The High Season(88)
Jem focused intently on the pair. “Is that his date? She’s old!” She had the incredulous tones of a teenager unable to believe that a middle-aged woman had the right to exist and wear stilettos.
“Not a date, I don’t think,” Ruthie said.
Lucas caught sight of them but quickly turned. Shari gave a pleased wave. Unlike Lucas, she seemed delighted to be at the party. Lucas stalked past, turning his head away and pretending not to see them.
“Let’s go now, Mom? Please?”
“You said you didn’t—”
“I know but can we please go now?”
“Just wait here for a minute, I have to talk to someone. Then we’ll go. Promise!”
Ruthie hurtled across the grass, heading toward Lucas, who was now standing alone with a glass of champagne, surveying the crowd. A few yards away Shari was transfixed by a drunk man straddling an inflatable raptor.
She yanked Lucas behind a bobbing hyena. “Don’t start,” he said. “Just be cool, for once.”
“We have to stop this now.”
“Stop?” Lucas closed his eyes for a moment. “You need to stop. What are you doing here?”
“I saw the painting, you little shit! What’s it doing at the Belfry?”
“Daniel has it on approval, he thought it would be a great idea to showcase it, so I said sure.”
“You idiot!” she spat, and Lucas’s eyes darkened. “Daniel Mantis? Don’t you realize the kind of scrutiny this puts you—us—under? It’s one thing to get it out of the country, but this is the stupidest way possible to sell it! Didn’t you think of that?”
“Don’t call me an idiot,” Lucas said.
“You are an idiot! You pulled me into this—”
“Oh, please.”
“Okay, it was my decision, I’m not blaming you for that. But I’m blaming you for this…recklessness. It will be in the Times, every curator in the country will want to see it!”
“Exactly! You’re the idiot. You can’t see how perfect it is. That horrible painting of Adeline, and Daniel owns it? It’s going to be glorious. She’ll see it everywhere!”
Ruthie stared at him, aghast. “This is some sort of freakish revenge thing for you? Is that it?”
“And what is it for you?”
Was it revenge? She had never thought of it that way. It had felt like necessity. Then again, she hadn’t been thinking clearly. Of course it was revenge.
She was wrong. It drained out of her, all that stupid wasted effort of shaking her fists at a world where only beauty and money mattered. She didn’t have to live in that world, even if it was right next door.
Ruthie let out a breath, a long exhalation. “I don’t think I could hate anyone as much as you do.”
“Says the woman with the ax.”
“You have to cancel the sale. Tonight.”
“I’m not going to do that.”
“You are. You’re going to go over there right now and tell Daniel that you changed your mind, that the painting has too much sentimental value.”
“You’re insane.”
“I’ve got news for you. You don’t own that painting. I do. It’s just canvas and paint and a stretcher, and they all belong to me. Remember the word under the paint?”
“I know, that’s the funny part.”
“Don’t you think if it’s ever x-rayed they’re going to wonder why it was underneath a portrait of his lover?”
“No. It’s obvious. My old man was a shit!” Lucas drained his champagne. “Okay, so you’re pissed. I recognize that. But is it worth going to jail for? If you confess, I’ll just say you sold me the painting. Who wouldn’t believe it? Poor Ruthie, out for revenge. You’re the one with the motive.”
“You are despicable.”
“Who the fuck do you think you are? Do you really think Daniel will believe you and not me? You’re a nobody. You’re a middle-aged woman without a job or a husband. Who’s going to give a fuck?”
She walked away, over the lawn, back toward the Belfry. His words didn’t touch her. She was too busy thinking. She had miscalculated. He wasn’t afraid of what she could do.
Big mistake.
“Where have you been?” Jem pulled at her arm. “Can we go now?”
“Look, they’re bringing out the cake. Get us a couple of slices, okay?” Ruthie looked over at the museum. If she didn’t do this now, tonight, she’d never get the chance again. “We’ll take them and leave. I’ll be right back, promise!”
Jem’s protest floated away in the gathering dusk as Ruthie hurried across the blue lawn. The valets were busy now. People were walking to their cars, some of the women shaking out their sarongs and throwing them around their bare shoulders. The temperature was dropping.
She stopped. Through the window she saw Joe Bloom cross the room and examine the painting, Daniel Mantis behind him.
Daniel gestured; Joe nodded. He moved from one spot to another, looking, looking. Up close and far away. The way a curator looks. He picked up the painting and examined the back.
It was then that Ruthie remembered what she should have remembered a month ago, that she had told Joe that Peter had sent her a box of supplies from the studio. She had asked him about selling a luxury item. How could she have forgotten that?