False Impressions (6 page)

Nothing from Vaughn.

I opened the door. “Hey, I’m grateful for the ride. Thanks.”

He picked up his hand as if to wave goodbye, but he didn’t turn around.

“Really,” I said. “Thanks.”

A pause, then, “No problem, McNeil.”

And that, I supposed, was the best relationship Detective Damon Vaughn and I were going to have.

10

I
woke up the next morning to the sound of my cellphone. I hadn’t turned it off in the hope that Madeline would call.

The display read,
Charlie. Cell.
My brother.

In days of yore, the sight of a call from my brother first thing in the morning would have induced fear. For years and years, he lived off a worker’s comp settlement and nursed a back injury. He regularly slept until two in the afternoon, giving himself a solid three hours before he would open a bottle of red wine.

But in the last year, he’d landed a job in radio and then branched into other sound-production projects.

“How are you?” I answered.

“I’m fine.” That wasn’t a surprise. Charlie was always fine. He was one of those people—admittedly the only one I knew—who was always, generally, content.

“But it’s Dad,” Charlie said then. Another little shock.

Our father had returned to our lives, and to Chicago, only six months ago. So the word
dad
was a bit jarring. That word had been used when Charlie and I were kids, but once our dad disappeared, with no one else. We had grown up believing he had died, but in truth he had gone undercover to protect us. We’d always called our eventual stepfather, Spence, by his first name.

Another little recognition settled in. This was the first time, strangely, that my brother and I had talked, just the two of us, about my father directly. It was as if we were both feeling our way in the world of having a father again, neither wanting to disturb the other’s development, both of us knowing, somewhere deep within, that we both had our own journeys.

“He’s thinking about leaving,” Charlie said.

“Leaving?”

“Moving. Out of Chicago.”

“When did you hear this?”

“Last night. Met him for dinner.”

Both Charlie and I had been trying to have regular visits with our father, trying to help incorporate his new life in Chicago into ours. Even our mom and Spence had done the same. But the fact was, Christopher McNeil was not a social animal. If anything, he was a loner. He’d left Chicago long ago to save his family and spent most of his life abroad.

“What did he say?” I asked.

“Not much. You know how he is.”

“Yeah.”

“I asked him a few more questions, but I didn’t get too far.”

I tried to let Charlie’s news travel from my ears to my mind and from there to my heart and gut to see what I felt. But there were all sorts of blockages, too many feelings and wrong-way turns. For so long, I had kept my father compartmentalized. I didn’t know what to feel about this news.

In the meantime, I needed to get to the gallery. I needed to find out where Madeline had disappeared to.

“I don’t know what to think, Charlie. I’ll have to call ya later.”

When I walked in the gallery I was relieved to see that Madeline was there.

She stood at the back, talking to a man about a series of photographic prints hanging on the wall. Each showcased a mocked-up magazine cover, the model in each representing different ways women are viewed—from mother to whore and so many other things in between. I didn’t think I understood the photographs, but I had been intrigued when Madeline showed them to me the day before.

I went into the back room and was slipping my arms out of my coat when I heard the ding of the door opening—probably the client leaving—and then the sound of high heels clicking gently toward me. Madeline.

When I turned to greet her, I expected an apology for her disappearing act.

“Last night…” she said. I nodded, interested in her explanation. “Didn’t you say you wanted to meet someone?”

“Someone…?”

“A man. Someone to date.”

I thought about it. “Yeah. I guess at some point in our discussion I did. I also said I thought I was fine being on my own, though.”

“Well, anyway, I’ve got someone coming in for you,” Madeline said, sounding pleased.

“What?”

“Don’t worry about it.” She gave me a sly wink.

I wasn’t sure I was ready to meet a possible new date, but I was still too distracted by the previous night to dwell on it with her.

“Okay, but Madeline,” I said, hanging my coat on a rack, “what happened to you last night?”

She stood by the file cabinet, her hand on the drawer. She turned. “What do you mean?”

“You disappeared.”

“What do you mean?” she repeated.

“You got up, I assumed just to go the bathroom since you didn’t say goodbye, but instead—
bam!
—you were gone.”

“Bam?” Madeline said, in a funny, slightly mocking tone.

“Well, that’s how it felt, like suddenly you’d just disappeared.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “Thanks for the drinks and everything, by the way. I don’t want to seem ungrateful, but I was worried.”

“Of course,” she said. She opened a drawer, flipped through some files. “Isabel, I’m sorry. I do that sometimes.”

“Do what?”

“I find I’m done with the night, and I leave. It’s nothing to do with you. It’s a bad habit of mine. And I apologize.” Something struck me as slightly false about her words, but I couldn’t put my finger on what. Madeline sighed. “I find goodbyes to be pedestrian. They don’t add anything to life.”

I wanted to ask her where she’d gone after she’d left the club—home?—but Madeline pulled out a file, then brought it to a table in the center of the room and opened it. Inside were photos of a sculpture of sorts, tall and oblong and made of white glass swirled with silver.

The photos made me remember something. “My friend Maggie bought a sculpture last summer that was a little bit like this. At the Old Town Art Fair. Do you show there?”

I looked at Madeline and saw her lips, encased today in a pale pink gloss, suddenly purse. “No,” she said. “I don’t.” The implication was clear—there was no chance she would show art at the Old Town Art Fair.

I thought about the fair, which happened in Chicago every June. The nucleus was at the intersection of North and Wells. The fair spread from there spanning blocks and blocks in every direction, holding stands showing art work, sculpture, sketches, prints and furniture.

“Those are local artists,” Madeline said.

“You don’t represent anyone from Chicago?”

“No, I do, it’s just that, in general, those artists are amateurs. I represent a different level of art.” She didn’t sound haughty about it, just matter of fact.

“I didn’t always,” Madeline continued. “I began my career working with what’s called outsider art.”

“Outsider art,” to my unknowledgeable ears sounded like art that was sold outside—like, say, at Old Town Art Fair.

But Madeline clarified the concept for me. An outside artist, she said, was one who had no classical education in traditional channels. Instead, what was prized about great outsider art was its naiveté, which led, somehow, to pure aesthetic genius.

She seemed in a reflective mood, so I stayed silent.

“I liked the discovery and the thrill of finding outsider art,” she said, as she arranged the photos of the sculpture on the table. “I liked finding something no one else had realized was so wonderful. I opened a gallery in Bucktown showing original works. But eventually my tastes evolved and I got into secondary market work.”

“What’s that?”

“Put simply, it’s buying dead artists’ works from around the country and Europe.”

The reason for getting into secondary art, she said, was not because she had some highbrow vision of what art should be. Rather, she became mesmerized by technique, by artists who had either studied their particular techniques for years or occasionally by current artists who had shown mastery of technique in a short time. From there, her tastes and her gallery had grown eclectically in all directions.

“I like to just wait and see what happens,” she said.

I could see again what Mayburn meant when he told me Madeline lived for her gallery. Madeline Saga lit up when she talked about art. Her eyes were wide with wonder, her words faster than their usual calm cadence. “Some of the brilliance of these artists,” she continued, “the
professional
brilliance—combined with their creativity…well, that, for me, is dazzling. I don’t often see that in street art.”

I thought I understood what she meant. I told Madeline about the sculpture that Maggie bought at the art fair. It was round and made with white plaster, on which the artist had placed broken white tiles, forming a mosaic pattern. It was a perfect accent for Maggie’s sleek, light and modern South Loop apartment. Although maybe that would change, since Maggie was now living with Bernard, a Filipino professional musician, whose tastes tended toward a black-and-red Asian style.

“This sculpture my friend bought cost around a hundred and fifty dollars,” I told Madeline. “So I suppose that’s different than—” I looked down at the pictures “—a sculpture such as this one.”

“Yes. But of course, there are so many facets of art appreciation.” She lifted one of the photos to her face. “It isn’t simply about price. The price is based on the techniques employed, as I mentioned, but also on the complexity the art carries in its message. Then there’s also the question of whether it’s derivative of another artist.”

“Like art that was recently painted but looks like an Andy Warhol,” I said, remembering something else I’d seen at an art fair.

“Exactly,” Madeline said.

“Thank you for teaching me about this.”

“It is my distinct pleasure.” She paused and put a hand over mine that was on the table. Her hand felt so light, as if most of Madeline Saga was filled with air.

We heard the trill of a bell then, indicating someone had come in the front door.

“He’s here,” she said.

“Who’s here?”

Madeline clapped. “Let’s go.”

11

M
adeline led me into the gallery. I stalled for a second, standing next to the jeweled tree sculpture, taking in the man who’d just entered.

He was gorgeous. You could see that, even from the side. He appeared like any normal guy, wearing jeans and a brown velvety jacket and standing near the painting of the woman in two different times. But like Madeline, something was different in the air because of him. Something felt fun, electric. Or maybe it was Madeline’s reaction to him.

“Isabel Smith,” she said, “this is Jeremy Breslin.”

Jeremy Breslin turned, took some steps toward me and shook my hand. I looked up at him, and into bright, navy blue eyes. Mesmerizing.

I started to pull my hand away, afraid that if I kept gazing into those eyes, I might say something silly. But he held on to my hand. He looked at me, very curiously.

He’s looking at all of me.
I don’t know why I thought that, but that’s what it felt like. Again, it reminded me of Madeline, the way she took in the whole of things.

Madeline explained that Jeremy operated a hedge fund, that he was originally from Boston and his wife’s family had been clients of hers for years.

During this introduction, Jeremy kept holding my hand. When Madeline stopped, he seemed to realize it and let my hand go. It felt cold without his touch.

“My apologies for staring at you,” he said. Then, as if for explanation, “My first girlfriend was a redhead.”

“Ah,” I said. “Well, you know the redhead rules.”

He smiled. “What are the rules?”

“Let me ask you this, that first girlfriend of yours—would you say she was your first love?”

He nodded. “Yes.”

“One of the rules says that if the first person you fell in love with was a redhead, or the first person you had…ah…you know, adult relations with was a redhead, then—” I shrugged “—you’ll always have a thing for redheads.”

He laughed. “You’re right. I have a thing for redheads.”

“Sounds like you’re doomed.”

“Happily,” he said.

“So, Isabel,” she said, “Jeremy is the one who—” She glanced around the gallery. No one else was there. “Jeremy,” she said, turning back to us, “is the one who discovered…” She cleared her throat. “Some improprieties with the paintings.”

“Oh, the…?” I said.

“Yes,” Madeline continued, “Jeremy was the one who discovered the issue of forgery from some work he had bought from my gallery.”

“How?” I asked him.

“I’m getting divorced, so we had to have our assets valued. My lawyer found an art appraiser to review what we’d collected.”

“He determined you had fakes?”

“Yes. At first, he told us that something was bothering him about the pigment on the piece, something he didn’t expect to see. He had it tested and found that the pigment hadn’t been available—didn’t even exist—when those pieces were done. It was very new. Therefore, they were forged.”

“They? How many paintings were forged?”

“Two.”

“And you bought both of those from…”

He nodded.

“Both from me,” Madeline said, taking full responsibility. Madeline turned to Jeremy. “Isabel will be helping me at the gallery, so I wanted her to know everything.”

“Of course,” Jeremy said. “Having you work here will be wonderful.” As he spoke, his eyes lighted on me again, and I felt some kind of current travel up my spine. I stopped myself from quivering visibly. I’m not really a quivering kind of girl, so the moment was odd.

Jeremy held my eyes a little longer. If he was upset about discovering that some precious artwork had been forged, he didn’t show it.

“Izzy.” He paused. “Is it okay if I call you Izzy?”

I nodded. “That’s what most people call me.”

“Even though ‘Isabel’ is much more beautiful,” Madeline added, smiling.

Jeremy nodded. “Well.” He paused. “Izzy, this may seem a little quick, but could I take you out sometime? Just for a drink?”

“Oh, I don’t know…” My eyes shot to Madeline.