The Art Forger (29 page)

“I can’t take this from you. This place costs like five hundred dollars a day.”

“Let me worry about that.”

“No, no. I’m not doing it. Can’t. Won’t.”

Aiden takes my hands in his. “Okay, you can pay me back after the show. When you’re dripping in money.”

“But what about the show? We’ve got to hang it. I want to be there for every step of the installation. And then—”

“We won’t be doing the installation until well after you get back. Templeton won’t have the framing done until then.”

“But, I—”

“If you don’t go, I’ll cancel the show.”

“You will not.”

He shrugs. “Probably not, but that gives you an inkling of how important I think this is for you.”

“Because I’m losing it?”

“Nothing a beautiful spa and a bunch of massages won’t cure.”

The truth is, I’ve always wanted to go to Canyon Ranch. Fantasized about it even. Nothing I ever thought possible, but up there on the pipe-dream list. Delusions of indulgence. I lean over and kiss him. “You’re a very sweet man, you know.”

“Not at all,” he says. “I have a lot invested in you. I’m looking out for my own ass.”

I
N LESS THAN
a week, I’m finished. Done. It’s three o’clock in the morning. I walk to my spot at the windows, rub my lower back, and scan the deserted street. The weather’s nasty. A wintery mix of rain, sleet, and hail, with a bit of snow thrown in to warn of what’s to come. Late November isn’t Boston’s best moment.

I’m relieved, proud, euphoric. I’m exhausted, headachy, and filled with an overwhelming sense of loss. All twenty paintings behind me. All twenty paintings marching forward on their own. I’ve created them, labored over them, made them who they are, but what happens next is up to them, not me. I wonder if this is how a mother feels when she sends her child off to college.

I flop down on the couch, stretch my legs out, and put a pillow under my head. I hook my hands around the back of my neck and visualize the opening. I close my eyes, and I’m there. Except it’s a larger version of Markel G, with taller ceilings, wider windows. There are at least fifty paintings hanging on the walls. They can’t be all mine. But next to each painting is a little card that reads, “Claire Roth.” I must have done more than I thought.

I’m surrounded by a kaleidoscope of color: in my paintings and in the room. Both women and men are dressed in jewel tones, luscious and rich, deeply burnished, almost edible. But I’m in the most delicious of them all. A one-shouldered silk gown of the most magical amethyst, sparkling and fluid, falling to my feet, whispering with every step I take.

As I flow through the room accepting congratulations, I become aware that each color has its own fragrance, not necessarily what you’d associate with the hue—mine smells like a forest in the morning, rather than lavender—but just as breathtaking in their own way as the colors are. Because, of course, now I realize the colors come from my oven, that that’s the only way they could have happened: fashioned and shaped, baked, and then left to cool. The paintings have transformed themselves into a third dimension and created a new sense all their own: a combination of sight, smell, and taste, larger and more powerful for being one.

I open my eyes, and early sunlight streaks the ceiling. I close them again and fall into a deep, untroubled sleep.

At nine o’clock, the telephone wakes me. “So?” Aiden asks.

I rub my cheeks, a bit disoriented, and struggle up from the couch. I’m still in my grubby paint clothes, and my mouth feels like dry pigment has been poured into it. “Hey.”

“Should I send Chantal over with the truck?”

My eyes rest on the finished paintings, and I take them all in in one greedy gulp. “Yup.”

“All done?”

“All done.”

“Never doubted it,” he says.

I go over and check the coffee pot. Empty. “So why’d you ask?”

He chuckles. “When are you leaving?”

I run the cold water and start scooping coffee beans. “I have to confirm with the car service, but sometime late afternoon.”

“Have time to stop by the gallery to say good-bye? Kristi’s off and Chantal’s running errands all day, so I can’t leave.”

I look around the messy studio. Although I’m far from neat, I’m particular about my art materials, and I can’t leave them like this for three days. Nor, given the mice, can I leave the kitchen in its current state. “I’ll call you later, but probably not,” I tell him. “This place is disgusting—and so am I.”

Cleaning takes longer than I anticipate. It’s been quite a while since I wielded a sponge, and the combination of strong coffee and my need for closure drive me into uncharacteristic tidiness. When I call Aiden at one to tell him I can’t make it, the gallery phone goes to answer mode, as does his cell. I text a message promising to be in touch as soon as I get back and thanking him again for Canyon Ranch.

I’ve never had a professional massage before but have no trouble imagining the feel of strong fingers pressing into my tight shoulder muscles, releasing the tension and breaking up those nasty chemicals Small is always telling me I’ve got to get rid of. Yoga classes, good food, and lots of sleep. Heaven.

When I finally finish and Chantal’s come for the paintings, I shower, change, and pack. The car’s picking me up at four, which should get me there about seven. In plenty of time for dinner, the woman at the ranch assured me. When I get a call from the service a bit before four telling me they’re running about fifteen minutes late, I switch on CNN and relax into the couch until the sound of the newscaster mentioning Markel G brings me upright. Could they be talking about my show on CNN? My heart pounds. Has Aiden’s promotion actually reached that far?

It takes me a few moments to understand what’s happening. They’re not talking about my show. They just mentioned the gallery because Aiden owns it. Because it’s where he was arrested. Because it’s where the film clip they’re showing takes place. Of Aiden being led onto Newbury Street. In handcuffs.

Thirty-six

THREE YEARS EARLIER

A month or so after my meeting with Beatrice Cormier, rumors began circulating that some woman had gone to MoMA claiming Isaac Cullion hadn’t painted
4D,
that she was the artist who created it. At first, it was just whispers that were easily scoffed away. But soon, notices began appearing on art blogs and in gossip columns reporting that the museum, which had determined
4D
was Cullion’s work, was wrong: The claim was legitimate.

After disclosure that Isaac had been having an affair with “a much younger graduate student,” it didn’t take long for people to conclude that the “she” in both stories had to be me. Isaac, of course, denied everything, as did MoMA. Initially, I did, too. I still hadn’t recovered from the shock of the museum’s original decision, and I didn’t know what to do.

But plenty of other people did. I was stared at, whispered about, and often strangers, not to mention friends, asked me intrusive questions. Some were quite cruel.

“So did you do it because he broke up with you?” Like it’s your business.

“How much less do you think
4D
is worth now?” Like I know.

“Do you still love him?” Like this is appropriate.

“Why would you try to destroy such a talented man?” Like that was my intention.

Although I was dubbed “The Great Pretender” by the tabloids and it was generally assumed I was seeking some kind of wrongheaded publicity for myself, the possibility that my claim was legitimate also sparked interest. Editorials appeared about museum experts who saw what they wanted to see and collectors who were willing to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for a name. Journalists and pundits speculated on the rights and wrongs of the situation. And to whom they belonged.

“Where does art’s value lie?” an editorial in
ArtWorld
demanded. “If it was painted by a graduate student, is
4D
still a masterpiece?”

These were good questions, questions I kept asking myself. And although almost all of the arguments concluded that the value lay within the painting itself, that brands and celebrated names were nothing but “the glaze of our ego-driven consumer society,” one only had to look at the meteoric rise in the value of Isaac’s paintings after
4D
to know the truth.

I
WAS IN
such a deep sleep that it took me a while to understand that the phone was ringing. The clock radio said it was 3:24 a.m. I fumbled for the phone.

“Murderer!” a woman’s voice screamed.

“Huh?”

“You killed him. You killed him. If it weren’t for you he’d still be alive!” Then she burst into huge, heaving sobs.

I shook my head to clear it. “I think you’ve got the wrong number.”

More sobbing, deeper now, more painful.

“Listen, ma’am,” I said, “I’m really sorry, but I didn’t kill anyone, so you’ve really got to hang up and dial again. Or, better yet, get someone to help you. Are you alone? Is there someone I can call for you?”

“You and your goddamned ego,” she managed to spit between sobs. “If you hadn’t, if you hadn’t gone there, claiming, claiming, if you’d let things be, then he, then he . . .”

I snapped straight up in bed. “Who is this?”

A wail. A keening that froze the marrow of my bones.

“Martha?” I asked, hoping against hope I was wrong, but knowing I wasn’t. Isaac’s wife.

A long intake of breath, a sob, a hiccup. “He’s gone, Claire.”

“Isaac?” I whispered.

The sobbing began again.

“No,” I said, but it came out as a moan. “No, no, please no.”

“He shot himself.” Martha’s voice was suddenly hard and clear. “But it wasn’t suicide. Not even close. And you’re going to have to live with the fact that you’re responsible for ending his life for the rest of your own.”

“Ending his life,” I repeated, sickened by her words. “No, no. I . . . I didn’t do that. I’d never do anything—”

“You can deny it all you want, but that doesn’t change the facts,” she spat, and hung up.

I dropped the receiver on the bed. I was numb, freezing cold, shivering as if I were running a high fever. I wrapped myself in a blanket, tried to pace the studio, but my knees wouldn’t hold me up. I collapsed on the floor, curled into a fetal position, rocked. And rocked. Isaac was dead. His great talent along with him. If only I hadn’t, if only I hadn’t, if only I hadn’t . . . But, of course, I had.

T
HE FUNERAL, HELD
at Trinity Church in Copley Square, was a mob scene. News vans and reporters swarmed the plaza in front of the church, onlookers ogled. Rik came with me, and it was a good thing. When Martha Cullion turned her back in response to my condolences, he was there to catch me. When no professor from the museum school would meet my eye, he was there to hold my hand. And when I found I couldn’t bear the sight of Isaac’s casket, Rik took me home.

Martha told the press she blamed me for Isaac’s death. That my “preposterous claim” was an attempt to punish him for going back to her. Intellectually, I knew I hadn’t caused his death, but there was a great distance between my head and my heart, and guilt filled my gut.

I ignored the media calls for a statement. Although my friends begged me to tell my side of the story, I felt too responsible to defend myself. I wasn’t sleeping or eating, I wasn’t working, and I wasn’t leaving my studio. Rik tried to convince me to pack up my canvases and paints and move into his parents’ barn in Connecticut to finish my capstone project. I didn’t want to go anywhere—I’d become addicted to soap operas and daytime talk shows—but my overwhelming desire to put the whole museum school experience behind me finally got me to the barn.

When I returned to Boston with the first two completed works though, none of my professors was impressed. “Derivative,” Maya Myers, the chair of my committee, declared, and I noticed George Kelly and Dan Martin share a smirk.

“Derivative of what?” I asked.

“Go back and sit with them, Claire,” Maya said. “Review your early expressionists. I’m sure you’ll see what we mean.”

Expressionists? I stared at my paintings. Marc Chagall? Edvard Munch? Distortion of reality for emotional effect? Not even close. These were portraits of homeless people, one a man and the other two women, both highly representational. They were emotional, yes, that was the point. But there was no bending of reality, just reality staring you in the face.

I looked at George and Dan, waiting for someone to contradict her.

“I agree with Maya,” Dan said.

“Me, too,” said George.

I gathered the paintings and marched over to Rik’s apartment. I set them against the wall behind his kitchen table. “Would you call these expressionistic?”

He scrutinized them. “Well . . . they do create emotion. Strong angst. So I suppose, in that way, they’re expressionistesque.”