Fake, page 30
“Also, I broke my one-hour rule for this, and I’ve been on Instagram. Jules has seven million followers now,” Leah said, then she paused. “You have almost two.”
“Million?” I asked.
“Yep. So, that’s good. You can, like, do that as a career,” Leah said. Whatever wavelength we were speaking over seemed to tighten, and I braced myself for what she was about to say. “Look, um . . .” she hesitated. “Florence heard about the post and . . . well . . . she thinks it best if you don’t come into the gallery anymore.” Though she couldn’t see me, I nodded slowly, understanding that I was officially out of work, with no prospects for employment, no health insurance, a potential obstruction charge lingering over me, and no place to call home.
I finally convinced Leah I would be okay, and we hung up. For a few moments after the line went dead, I just stood there, almost convinced I was okay. Then suddenly, I knew with certainty I would not be. My hands shook violently, and my lungs seemed to expand in my chest, desperate for air as though there were none in the room. The lights over this city streamed out in small wavy ribbons as the outline of the world went fuzzy. I grabbed my phone.
“Hi,” I said. It had been so long since I’d asked somebody for help—so long since I’d trusted somebody enough to come when I needed them. “Can you come over?”
Sienna stayed with me for three nights, sleeping in my bed with me, gently taking my hand when I screamed in my sleep. I had never had another human being in my presence long enough to see the extent of my anxiety, night terror, and pyrophobia. She didn’t make me feel bad that I sweated through the sheets every night, and she read out on the balcony for hours while I painted. She was mostly quiet but listened when I had anything to share, and I found that having another living being in the large, open studio space slowed my heart rate when the memories became too much.
When I finished the painting of her on the ground, flames nipping at her flesh, I dropped my brush and turned to Sienna. “I have to go back home and set some things straight,” I said, releasing my brain from the memory. “And I have to tell my mom she’s on her own.”
Despite Sienna’s diplomatically worded suggestion that the stress of being with my mother might not be the best thing at that time, I knew I had to speak to her in person about my past, my father, her finances, and our future. I packed my new clothes, took my suitcase in my hand, and looked back at the apartment I had never really moved into.
“You’re leaving your paintings?” Sienna asked.
“What am I supposed to do with them? I see them all the time in my mind anyway. Whoever is showing the apartment to buyers will toss them, I’m sure. They were just therapy. There will be a lot more of them,” I promised her.
At the Ardmore house, my mother listened as I explained the forgery scheme I had gotten tied up in. When I told her we needed to alert the buyer of the Chagall that it had been double-sold to a couple in Denmark, and warned her we might need to return the money from the sale, I braced myself for a meltdown, but instead she nodded sadly and took my hand.
“I don’t know how I could have been so stupid,” I admitted.
“I know what it’s like to want to believe in something because it feels good to, despite all the signs that it’s too good to be true.”
I knew she was talking about my father, though I failed to see the parallel. In all my memories of my parents together, they were either shouting and tense, or the atmosphere was still and heavy. My mother had known about my father’s affair. I couldn’t see how it had felt good to continue living with him.
I noticed her studying my expression. “My marriage to your father was complicated,” she continued. “I loved your father and he loved me. He wasn’t perfect. He drank too much and smoked too much and used to take the money he earned for us and risk it all on bets in an attempt to make more. And he had other . . . indiscretions. But he loved me.”
I thought for a moment and opened my mouth to tell her that he didn’t love us—that we deserved better than all of that—but she spoke again before I could.
“Or at least that’s what I choose to tell myself.” She peeled herself out of her chair without another word and made her way to the kitchen, where I heard the water run and the stove click on as she prepared herself a cup of tea. I sat alone in the den, running my finger over the plush cream-colored arm of the chair, and understood then that my mother knew the truth but chose the delusion. I couldn’t stop her from it, but I couldn’t do the same any longer myself.
The next morning, I opened my eyes and looked around my childhood bedroom for the first time in almost a decade. My T-shirt was soaked through with sweat and my throat was dry. I took my glass of water off the nightstand and sipped, the water stinging on its way down. I closed my eyes, wanting desperately to back out of the arrangements I had made for the day, but forcing myself into the shower and then driving my mother’s old car to the coffee shop in town.
“What can I get you?” asked the young barista behind the marble counter. I’d been too focused on biting my nail off to realize it was my turn to order.
“Just a water for now,” I said. “Actually—a tea. Or should I wait?” I shifted my weight uncomfortably.
“First date?” she asked with a smile.
“I wish,” I told her. “Just a glass of water for now, please.” For what felt like the millionth time, I scanned the interior of Coffee Bar, one of the trendy artisanal cafés that had sprouted up in Ardmore since I’d left for college.
I sat at one of the small marble-topped circular tables and saw her open the door out of the corner of my eye. As she approached, I heard my heart beating in small thuds as I asked myself what good the meeting would do, whether it was necessary, whether it would do anything to ease the guilt that plagued my dreams. When she got to me, I took a long sip of water before looking up and making eye contact.
“Thank you for coming,” I said, trying to look at her without focusing on the burn running up the side of her neck as she sat opposite me.
“I’m glad you asked,” she said, clearing her throat and looking just as nervous as I was.
We both ordered tea instead of coffee, which provided two minutes of empty conversation about how we were each trying without much luck to cut back on caffeine after our first morning cup. I wondered if I had the nerve to say what I’d planned to, but then she wrapped her reddened and scarred fingers around her paper cup and raised it to her lips to blow on her tea. A cloud of steam drifted from the top of the cup toward me in the air-conditioned restaurant, and all I could see was her writhing on the ground to try to stop the flames from swallowing her whole.
“I asked you here so I could apologize,” I started, which felt completely insufficient.
She put down her cup without taking a sip and looked at me. “I think we both have some apologizing to do,” she said softly.
“I set that fire,” I said through tears, as the thing I had never said out loud, the thing I had tried to bury impossibly deep, finally surfaced. “I’m so sorry. I’m sorry I burned you. And hurt you. I didn’t mean to. I just wanted to stop you guys from . . .”
She reached across the table and took my hand to stop me, tears welling in her eyes. She said nothing, only nodded to accept my apology, and I exhaled a shaky breath. I looked down at my hand in hers, and I cried harder to see her red and wrinkled skin against mine.
“You were just a child,” she said, holding my gaze until I had to look away. “You saw your father with another woman, and you wanted to stop it.”
She was right, but it was no excuse.
She let go of my hand and leaned back. “For what it’s worth, I tried to stop seeing him. To send him back to his family. To you. But . . . I loved him,” she said, a deep sadness in her eyes. I stared at her, wondering how my cheating, gambling, drinking father had managed to make two women so attached to him and tacitly agree to share him. Part of me had always assumed she was in it for the money—a young woman who wanted to live a certain lifestyle—but I cringed at my own projection. She’d really loved him.
We sat and talked about my father, the graduate school my father put her through, her work as a history teacher, and my art, until our second cups of tea had grown tepid. She left before I did, and I sat, small tears escaping from the corners of my eyes. I had thought the process of catharsis would be more pleasurable than painful, but it hurt. A lot. I inhaled deeply, digesting the pain, preparing to return home to my mother, and paused. I felt it then, the extra space left in my chest for a deep breath after our conversation. As I exhaled, I realized, for the first time in as long as I could remember, that I was okay. I had faked being okay with distance and sarcasm, coffee to perk me up in the morning and pills to put me to sleep, Instagram, texting. Noise. I didn’t reach in my bag to check my phone before I stood and left the coffee shop, knowing that regardless of how the trial turned out, I would keep painting, and I would be fine. Really fine.
Epilogue
Three months later, my mother and I had settled into a routine. We power walked three miles each morning and came home for coffee together. I’d head into the garage to paint while my mother busied herself cleaning out the house, meeting with Realtors, and preparing for the sale. We never mentioned Lenny’s name until after dinner, when we watched Jeopardy!, followed by the news, and sometimes shared a bottle of wine. All commentary around the trial indicated that Lenny would be going to jail, as would Sergey, but I still envisioned a world where Lenny slipped out of the country on a private plane. On some nights when I missed him so much it kept me awake, I almost wished for that freedom for him.
Lenny’s was one of the most highly publicized art forgery cases in recent history, primarily because he had sold forgeries to some very important people who were not keen on being publicly embarrassed, and while my name constantly popped up in the media coverage of the trial, it didn’t bother me. I felt like I was watching the trial of some stranger, hearing somebody else’s name mentioned as his “primary forger.” Every so often, I found myself curbing the smile on my lips when I’d see experts poring over my forgeries, trying to determine whether they were originals. The FBI had asked me to cooperate fully in exchange for immunity from any obstruction charge resulting from tipping Lenny off or withholding information, so I had already identified all my forgeries on the record. Still, experts needed to corroborate everything I said. I wasn’t to be trusted, which was strange to think, because I was sitting on a beige Pottery Barn sofa in Ardmore, Pennsylvania, drinking pinot grigio with my mother. I wasn’t an international impressionist forger. Not anymore, at least.
Sienna had visited for a day the prior weekend, if only to assure me in person that Gemini was doing fine: “You didn’t ruin anybody’s life!” In fact, she was busier than ever; the company was busier than ever. “I guess what they say is true, all press really is good press!” she had said, laughing, as my mother poured her more tea on our front porch. Sienna and I went to the farmers’ market without my mother for a late lunch. She was taking a break from dating, and I wouldn’t have known how to date then if I’d wanted to, which I didn’t, so we happily found ourselves speaking about art: the Basel Miami sale that broke records for a decomposing horse carcass, the gallery owner who churned out mediocre lithographs but understood marketing, supply, and demand so well that they were selling for $2 million a pop.
I wasn’t jealous of these people any longer; I was content to paint and not sell. Sienna and I laughed and joked about the absurd and nonsensical world we worked in with an appreciation behind our eye rolls. When we finished lunch, I hugged Sienna close and breathed a sigh of relief that my mistakes hadn’t had consequences for her. I stood on the platform and waved as her train pulled out of the station, the pang of missing her already in my chest.
This was my home now—my home again. I couldn’t afford to live in the city even if I wanted to; nobody was hiring the girl associated with the Leonard Sobetsky scandal. My daily routine was the quiet suburban life with my mother that I had spent the past decade getting as far away from as possible. Shockingly, I was enjoying it.
On Sunday, my mother and I were returning from our morning power walk when she stopped to fix the “For Sale” sign on our property that had been made crooked by the wind, and I spotted a silver Mercedes SUV with tinted windows in the driveway. My stomach knotted up immediately. Fearful it was the FBI or worse, I couldn’t decide whether we should keep walking at our quick clip past the house.
“Whom do we have here?” my mother asked me curiously, turning toward the driveway as though it were a pleasant surprise.
“Stop! Stay here,” I commanded her at the base of the long driveway. There was a slight ringing in my ears. I’m safe. Lenny is in custody. The FBI has assured me they’re watching Sergey. Still, my lunch lurched up into my throat as the driver’s side door opened.
I saw a woman’s tan loafer first, and then Florence emerged from the car wearing light jeans, a pale yellow sweater, and not a stitch of makeup, her pixie cut grown out enough to be tucked behind her ears.
“Hi!” I said, holding my chest as I bent over slightly in relief. “What are you doing here?”
“I was hoping we could talk,” she said.
“Of course,” I said. “Do you want to come inside?”
“It’s beautiful out, do you want to take a walk?”
I nodded. “Actually, there’s a trail just past our yard.” I told my mother we’d be back in a bit.
As Florence and I approached the path, I rubbed nervously at my forearm. She walked quietly beside me, saying nothing for a few minutes.
“I’m so glad you’re here, because I want to apologize,” I said, mostly because I couldn’t take the silence any longer. “You took a chance on me when you hired me, and I totally squandered it. I’m sure the gallery’s name has come up in articles alongside my name, and I am truly sorry for any trouble that has caused you and any negative effect it’s had on the business. I’m sorry,” I repeated.
“Thank you for that,” she said, meeting my eyes.
I wondered if there would ever be a day I could stop apologizing, but it felt better to have the words out.
We went a bit farther, and I told her how the towering pine trees marking the end of our property had been only up to my knees when my parents bought the house. We both shielded our eyes to the sun and stared up to their tops before continuing. I couldn’t imagine that Florence had driven two hours just to hear my apology, and so I waited to hear what else she would say.
“So, Emma. I have some good news,” she finally said.
“Oh, God, Florence, if you could give me one more chance, I promise I will be the best assistant director—”
“God, no!” She burst out laughing. “You’re entangled in an FBI investigation of art forgery, for Christ’s sake!”
I stared at her, wide-eyed. I had never heard her laugh that freely before. “Right, of course.”
“So, no, I’m not rehiring you,” she said, though her tone was kind. “But I’m hoping you will hire me.” I forced a smile, not understanding the joke this time. “Micaela dropped off your new paintings for me to look at. She said she was cleaning out Lenny’s studio because it was being sold, and you were going to throw them out, but . . . she thought I would want to see them.” My jaw slackened as I tried to process. “They’re sensational. Your use of color . . . mesmerizing. Your command of pain . . . it’s a revelation.” I stopped in my tracks. “It would be an honor to sell your work and to help you navigate this process.”
“Really, Florence? Are you sure?” I remembered her reaction to my portfolio and didn’t understand how she’d seen something so different this time. “And you don’t think there’s too much of a bad association with Lenny?”
“Oh, no,” she said. “I doubt it was her intention, but your influencer friend already created quite a buzz around you with that post about the forgeries. I’m told you have millions of followers. It will make my job that much easier. But I wouldn’t take you on if I didn’t love your work.”
“Thank you, Florence. And of course, of course, I’ll sign with you,” I said, unable to believe the words coming out of my mouth.
“We’ll make the girl in the hospital room piece the focal point.”
I bit my lower lip. “I used to visit my dad while he was dying. But only while he was sleeping, because I hated him so much that I didn’t want him to know I still loved him.”
“Life’s complicated,” she said. “That’s why we have art. To help us make sense of it.”
I nodded, allowing my gaze to drift up and the nape of my neck to bend back so I could see the tops of the trees lining the yard. I felt overwhelmed. I had been going about it all wrong my entire life. The reason to make art wasn’t the recognition or even the therapy of putting my feelings down on the canvas. People had been widely recognized for any number of ridiculous things since the advent of social media, and anybody could pay somebody to help them work out their feelings. The real reason for art—the honor in it—was inspiring a stranger to recognize herself in my paintings and perhaps, if I was doing it right, make her feel a bit less alone.
Acknowledgments
To my parents, siblings, and extended family, who tell everybody they know—and even some people they don’t—to buy my books. None of this could be without you.
To Sujean, who has mastered the subtle art of truly listening in a way I only aspire to. Thank you for forever receiving my ideas and deftly guiding them to elevated spaces.
To Phoebe Mendelow, may you never lose your creativity and passion. I only hope that I can afford your book cover art one day!
To Emily Griffin, for being so darn good at her job and for leading the amazing team at HarperCollins to do theirs so well. You are a master. To Leslie Cohen and Becca Putman, who work tirelessly to get people who would never otherwise see my books to actually purchase them. Thank you.
