A Fine Imitation (5 page)

Seeing Bea at Fleming's gallery rattled Vera for days. Thoughts of her old friend continued to pop up, unwelcome, as Vera attempted to get through tea with the ladies in the Angelus or one of her charity meetings. Lunch with her mother had been the most trying. Vera ate much more than she normally did in an effort to keep her mouth full. She feared if she did not, she would blurt out Bea's name. Any attempt to explain that to her mother would have been a horror Vera could not contemplate. That was one name her mother would never want to hear again.

Alone at night, however, Vera wondered what Bea's life had become. She had not expected Bea would be working, least of all as a secretary. Vera had always hoped for the best for her former friend, despite everything. When Vera had seen her those few times in the city, she'd seemed in high spirits, at least from afar. She'd liked to imagine Bea enjoying a glamorous nightlife, juggling suitors and dancing at clubs until the hour Vera herself sat at the breakfast table. She'd consoled herself with those daydreams. Now she knew better. Then again, perhaps Bea had changed and liked secretarial work despite her college talk about wanting to settle down. She could have chosen a different life. Vera thought about going back to the gallery, this time to begin a real conversation. Begin again with Bea, their girlish mistakes behind them.

But no matter what stories she'd told herself before, dark thoughts settled into Vera's mind, a fog that would not clear. Vera knew Bea's skills. The beautifully copied
Bon Ton
cover might have been years in the past, but Bea's presence in an art gallery, only steps away from a fake Vermeer, could not have been a coincidence. Vera was not going to upend her own life simply for a chance to reconcile with a woman who might be involved in criminal dealings.

With concentrated effort, Vera forced herself to abandon thoughts of Bea after a few days, as she had done every time she saw her old friend before. About a week after her trip to the gallery, no longer so preoccupied with Bea or the forged painting, Vera dressed and took the elevator down to 17B with Arthur for a dinner party at Clarence and Ida Bloomer's. She linked her arm with his.

“Have you steeled yourself?” he asked, a hint of amusement in his voice.

“For another description of Ida's new curtains? The greatest mercy would be for them to actually arrive, so that she can show them to us instead of trying to describe the exact shade of red.”

“At least you don't have to spend your evening trapped in a corner by Clarence. He may be the host, but I'm the one entertaining him.”

Vera always felt a little bubble of hope rise in her in these moments of camaraderie with Arthur. They tended to agree on the tediousness of evenings like this, even if neither of them could think of a graceful way out of them. As they rode in the clattering car, Vera took in the musky, slightly medicinal smell of her husband's pomade; the scent of it always reminded her of their courting days. She wondered if she had seen more of him then than she did now, despite living in the same apartment. She could feel the crispness of his suit jacket under her gloved fingers. Perhaps when they got home that evening she could coax him out of it, unbutton his starched white shirt, and slide her hands down his bare chest. The thought of it left her light-headed, and she gripped his arm tighter. She let her mind wander, imagining his warm breath on her neck, until the creak of the elevator door opening interrupted her reverie.

The butler let them into the apartment, and Ida immediately descended on them. The wobbling feather in her headband made the plump woman look like one of the cooing quails Vera's father kept for hunting at his lodge in Vermont.

“Arthur, Vera, so glad you could make it,” Ida said. “Please, come in, cocktails are in the drawing room.”

Vera stifled a groan. The invitation had plainly said, “Cocktails at 7, dinner served at 7:30,” which was the very reason she had taken until seven twenty-five to leave her own apartment. Fashionably late was forgivable. Delaying dinner seating meant additional nattering conversation about nothing and, to Vera's mind, ought to have been punished with a firing squad. She did not know why she had expected anything different. Too many invitations arrived with times printed on them that had no relationship whatsoever to the actual times observed. She straightened her shoulders and followed Ida into the drawing room, her arm still linked with Arthur's.

A man in a white jacket, hired for the occasion, presented Vera and Arthur with martinis, and they started toward a little circle of guests near the window. Vera took the first cool sip of her drink, grateful for the enterprising people bringing liquor over the borders from Canada. A more effective Prohibition law would have made cocktail conversation unbearable. Clarence, Ida's husband, was describing problems with his newest hotel to a less-than-riveted Julius and Poppy Hastings. Of course, Vera considered, Julius's slack expression was probably more closely related to the dotage of age. A tiny, wrinkled sack of a man, he generally had to be woken several times even before the soup course. His wife, as vibrant and lurid as the flower from which she took her name, could easily have been mistaken for his daughter or an extravagantly dressed nursemaid. Though Poppy was Julius's third wife, married after his seventieth birthday, their union had still managed to produce two little girls. Vera wondered how they fared with a nearly senile father, but she supposed it was all they had ever known.

“Ah,” Clarence said, catching sight of Arthur and Vera, “welcome. How are you both this evening?”

Arthur took a deliberate sip of his drink. “We're well, and you?”

“I'm well, but Ida has been in such a frenzy over this party of hers. I told her, ‘Ida, it's not as if the royal family is visiting, you give these damned parties once a month.' But you know women.” Clarence raised his bushy blond eyebrows.

“Quite,” Arthur said. He turned to Vera, and the corner of his mouth twitched just enough for her to see. She mirrored his expression, in a show of solidarity.

Freed of the responsibility of general greetings, Clarence launched once again into his description of the failings of his new hotel's architect. Arthur listened, and Julius leaned in their general direction. Poppy laid a hand on Vera's forearm as Bessie Harper walked up to join them. Bessie, an older woman with springy gray curls, was lean and lanky. She reminded Vera of one of the cranes from Arthur's construction sites, but with a cocktail swinging from her hand instead of a wrecking ball.

“Did you hear?” Poppy asked in a rapturous hush. “Caroline Litchfield's nurse up and quit yesterday. Walked right past Caroline and out the door, never to be seen again. She's got her hands full now, no one to help with the boys. Ida said Caroline's maid had to keep them tonight.” Poppy attempted a sympathetic tilt of her head, but her green eyes gleamed.

“It's so good of you to keep up with the maids, Poppy,” Bessie said, with a hint of earnestness in her expression. “And Ida, too. Without you, whatever would we do for conversation?”

Poppy bit her lip. She never seemed able to sort out which of Bessie's comments were compliments and which were slights. Vera took a long drink of her cocktail to stifle a laugh. She excused herself and stepped out of the cloud of Poppy's too-sweet perfume, then crossed the room to where the Kellers stood. After accepting Martha's kiss on the cheek, Vera joined another plodding conversation, this one about the garden planning at the Kellers' weekend house. The list of flowers and their varying levels of sun tolerance was dull, but still preferable to Poppy's tawdry gossip.

At last, a maid appeared and rang a small bell to begin the dinner seating. The crowd moved into the dining room, and a few white-jacketed waiters showed people to their seats. Vera took her seat, between Walter Litchfield and Clarence. Arthur sat across from Vera but was listening to Ida's explanation of the menu, and Vera could not catch his eye.

Tomato soup came out first, followed by a pickled beet salad. Vera had never cared for beets, so she cut a few pieces and shuffled them around to give the appearance of having pecked at them, then enjoyed a glass of wine. Next were oysters, then olives, all washed down with more wine. By the time the waiters brought out the roast, the conversation was well lubricated and quite a bit louder. Vera tuned out Walter's bellowing on her right and focused on her husband across the table.

“You know, Arthur,” Ida said, “I must confess, I had a bit of an ulterior motive in sitting you beside me tonight.”

“Oh?” Arthur speared a piece of beef with his fork and glanced at Vera, who suppressed a smile.

Ida wagged a chubby finger at Vera. “Oh, nothing naughty, Vera, don't you worry.”

“Not at all,” Vera said. She could not picture plump, graying Ida attempting to seduce Arthur. “I'm intrigued. Please, continue.”

“Well, I take a little swim every morning in the basement pool. On my doctor's advice. And the pool is lovely, Arthur. It's one of the main reasons Clarence and I bought here, from you, instead of at 863 Park. But the walls are so drab, all that plain white.” Ida let out a tinkling laugh. “And this morning I had an inspiration. Why don't you have someone in to paint them? As the building's owner, I thought you ought to be the one to do the hiring.”

“Did you have a particular color in mind?” Arthur asked in a dry tone. Ida rapped him lightly on the arm, and he startled.

“Not a color, silly,” she said. “A mural, like the ones they're putting in all the public buildings these days. Something really fine.”

Clarence had turned his attention to them. “I think it's an excellent idea, Arthur. Surprised you didn't think of it in the first place.”

“Think of what?” Walter asked from Vera's right.

Clarence leaned over Vera and shouted, his breath heavy with the smell of wine. “A mural. For the pool. Ida's idea.”

“Oh, marvelous. Yes, just what the building needs,” Walter said, punctuating his approval with a gulp from his glass.

“And Vera knows all about art, don't you? She's the ideal person to tell us what we need.” Ida fixed a slightly swimmy gaze on Vera.

“I studied art at Vassar, but my concentration was the Spanish masters. Murals are not really my area,” Vera said.

Ida waved a hand. “That's perfect, isn't it? We want something classic. Don't want one of those daffy modern things in our building.”

Bessie piped up from down the table, her drink sloshing dangerously. “Oh, yes. Wouldn't want anyone thinking of us as modern.”

“Quite right, Bessie.” Clarence elbowed Vera. “Not one of those fellows who puts a toilet in and calls it art. A real artist.”

Poppy, who had caught wind of the conversation, joined in. Her eyes shone with a dreamy look. “It should be someone European, shouldn't it? Someone who studied in Rome or Paris?”

“There seems to be a consensus then,” Arthur said, without a glance in Poppy's direction. Vera was surprised he was still listening. As the conversation bubbled around him, he had continued calmly eating.

Ida gave a little clap. “Wonderful! Oh, I am delighted. Vera, do you know anyone who could do it?”

Vera's eyes widened. “I'm sorry, I don't really know any muralists. My dealer—”

“Fine, fine. You can help with the selection, then, can't you? Tell us if we've got a good one, or if it's one of those toilet fellows,” Clarence said.

Bessie winked at Vera. “You heard the man. Absolutely no toilets in the building from here on out.”

“I know a gentleman, serves on one of the museum boards or another,” Clarence continued. “I'll phone him first thing tomorrow. Have him put the word out.”

“And the artist could live in, couldn't he?” Poppy said. “A sort of artist-in-residence? Isn't 2A open?”

“It is, isn't it, Arthur?” Ida asked.

“The unit is empty at present, yes.” Arthur offered a tight smile. “We'll see how it all works out.”