The Masterpiece

by Fiona Davis

  He laughed. “I’m sorry I was hard on you this morning.”

  “Don’t be sorry. I had no idea what I was doing. But I like this idea of a cushy job. I could answer phones, say. I’d be a great receptionist.” She pretended to pick up a phone. “Mr. Huckle’s office, how may I help you?”

  “I like that.” He stared at her a moment too long.

  He was flirting with her. The realization came with a rush of confusion. She hadn’t flirted since 1953.

  How different he seemed now than when they’d first met, seven hours ago. But how could she ever consider being with another man? How would she talk about it? I had an operation. What you see is not what you get. He’d laugh, thinking she was joking, and then he’d try to look concerned. All while trying to conceal his horror.

  The cop came back, and they filled out the paperwork, describing the incident and the men they’d encountered. As she repeated the details, it became less a frightening experience and more a story, something that had happened and was over. She could handle almost being mugged; it had happened to almost everyone she knew at one time or another. It was amazing she’d avoided it for so long, being a lifelong New Yorker.

  Handling Dennis’s flirtation, though, was truly scary. They signed the documents, and the cop said he’d make sure his guys patrolled the hallways regularly from now on.

  Dennis walked her to the taxi stand on Vanderbilt Avenue. She couldn’t afford a cab, but she was running late to meet Betsy and today of all days she deserved a little treat, a comfort that she took for granted all those years she was married.

  He opened the car door for her. “Thank you, Dennis.” She avoided his eyes, tucked herself into the back seat.

  As the door shut, he called out, “Hey, maybe I’ll stop by and see you in the information booth tomorrow.”

  The cab pulled away before she could answer.

  * * *

  When Betsy ordered the third round of martinis, Virginia knew it tripled her own odds of revealing the truth about her day, but she hadn’t eaten since the street vendor’s hot dog that afternoon and the thought of three more olives in her belly was incentive enough.

  “Oh my God, Vee, I’ve been blathering on.” Betsy jangled the wooden beads that hung around her neck. “Tell me what you’ve been up to.” She had that strained look on her face that meant she was trying to focus even though she was already buzzing from the gin. A few drops sloshed onto the already sticky bar as she brought the glass to her lips.

  They’d met years ago when their husbands worked at the same firm. Both lived on the Upper East Side and had run into each other at corporate and school events over the past two decades. What they had in common was also what kept them from truly being friends: humble beginnings. Virginia’s home was a Hell’s Kitchen tenement that she’d shared with her parents and younger brother, Betsy’s a two-bedroom in Stuyvesant Town. They’d discussed it once and never again, a shameful secret. Betsy knew the drill as well as Virginia did. You kept certain things quiet, for appearance’s sake. Instead, they had attended barbecues in Greenwich and private dinners in four-star restaurants, and Betsy even began talking like the other ladies, as if her jaw had been wired shut. Virginia’s own accent had been tempered as an underclassman at Barnard College. After meeting Chester at a Columbia mixer, she’d toned it down even further.

  As the fog from her post-divorce haze had cleared, she’d understood that what Betsy really wanted was the dirt: a detailed list of what had happened to send Virginia’s life careening downward, in order to avoid the same fate. When Betsy called last week to arrange a girls’ night out, Virginia had eagerly agreed, knowing she’d be coming straight off her first day on the job. She’d imagined their meeting as the exclamation point on her new life as a successful workingwoman.

  Sticking with the script, she pasted a bright smile on her face. “It’s been a whirlwind. I started working at Penn Central this week, right in Grand Central Terminal. Can you imagine?”

  Betsy frowned as she dabbed at the bar with a cocktail napkin. “You’re working now?” Her lipstick matched her ruffled top, the color of orange sherbet, which she’d pulled down to expose her shoulders even though it was November.

  “Ruby’s quite independent, and I enjoy having a sense of purpose in life.”

  “I haven’t been to Grand Central in ages, because we take the car up to North Salem on weekends, but I hear it’s ghastly these days.”

  “The building’s seen better days, but the office is quite grand. You take an elevator right up, so you don’t see any of the street people. Perfectly safe.”

  So far, so good. Especially learning that Betsy and Cliff rarely used the train. Less chance of being discovered.

  “Cliff’s seriously considering that we move out of the city. I don’t blame him.” Betsy rummaged through her bag, placing her wallet, a tube of lipstick, and a small book on the bar before locating her compact. “The other day, I noticed graffiti on 820 Fifth Avenue. That grand building, marred by spray paint! Horrible people running around.” She checked her appearance, clicked the compact shut, and swept everything but the book back into her purse.

  The bar had filled up since they’d arrived. Single men with exposed chest hair chatting up women with exposed cleavage. The room teetered a little, and Virginia placed both hands on the bar to steady herself. She glanced down quickly at her own chest, to make sure that her bra hadn’t slid up again. With only one breast, there was nothing to hold the other side in place. The woman at the specialty shop who’d sold her the bra had promised it would look completely natural, but Virginia wasn’t so sure.

  Betsy stared with concern. The only friend Virginia had told about her operation was Samantha. If Samantha were here, Virginia would have a different story to tell. But Sam had moved to California just as Virginia’s life was imploding. Sure, they tried to speak on the phone once a week, but long-distance phone calls were expensive. Their letters had trailed off, which was to be expected, really. A holiday card at Christmas was probably the best Virginia could hope for, at this point.

  Virginia picked up the book Betsy had left on the bar, diverting her attention. “What’s this?”

  “It’s the spring auction catalog for Sotheby Parke Bernet. Take a look; there’s a ton of great art in there.”

  Virginia leafed through, pretending to consider the possibilities. “Really great.” She handed it back to her. “Are you going anywhere for the holidays?” Always a safe question.

  Betsy made a face. “I’d rather go to Europe, but Cliff is insisting we go somewhere warm for Christmas. He just got us a suite at the Habitation Leclerc, in Haiti.” Betsy’s voice rose in both volume and pitch, either to make herself heard above the crowd or to impress those seated nearby. “It’s where Bianca Jagger goes, apparently. And you? I hope you get some time off.”

  “Ruby and I were just talking about hitting the slopes. Maybe Tahoe this year.” As if they could afford the airfare, never mind the cost of a hotel. What a joke.

  “Oh dear.” Betsy put a hand up to her lips. “I think we may have taken your skis. How awful. I can give them back if you need them.”

  “What?” For a moment, Virginia thought she’d misheard. The ski equipment was stored up in their country house, in northern Westchester. Officially Chester’s country house, these days. Back when Ruby was young, they’d go up every weekend to let her explore the garden, take family hikes in the woods out back. She fondly remembered sitting under the porch, holding Ruby in her lap, and listening to the raindrops tap on the leaves.

  Betsy leaned in. “Chester had a big estate sale a couple of months ago. Didn’t he tell you he’s selling the house?”

  “Oh right, I forgot.” Virginia steeled herself. He hadn’t told her. Not that he was required to, anymore.

  “Everything was laid out in the driveway. Pretty much everybody from the street stopped by; i
t almost became a kind of party.”

  Virginia stiffened at the thought of the detritus of their marriage strewn across the driveway for the neighbors to pick through. The skis, the water guns, the Slip ’N Slide that Ruby had played with summer after summer. The basketball, which she’d dribbled a few times and then ignored. Their bikes, the three of them riding along, waving at neighbors like the happy family they were supposed to be, Ruby’s with metallic purple tassels streaming from the handles.

  Betsy laid a hand on Virginia’s leg. “We snatched up Ruby’s skis for Libby. I probably should have asked you first.”

  Strangers had come in and fingered through their stuff, offered cash. Loaded it up in their station wagons and driven off.

  A familiar wave of shame and loss rippled through Virginia. Her made-up story, about how great her job was, how happy she was, was a farce. She could no longer tidy everything up, put on a brave face. If she didn’t leave now, she’d expose the truth. That, in fact, she was a failed temp, relegated to the most basic job in a grungy, dangerous place. A failing mother, struggling to make ends meet. A failed wife, a failed woman.

  Right now, all she wanted was to take a long shower and wash the grime of Grand Central out of her pores. God knew what lurked in that information booth, the clerks all breathing the same stale air, customers marking up the counters and glass with their dirty fingers.

  At one point that day, around noon, a single shaft of sunlight had seeped in from one of the high, half-moon windows, the only one that hadn’t been painted over, streaming in like a beam from heaven. Virginia had stared at it, transfixed, until she realized that she was really looking at all the cigarette smoke and dust particles that hovered in the air: a sparkling ray of filth, an illuminated pollution.

  CHAPTER SIX

  November 1974

  But if I don’t have a darkroom, I can’t print my photos.”

  Ruby threw herself facedown on Virginia’s bed.

  Virginia watched her daughter through the mirror of her vanity while trying to clip a rhinestone onto one earlobe. Ruby had figured out early on that the best time to ask for something was when Virginia was most vulnerable. When she was rushed, like now. Or stressed, like now.

  Back when Ruby was a little girl, she’d lie on the bed and watch Virginia get ready for a night out on the town, laughing with glee when Virginia touched a dot of perfume on the inside of her daughter’s pale, delicate wrist. Since then, Virginia’s daughter had lengthened and filled out into a creature she sometimes wasn’t sure she recognized. A beautiful, changeable creature with caramel-brown hair down to her waist and big hazel eyes. Not to mention the stubbornness of a bull.

  Virginia’s first date since the divorce was in forty-five minutes. When Dennis had stopped by the information booth that morning—only her second day on the job—and asked her out, she’d been both embarrassed and pleased. He’d rapped hard on the glass to get her attention. Terrence and Totto had exchanged looks, and she’d quietly stepped out to chat with him, elated to be pursued by such a dashing man. When Doris inquired about him, she’d simply said, “He’s with Penn Central; we used to work together.” They had, for about ten minutes, so it wasn’t a lie.

  Virginia knew needling her daughter wasn’t the best tactic, but she couldn’t help herself. “If you hadn’t dropped out of school this semester, you’d have a darkroom. At Sarah Lawrence.”

  Ruby turned her head to the side. “Yes, Mom. I remember where I went to school.”

  “Well, it’ll still be there if you decide to go back in January, so you’ll just have to hold out until then.”

  When she’d picked Ruby up at school only a few weeks into the semester, she expected to bring her home for a long weekend at most, to make her favorite meals and offer some maternal advice before sending her right back. But Ruby had steadfastly refused to return to school, saying she was only going to fail if she did, so what was the point? In the end, Ruby’s tearstained face and abject misery had warranted a stronger plan of action, one that Chester loudly objected to: Withdraw for the semester and look for a less rigorous program. Virginia still held a small sliver of hope that Ruby would decide to give Sarah Lawrence another try in the spring. She’d given up so easily, so early. The official school withdrawal slip still sat on Virginia’s desk, unsent.

  Yet the girl had always struggled in school, socially and academically, and Virginia was fairly certain the only reason she got into Sarah Lawrence in the first place was that Chester’s mother had pulled some strings. Virginia often fretted that her own worries about fitting in had rubbed off on her daughter. Throughout high school, Ruby had maneuvered through the world behind the safety of a camera lens. The yearbook was full of her photos of her classmates—the debate team, the theater club—but none of Ruby. Other than the official school photo, which for some reason broke Virginia’s heart: her daughter’s angelic face raised at a slight angle, as if in disbelief that someone’s attention was on her, her eyes bright with excitement. When Virginia asked Ruby what she’d been thinking of, Ruby had said she’d been chatting with the professional photographer about f-stops and apertures.

  They’d grown even closer after Chester left, but now their relationship was fraying. Ruby had become irritable and secretive, disappearing for hours at a time. She fumed and stormed off whenever Virginia asked about going back to Sarah Lawrence or transferring into a new school. And now this.

  “I need money to help pay for the darkroom. We’re going to set it up ourselves.”

  “Who is this ‘we’ you refer to?” Virginia wiped off the lipstick she’d just applied. Too pink. Best to stick to her everyday rose.

  “It’s a group downtown. Like an art collective.”

  Smart girl, that Ruby, to bring up the artistic angle in her argument. Virginia’s first love was art history, which she’d studied at Barnard, specializing in medieval art. But she wouldn’t be swayed so easily. “I would have to meet these people first. I’m sure you understand my concerns.”

  Ruby scowled. “They’re not like that. They’ll laugh at me and kick me out if I say that they have to come uptown and meet my mom.” Her eyes narrowed. “You’ve been on my case for not doing anything these past two months. Now I’m working with my hands, making something real, and you don’t like that either.”

  She had a point. She was nineteen, after all. It was nice to see her striking out on her own, following an artistic passion. Virginia hated to shoot her down. “How much?”

  “A hundred dollars.”

  Virginia turned to face her, her mouth open. “You’re kidding, right? What on earth do you need a hundred dollars for?”

  “I told you, to set up a professional darkroom. We’re all chipping in.”

  “You’re being swindled. No. Even if I had the money, I wouldn’t give it to you. Where is this art collective you go to?”

  “The East Village. East Sixth Street.”

  Had she lost her mind? Virginia pictured a group of heroin addicts shooting up in an abandoned building, eyeing Ruby and her camera as easy prey. “It’s dangerous down there. I don’t like the idea of you wandering around that neighborhood.”

  “God, I’m not a child anymore. Forget it, then.” Ruby bounded off the bed and out of the room, her exit punctuated by the slamming of her bedroom door.

  Her daughter was lost, searching for some meaning in her life, and Virginia knew what that was like. She shouldn’t have overreacted. Ruby didn’t know how much they were struggling financially. Virginia had shielded her from the truth as much as possible, calling her job hunt a “fun lark.” She dreaded introducing the additional stress into her daughter’s life.

  But for now, she was late for her date.

  The restaurant Dennis had chosen was located close to Grand Central, which made sense since he lived on the Hudson Line. Virginia knew it took around thirty minutes to get to the Yonkers stop, dep
ending on whether you were traveling at peak hours. Not a bad commute.

  He was already inside, near the back, at a booth. He stood and kissed her on the cheek, a mix of soap and aftershave she’d always found appealing. The scent brought back memories of hot summer nights up on the roof of her parents’ apartment building, necking with her high school crush.

  Dennis ordered a wine for her and a beer for him. “You been staying out of trouble, little missy?” he asked.

  “Luckily, yes.”

  “I bought you a present.”

  Her heart thumped as he reached into his coat pocket. She hadn’t received a gift from a man in ages. Whenever it had been her birthday, she’d gone out and bought herself whatever she wanted and told Chester what he’d gotten her, so as not to be disappointed by his forgetting the day entirely.

  Dennis placed a can of something on the table. “Mace. For your protection.”

  Not what she’d expected. Still. “How thoughtful. And practical.”

  “How’s the job going so far?” He passed a menu to her.

  She searched for something interesting to say that might impress him. “I’ve been reading through the handbook for info booth clerks. Did you know that there’s a newsreel theater opposite track 17, and that until the 1960s, CBS had a television studio in Grand Central?”

  “Sure did. You can’t surprise me with anything about that place. I know it all. But why are you learning about stuff from the 1960s? It’s not like a passenger is going to come up and ask that.”

  “Oh, we get all kinds of strange questions. You’d be surprised. But the handbook is ancient, probably from the 1950s. Whenever it needs updating, Terrence just adds in more pages at the front. I like the older stuff, to be honest, finding out what it was like way back when. There’s even a photo of the information booth back before the terminal opened to the public. Turns out the metal frame on top is supposed to be shiny brass, not black.”