I looked up hippo images on my phone. Those were all of William; some but not all were the same color as the printed photo in Nic’s hand.
“Still could be a fake.” I insisted, scrolling through the photos to find a match. Chris still liked playing the matching game, it soothed him. And he was damn good at it, sometimes, okay, often; I wished for his brand of focus.
“Look at his head.”
I studied the photo again. Twelve years fell away. I was almost forty and, in the desert, feeling it. But we were still passionate, still together in a singular focus of discovery. The days were brutal, hot and disappointing, but the nights, the nights had been magical. I touched his hand to get a closer look at the printout. My fingers lingered on his. It wasn’t electric but it was jolting enough.
“See?” He pointed to the figures, blurry.
“Where did you get this photo?”
“Took it off Skype.”
“Great.”
“Can you make out the decorations? The black lines.”
“Papyrus. All the hippos were decorated with images of papyrus, that’s where the hippo lived.”
“Yes, except these.” He traced the photo. “Are ducks.”
Yes, they were.
“Armana?”
“Possibly, likely.”
“Then what’s the problem?” Armana, the city created from scratch by the heretic pharaoh Akhenaten who was devoted to a single true god—the sun, Aten. Husband of famous Nefertiti, father of even more famous Tutankhamun. The city site, built well outside of Thebes (Luxor), was not only known for separating from the old school of priests and for building its own city, it was also known for encouraging artists to experiment with more natural style. Palms bent, plants swayed, ducks flew.
Ducks replaced papyrus decorations on a hippo’s back.
“You don’t have any leads? How many outlets for stolen goods can there be in the city?”
“A lot. A lot are Chinese knockoffs, but those fakes usually travel the Silk Road route.”
“Makes sense.”
“Yes.” Shadows crossed the windows across from us. People going about their business, readying for the weekend.
“Want to help?”
“If it keeps me safe and prevents more break-ins, yes.” I searched the walls, remembering where all the paintings belonged and where they didn’t. The thieves were single-minded, I gave them that. The paintings had not been tampered with, none removed. Was there still honor among thieves? I’d like to think so, but according to Fox News, no.
“I will keep you safe.” He set down his glass and the photo and held my hand. “I’ll even stay if you want.”
His eyes were the bright blue of faience.
“You’ll stay because you have no place else to go because you are too cheap to spring for a real hotel.”
Nic nodded. “There is that.” He absently massaged the back of his neck.
“You wrenched it.” I scooted closer. I swear, just concerned. Funny thing about love, passion, and history, it can supersede almost any other emotion or reasonable doubt.
He smiled. “Still flares up, you remembered.”
He closed the space between us, his back and neck apparently and miraculously healed. “I missed you,” his voice dropped to a low growl that made the hairs on the back of my own neck stand up. “I have missed you every day for twelve years. I’ve been living like a man buried alive. Why did you leave?”
“I was needed.”
“I need you.” He ran his hand up my arm triggering both tingles and alarm bells.
Living a lie can be wonderful. For one night, for one moment of soul freeing joy nothing else mattered. I fully anticipated on paying for it later.
Chapter 11
I opened my eyes and for just a second, a half heartbeat, I thought I was still dreaming. The light streamed in, calls from the canal. The apartment above us was silent, the owner still in bed. Miranda never heard the former owner, but I woke earlier every morning to the sound of the old boy slamming his cupboard and firing up his espresso machine. But this morning, there were no sounds from above. I could just make out the sound of canal water slapping against the side of the building.
I lay in Miranda’s bed. I caught the shadow of the sculpture and edged out from under it. First, I was not in my single bed in Sacramento. Second, Miranda was not the person beside me. Nic was scrunched at the opposite side of the mattress, sheets clutched to his chest, body stiff.
Survivor sex is pretty damn good. Any sex is good, I admit that. Especially since I thought it was over, like forever. But an old lover helps, the patterns were still there, the expectations and techniques still recalled. It was like getting back on a bike, fun, furious, easy to crash.
I watched him sleep. How many days, how many weeks? Funny when I felt Nic beside me again, he brought back memories of Max.
I was like a three-ring circus. In this ring, Miranda and her easy wealth and easy virtue. She was hell bent on a good time and was catholic in her tastes. In the next, Nic. Nic’s ring was filled with sand and exoticism and, I stretched and touched the bottom of the black sculpture, pretty damn good sex. I even discovered that as much as I loved our antics, I also loved the man. In the third ring, Max Peters.
I believe I loved Max the hardest. Loved him the longest.
We met at the Milan Show. He was in his early sixties, top of his game. I was in my thirties and floundering. I had a few modeling gigs but couldn’t sustain the look. My weight had ballooned, my skin was sallow, and I had just lost my apartment in Manhattan. Max took me home to Venice.
I regret thinking Max was terribly old because that attitude is certainly is biting me in the butt now.
Max Peters was like Pucci meets Gucci. He was wild during the seventies when so much fashion and ready-to-wear was little more than shades of beige. He created so many original fabrics he needed to keep the swatch books in the apartment just to keep track of what he had already done. He won so many accolades he was accorded his own center piece in Elle Magazine posthumously honoring his seventieth birthday. From Max I learned about wine, I learned about food. Best of all I learned what goes on behind the camera. Max introduced me to Deb, who introduced me to Miranda, who got me into parties, parties like the one where I met Nic. This then, was my circus, they were all my monkeys.
After my flings with Miranda, then Nic, then Miranda again, I heard that Max was ill. He would never admit it straight out, but I knew. I moved from Miranda’s place to Max's to better care for him—continuing his designs, helping with the sale to LVM. When I say return to Max, it wasn’t terribly difficult, he lived only blocks away from Miranda. But during that time Miranda and I drifted apart. She continued with her parties and her art, I was deep in the country of old age and death which no one visits on purpose. It was like I had moved to Siberia, or Bakersfield. Miranda and I didn’t even meet at the market. I always arrived early. Miranda, late.
Max died the way he wanted. He had been happy, at least I hope he had been happy. His family had disowned him so long ago that they had lost complete touch. I served as his family. I immersed myself in his beautiful fabrics, the swatches; we made samples, he sewed first, eventually becoming so weak I sewed, and he directed from his bed.
The day Max passed; it was like a silent alarm sounded. It makes no sense, but it felt exactly like that, a dog-whistle-level alarm. Before I could gather my wits and grief, a representative from Holquist, Learnerd and Romano, a tall dour man dressed in a well preserved Yves Saint Laurent, appeared at the apartment mere hours after I closed Max’s eyes.
The attorney held a list in his hand and proceeded to confiscate the fabrics and incomplete dresses and tunics and marched out, saying they would be in touch.
I was too stunned to protest even though I know that be in touch is code for never.
The next group, hot on the heels of the lawyer as if waiting on the street for their turn, were a contingent of former lovers. The young men pushed me a
side as they barreled through the door.
In the crush I had forgotten the extra keys on my key ring. I owned a key to Max’s apartment, the key to Miranda’s apartment (which I returned) and the key to the storage center.
But my father had fallen the same night Max passed. In quick succession, Vincent, Vance, and Tina called to plead for my return to the states and care for my beloved parents. Parents I hadn’t seen in twenty years.
You pay for your pleasure. While Vincent and Vance were working hard at their careers, raising second families, turning into pillars of the community, what was I doing? Running around Europe with people of questionable morals but excellent taste. They insisted it was my turn to be the responsible one.
I was the youngest, I was single. I was the girl. I had to return to the States. There wasn’t much choice.
Nic stirred and turned to me.
“Good morning.” He threw an arm over my chest. “Where is the hippo?”
I didn’t even bother to open my eyes, relishing a picture of us younger, stronger and in love. We were not in love anymore, I was not even enthralled but it was a deep pleasure to lie beside him, appreciate the warmth, the male energy (at the usual all-time low), that soft look in his eyes.
“I don’t know.” I rolled out of bed and headed to the kitchen. I started up the espresso machine and checked my phone. Tiffany had landed in the states and sent along a detailed set of instructions to ship her paintings to her home. I thought she had taken care of that. Apparently, she had left the paintings at her hotel with instructions that I would be by to pick them up.
Her last sentence—make sure you show your passport—made me smile.
“You are fantastic, you know that don’t you?” Nic watched me from the tangle of sheets as I dressed. I would say it was like a Taylor Swift video, but no, not really. Taylor doesn’t need Spanx.
“You flatter me. And it’s only because we just had sex.”
He stretched and touched the bottom of the Nevelson.
“Maybe. But I do know I’ve missed you every day since you left.”
“Nic, it wasn’t working out. You took up with that assistant.”
“Sarah. She was working on her PhD thesis on Hatshepsut and her architect Senenmut. Was he really in love with the queen or just using her?”
I narrowed my eyes. “Whatever.”
“It was an interesting idea.”
“Okay, did it work?”
“She couldn’t find enough hieroglyphic evidence in the time she had.” He shrugged and so much for Sarah. Since I knew Nic well, he was probably very supportive up until her committee rejected the dissertation draft. Then goodbye baby, which is a more unpleasant side of Nic.
The phone buzzed in the living room. I pulled on one of Miranda’s sweaters. “Gotta get that. Family crisis.”
“You always were responding to one crisis or another.” He muttered.
I paused and looked back at him.
Then retrieved the phone.
I sighed wondering how long I could keep this, this silence, this moment.
I checked in with Chris.
Learning about poisons, He texted.
Any particular reason?
Mom saw a mouse.
I glanced at the missed calls. Tina had phoned three times. I did not bother playing back the voice mail, since I could hear her standing on a chair, demanding I do something about her rodent problem even though I was half-way around the world.
“What we need.” Nic strolled into the kitchen. “Is more information.”
“You think?”
“There is a party tonight.” He waved his phone. “Given by the infamous Von Meiter.”
I frowned. I knew the name. Which makes sense, I knew most of the infamous in Venice. Miranda insisted that the people on the edges of polite society made the best dinner guests.
“He is a collector as well.” Nic quickly explained. “He would actually know about the hippo or anything else that has hit the market here in Venice. You need to talk to him.”
“Why not you? If you know him?” Chris had stopped texting, his communication finished for the day.
“It’s not that easy.”
“There are lists of stolen items, right?”
He ran his fingers through his hair—he had enough to ruffle, mess, grab. My fingers itched to do it again. “The DLIR is down, they’re digitizing the Library.”
The Digital Library for International Research. I could put Chris on the trail, but not if it’s off-line.
He read my expression. “They lost their funding.”
“Shit.”
“I know, that would have been easy. Look up hippos, compare, done.”
“And then what?”
“If it’s stolen, or even if it’s just been accidentally found, we still need to know the provenance.”
I nodded, here was the man I fell in love with, impossibly upright, as careful as a French savant but as covetous as an English lord in the wake of the battle of the Nile.
“Which is better?
He took a deep breath and did not meet my eyes. “Found can be a problem.”
“You want to know where this hippo was found, and why it was so easy for Miranda to snap it up, likely for a bargain price?”
“It’s priceless,” he countered.
“Which means that any purchase price is, shall I say it again? A bargain.”
“Von Meiter likes women.”
“Young women.” I countered realistically. My hair looked good, but not that good.
He smiled and reached out to touch my hair. “You always get what you want.”
“That’s not true.” I protested. Good lord, that was not true; by all the busy, squabbling gods, it was not true.
“Yes, yes, it is.” He leaned back, lighting tapping his coffee cup. “Besides, what else are you doing on a Saturday night?”
Michael Von Meiter was a collector, not of things most have heard about, but a collector nonetheless. He was popular in Venice, a man given to outrageous statements about the economy, about immigration, but, most popular, invectives against cruise ships. Even as far back as the 90s there were approving rumors that the protests blocking the cruise ships were being bankrolled by you know who. When I say protests, we are not talking about thousands of sincere people carrying heavy signs and marching all afternoon in inclement weather. The Von Meiter protests took the form of a hundred or so boats, gathered to block the larger ships and prevent them from disembarking, forcing the companies to rack up another expensive port fee and the ire of every passenger on board. Think the Lilliputians snaring Gulliver. The flotilla was basically a large floating party. All very lively and fun for the locals. Possibly annoying for companies managing more money that the Dodges ever imagined in their wildest fever dreams. If they pissed of thousands of tourists, all the better, more space for the locals, more room in the cafes.
Von Meiter was the unacknowledged hero of the effort, especially after it worked. The protests helped fuel the movement of overtourism. He was not only a local hero; he was generous with his Robert Parker-rated wine cellar.
How many years since I drank Von Meiter’s wine? Too long.
“Just walk up to him and ask if there is a black-market outlet for stolen Egyptian antiquities in the shape of a hippo and if so, where are their offices?” I glared at Nic. I needed more coffee for this conversation.
He rubbed his neck. “Maybe not so direct.”
I fired up the machine. “There is no other way to put it. Can’t we just Google it?”
That at least, made Nic smile. But he was adamant, as the song goes—It had to be you.
I had five hours to slide into an exclusive, invitation-only, Venetian party.
In the olden days, back when it was less about your social media presence and all about who you personally knew, I could call, make arrangements and this model or that designer would suddenly become the It boy or girl of the evening and if all went well, that glow of
fame would expand into weeks of fame and name recognition which in turn would be just enough time to book them into lucrative contracts. Once the furor died, the model or photographer or stylist would have the option to retire with a two-year Ralph Lauren contract and secure investments. It worked time and time again.
But I never employed my system for myself. I took a deep breath and started to scroll through my contacts. Years, I had allowed at least three, if not more, years to pass without a word to my old friends, I believed the whole of the fashion world was lost to me. As familiar names appeared under my restless thumb, I smiled. Maybe it wasn’t all lost.
I dressed in one of my newly created outfits, part from Simone’s shop, part from Chez Miranda—flattering leggings, high heeled boots and a strategically draped sweater. My hair hadn’t looked this good in years so to complement the hair I broke out some of Miranda’s still-packaged makeup and touched up my eyes and lips. No reason to not look good for the embassy.
Nic had disappeared, I think he called out something like “later” while I wrestled into the leggings. He was the least of my problems. I was without a passport, I was twelve hours late for my return home and I was living in my dead friend’s apartment; essentially, I was squatting. I hadn’t returned Tiffany’s paintings. There were many problems.
All, really, of the first world variety. I tucked the phone in my bra and shouldered one of Miranda’s old Chanel bags.
The American Embassy was staffed by Italians all of whom gathered around to see what was essentially a before-and-after reveal.
“That is…you?” One young man grabbed my phone and enlarged the passport picture. He squinted at my phone, then looked me over as if he didn’t believe me. For a moment I froze, what if they don’t believe me? I shouldn’t have colored my hair. My eyes must have widened. He grinned. “For your new passport, a new photo signora?”
Five young people assured me my passport would be ready in less than twenty-four hours. Or forty-eight hours. Okay, three business days at the most. Since it was Wednesday, I was grateful for Simone’s insistence on a more expansive wardrobe.
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