Four
Cam flew down the improbably long treads of the Carnegie’s staircase with Jeanne on her heels.
“You don’t think she’s there already?” Cam said. “That painting’s nearly mine, and I don’t want her ruining it or, worse, somehow getting credit.”
“When you’re a successful author, will we be done with all this?”
“Oh, sure. ’Cause you know how many people buy art biographies. I could have them over for cocktails and still manage to be the worst-dressed person in the room.”
“Especially with Wite-Out on your hose. So, do you think he’s going to say it again?”
“What?”
“You know.”
Cam shot her a pointed look. “Mr. Ball is from a very old, not to mention very rich, Gainesville family. Just because some of his words are, well, a little hard to understand doesn’t mean he’s not sharp as a tack.”
“I grew up in Mobile, Alabama. You got any trouble understanding me? Do I go around telling people I’m a fornicator?”
“It’s not fornicator. It’s Florida Gator.”
“Oh, I know what it is. It still makes me laugh to hear it.”
Cam ignored this. She hit the cavernous entry hall and looked left and right.
They could be anywhere. They weren’t in the little café dominated by Warhol’s fluorescent portrait of Andrew Carnegie—“Care for some worker uprising with your Chicken Basil Farfalle?”—nor lounging by the reflecting pool outside.
She turned. Lamont Packard was emerging from the interior courtyard a step or two in front of Ball, who had Anastasia hot-glued to his arm. Drat. She had to think fast. “Remember the Picasso strategy?”
Jeanne gave her a questioning look. “Yes, but I’m not sure how your favorite ‘Get me outta this blind date’ strategy is going to work here.”
“Well, this time it’s a Rembrandt strategy, and you’ll need to call Tim Lockport—anonymously.”
After a beat, Jeanne’s face lit. “You’re brilliant—and scary.”
“Family survival tactic. Lie or die.”
Jeanne angled off toward a museum phone, and Cam headed toward her quarry.
They were an odd threesome, she thought, hurrying toward them: Old School Packard with his investment banker suit; Ball in his linen trousers and orange-and-blue golf shirt; and, of course, Anastasia, towering over everyone as usual with her willowy, mock-Eurotrash body, purple Christian Louboutin booties, architectural “Oh this? I knit couture in my spare time” dress, and a stainless-steel cuff bracelet so thick it looked like it had come off the brakes of a German Wehrmacht tank.
Cam, despite Rubenesque curves, tumbling masses of red curls, and a penchant for tight skirts and zebra-striped pumps, felt she looked more like Frodo’s long-lost country cousin when she stood next to the dreaded Anastasia.
“There you are,” Packard said.
Packard always wore the fundraiser’s flush of larceny, but today his palms were rubbing so hard they ought to have been throwing sparks.
Of course, being six months from retirement couldn’t have hurt, either.
Woodson Ball, who should have looked as though he’d just stumbled out of a gang pickpocketing on an Eastern European subway, managed to project warmth and contented largesse.
Anastasia’s gaze ran rapidly down Cam’s leg. “Afternoon, Cam. Did you have an accident?”
“No.” She ground her teeth. “So glad to see you, Mr. Ball.” Then, in a move she’d learned from Thomas the Tank Engine, Cam did a one-eighty just as the walking threesome reached her, neatly uncoupling Anastasia from Ball’s arm. “How was Florida? Did you and Mrs. Ball have a good trip back?”
Ball was finishing the story of the flight delays just as Jeanne arrived.
“You may remember my assistant, Jeanne Turner. Jeanne, this is Mr. Ball.”
“Ha’d’yadew.” Ball bowed.
Cam looked down to avoid Jeanne’s eyes and caught sight of her pumps. In her effort to manage the hose situation, she must have inadvertently mashed her shoe into the hot dog, because most of the zebra stripes on the left toe were covered in mustard.
“Jeanne has a few papers for you to sign,” Cam said, tucking one foot behind the other. “Nothing major. Just permission to examine the painting, et cetera.” She felt Anastasia’s critical gaze drop even farther and she began to flush.
Anastasia coughed. “Good Lord, Cam, is that—”
“Mustard is very hot this year.”
“Only in Vogue, dear.”
Cam wished the soaring George Segal sculpture of a tightrope walker, which had once balanced high above the heads of Carnegie patrons, would choose this moment to return to its former haunt long enough to drop on Anastasia’s head.
“That’s fine,” Ball said. “Whatever you need me t’do. Just take good care of my countess.” He winked.
The vaunted painting was a gorgeous three-quarter-length portrait of Theresa, Countess of Morefield, that had once been owned by Catherine the Great.
“You know, we already have a fantastic spot picked out for the painting,” Packard said. Cam could almost see the saliva running down his chin.
“It ain’t yours yet, Lamont.” Ball laughed, and Packard looked like someone had just peed on his Gucci loafers. “Not until I hand it over at the gala.”
Ball had taken his grandfather’s struggling headache powders business and turned it into the bestselling college study tool simply by adding enough caffeine to make a hippo run a marathon, then sold it to a Big Pharma company for six times its annual earnings.
He divided his time between a villa in Tuscany, an antebellum estate on a river outside Gainesville, and a century-old former industrialist’s mansion not far from the Carnegie.
Ball had converted the mansion’s sixty-foot-long carriage house into a well-fortified, temperature-controlled warehouse for his beloved art collection.
Cam and Ball had known each other for years.
She’d put him on the trail of a number of fine paintings and other works for sale in the art world, including Jacket’s.
Ball’s tastes were wide-ranging and constantly changing, and his pockets as deep as the steam tunnels under the museum.
He was returning the favor by letting her get credit for the donation of the Van Dyck, a piece in which he had lost interest.
“Sure was good to get back up north,” Ball said. “It’s been hot as Hades down in Flow-da.”
“In Flow-da,” Jeanne repeated.
“But so, so beautiful.” Anastasia nodded her violently bobbed head. “I remember the orange blossoms—oh God, the orange blossoms.” She closed her eyes and clasped her breast as if she were having a small religious epiphany. “I used to live and die for orange blossom time when I lived in Florida.”
Cam rolled her eyes.
“Ah didn’t know you were a Flowidyan.” Ball beamed.
“Yes,” Packard said, “Anastasia’s been almost everywhere. We were very lucky to steal her from the Getty.”
Cam remembered the day clearly, and lucky was not the word she would have chosen.
“Did you know,” Packard went on, “Anastasia is the author of the definitive critical book on Caravaggio, and—do you want to tell Mr. Ball the news?”
Oh boy.
Anastasia took a deep breath. “You probably don’t know this, but I’ve always been absolutely enraptured by El Greco.”
Another epiphany, larger than the first. Soon she would be on her knees, recounting secrets from the Virgin Mary, in the grotto-like overhang of the fountain outside.
“Well,” Anastasia went on. “I’ve just signed the contract with Harvard Press today for a biography.”
Cam felt like she’d just taken a fount of holy water to the gut.
Ball nodded. “Now that’s a purdy milestone.”
Yes, it was. And in the cutthroat world of art curating, that was the winning hand. A biography would beat the $2.1 million Van Dyck in the game of publish-or-perish museum life, which is why Cam needed a biography too.
Aaaarrrrrggghhh.
The truth of the matter was Cam had been dawdling.
There were reasons for it. One, she had to admit, was that she was naturally lazy.
But there was another. In the last month she and Jacket had begun to email each other.
At the start, it had just been an abashed appeal to Cam for her expertise on a certain painting, but it had grown to something more.
If she had any hope of being chosen to be the next executive director, however, she had better get her butt in gear and get that book revised.
With a manuscript updated to include, as the potential publisher had said, “a bit more excitement,” she could announce her own contract.
And with a book contract, she was back in the game, executive directorship-wise.
“Of course the promotional details are still a bit fuzzy at this point,” Anastasia said. “I don’t know what Harvard’s thinking of from a book tour or personal appearance point of view.”
“A book tour?” Ball said. “That’s amazing.”
Anastasia backpedaled. “Well, perhaps a conference or two.”
Yes, the Association of Art Museum Curators Mid-Atlantic Regional Meeting is really the place to make an impact—that is, if they can get out of their J.
K. Rowling contract first. Cam coughed to hide a smile, and if looks were lasers, Anastasia would have reduced her to a pile of mustard-stained ashes.
Packard put one hand on each woman’s shoulder. “Anastasia’s doing a top-notch job on European art. Cam’s doing a top-notch job on modern. Imagine one set of parents producing two such talented daughters. I like to think of them as the Serena and Venus Williams of the museum circuit.”
Cam was grateful he’d moved on from the Andrews Sisters metaphor he usually employed.
Anastasia clasped Ball’s hand as if the holy power of the art world was running down his arm. “I’d like to show you some architectural renderings you may be interested in. We’re building a new wing. A new, as yet unnamed wing. If you have a moment, I think I—”
Tim Lockport, the museum’s facilities manager, burst into view. “Pardon me, Mr. Packard,” he said, breathing hard. “I think we may have a problem.”
Packard frowned. “What?”
“Someone reported seeing a patron draw on a print upstairs.”
“Oh God. Which one?”
“Rembrandt. The one in the north hallway.”
“Rembrandt. That’s your area, Anastasia. You’d better go with Tim.”
Anastasia gave Lockport a look with the venom usually reserved for Bangalore help desk associates and released Ball’s hand. “Will do.”
Cam whistled as Anastasia clattered off. “Tough break.”
Jeanne, dynamo of efficiency, lodged herself in front of the suddenly unoccupied Ball with pen, permission form, and clipboard.
“My gosh,” she said as Ball opened his glasses, “those are some bright colors on your shirt. Do the colors stand for something?”
“They shore do. I’m a Flow-da Gatah.”
“A Flow-da Gatah?” She flashed Cam a wicked smile. “Really? And your parents? I suppose they were Flow-da Gatahs too?”
He signed in one quick motion. “You bet. Big ones.”
“Of course, I’m from Alabama, so I’m a Crimson Tide fan myself, but I’ve heard practically everyone in Gainesville is a shameless public—”
“Thank you, Jeanne.” Cam extracted the clipboard from Ball’s hand and returned it to her assistant with a gentle shove.
“I know you have to go. Mr. Ball, I’d be happy to show you the plans for the addition.
There’s a gallery entrance hall that will quite literally blow your socks off.
And if you’ve got time, I’d love to talk with you more after lunch. ”
Ball nodded. “I’ll take you up on the plans, but I’m going to have to pass on lunch.
Anastasia’s invited my wife and me to a gallery opening tonight, and the three of us are meeting at Cure for an early dinner.
Peggy’s all excited because Anastasia promised to show her some fancy knitting stitch.
So many talents. I don’t know how you ladies do it. ”
It must be an afternoon for epiphanies. Cam had a blistering vision of Serena taking a tennis racket and knocking Venus right out of her Nikes.