Jane was silent, twisting her glass by the stem, biting her lower lip.
“You were too proud and insecure to tell me,” Maxine went on. “Just like I was too proud and insecure to admit I was falling for a woman so much younger than me. We both screwed up, Jane.”
“All right,” said Jane. “We both screwed up.”
“Well, I’m glad that now you have the worldly, rich, white-water-kayaking, humanitarian Syl Beely to shower you with feelings and open his heart to you. I’m sorry to sound so bitter.”
Jane reached across the table and put her cool, dry hand over Maxine’s hot, hard one. “Maxine,” she said, “I wish things had been different.”
Maxine felt herself stiffen at the unexpected touch, so dearly welcome, so deeply threatening. As she had when Katerina had taken her hand, she willed her own to lie inert, for fear of scaring Jane’s hand away.
“And you should know,” Jane went on, “that you were loved. I loved you.”
Maxine, with an effort that rivaled all the great efforts of her life, forced herself to turn her own hand so it was holding Jane’s as Jane’s was holding hers. She looked into Jane’s sharp, plain, intelligent face. “Time for dinner?” she said.
“I love how it’s always time for dinner once a day,” Jane said, “no matter what human tragedies are going on; even in places where sometimes there is no dinner, as Syl would point out, there’s still that time in the evening when you hunker down with your fellow humans and try to keep warm.”
Maxine managed to hold back, all at once, a sharp comment about the bromides of politically correct Syl, an affection-deflecting remark about how this hand-holding was too little, too late, and a self-deprecating joke about her own dinners, which were almost always solitary, totally devoid of warm fellow humans. Instead, she briefly tightened her hand around Jane’s — she hoped not too awkwardly — and smiled — she hoped warmly — then got up to assemble the sandwiches.
Twelve
When Abigail saw the story about Helena in the Times the next day, she reached for her phone and immediately called Maxine. “They quote you here,” she said right away to Maxine when she answered, not bothering with pleasantries. “You told the whole story. Why did you do that?”
“Because they were going to run the story with or without my side of it.”
“Well, Lila Scofield told them ‘No comment,’” said Abigail. She was sitting with Ethan in the breakfast nook, feeding him two soft-boiled eggs with a piece of buttered wheat toast torn up and soaked in the soft yolks. “She didn’t say a word!”
“They uncovered my signature,” said Maxine. “Jane Fleming is the one who told them. The model. My old girlfriend. I hadn’t reckoned with her.”
“I bet you’ve been getting calls all day.”
“Everyone seems quite excited, the people at the Met not least of all.”
“What a headline,” said Abigail, looking at the first page of the “Arts and Leisure” section. “‘After More Than Thirty Years, Truth Revealed: Met Masterpiece Painted by Artist’s Sister.’ All the feminists will be having a party, assuming there are any left anymore.”
“There must still be three or four hairy-legged trolls around here somewhere,” Maxine said through a mouthful of something. She swallowed. “Sorry, I’m in the middle of a tuna fish sandwich.”
Abigail cleared her throat. “You broke your promise to Oscar!”
“The story was out,” said Maxine.
“You didn’t have to add to it.”
“Well, I know that, but since they were going to write it anyway, I figured they might as well get it right the first time around. I didn’t want them to screw it up and then I’d have to be setting the story straight for months. It’s a big story, and I figured it ought to come out right the first time, and I’m the only one who could tell it.”
“Okay,” said Abigail, slightly mollified. “Anyway, you must be very glad it’s finally out.”
“Honestly,” said Maxine, “how could I not be. I got a call from Michael Rubinstein, my dealer, and he’s talking about having a retrospective as soon as we can get one together. He’s hoping the Met will lend Helena to his gallery.”
“Oh,” said Abigail. “That’s marvelous.”
“Isn’t it,” said Maxine. “Meanwhile, Jane Fleming came for dinner last night. She’s pitching an interview with me to Art in America. And here’s the real twist in the story. I just got a call from an editor at Artforum. They want to do a piece, as they call it, on me and my nemesis, Paula Jabar, a woman I cannot personally or professionally tolerate. They want me to paint a nude portrait of her in the style of Helena and Mercy while she interviews me. But how can I say no to that?” Maxine laughed, a rich chuckle Abigail hadn’t heard from her before.
“Ironic,” said Abigail. “But wonderful.”
“I’m disgusted by having to associate with Paula,” said Maxine with gusto and, Abigail suspected, a large dollop of disingenuousness. “Anyway, they’re probably just trying to get me to prove I really can paint a portrait, that Helena wasn’t a fluke, which it may well have been. Why can’t the piece just be about my real work?”
“You’re complaining about the premise of an Artforum piece about you?”
“I’m hardly complaining,” said Maxine.
There was a pause as both of them realized there was no more either of them wanted to say on the topic, at least for now.
“Guess who I’m having over for lunch today?” Abigail offered.
“I’m sure I can’t,” said Maxine.
“Teddy’s daughter and her two children,” said Abigail. “Samantha. She wants to come and meet her half brother. She called the other day, very shy and apologetic, wondering if I’d mind. I said, ‘No, of course not. Come up for lunch, but be forewarned: He’s not able to converse or make interpersonal contact.’ She said she knew that; she just wants to see him.”
“I think I see her sister at the dog run,” said Maxine. “Ruby.”
“How do you know it’s her?”
“She looks exactly like Oscar, and she’s the right age, and her dog is registered to Ruby Feldman.”
“Gosh,” said Abigail. “Why don’t you say something to her?”
“Because that’s not my style,” said Maxine. “Meanwhile, that’s all very modern and convivial, Teddy’s spawn having lunch with you.”
Abigail thought Maxine sounded uncommonly mellow today, but that made perfect sense. Long-thwarted ambitious people tended to be suddenly much nicer when they got the attention they felt they deserved. Oscar had been exactly the same way. So Maxine was at peace now; Abigail felt nothing but happiness for her.
After they hung up, she resumed feeding Ethan. “I wonder,” she muttered to him, wiping egg off his chin, “whether Maxine somehow engineered this. I just wonder. I wouldn’t put it past her….”
The phone rang again. Abigail put the spoon down and answered it. It was Ralph.
“Have you read today’s Times?” he asked, sounding aggrieved.
“I just got off the phone with Maxine,” said Abigail. “She’s being interviewed for Artforum by Paula Jabar and Art in America by Jane Fleming. Her dealer is talking about a retrospective. And I’m sure that’s just the beginning. This is the best art scandal of the year. She’s on her way to superstardom.”
“But what about Oscar?” Ralph said. “Assuming I took you up on your offer, how would I make this look good for him in any way?”