Bombshell

by Lynda Curnyn

We were only in the foyer, but it had a cozy feel, furnished with what looked like a small mahogany accent table and a pretty lamp.

  “Thank you,” she said, relief evident in her voice. Then, as if this was the invitation I had been waiting for, she said, “Come inside. Let me get you something to drink. Sasha should be home soon.” Then she smiled again. “Your sister,” she explained, her eyes gleaming with emotion and making me realize how very much I suddenly wanted to cry myself.

  She left me in a comfortable living room, with overstuffed, fraying couches, a scuffed but shiny coffee table and a curio cabinet that held a myriad of trinkets. I barely looked at my surroundings until she was gone. Then I stood again, feeling antsy, and found myself face-to-face with a photo on the far wall that I might have said was myself, if not for the somewhat dated brown bouffant hairstyle.

  I moved closer, my heart in my throat as I studied the laughing eyes, noting absently that they were more hazel than the blue gray of my own, but that pointed chin was mine, as was the slight tilt to the eyes….

  “That is Kristina,” came Katerina’s voice, startling me.

  I turned to acknowledge her return to the room, then watched as she placed two glasses of tea on the table before she turned to face the photo once more.

  “She was just sixteen there,” she said as I studied the eyes again. “That photo was taken by a professional photographer,” she continued, her voice closer as she came to stand beside me. “He told Kristina she could be a model.” I saw her shake her head out of the corner of my eye. “She spent all her savings on the pictures he took and then she never did anything with them!” She smiled, reaching one hand out reverently to touch the photo. “But she was so pretty. Too pretty,” she said, almost wistfully.

  Before I had time to wonder at this, I heard the rattle of locks, followed by the thud of heavy footfall. “Ah, this is Sasha,” Katerina said, glancing at me in anticipation.

  My sister, I thought, my mind mimicking Katerina’s moniker for Sasha, though even calling her a half sister felt like a leap for me. But whatever label I gave this stranger, I could not have anticipated the fact of her, once she appeared in the oval entryway.

  Standing at what looked like close to six feet tall in her thick-soled, metal-encrusted black knee-high boots, Sasha Morova was a giant. And not a very attractive one. Her unevenly chopped dark hair was dyed a bright red—at least patches of it were. Her skin was pale and her eyes shadowy above a nose that had been pierced twice—a hoop hung from the left nostril and a small pink gem graced the right. Her eyes might have been hazel like Kristina’s, though it was hard to tell their color as they were thickly lined in black and practically covered by a hank of bright red hair. Her mouth might have been pretty—bow-shaped, full—if it wasn’t for the hoop that popped out of it.

  “Sasha, I told you to be home an hour ago,” Katerina chastised her.

  Sasha ignored the reprimand. “When are we eating? I’m starved,” she said, continuing though the archway to the next one, which would lead her out of the room and, I imagined, to the kitchen beyond.

  “Sasha! Don’t be rude, we have a…guest,” Katerina said, the apologetic smile she turned on me a bit strained.

  As if she had finally realized her aunt was not alone, Sasha paused, regarding me with what looked like suspicion.

  Finally someone who feels just like I do, I thought, as I took my first good look at Sasha’s face.

  Because despite the piercings, the bad makeup and the somewhat sullen expression, it was my own, I realized. The eye color was different, as was the mouth. But the shape was there. The nose…

  I felt a shiver move through me, followed by a wave of sorrow when I glimpsed something in her eyes that also mirrored my own. Something I could not fathom, yet understood on some level.

  “Sasha, this is your sister,” Katerina said with a finality that suggested simply by stating it she hoped to make it true. “Grace.”

  Sasha snorted at this, a smile—or a sneer, I couldn’t tell which—marring her features. I couldn’t blame her. Sister? I would have snorted myself, if I weren’t supposed to know better.

  “Sasha,” Katerina said again, the warning clear in her tone.

  Sasha rolled her eyes, held out one hand, wreathed in leather-studded bracelets, and said, “Nice to meet you, sis.”

  I took that hand in mine and almost smiled in recognition at the cold, leathery texture of it. Suddenly I knew what made her so familiar to me, besides the resemblance to Kristina that we shared. It was that at her age I had been very like Sasha. Wearing an air of rebellion and a lot of false bravado. The kind of confidence that had sent me out on the streets of Brooklyn clad much the way she was—though sans the piercings and the bad dye job—in a leather jacket that clearly couldn’t hold out the cold, and no gloves. Even the fingernails I recognized, glancing at the bitten down nubs that hinted at her true confidence level—painted black of course—before Sasha quickly dropped her hand. I felt buoyed by this recognition, and saddened at the same time.

  I remembered how hard it was to be sixteen. Almost as hard as it was to be thirty-four.

  We sat down to dinner a short while later, and over tepid wine, dumplings and oddly spiced meats, I politely answered Katerina’s questions about my life. She was amazed I had spent some growing-up time in Brooklyn, and impressed by my successful career at Roxanne Dubrow. It was a bit awkward, since Sasha seemed to preside in silent judgment over the whole thing, but once Katerina turned the subject to Kristina, I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.

  I learned how Kristina had come here when she was a young girl, with her mother and Katerina, hoping to set up a life with their father, who had emigrated ahead of them, only to discover he had set up a life already with someone else.

  I learned of Kristina’s desire to be an actress, thwarted, I suspected, by her pregnancy with me, though Katerina was polite enough not to say so.

  I learned how she had loved Jean Harlow, Rita Hayworth, Jayne Mansfield. Had fashioned her hair after Marlene Dietrich once and kept her brows as finely shaped as well.

  I learned she had a temper—surprise, surprise—and how, as a teen, she had left a boy standing on the stoop waiting for her for over an hour, because he hadn’t thought to bring her flowers. I was starting to wonder if it was possible that I had inherited the title of Breakup Queen.

  Finally, I asked about my father.

  “He was killed in Vietnam,” Katerina said with some hesitation. “While she was…while she was pregnant with you,” she finished. “They had…had planned to marry.”

  Sasha, who had remained silent through most of the retelling of Kristina’s history, shoveling in her food, snorted at this last statement. “She wasn’t going to marry him and you know it,” she said with a glare at her aunt. “She drove him away. Just like she drove my father away.”

  Katerina looked down at her hands, a sudden sorrow seeming to descend over her features. When she finally composed herself, she gave me a wan smile. “The Morova women—we’ve never had much luck with men. I told you about my mother, God rest her soul. Her life was never easy, raising two daughters alone. In fact, it was she who…well, my mother thought it was too much for Kristina to keep a baby when she was so young herself….”

  She spoke so impersonally about the baby whose mother was too young to raise her that it took me a moment to realize she was talking about me.

  Katerina moved on quickly. “My own fiancé died just weeks before our wedding. He was injured on the job.” She sighed. “It’s hard after you lose your love to hope again.”

  “Yeah, sure,” Sasha said. “My mother could have married my father, but instead she acted like she was too good for him. She wasn’t too good to have sex with him.”

  “Sasha!”

  Sasha ignored her, instead turning to me and addressing me directly for the first time. “So what’s your story?” she asked. “You married?”

  I started to shake my head.

&
nbsp; “Got a boyfriend?”

  The question seemed so ridiculously juvenile, yet I was amazed at how annoyed I felt when Sasha snorted as I shook my head once more.

  “I do,” she said. “Aunt Katerina doesn’t like him because he’s black,” she continued with a sneer.

  “Sasha!” Katerina repeated, her expression horrified, as if Sasha had cursed at the table.

  “But I don’t think Aunt Katerina likes men, do you, Auntie?” Sasha continued. Then, looking at me once more, a malicious gleam in her eye, she continued, “What about you? You a dyke bitch, too?”

  It seemed to me if anyone was a dyke at this table, it was Sasha. She was about as butch as they came.

  But it wasn’t so much Sasha’s question that concerned me as the pure anger I felt coming off Sasha in waves. Anger at me. I wondered, again, why I had subjected myself to the scrutiny of these people. These strangers.

  In truth, I was getting tired of Sasha’s belligerent attitude.

  As was Katerina. “That did it, young lady,” she said. “You will go to your room.”

  Sasha shoved away from the table, laughing uproarishly as she slid her leather jacket off the back of the chair where she had hung it earlier, ever ready to make her escape. “Yeah, right. Where I’m going is none of your business,” she practically spat at the older woman. Then, stalking from the room, she said, “Don’t wait up for me. I might not be coming home tonight.”

  “You see how she is?” Katerina cried once Sasha was gone. “I can’t handle her by myself,” she said. “But Kristina made me promise. What can I do for my sister now? Nothing!” she said, looking at me with a kind of pleading expression.

  I realized then that Katerina was looking for help in what appeared to be a hopeless situation. Sasha would do what she would do. Just as I had done when I was a teenager.

  But then, I had always known I had parents waiting at home who could offer me a better alternative, a new vantage point, when I was ready to see it. As I studied Katerina’s tired, bewildered face, I wondered what this woman could offer a girl like Sasha, who clearly longed for so much more than Katerina could ever possibly understand.

  Then I realized that I might offer a vantage point Sasha could latch on to. I could help her….

  I felt an immediate rebellion brewing in me. No way. I didn’t even like the kid. Why would I subject myself to that? I didn’t owe these people anything, I thought, looking away from Katerina’s pleading eyes and trying not to feel a tug of sympathy for her.

  No, I thought, gazing up at the photo of Kristina that smiled blithely back at me through the arch that led to the living room.

  I didn’t owe anyone anything.

  12

  “It’s better to be looked over…than overlooked.”

  —Mae West

  “The deed is done,” I said to my father when he called me at work first thing Monday morning. I had to admit, I was starting to enjoy this bit of subterfuge, if only because of the pleasure I felt picking up the phone to find my father on the other end. I realized now that the sometimes aloof man who had raised me may have been so simply because he didn’t have anything specific to discuss with his daughter. I was glad to have a reason for us to speak now. Glad I could give something back….

  “Good, good,” my father replied, clearly pleased.

  “There’s just the matter of getting it shipped,” I said. “The gallery offered to handle it, but they recommended insurance, of course. And we need a certificate of authenticity for that, according to the gallery manager.”

  “Right, right,” my father said. “Did they have the paperwork?”

  “Well, no. The gallery manager said it was just a matter of talking to the trustees of the estate that owns the painting. But they had better than the paperwork,” I replied. “They had the artist himself.”

  “Chevalier? You met Chevalier?”

  “Mm-hmm,” I said, a smile in my voice. Then I told him about Chevalier’s interpretation of the infamous painting that had waged war—and love—between my parents.

  “He said that?” my father replied, his voice filled with disbelief.

  “Yup. It appears you and Mom were both wrong. The woman in the painting—Mariella—she was simply…checking out the view.” And what a view it was, I thought, remembering that lush landscape. It certainly could have put that smile on her face, that slumberous yet sensual look in her eyes.

  “But the figure in the distance,” my father said, clearly not ready to dismiss his interpretation. “Why paint him into the scene? Clearly a narrative was being set up.”

  “Maybe he was just a guy passing by,” I said. “Or a woman.”

  “Nah,” my father said. “Chevalier was obviously trying to put you off the track. He was always a tricky one. In fact, I would even wager that the figure in the distance is Chevalier himself!” he finished, clearly warming to his argument. “You do know that Mariella—the woman in the picture, hell, the woman in all his pictures during that period—was his lover? Though it’s unclear when the relationship started. Probably because she was a tad young when they met. She started out as his muse. Or so the official record says, anyway.”

  “I didn’t know that,” I said, suddenly remembering the sadness I had seen in Chevalier’s gaze when he first approached the painting.

  “Yes, yes. Why do you think I bother arguing with your mother over it?”

  I almost laughed. It was clear why he argued with my mother over it. I think to this day my father takes pleasure in the battle that had begun their life together. Since my mother wasn’t around to defend her point of view, I decided to take it up on her behalf. “So this Mariella, did she ever have children?”

  “Three of them!” he announced, caught up in the game. Then he amended, “But her affair with Chevalier was well over and done by then.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “What I’m saying is that Mariella married and had children. But with someone else. I think he was a Spanish noble. Anyway, Chevalier never recovered.”

  It all made sense now, I thought, remembering Chevalier’s resignation as he stood before the painting. God, that painting was completed over forty years ago—could he still be mourning the loss of her? The idea was terribly romantic. And achingly sad.

  So sad, I no longer wanted to dwell on it. “I ran into an old colleague of yours,” I said, changing the subject. I wondered how old Jonathan actually was. He had to be around forty, though he wore forty very well.

  “Is that right? Who was it?”

  “Jonathan Somerfield?”

  “Not Dr. Johnny?” my father said, pleasure filling his voice.

  “Dr. Johnny?” I asked. Yeah, the rather aloof man whom I had met at the gallery was adorable, but he was no…Johnny.

  “Oh, that’s what I always used to call him. He’d just finished up his doctorate when he was invited to speak on an interdisciplinary panel I was working on about France after the Revolution. We got to be friends. But he was just a kid back then. Brilliant, but a bit wet behind the ears.” He chuckled. “Hence the nickname. He hated when I called him that! But I felt a bit…fatherly toward him, you know? He was like the son I never had.”

  I ignored the stab of hurt my father’s unthinking comment caused me. Long ago I had accepted that I was my mother’s choice, and not necessarily my father’s. Not that he hadn’t wanted me, but I think he would have given my mother anything she asked for.

  “So how is he doing?”

  “He seemed…fine,” I replied, remembering just how fine he was. And how unavailable. “He asked about you. And Mom.”

  “Is that right? He always was a fine young man,” my father said. Then he sang the praises of paragon Dr. Jonathan Somerfield: smart, ambitious, well-published—which in academic circles, was better than being well-endowed, though I suspected he was that, too.

  “You know,” my father mused, “you might want to give him a call.”

  “Why?” I replied, fearful th
at he had somehow latched on to the attraction I felt for Jonathan but would never admit to, least of all to my father.

  “Well, for one thing, with his background, he’d certainly be able to determine the validity of that certificate of authenticity we need for insurance purposes.”

  “I suppose…” I said, wondering if my father was only using this as an excuse for matchmaking.

  “Besides,” he continued, “Dr. Johnny was always a fan of Chevalier, too. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind having a look at the collection once more before it leaves town.”

  Clearly, if my father was matchmaking, he wasn’t going to show his hand. I decided to play along. “Yes, the paintings were beautiful,” I replied, remembering those sunset landscapes, the interiors bathed in light, with beloved Mariella at the center of them all. “I wouldn’t mind seeing them again myself.” Or Jonathan Somerfield, I thought but didn’t say.

  “Then it’s settled,” he said. Once he had located his address book, he rattled off a phone number. “That’s his office at Columbia. I believe he’s still there. He was up for tenure when I last saw him. Dr. Johnny,” he said. “Imagine you running into him after all this time. And at a Chevalier show, no less!”

  Apparently my father did have an interest here. I took comfort in the notion that, for a change, that interest was in my heart.

  When I walked into Claudia’s office that afternoon, I discovered she had developed a new interest, too.

  I found her at her desk, leaning in close to the mirror she’d placed there, her fingers pressed to her tender skin beneath her eyes, and pulling gently…up.

  “Don’t hurt yourself,” I mocked, startling her out of her strange pose.

  “Don’t you know how to knock?” she demanded, clearly discomfited.

  “Door was open,” I said, dropping some paperwork from the Sterling Agency on her desk. She hadn’t had the heart to deal with it herself, especially since Laurence Bennett had now gotten his contract and Claudia hadn’t even gotten a follow-up call. I was about to leave when I spotted the drawing on her desk.