“Sabine,” the woman says quietly. “I’m sorry. I assumed wrongly.”
“It’s okay. I get it. You’re trying to look out for Julie.”
“Do you think I could see your painting when it’s done?”
For a moment, I’m stunned. “Yes.” I dig into my bag and pull out a flyer. “There’s a show at CALINVA in two weeks. You can come to the opening reception and bring Julie if you want.”
The woman studies the flyer as she walks me to the door. “I apologize for not introducing myself. I’m Florence Harris. And I would very much like to come to the exhibition. I doubt Julie would agree to, however. As you may know, she’s very uncomfortable indoors.”
“Yeah, she’s told me that.”
Florence Harris lets me out, and I wave good-bye to the men in the courtyard and continue back up the street. I can’t help feeling I might have made a mistake inviting her to the opening since there’s no guarantee I’ll still be at CALINVA when it happens.
Wednesday night, I fall into a hard and dreamless sleep, but a call comes at 2 a.m. I fumble for the phone, and my eyes struggle to focus on the too bright screen.
NAME WITHHELD. Normally, I’d assume it’s a wrong number, but for some strange reason I answer.
“Hello?”
“Did I wake you, Sabine?” Adam sounds like he couldn’t care less.
I sit straight up. “You played me, you prick.”
There are street sounds in the background. People passing by? A bus?
“True. But admit it: You were happy to be played. You got what Krell wouldn’t give you, and sticking it to him—that’s just a bonus.”
“Where’s his painting?” I demand.
“Hard to say. A portrait by a contemporary master like Krell can end up anywhere: China, Russia, Bahrain. A Swiss art vault. A drug lord’s villa.”
I shudder and pull my blanket around my shoulders. Krell’s painting has gone underground. Stolen art almost never resurfaces, especially when crime lords are involved. The Rembrandts and ten other masterpieces stolen from the Gardner Museum decades ago have never been found despite a ten-million-dollar reward.
Adam continues, “When I picked you for my partner—“
“I’m not your partner.”
“I could not believe my luck. A highly talented student, the only one in her class who’d even attempted encaustic painting, desperate to hold on to her scholarship in the face of Krell’s unrelenting abuse.”
I’m horrified at how easy I was to figure out, how transparent.
“Now imagine how surprised I was to discover you weren’t the naive, innocent girl I’d assumed. You’re like me. You steal, but not just for the money. You wanted to get back at that woman.”
The words take my breath away. It was an accident Iona’s dress was in my car. I’m not like you, I want to say, but I can’t. “You won’t get away with this, Adam, or whoever you are. When Krell gets to Art Basel, he’ll realize the painting’s a fake.”
“Yes. The area on the shoulder I was forced to complete. Clumsy, I know. At first I was angry you refused to finish it, but as I imagined how this would play out and what options I had, I realized you’d pointed the way for me to get what I ultimately wanted.” He takes a sip of whatever he’s drinking.
I have no idea what he’s talking about, but the tone of his voice makes me squirm. “I’m going to Krell and I’m telling him everything.”
“Of course I can’t stop you, but you should ask yourself: Will Krell appreciate my honesty when he has to return the nine hundred thousand he got for the painting? Will it stop him from getting my ass thrown out of CALINVA?”
I have no comeback. The painting’s gone and confessing won’t bring it back. I’ll be the only one around for Krell to blame.
“And before you try calling his dealer, consider this: Barry Ankarian has no reason to believe you, not when the truth would screw his million-dollar sale. And a few years from now, when you’re angling for your first gallery show, he’ll warn his friends you don’t appear to be ‘all there,’ and they might want to stay far, far away from you.” Adam lets that sink in before he says ever so quietly, “So, is confessing really worth the price?”
I hang my head, hating myself for my silence.
“I promise you, Sabine. Next semester will be easier.”
He hangs up and I set down the phone and pull the blankets tight around me. I lie awake, thinking I can’t fix this.
Adam could be anywhere. He could live for years on what he got for Krell’s painting. Maybe not in the US, but in Mexico, Costa Rica, Thailand.
There’s just enough moonlight to make out Mom’s painting on the bureau. I gaze at her face and remember her saying, “I didn’t hit bottom because of what life did to me. I got there because of what I did to myself.”
I don’t know how far away bottom is, but I’m careening through space and it’s going to hurt like hell when I hit.
On Thanksgiving morning, I swear I’ve just fallen back to sleep when the whack whack whack of furious chopping makes my eyes snap open. From the sound of it, Mrs. Mednikov is dicing pounds and pounds of onions or maybe celery.
Ugh. I know I promised her I’d help with Thanksgiving dinner, but right now I can barely lift my head. Adam’s call has flattened me, and I wish I could disappear and not come back until the mess with Krell is over.
Mom looks down from her portrait. “I know, I know. You don’t have to say it,” I tell her, and drag myself out of bed. “The only way out is through.”
I pluck Mom’s paper turkey hat off the dresser. It’s wrinkled, and most of the glitter’s gone, but I stick it on my head and scuff into the kitchen. Today sucks, but I will get through it.
“Good! You are awake!” Mrs. Mednikov says, and heaves a bag of russets into my hands. “The potatoes need peeling.” She raises an eyebrow at the paper turkey perched on my head. “You are wearing a hat.”
“My mom liked to wear this on Thanksgiving.”
“Very festive, but perhaps something dressier when the guests arrive?”
“Oh, I guess you want me to change out of my pajamas, too?”
Mrs. Mednikov’s been baking for days, and the kitchen counters are crammed with gingerbread, dinner rolls, rye bread, and pie. We prep Russian potato salad and wedge it in the refrigerator under a bowl of pickled herring. Then I help her wrestle a pork roast into the oven with the turkey, because what if there wasn’t enough to eat?
A half hour before the guests are due, she shoos me out of the kitchen to get dressed. Fresh out of the shower, I sift through my closet for dressier until I find a blouse I’ve never worn. Loose silk with sheer gold, crimson, and cobalt stripes, I touch the fluttery ends of the sleeves, remembering how Mom beamed when I slid it out of the tissue last Christmas.
An ache fills my chest. She spent way too much and I told her I wanted to save it for a perfect occasion, and she said, “Wait too long for perfect, and you’ll miss great.”
I slide my arms in the sleeves. The silk is light as air on my skin as I button it on.