The Mistaken Masterpiece (8 page)

“I thought you said she doesn’t bark,” says Dad.

“That’s what Nate told me. And technically, I don’t think that was barking. That was howling.” I point at the nearly full moon. “I think she might be a werewolf.”

“Maybe we close the blinds,” Mom suggests.

Tillie jumps up on the bed and stretches out across my feet as Mom and Dad look on, shaking their heads in disbelief at the latest plot twist of the soap opera that is my life.

The doctor told me to stay out of the pool at least until Monday, so I actually have some unscheduled time on Saturday morning. After I take Tillie for a good walk and convince my mom that I’m fine, my nose is fine, and Tillie is fine, I head for Chinatown to meet Becca for some bubble tea and some of those steamed buns I love.
Ever since Elizabeth Harriman discovered her incredible artistic talent, Becca has been part of a special program for gifted young artists at a gallery in Chelsea that’s owned by Elizabeth’s friend Alessandra. So, when we slurp up the last of the tapioca “bubbles,” we mosey on over to Twenty-second Street in Chelsea.

We’re early, so we wander up the block, peeking in the windows of the still-closed shops. As we’re walking past a gallery a few doors up from Alessandra’s, I notice that the front door is open just a crack and one light is on. Three large canvases take up most of the back wall, each one a thick, swirling, angry storm of paint. Along the other walls, double rows of identically sized paintings stretch from corner to corner, and these immediately get my attention. When it comes to art, I’m a little old-fashioned. Sure, I like some of the modern stuff that Elizabeth has, but give me a nice still life any day. These thirty or so small canvases—each about twelve by fifteen inches—look like they belong in the Louvre.

“Hey, do you want to go in for a few minutes?” I ask. “The cold is making my nose hurt.”

Becca says, “I don’t know. It doesn’t really look like they’re open.” She stops, smiling mischievously at me. “But that’s never stopped us before, has it? The paintings look pretty cool, and there must be a bathroom, which I
really
need after that huge thing of tea you made me drink.”

She gently pushes the door open and sticks her head inside. “Hello?” She looks at me with a shrug, and as we
both go in, a bell at the top of the door jingles softly. We stand there for a few seconds, waiting for someone to greet us, but no one appears.

“Maybe they’re out getting coffee,” I say, choosing to believe that I’m not doing something illegal, and using the opportunity to get a closer look at the art.

“Probably. You stay here; I’m going to look for a bathroom.”

I watch her walk down the hallway, opening and then closing doors on the way. As she opens the third door, she freezes, then says, “Oh! I’m sorry! I was just looking for—”

“Did you bring me my tea?” It is a young man’s voice—gentle, but insistent. “Is it nice and hot? When they bring it, it’s always cold. I do like my tea piping hot, don’t you? With lots of milk. But the milk has to be
hot
. And honey. And for heaven’s sake, in a china cup. Tea in a paper cup is a travesty.
They
bring me paper cups. Can you imagine?”

“Uh, yeah, er, no,” Becca says, slowly backing up.

“Won’t you join me for tea?”

“Um, actually, I was just looking for—”

From behind me, a voice booms,
“How did you get in here? What are you doing?”

I try to talk, but my vocal cords are paralyzed again. I’m too scared to even get a good look at the guy; all I really notice about him is that his face is as red as a St. Veronica’s school blazer.

“Get out! Both of you! Now! Or I’ll …”

I don’t need to hear the rest of that, so I turn and run.

Becca is one step behind me, and we don’t stop running until we are two blocks away, around a corner, and positive that nobody’s following us.

“What … who …,” I say, trying to catch my breath, “was that you were talking to?”

She shakes her head. “Some guy, never seen him before.”

“What was he doing? And
pleeease
don’t tell me he was in the bathroom.”

“No, it’s just a regular room. He had a couple of easels set up, and he was painting when I opened the door.”

“Two easels? Could you see what he was painting?”

“One was like the big paintings hanging in the gallery. Dark and swirly. Like the sky in a Van Gogh. The other one was a still life, just like all the others on the wall. Hard to believe he does both—the styles are so different. But that’s not the weird part—you’ve just
got
to see the room. On the wall behind him, there are two windows with curtains and everything—except that one of them isn’t.”

“Isn’t what?”

“A window. It’s just a section of the wall painted to
look
like the other window. You look at it, and you will swear you are looking at another building that’s across the alley. It took me a second to realize that the curtains were just paint, too. It’s freaky, it’s so real. I didn’t have time to check it all out, but the whole room is painted like that—the walls, the floor, even the ceiling.”

“That does sound cool. But why did that other guy get so mad? What’s the big deal? I mean, so you walk in on a guy painting in an art gallery. I’m shocked—
shocked
, I tell you!”

“Well, artists don’t usually work in galleries. They have their own studios, and if they’re
lucky
, they find somebody who likes their stuff enough to try to sell it. Did you happen to get a look at the name of any of the artists in the gallery?” Becca asks. “I wonder who he is.”

I shake my head. “I didn’t see a sign or anything, but it shouldn’t be too hard to find out.”

“Well, it’s all very suspicious, if you ask me. There’s definitely something going on in there.”

When Becca’s art class starts, I head back uptown to my favorite bookstore, where I spend most of the afternoon (and all of my money). Even though I have yet to see a single dime from Nate for my dog-sitting gig, the anticipation of that fifty dollars a day makes me feel like I’m
rich
.

After the bookstore comes my guitar lesson on the West Side with Gerry, who is pushing me to get to work writing more songs, and then pizza with Raf.

He’s waiting outside Gerry’s studio, leaning against the wall and just being his usual too-cute-for-his-own-good self, as I come downstairs.

I give him a little wave, trying not to act
too
excited to see him. “What? No scooter this time?” I ask.

He smiles even though he’s
still
paying for that little adventure. “Maybe next time.”

“No! I want you to be able to stay out past eight-thirty before you turn sixteen. You’re like the opposite of a vampire; I can only see you in the daylight hours.”

He moves in closer to me to get his first good look at my nose; I haven’t seen him since Livvy did her guillotine imitation on my face. “Hey, it’s not too bad. The way you described it the other day made it sound like you were some kind of hideous creature.”

“Oh, it’s a
lot
better now. You should have seen it when it was all swollen and the bruises around my eyes were bright purple. I was stunning-looking, really. Luckily, Leigh Ann showed me how to cover up some of it with makeup. Nate still noticed it, though—he even teased me about it. He was really funny, by the way. It’s too bad you couldn’t come with us. We had
so
much fun.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet,” he says, looking a little disgusted at the very idea of spending the day following Nate Etan around.

“We did, really! Nate was super-nice, and funny, and we got to see them shoot this scene—over and over, actually. Oh! And we got yelled at by Cam Peterson. Do you know who he is?”

Raf shrugs. “No. He
yelled
at you?”

“Sort of. He’s really bratty. He didn’t know we were, you know, friends of Nate’s.”

“Oh brother,” Raf says. “Listen to you. Hanging out with your movie star friends. What, are you guys going
to follow him around from movie to movie now, just because he talked to you?”

“Maybe we are,” I say, taking Raf’s hand. “Now that I’m taking care of his dog—”

“You’re
what
?”

“Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that, huh? Nate had his dog with him on the set all day, and he asked me to hold her because she tried to kill Cam while they were filming. And then, at the end of the day, he asked me if I could watch her for a few days. And he’s paying me
fifty
dollars a day.”

“Humph.”

He lets go of my hand and changes the subject. “So, do you want pizza or something else?”

“Oh, come on, Raf—what’s the matter? I’ll stop talking about Nate right now, I promise.” I take his hand again and squeeze. “I feel like tacos instead of pizza. But, um, I do have one teensy-tiny problem.”

“Now what?”

“I kind of spent all my money at the bookstore,” I say, waving my bag of new books in his face. “I’ll pay you back, I promise. As soon as I get paid by Nate, er, I mean … as soon as Becca pays me back the ten dollars she owes me.”

It’s like a minefield, this world of relationships.

Post-tacos, I’m spending a quiet Saturday night at home with Mom and Tillie, watching a crummy movie on cable, when Becca calls with some interesting news.

“Guess what? I went back,” she says.

“Back where?”

“To that gallery.”

“Where the guy yelled at us?”

That gets Mom’s attention. “Who yelled at you?”

I wave her off with a don’t-worry-it’s-all-cool smile. “It was no big deal.” And it wasn’t, but I move into my bedroom to continue the conversation anyway. I’d rather not have to explain what we were doing in a gallery that wasn’t really open yet.

“So what happened? You didn’t go back in, did you?”

“Yeah, I did, but not through the front. I went around back and found the alley and the window—the real one. I had to climb up on top of a Dumpster to see inside, but sure enough, he was still in there, painting away. So I went across the street, bought a cup of tea, and then knocked on the window. I started tapping really gently, ’cause I didn’t want to scare him to death, but I almost did anyway. He ducks down on the floor, but when he sees that it’s me, he smiles and comes over and opens the window.”

“You’re crazy, you know,” I say.

“Trust me, this guy wouldn’t hurt a fly. Literally. While I was there, he saw a little spider on the wall and he scooped it up and set it out on the windowsill.”

“So what is he doing in there?”

“I didn’t get the whole story yet, but I’m working on it. I’m inside, drinking my soda while he’s having his tea,
which he poured into a china cup, and we have a really great conversation about art—the people we really like, the ones we think are phonies, everything. I even tell him about the class I’m taking over at Alessandra’s, and show him my sketchbook.”

“Which he loved, I’m sure.”

“He did seem to like the stuff I did in the park—we have to draw a bunch of statues for class and I did that one of Romeo and Juliet over by the theater. And Aragorn, of course. I love that guy.”

“You mean King Jagiello,” I say.

“I don’t care who he really is—he looks like Aragorn to me. Oh, and all the painting on the walls—the fake window and everything—he did all that, too. I think he’s
obsessed
. He doesn’t paint because he wants to; it’s like he
has
to. Anyway, we’re yakking away like we’re best friends, and someone knocks on the door—the same door that I opened this morning. It was a girl’s voice, and she kept asking him if everything was okay, because she thought she heard voices. Gus—that’s his name, by the way—tells her he’s fine, but never opens the door. After she leaves, he tells me that whenever the gallery is open, he keeps the door locked, because he’s afraid ‘that nasty little man’ will come looking for him.”

“What nasty little man? The one that yelled at us?”

“I don’t know for sure, but I don’t think that’s him. He wouldn’t say anything else about it. But the more he thought about it, the more paranoid he got. He kept
checking to make sure the door was locked. I figured that it was probably a good time to go. But he told me to come back anytime.”

“Are you going to?”

“What do you think? Of course. Oh, and something else—he said he’s
always
there. He lives upstairs! So, yeah, now that I got a taste of the story, I’ve just
got
to know what he’s so afraid of.”

On Monday morning, I make my return to swimming, where I get a hero’s welcome from Michelle and some of my teammates. Livvy is Livvy—no more or less friendly than usual, which is fine by me. And considering what happened the last time I was within an arm’s length of her, I’m happy to keep a little extra space between us. In the swim meet that I missed because of my nose, she really stepped up, winning two individual events and anchoring one winning relay. Our next meet is with Tallmadge, another girls’ school in Manhattan, and I have only a week to make up for all those missed hours in the pool. Thank goodness I have Tillie to make sure I’m up every morning at five o’clock.