Page 79

FIFTY-SEVEN

J onathan offers to meet the movers when they come to pack Party into her coffin and send her to France, sparing me the experience.

I take him up on it and sit at Starbucks, waiting for the all-clear sign.

They’re fast, and I’m back in the apartment by ten.

Jonathan has to go into his office, and when he leaves, even though I don’t believe in crying, I sob like a little girl whose mother has deserted her.

Or her great-great-great-great-grandmother. Then I take a nap. No dreams.

That afternoon, I once again wander around Boston, but now I’m pining for Party and Berthe.

I keep checking for a text from Naomi. Obviously, her verdict isn’t going to change anything right now, but it will give me hope.

If the response is what I expect and I can land a decent job, I’ll get Party authenticated by an old-fashioned expert and then hire a lawyer to sue my dear cousin.

I worry about the effect the Calliope disaster might have on my job search, but when I contact Tony, my old boss, he tells me he’ll give me the strong references I deserve.

He says they’re still in damage-control mode around the fallout, but everyone has been more understanding than they expected.

He apologizes again and asks me how I’m doing.

“Just got back from Paris,” I tell him breezily.

I send texts to friends, colleagues, and anyone else I can think of to inform them I’ve left Calliope and I’m looking for something better, asking if they hear of anything suitable to please let me know.

I meet with two biotech headhunters and sign up with the one who promises she’ll be able to find me a suitable position within the month.

Jonathan suggests we take a trip to Paris in August to see Party at the Louvre, but right now I can’t imagine standing behind a velvet rope surrounded by casual observers who will stop for a few seconds and then move on to the next painting.

I also have the sense that something bad could happen there.

Berthe has to be furious that Party will be shown as a Manet—at a retrospective where her creation will be heralded as his masterwork.

And it seems that she actually might have the power to make something happen. Flood, earthquake, fire.

Jonathan says he can make it a business trip, which would cover hotel and meals, and offered to pay my plane fare.

Even though we’re already using the L-word and talking about him giving up his apartment when his lease ends, I’m not comfortable with this.

Which I guess makes the decision for me.

But still, how I would adore seeing her, being with her, even if it has to be from behind a velvet rope.

NAOMI STILL HASN’T finished her report—although she claims it’s imminent—and I’m starting to wonder if the thing will ever be completed.

Or, worse, that it has been, and the result is not the one she knows I want.

I busy myself with the job search to keep from ruminating over the report too much, which sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t.

I’m on a phone interview for a position I’m not interested in—which I’m doing because it’s good practice for one I am—when I notice Wyatt is calling. We haven’t spoken since the day of the trial, and then I got the distinct impression he wanted nothing more to do with me.

When the interview is over, I hesitate before I punch his number, afraid he might want to talk about something personal. But it could be about Party , so I call him back. “Hey,” I say tentatively.

“There’s something I need to tell you.”

“About the case?”

“Something very weird and awful has happened.”

“Is Party all right?”

A long sigh. “Yes, Tamara, Party is fine. It’s Damien who isn’t.”

“What’s wrong with him?”

“There was a fire at his house, a nasty one, and, well, he’s dead.”

I freeze. “Damien was killed in a fire? Are you sure?”

“Obviously, I’m sure,” he says sharply. “Why else would I be calling you?”

“That’s, that is awful. What a horrible way to die.”

“Delphine told me. She was very upset, but she wanted you to know that Damien’s will states unequivocally that all of his artwork goes to the foundation—in case you were entertaining other ideas.”

“Was Party at his house when it happened?”

“Really? I just told you a man has died—a relative of yours, even—and all you want to know is whether that fucking painting was there when he was killed?” Another long sigh. “But yes, Party on the Seine was in the house and it was unscathed, although almost everything else wasn’t.”

Not to worry, child. The wait will be far shorter than that.

“DO YOU THINK Berthe could have killed him?” I ask Jonathan over dinner that night at a Greek restaurant.

“Producing dreams is one thing. Murder is another.”

“Or maybe it’s the other way around, and she’s a hero who snatched Party from the flames, rescuing a major work of art.

Maybe that’s what she did the other times too.

” I push the potatoes around with my fork, nibble at a piece of eggplant.

Then I tell him what I heard in my head the last time I sat with Party .

“Look, you just found out about Damien’s death. So why don’t we let it sit for a while? Get some distance before attempting to process the metaphysics of the thing.”

I turn his hand palm up and kiss it. “Sounds good.”

An hour later, even though it’s nine o’clock at night, Naomi calls.

She says there’s a 95 percent certainty Party on the Seine is primarily the work of Berthe Morisot, a percentage she explains is about as high as they ever go.

The odd piece is that there’s also 80 percent certainty that édouard Manet painted over a few random places on the canvas—dabs of paint on the woman’s skirt and the awning, seemingly swiftly applied, which Naomi describes as more of an edit than a collaboration.

JONATHAN SENDS THE AuthentAI report to Delphine.

When he doesn’t hear back, he telephones and leaves her a message—of course she doesn’t take his call—informing her that we intend to initiate a lawsuit for the return of Party on the Seine to its rightful owner.

When he doesn’t hear back, he emails her the preliminary details of the lawsuit.

Still no response. Fortunately, he has to go to Paris for work—including a meeting with Oliver to review his progress on 40 Rue de Villejust—so he pays a visit to the foundation.

He calls me, jubilant. The foundation is in chaos, and Delphine was so distraught she broke down and cried when he met with her—he’s guessing her relationship with Damien was more than just business.

Either way, apparently no one, especially Delphine, has the stomach for a legal battle, and the foundation quickly agrees to relinquish its rights to the painting.

In less than two months—a full six weeks before the dreaded Manet retrospective— Party will be on her way back to me.

ON THE BIG day, Jonathan takes an hour off so we can be together when Party arrives.

We move the triptych back to the guest room and watch out the window for the truck, even though there’s a good chance we won’t see it, because it will likely go through the alley to the loading dock.

We laugh at our mutual nervousness, and if it weren’t early afternoon, I’d have poured us both a hefty drink.

I finally get a call from the dock that she’s here, and I tell them to have the guards bring her up.

No need to get the overly curious Alyce—or anyone else—involved.

The fewer eyes, the better. Jonathan and I wait at the elevator and lead them to the apartment.

The same green coffin, the same swift extrication, the same heavy hooks, the same efficient installation.

Different men, who bow out as soon as they’re finished, the same way the others did.

Jonathan and I clasp hands as we stand in front of her, and I’m overcome by the sheer joy of being with my painting again. My painting. “Oh,” is all I can manage.

“That’s one word for it,” he says, then kisses me and returns to work.

When he leaves, I sit on the couch, enraptured.

I’d been too overwhelmed to notice earlier, but now I see that Berthe’s signature adorns the bottom right corner, although everything else is as it was when Party first arrived.

I lift my phone. Click. I close my eyes and then slowly open them, force myself to look at the photo.

Relief floods. For there on my screen, for the first time, is Party on the Seine exactly as I see it before me. No sign of Manet, just Morisot.

I lean my head back and wonder if this means Berthe has been released.

That, as Holly suggested, she’s righted the wrong that trapped her in the painting and has moved on to a place where she’s at peace.

A comforting thought, which, despite all that’s happened, I can’t entirely believe.

Then a less heartening notion hits me. How could she be at peace if it came at the cost of a man’s life? If she did actually kill Damien.

“Did you?” I ask before I realize I don’t want to know.

The smell of violets fills the room, and Berthe turns to me with an enigmatic smile. In my head, I hear, “You are right, child. Some things are better left unsaid.”