The Talented Miss Farwell Page 4

  The Tribune, the Sun-Times, even the Rockford Register ran articles about and reviews of shows in Chicago. Becky read these over toast and margarine at home, turning to sections of the paper she’d never before opened. The reprinted images were of terrible quality, so she had to squint at the ink, trying to remake the copy of the copy in her own mind, trying to see it for real. She heard ads for estate sales or gallery openings on public radio. Not that she could go to any of those. (Could she?)

  The worst part was her own painting. How much she still loved it and how much it made her want another one. One night in a fury of guilt and self-loathing Becky had taken the thing right off its hanger and put it into her closet facing the wall. But by the next morning it was back up and even worse—she rehung it slightly to the right. Making room for something else.

  “Stop it,” Becky said. When the reps and Karl glanced up in surprise she pushed her fork away emphatically. “I swear if I take one more bite . . .” They laughed and continued to demolish the tiramisu and a piece of chocolate mousse cake.

  Forty-five glacial minutes later Karl had signed the credit card slip, and Becky loaded up her arms with brochures and files and reports the Malden reps had pressed on them—Karl took nothing—and somehow managed to unlock her car, dump everything in the front passenger seat, and turn on the engine.

  Then a face at her window made her jump. Bill. Christ, hadn’t they had enough? The goodbyes and jokes and let’s set something up soon had taken forever standing in the cold dark parking lot. He motioned for her to roll down her window.

  “Forget something?” she asked, trying to keep the bitchiness at bay. Karl had already zoomed off in his Acura.

  “Just this,” Bill said, slipping an envelope over the glass ridge. “I didn’t want to say anything to make you uncomfortable, but, well . . . it’s a small world and we’ve all heard about how much you’re doing for your father these days.”

  “Oh.” She was caught off guard. But of course everyone knew everything in this place.

  “Times are tough all over. We just want you to know that Malten cares about you.” Bill smiled, still stooped over.

  “I can’t—”

  “Yes, you can. Think of it as a boost from friends. Completely unrelated to everything else.”

  “Uh huh.” Becky handed the envelope back out the window. Bill stepped away and let it drop onto the pavement as his fellow rep pulled up behind him.

  “That’s the kind of company we are!” Bill called, getting into the car. “A community, not just a company.”

  Becky waited a long time after they drove off. Other customers exited Mama Sofia’s, almost always with takeaway cartons, and walked slowly to their own cars.

  After a while, she opened the driver side door. There it was, an unmarked white envelope, still on the ground. She picked it up and peeked in at the crisp fifties, ten of them. She placed the envelope on the topmost brochure (“Wastewater: What You Need to Know”). She would slip it into one of the accounts somehow. God knows, no one would argue against a credit. Then—her heart pumped—she and Pierson would be even. Dirty money from the rep’s bribe to pay back dirty money she’d found for her painting; poetic justice, you could call it. In any case, she’d be clean.

  The next day Becky leaned into Karl’s office. As usual, she felt groggy from too much food too late at night while he looked exactly the same: crisp in a short-sleeved shirt and tie, well-shaped Afro, whistling a tune between his teeth.

  “That was fun,” she said. “They enjoyed it, I think.”

  “It was, wasn’t it?” Karl beamed. Becky knew he relished this moment, so she gave it to him every next morning. “And we even got a little business done, before the tiramisu.” He patted his belly. “Thanks to you, always keeping my nose to the grindstone.”

  Becky smiled. “I just need the receipts.” The Malten visit had included coffee and snacks in the afternoon, beers at McSweeney’s Grill, and then dinner.

  “I gave them to you.”

  “I don’t think so.” He definitely hadn’t and this wasn’t the first time, either.

  Karl patted around his waist pockets as if last night’s dinner check would suddenly materialize in today’s pants. “Got to be here somewhere.” He lifted up a folder.

  “I’ll call Visa,” Becky said. Again. It took three weeks for a copy to be mailed out.

  “Foo. Just type something up and I’ll sign it.”

  “Mrs. Shinner needs receipts for any reimburse—”

  Karl waved his hand. “We been signing off on charges long before that lady joined the party. You’ll see. Type up what you want.”

  “All right.” Becky couldn’t keep disapproval out of her voice. Did no one in this office share her meticulous habits?

  “Just leave out that extra side of garlic bread,” Karl said, “or I’ll get in trouble with the calorie cops.” He meant his wife, Cherie, who once told Becky to swap out all the break room sodas for diet and to make her the bad guy if it came to that.

  Becky left Karl’s office, bitterly thinking, He who has all thumbs never has to lift a finger. At her typewriter she rolled in a fresh sheet of letterhead and tapped out “Client entertainment: Malten Industries, two employees, two Pierson City employees, Thursday, September 6, 1984.”

  First coffee and pastries ordered in from French’s Diner. She’d paid cash for that, she remembered. And had the receipt. She fished it out, entered $15.59. For dinner, she started to itemize the appetizers, carefully notating the antipasti they’d ordered. Wait. First there had been beers across the street. She should have added that in the first line.

  Becky started to pull out the paper and then stopped. If Karl wasn’t going to bother with specifics, then she wouldn’t either. “Drinks,” she typed firmly. “$60 for wine and beer.” That would do it. Would be a little over, in fact. Next she listed dollar amounts for dinner (appetizers, entrées, dessert) and a fifteen percent tip. Make that twenty. She totaled the sum and created two lines for signature: Karl’s and the office manager’s, Mrs. Shinner’s.

  Then her phone rang, and Becky hurried to answer. The form she’d typed for reimbursement got stuffed into the worn plastic expandable labeled “Karl to Sign” and she forgot all about it until the check showed up in her mail slot: $425 for client entertainment reimbursement, payable to Accounting General. For Becky to deposit and reassign and withdraw, no one the wiser. Temporarily. The money would come out of Town Hall for a bit, and then go back in. It’s borrowing, plain and simple.

  It had gotten harder and harder to bring Hank anywhere, but the problem was, he still loved being out and about. So Becky took to driving him around the outskirts of town after church on Sundays to find that most regular harbinger of autumn: garage sales. Hank loved these; he’d putter through the tables, picking up items and setting them down, maybe manage a few words with neighbors or friends, or simply be able to wave back genially when someone called out to him. Often Becky would set him up near whatever appliances were out for sale: blenders, toasters, beat-up motorbikes, so that Hank could finger their gears and wires, take them apart with the big hands that never lost their dexterity. Mostly, though, they’d end each visit with Hank offered a seat in a lawn chair and a glass of iced tea while Becky browsed the tables herself.

  Amazing, she thought, how people took literal junk from their homes and had the audacity to charge money for others to pick it up and take it away! The worst were the clothing racks and shoe trees. Becky thought other people’s worn-out robes and jeans and bathing suits—yes, bathing suits!—so awful she made sure never to even look in their direction.

  On September 22 the Langleys’ house was the third they’d stopped at. It had a good selection, because the two Langley girls—Marissa and Joan, both married and moved away now—were serious about emptying out the home they’d grown up in before downsizing their elderly parents into a smaller place closer to one of them. Becky had set Hank up in a shady spot under an elm and left him listening
to a Cubs game playing on the radio near the cash register while she flipped through albums, idly handled some china and cookware, and wished they could go home soon so she could change out of her church dress and scratchiest nylons.

  “What about this?” a woman called from over by the side of the garage. “For that wall in the dining room.”

  “What’s it of?” her husband called back.

  “I don’t know. Come look. They got lots of pictures and stuff over here.”

  Becky followed the man without any real excitement or interest. She watched as the couple discussed and dismissed a gaudily framed portrait of a woman in a light-green dress. When they left, she moved in and reached past that painting, and a leaning stack of six others, to pick up a small oil of a boy holding a book, a cat twined around the legs of his chair.

  She couldn’t have explained it to herself in words even if she’d wanted to. But she couldn’t ignore the instinct that was screaming inside her like a heat-seeking missile.

  The cash register was being manned by a bored dad more interested in the Cubs game than any merchandise. Becky grabbed a handful of kitchen tools—a scuffed plastic spatula, two wooden spoons, a pair of tongs—and set them next to the small oil near the register. “What’s the score?”

  “You don’t want to know.”

  Her breathing accelerated while the man slowly added up her purchases, and she tried not to flinch as he turned the painting this way and that, looking for the price sticker. Squinting, he handed it back to her. “Can you read that?”

  Becky pretended nonchalance. “It says ten, but I can go compare it to the others if you—” She waved back at the garage.

  “Nah. Let’s call it fifteen with the other stuff.”

  “Okay. I just have to . . . Dad, can I see your wallet for a second?” She could feel the man’s eyes flicking to them, and away, as she maneuvered to get at the wallet Hank was sitting on. Finally she was able to hand over a ten (from her purse) and five crumpled ones.

  “Bag? Receipt?” His tone said there was nothing he’d like to do less, and even though her nerves were tingling, urging her to get away with the painting under her arm, Becky stood her ground. Sure, why not. Yes, please. All right, Dad, we’ll catch the last innings at home.

  For the rest of the afternoon and evening she didn’t have time to examine the little painting, or maybe she put it off on purpose. There was vacuuming to do, and potatoes to boil and mash, and towels forgotten in the washer that smelled moldy and had to be done again. Then Hank had an accident so she had to clean that up too.

  But all her instincts at the garage sale were confirmed when the phone rang at 8:30: Marissa Langley, brisk and apologetic, sorry she’d missed them when they’d stopped by earlier, her husband had said how nice it was to catch up.

  Uh huh.

  Then Marissa explained, all in a rush, the mistake: a few items hadn’t been meant for the sale. Some furnishings, some art, you know, nothing spectacular, but things that had held personal meaning for her family. Including, oh, that small picture Becky had taken home. She was sure Becky would understand. A friend of the family’s had found it in a charming place in Europe. She’d always meant to get it appraised, but— Actually, she just needed it back.

  “That’s too bad,” Becky said slowly. Gripping the handset.

  Yes, Marissa agreed quickly. She could just kill her sister for putting it out with the other things. She’d be happy to run over now, if it wasn’t inconvenient.

  “No,” Becky said.

  “No?”

  “I’d like to keep it,” Becky said. “That is, it’s mine now. I’d be happy to show you a copy of my receipt. I think it was your—or your sister’s?—husband who made the sale and wrote it out for me.”

  “Oh, him,” Marissa said. “He doesn’t know anything about anything. That painting wasn’t for sale.”

  “Well, I don’t think you’re suggesting this, but of course we could take it to small claims.” Becky let that hang, then added, “I’m sure that this receipt states it all pretty clearly though.”

  The dishwasher gurgled and sloshed.

  “You always did think you’re so great, didn’t you? No wonder you never had any friends in this town. Think you’re so much better than—”

  “Goodbye, Marissa,” Becky said cheerfully, and hung up the phone. Hank had shuffled into the kitchen at the sound of Marissa’s raised voice, audible right through the receiver. Becky gave him a big hug. “What do you say about ice cream? I think I’m in the mood.”

  It took careful sleuthing through the yellow pages and asking the right people at work (Mrs. Deedham, who was known to go antique hunting) to find out what an appraiser was and did, and how much one would cost. Nothing, as it turned out. Unless you wanted him to make a sale, and then he took a cut.

  Linda Speer of Linda Speer Antiques and Art was much less interested in the painting than Becky would have expected, which suited her fine. She’d followed Mrs. Deedham’s recommendation and driven the painting out to Joliet the first weekend day she could get someone to come over for Hank.

  Linda rattled off specifics, pointing out the watery signature at the bottom (Becky hadn’t really paid attention), examples of similar works by the artist and others of the time and era (lesser known French postimpressionist, 1890s), and features of condition that might affect market value (shitty frame, though that wasn’t the way she put it, and slight discoloration along the upper left edging).

  “We often see these in the low five thousands,” she said. “But the cat might bump it up. It’s new to me, that cat image. Maybe . . . six to seventy-five? If you get it cleaned up and reframed.”

  Becky nodded. The two of them looked at the piece propped up on Linda’s desktop easel.

  “But you’re not selling.”

  “No, I don’t think so. Not at the moment.”

  Linda nodded. “We’ll give you a printout of the info in case you change your mind. No prices guaranteed, of course. But I can think of quite a few collectors who’d be interested. People love cats.”

  Yuck, Becky thought. “You mentioned framing and someone who could clean or . . . ? Can you tell me more about how that works?”

  That was really the moment that the painting’s true value appeared: Linda talked and talked and talked, not just about framers and restorers, but also consultants and specialists, movers and refinishers, liquidators and auctioneers. She talked until her next client showed up, and then she finished up with a quick, enthusiastic explanation of estate sales and directed Becky to a pile of brochures on a display table in the front hall. Becky took a few of the magazines, too: Midwest Art and Art in America.

  On the way home, the brochures and magazines on the seat next to her, Becky found herself driving fast. Everything inside her was rushing forward, new ideas and plans, ambition she wasn’t even sure she could qualify.

  In the next eight weeks Becky found and pounced on four separate accounting mistakes that Karl or another accountant had made that resulted in overages and credits. She swept these funds aside and held on to them. Also she stopped correcting Karl, and others, when they rounded up for reimbursements or doubled something she had already paid for. None of the mistakes were big in and of themselves—most were in the tens of dollars, occasionally a hundred or so—but they accrued. Becky began to see the genial sloppiness around Karl’s department as a built-in feature, one that she learned to keep her mouth shut about.

  She began to roam around the counties to search out estate sales for art. The first one she visited was a bust—moldy upholstery and elaborately framed crap. At the second one—way out in Franklin Lake—she found what turned out to be an early Jan Westerman, and by the fifth trip she was starting to recognize and greet regulars on the circuit. One of those tipped her off to a retired Chicago gallery owner who now sold out of her home outside Springfield. By the end of the year there were five paintings hanging on Becky’s bedroom wall, and one two-foot sculpture in the corner
hallway outside the guest bathroom.

  5

  Pierson

  1986

  Becky was in the nearly full Rockford MetroCentre, waiting for the Judds to take the stage, and annoyed as hell. She recrossed her legs, pinned against the row in front, unable to get comfortable in the metal seat. All she wanted was to quickly greet Ingrid Beanton, an old high school classmate who held a ticket for the seat next to her, and then move on to find a better seat down front. Alone. But from where Becky sat in Mezzanine G, the options a few levels down were narrowing every minute, no matter how anxiously she eyed them. She could, of course, go ahead and change her seat now . . . But then she’d spend the whole concert conspicuously not looking back here. And what if they ran into each other in the ladies’? Or if Ingrid spotted Becky’s light-red ponytail in another section and put it together that she hadn’t even waited around to say hello?

  So, fine. She would wait around to say hello.

  A rolling cheer went up from the arena as another stock photo of the Judds lit up the screen above the empty stage. Naomi’s fluffy brown hair was swept to the side and her tangerine-lipsticked mouth opened wide, teeth a thick white. As usual, she came off younger than her daughter, Wynonna, whose heavier, straight-jawed face was pressed up against her mother’s cheek. But Becky loved Wynonna more—all true Judd fans understood this—for her voice, of course, but also the sad awareness in those heavy-lidded eyes.

  8:10. They’d go on any minute. Becky counted the dwindling empty spots in the level below. All around her moronic couples were loud-laughing and making out and saying incorrect things about the Judds. Hope they play that “Rockin’ with the Women.” (With the rhythm, Becky silently corrected.) Well, they’ve had about five Number Ones already. (Nine, including “Cry Myself to Sleep” this week.) That first record’s still the best one. (Wrong. Why Not Me far outdid Wynonna & Naomi in songwriting caliber, instrumentation, not to mention vocal arr—)