by Alex Dolan
“All this on a night that I just happened to forget the alarm?”
“You’ll only be guilty of incompetence.”
Rosewood had started talking about the plan in definite terms, swapping out woulds for wills. She started getting anxious at how real this plan could be, and fished for things to say to stop the conversation. “Prison.”
Rosewood said, “Galleries get robbed all the time. They wouldn’t install fancy alarm systems if they didn’t.”
“They’d figure out it was me. You. Us.”
“You’ll probably lose your job, but you can get another one.”
She propped herself on her elbows, more alert. “Do you even like that painting?”
“I’ve said I like it.”
“But it’s so different from your work.”
“That doesn’t mean it’s bad. Far from it. He did everything right with that one.”
“Do you like the idea of owning it?”
“I like the idea of doing something bold together. For me, it’s not so different from what we’ve been doing. I think it’s romantic. I’ll put the question back on you. How would it make you feel?”
Paire hemmed until she came up with, “Every time I see her, she makes me want to be a better artist.”
“Is that all she makes you want?”
She rolled so she leaned her back against his chest, lost in thought for a minute. She thought about the face of the empress, the blushing lips painted with a pout. The woman in the painting was real. She was two real women, actually. Both the mother of Melinda Qi and the Empress Xiao Zhe Yi herself. They had blended into a figure who seemed larger than life, somehow both regal and rebellious. But when she stopped dissecting the portrait and identified what made Paire Anjou keep staring every time she entered the Fern, she said, “I’d like to be that strong.” Paire interlaced her hand in his, and the two admired the twine of fingers.
Rosewood lightly stroked Paire’s face, and when she shut her eyes, he gave her closed eyelids the lightest brush with his fingers, running up and down the mohawk ridges of eyelashes.
She said, “I wouldn’t want anyone to get hurt.”
“That’s why we’d do it at night.”
She imagined what might be possible, allowing herself the fantasy of pulling off another stunt, but this time for her and not Rosewood. She enjoyed being the primary focus of this. Because of what they’d done in the subway and at the museum, she even allowed herself to think of this as something other than a crime. Rosewood had been helping her to see how social convention, even legal convention, wasn’t always clear-cut. Maybe this could even be positive. Melinda would be relieved. Kasson would stew over this novel sensation of loss.
Paire reminded herself that they were still just playing, conjuring up a plan in their blissful, postcoital reverie. She was still high on the rush of possibility, basking in what she had already done with him. But the more they talked, the more plausible it seemed, and the closer they got to attempting it.
“We’re still talking hypothetically.”
“What else would this be?” he said slyly, circling her navel with his fingers.
She applied some of the knowledge she’d learned from Rosewood over the past couple of months. “The back entrance. That would be the entry and exit point.”
“That’s how I’d do it.”
“It’s not a canvas. You couldn’t cut it and roll it. It’s solid birch board. And not a small one at that.”
“I’ve had to move flat panels like that. You can dress as a trash collector, and wheel out a trash bin. For something that size, you could mold two trash bins together. From the outside it would look like you’re just wheeling around two plastic tubs, but on the inside the center divider would have been cut away, so you’d have one large rectangle to stow it.”
“You’d be in Manhattan wheeling that around. Pretty obvious.”
“No one looks twice at the trash man. Not in this town.”
“So you’d take it on a subway?”
“We’d have a van. The driver would get a call and pick up the trash man and the tubs. Plenty of room in a van for all of it.”
She got excited. “I’d be driving the van?”
“You’ll be at the library, or anywhere plenty of people would see you. You’ll be nowhere near this.” This made sense, but she didn’t like the idea of having to sit out.
The scenario was quickly becoming real. She thought it might actually be possible. Paire kept imagining the portrait on their wall. She knew she shouldn’t want it—it wasn’t fair for one person to own something that valuable, to hide it away from the world. But she did want the Jia Shun Empress, and the more possible it became to acquire the painting, the more exhilarated she became. Her mind scrambled with conflicted thoughts, between conscience and covetousness. “I wouldn’t want to hurt Mayer.”
“The Fern has insurance. He wouldn’t be in business without it.”
“He’d feel violated.” I know I would, she thought.
“From what you’ve told me, it sounds like he’d be relieved. That thing brings all those weirdos into his place, including Abel Kasson. I think he’d be glad to be rid of it. It’s an albatross.”
“You think Mayer would be happy if we stole from him?”
“I’m saying he won’t cry when it’s gone.”
She wondered if the guilt of a crime would be too much for her to bear, especially with a father who had already spent twelve years in prison. She would be just like Lake Novis. The thought revolted her. She thought she’d grown out of her klepto phase. She’d also never wanted anything this badly. Time seemed to slow whenever she looked at that painting. Other sounds died down, and there was only the empress, humming in her head.
Rosewood’s plan seemed flawed. She might have stolen trinkets from students and lit fires in the orchard, but she’d never committed a crime this serious. Paire might give herself away when the police questioned her. The police could read people’s reactions—that was their job. They’d be able to tell she had something to do with the robbery just by how she fidgeted in her chair. She might give herself away with an eye tic.
Paire lay on her chest on the bed, her arms hugging a pillow as if it were a giant teddy bear. Her ankles crisscrossed in the air. She imagined the Jia Shun Empress above her bed, anticipating such a time the way some women dreamed of their wedding nights.
Chapter 14
Paire sat in a small room with glass walls.
The MSAD library had been rebuilt in the mid-nineties, with a modern two-story open-air reading room, surrounded by a perimeter of conference rooms. Intended for study groups, each one came with a sliding glass door that soundproofed group conversations. Paire sat in one of these rooms, pretending to focus on her laptop. Each chamber looked like one of the taxidermy dioramas at the American Museum of Natural History. When people passed, some squinted at her with a passing curiosity, and some shot dirty looks because she was hogging a room intended for groups. Maybe they were just struck by the yellow dress.
Paire wore a bright canary dress when she closed the Fern Gallery with Lucia. That night, she wanted to be remembered, and the yellow dress stuck out. Someone at the library desk asked, “Special night?”
They had waited five days, until Paire was scheduled for the closing shift. In the meantime, she and Rosewood had turned the Brooklyn Heights flat into a war room, sketching out the plan on the same giant pads they used to map out Rosewood’s guerrilla installations. They printed a crude floor plan of the gallery and maps of the neighborhood. Talking through it step by step, Rosewood played secretary, scribbling with squeaky markers and taping the sheets on the walls, so they could view their entire scheme at a glance.
They’d gone shopping together for the necessary supplies: janitor’s uniform, gloves, a four-wheeled dolly, two plastic trash barrels, a crowbar, hacksaw, hammer, duct tape, small zippered case for the tools, and a bandana. All bought with cash, from different stores. Same as they’d
done when they shopped for Wall Street station.
The planning invigorated her, even though it meant risking everything she’d built in New York. Paire would be an obvious suspect. If they weren’t caught in the act, the police would find their way to Pierrepont Street. They would want to search Rosewood’s flat, which at the very least meant she wouldn’t be able to hang the empress in the bedroom the way she’d daydreamed. But she’d already broken laws in New York and gotten away with it. And the reward would absolutely be worth it, she told herself.
Paire had trouble sleeping. When she was awake, watching her boyfriend sleep next to her, she imagined that he might wake up, and they’d share a moment of epiphany, where they would both admit this was a foolish errand conceived by a pair of crazies.
They reviewed timing until she had memorized the sequence of events for the evening. She would close the gallery at seven and immediately head to the MSAD library. She’d stay there until it closed at midnight. That’s how much time she needed to kill. Rosewood would arrive at the Fern around ten thirty, not so late that he’d be the only person on the street.
He’d told her that she had to stay in sight. Make small talk with the librarian so that someone could say they saw her. The police would know it was a ten-minute walk to the Fern, maybe even a two-minute cab ride. She should make a few phone calls, enough to show she was engaged when the robbery took place. GPS tracking would place her back at the library. Once it closed, she needed to go back to Brooklyn.
“The police will eventually want to talk to you. You’ll need to fake surprise when it happens,” he’d told her. “Mayer will blame you for not setting the alarm. Prepare yourself for that.” She practiced what she would say, rehearsing until her story sounded natural.
For those five days leading up to this evening, Paire had difficulty talking to Mayer and Lucia. At different points, they both asked, “Are you all right?” Paire felt like a bell diver with a knot in her air hose. She reminded herself to feign nonchalance—less Novis, more Anjou.
That night while working her shift with Lucia, she thought of calling it off. All it would take was a phone call. But Paire didn’t call Rosewood. Whenever she stole glances at the rear wall, she wanted the empress more than ever. The red cheongsam was always in the corner of her eye, an ever-present crimson blur. Soon it would belong to her.
When they were closing, Lucia finally cornered her while the computer monitor blinked to black. “You’ve been different, and I know what it is.”
Paire’s blood chilled. She’d just returned from the back office. The alarm remained unarmed. Lucia said, “It’s the break-in.”
Paire felt her sphincter tighten.
Lu continued, “That morning after someone threw a rock through the window. You saw Mayer and me together. I know you knew about us before that, but we’d never been so open about it. You’ve acted differently since then.”
Had she? She hadn’t made up her mind to steal the painting until later. What’s wrong with you? Rosewood might have scolded. If you act guilty, you’re going to give yourself away.
“It’s not my business.” Paire bit her nails, the ultimate irony for a girl obsessed with her hands. All of those manicures were for naught, and in the final week before the burglary, her ragged fingertips looked as if she’d just clawed her way out of a grave.
“But it makes you uncomfortable,” Lucia said.
Paire wanted the conversation to end, so they could finish closing and she could leave the Fern. “I think you make a good couple. It’s nice to see people in love.”
Lucia stared down at the large diamond on her left hand. “Mayer’s a good person. I hope it doesn’t change the way you think about him.”
“You’re both good people,” Paire said.
“Are you kidding? I’m a shit.” The depth of her shame surprised Paire.
“You’re not a shit.” Paire couldn’t help but steal a glance at the wall clock. She worried about how long this conversation might stretch.
“My husband doesn’t beat me or anything, if that’s what you’re wondering. He’s not a drunk. He’s not abusive.” Paire remembered bruises on Lucia when she’d first met her, but didn’t contradict her. “He’s actually sweet, in his own way. He works too much—he’s a doctor. Did I ever tell you that?”
“You never talk about him.”
“He’s a rheumatologist,” Lucia said proudly.
“I can’t remember…”
“Arthritis.”
“That’s right,” Paire said.
“His name is Enrico de Moraeas.” Paire had always assumed that Lucia had kept her maiden name, even though she didn’t look like she had an ounce of Latina blood in her.
Almost breathlessly, Lucia said, “He can be distant. He takes his work too seriously. And the hours—the hours…”
Paire shifted her weight from foot to foot, wishing she could sit down. She thought about the alarm system panel by the back door, its blue block letters glowing DISARMED. “A girl gets lonely,” Lucia said. Possibly realizing how coy this sounded, and wanting to seem earnest, she rephrased, “I got lonely. And here comes this handsome man of the world. I mean, look at him—Mayer’s dashing. Don’t you think?”
Paire hadn’t ever considered dating a man that much older than herself, so she had never spent much time considering whether Mayer Wolff was attractive. She supposed he was, thinking about the wild hair, the closely cropped beard along his strong jawline, and the fine fabric suits. Paire nodded. “Absolutely.”
“You have to understand. Mayer never intended to steal me away from my husband.”
The way she loosely spilled this confession, Paire wondered if Lucia might be drunk, but didn’t smell alcohol on her.
She didn’t know what to offer the conversation. “Do you love him?”
“Which one?”
“Either.”
“That’s the thing. You know how you can love more than one person?” Lucia studied her face.
Paire thought about the question. Rosewood referred to people like Lucia as polyamorous.
This struck a tender spot. In her heart, Paire knew she had come to love Derek Rosewood. And as she admired the empress on the wall, the feelings the painting conjured closely approximated love. Maybe she wasn’t so different from Lucia.
“You’re lucky to have choices,” she said.
“I guess I am.” Lucia smiled, flashing her braces.
Paire knew the braces would come off in only a few more months. She wondered if Lucia would mark that moment as a new beginning in her life, when she could make some of the harder decisions about her relationships.
Lucia turned off the lights slowly, and the room grew incrementally dark as the bulbs were extinguished one by one, and the only light shone in from the street. The two women hugged on the sidewalk after Paire had slapped the padlock on the entrance. Lucia lingered in the embrace.
• • •
In her terrarium at the library, Paire tried to do some schoolwork. She was writing a paper on an artist of her choosing, and she had picked Lempicka. Paire liked the urgency in the faces she painted. Everyone in her work radiated with purpose. It was the same confidence that attracted her to the Empress Xiao Zhe Yi. Girl in a Green Dress, from 1930, appeared on her laptop monitor. The woman’s dress was a shade of green she hadn’t seen elsewhere, but made her think of emeralds. Her white-gloved hands tipped a wide-brimmed white hat, and to Paire, her severe expression conveyed a resilience that Paire not only admired, but aspired to. This was the woman Paire wanted to be in New York—stylish, glamorous, yet confident enough not to lose her own sense of self.
At this moment, she felt completely divorced from this ideal. She had written two pages since she arrived, and it was all garbage.
Around eight o’clock, she started to get cold feet. She tried to call Rosewood, even though he’d told her in no uncertain terms that they couldn’t speak the evening of the robbery. “We’ll seem like we’re colluding,” he�
��d said. “Which we are.” She definitely couldn’t leave a message, or text him, but she tried him several times. Now, just after ten, she thought about going to the gallery to intercept him. He warned her not to be anywhere near the gallery. “If you’re near the gallery at all tonight, it will hurt your alibi. So only do that if you want us both arrested.” As panic settled in, she felt helpless. The crime would take place, and she couldn’t prevent it.
Rosewood had modeled the navy blue uniform with SANITATION printed in block letters across the shoulder blades. A small clump of cloth from his pocket unfolded into a matching navy hat, which he pulled down to his eyebrows.
“Sexiest janitor I’ve ever seen,” she’d said. It seemed stupid now.
They molded together two gray rectangular trash barrels, so their hulls formed a flat wall when stacked side by side. Cutting away the center, they created large plastic tub. With the lids on top, the bins looked like any others. The getaway garbage, they called it. Her heart had raced when it was finished, because more than the rest of their props, this container demonstrated their joint determination to steal the Empress Xiao Zhe Yi from the Fern.
Despite the stray people that milled about the library, Paire felt alone. Her mind churned with thoughts and fears. She felt ashamed at how badly she wanted the empress. Her skin prickled as she anticipated reconnecting with Rosewood at the end of the night. Then she agonized about the consequences tomorrow, when Mayer tore his hair out, when the police asked her how she could forget to arm the security panel.
She imagined what she might say to the cops, envisioning the same pair of officers she had met when she was slicked with Nicola Franconi’s plasma. She would claim that she was distracted. Lucia’s confession about her affair with Mayer had overwhelmed Paire. That’s what she could say. This would misdirect the police. But she felt inhuman entertaining this. When the police spoke to her, she would do what she practiced with Rosewood. Feign mortification. Except that she wouldn’t have to fake it at all. Right now, she was very much ashamed of herself. She called Rosewood another time to try and call the whole thing off. Voicemail.