Those blues. The painting. With a rush, she remembered where she’d seen it before.
The auction catalog. The Sotheby Parke Bernet auction catalog Betsy had had with her when they’d met for drinks. She was certain of it.
Before heading home, Virginia stopped off at the auction house. The girl behind the counter didn’t look up until Virginia cleared her throat. Ever since her marriage had fallen apart, Virginia had felt invisible. As if without the magic ring on her left hand, she was no longer worthy of attention. Ridiculous, she knew.
“I was hoping I could get a copy of your most recent auction catalog, please.”
The girl handed one over.
“Thank you so much. Have a great day.” Try killing them with kindness. The girl remained mute and unseeing. Like a robot. Virginia was tempted to reach her hand over and slap the girl upside the head. All that rancor between Doris and Totto had gotten to her.
Back at the apartment, she went into her bedroom and compared the photo of the painting in the catalog with the one she’d found in the old art school. The similarity was uncanny. Yet hers was made using watercolors, while the one in the catalog was an oil painting.
A thumping noise from down the hallway broke her concentration.
“Ruby?”
Another thump, more metallic this time, and then the sound of a door slamming.
She sighed. A good mother would go and see what was going on, check in. At dinner, she vowed to have a serious talk with the girl. For now, she needed some quiet time alone. She was bone-tired from working an eight-hour day in that tiny booth. Shoving people together like that wasn’t healthy, which was probably why there was so much squabbling.
She turned back to the catalog. The painting was attributed to Levon Zakarian, an Armenian immigrant who’d taught at the Grand Central School of Art. He’d had some early fame as a pioneer of abstract expressionism before dying young, on April 11, 1931, when he was just twenty-eight years old. The untitled work for auction had been only recently discovered and was estimated to sell for $300,000 to $350,000.
She’d hoped to see Clara Darden’s name in the catalog, since that was the signature on the drawing on the back of the painting. Still, excitement sizzled through her. The Grand Central School of Art reference directly linked Zakarian, a faculty member there, to the watercolor. Maybe he’d been working on it while teaching, using a piece of scrap paper that Clara Darden had tossed out.
She checked her watch. The library was open for another half hour, and Virginia didn’t want to wait until tomorrow. Unfortunately, the art section didn’t yield much more on Zakarian, maybe because he’d died young. Nothing on Clara Darden, either.
The library lights blinked twice: closing time. She’d fix something nice for Ruby, maybe pineapple chicken, and encourage her to sit and chat over dinner. She’d ask her lots of questions about this art collective, really try to engage with her daughter. This little side trip into the world of art history had given Virginia an unexpected burst of energy and deepened her understanding of Ruby’s passion for a darkroom. Maybe this would bring them closer together.
Virginia didn’t smell the smoke until she turned the key in the lock. Something was burning. Maybe Ruby had started dinner, but that would be a first. No. Something was terribly wrong.
She shoved the door open. A thick gray fog coiled toward her, like an apparition. Virginia screamed into the apartment, and then there was Ruby, running toward her, covering her mouth with her arm, coughing.
Virginia pulled Ruby out into the hallway, slamming the door shut.
“Are you all right?”
Ruby coughed hard, unable to answer. At least she was standing and breathing. Virginia pulled her down the hallway, pausing in front of the fire alarm to pull the lever. As the neighbors poured out of their doors, Virginia led the charge down the stairs, all ten flights, until they were in the lobby. Firemen burst in, ordering them outside.
Huddled with the other tenants on the opposite sidewalk, Virginia put her arms around her daughter, partly to keep her warm but also to keep her as close to her as possible.
“What happened?” Virginia tucked a lock of Ruby’s hair behind her ear, just like she used to do when she was a little girl.
Ruby could barely get the words out. “I was trying to turn my bathroom into a darkroom.”
“What?”
“Dad gave me ten bucks, and I bought the chemicals and a light and some red gel to put over it. I figured I’d make my own safelight. But I must’ve bought the wrong kind of lamp, because the gel caught fire, and before I realized it, the shower curtain next to it was burning.” Ruby began to cry. “I’m sorry. I tried to put it out, but it was smoky and I couldn’t breathe.”
Virginia reeled. Ruby could have burned down the entire complex. She wanted to shake her. What the hell had she been thinking? But she was too relieved that she’d arrived home in time. “It’ll be fine. The firemen are here now.”
After they were given the okay to reenter, the firemen told Virginia to check in with her insurance company. The damage was mostly from smoke—nothing structural had been jeopardized—but for now the apartment was uninhabitable.
Together, they went back upstairs and wandered through the apartment, which smelled like the inside of an ashtray. Ruby’s room was gray with soot, but they tossed some clothes into a garbage bag to take with them. Virginia stuffed what she could into a Samsonite suitcase. Right before shutting it tight, she placed the portfolio with the sketch inside on top of her clothes.
She fought back tears, not wanting to make Ruby feel worse. This apartment in the East Sixties had been her one extravagance after the divorce. The cost was a little out of her budget, but it had light, big windows, and floors the color of a sandy beach, the complete opposite of their old apartment, with its dark moldings and maze of rooms. Every time she walked through the door, even after a long, miserable day in the information booth, her heart gave a little jump. This was her own place. To begin anew.
She tried Betsy, who lived a few blocks north, but the phone just rang and rang. To be honest, she really didn’t want to deal with Betsy right now, have her see what a mess her life really was. But a hotel was too expensive. She didn’t have that much cash to spare.
“We’ll have to show up on Betsy’s doorstep and wait for her to get back,” she said out loud, finally.
Ruby yanked the garbage bag up and over her shoulder. “We have another option.”
Virginia sighed. “No. We can’t go to your dad’s.”
“I know that. That’s not what I meant. Trust me, I have a solution, which is only fair, as I’m the one who caused the problem.”
“Where do we go?”
“Follow me.”
The taxi pulled up outside the Carlyle Hotel, on Madison and Seventy-Sixth. As the driver hauled their garbage bag and suitcase out of the trunk, Virginia stared up at the handsome terra-cotta tower. “We can’t afford this.”
“We’re not paying.”
Ruby grabbed her bag, and Virginia followed her through the revolving doors, unsure whether to be appalled or impressed by her daughter’s confidence. Terrible thoughts popped into her head: Her daughter was a high-priced call girl and this was where she worked. Why else would her daughter be so familiar with a hotel that was way out of their price range?
Ruby spoke briefly with the bellboy. “Give him your suitcase; they’ll hold our stuff for now.”
She did as she was told, partly from shock.
“Let’s stop in at the bar.”
The sound of the piano drifted out as they approached. Then a voice. A voice Virginia knew too well.
“Is that your uncle Finn?” She stopped short.
“Yes. That’s the surprise. He’s in town, and I bet we can stay with him.”
Virginia racked her brain to figure out how long it had been since she’d seen her baby brother. Since before her diagnosis, so at least five years, although he always called on Christmas from whatever European city he was living in at the time.