Flirting with Forever

by Gwyn Cready

  “Cam…”

  “It doesn’t matter. I’m glad it wasn’t you.”

  “It does matter, Cam, it does,” he said. “And I think I can help.”

  “Peter, there’s no help for it.” She hated to add to his burden by telling him about her resignation, but she refused to be untruthful. “I’m going to take some time off. I think I’m going to concentrate on my writing. The people here are great, but I need to work on the book—well, whatever the book turns out to be.”

  Peter raised his brow.

  “I’m dropping the Lely book.”

  “Campbell—”

  “Hey, you know how shy I am. I mean, look at Wednesday Afternoons, right? There’s no way I’m writing any book about a man that would eventually have to get to that scene of me on that chaise.”

  His mouth rose at her jest, but his eyes remained clouded. “You know as well as I do you can alter any fact you please. Why are you doing this? Please don’t say it’s for me. I should like to think you could tell the story in such a way that Ursula—”

  “Oh, Peter, stop. I am not going to profit from your dead lover. It makes me sick to think I was ever planning to. I’m sorry. The people we lose leave something sacred behind. I see that now. A person shouldn’t be allowed to rummage through the past like it’s a chest of toys put there for her pleasure.”

  “Or the future,” he said sadly. He took her hand and brought it to his mouth. “Thank you. I think…I think I could bear it for me, but not for her.”

  She squeezed his hand.

  “Campbell, I should like to ask you a favor. I told you I did a terrible thing by not marrying her. Would you be willing to go to London, to St. Paul’s in Covent Garden, and see to her headstone and that of my son? I don’t know if the rules have changed in the last three centuries, but if there’s a way you could arrange to have my name put on their stones, I would appreciate it. I did love her as a husband would. It is not the same as marrying, but it would mean so much to me.”

  “Of course, Peter. I give you my word.”

  His shoulders relaxed. “Thank you.”

  “All right, that’s just about all the sadness I can take in an evening. I want to get this evening over with and go back to your place. I want you to hold me.” She looked at her watch. “Oh, cripes. I have to find Ball—”

  “Cam, there you are.” Ball bounded up beside her. “C’mon. We’re going to unveil the painting now.”

  “No. Mr. Ball, wait.” But he was already dragging her by the hand into the next gallery and through the couples beginning to squeeze into the roped-off area that had been set up for the presentation. At some point, she lost contact with Peter’s hand. Ball pulled her through the center, right up to the dais upon which the curtained canvas stood. Guests were edging their way to the front, some leading with their shoulders, to get a prime viewing spot.

  “Mr. Ball, I have to talk to you. Did Lamont find you?”

  “Quiet, Cam. This is our moment.”

  “—to welcome you on this very special evening,” said board president Cal Dunevin, great-grandson of an aluminum magnate and an unparalleled blowhard in his own right, who had kicked things off.

  “Mr. Ball, please,” she whispered. “We have to withdraw the painting. It’s not real.”

  He gave her a sharp look. “That, my dear, is a load of horseshit.”

  Ball was slightly hard of hearing, a condition made worse in noisy rooms, and his unnecessarily loud “horseshit” rang out just after Dunevin said, “…to thank each of you for your generous donation,” which sent a ripple of nervous laughter through the room.

  “Listen to me,” she whispered. “There’s a letter from Van Dyck. It destroys any grounds for authenticity.”

  “Cam, do I know art?” He gazed at her solemnly.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Do you?”

  “Yes.” Dunevin was reciting an Emerson poem now, something about a heifer and a sexton, and Cam, who had a dim recollection of this from a college lit class, recalled the thematic construct as something about beauty, but Dunevin was delivering each line with such theatrical lugubriousness she wondered if she was confusing it with one of Emerson’s death poems.

  “Look me in the eye,” Ball said firmly. “Tell me that painting is not a Van Dyck.”

  “Mr. Ball. Please. It doesn’t matter what I believe.” She searched the room for Packard or even Anastasia, someone—anyone—who could help her convince Ball to bring this to a halt.

  Ball shook his head as if disappointed with a young child. “Aren’t you an art expert?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “‘Yes, but’ nothing. Where’s your confidence, my girl?”

  Where indeed?

  With a tentative stretch, she pushed her shoulders back. It did make her feel fractionally better, but it didn’t seem to improve the odds anyone would believe the painting was a Van Dyck.

  “We’ll nail their asses to the wall.” Ball winked at her.

  “Whose asses, sir?” Oh boy. Dunevin was trudging through alder boughs and sparrow nests now.

  “Nonbelievers!”

  She put a hand on each of his shoulders. “Mr. Ball, listen. This is going to be a huge embarrassment to you. We have to stop this. Now. Wave Dunevin out of his alder tree and tell him you’ve changed your mind.”

  “Embarrassment? Really?” Ball pulled off his glasses and rubbed them with his hanky, considering. “Well, I suppose. But it’s not like finding myself spread across sixty feet of canvas wearing nothing more than two moles and what we in Flow-da like to call a genuine look of surprise.”

  “Mr. Ball!”

  “Woodson Ball!” Cal Dunevin boomed. “C’mon up, and let’s get a look at this thing!”

  Ball pulled himself out of Cam’s grip and hopped up on the stage.

  “I’m happy to be here,” Ball drawled. “I’m happy to be giving this to the Carnegie. I think I know a little bit about art—”

  The room tittered.

  Oh, Mr. Ball. Oh, Mr. Ball. Cam closed her eyes.

  “And I think this is one of the prettiest darn paintings ever. And I want to thank Cam Stratford especially for helping me see that I really did want to part with two-point-one million dollars.”

  More laughter.

  “She’s a very persuasive lady. The Carnegie’s damned lucky to have her. Oops. Can I say damned, Lamont?”

  Cam’s head whipped around. Packard was in the back—smiling!

  “You can say anything you damned well please,” Packard called. “Just keep those paintings coming.”

  The room filled with applause.

  “Well, now,” Ball said. “I guess there’s no delaying it. That two-point-one’s gotta go at some point.”

  He grabbed the silk cord. Cam closed her eyes.

  There was a hush in the room. The hush of awe and something more. Surprise? Then a gasp. Cam slitted an eye.

  “Now, I know you were expecting a Van Dyck.” Ball stood not in front of the disputed Van Dyck, but the painting of Cam Mertons had brought to her loft. “I started thinking ’bout it, though, and I thought, pfft, Van Dycks are a dime a dozen. They’re yesterday’s news. What this museum needs is a painting a damned sight prettier—there, I said it again—than the one old Anthony did. This one’s a Peter Lely, folks, the royal portraitist to Charles the Second, and see if you don’t think the same thing I do: He musta known one of Campbell Stratford’s distant relatives.”

  The room was stone silent. Cam was terrified. It was so apparently not a Lely, well, not a seventeenth-century Lely, not with her on the front of it. Then, in a random spot in the room, a person started clapping. Then half a dozen other guests began clapping as well, and then the room filled with thunderous applause.

  A pair of strong arms slid around her waist, and Peter whi
spered into her ear, “I thought it might help if I gave him that painting I saw in your car.”

  She turned and flung her arms around him. “Thank you.”

  Packard strode up to shake Ball’s hand. He hopped on the stage.

  “This museum has always been able to count on Woodson Ball,” Packard said. “And today is no exception. Woodson has informed me that in addition to this gorgeous Lely, he will also be putting a fantastic new work on view here soon. Massive in scope, revolutionary in vision, this is a piece you’ll be hearing more about in the news on Monday. It’s exciting. It’s never been seen by the viewing public. It represents a stunning new discovery by the art world. And you, ladies and gentlemen—and board members,” he added significantly, “will be the first people to experience Wednesday Afternoons.”

  Cam looked at Peter.

  “Er, a bit of a negotiation to make the Van Dyck switch possible,” Peter whispered. “Hope you don’t mind. At least your debut will be on home ground.”

  The guests were still applauding. Packard had the room in the palm of his hand.

  “But for now, enjoy the Lely,” he said, “and before I send you back to your browsing, I want to say thank you once again to an arts patron who knows how to make a difference. Woodson Ball, everyone.”

  The room exploded in a roof-lifting cheer.

  Fifty-seven

  A throng of guests surrounded Cam to congratulate her, and when she finally broke loose, Peter was gone. She followed the happy crowd down the hall, trying to spot him, but no matter how she strained her head, she couldn’t see him.

  She felt a tug at her sleeve. “Peter,” she said and turned.

  “Not Peter.”

  It was Anastasia. She looked like she’d been crying. Cam put a hand on her instinctively. “What is it?”

  “Nothing.” Anastasia shook her head. “Nothing. Listen, do you have a minute?”

  Cam nodded and led her to a quiet hall next to the freight elevator. “What’s up?”

  “I need to talk to you about the Peter Lely painting. I know it’s not real.”

  Cam felt her stomach tighten. The game was over. If Anastasia, the museum’s European art curator, was going to challenge it, the painting wouldn’t stand.

  “I know it’s not real,” she said, “but I’m not going to say anything.”

  Cam didn’t know what to say. She could hardly believe what she was hearing. “But…?”

  “I know all about it. I know how you got it, and I know who did it.”

  She couldn’t mean she knew about Peter and the Afterlife. “What are you saying?”

  “I mean, I know Peter or Rusty or whatever your friend’s name is painted it.”

  Cam breathed a sigh of relief. “Then why are you going to keep quiet?”

  “I know you don’t think I have the best interests of this museum in mind most days, but I’d like to think that I’m a little better than that. If Ball wants to give the painting, and Packard wants to accept it, that’s good for the museum. You heard the people out there. They love it.”

  Cam blinked. What had come over her sister?

  “And they should love it,” she went on. “It’s a damned fine painting. Exceptional, really. Any museum in the world would accept it as a Lely. Hell, any museum in the world would accept it even though it’s not a Lely. The only trouble is, I know the sitter’s you.”

  “Me?” The freight elevator dinged and both women moved a step farther away.

  “It’s pretty obvious, Cam. Jacket saw it. I did too. And that’s the real reason I’m going to keep quiet. You just don’t get that sort of feeling from an artist with any sitter. He loves you, Cam. You have a way with men I’ll never have. Even Jacket loves you, and you just dumped him. That painting’s a good, pure thing, and Peter’s love is a good, pure thing. I won’t be a part of ruining either one.”

  “Thank you, Stacy.”

  Anastasia threw her arms around her. “Which isn’t to say I’m not going to get the directorship, you know.”

  Cam laughed and hugged tighter. “I know. Game on.”

  Anastasia pulled away. “There. It doesn’t matter that the paint looks too new. It doesn’t matter that the canvas has been stretched too carefully, or that the style is not quite right. No one will ever know the painting is a fake.”

  Cam froze. Mrs. Fitcher, the old biddy from the board, gazed at them, mouth agape, from the elevator.

  Fifty-eight

  Thirty minutes later, Cam slammed the door of Packard’s office, leaving Packard, Anastasia, Dunevin, Ball, and Mrs. Fitcher behind her.

  Jeanne stopped the game she was playing on her phone and jumped to her feet. “What can I do to help?”

  “It depends. Do you still have that business card for the ‘We Hit Old Biddies’ firm?”

  Jeanne nodded toward the door. “What happened in there?”

  “Oh, the usual. Even though there’s no signature and no record of it in Lely’s documents—er, the real Lely, I mean, the Lely who painted in 1673—the composition, theme, and color choice point to authenticity. In that case, especially with a situation as sensitive as this, experts usually take a generally positive-but-not-yet-definitive point of view. However, Mrs. Fitcher happened to overhear the museum’s leading expert on Restoration-era art say it’s a fake. Since then, Anastasia’s done everything she can to backpedal, and when Mrs. Fitcher has pushed her, she went mum—”

  “Anastasia?”

  “She’s really trying to cover for me, bless her heart. It’s hard for me to believe it myself.”

  “Hard for you to believe? Traveling through time? That’s hard to believe. Anastasia being kind? That’s impossible.”

  “Yeah, so Anastasia’s stayed mum and Ball won’t let anyone, including Packard, who’s getting really nervous, look at it.”

  “Now what?”

  “Who knows? Either way, I’m still going to be out of a job tomorrow.”

  “You’re not going to leave me with the chain-mail Czarina, are you?”

  “She’ll change. You’ll see.”

  “You’re scaring me.”

  “Where’s Peter?”

  “In your office. At least he was fifteen minutes age.”

  Cam flew to her office. The disputed Lely painting was tucked behind her door, but Peter was nowhere to be seen. She trotted down the hall.

  “Are you looking for the hottie with Johnny Depp eyes?” a college student on the catering crew asked.

  “I, um…maybe.”

  “Old?” she said, realized her mistake, and flushed. “Older than you, I mean.”

  “That’s the one.”

  “He told me to tell you he’s with Ada.”

  Cam laughed. “Thanks.”

  When she stepped into the gallery, Peter was not, in fact, with Ada. He was eyeing a small painting in the corner, next to a couple both looking at their BlackBerrys.

  Cam watched him for a moment, the line of his back, the tilt of his head as he considered the work before him, the gleam of light in his hair. Could she remember all that? Could she lock it up in a place where the memory would sit, unmuddied by events, longing or grief, for her to unwrap like a cherished holiday ornament to fill her heart when it was empty?

  As if he felt her presence, his shoulders relaxed and he turned. He beamed as she approached, and the other couple drifted off absently, still working their keyboards.

  “Ah, true love,” she said as Peter watched their egress.

  “I have observed practices that have raised a considerable number of questions for me regarding relationships.”

  “You and me both. It’s a religious thing.”

  “In truth?”

  “Cult of the Self-Absorbed. Every member’s a one-person church. So, what are you looking at?”

  He stepped as
ide to let her see.

  “Ah, the Bonnard.” It was one of the many paintings Pierre Bonnard had done of his wife. In a bathroom as luminescent and richly colored as a Matisse, Pierre’s wife, Marte, lay peaceful and still in her shimmering bath. “He always painted her at the same age, no matter how old she’d gotten. It was as if he wanted her frozen in time.” She thought of the gorgeous portrait Peter had done of her, just a few rooms away, and put her hand on his cheek and kissed him. “I thank you for my painting.”

  “Which part?” he asked, smiling. “Painting it or giving it away?”

  “Both. How did you think to go to Ball?”

  “It wasn’t difficult. Collectors place an enormous amount of importance on what others think of their paintings. I suspected he’d be open to a timely trade. And he was. He’s a decent cove. A damned fine eye as well. The only problem was your car. I’m afraid the window is, well, shall we say, a trifle out of sorts—which will, perhaps, be more of a problem than I’d originally anticipated, given the incipient snow.”

  Cam glanced out the window and saw the steady downfall of white. “Oh, fuck—Oops.” She clapped a hand over her mouth. “Sorry.”

  “But on that topic, here is a question. Could it possibly be considered within the bounds of acceptable behavior here to describe oneself as a fornicator?”

  She frowned for a moment, and then it hit her. Ball. She threw her head back and laughed. “Well, only if your parents were as well, I suppose.”

  “Ball did mention something to that effect. I could barely summon a reply. When it comes down to it, I suppose all of our parents were, but to state it so unashamedly… ’Tis quite shocking, and yet he seemed to be so proud.”

  “It is a mark of distinction—especially where he comes from.”

  “I am amazed.”

  “Oh, Peter, the painting you did is beautiful. I could see that, even while I was telling Mertons to shove it up his, er, storage facility. Is that really how you see me?”

  He tucked a rogue curl behind her ear. “Aye.”

  “Do you think you’ll have time to paint one of you? I should like to have something to remember you by.”