“This is Helena we’re talking about here,” she said. “A famous painting, hanging in the Met, and you painted it! What could be the harm to Oscar’s reputation? Mercy hangs right next to Helena, and Oscar did paint that, am I right?”
“As far as I know,” said Maxine, “but I wouldn’t rule anything out.”
“Well then, I would think everyone would love finding out about that. It would create a lot of attention for you both.”
“Maybe,” said Maxine, “but the point is—” She stopped and took a drag of her cigarette and looked away from Abigail. “I made a promise to Oscar before he died. Not on his deathbed literally, but pretty near it. His death couch, maybe.”
“What exactly did he make you promise?”
“To keep this a secret.”
“Oh,” said Abigail. “Then that explains it.”
“You backed me into a corner,” said Maxine. “I was going to try to come off as noble and altruistic, but your argument just makes too much damn sense for me to keep this up.”
“You know, he wouldn’t know a thing,” said Abigail.
“Abigail! He begged me. Said it was all he wanted from me. He couldn’t stand to think that it might get out, and in fact he was furious when he found out I’d signed it, secretly. Of course, when Lila discovered the mark, I painted over it before she donated it to the Met, so there was no danger of its being discovered by anyone who didn’t already know.”
“He won’t know a thing,” repeated Abigail. “They can remove the paint and see your signature for themselves. Oscar is gone.”
“Good Lord, you’re a terrible person,” said Maxine approvingly. “I had no idea.”
Abigail took another slug of whiskey. “There might be a lot of things about me you don’t know,” she said then, a courageous sidelong glint in her eye.
“Like what?”
“Like, oh, well,” said Abigail. “Give me some more whiskey, Maxine. I’m not sure I can tell you this, but I think it might be good to tell someone before I go, and you’re all I’ve got.”
“Besides Ethan,” said Maxine, pouring a good shot into Abigail’s glass.
They both turned and looked at Ethan, who was fiddling with the tabletop, staring at the ceiling.
“Hello, Ethan,” said Maxine in a loud, overly enunciated voice. She shared Abigail’s private conviction that he understood every word they said, but, unlike Abigail, she treated him as if he were a little retarded.
Ethan fluttered his hands by his ears.
“All right, Abigail,” said Maxine. “You might as well spit it out; we’re not getting any younger sitting here.”
“I am getting younger, actually,” said Abigail. “This whiskey is making me feel about fifteen years old; it’s going right to my head. Whoo!” She giggled.
“All right, no more for you. I need you to be compos mentis when the crones get here.” Maxine took her glass away. “Which they will in about five minutes. That Claire strikes me as someone who shows up five minutes early to catch her opponent off guard.”
“I had an affair, too,” Abigail blurted out. “Not just Oscar.”
Maxine set her whiskey glass down with a snap.
“In the mid-seventies. With Ethan’s doctor. It lasted three years.”
Maxine’s eyes bulged behind her thick glasses. “How exactly did this come about?”
“He stayed the night once when there was a blizzard. We were snowed in and he couldn’t get back to Larchmont because none of the trains were running. Maribelle was in Queens at her boyfriend’s and Oscar was with Teddy, I imagine. We stayed up talking. I don’t know, the snow, the cognac. He was so gentle and literary. He loved poetry. We read Yeats out loud to each other and somehow we ended up in my bed. I was forty-eight; he wasn’t even thirty. I was a middle-aged wife and he was so beautiful. His name was Edward.”
“Edward,” repeated Maxine tonelessly.
“That’s right,” said Abigail, feeling oddly defensive, as if Maxine had mocked the name. “Dr. Edward Young. Everyone else called him Eddie, but I called him Edward. He treated me like gold, brought me flowers. Oscar never brought me a flower in his life. Oscar brought me his laundry.”
“You must have been a mother figure for him,” Maxine said with ruminative obliviousness. “He must have been that son that Ethan wasn’t.”
“No,” said Abigail. “We were really in love, man and woman.”
“Well,” said Maxine.
“Quite passionately, too.”
Maxine blinked. She drank some whiskey.
“Hard to imagine, isn’t it?” Abigail laughed. There was an edge of anger in her laughter.
The buzzer rang. Katerina appeared from the office area and went to the wall and said into the box, “Yes?”
A squawk came from the intercom, and Katerina pressed the button to let Teddy and Lila in.
Abigail suddenly felt sweat well under her arms and her jaw muscles tense and her heart thud. She cast a wild eye toward the door.
“Steady,” said Maxine. “You’re here for backup.”
“I’m here because you asked me to come,” said Abigail. “But just so you know, this is not the easiest thing for me.”
“It’ll do you good,” said Maxine. “Face down the enemy.”
“Maxine,” said Abigail through a thickness in her throat, “I’m doing this as a favor to you. In no way for myself. On the contrary.”
Maxine flapped an impatient hand at her. They waited in silence until they heard Teddy’s knock on the door.
Eight
Katerina opened the door with a motion of her arm like a knife through water. “Hello,” she said. “Come in.” She stepped back and let Teddy and Lila enter. Teddy came in first, of course, striding past Katerina with her head held high like a ballerina’s, her spine, Abigail thought, almost unnaturally straight. Then came Lila, a plump, pretty woman with curly white hair, smiling furtively, timidly at the back of Teddy’s head.
“Have a seat,” said Maxine by way of greeting, not bothering to stand.
Teddy and Abigail looked at each other for an instant of shocked silence. Then Abigail said, “Hello, Claire.”
“Call me Teddy, please,” said Teddy. She took the chair across from Maxine; Lila sat facing Abigail.
Abigail could not stop staring at Teddy. She forced herself to look away, make a joke. “The seconds,” she said, “are in place.”
“Quiet,” said Maxine.
“Seconds,” said Teddy. “Ah! You mean for the duel. This is my friend Lila Scofield. The original owner of Helena.”
Teddy seemed collected, unfazed, even though she couldn’t have known Abigail was going to be here. Shouldn’t she, and not Abigail, have been the one who felt uncomfortable here? Abigail felt foolish for allowing herself to be the one who felt at a disadvantage.
“Hello, Lila,” said Abigail, trying to sound as poised as Teddy seemed. “I am pleased to meet you.”
“Hello, Abigail,” said Lila. She looked as if she might faint. So she, anyway, was appropriately nervous about seeing the mistress meet the wife. Abigail felt somehow reassured by this.
“This must be Ethan,” said Teddy, examining him with curiosity.
“We were just having some whiskey,” Abigail told her. Maxine made a noise in the back of her throat, which Abigail interpreted as an injunction to shut the hell up. “Maybe you’d like some,” Abigail went on. “We were drinking it neat, but you’d probably prefer it over ice.”
“Oh,” said Lila, startled and excited. “That would be delicious.”