The Mistaken Masterpiece

by Michael D. Beil

  “And by then it was gone,” Junior adds. “We didn’t know which one went to Phillip and which to the other house, so we were stuck. It definitely created some problems for us with Werkman. He was not happy.”

  He rewraps the painting in the brown kraft paper and sets it on the ground, next to his chair.

  And that, my friends, is my cue.

  In which I share the stage and the glory with an up-and-coming actress

  As soon as Arthur junior sets the package by his chair, I quietly slide my identically wrapped parcel next to his, hit the send button on my phone, and prepare for yet another inspired-but-certain-to-be-ignored-by-the-Academy performance.

  “Well, I’ve gotta get going,” I say to Margaret. “I’ve got a ton of homework tonight and my parents are gonna kill me if I don’t get my grades up. Call me, okay? Give her a kiss, Tillie. Good girl!” I give Margaret a hug and make my grand exit. Instead of taking my package, though, absentminded little me “accidentally” picks up the one next to Arthur junior and walks off with it.

  Oops.

  As Tillie and I make our way out of the little café area and to the sidewalk around the edge of the pond, my phone vibrates in my hand. I grin when I read the new message: GO! Then I quickly call Margaret so I can hear what’s going on at the table (and get a heads-up if something goes wrong at her end).

  It’s all going perfectly, though, and when I hit my mark, as we (ahem) actors like to say, Margaret interrupts the conversation at the other table.

  “Hey, mister, I’m sorry, but I think my friend took your package by mistake.” She shows him the little sticker from a frame shop on mine, and I can hear the panic in his voice over the phone.

  “Where did she go? Which way? What is she wearing?” He and Arthur senior are on their feet immediately, scanning the park in all directions for a girl in a red blazer with a dog and a package wrapped in brown paper.

  “There she is!” Junior shouts, pointing across the pond at me as I continue on my merry way.

  “Junior’s on his way,” Margaret says quietly into her phone. “Hurry.”

  “No problem.”

  I step off the path as I hear Junior shouting at me; he’s only a few seconds away from intercepting me when I step behind an enormous oak tree and stop.

  “Hey, hold on a second!” Junior yells. “Wait! You’ve got my package!”

  He puts his hand on the shoulder of a girl in a red blazer. She’s blond, walking a black dog, and carrying a package wrapped in brown paper.

  Livvy Klack spins around with her best how-dare-you-touch-me face. “What is your problem?” she says, sneering. (She was born to say that line.)

  “I’m sorry, but you took my package,” he says. “Yours is back at the café. We were sitting next to each other, and when you left, you must have picked up mine.”

  “Are you sure? This looks like mine.”

  “Open it up—you’ll see.”

  With a dramatic roll of her eyes, she pulls away enough of the paper to reveal that it is definitely not her print of the Chrysler Building. Junior sighs with relief when he sees the bold colors of the Pommeroy peeking out from the paper.

  “Sorry,” he says. “I didn’t mean to scare you, but this is pretty important to me. Come on, I’ll buy you and your friend a couple of sodas. Your package is safe; my dad’s watching it.”

  As they walk back to the café, I talk to Margaret by phone. “How did it look from there?”

  “It was a thing of beauty. Seamless. Perfection. For a second, I actually thought Livvy didn’t show. You should have seen the look on Malcolm’s and Elizabeth’s faces when he reached out and Livvy turned around. You’d better get out of there, just in case they take a closer look at things before they leave. I’m taking off right now.”

  “Okay, I’ll see you at Perkatory at five.”

  Phase one of Operation STS is complete.

  • • •

  Perkatory is crowded for a Wednesday afternoon, so Margaret and I push two tables together and wait for everyone else to show up. It just about kills me that I missed what went down at the Svindahl Gallery while we were busy faking out the Arthurs in Central Park, but luckily, Becca and Leigh Ann were there to witness the whole crazy episode.

  When they arrive, we pounce on them with questions.

  “You’re just going to have to wait,” Becca says. “We promised not to tell the story until everyone was here.”

  Malcolm and Elizabeth are next, with Father Julian right on their heels. We’re about to place our order for coffees and sodas and snacks when the door opens and Livvy comes in.

  This is her first time officially meeting the grown-ups, so it’s up to me to make proper introductions.

  “This is Olivia Klack—but everybody calls her Livvy. She’s the girl who broke my nose,” I say with a grin at her. “We’ve been through a lot the past few weeks—a lot of ups and downs. But I think you’ll all agree that she was brilliant today.”

  Father Julian scratches his head. “I’m sorry, but I’m really confused right now. I suppose it serves me right for not wanting to know the plan ahead of time, but where did she come from today? Sophie, I watched you walk away from the table carrying that package. But when you turned around, you weren’t you anymore. You were … her.”

  “Smoke and mirrors,” I say.

  “Not quite,” Margaret says. “Something a little more solid, like an oak tree. When Junior was chasing Sophie, she waited until he got pretty close, and then she turned off the path, taking a shortcut behind a big tree.”

  “Where Livvy and her Tillie were waiting,” I add. “They stepped out the second I disappeared behind the tree. From Junior’s point of view, there was no gap, no pause, nothing. It was perfect.”

  “But … why?” Father Julian asks. “What I mean is, he still got the painting, right?”

  We all look at each other. “Do you really want us to answer that?”

  “Oh no,” he says. “What did you girls do? You might as well tell me now.”

  “It was all Rebecca’s idea,” Leigh Ann says. “She said that the Svindahls needed a taste of their own medicine. So we gave them one.”

  “Right about now, they’re admiring my work,” Becca says.

  “And going bonkers trying to figure out how we scammed them,” I say.

  Father Julian lays his forehead on the table.

  “Remember the third package?” Margaret asks. “Well, that was yet another copy of the Pommeroy, courtesy of our very own Rebecca Chen. And that’s what the Svindahls took with them today.”

  “B-but I saw them identify Prunella’s copy. They were positive.”

  “Oh, that’s what they looked at, all right,” Margaret says. “But Livvy was waiting behind the tree with Becca’s copy.”

  “And he took only a very quick look inside the package,” Father Julian says, finally understanding the whole scheme.

  “Because he had absolutely no reason to suspect anything,” says a thoroughly impressed Malcolm.

  “And meanwhile, I walked away with this,” I say, taking the painted-over Werkman from behind the bar and setting it on the table with a waggle of my eyebrows.

  Meanwhile, Malcolm holds up the original Pommeroy for Father Julian to see.

  “Do you really believe that’s the original?” Father Julian asks.

  “Unless the Svindahls did to us what we did to them,” Margaret answers. “Which is always a possibility. We won’t know until we have it X-rayed.”

  “I’m willing to bet it’s the real thing,” Elizabeth says. “It’s definitely much older than the others.”

  Becca cackles mischievously. “Speaking of X-rays, boy, are they in for a surprise when they take a look at that thing.”

  “Oh no. Becca, what did you do?” I demand.

  “A simple underpainting, kind of like this.” She holds up a drawing of four blazer-wearing paper dolls.

  “In red,” she adds.

  “So much for being
subtle,” Leigh Ann says.

  I check my watch. “I wonder what happened to Nate—”

  His name is still hanging in midair when the door bursts open and Nate makes his usual impressive entrance.

  We cheer wildly, and he bows as deeply as if he’s on a Broadway stage.

  “Now can you tell us what happened down there?” I beg of Leigh Ann and Becca. “We’re all here.”

  “Almost all of us,” says Nate. “But that’s okay. Tell the story, girls.”

  Becca starts: “Believe it or not, Nate was actually on time! And just like he promised, Paul Werkman shows up a few minutes later.”

  “He’s a really funny guy,” says Leigh Ann. “Not what I was expecting—at all.”

  “Yeah, well, when I first talked to him the other day, he was also very surprised to learn that he was ‘after’ some guy named Cale,” Nate says. “Even after I reminded him about the painting, it still took him a while to remember that he had lost it on the guy who mistook his masterpiece for a blank canvas.”

  “He seemed really embarrassed,” Becca adds. “He said he used to have some ‘anger management issues,’ but he’s all better now. When we told him the rest—how the Svindahls were still using that whole screaming thing to keep poor Gus, er, Cale, painting away in their studio, totally for their benefit, he was like, ‘I have to meet this guy.’ ”

  “So we did!” Leigh Ann says.

  “You mean you just walked in the front door of the gallery and said, ‘Here we are’?” I say.

  “Not exactly,” says Becca. “I took them around to the back window, and I went in first, then Leigh Ann. Gus was in a pretty good mood—not too nervous—so I figured it was now or never, and I told him that we had talked to Paul Werkman.”

  “That freaked him out a little,” says Leigh Ann. “Well, a lot, actually. He was worried that we told Werkman where to find him.”

  “And all this time, Werkman and Nate are right outside the window?” Margaret marvels.

  “Yep. And Gus is pacing around the room, checking the lock on the door about ten times, until we finally calm him down,” Becca says.

  Leigh Ann continues: “And then we told him that Werkman wanted to see him, and to apologize for what happened eight years ago. It took a while, but we finally got him to believe us—that the Svindahls were playing him like a piano, totally taking advantage of the situation.”

  “So I go over and open the window,” Becca says, smiling as she remembers it, “and it’s like something from an old movie. First Nate climbs through, and then Paul Werkman. Luckily, he was wearing old jeans, because he tore them on a nail as he was crawling through the opening.”

  “What did Gus do then?” I ask. “When he first saw Werkman?”

  “He looked kind of pale, and he was hiding behind his easel, but at least he didn’t pass out or anything,” says Leigh Ann. “After eight years, I think he had probably built the guy up in his mind into some lunatic monster, but when you see Werkman in the flesh, he’s not exactly intimidating. He’s just an average-looking guy—well, you’ll get to see for yourself. When he gets inside, Werkman does most of the talking—”

  The door opens and Paul Werkman looks around Perkatory, his eyes searching for a familiar face until they land on Nate.

  “Hey, there’s the man of the hour,” Nate says, waving him over to our tables. “Where’s Cale?”

  Before Werkman can answer, the artist formerly known as Gus peers around the door.

  Becca rushes over to greet him, and it’s probably a good thing, because he looks like he might just turn and run. “Hey, Gus, er, Cale. Come on, there’s a few more people you have to meet.”

  She introduces him all around and even brings him tea with milk and honey in a china cup, although where she found that in Perkatory, I can’t imagine.

  Not surprisingly, Cale is pretty quiet, but he does admit to looking forward to seeing some of the city’s sights he’s missed—especially the museums.

  “I think I’ll walk, though,” he says quietly.

  Werkman explains: “The poor guy gets in a car for the first time in eight years, and wouldn’t you know it, we get a cabbie who is a complete maniac, weaving in and out of lanes, almost getting us run over by a bus.”

  “You don’t need to go to museums,” Becca says. “Your apartment is the most amazing place I have ever seen! You guys—everybody—you have to see it. He took us up there before we left, and it is wild. Every square inch of the place, walls, floors, ceilings, you name it, is painted to look like the rooms in the Met. There’s everything from Egypt and ancient Greece all the way up to modern stuff—Impressionists, Picassos, Pollocks, everybody. When you walk in, you will swear there’s a million paintings hanging on the walls, but it’s all just—what did you call it?”

  “Trompe l’oeil,” Cale says.

  “Ah, ‘to trick the eye,’ ” I translate.

  “There’s been a lot of that going on today,” Malcolm notes.

  “Yeah, well, the whole thing oughta be a museum,” says Becca.

  “I’m glad you like it,” says Cale. “It kept me busy at night. Kept my mind off …”

  “Me?” Werkman asks.

  Cale nods.

  “I can’t give you all that time back, but I can help you, Cale. I plan to talk to my agent and the owners of the gallery that shows my work tomorrow, and we’re going to reintroduce Cale Winokum to the New York art world. How does that sound to you?”

  “That sounds … really good,” Cale admits.

  “I just have one more question for you,” Margaret says. “Did you go out the window, too? Or did you actually use the front door?”

  “Oh, that was the best part,” Becca says. “The five of us just walk out of Cale’s studio and into the front room, where Amelia is sitting at her desk playing online solitaire. She had just taken a sip of coffee, and when she sees Cale and Werkman together, she spits it all over her computer.”

  “Her mouth is just hanging open as we walk past her to the front door,” says Leigh Ann. “And then Mr. Werkman says, ‘Don’t worry, Amelia—we won’t keep him out too late.’ It was beautiful.”

  It’s getting late, and as we’re starting to say good night, Elizabeth brings up the original Pommeroy, which Father Julian is holding with both hands. “Father, I’m very interested in that Pommeroy, if you still want to sell it,” Elizabeth says.

  “Oh yes, but … what about the issue of its age? Don’t we still have to prove that it was painted before 1961?” he asks.

  “Oh, I took care of that a long time ago,” I say proudly. “The proof was in the pictures all along—I just had to put it all together. Here, I’ll show you.” I take the three pictures out of a notebook in my book bag and line them up on the table.

  “Okay, the one on the left shows the TV, but not the painting. The game is from October 5, 1961. Those two people on the bench are your aunt Cathy and her friend Denny. The top right picture, with the birthday cake, is important for what’s in the background—the flowers in that big floor vase. We can assume it was taken the same day as the first one because Cathy and Denny are wearing the same clothes in both, and her birthday is October 5. But it’s the one on the bottom that brings everything together. You can see two important things in that picture: Cathy and Denny with a drink and a piece of cake, about to sit on the bench, and that vase full of flowers. I used the magnifier to look at every single flower, and I am positive that they are the exact same flowers, in exactly the same position, as the ones in the top right picture, just from the other side. Put it all together and—ta-da!—you’ve got proof that the painting was on the wall on October 5, 1961. Before Pommeroy died.”

  “Good enough for me,” Elizabeth says. “Father Julian, we’ll be in touch.”

  Father Julian nods his agreement as his phone rings. He steps away from the table to take the call, wandering outside for a minute, before coming back with a strange look on his face.

  Life imitates art, take tw
o

  When we finally walk out of Perkatory, I feel a little let down, probably because I still have lots of questions:

  What will happen to the Svindahls?

  Will Cale really be able to just start his life over again? Will he and Debbie get back together?

  Will I ever see Nate Etan again?

  Mostly, though, I’m relieved that it’s over—for now. I have some serious catching up to do on the rest of my life—something Livvy reminds me of when she reminds me that she’ll see me at the pool at five-thirty in the morning. And now I have no cold dog nose to wake me, although Livvy does promise to let me borrow her Tillie when I’m in need of some dog time.

  And then there’s Saturday’s mysterious two o’clock appointment in the park.

  I throw the bowl, the book, and everything else into a canvas tote, pull on my new red Chuck Taylors (bought with my Tillie-sitting money), and set out for the Conservatory Garden and who knows what else. After passing through the Vanderbilt Gate (remember the skeleton key with the V?), I turn left, heading for the South Garden—the one that most people, I have learned, refer to as “the Secret Garden.”

  It’s not called that because it’s hard to find; it’s because there is a lily pool and statue dedicated to Frances Hodgson Burnett, the author of The Secret Garden. When I come around the last corner, I spot Raf (just as I suspected!) and my heart, already beating fast, feels like it’s trying to bust loose from my chest.

  “Hey,” I say, sitting next to him on the stone bench in front of the pool.

  “I was starting to worry,” he says.

  “I’m sorry. I’ve been kind of a jerk lately. Sometimes I just—”

  “Easy, Soph. That’s not what I mean. You said to meet you here at two, and it’s a little after. You’re usually on time. Except when you’re stuck in an elevator. Or out with a movie star.”