The Misfortunes of Others (29 page)

There was a long pause.

“Yes.” Her voice was faint. She gave Weezy a furtive, guilty glance. “Yes. I … I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry? That’s it? I’m sorry?”

“I didn’t mean to.”

“Excuse me?”

“I came up to talk to you,” Gabriela said, lifting her hands helplessly. “Just to talk. I don’t even know what about. I couldn’t get you out of my mind. I was sort of … well … obsessed. I kept thinking about you, and Harold kept talking about you, and I felt like I had to talk to you myself or go crazy. I drove up one day on an impulse. I got in the car to do some shopping, and when I got out of the city I just kept going. When I got there you weren’t home, but when I tried the front door, it opened. I figured I’d go in and wait for you. I thought I’d get another look at your paintings. So I went into your studio and started looking around. And … and I don’t know …” Her voice trailed off. “I saw one painting … of a girl … I don’t know, all of a sudden I went crazy, I guess.
I couldn’t stand it. I had this penknife I carry in my handbag … I took it out and I … I …”

“You pitiful moron,” said Weezy. “That painting wasn’t even mine. It was one of my students’. Remember I told you at the interview that they were off to one side? I asked you if I could include them in the photos? Don’t you remember?”

Gabriela looked frightened. She lifted one hand to brush a lock of hair off her face. “No … no, I don’t remember. I wasn’t really listening during the interview. I was … I was looking at you and at the paintings.”

“She destroyed my studio and my exhibit because of Elmo’s painting,” Weezy said to Snooky, almost matter-of-factly. “I told you he was better than me.”

“No, no, that’s not true.”

“Oh, yes it is. This proves it.” She turned back to Gabriela. “I have another student whose paintings were the only ones you didn’t touch. Why was that?”

Gabriela looked at her blankly. “What?”

“One of my students’ paintings. They were stacked together in the far right-hand corner, away from the others.”

Gabriela shook her head. “I don’t remember. I don’t know. I really don’t know.”

“All right. What about the letters?”

“After … after I …” she couldn’t finish the sentence.

“Go on.”

“Yes, I … I ran out and drove away. I didn’t think anybody had seen me, but you never know, especially in a small town like that. I waited, but you never got in touch, so I figured … well, I figured you didn’t know who it was. I felt so guilty and crazy and horrified, I didn’t know what to do. But then Harold kept on talking about you. I thought getting rid of your paintings would make me feel … I don’t know, different, but it didn’t. One day at work I called up the gallery to make sure they knew there wouldn’t be an exhibit. The owner
didn’t seem to know that anything was wrong. And I got scared … I thought maybe there were more … maybe I hadn’t gotten all of them … maybe …” Her voice trailed away again. “So I started writing the letters. It made me feel good for a while, but not for long. Nothing made me feel good. Nothing worked. And now I feel … just … wretched.” She hung her head and put her hands in her lap, like a guilty child. “I’m sorry,” she said, her eyes filling with tears. “I really am sorry. I … I didn’t think of you as … as
real
.”

“What did you think of me as?” asked Weezy, watching her. “Styrofoam? Insensate? With no feelings?”

“You were just Harold’s ex, that’s all, period. That’s all.”

“Harold’s ex? That makes me nonhuman?”

Gabriela shrugged hopelessly.

“You stupid idiot,” Weezy said, emphasizing every word. “You stupid idiot. You’re blaming me for what that moron Harold is doing. He used to try it with me, about his ex-wife. Stacey was this, Stacey was that. Just what you’re describing to me. Stacey was perfect, I was less than nothing. The thing is, I never blamed Stacey, I blamed myself. Which makes three stupid women. Stacey for marrying him, me for blaming myself when he talked about her, you for blaming me. And so far nobody’s blamed Harold.”

Gabriela began to cry.

“But at least I never wrote Stacey any disgusting letters or tore up her stationery store down in the Village,” said Weezy. “You need help. You need some kind of help I’m not qualified to give you. You know, if I had been home that time that you came up, I could have told you about Stacey.”

Gabriela covered her eyes and began to sob.

“I hope you feel bad.”

“I do, I do,” she wailed, rocking back and forth.

“I’ve been living in fear ever since this started. Keep the
letters, it’ll remind you what you’ve done to me. Come on, Snooky, we’re leaving.”

They stood up and went to the door. Gabriela followed them, her hands weaving in the air in front of her face, as if she had suddenly gone blind.

As they left, she reached out and grabbed Weezy’s arm in a clawlike grip.

“Are you … are you going to tell Harold?” she whispered, in a choked voice.

Weezy shook her arm free irritably. “No. Let go of me.”

“You’re not?”

“No.”

And she shut the door in Gabriela’s surprised, tearful, anguished face.

On the way back to Ridgewood on the train, Weezy sat looking out at the blue distance. Trees ran past, skimming over the ground, balancing with their branches held out like tightrope walkers. The train chugged and rattled its way north.

Snooky put an arm around her shoulders. “Well?”

“Well?”

“What do you think of that little interview?”

“Oh, I don’t know. It was painful and disgusting and horrible, of course, but in a way … well, in a way I found it gratifying. That’s an awful thing to say, I guess.”

“No, it’s not.”

“Here I’ve been killing myself over Harold, feeling so humiliated and everything, and all the time he was holding me up as a paragon of virtue to his next girlfriend. When he did that to me about Stacey I didn’t realize it was a pattern. I just thought she was great and I was awful.”

“Harold sounds like quite a gem. As I told you in the beginning.”

“Yes, so you did.”

“And may I mention that I also suggested all along that Gabriela might be jealous of you. I said that Harold might be talking about you. I said it was a possibility.”

“Well, you were right. As usual, nobody paid any attention to you at all, but you were right.” Weezy patted his hand.

“How do you think the students will take the news?”

“Well, I can’t wait to tell Elmo about ‘Girl in White,’ how it triggered her into a destructive frenzy. He’ll be absolutely furious, but on the other hand, it’ll appeal to his enormous ego. I’m sure he can easily imagine someone going nuts over his work.” She laughed softly.

“And Alice?”

“Poor Alice, how we all maligned her. She’s touchy and paranoid and horrible, but not as horrible as somebody else I could mention. It’s such a relief to know my instincts were right all along, it wasn’t her.”

“You did say that.” He gave her shoulders a squeeze.

“Yes, I did.”

“We still don’t know who messed up her paintbox.”

“Well, now that I know that it’s not the same person who did everything else, I have a very good idea who it was.”

“You do?”

“Uh-huh.” She chewed her lip.

“Want to tell me?”

“Let me make sure first.”

“Okay,” said Snooky. “So you’re not too upset?”

“Well, I’m upset, naturally I’m upset. I mean, I’ve been through hell over this. It’s been awful. I had to cancel my class and go away for months because of it.”

“That wasn’t so bad.”

“No, no. But you know what I mean. I hated feeling like I was running from something. Like I was afraid to go home.”

“Yes.”

“And those letters and everything …!” She shuddered. “Harold got what he deserved, he really did. He found himself a real winner this time.”

“Harold,” said Snooky, “is an idiot. A stupid, insensitive, loutish idiot who knows nothing about women. A man who gave up the chance of a lifetime when he broke up with you.”

Weezy smiled lazily and leaned her head against his shoulder. “That’s nice. I don’t get to hear the word ‘loutish’ nearly often enough these days.”

“The English language is going down the drain. Such a rich, varied vocabulary, and no one uses it anymore.”

They rode for a while in comfortable silence.

“So it doesn’t look like the article in
People
magazine will be forthcoming,” said Snooky. “Are you devastated?”

“Oh, no. Of course I’d like it, but I don’t need it. And I’m already thinking that I might try to do something new for the Genuardi Gallery next year, instead of duplicating the paintings that were ruined. I think I’ll try something different … a whole new look … something I’ve been thinking about for a while, but I didn’t have the energy before …” She turned back to the window in absorption, her eyes wide and unseeing.

“That’s good,” he said, but she was no longer listening. She was watching a carousel of forms and colors rotating gently inside her head.

Weezy called up her students on the phone and told them that she was teaching again. At the beginning of the first class, she announced that the person who had wrecked the studio had been caught, and that they were all off the hook.

“For which I hope you’ll be suitably grateful,” she said. “And, by the way, Alice’s paintings were simply overlooked, that’s all. The person who did this never met any of you. I
don’t want to go into this, but it’s someone who knows me and nobody else.”

There were expressions of relief, and a palpable easing of tension in the room. Alice, in particular, looked smug. “I told you it wasn’t me.”

“So you did, my dear.”

The class went well; everyone was on their best behavior. Mrs. Castor said to Weezy, “You look happy again.”

“I am, thanks.”

“Enjoyed your vacation?”

“More than I can say. Snooky told me it was your idea for us to get away from here. I can’t thank you enough.”

“You were looking tired,” said the old lady. “I’m glad to see you looking so well now.”

After class, Weezy asked Elmo to follow her into the living room for a private chat. He stood with his arms folded, surveying her quizzically. “Yes?”

“Elmo, you shithead,” she said affably. “Why did you mess up Alice’s stuff?”

He did not argue. “How’d you find out?”

“As soon as I figured out that somebody else had done the major damage, it was clear to me that only you would have the nerve to do that to Alice. I know you pretty well.”

“Yeah.”

“So tell me.”

Elmo scratched his cheek guiltily. “I’m sorry, Weeze. I was sure she had cut up ‘Girl in White,’ and it was killing me. I figured she was the only one nuts enough to do it. And then she kept picking on Jennifer, hinting that if Jen used one of her brushes she’d paint better, that kind of stuff. I saw red, that’s all. One day after class I opened her case and messed everything up. It was easy, I just went over and did it. I don’t think anybody saw me, other than Jen, and to tell you the truth, she was thrilled.”

“Nikki saw you, you bumpkin.”

“She did?”

“Yes, but don’t get all red in the face, she didn’t tell. She said to Snooky that she was glad somebody had done it.”

“Yeah, well, that’s how everybody felt. Alice is a mean little bitch.”

Weezy looked at him thoughtfully. “Okay. But she would never have cut up ‘Girl in White.’ You know that.”

He shrugged. “She was the only one, Weeze. I figured it had to be her. Who was it, by the way?”

“None of your business, junior.”

“That private, huh?”

“Yes. Nothing to do with any of you—nothing. A ghost from my past.”

He shrugged. “If you say so.”

“Try to control yourself from now on, will you? Are you still mad at Alice?”

“Nah.”

“You could always apologize to her.”

“Don’t press your luck, Weezy.”

“If you don’t, she’ll keep on thinking that Jennifer or Nikki did it.”

He thought this over. “Yeah. Maybe. I’ll think about it. I’m not promising anything. I think she doesn’t deserve to know what happened.”

“That’s my good, kind, forgiving boy,” said Weezy. “Now listen, there’s something else I have to tell you. It’s something you need to know.”

“What?”

“Well, I don’t know how to say this, but the person who slashed all the paintings was triggered off when she saw ‘Girl in White.’ She thought it was my work, and it was so good that it sent her into a homicidal frenzy. I’m sorry, Elmo. I know it’s a strange thing to hear. I really am sorry.”

“She thought ‘Girl in White’ was your work?” Elmo said slowly.

“Uh-huh.”

His face turned slowly red. “She must have been a moron, Weeze. You’ve never done anything to touch my ‘Girl in White.’ ”

Weezy patted his face. “That’s what I thought you’d say,” she said, laughing.

“Cheers,” said Maya, raising her wineglass.

“Cheers,” echoed the other three, and they all drank.

“Yuuccch,” said Snooky, shuddering. “Do I have to drink grape juice? It’s such a letdown after that wine you served to me last time.”

“Now, now,” said Weezy. “It’s not fair to drink good wine in front of Maya while she’s pregnant, you know that. I still feel bad about last time, I don’t know what I was thinking. Now stop whining.”

“I like to whine.”

“I know. More pasta, anyone?”

She had decided to have a little dinner party, just the four of them, before the baby was born. “Because goodness knows when we’ll be able to get together again afterwards, Maya. I mean, not to depress you or anything, but having a baby makes it harder to have these little intimate meals.”

“I know, I know,” Maya said unhappily.

“How are you feeling these days?”

“Like a great whale, moving slowly and ponderously through the ocean. Like a sea animal on land, gasping for air.”

“Like a mighty mastodon, lumbering across the primordial veldt,” said Snooky.

Maya glanced at him in annoyance. “Oh, shut up, Snooky. Honestly.”

“This is why I’m having a dinner party,” said Weezy. “Because we could all use some entertainment. And because I haven’t cooked for someone as appreciative as Bernard in months.”