A Nearly Perfect Copy - By Allison Amend Page 0,114
Low.
“What about Relay? I mean—” Ian leaned across the table closer to her. For the first time since she’d known him, Ian seemed angry, even menacing. “What about the drawings you sold through Relay?”
“What?” Elm said.
“We reconnected at the auction and we’ve had dinner a few times. She’s actually grown into a really nice person. She said you’d given her drawings to sell, which seemed strange to me. First, because you never said anything, at least not to me, which, by the way, I’m hurt about.”
“Sorry,” Elm said. “With everything on my mind I’ve just—”
“Why in the world would you give her drawings to sell instead of putting them up for auction at Tinsley’s? Relay said she didn’t know. And she hadn’t thought to ask. Intelligence, not necessarily one of her most attractive traits.”
Actually, Elm thought, claiming ignorance was a sign of acumen that Elm neglected to demonstrate.
“So I say to myself, ‘Self,’ I say, ‘why is Elm pimping out drawings and not telling me?’ Either she doesn’t think they’re worthy of the auction house, and in that case it’s shitty to be foisting them on Relay, even though she doesn’t know any better. Or she needs the money. Either way, it seems like something Greer would not be thrilled about, or it’s potentially illegal. What are you involved in, Elm, and why didn’t you tell me?”
Elm began to cry but she didn’t avert her glance. “I need the money. Colin’s going to lose his job; he has to testify in court. And yes, Relay’s drawings were probably fakes. But they were convincing, and enjoyable, and, for all I know, possibly real. And it was helping out these Jews whose art was lost in the …” She trailed off. This was Klinman’s line, his bullshit story. Suddenly, she understood Indira’s attitude. Elm didn’t care. She didn’t care who got hurt as long as she could have Ronan. There were so many steps between Relay and Elm and Klinman, and the forger.… It was a gulf that stretched too wide to imagine, a snarling, rough sea. And it had swallowed her up and carried her out.
Her tears dried as she finally put the pieces together. But here was Ian, waiting for her to speak, to explain herself, to save their friendship, her job, and his.
“I didn’t know,” she said. “I didn’t think it would get so huge. Indira’s art looked authentic. We ran it through the paces.”
“Yes, but to prove it was original, not to prove it was fake. It’s different.”
“What the fuck do I do now, Ian?” Elm looked up at him. His gaze was stern, like a father’s. The disappointment radiated out from his forehead, wrinkled in dismay.
“Look, Relay won’t say anything. And I’m not going to say anything. We never even had this conversation. Maybe the media attention will die down.”
“An Englishman using the world’s most famous ceramicist as a shill to sell fake art through one of the world’s most venerated auction houses? Yeah, no one will want to hear about that,” Elm said. She tried to catch the waitress’s eye. She was famished. She wanted a grilled cheese sandwich so badly her knuckles ached. “Shit, shit, shit. Why didn’t I just stay out of it?”
“More like, why did you drag me in?” Ian saved her by saying, “Excuse me,” to the passing waitress.
“Grilled cheese, no tomato, please.” Elm looked at Ian, who shook his head.
“How can you eat?”
“I’m not eating. The parasite is. What do you think I should do?”
“Lie low,” Ian said. “Get lots of doctors’ appointments. Can you get put on bed rest?”
“I don’t know,” said Elm. “I think I’m done with deception,” she said, even as she realized that her deception ran so deep she would never be done.
Elm and Colin both took the day off before the long weekend. Moira ran around the living room singing at the top of her lungs, so excited was she to have vacation, and both parents home. Elm knew how little time she and Colin had spent together recently. She was also aware that though she had been living in the apartment, participating in family dinners and arranging pickups and drop-offs, playdates and meals, she had been with her family only in body. In spirit she had been … in a clinic, in France, getting impregnated with her dead child. Or on a beach in Thailand, watching as the wave came in to lay waste to her life.