Chapter 21
Emma
I lightly stalk Matthew for a week after returning from the island. Stella told me he regularly has lunch at that café he’d taken me to, so I make sure to post up at the bar there most days.
He finally strolls in one afternoon with his terrifying sister on his arm.
They settle at the same table I shared with him in the far corner.
I drop my fork to make a little scene, letting it loudly clatter onto the tiled floor, and as I straighten back up I glance toward Matthew.
A small wave, a sheepish smile when our eyes meet.
I return to my drink at the bar and promptly ignore him for an hour.
His stare cuts through me even though I don’t catch his gaze again. When I stand to leave, I walk over to the table.
“I’m so sorry about Stella,” I say to him. “I called.”
“I got your messages,” he replies. “It’s been…” He trails off.
“Hectic,” the woman interrupts. “Terribly hectic.”
Matthew quickly introduces me. “This is Emma. She was helping Stella clean the apartment.”
“I’m Caroline.” She reaches out her long manicured fingers to me and then grips my hand in an iron handshake.
We’ve never properly met. I’ve only observed her from afar.
Up close she’s even more gorgeous, tall and reedy with full lips and sharp cheekbones, elegant with a sophisticated insouciance.
She reminds me of Carolyn Bessette, whose honeymoon pictures from Turkey were recently splashed across the front pages of all the Parisian tabloids.
Matthew clears his throat and tugs at the collar of his dress shirt, clearly nervous. Caroline stays silent. To her, I am nothing.
“Good to see you,” I say politely, and turn on my heel.
I’m out the door before Matthew catches up with me.
“I’m sorry I didn’t call.”
“I understand.” I place my hand on his arm and give it a gentle squeeze. “I only wanted to say hello. I thought I would hear from you. After”—I pause—“after everything.”
“There’s been a lot of family stuff, plans to make. You’ve been on my mind.”
“You’ve been on mine too.” I meet his eyes and hold his stare for longer than he expects. He looks away first and I see a blush creeping up his collar. His outsize confidence is a facade.
“Can I take you to dinner to make up for it? That’s what Stella would have wanted. I haven’t had the chance to properly remember her yet. Not with everything going on.”
“Was there a funeral?” I know there wasn’t.
He shakes his head. “She didn’t want one. She was cremated quite quickly, right at the hospital after it happened. I would like to hold a memorial service, but my father…He’s difficult.”
“What happened to her ashes?” I’m imagining an urn or a box in Matthew’s house filled with the ashes of some poor unidentified stranger instead of Stella.
“The hospital hasn’t released them to us. She didn’t give them permission.”
I breathe a sigh of relief I didn’t know I’d been holding in.
“I’d love to have dinner. Tomorrow?” I mean to sound slightly eager.
“Sure. I mean oh no. Tomorrow I can’t. I have a thing. The next night. What is that, Friday?”
“That should work,” I say. “Should we meet here?”
“No. Somewhere else. There’s a place I want to take you. Have you heard of Lapérouse?”
I pretend I haven’t, though it is a place Lucie regularly dines with clients.
“Can I send a car for you?”
“I can meet you there.”
He leans over and kisses my cheek, just an inch away from my lips. What I’m about to do is work. I have to think about it that way, Lucie coached me. But I can’t help but feel a tingle start at the base of my spine when his lips touch my skin.
“Goodbye, Emma,” he whispers.
I don’t look back again.
I spend as much of my days as possible studying the two paintings we will steal, but I don’t dare sketch them inside the museum.
In my mind I’m cataloging the brushwork, the places it is loose and expressive and the parts where it is more controlled and meticulous.
I notice where the paint builds up, where I think that was done on purpose and where it was likely a happy accident.
The hues and the colors are always a challenge, but I now have access to an extensive variety of pigments provided by Stella, including some dating back to the nineteenth century, colors with names like “old gold,” “scorched tangerine,” and “azure blue.” It’s what Stella spent the last of her money on, the paint and the house on the island where she is hiding.
I study the light and the shadows, how they change depending on the time of day.
To be a master of imitation you must first be a master of observation.
The paintings that I create won’t be put under a microscope or given a chemical analysis.
Our hope is that they’ll be mere placeholders inside the museum while we take the existing ones on the wall to the experts who can prove that the Swansons had them forged.
I know I can do a reproduction that the average tourist would never dream was a fake, but now that I’ve accepted the challenge, I want to do it perfectly.
I want anyone who gazes upon these pieces to believe that my work is as good as the work of these great men.
Stella has also provided me with well-aged canvases and frames that are exact replicas of the ones these paintings occupy.
All we will need to do is find a way to get them off the walls and replaced without anyone noticing.
Stella has some ideas, but Lucie says she might have a better plan.
She needs to check on a couple of things first, but she promises she’ll explain it to Colette and me soon.
It’s almost as if the three of us have been given a new lease on life.
Our creative juices are flowing again. We’re energized in a way that we haven’t been since that heady first year we were together in school, when we still believed anything was possible, before we understood the odds stacked against us.
I arrive ten minutes late for my dinner with Matthew.
“Keep him waiting,” Lucie instructed me.
Everything inside Lapérouse looks breakable.
I glance at the menu by the hostess stand; a hundred francs for a filet of pigeon?
A birdlike woman wearing a tight black lace bustier approaches the dais with a clipboard.
“Avez-vous une réservation?”
“Swanson,” I reply. She leads me through a heavy red curtain and up a dark flight of stairs to the most opulent dining room I’ve ever seen. A half dozen crystal chandeliers wink from the ceiling, though the lighting is so low I can barely make out any patrons’ faces.
The hostess deposits me at Matthew’s table, where he’s already sipping from a glass of amber liquor.
“Are you trying to impress me?” I ask, as I kiss him hello on his cheek.
“Yes,” he says, and pulls my chair out for me. “To apologize for my terrible behavior. I should have called.”
I raise my hand to stop him. “You’re grieving. You didn’t owe me anything.”
“But you were so helpful, so kind. You were there for her in the end. I can’t thank you enough, truly.”
“What’s good here?” I say, avoiding his earnest stare.
“Take a look at the menu.”
“You aren’t ordering for me this time?” I tease.
“I thought I’d let you do the honors.”
“A hundred-franc pigeon sounds delicious.”
“It is. But the sole is better.”
We carry on like that through appetizers and entrees.
A flirtatious verbal volley that almost feels like a real date instead of a job.
I wonder if Lucie ever loses herself like this.
I try not to drink too much, but I want him to drink enough to get loose and comfortable with me.
That doesn’t turn out to be a problem. He’s looking for a soft place to land for a night.
By the time dessert rolls around, he’s finished two of my glasses of wine that I poured into his goblet while he was in the restroom. His eyes well up when I ask him what happened to all of Stella’s things.
“The apartment’s been completely cleaned out,” he says.
“I was there when they did it. I boxed up as much as I could carry and then fit in my car, but the cleaning crew was very efficient. Father is selling the place as quickly as he can. It was the one asset he couldn’t wrestle away from her.
The French courts are kind to wi…” He pauses.
He was about to say “widow.” I know it. But he also must know how his grandfather tricked Stella into believing they were married.
“They’re kind to the women left behind,” he says instead.
I wouldn’t call it kind; I would call it humane and dignified.
For as much as I believe he loved his grandmother, I don’t think Matthew ever did a single thing to try to actually protect her or care for her, and I remember what Stella told me about the intoxication of wealth and how it ultimately trumps love in too many cases.
“It was going to take forever to evict her.” He’s still going on about how hard it would have been for his father to remove Stella had she lived, but I try to hide my contempt.
“What did you keep?” I place my hand over his trembling fingers. “From Stella’s apartment?”
“Things she loved. Some jewelry, scarves, a few photos, her Limoges china cups. I packed up twenty Limoges china cups and saucers. They’re still in the trunk of my car, hopefully not smashed to pieces. But I couldn’t bear Father letting them be thrown away or carted off to the thrift store.”
I hide my smile. I know Stella will find this particular detail and insurrection entertaining.
“We could have a tea party,” I say, squeezing his hand.
“We could, couldn’t we.” He laughs and brightens. “Now?”
This was the goal, to be invited back to his place, to let whatever happens there happen, to get him to want to see me again. A tea party is as good an excuse as any.
“Why not?” I try to purr as seductively as I’m able. It doesn’t come naturally. Pascal used to tell me that the most adorable thing about me was my inability to be purposefully alluring.
“Why don’t I order us some dessert to go,” I say.