The Great Man (21 page)

She became aware of the phone, still pressed to her ear. What the hell were they talking about? She was hungry.

“The truth about
Helena,
” said Maxine. The hell with it, she thought. He knew, she knew he knew, and if he was going to write some sort of story about it, she couldn’t stop him. Well, she’d done her best to keep her promise to her brother, and now she was going to break it; there was no point anymore in keeping it. She went on, “It started when I made a bet with my brother in 1978 in the Washington Square Diner.”

She heard him—was his name Dexter?—inhale with predatory relief, an almost sexual sound.

“It started with an argument,” she went on, “about abstract versus figurative painting. The whole thing came about because I was a trained artist and he was mostly self-taught. I graduated from art school, and he dropped out after a couple of months. But I always drew, from the beginning, as a little girl. I always doodled and drew. Figures were my first impulse, artistically.”

“Your first impulse,” Dexter repeated. He was writing all of this down, of course.

“I taught Oscar to draw when we were kids, but that’s neither here nor there. What I’m trying to say is, it wasn’t a fluke. I always had a real aptitude for figurative art. Portraits were a strength of mine in art school. I studied the various techniques, the history of portraiture. Abstraction came later, after I had absorbed and rejected the more conventional painterly techniques. It seemed to me to be the best and in many ways the only way to describe human experience directly then. It transcended formalization, got at a deeper truth, a more direct relationship between painting and viewer, a direct visceral impression. I always intended my paintings to have a physical impact. Nothing effete or cerebral about them, but Oscar was mocking my work as if it were some prissy schoolgirl imitation. He told me he thought what I did was like mud pies, the easiest thing in the world, so I said, ‘I know how to paint a nude woman as well as you do.’ He said, ‘Oh yeah?’ It was like a schoolyard fight. I was mad as hell, and so was he. We bet each other a thousand bucks that we could each paint in the other’s style a work good enough to pass off as the other’s, the proof being that our dealers would accept them into our next shows. I used Oscar’s painting
Mercy,
which he had recently finished, as the template for my imitation of his work, and he borrowed a couple of paintings I had just finished to use as his, and we were off to the races. Helena is Jane Fleming, of course, the art historian. She was my girlfriend at the time. She posed for me. I painted her as if I were Oscar, as if I looked at women the way he did. Oscar painted something so nonsensically bad, I understood that he had no fucking idea what abstraction was about. Just not a single clue. Marks on paper, fairly well organized, but without any aesthetic intent, any painterly intelligence. I have it here in my studio; I kept it for, shall we say, sentimental reasons.”

“That is fascinating,” said Dexter. “Would you be willing to talk more about the process of painting
Helena
in terms of impersonating your brother?”

Twenty minutes later, Maxine bade him good-bye, then dialed the first of the two numbers she had for Katerina, neither of which was a cell phone. A surly young man answered at the apartment she shared with the young couple. He snarled that Katerina was not in and hung up. The second number was Katerina’s studio; it was unlikely she’d be there early on a Saturday morning; more likely, she was at her new lover’s, allowing him to manhandle her tiny body and twist it into exotic pretzel shapes and bite her sweet neck with his crooked tobacco-stained teeth. Maxine waited doggedly through four rings, then five. Then, to her surprise, Katerina herself answered.

“Yes?”

“Katerina,” Maxine stuttered, thrown off guard.

“Hello, Maxine!” said Katerina.

“I just got a call from the
New York Times,
” said Maxine, touched in spite of herself by the gladness in Katerina’s voice.

“Oh, that’s great,” said Katerina. “What did they want?”

“You mean you don’t have any idea?”

Katerina began, trying to put it all together to please Maxine, “Because…” She paused, clearly at a loss. “No, why?”

“You didn’t tell them about
Helena
?”

“Me!” Katerina cried. “Tell them your secret? I would never.”

Maxine blinked. “Well then, who was it? I just gave some five-year-old reporter the interview of his life. I figured there was no point playing footsie. Some Girl Scout at the Met has already uncovered my signature.”

“Well, I think that’s very exciting,” Katerina said. “I wanted to tell, because I thought you deserved credit. I’m glad someone told. I wish it had been me.”

“You can read all about it tomorrow,” said Maxine, “if you read the
Times.
”

“Not usually,” said Katerina, “but tomorrow I will. Congratulations. More papers will call you, of course. This is tremendous for you!”

“I suppose it is,” said Maxine. She found that she was fluttering with excitement. Her life had just changed; her fate was made.

“See you Wednesday! I will bring something, to celebrate.”

“Yes,” said Maxine, bracing herself for more ginger beer, “see you Wednesday.”

After she’d called the deli down the street and ordered the ingredients for tuna-salad sandwiches, Maxine clapped the phone’s hinged halves together and went to the couch to await the ingredients of her lunch. So who, then? Claire was out; Abigail was out. Lila? Certainly not. None of those three would have told, she would have bet anything in the world.

Then she remembered who else knew and almost hit herself in the forehead. And she
would
tell, too. Running into Maxine the other night had no doubt triggered Jane’s long-dormant memory of the whole thing, and then Paula Jabar’s spoutings had likewise awakened her feminist instincts; she’d probably gone home full of rancor at the male-dominated art world and had decided to right what she saw as a historical inaccuracy, make sure her old girlfriend Maxine got her long-overdue due. She was an art historian, after all; art history mattered to her. Although she’d taken a number of days to get around to it, maybe that was just because she’d had other things to do, dates with her new boyfriend and whatnot; that was no longer Maxine’s concern. Jane Fleming had spilled the beans; of course she had. And since Maxine had brought up the subject that night, she had to admit to herself that maybe she had been hoping this would happen all along. She had hinted to Henry about digging up a scandal, brought
Helena
up with Jane, and also, of course, with Lila and Claire, told Abigail about it, discussed it within earshot of Katerina. Of course she had been hoping this would happen. Her own loose-cannon rant to Ralph, revealing her lifelong jealousy of Oscar, should have tipped her off, as well. Maxine, like most people, had never been fully in control of her own motives and actions, but at least in hindsight she could see where they’d been leading. So it had come to fruition, this seed she had unwittingly planted all over town; she hadn’t broken her promise, but she’d made damn sure the truth got out.

She owed Jane one. In the interests of telling her this as soon as possible, she dug out her ancient little phone book and, squinting through her glasses, found a scrawled number in the
F
’s for “Fleming, Jane.” It was several decades old, and the black ink was now faded to brown. She punched the numbers into her phone and waited. What were the chances?

The number rang at least; so it was still live, maybe recycled by the phone company for the fourth time since Jane had owned it. One ringy-dingy, then two; on the third ring, someone picked up and said, “Hello?”

“Jane!” said Maxine, shocked.

“Who is this?”

Maxine was silent for an instant—who was she, anyway? Then she remembered. “Maxine Feldman,” she said, relieved.

What an odd experience. She had momentarily forgotten her own name. And she was talking to…Jane Fleming. Ah.

“Maxine,” said Jane. She sounded cautious.

“I owe you a drink, it appears,” said Maxine. “I won’t pretend I’m not glad you outed me. Or rather, us.”

There was a silence. Then Jane said, “How did you know it was me?”

“I ruled out everyone else,” said Maxine with a chuckle.

“You’re not angry with me?”

“No. Why would I be angry?”

“You asked me not to say anything the other night. But my conscience got the better of me. This is about your artistic legacy, and not only yours. Too many female artists have been overlooked and underestimated for too fucking long. So I called Dexter. He’s a young hotshot at the
Times,
their contemporary art writer. I figured he’d do the story justice, and I thought it would be fun to see what happened if just one guy got the story, then everyone else had to scramble to play catch-up.”

Maxine laughed. “It was fun to tell the story, finally, I have to admit.”

“I’m glad,” said Jane.

“Why don’t you come down for dinner tonight?” Maxine said. Talking to Jane again felt as if no time had passed and reminded Maxine of how much she’d always liked her. Why had they ever parted ways? What fools they’d been. “I can offer the best tuna sandwich in Christendom and Jewry. And whiskey on the rocks. It’s the least I can do, and I would be interested to hear what you’ve been up to all these years.”

Jane said, “I’d love to,” but then she hesitated.

“I hear a ‘but’ hanging somewhere in the air between us.”

“No,” said Jane. “I had plans, but I can change them. I’d rather do this.”

“I’m flattered,” said Maxine. “I still live in the same dump. Come whenever you get hungry.”

“I’ll be there at seven,” said Jane.

This left many hours for Maxine to fill. She paced around for a little while. Then her buzzer rang and she let the delivery boy in. Fumbling in her wallet for a couple of bucks to tip him, she went to the door to await his arrival. He came bearing a large box on a dolly, a black kid of about twenty, sweating mightily.

“Thanks!” said Maxine, and shoved some money at him. He departed without changing his expression, without a flicker of either scorn or gratitude at the tip.

A sandwich, a nap, and still the afternoon stretched in front of her. Might as well try to paint the experience of looking through those layers between eyes and sky.

Her buzzer rang at seven o’clock exactly: Jane had always been prompt. She came in bearing a paper cone of flowers and a bottle of something.

“You brought more than I’m providing,” said Maxine with mock grumpiness, kissing her on the cheek and noticing as she did so that Jane looked very spiffy, much less mousy than she had the other night. She’d put on some subtle, barely colored lipstick that made her look quietly glamorous, and she wore a blouse with some sort of sparkly stuff on it, sequins maybe. Should I be flattered by this? Maxine wondered. She didn’t know, but doubted so very much.

Maxine put the daylilies in a jug of water, then took the bottle out of its liquor-store bag and examined the label. “Hey, nice,” she said, although she had no idea about wine. “Pinot noir.”

“I wouldn’t say no to a glass right this minute,” said Jane, seating herself at the table. “The place hasn’t changed at all, Max! I remember that curtain from thirty years ago.”

“Except now it’s caked with dust,” said Maxine, trying for lightness, trying for banter. She was nervous, but she hoped it didn’t show. “If you touched it, it would probably crumble.” She wrested the cork out of the wine and managed to locate a wineglass. Setting it in front of Jane, she added, “I think I bought new dish towels in the eighties.”

She sat across from Jane and gently shook her glass of whiskey to hear the ice tinkle.

“To you,” said Jane. “The painter of
Helena.
”

“And you,” said Maxine, “the model.”

They clinked glasses. Maxine examined Jane’s face closely, in a way she hadn’t been able to the other night at Michael Rubinstein’s. She had always been interested, visually, in the different ways faces could show age, the way gravity pulled through the years on different features in different people. Jane had puffy, wrinkled, slightly darkened bags under her eyes, but her chin was still taut, the skin around her mouth fairly unlined. Gravity had concentrated its effects in one place for her; she was lucky. She was still sexy in that flyaway, rumpled, academic way Maxine had always liked in her. Her once-brown short hair was half gray now, but still downy and fluffy, like a newly hatched chick.

“Remember,” said Jane, smiling. “You painted like a madwoman. You had something to prove. And the thing doesn’t look a bit like me.”

“It looks exactly like you!”

“That simpering wheat biscuit of a girl?”

“Is that how you see her?”

“How do you see her?” Jane asked.

“She’s thoughtful and lovely, yet she’s tough. Very much how I saw you at the time.”

“Hilarious,” said Jane. “Every time I visit that portrait, I marvel that it has anything to do with me.”

“It really had more to do with Oscar than with either of us,” said Maxine.