Twenty-three
Cam typed quickly, despite occasional breaks to wait out a spell of Jeanne resettling herself with a sleepy sigh on the long office couch or to wipe the lens of wetness from her eyes.
She’d been working hard since she’d arrived back in the twenty-first century a few hours earlier, and she wasn’t going to stop until she was done—especially because stopping meant she’d have more time to think, and thinking was the last thing she wanted to do after leaving Peter’s bed with her tail between her legs.
At least she had gotten a story angle—a great story angle, she might add. Peter had told her about the affair Van Dyck, the old lech, had had with a young girl named Agnes. Giselle, it turned, had been a nonstarter. Nothing but a seventeenth-century stalker. Apparently even painters had those.
Agnes, on the other hand, was a girl who had been identified by Van Dyck early in her young life as a potential wife.
Van Dyck had supplied the abbess of the orphanage where Agnes lived with enough money to sponsor the girl’s education and to ensure she would never be exposed to anything that might awaken her sexual curiosity.
Van Dyck, it seemed, had an unearthly fear of being cuckolded—the hobgoblin of men with small minds and even smaller penises—and wanted his future wife to be entirely devoted to him.
Naturally when she emerged from the orphanage as a young woman, Agnes promptly fell in love with a man her own age—Cam had a sneaking suspicion this was Peter, though he referred to the young man as Horace—and Van Dyck laid traps to try to catch them in the act.
It was a fantastic triangle. Plenty of sex.
Plenty of behind-the-scenes maneuvering.
Now all she had to do was fit it into her biography, send it to her publisher again, and she’d have Ball’s gift of the $2.
1 million Van Dyck painting as well as a book deal to lay before the museum board.
She thought of the scene in Flashdance, a scene actually filmed in the Carnegie’s great hall, where Jennifer Beals points a victorious finger at every sour-faced judge during her dance audition and wins them over to her obvious suitability.
Yep, she thought as the scene played in her head, that would be her, though there would be no Michael Nouri waiting with a bunch of roses at the end, and there would certainly be no Jake Ryan sitting on top of his Porsche, making sure she celebrated her big day in the best way possible.
Peter had retreated into a polite reserve.
He told her the Van Dyck story without emotion, answering whatever questions she asked, before excusing himself, saying he had an appointment he’d forgotten.
He had not asked her to stay. He had not asked her to schedule another sitting.
He did not mention another Wednesday afternoon.
She’d simply gathered her purse, stumbled down the stairs with a general murmur about the privy, and walked to the models’ room.
Within a minute, she’d called up on her phone as Jeanne had suggested, replayed the steps she’d taken before, and been deposited with a bang at her desk.
Her main problem was that a biography, at least in theory, was supposed to be based on facts.
The Agnes story was a fact, but Cam could hardly footnote it with “From an interview with Van Dyck contemporary Peter Lely, November 5, 1673.” She’d need to find some mention of it somewhere in the records.
Jeanne stirred. “Mmmgph. Are you still up?”
“Yeah. Thanks for staying.”
“You know I like to rack up as much overtime as possible. Besides, the only way I could explain my panic about your absence earlier was saying you’d found a vein of gold, research-wise, and had rushed off to the library without telling anyone.”
“I take it you didn’t mention the explosion and the orange Crush?”
“Do I look like I want to be carted away by men in white coats? I said I’d heard a noise in your office and that when I went in you were gone.”
“You should be a writer.”
“Tell me about it. I’m glad the reverse trip worked, though. You didn’t come back right away, so I wasn’t sure.”
Cam thought about how much smarter it would have been if she had. She hadn’t told Jeanne anything that had happened after her ill-conceived posing.
“I’m having a problem.”
“Hit me.” Jeanne sat up and rubbed her eyes.
“This story about the virgin Agnes is great stuff, but I’m supposed to be an academic. What am I going to list as a source on that?”
Jeanne rubbed her chin. “I’ve got an idea. You know how news used to be objective old men giving us the facts and nothing but the facts?”
“Yeah?”
“But people gave up wanting to hear news? They only wanted to hear fairy tales or WWE smack talk disguised as news?”
“Yeah?”
“Why does your publisher want you to sex up your story? Because it sells better. Which is the same reason those cable news stations have created a new model.”
“So are you suggesting I rewrite this so all my characters are either interrupting one another or shouting?”
“No. I’m suggesting you create your own model.
Fiction plus biography. Have it be based in fact.
Lord knows, you’ve done the research. But sell it as fiction, or at least a weird hybrid.
Campbell Stratford, art world expert, cracks open the world of sex-crazed, egomaniac painters.
People will eat it up. Better yet, they’ll believe it’s true.
After all, would a nice girl like you lie? ”
Cam leaned back. A fictography. In a flash, she saw the whole book rewrite itself. It was a great idea. And best of all, she wouldn’t have to do a stitch more research. Whatever she didn’t know, she could make up! It was beautiful!
“Jeanne,” she said, “I don’t pay you enough.”
“Hush.” Jeanne punched the cushion and pulled the blanket over her head. “It goes to triple time at twenty-four hours.”
Cam’s finger went to her lashes. Most of the last twelve hours had been a highly embarrassing mistake. At least she could salvage something.
“Hey,” Jeanne said. “I can see that.”
Cam put her finger down. “So?”
“So what happened with Lely?”
“Nothing. I found out what I needed to know.”
“Uh-oh. That sounds like a scab worth picking.”
“Not tonight, huh? I gotta lot of work, okay?”
Jeanne made a considering noise. “All right. For now.”
When Jeanne began to snore, Cam turned to her manuscript, inspiration renewed, and began to type.
Her phone buzzed. A text. She picked it up. It was from Jacket.
“Can’t sleep. Looking at the night sky here. Are you working? Should I be worried? Make some noise when you come in, so I can rest easy. J”
She smiled. Maybe Porsches come in all shapes and sizes. Maybe one can be parked outside your house all the time, and you just didn’t notice.
She thumbed her reply, “Will do.”