Forgotten: A Novel

by Catherine McKenzie

  “How did you arrange all this?”

  “We set most of it up before we left,” Peter answers. “But—and despite Karen’s praise back there—we have a great team, and the people from Habitat for Humanity are amazing.”

  “When are you going to open?”

  “Probably in a month or so. We’re having a fund-raising gala in a couple of weeks. Will you come?”

  “Of course.”

  “And persuade your firm to sponsor a table?” Karen asks in her forthright manner.

  “They owe me that much at least.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Oh, nothing. It’s just been an . . . adjustment coming back.”

  She looks sympathetic. “Stephanie was telling us.”

  “She was here?”

  “Yesterday.”

  “Right, I forgot. She told me she was going to come see you.”

  Peter picks up a basketball from the rack on the porch and passes it back and forth between his hands. “She’s quite a girl, that Stephanie. She already has all these ideas about how we can get corporate sponsorships, and she wants us to host some kind of dating-service thing here at night.”

  “That’s Stephanie, an idea a minute. But I’d listen to her; she’ll put you on the map.”

  “We don’t need to be on the map. Staying afloat will do.”

  “Nah, you’ve got to think big. Think world domination.”

  Peter laughs. “That’s your department, isn’t it?”

  “Speaking of which,” Karen says, “we could really use some help setting up the legal clinic.”

  “My pro bono hours are yours.”

  “We were kind of hoping you might do more than that.”

  “Oh?”

  Peter bounces the ball onto the hard concrete. The thwap! thwap! echoes around the yard. “To be frank, Emma, we’d like it if you’d run the clinic. Be our corporate counsel, that sort of thing.”

  “But I have a job.”

  “I know,” Karen says, an intense look in her eyes. “But this is an opportunity to do something more important. This is about helping real people, changing lives.”

  “Well, duh,” I say in a joking tone.

  “So you’ll do it?”

  “I don’t know, Karen. I have to think about it.”

  “Are you working on anything right now that would be as meaningful as this?”

  “I’m trying to figure out who stole a painting, actually.”

  Karen makes a dismissive gesture with her hands. “You see? I’m talking about making sure that people don’t get evicted, or that they keep custody of their kids.”

  I look at Peter. He’s watching us, bouncing the ball in a distracted way.

  “What do you think?” I ask him.

  “I think you could be a real asset here,” he says mildly. “And that you’d find it fulfilling in a way your current job never was.”

  I know they mean well, but do they have to make me feel guilty? And since when did it become open season to psychoanalyze me? Why does everyone suddenly have an opinion about what will make me happy?

  “What’ll it be?” Karen asks.

  “I don’t know. I really would have to think about it.”

  “I thought you’d be excited. I didn’t think I’d have to convince you.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. I’m flattered you asked me, and I will think it over, but . . . look, I know this is going to sound shallow, okay, but I like what I do.”

  At least I did before Africa, and the Ejector, and Craig.

  Karen looks down at the porch. Peter bounces the ball rhythmically.

  “Please don’t be too disappointed in me, Karen. I can’t take it.”

  “All right,” she replies. But she won’t look me in the eyes.

  “And I’ll make sure that TPC sponsors at least two tables for the gala,” I add lamely.

  “That’ll be great, Emma,” Peter says. He bounces the ball hard against the ground, pivots, and tosses it toward the basket. It catches the rim, jerks backward, and falls to the ground. “Not our lucky day, I guess.”

  Karen shrugs. “Maybe that dating thing will work out.”

  In the cab on the way back to the office, I keep the wave of disappointment emanating from Karen and Peter from enveloping me by cocooning myself in indignation.

  I mean, it’s not like I made them any promises. And just because they’re perfect and selfless doesn’t automatically make me a bad person if I don’t make my whole life about charity, does it? Of course not.

  Arg! Visiting Karen and Peter was supposed to make me feel better. I thought we’d hug, talk about old times, have a few laughs, and make plans to have dinner sometime soon. But like everything associated with Tswanaland, it didn’t go according to plan.

  My cab screeches to a stop at a red light and I fly toward the plastic separator, stopping myself with my hands just before my head hits the Plexiglas.

  “Will you watch it?”

  “Sorry, lady. I didn’t want to hit the kids.”

  I look out the window. There’s a line of small children wearing bright snowsuits crossing the road. They’re holding on to plastic handles attached to a long rope. Their teacher is at the head of it, leading them toward the steps to the museum.

  The light changes before the kids have finished crossing.

  “We can go in a minute,” the cabbie says.

  “You know what, forget it. I’ll get out here.”

  I toss the cabbie a twenty, climb out, and cross the street to the museum, following the children’s trail. The wide stone steps end at a set of huge and intricately carved wooden doors. Two smaller doors have been set into them, modern slabs of thick glass that should be out of place but fit in an odd kind of way. The whole building is like this—a mix of the very modern and the very old. A new archway held up by an old pillar. An old master in a new frame. The museum’s benefactor had posterity on the brain when he gave them a large part of his fortune, and it shows.

  After I get through Security, which is definitely heightened since the last time I was here (a stern-faced security guard even wands the kids), I walk around the cavernous gallery where the reception was held. Winter sunlight streams through the glass ceiling. The room is mostly empty except for the boisterous kids, now free of their snowsuits and climbing onto the bases of the naked Greek statues.

  “Emma?”

  I turn around, a knot forming in my stomach. Craig is standing there in his camel winter coat, a red plaid scarf knotted at his neck.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “What’s with the hostility?”

  “Nothing in particular, I guess.”

  “Is this your default setting now?”

  “Don’t do that. Don’t use things from our past against me.”

  “I was only making a joke.”

  “I’m not sure we’re ready for jokes.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “What are you doing here?” I ask again.

  “I had a meeting with the museum’s president and our client about Bushnell’s lawsuit.”

  “Oh, right. Matt said.”

  “And you?”

  “I thought I’d take a look at the gallery.”

  “Mind if I join you?”

  “I can manage on my own.”

  “I am the client contact on this one. We’re going to have to work together.”

  “Okay, fine. Whatever. Let’s get this over with.”

  We walk through an archway. After several more lefts and rights I’m thoroughly turned around and almost grateful that never-been-lost-in-his-life Craig is by my side.

  “What did the museum brass say?” I ask.

  “They don’t understand why Mutual doesn’t just pay up.”

&nb
sp; “What did you tell them?”

  “The usual bullshit. We have to complete our investigation before we can pay out such a large sum of money, blah, blah, blah.”

  “Did they buy it?”

  “They’re talking about getting separate counsel.”

  “They’re expecting us to blame them?”

  “It’s the obvious play.”

  We walk past a gallery full of paintings of the Crucifixion. The forlorn face of Jesus stares out from a wall of canvases heavy with varnish.

  I shudder. “Ugh. I hate those paintings. Where is this gallery, anyway?”

  “It’s through there.” He nods toward a set of glass doors on the left. The words VICTOR BUSHNELL GALLERY are set out in shiny chrome letters above it.

  The gallery is a large room with curved white walls. Its shape seems to push the paintings toward the viewer. The effect is strangely intimate, like you could step into the paintings at any moment. Corinthian pillars are interspersed throughout the room, their pilasters holding up the ceiling. One wall is covered in Impressionist paintings. There’s a large space in the middle where the Manet was. Another wall is a mélange of great art through the ages. The third appears to be dedicated to the history of photography. The back wall is bare.

  I look around. Two white-haired women are resting on a rectangular bench made of marble. There’s only one way out—the glass doors we came through. There’s an electronic keypad on the wall to the left of the doors. I know from the notes in the file that once the room’s locked, it requires a key card and a six-digit code to get in. The code is changed weekly. There are no windows, only narrow rectangular light shafts near the ceiling, which is made of smooth, hard plaster—not the removable ceiling panels that give access to so many thieves in the movies.

  “How did they get the painting out of here?” I ask.

  Craig looks mystified. “No idea. But thankfully, it’s not our job to figure that out.”

  I think back to Detective Kendle’s grim face. It might be irrational to hope I can solve a mystery that’s baffling the police, but I can’t help but think that if I can figure it out, order might be restored to my universe.

  Craig stops in front of a painting of a traffic-filled street that looks like a photograph.

  “How do you think he managed to make it look like that?”

  “I have no idea. Should we go?”

  “Sure.”

  We walk toward the exit, where a member of the museum staff is setting up an easel. Next to it on the floor is a poster of a familiar-looking black-and-white photograph. A disconcerting mixture of skylines that exists in only one place. My eyes travel over the poster with trepidation, seeking out the artist’s name, knowing what I’ll find.

  “Emma, are you all right?” Craig asks. “You’ve gone awfully pale.”

  Chapter 20: Evidently You Don’t, Evidently You Won’t

  Do you think I should go?” I ask Stephanie.

  We’re sitting in a booth in a sushi restaurant a week later. It’s one of those chain restaurants with orange walls, white Formica tables, and bright fluorescent lighting, but the sushi is generally pretty good.

  Stephanie studies the stiff paper flyer for Dominic’s show. “It’s on Friday.”

  “I know what day it’s on.”

  “Hey! Don’t bite my head off because you’re pissed at Dominic.”

  “You’re in the line of fire, I guess.”

  “Maybe you should think of using plastic bullets.”

  The waitress brings our miso soups. I dip my spoon into the cloudy broth, scooping up a few chunks of tofu and seaweed.

  “Sorry.”

  “It’s okay. Do you think he wants you to come?”

  “I’m not sure. He was pretty quick to suggest that he leave the apartment.”

  Dominic called the day after I scoped out the museum. I was sitting at my desk, staring at the map of the gallery like it could provide the answer to the mystery of how the painting had been stolen. I had this sudden urge to whisper the incantation Harry Potter uses to make the people appear on the Marauder’s Map. It left my lips almost unconsciously as I tapped the map with the tip of my pen. But of course, because I am a lawyer and not a wizard, nothing appeared.

  My phone rang. I reached to answer it. “Emma Tupper speaking.”

  There was a pause, and then, “Hi. It’s Dominic.”

  My back stiffened. “Oh. Hi. Where are you?”

  “I’m here. In the city.”

  “How was Ireland?”

  “It was fine. Listen, Emma . . . could we meet later? Talk?”

  Though my mind shied away from the idea—I couldn’t help but think of Craig wanting to talk after Cathy Keeler’s show—I said, “At the apartment?”

  “Sure, that would be fine.”

  And maybe it was that word—fine—but something snapped inside me. “Actually, I have to work late and . . . and . . . I need to go check out some apartments afterward.”

  “That’s one of the things I wanted to talk to you about.”

  “Oh?”

  “I was thinking . . . I should be the one to leave. It’s your apartment, after all.”

  He had a slight joking tone to his voice, but it wasn’t really something I felt like joking about.

  “Where are you going to go?”

  “I can stay at a friend’s.”

  “Oh,” I said again, at a loss for anything else to say.

  There was a long silence.

  “I guess we don’t need to meet, then?” Dominic said.

  “I guess not.”

  He cleared his throat. “Fine. I’ll pick up some of my stuff while you’re still at work.”

  “Good,” I said, feeling hollow inside.

  We said goodbye, and I haven’t heard from him since. He’s removed a few things from the apartment, but the bulk of his possessions remain. I haven’t yet worked up the energy to call and ask when they’ll be gone too.

  Stephanie picks up her bowl and drains her soup in a few large gulps. “That hits the spot.”

  “Seriously, Steph? Could I get a little help here?”

  She pats her mouth with her napkin. “I don’t know what you want me to tell you. You clearly want to go, so go.”

  “But do you think it’s a good idea?”

  “Who cares? You’re going to go no matter what I say.” She eyes my cooling soup. “You going to eat that?”

  I push it toward her. “Why do you think I’d go if you said I shouldn’t?”

  “Because. If you want to confront Dominic, that feeling’s not going to go away because I come up with more items for the con column than the pro.”

  “You have more items for the con column?”

  She shakes her head. “You’re relentless.”

  “Of course I am. Think about how hard I’ve worked to become that way.”

  “Maybe your energy could’ve been put to better use elsewhere?”

  “Probably. But it’s too late for that now.”

  The waitress clears away our bowls and lays a plate full of maki between us. I prepare a piece with ginger, soy sauce, and wasabi. I pop it into my mouth and immediately start choking.

  “That’s crazy spicy.”

  Stephanie hands me her water glass. “Here, drink this.”

  I gulp it down. The fire subsides slightly. “What are your cons?”

  She looks resigned. “He’s just coming out of a screwed-up relationship. He clearly still has issues with his ex. He slept with you, then called to tell you he thought it was a mistake. Then radio silence until he wanted to ‘talk.’ Happy?”

  “Thrilled, thanks.”

  “You’re still going to go, though, right?”

  “Probably.”

  “Why?”

  “
I guess because this seems like the easiest puzzle to solve right now.”

  Her blue eyes regard me calmly. “Are you in love with him?”

  “What? No. That’s ridiculous.”

  “That sounded convincing.”

  “Ah, shut up.”

  “Now she doesn’t want to hear what I have to say.”

  “Just eat your sushi.”

  She pops a piece of maki deftly into her mouth. “I know one thing, though,” she says around her mouthful.

  “What’s that?”

  “It must be some pro list.”

  Why do I want to see Dominic again? Is it because I can’t stand the idea of him becoming some one-night stand, or because I want something more from him? I don’t know. I only know that I do. And so, even though I spend all day Friday pretending I’m not sure if I’m going, I’m not really fooling myself.

  Jenny walks into my office. She’s wearing a dress that looks like a potato sack that’s been cinched above her knees.

  “A bunch of people called for you while you were out for lunch.”

  She holds out a sheaf of pink slips. I flip through them. Detective Kendle called, as did Carrie, Cathy Keeler’s assistant from In Progress, twice.

  “Did that In Progress woman say what she wanted?”

  “Nope. But it’d be awesome if you went on there again.”

  “Awesome is not quite the word I’d use.”

  “What do you mean? You kicked ass on that show. And you looked fabulous.”

  “Thanks, Jenny.”

  “Do you mind if I leave early today?”

  “Sure, I’ll see you Monday.”

  “Thanks, Emma! You’re the BBE.”

  It takes me a moment to decipher this. Best boss ever. How does someone so competent come in such a The Hills package? Must be a generational thing.

  I call Detective Kendle back first. She tells me in a clipped tone that the approval came through for me to get a copy of the security footage, and gets all huffy when I ask if there are any developments in the investigation. After she ends the call with an abrupt “Goodbye,” I email our messenger service with a request to pick up the DVDs. Then I reluctantly return the calls from In Progress.