“It’s not?” If Bath II’s been authenticated, could it be about my show?
“Well, I guess it’s actually a presurprise, or the first part of one because we have to wait for the second part.”
This doesn’t sound like it’s about my show. “You made macaroni and cheese for dinner?”
He bursts out laughing. “How’d you know?”
“You did?”
“With three kinds of mushrooms and tomatoes and herbs from my garden. Is that gourmet enough for you?”
I try to hide my disappointment. Although I like food as much as the next person, it would never fall into the surprise category for me. “Thank you. It sounds delicious.”
He offers me a tray of black olives. The tray is long and narrow and looks as if it was made specifically for olives. I’ve never seen such a thing. I pop one into my mouth. It’s perfect: sharp and dark, salty and oily. “Did you grow these, too?”
“There’s something else,” he says.
I eat another olive and wait.
“I sold it.”
I almost swallow the olive pit. “Bath II?”
“I’ve worked with this collector before. I set up a number of levels between us, put out a feeler. He grabbed.”
“He thinks it’s the original? The one stolen from the museum?”
Markel touches his champagne flute to mine. “What else would he think?”
I struggle to keep my breathing normal. I’ve no idea why I’m reacting like this. What did I think was going to happen? Selling the painting as the original was always the plan.
“Hits you kind of weird when it finally happens, doesn’t it?” he says.
Again, he’s reading my thoughts. There’s no denying the power of this experiential intimacy, especially when it’s ours alone. A chill runs up my backbone. “You’re sure he won’t know it came from you? That he can’t trace it back?”
“Too many people between us. And each one only knows the one who contacted him and the one he contacted,” Markel says with certainty, but I note that he didn’t directly answer my questions.
“What’s he going to do with it?”
“He’s a collector, Claire, a nutty bunch. But this guy’s nuttier than most, a complete fanatic. Totally blinded to anything but what art he can own, what he can possess. That’s why I went to him first with the Degas.”
“But if he can’t sell it or show it to anyone, if it’s not a status symbol, and if he’s not going to use it on the black market, what’s in it for him?”
Markel leans back into the couch and sips his champagne. “It’s the rush of knowing you have it, that it’s yours and no one else but you can ever see it.” His eyes roam to his Warhol, the Lichtenstein. “It’s like an addiction. No, it is an addiction, one serious collectors can’t and probably don’t want to control. We’re not talking regular people here.”
I remember Sandra Stoneham saying something similar and how I felt when I looked at the empty frame in the Short Gallery. How thrilled I was to be the only one who knew where the missing painting was, how proud I was that Degas’ After the Bath was in my studio, for me to touch and look at whenever the urge struck. No one but me. Suddenly, none of us are regular people.
“But what about his authentication?” I ask. “What if it goes to someone who figures out it’s not real?”
“He’s from India, but he’s doing it here.”
“But you said that’s why foreign buyers, Third World, are better. That they don’t have access to high-level experts or all the new equipment.”
He puts his arm around me and pulls me toward him. I let him, too overwhelmed to resist. “That’s normally so,” he says, playing with a piece of hair that’s dropped to my forehead. “But in this case, because of the painting’s notoriety, his choice of authenticators is limited.”
“So he’s going to have to use the same guy you did?”
“Nowhere else to go.”
“And then what’ll happen?”
“After he’s got the all clear from the authenticator, we agreed that he’d take the canvas off the stretchers and get it out of the country by either flying or sailing with it on his person.”
“But what about security? They check everything now.”
“Paintings don’t set off metal detectors.”
“If he did get caught, could it get back—”
Markel leans down and kisses me. A sweet, wet, warm kiss that goes on and on and works its way down between my legs and then back up and out to every nerve ending in my body. I’ve never had an orgasm from just a kiss before, but this feels as if that’s exactly what’s going to happen.
Markel pulls away and asks, “You said maybe when the project was over?”
“Where did you ever learn to kiss like that?”
“Is that a yes?”
Now that the kiss is over, some semblance of intelligence returns and my questions reemerge. I run my fingers through my hair and sit up. “How come you never told me about your kids?”
“Does it matter?”
“No. Not at all. Not in and of itself. It’s just that it seems like something you might have mentioned.”
“Do you know how many brothers and sisters I have? If my parents are alive? Where I grew up?” He shrugs. “I don’t know any of those things about you either. We just never got that personal before.”
“Can’t argue with that,” I say, but even after three years, Isaac’s betrayal is still raw. I separate myself from him and stand. “Now where’s that gourmet mac and cheese you were bragging about? I’m famished.”
He stands, too, kisses the end of my nose. “We’ve got some business to discuss over dinner, and I need your opinion on something.”
The dinner is delicious, adding another check in his plus column. And he’s a wonderful host, attentive without being overly solicitous, charming and self-deprecating. We laugh a lot, drink a bottle of wine, talk about my show.
“I’m planning on thirteen new paintings,” I tell him.
“Sounds good,” he says. “What’s your estimate?”
“I was figuring a painting a week, thirteen weeks, which puts us in early January.”
“It’s either December or March,” he says. “January and February are booked but I just got a cancellation for December. Think you could do it by then? Would be a great slot.”
“Early or late?”
“Middle of the month.”
“When would you have to know?”
“I need at least two months up front for promotion.”
Could I pull off December? Two months ahead would be the middle of October. Which means I’d have to commit a month from now. Tight. Very tight.
“You could do fewer,” he offers.
Fewer won’t work. That would leave him room to have a second, albeit much smaller, show at the same time as mine. I want the whole gallery.
“Give me a month,” I say. “I’ll bust my butt and see how many I can finish. That’ll give me a better measure. If I can do it for December, let’s go with that. If not, we’ll have to hold off till March.”
“That works fine for me as far as Markel G goes. I’ve got a number of artists who’d take the slot in a nanosecond.”
“But?” I ask, my stomach sliding to my feet.
“I can’t say I like it personally.”
At first I’m confused, lost in my ambition, then I understand. He’s talking about us, about wanting more of my time for himself. “Ah, yeah. Yeah. There’s always that.”
“Is there a that?” he asks.
But I don’t know how to answer. I need more time to think, yet I don’t want to blow this. I can see there’s some real potential here. I like him. “Yes,” I finally say. “Just maybe not tonight.”
He grins, and his whole body relaxes. “How about you cook me dinner tomorrow night?”
“If I do, there won’t be a ‘that.’ We’ll probably end up dead from food poisoning.” I change the subject before he has a cha
nce to respond. “Didn’t you say you wanted my advice on something?”
He sobers. “It’s about the original. About getting it back to the Gardner.”
“Where is it now?” I ask cautiously.
“Locked up where no one but I can get to it. In a highly secured vault.”
I know he’s trying to protect me, or so he’s said, but his evasiveness makes me uneasy. So many secrets.
“It doesn’t matter where,” he continues. “I just want to think through all the options.”
I decide to give him the benefit of the doubt. “Obviously, you can’t just go there and hand it over to them, so it has to be left somewhere.”
“Somewhere where it’s safe, protected,” he says. “Not outside.
Somewhere that can’t be connected to me.”
“Not in Boston.”
“But not too far away. The less transporting the better.”
“When do you plan on doing it?”
“After your forgery’s out of the country.”
“And the sellers have their money. And you’ve gotten your fee.” So much for the benefit of the doubt.
“Yes. When I’ve gotten my fee.” He gets up and clears the dessert plates from the table. His movements are brisk as he puts the dirty dishes on the pass-through counter.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I’ve no right to judge you. I’m far from blameless in all this.” I watch his earnest face, his purposeful movements, and I want to believe that he’s doing all of this to get the painting back to its rightful owner. “For me it was pretty straightforward. But for you?” I look at the art on the wall beside him: a Calder and a Koons.
“Even I have to work for a living, Claire. Things aren’t always the way they look.”
“But your art? A Warhol, a Calder, a Matisse?”
He sits in the chair beside me. “Remember what I was saying about art collectors? How they can be fanatical? Irrational at times? Well, I’m one.”
“You’re going to keep Bath for yourself?”
“No, no,” he says. “Of course not. What I’m trying to explain is how I feel about my art. For those of us with no artistic talent, collecting is our means of self-expression. A way of discovering beauty, of making it, in a way. A collection that’s something greater than ourselves.” He shakes his head. “Not for sale. None of them.”
“You haven’t ever sold anything?”
“I keep adding, almost never subtract. It’s like I said, an addiction. ‘I’m Aiden Markel, and I’m an art collector.’” His smile is sheepish. “Maybe not as crazy as the guy who bought Bath II, but crazy enough.”
“But what about this house?” I ask, unwilling to let him charm his way out of answering my questions. “The gallery?”
“Both mortgaged. Don’t assume just because a person has lots of expensive things that he’s not in debt.” He takes my hands. “Yes, I’ll get my fee, which will be substantial. But that’s secondary. The whole point is to get After the Bath back on the wall of the Short Gallery. Is it illegal? Yes, I’ll admit that. Will it be worth it? Obviously, I think the answer’s yes.”
I stare at my hands in his. It all makes sense, but I can’t bear the thought of, once again, being played the fool.
He pulls me to my feet, and we walk silently to the front door, his arm loose around my shoulders. “I’m still open for tomorrow,” he says. “We can always order out for pizza.” Then he leans down and kisses me.
Again, I’m lost in the velvety sweetness of him. Of his lips, his chest, his body pressed against mine. I pulse toward him, and he pulses toward me. I tear myself away. I need to think, think, work it through. I give him a hug and rush down the stairs into the crisp autumn night.
On the sidewalk, I pause to catch my breath and look up at his front windows. He’s standing in the bay, watching me, a wistful smile on his face. He places his palm to the window with a gesture so full of longing that something inside me breaks.
I press the doorbell again, and when I get the answering beep, I rush up the stairs even faster than I came down.
Twenty-five
THREE YEARS EARLIER
The first time I arrived in New York to paint the second 4D, I went up to Karen’s office. There, she introduced me to Beatrice Cormier, a bejeweled older woman with sharp, ice-blue eyes.
“Beatrice is a major collector,” Karen explained. “She has multiple degrees in art history and knows more about painting than most art professors.” She handed Beatrice a key. “She’s going to observe you as you work.”
For a moment, I was put off. I don’t like being watched while I paint. But then I realized, of course, MoMA had to ensure that the work was actually mine.
“The supplies you requested are already in the studio.” Karen pointed to the cardboard tube I had under my arm. “Are those your paintings I asked for?”
I was reluctant to hand them to her, but did. She wanted them for comparison purposes, to match to 4D, which was to my advantage, but somehow it made me feel smarmy, like I was the guilty party.
“I’ll get these back to you as soon as we’re finished with them,” she said, and turned to her computer in dismissal. “Beatrice will take you there now.”
Beatrice’s driver brought us to a building in an up-and-coming-but-not-yet-arrived section of Brooklyn that reminded me of SOWA. Artists are always the first to find these places, pioneers who get the area started and then get pushed out when gentrification jacks up the rents.
We took the elevator to a small studio whose owner was out of the country. I didn’t recognize his work—it had to be a man’s—and had no idea whose space I was appropriating. Which, I supposed, was Karen’s plan. This whole arrangement was very hush-hush. No one was to know about it until my claim had been validated. Or invalidated. And maybe not even then.
A large, empty canvas, the same size as 4D, was set up on an easel facing south so the north light would hit it. My supplies lay on a paint-streaked table next to it. I checked the paints and the brushes, turpentine, mediums.
“Do you have what you need?” Beatrice asked.
“Looks good,” I said. “But isn’t it going to be awfully boring for you?”
“We need to establish a timetable so I can fit this into my schedule,” was her answer.
“I only have one class. On Tuesdays. I’m almost done with my class work, focusing on my final capstone project. I’m hoping to get my degree at the end of next semester.”
“Yes …?” She was polite but left no doubt that she had little interest in the details of my life.
“So I guess anytime on either side of that is fine with me?”
Beatrice tapped out a series of commands on her phone. “It would be best to complete this as soon as possible. How long would you presume it’s going to take you?”
It hadn’t taken me that long to paint 4D, which had amazed me at the time. Wet-on-wet was much faster than wet-on-dry. Still, there was no guarantee this would come as quickly. Isaac wasn’t the only painter to succumb to artists’ block under pressure. “Three, four days?”
Unfortunately, Beatrice was a very busy woman and wasn’t available for many sessions of two days in a row. But we managed to arrange a series of times when we could both meet at the studio. She explained that I was to have no more contact with Karen, that she, Beatrice, had the key, and she would be responsible for letting me in and locking me out.
And so it went. I came into the city three times and stayed for two days each. It took more sessions than I estimated because Beatrice never had a full day free. I painted when she was available, slept at the Y. She was easy to have around, reading or quietly talking on her cell phone, but ever vigilant. I’d have guessed they paid her handsomely for this tedious duty, but it was clear she was way too rich to be persuaded by money. I never did find out why she did it.
The whole process was actually quite pleasant as long as I didn’t spend too much time thinking about what was behind it. I was out
of Boston, away from the pressure of classes and the one-upmanship that’s the hallmark of highly ranked MFA programs. And Beatrice turned out to be an excellent companion: both watchful and respectful, saying little, but clearly communicating that she was impressed with my work. Karen had told me I didn’t have to make a copy of 4D, just to paint something similar, another piece in the series. Which is what I did.
When I finished, Beatrice locked the painting in the studio and told me someone would be in touch. She thanked me for my graciousness, and I for hers. She smiled warmly at me for the first time since the project began and patted me on the shoulder. “Way to go, girl,” she said, and winked. Then she got into her waiting car and was driven away.
It was six long weeks before I heard the official verdict.
Twenty-six
I buy a queen-size mattress, box spring, footboard, and headboard. I haven’t had anything this official to sleep in since I was a little girl snuggled into my faux–French Provincial twin bed. For the first time in my life, I actually have money—the $5,000 bonus was a nice addition to my ill-gotten nest egg—and it just didn’t seem fair to ask Aiden to deal with a mattress on the floor.
The dark cloud has passed. No more nightmares of being smothered or chased or locked up. No Isaac, no Belle, and no Degas. And lots of Aiden.
Although the shortening angle of the fall sun and the decreasing hours of daylight usually make me cranky, this year, despite all evidence to the contrary, the world is so much brighter than it was during the summer. As I’d hoped, completing Bath II banished my demons.
I’m working furiously on my windows, at almost the same pace as Bath II, but this time I have thirteen paintings to contend with and must pace myself. If limiting painting time to no more than fourteen hours a day can be considered pacing. Obviously, there’s no time to trek to Back Bay, so if Aiden and I want to be together, it’s got to be at my place. He claims he doesn’t mind coming down to the studio, that he likes both the walk and the smell of turpentine. But I think it’s sex he’s after. And I’ve got no problem with that.
The man makes love even better than he kisses, and he can do things with his tongue that turn me inside out. I’ve had a number of short flings and one-night stands since Isaac, but it’s been over three years since I’ve had sex on anything close to a regular basis. And, man oh man, is it addictive. In some ways it’s fortunate that I’m working against a tough deadline; otherwise we’d never leave the new bed.
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