He stopped, because here was Debra with a tray and a real old-fashioned tea service: thin, chipped cups with little flowers, a steaming teapot.
Nora looked at Cecily and said, “And you’re his assistant?”
Yale was so offended for Cecily that he almost answered the question himself—but that would only make things worse. So he poured everyone tea while Cecily explained her role and said, “I thought I could offer perspective on the broader picture of planned giving.”
Nora said, “Debra, would you be a dear and stand out front to flag down Stanley? He always drives too far and has to turn around.”
Debra threw a coat over her baggy sweater. She was almost chic, in a careless way, and too young to look as tired as she did. She was probably Yale’s age, early thirties, but with all the charm of a sullen adolescent.
Once Debra was out the door, Nora leaned in. “My granddaughter doesn’t like this, I have to tell you. She has the notion that if we sold the art instead, she’d never have to work. I don’t know when on earth she got so spoiled. Now, my son—her father—he has a new wife, younger than Debra, and they already have two little children, just as spoiled as anything. I hate to say my son is the problem, but he’s the common factor, isn’t he?” There was a wheeze to her voice, as if she were squeezing her words down a narrow hallway.
Yale had a million questions—about family, finances, the art, provenance, Nora’s sanity—but he wasn’t here to grill her. He said, “I’ve brought some brochures from the gallery.” He unfolded one on the coffee table.
“Oh, honey,” Nora said, “I don’t have my reading glasses, do I. Why don’t you tell me about it. Do the students go there? Is it a regular spot for them?”
Yale said, “Not only that, but our graduate students and art majors have opportunities for—”
But there were already voices on the porch. Yale and Cecily stood to greet the lawyer. Stanley was a tall, gray-haired man with a newscaster face and wildly untamed eyebrows. “My favorite lady!” he said to Nora. The booming voice matched the man. He would’ve done a fine job informing people that stocks were down, that fifteen people died on the Sinai Peninsula today.
Yale could see it coming as they were introduced, and he was right. Stanley slapped his back and said, “No kidding! You go there? That’d be something: Yale at Yale. Or were you a Harvard man? Yale goes to Harvard!”
“University of Michigan,” Yale said.
“Must’ve disappointed your parents!”
“It’s a family name.”
Yale had, in fact, been named for his Aunt Yael, a detail he’d learned, around age six, never to share.
Stanley turned to Cecily then and made a great show of looking her up and down, and Cecily jumped in firmly before he had the chance to compliment her. “Cecily Pearce, Director of Planned Giving for Northwestern. We’re glad you could make it.”
Stanley, they learned, lived down in Sturgeon Bay and had been a friend for years. He picked up a teacup, a thimble in his large hand. He was an estate lawyer, Cecily seemed aggrieved to hear. Yale knew that whatever small part of her still held out hope had been wishing for a divorce attorney or ambulance chaser.
And then, as they all sat back down, Stanley put the nail in Cecily’s coffin, if not necessarily in Yale’s. He said, “Miss Nora here puts the bono in pro bono.”
“Stanley!” Nora blushed, flattered.
Yale felt the couch shift as Cecily loosened her grip on the arm, gave up.
So Yale said, “I’d love to talk about the art.”
Debra preempted her grandmother. “None of it’s here, first of all,” she said. “It’s in the safe deposit at the bank.”
“That’s good. Very smart.”
“And she refuses to get it appraised.” She sounded furious. Well, sure. A grandmother accepting pro bono legal work would not have much to pass down except the tchotchkes around them, and maybe the little house itself. And, ostensibly, a fortune in art that Debra wouldn’t get.
“Okay. And they haven’t been authenticated, either?”
Nora said, “I don’t need them authenticated! I got these directly from the artists. I lived in Paris twice, I don’t know if my letter said, from 1912 to 1914—I was just a teenager—and then again after the war until 1925. I sat out the fighting.” She gave a small laugh. “And, if you can believe it, I was an art student, and I was pretty, and it just wasn’t too terribly hard to meet these artists. I began to model for them after the war, which—my parents would have been scandalized, it was looked at like prostitution—and most of these pieces were my payment for modeling. Now there are a few others I didn’t mention in the letter, some works that might not be worth a dime. Plus a lot that I gave away over the years. Someone would die and I’d send the sketch off to his widow, that sort of thing.” She stopped and caught her breath. “They weren’t all geniuses, and I wasn’t going about picking and choosing. But some were big names even then. Oh, was I starstruck. Now they’re signed, almost all of them. That was my condition. And they didn’t always want to sign, especially not with a quick sketch. But it was my price.”
Yale was, if nothing else, intrigued. Nora might be a front for a clever forgery ring (stranger things had happened) or be outright delusional, but she herself hadn’t been the victim of forgers. And in so many of these cases, that was what happened—you had to sit by while some millionaire learned the de Chirico he’d been showing off for years was an utter fake.
“They’re insured?” he asked.
Debra cut in: “For not nearly enough.” She sat with her teacup, not drinking, her glare leveled at the coffee table.
Nora said, “But can’t you authenticate them yourself? At the museum?” And then she said, “Good heavens, look at that!” because outside it had started raining in sheets.
Yale spoke gently. “If museums were allowed to authenticate their own works, everyone would have a hundred Picassos. But listen, if we have reason to believe the pieces are what you say, we might be able to help financially with authentication. We can’t pay for it directly, but maybe we could find another donor who could.” He wasn’t sure this was tenable, but it was worth saying for now.
Nora looked at him strangely. “If they are what I say!”
“I don’t doubt you.” He checked Debra’s and Stanley’s faces. They looked serious, not like they were just humoring this woman. He said, “I’m trying to curb my excitement because this would be such an amazing boon, not just to the university but to the art world—and I don’t want to get my heart broken here.” It was the truth.