“Honestly, Clara, we don’t know.” Mr. Lorette leaned hard on his cane. “We have no idea how it ended up at auction.”
“What about the watercolor?” Virginia again. “You took it from me.” The woman had no idea when to tread lightly.
“You originally took it from the art school,” said Mrs. Lorette. “We don’t know who you are. If anything, we’re protecting it.”
Mr. Lorette grew stern. “This is about more than possession. It’s about protecting art, protecting a legacy.”
“Whose legacy?” asked Clara.
“Levon Zakarian’s.”
“The watercolor is mine. You can tell from the sketch on the back. Which means the oil painting is also mine.”
“Did anyone else see you painting it?”
“Oliver, of course. Levon.”
“Both are long gone. Did anyone who’s still alive see you painting it?”
No. No one. There was no point in saying the words out loud.
Mr. Lorette shook his head. “Then there’s really no proof at all that it’s yours. I’m sorry, but how do we know you’re not trying to claim Zakarian’s legacy for your own? You were an illustrator. That’s all. No one ever saw you paint, really paint. You did magazine covers and car advertisements and that sort of thing. Then you appear out of the blue, claiming a watercolor that you say proves you’re Clyde? Fishy, all around.”
Clara couldn’t believe his audacity. “Why would Levon not use his own name for those works? You know as well as I do what an enormous ego that man had. Besides, he couldn’t paint at that time. Lead poisoning. His arm was numb. I did the paintings. All of them. Including The Siren.”
Mrs. Lorette shook her head. “Is that what you’re calling it? But no one saw you paint any of them.”
“What about the existence of the watercolor?” asked Virginia.
“The watercolor is nothing.” Mr. Lorette dismissed her with a wave of his hand. “We had it evaluated. It’s meaningless. Artists copy each other all the time. Levon was copying Picasso for ages, until he hit his stride. For all we know, you were copying Levon.”
A policeman peered in on them. “Everything all right in here?”
Mr. Lorette continued, emboldened. “You were a second-rate illustrator, selling your name and your work for the masses. Not like Levon, who was a genius. Then you show up decades later, trying to ruin him?” He drew Mrs. Lorette closer to him and started edging in the direction of the policeman. “We are the protectors of his legacy, and we’ll do everything we can to keep you from meddling. Including calling lawyers.”
“I know lawyers.” Virginia, barging in again. “I have friends who will take up our case. We’ll track down the watercolor and get it back and prove to everyone that Clara is Clyde. Don’t think we won’t.” But her voice trailed off as the policeman offered to escort Mrs. Lorette up to the street.
The Lorettes were right. The last thing the art world wanted was someone coming in and upending what would be a deliciously rich sale of a work by a master. How Levon would have loved this, being called a genius, selling a painting for gobs of money.
That afternoon, Clara gave her notice to Terrence. He pleaded with her to stay on past the Easter rush, and she relented. On top of not wanting to let down a friend, she also wanted to prove to herself that she wasn’t running blindly away, like she had the last time.
Four weeks and then she could leave all this behind her.
It was time to seek solace out west, just as she’d done before.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
March 1975
As the weekend crawled by, Virginia replayed the confrontation with the Lorettes in her head, kicking herself for how stupid she’d sounded. When she’d spotted the couple on the lower concourse, she’d been sure it was a sign, that this was their chance to shock them with Clara’s existence and force their hand. Now she was even more convinced that they were the sellers of The Siren. Their excuses for hanging on to the watercolor were thin. It had to be because they didn’t want the auction interfered with.
On Sunday morning, as Virginia was drying dishes at the sink in her apartment, Ruby touched her arm and made her jump.
“Mom. Hello? I said your name three times.” Ruby looked more confused than exasperated.
Virginia picked up the spoon she’d dropped into the sink. “Sorry, darling. What’s up?”
“Nothing.” Ruby perched up on the counter. “Ryan and I are going out for a bite before we open up for the day. Wanna come? You’ve been holed up in the apartment all weekend.”
“No, I’m fine here. You go, enjoy yourself.”
“You seem weird. Is something going on?”
Even though Virginia had promised not to reveal Clara’s identity, Ruby had been by Virginia’s side through some difficult months and deserved to hear the story. She could be trusted to keep the secret. Virginia threw the tea towel over her shoulder. “I found the artist. The one who did the Clyde sketch.”
“Clara Darden?”
“Exactly.”
Ruby squealed. “That’s wild. What’s she like? Where was she?”
“She was dressed as a he and was working in the information booth with me. Right under my nose the entire time. She was also trying to track down the watercolor, but I got to it before she did.”
“Fantastic! Then she can claim it back.”
Virginia sighed. “We tried that. The Lorettes won’t budge. So now I’ve ruined her life.”
“Come on, Mom. You’re being dramatic.”
She gave a rueful smile. “You’re right. Here I thought you were the dramatic one. But still. I feel really bad.”
“Can we go to the police?”
“Unfortunately, it’s not really an option. No New York cop is going to stop fighting crime long enough to mediate an art dispute between a bunch of old folks.” And neither she nor Clara had the money to hire lawyers. Her empty threat to the Lorettes was just that. Empty. Dead ends all around.
But it helped, having talked it through, and by Monday morning, Virginia was eager to try to apologize again, let Clara know that she was truly sorry for having mucked it all up. But Clara ignored her, turning away when she approached.
“Serious cold shoulder going on there,” observed Doris. “Did you have a spat? Put the timetable in the wrong slot or something?”
“Very funny.” Virginia backed off but kept a close eye on Clara when she left for lunch. Virginia waited ten minutes and then followed her path.
She found Clara in the art school, in the smaller studio, palette in hand, staring hard at a piece of paper on an easel. Clara looked up, and her forehead creased. “You.”
“Sorry. I don’t mean to bother you.”
“Yes, you do.”
“I do. I want to talk. Can we talk?”
“About what? About how you ruined everything?”
“Yes. I own that responsibility and want to apologize to you.”
Judging by the furious look in Clara’s eyes, she’d been stewing all weekend as well. “That’s all you do, apologize. I came back to stake my claim and instead have been maligned, yet again, by the Lorettes. A ‘second-rate illustrator.’ How dare they! I’m worse off than when I started. I have no money left, no reputation. With no chance of reclaiming either.”
Virginia stood her ground. She’d heard enough moaning from having a teenaged daughter over the past few years, and this was no different. “You’re the one who ran away in the first place, may I remind you? Yes, there was a terrible tragedy, but you could have bounced back. Declared that you were Clyde, staked a claim. You had talent, but you took off for the hills and threw away your life.”
“Far from it.” Clara threw back her shoulders. “I taught generations of children how to draw. When I watched a child blossom during class, saw her recognize her own talent and feel special, it was well worth it. I might have lost my chance to make it big, but I did everything in my power to ensure other young girls could reach their full potential. The students at the Grand Central School of Art could be petty, competitive. Once I removed myself from the fickle art world, I began to appreciate art for its own sake, like I had long ago. In many ways, I was finally free. After I became Totto, I wasn’t beholden to anyone. I had mad affairs, some thrilling, some not.”