“Hectic,” the woman interrupts. “Terribly hectic.”
Matthew quickly introduces me. “This is Emma. She was helping Stella clean the apartment.”
“I’m Caroline.” She reaches out her long manicured fingers to me and then grips my hand in an iron handshake. We’ve never properly met. I’ve only observed her from afar. Up close she’s even more gorgeous, tall and reedy with full lips and sharp cheekbones, elegant with a sophisticated insouciance. She reminds me of Carolyn Bessette, whose honeymoon pictures from Turkey were recently splashed across the front pages of all the Parisian tabloids.
Matthew clears his throat and tugs at the collar of his dress shirt, clearly nervous. Caroline stays silent. To her, I am nothing.
“Good to see you,” I say politely, and turn on my heel.
I’m out the door before Matthew catches up with me.
“I’m sorry I didn’t call.”
“I understand.” I place my hand on his arm and give it a gentle squeeze. “I only wanted to say hello. I thought I would hear from you. After”—I pause—“after everything.”
“There’s been a lot of family stuff, plans to make. You’ve been on my mind.”
“You’ve been on mine too.” I meet his eyes and hold his stare for longer than he expects. He looks away first and I see a blush creeping up his collar. His outsize confidence is a facade.
“Can I take you to dinner to make up for it? That’s what Stella would have wanted. I haven’t had the chance to properly remember her yet. Not with everything going on.”
“Was there a funeral?” I know there wasn’t.
He shakes his head. “She didn’t want one. She was cremated quite quickly, right at the hospital after it happened. I would like to hold a memorial service, but my father…He’s difficult.”
“What happened to her ashes?” I’m imagining an urn or a box in Matthew’s house filled with the ashes of some poor unidentified stranger instead of Stella.
“The hospital hasn’t released them to us. She didn’t give them permission.”
I breathe a sigh of relief I didn’t know I’d been holding in.
“I’d love to have dinner. Tomorrow?” I mean to sound slightly eager.
“Sure. I mean oh no. Tomorrow I can’t. I have a thing. The next night. What is that, Friday?”
“That should work,” I say. “Should we meet here?”
“No. Somewhere else. There’s a place I want to take you. Have you heard of Lapérouse?”
I pretend I haven’t, though it is a place Lucie regularly dines with clients.
“Can I send a car for you?”
“I can meet you there.”
He leans over and kisses my cheek, just an inch away from my lips. What I’m about to do is work. I have to think about it that way, Lucie coached me. But I can’t help but feel a tingle start at the base of my spine when his lips touch my skin.
“Goodbye, Emma,” he whispers.
I don’t look back again.
I spend as much ofmy days as possible studying the two paintings we will steal, but I don’t dare sketch them inside the museum. In my mind I’m cataloging the brushwork, the places it is loose and expressive and the parts where it is more controlled and meticulous. I notice where the paint builds up, where I think that was done on purpose and where it was likely a happy accident. The hues and the colors are always a challenge, but I now have access to an extensive variety of pigments provided by Stella, including some dating back to the nineteenth century, colors with names like “old gold,” “scorched tangerine,” and “azure blue.” It’s what Stella spent the last of her money on, the paint and the house on the island where she is hiding. I study the light and the shadows, how they change depending on the time of day. To be a master of imitation you must first be a master of observation.
The paintings that I create won’t be put under a microscope or given a chemical analysis. Our hope is that they’ll be mere placeholders inside the museum while we take the existing ones on the wall to the experts who can prove that the Swansons had them forged. I know I can do a reproduction that the average tourist would never dream was a fake, but now that I’ve accepted the challenge, I want to do it perfectly. I want anyone who gazes upon these pieces to believe that my work is as good as the work of these great men.
Stella has also provided me with well-aged canvases and frames that are exact replicas of the ones these paintings occupy. All we will need to do is find a way to get them off the walls and replaced without anyone noticing. Stella has some ideas, but Lucie says she might have a better plan. She needs to check on a couple of things first, but she promises she’ll explain it to Colette and me soon.
It’s almost as if the three of us have been given a new lease on life. Our creative juices are flowing again. We’re energized in a way that we haven’t been since that heady first year we were together in school, when we still believed anything was possible, before we understood the odds stacked against us.
