

  “What is it?” Caroline asked. The painting Peter was looking at appeared unremarkable to her, a red circle on what had once been a white canvas but now was a dingy gray.

  “It’s a Mark Finnegan. Color field painter from the early 1960s.” Peter quickly went through the other canvases, seven in all. “And works by his contemporaries.” He turned to Caroline, his smile so wide that she could see it in the poor basement light. “You’re sitting on a treasure trove of museum-worthy contemporary art.”

  “Why would Hazel keep them down here?”

  Peter shook his head. “She should have known better. Dust, mold, rats—anything could have ruined them. They seem to be in pretty good shape, though.”

  “What would you suggest doing with them?”

  “First, get them cleaned up and put into a climate-controlled storage unit. They’ll be safer there, too. Good thing the landlord isn’t an art connoisseur. Then choose one to sell.”

  “They’re that valuable?”

  “You sell one of these, and the gallery is back in business.”

  As Caroline did what Peter suggested, she still wondered, if the paintings were worth that much, why Hazel had never mentioned them, either to her in person or in her will. Perhaps she had meant to but the pain medication toward the end had affected her mind. Or maybe she’d wanted it to be a secret for Caroline to discover, in the same way she’d never told Caroline she was leaving the gallery to her in her will.

  C
aroline had an appraiser from one of the larger auction houses take a look at the Mark Finnegan, and it was accepted for sale. Together, she and Peter went to the auction. It was the first time she’d been in that kind of environment; she supposed she should get used to it. She thought the room would be filled with Naomi Cantrell types, but instead the attendees mostly seemed to be businesspeople, many on phones.

  “Don’t the actual bidders come to the auction?” she whispered to Peter.

  “Most don’t,” he replied. “Many are overseas, Europe or Russia or increasingly Asia, and have someone here to do the job for them.”

  Caroline passed the time by flipping through the catalog. The starting bid on the Mark Finnegan was $100,000, which, now looking at the other offerings, she realized was toward the bottom of the listings. Her ears perked when the British-accented auctioneer announced, “Lot 20, Untitled by Mark Finnegan, painted in 1968, starting at one hundred thousand dollars. Do I have one hundred and fifty thousand?”

  Several paddles were raised.

  “Two hundred thousand. Two hundred and fifty thousand.”

  As the amounts went up in increments of fifty thousand dollars, the bids began to fall away, aside from one person on the far side of the room, and another person on the opposite side. Caroline felt like she was watching a tennis match between two equally proficient players.

  Finally, the auctioneer called for one million dollars. Caroline clutched Peter’s arm, and he responded with a pinch. “You’re not dreaming,” he said.

  The gavel went down on 1.2 million dollars. In vain, Caroline tried to see who’d had the winning bid, but all she saw was a dark-suited man, probably someone acting on the orders of another person.

  She continued to be curious about who had purchased the painting, but pushed it to the back of her mind as she planned the resurgence of the Lowry Gallery. Now she had more than enough money to secure the place, have a new show, and hire an assistant. She first offered the job to Peter, of course, but he told her he had moved on and was going back to grad school to study art history.