Fake, p.27
Fake, page 27
EMMA CAAN:
Look, I’ve answered every question you’ve asked me. I really don’t know anything more than what I told you. If I think of anything, I can be in touch.
AGENT GARRITT:
We appreciate your cooperation. Do you need a ride home?
EMMA CAAN:
I’ll get a cab.
AGENT GARRITT:
One last thing, Ms. Caan.
EMMA CAAN:
Yes?
AGENT GARRITT:
It’s critical to our investigation that you don’t discuss the fact of our meeting or its contents with anybody. Do you understand? You must continue to act normally, even continue to paint for Mr. Sobetsky if requested.
EMMA CAAN:
I’m supposed to just act like I don’t know any of this? How?
AGENT TILLWELL:
Fake it. Do you understand? It’s critical.
EMMA CAAN:
I understand.
AGENT GARRITT:
Thank you for your time. We’ll be in touch.
In a daze, I hailed a cab outside Tribeca’s Federal Plaza, staring out the window as I contemplated my next steps. I understood only the basics of what I had become involved with in the past few months. These men who had welcomed me into their homes, who had given me jobs, food, a social life, were bad men. Criminals, in fact. I didn’t know where Sergey fit into the mix, but I was certain he was aware of how his friends made their money. Curtis Tremblay was apparently an international drug trafficker who cleaned his money by buying ridiculously expensive art. In retrospect, being sniffed by dogs prior to entering and being offered ecstasy at a dinner party had been red flags, but everything about the trip to Asia had been so foreign, literally and figuratively, that nothing had stood out to me as strange. Though I didn’t know Curtis well, I still felt somehow betrayed by his hospitality—as though he should have had a disclaimer on his door: “Drug Lord Lives Here.”
As the gray grit of the city kicked up around the cab wheels, my brain clouded over with the realization that Lenny was not the man I’d thought he was. He hadn’t thought I was a talented artist—he had thought I was a good forger and stupid enough not to ask too many questions. He was right. I looked down at my black pants and red pumps in disbelief, feeling as though at least a week had passed since I’d gotten dressed that morning.
The cab pulled up outside the Greene Street apartment, and I stepped out, instinctively looking over my shoulder, though I didn’t know for whom or what. The bustling metropolis that had always made me feel anonymous seemed to be thinning out around me, leaving me exposed.
“Where have you been?” my mother asked, stepping down off the one step up into the entrance of the building, opening new channels of unease throughout my body. “I called the gallery an hour ago, and they said you went home sick, so I came here. But clearly, you had other plans!”
I closed my eyes for a moment as I brushed by her, using the fob to enter the building. “Mom, stop calling the gallery” was all I said in response.
“If you didn’t want to go furniture shopping, you should have told me. I wouldn’t have spent this whole time wandering—”
“I do want to go furniture shopping,” I said quickly, realizing that I couldn’t be alone in the apartment or have her in it for an extended period. “I just need to get out of these shoes.”
I entered the code on the pad by the door and pushed through into the studio, holding the door open for my mother. She exclaimed in awe, taking a tape measure out of her purse before she realized that it didn’t come close to measuring the full length of the room. She drifted toward me, looking up to the ceiling to assess its height.
“Honey, you have arrived,” she gushed. “I’m so proud of you. Is this where you paint?” She pointed to the pressurized glass case. My chest tightened as I noted the two works I had been asked to copy for Lenny, which I hadn’t started, and recalled the years of work I had promised him in exchange for the Chagall, which I obviously couldn’t perform.
I nodded, taking in a deep breath.
“Are you okay?” my mother said. “Do you want to lie down?”
I shook my head but took her upstairs so she could giddily explore the bedroom, fluffing my pillow and fixing the corner of my sheet. I grew more and more annoyed at how concerned she was with appearances.
She stopped and cocked her head to one side. “You’re pale. We don’t have to go today, if you’d rather just rest.”
“Nope, I’d love to. Let’s go,” I said, wanting to be anywhere other than the apartment provided to me by the man who’d masterfully backed me into a corner I couldn’t see any way out of.
We walked to ABC Carpet, the afternoon sun bestowing a quiet calm on the downtown residents running errands or meeting for drinks. I felt like an interloper in their well-adjusted world. All the while, my mother prattled on about her vision for my new space, barely navigating through the crowds in Union Square because she was gesticulating so wildly. Mercifully, ABC sprang up ahead of us before I could snap at her.
I’d never been inside. We entered from the street into a room of chandeliers, the delicate crystals choreographing a dance of rainbow prisms across the ceiling, then into a large room bursting with color, its displays layered with linen, velvet, brushed brass, and porcelain, and enhanced with the smells of honeysuckle and vetiver from the shelves of candles and diffusers.
My mother found a salesperson while I stood still, overwhelmed by the sensory feast. She explained loudly to the poor salesman that she hadn’t “been in the store since we redid my husband’s study ten years ago” and asked for help selecting a couch for “my daughter’s new SoHo loft.” I could feel my amusement over her transparent self-aggrandizing slipping slowly down toward irritation. I have far bigger things to worry about, I reminded myself. Still, her voice started to grate on my already frayed nerves. To steady myself, I placed my hand on the sturdy piece of furniture next to me.
“Oh my gosh, no! Not that credenza!” My mother chuckled, leaning toward the salesman, whose name tag read “Rafael,” like they were old friends. I raised my hand from the wood, making eye contact with Rafael, who’d already picked up on the fact that Barbara Caan was going to be a difficult customer. “Let’s start with a sectional as a focal point and go from there. Hm?” My mother pushed me into the depths of the store, past rugs with fifteen-thousand-dollar price tags and couches with seven-thousand-dollar ones.
“We can either meander, and you can point out anything you like,” Rafael kindly suggested, “or you can let me know what you’re looking for, and I’ll try to direct you.”
“I think we’re just browsing today, to get some inspiration,” I said, to which my mother let out a nervous burst of laughter, as though I had just said the most ridiculous thing she had ever heard. She extended her hand into the air and pressed it toward the floor, like she’d done when I was a kid to tell me to calm down.
“This is her first real apartment,” she explained to Rafael, “and it’s spectacular! But she’s never decorated, so I’m thinking a dramatic green or blue velvet sofa with . . .” I stopped hearing her, zoning out entirely as I ran my hand over the silk pillows on display, trying to grab on to something in the room to stay in the present. I was brought back to my teenage years, when I’d detested the way my mother floated from room to room when she had company, pointing at new drapes or the reupholstered wingback chair. It occurred to me that the only reason I’d gotten myself into this situation with Lenny was that my mother was incapable of handling anything that life threw her way, and the only things that seemed to make her happy were absurdly expensive material ones. Why did I need to support her? Why did she need that house? Why couldn’t she downsize to a small condo? As I followed my mother and Rafael, trying to tune her out, I caught a glimpse of myself in the brass circular mirror on sale for the bargain price of ten thousand dollars.
My cheekbones protruded a bit more than they had when I’d left Gemini, probably from the constant activity and lack of sleep, and my hair looked somehow shinier, maybe a result of the superior products I’d been using in Lenny’s studio. My eyes were still large and sad, though, and I had a disquieting sensation that I was looking at my mother wearing a blond wig. I’m turning into her. The studio, the new clothes . . .
“Emma?” my mother said. “Rafael asked you a question!”
“Hm? Sorry.” I looked back at them.
“Do you entertain much?” he repeated. “Because if so, I think we could go with an L-shape—”
“Not really,” I said, his benign question turning malignant as it reminded me just how few real friends I had.
“You will now that you have space,” my mother assured me. I stared at her and felt the horrible thoughts rush in on me. I saw her running out to the backyard, her white robe billowing out behind her. She hadn’t been the one to pull me away from the fire, she hadn’t tried to help my father put out the flames on her clothes as she writhed on the ground in agony. I hadn’t thought about my mother on that night often or possibly ever—it was always memories of myself, my father, and her—but it all came rushing back in on me. I remembered my mother offering to get the policemen coffee while the firemen finished their job, ever the consummate hostess, and I remembered her holding my shoulders, my back flush against her stomach, as she explained that her husband was a workaholic and took meetings in the shed at night with his secretary so “he doesn’t keep my daughter and me awake,” as if there weren’t a study and a basement and a number of other rooms in our big house that he could have used.
“I don’t think I really like anything,” I said now, trying and failing to steady my voice, staring out over the room of furniture, knowing the tears were about to come.
“You haven’t even looked, Emma,” my mother said incredulously.
“I’ll give you two a minute,” Rafael offered politely as he faded out of our presence and toward the back wall.
“It’s hard to see in the showroom, but just try to picture this couch in your gorgeous apartment,” my mother said, sitting down on a velvet hunter-green sectional and extending her arms across the back cushions. I shifted my weight to my left foot, my legs suddenly jumpy, but I inhaled deeply and stood my ground. My mother patted the cushion next to her, and feeling calmer, I took a seat beside her, thinking that I had just gained control of my emotions for the first time I could remember.
“Just imagine hosting a dinner party . . .” my mother started, beginning to paint a picture of an evening around the couch.
I cleared my throat. “Mom, I’ve been thinking a lot about the Chagall, and I think we should give it back. Like you said, downsizing would actually be great for you. That painting came from the man I work for, and I don’t think we should be taking handouts—”
“Emma! Keep your voice down!” my mother said, a sternness to her voice that I hadn’t heard since I was a child. “What a time to bring this up! Let’s talk about it when we’re in a more . . . private setting,” though I was certain no one was paying attention to our conversation.
“Why? What’s wrong with here? It’s not like you’ll ever see these people again! Who cares what they think?” I said, gesturing wildly to the handful of other people in the room, a few of whom were actually starting to pay us attention.
“Well, I sold it already,” she said, her voice quiet and tight. “Privately, as you instructed.”
“What? Already? How did you find a buyer? For how much? You could not possibly have gotten fair market . . .” I heard myself yelling.
“For Christ’s sake, Emma. You are always overreacting to every little—”
“You never react at all! To anything! Ever!” I could see Rafael approaching, presumably to ask us to keep our voices down, but I was past caring. “Daddy cheated on you, gambled away our money when he was healthy, and gave the remainder to his mistress when he was dead. And you do nothing.”
“How do you know that?” she said, her eyes wide and her breath labored. Once she realized I had no intention of responding, she took a step toward me, her voice coming at me in a low growl this time. “What did you want me to do, Emma? Burn her alive? Well, I didn’t have to. You did that for me!”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Rafael back away slowly as I stared at my mother, dumbfounded. On some level, I’d always understood that I had set the fire, but I’d been able to blame my father for it—they were his matches, it was his affair—and I’d never allowed myself to see the entirety of the event. I’d operated under the assumption that my mother was blissfully unaware. My father had known, of course, because he had seen the matchbook in my hand, but I’d supposed he had kept that to himself, to protect me or my mother or both of us.
I saw the whole night at once, sitting there on the green couch in ABC. I saw him intertwined with his mistress and heard them grunting as I peered through the window, and I only wanted to make it stop before my mother came out and saw them, before they broke her heart. I looked down on the bench beside the shed and saw the matches from my father’s local bar and his pack of cigarettes, even though he maintained that he’d quit. I took a match and lit it, dropping it into the dried and browned leaves that had blown up against the shed, and there was a soft, calming crackle and a bit of smoke before I heard the whooshing sound of the flames devouring the air and the hissing and popping of the cans of spray paint in the shed. I backed away slowly. And then there was nothing but her screams.
I started to cough, feeling the smoke in my lungs as I rose from my seat on the green sofa. I looked around, my eyes wide as the flames licked at the carpets and the couches. I began to back away from my mother as she extended her hand toward me and said something I couldn’t hear over that whooshing of the flames. I shook my head, but the flames only grew, and I turned and ran, pushing past Rafael and the gawking shoppers who pretended to be concerned but secretly delighting in the spectacle of the girl they’d seen having a nervous breakdown in the trendy downtown furniture store.
I burst out onto the street and continued to run, hot tears streaming down my face as strangers turned to stare. I made it a few blocks and through Union Square before I slowed, gasping for air. I noticed a man holding up his phone toward me and cringed at the text I imagined him sending to his friend. And I thought I was having a bad day or something equally callous. I pulled my hair over my cheeks to hide my face and continued down the strip of paved sidewalk lining University Place, eyes glued to the ground, walking with my shoulder flush against the buildings to draw as little attention as possible until I reached the Greene Street apartment. I lay down in the middle of the empty floor, my arms and legs stretched as far away from the core of my body as I could manage, trying to take up as much space as possible in the universe that seemed to be too easily devouring me.
My instinct was to grab for my phone, to open Instagram and find something to distract myself, but I was aware I was beyond that point. I tried to meditate, as my college therapist had taught me, but no matter how hard I tried to focus on the floorboards under my back and the pink setting sunlight streaming in on the ceiling, my mind retreated into a fiery past or lurched into a nightmarishly uncertain future. The strange part of my mother’s declaration was that it somehow felt like new information—like I had woken up with a dead body in my house only to discover I was the murderer. In all my memories, I’d been holding matches that night, and I could recall the horrified look in my father’s eyes as he saw what I had done. But somehow I’d distanced myself from culpability. I felt it all now.
I rolled uncomfortably to one side, wondering if the beds in prison were as hard as the wood floor, wondering what the punishment was for forgery and too scared to google its actual definition to see if I’d committed it. Did I need to know what I was doing to be guilty? Would anybody really believe I had no idea what was going on? I pictured myself in an orange jumpsuit, then the jumpsuit going up in flames.
I pulled myself upright, bringing my head over my outstretched legs, and bent down toward the floor. When I looked up, the blank canvas on the easel where I had tried to paint so many times was in my line of vision. I limped over to turn on the light and then walked more easily over to the canvas as the blood circulated through my limbs. I squeezed a few colors out of the aluminum tubes and grabbed for a brush. My hands moved quickly, dipping the brushes in and out of the thick paint. I heard the slop and crack as I mixed the colors, finding peace in the act of allowing the images in my mind to escape. I cried as I painted, large hot tears spilling down my cheeks so quickly that I stopped trying to catch them before they hit my chest.
I made two more trips to the supply closet for new canvases. Now on my third, I improved with each new canvas I turned to. I had spent so long painting like the people I was supposed to copy that I had almost forgotten my own strokes. It was like trying to sing a song I hadn’t heard in years, slow to start before the memory of the melody came back all at once. I stared at the sketch I had done of my younger self, and every single detail of that night returned to me in sharp relief. I grabbed the paint to fill her in with the colors in my mind, and I shivered as I felt the chill through the bare trees in the yard, heard the leaves crunching under my feet. I painted the pack of cigarettes and matches on the bench, and suddenly, I was climbing off the bench and taking the matches, the crackle of the leaves now seemingly goading me on. I lit the match and dropped it. The girl in the painting’s fingers were still extended, the match suspended inches from them on its way to greet the leaves, my burden transferred to the canvas. I moved on to the next blank one.
I sketched my father smoking outside the hospital where he’d been diagnosed with lung cancer. He couldn’t “see the point in stopping now,” despite the doctors repeatedly informing him it was necessary for his treatment and that he still had a chance. I sketched more from my memory, snippets of the life I hadn’t allowed myself to think about, even in therapy.
