An Unforgettable Lady(110)
"I need some time to myself," she said, heading for her room. "If you'll excuse me?" She didn't wait for a response.
* * *
Later in the morning, when she walked up to Kat's desk, Grace flashed a steady smile that the girl apparently didn't fall for.
"Are you okay?" Kat asked.
"Fine, just fine."
"How was Connecticut?"
"I had to reschedule." Before Kat could ask any more questions, she said, "Will you do me a favor and cancel my regular meetings today? I have to work on the Gala preparations and I need some uninterrupted time."
"No problem."
With her schedule cleared, Grace spent the rest of the morning in a daze. She tried to do some work, but nothing she read sank in and nothing she wrote made any sense. In a last-ditch effort to accomplish something, she tried to finish the seating chart for the Gala.
After she'd been staring at it for twenty minutes, she pushed it away and looked up at the bust of her father. She hit the intercom.
"Kat? Will you please call maintenance? I'd like to move something down to the museum. Oh, and tell them I want to change some of the paintings in here. The ones on these walls have been here too long."
She released the button and looked at John, who was talking on his phone. He'd been doing that all morning, gathering information, she imagined, on what had happened to Isadora. She wanted to ask him for details, but wasn't sure whether that would make her feel any better. Bad news coming from him seemed liked a double hit.
Grace looked back at the bust and then at the candy dish and the pipe rack. She was thinking that she would get rid of them, too, when Callie's image came to mind.
When John put the phone down, she asked, "What do you know about Callie ?"
He finished writing some kind of note and then looked up.
"She lives in the building we dropped her in front of. She's twenty-seven, never been married, lives alone, nothing in the bank. Works at a gallery, did very well in school. Graduated summa cum laude from NYU as an undergrad and then excelled in her master's program in art conservation. Her mother's dead."
Grace lifted her brows. "When?"
"Two years ago. Of MS."
She was about to ask if Callie had any siblings when Kat buzzed in. "Mr. Lamont is here to see you."
Grace pursed her lips in annoyance, tempted to send him away. With the Gala only a day away, however, she didn't think she should chance it. He might actually have something constructive to say. "He can come in, but it's not going to be for long—"
Lamont threw open the double doors.
"Why hello, Lou," she said dryly.
As he marched up to the desk, she looked over his sharp suit and perky tie. She noticed dimly that the folded handkerchief in his jacket pocket was the same kind her father had worn.
"Your auction piece has arrived," he said with a humorless smile. "They just unpacked it. That thing is so dark, God only knows what it really is."
She fought against responding to the cutting tone in his voice. "I believe that painting's documentation speaks for itself, Lou. Or perhaps you'd like to argue with the Copley scholars who've authenticated it?"
He let out a disparaging noise.
"You better be prepared to duck and cover tomorrow night because you're going to look like a fool. This whole thing has been a mess from start to finish. The invitations were wrong, it took you weeks to set the menu, and I haven't even seen that retrospective on your father yet. The portrait is a nightmare and God only knows how you're going to stage the party in the atrium downstairs. I tell you, Bainbridge is very uncomfortable."
"Stay away from my board," she said sharply.
"I'm just trying to save you from yourself."
Grace bit her lip to keep from snapping back. She was sick and tired of him stirring up trouble, of meeting his censure with nothing other than calm detachment. Frustration hardened her voice.
"Thanks, but I don't need to be rescued by you."
An angry flush deepened the color in his face. "Oh, I'm sorry. I forgot. You've got an amazing sense of balance in this tightrope town. I'll have to remember that when our donors want to know why the single most important event of the year turned out to be nothing more than a bad dinner and an embarrassing exhibition of a painting no one wanted to buy."