by A. R. Taylor
Jenna had no copy of her art inventory, but she remembered so well the moment when Vincent had run his hand over the thick leather covering on the book when she had handed it to him. What had she written about this painting in the past? Not a particularly valuable piece, but gorgeous then, luscious, sexy, now ironically, just plain wet everywhere. She couldn’t remember a problem like the one she faced, but trying to assess it, she brought out the small digital camera she now used to photograph art, so much less impressive than her Leica but more serviceable. A moderate-sized work, the painting measured five feet by three feet. Photographing it from one side to the other, up on her laptop she could read several shadowy shapes in an underlayer behind the bathing girl, but their outlines had blurred to render them ghostly. Were they meant to be painted out altogether, but now revealed by the failing paint?
With a Q-tip dipped in water, beginning in the lower right-hand corner, she swabbed small bits of dirt and dust off the surface. Beneath this tiny spot she brushed a chemical solvent to reduce the synthetic resin varnish that had been applied. Finally, she came to the paint layer, composed of dry pigment ground, in this case, a linseed medium much like a paste. Bélange was known to grind his own paints and to layer them from “fat to lean,” each new layer a bit oilier than the preceding one. He mixed his media, though, and Jenna thought perhaps he had used cold wax or an unusual resin to get the translucent effects so marvelous in the work she saw before her, even in this, its fallen state.
An oil painting can become dry to the touch anywhere from a day to two weeks and can be varnished in six months to a year. Still, when she thought back to her apprenticeship, she remembered folklore about one work still not considered dry after eighty years on the wall. Maybe she should take it to a tanning salon, Jenna laughed to herself. Had this painting been in the sun? That could help. She remembered that at the Water Mill house, all the Hulls’ art had been carefully placed to avoid direct sunlight, even down to light canvas covers the housekeeper hung over selected works near a window in order to block out the afternoon glare. With good intentions, the hospital staff had instantly hidden this particular work, horrified at what they saw but confused too, as Bélange had told them, before his death two years previously, that they had only to put the thing on the wall and wait. The sun would “cure” it. But it was uncured, sicker, even, as Jenna examined earlier photographs the curator had religiously taken once every three months.
She didn’t want to clean the rest of the painting as that might strip it of whatever remaining pigment it had. Instead, she cut out a large piece of tissue and laid it over the work’s face, attaching it at the side with tape. It didn’t touch the surface but protected it from getting dirt stuck on it when she turned the painting over to inspect its backside. The stretcher appeared normal, as did the actual canvas itself, no tears or defects. And then “Hello,” a quiet voice said. She looked around to see a young black child of six or seven clad in a hospital gown staring solemnly at her.
“Hello,” she smiled.
One hand holding an IV pole, the other outstretched, the boy shook hands solemnly. His fingers felt soft, almost papery in hers. He had a grown-up face, fine-boned, and at last he smiled, a shy little smile, and then looked down. “I’m not supposed to be here, I’m pretty sure. My mom might be looking for me.”
“Should we go back to your room so you don’t worry her?”
“No, they can miss me. It’s good for them.” He grinned. “Can I sit here and see what you’re doing?”
“Sure.” She pulled up a small stool for the boy. “I’m Cate.”
“Hello, Cate. I’m Amon.” He sat himself down gently, gathering his hospital gown around his thin little legs.
During the next hour the boy sat silent, watching her every move, a ghostly little presence, intense. Jenna didn’t speak, but as she got out a magnifying glass and scanned the face of the painting inch by inch, the little boy crept closer. At last she handed the glass to him and positioned it in his delicate hand. For a child so young, he had the concentration of a much older person, looking up after a moment and shaking his head. “Dripping, looks like. Everything’s mushed.”
“That’s what I think, too.” Just then the door opened behind them and a heavyset white woman in blue jeans stood there with her hands on her hips. She had a fine head of curly light brown hair that flew out in all directions and a liveliness that scattered out all the somber quietness Jenna and the boy had created.
“So this is where you are, mister. We were really worried.”
“Mom!”
“I’m very sorry,” Jenna said. “He came by, and he and I got involved in working on the painting.”
The woman looked harried, talking and scrolling through her calls on a cell phone all the while. The boy went up and put his arms around her ample waist, and they made an incongruous pair. She patted him on the head, distracted, and pulled him toward the door. “Bye. . . .” He turned toward Jenna. “See you soon, I hope.”
“Oh, no you don’t, mister,” but the big woman stuck out her hand to Jenna. “I’m Lori, Amon’s mother,” she said emphatically as if expecting someone to deny it.
“He’s no trouble.” But then Jenna worried, would he become so, would he hang about too much? It wasn’t really that large a room, and he was sick, worse than that, she now saw that fixing the painting would take a lot of time, more time than she probably even had, so she might have to give up the commission, but the mother and son were gone before she could say anything.
The young boy reappeared later that same afternoon. When Jenna entered the library, she spotted the small, recognizable face holding an oversized art book up in his hands, reading, supposedly, but glancing around, waiting for her. He lit up when she came through the door. No longer encumbered by the IV, he dropped the book and scooted over. “I’m here to help.”
“Does your mother know about this?”
“She’s not here. She won’t be here for hours.”
“What about the nurses?”
“Oh, they trust me. They let me do what I want.”
Jenna wasn’t so sure about this but didn’t have the heart to turn him away. “Okay, but we’ll have to let someone know you’re here.”
“No, no,” he wailed. “It’s so boring in my room.”
Yes, it would be. She had tried not to look too closely at the children, but the inevitable glance proved they were bored witless, lying in bed all day watching television, that is, when they were not crying or screaming or trying to run away from some gruesome procedure, and run they did. She wished she could help every single one of them escape, so rather than call a nurse, she motioned Amon to follow her, and together they examined the painting once again. It looked even worse now, and she felt sure she would have to test every oil layer to see what was really going on. “You can hand me some of these vials, if you want, Amon.” He perched himself on the stool again, gently picking one up each time she pointed toward another. He didn’t say a word, though occasionally he bent forward to watch what she was doing, never getting in her way.
Jenna liked his delicate little hands, so gentle with everything. She wondered what was wrong with him, but of course could think of no way to ask. He seemed so grown up. Wasn’t that always the way with sick children, old beyond their years, suffering what they never should have to and never knowing the reason why? Or perhaps blaming a malevolent being who, for reasons unknown, wanted them unwell, or worse. Disease made philosophers of them all.
The two worked like this for almost an hour. Amon said very little, only murmuring now and again when Jenna appeared particularly interested in something, so they were startled when the curator appeared, apparently shocked at the young boy’s presence. “Back to the ward, young man. They probably think you’re lost!”
Amon slowly moved from the stool and trotted out but waved to Jenna behind the older woman’s back and stuck out his tongue.
“He’s such a cutie. Why is he here?”
“Oh, we’re not allowed to give out any information like that, but it must be serious. He’s been here for weeks, from the Midwest, I think. What’s the status of the picture? Any diagnosis on your end?”
“I feel almost sure it’s inherent vice.”
“You mentioned that before.”
“Yes, corruption of the medium. Painters who work in oil strive for extreme effects in terms of depth and richness, the real world laid out flat on a canvas but round, three-dimensional. This is very difficult to do. Someone like Leonardo da Vinci experimented all the time with strange substances to enhance his colors, even while he had to get the thick oil paint to stick to the canvas, which actually he didn’t always manage to do. Restoring the painting will take time and a lot of work. You might have to face that it can’t be fixed at all.”
The woman sighed, gripping her hands together tightly. “I wonder what I should tell the donors—or maybe we should give it back? No, that wouldn’t be right. They’d be horribly offended. The Hulls aren’t exactly the friendliest people in the world.”
Jenna blushed at the name. Hearing it out loud set her heart racing, as if every piece of privileged knowledge would show on her face. “Yes, so I’ve heard.” She looked down at the floor.
Before she left the hospital that day, it had started to rain, and now as she emerged into the open air, she put out her hand to catch the droplets. Just hearing “Hull,” especially from the lips of someone ignorant of its significance for her, scared her. She didn’t belong anywhere near them, but they had demanded it, why? To fix this painting? Any number of art restorers in New York would love to do it for them. Her phone pinged, but she didn’t recognize the number. “Yes?” she said out into the void.
“Tonight, seven thirty, Columbiana restaurant, Astoria, Queens.” It was Jorge.
THREE
When Jenna got back to the hotel, she just wanted to crawl under the bedcovers. Instead she found several voicemail messages from the full-throated Rudolph Hayes Esquire, of Hayes, Rudinsky, and Baugh, as he forcefully reminded her in the first one that there were specific terms for her visit. In the second message he enumerated them: no unauthorized contact with anyone in the Hull family, no unauthorized meetings with persons connected to NewsLink, and absolutely no contact with members of the press. He must have been reading her mind, or perhaps he was just a student of character. For the moment, Jenna settled on this explanation for the timing of the calls. “Should you have questions, here’s my backline at the office, also my cell. Consider, Jenna, who you are and where you are.”
On this otherwise lonesome evening, despite every single thing the lawyer had dictated, she decided to go to Columbiana for dinner with the esteemed Jorge. Or should she cancel? She looked at her watery eyes in the mirror in the bathroom, feeling tired, overwhelmed with the city and what she had to do in it. She had already laid out a beautiful rich blue Italian suit in the kind of wool that existed only in Milan, and it fit her perfectly. Enough, she thought. Did Hayes have spies roaming the streets, and what could they really do about this? She wasn’t sure.
Jenna sat waiting in the noisy, family-filled restaurant, at an address she knew was close to Jorge’s home. She stared down at the menu, trying to look occupied and ordered a milkshake-like concoction the waiter announced as Columbia’s national drink. When it arrived it was green, frothy, and delicious. So nervous, she felt herself beginning to sweat. Moments later she spotted Jorge, who was thinner, just a little grayer at the temples, natty as always in a brown checked suit, a red scarf around his neck, squinting to see in the dark restaurant. She watched as his eyes swept over her with no recognition and then turned back again in her direction. She raised a hand slightly, and he focused on her now, staring. She tried for a smile as he made his way to the table. There he just stood for a moment, perplexed, and many at Columbiana watched with interest. “I can’t believe it. Is that really you?”
“Of course.”
He held out his hand in a formal manner and enfolded hers with it, still standing, until at last he shook his head again. “I didn’t recognize you.”
“I’ve changed.”
Jorge found himself in front of a stylish, sophisticated brunette, definitely in the European vein, and he knew what Italian women looked like, bangles at the wrist, sleek, well-fitted clothing, an air of charm, maybe even delight, a real grown-up. “You’ve transformed yourself.”
“I’m going to take that as a compliment. Sadly, I’m something of a fugitive, hence the change in appearance.”
“Yes.” He sat down, silent a moment, until finally he ordered himself a Columbian beer. To Jenna’s eyes, he looked, as ever, the self-contained keeper of the secrets, a man not given to revelation of any kind, especially about his or anyone else’s personal life. Always he had remained as stone compared to the talkative, gossip-obsessed staffers of NewsLink. “Here you are.”
“I got your bottle of Champagne and the labels, at least I’m pretty sure you sent them.” He looked down and laughed, taking another long swig of beer. “Veuve, widow, Mumm, ‘mum’s the word,’ Taittinger’s sexy purple night, someone having sex with Vince? That’s what I’ve got so far.”
Jorge winced at the casual use of their boss’s first name, as if the guy wasn’t really dead. “A little joke. I shouldn’t have done it, but I didn’t want you to feel so alone. Also, you needed something to go on. You’ve got the general idea, but you’ll need specifics.”
“Specifics?”
“At some point you’ll figure out everything on your own, and then we can talk. Let’s just say that it’s totally appropriate he died in flagrante delicto, in blazing offence, a mental and physical space that bastard often occupied.”
Jenna was shocked at what he said because she planned to avoid talking about her own in flagrante days and simply prayed he knew nothing more about them. For a time, they drank in silence amid the boisterous laughter of the restaurant crowd. Finally, Jorge spoke again. “Vincent Hull was in love.”
Taken off guard, she could only nod.
“With someone highly inappropriate. . . .” And with that he launched into a tirade. “He risked everything—everything personal, that is. He could have had anyone. Frankly he did, but then to choose someone so not available, so wrong. . . .”
Could he possibly mean her? But then why did he talk about her in this dismissive, furious way? She felt herself begin to cry, ready to confess anything, but no, he must mean someone else, and she wiped her eyes in her napkin. A waiter dropped a tray of dishes, and this momentarily diverted them. Jorge did see her tears, though. “I don’t believe for one minute you were the one actually screwing him when he died. He was using you as a beard or something.”
“Oh, my god.”
“How much did they pay you?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know? Come on, Jenna, you didn’t get that thousand dollar suit and those hammered gold bracelets on anything you made in that office, unless now you’ve risen up to become chief executive officer of an Italian conglomerate, and I can’t really picture that.”
She looked around in panic because at this moment the story seemed to have gotten bigger, even more confusing than what she knew. “I’m not supposed to talk about all this, but now I am, in fact, an art conservationist and restorer, gainfully employed and very well paid.”
“She was such a schemer, and she made you call the police after what, an hour, maybe even more? Probably just sitting there on the sofa waiting for him to die. And then that whole charade at the hospital, as if they could actually revive him. He, deader than dead when he got there.”
“Tasha?”
“Who else? I saw you palling around with her and wanted to warn you, but I didn’t because of the prevailing code of silence, and I had hopes for you. That whole Hull universe was such a snake pit, and you seemed about to get bitten. Tasha Clark could read people and used them constantly. Seduction was her game, and everyone fell in love with her.
The notion that Hull would ever be involved with someone like her—talk about birds of a feather. They would have clawed each other to death, not his type at all, but still he succumbed.”
“I guess so.” Vivid memories of their own lovemaking flooded her with heat and embarrassment. What had she and Vincent not done together? And how she wished they had done even more. That time in her life had been like a tsunami, with herself standing on shore watching the surf recede way too far into the ocean, only to coil itself up and crash forward upon her. Now her current privileged circumstances made her feel like some weird, hidden family member, like the mad old relative in the attic whom everyone wants to forget.
“Whatever really was going on, Tasha knows the truth, not that she would tell any of us, though maybe she told you.”
“No. I haven’t talked to her since that night.”
“She made a lot of dough off this thing, that’s for sure.” Jorge stood, apparently dismissing her, but then he sat down again, even more intense now. “And you’re not telling me anything either. I get it, kind of, so typical of those terrible people, crushing the world between their teeth. They certainly tried to crush me . . . you too I’ll bet.”
“I’m sorry, Jorge. I know I haven’t really explained anything.”
“You will, though, someday.”
She wanted so badly to plead her case, such as it was. Reaching across to him, she clasped his hands and began to summarize for him, in dry, sanitized terms, her romps with Vincent Hull in Water Mill and finally Tasha’s request to substitute herself underneath the body of the dead man, thereby taking the rap. “So I was the decoy that night, though I still can’t understand why I agreed to the whole plan. I signed papers.”
Jorge let go of her and wiped his forehead with his napkin, upset and embarrassed. “They like people who will sign papers. I cannot believe you too got sucked in, and you were so young, so—”
“Gullible? Stupid?”