A Nearly Perfect Copy - By Allison Amend Page 0,119
of beer with the other.
Gabriel felt clouds of gloom descend over him. He sometimes got this way, especially on Sundays. Everything in Paris was closed, the harsh metal grates like prison bars. Now, surrounded by friends, he was supposed to be enjoying himself, but instead he saw Hans trying to escape from his family; Didier acting like a fourteen-year-old, his fancy show having done nothing for his career; Marie-Laure giving too much to yet another loser; and Gabriel himself, his dreams of a solo show turning out to be not the success he’d hoped for after all. The lump in his throat got bigger, and he worried he might cry. He put down his plate to go inside, but his studio, dark, musty, full of his failures writ large on canvas, depressed him further. He went back outside to join Hans in drinking himself into oblivion.
He was finishing his third beer when his phone buzzed in his pocket. He took it out, assuming it was Colette, finally.
Instead, it was a text from Lise. “Must meet. Biche Blanche. 1 hr.”
Gabriel stared at his phone. What could be so urgent? He felt preemptively guilty, like he’d done something terribly wrong and would have to beg forgiveness. But he couldn’t think of what he’d done to Lise. Maybe she’d left her husband and wanted to declare her love for Gabriel. Maybe she’d gotten fired from Ambrosine’s. Maybe Ambrosine offered her a show. Maybe Ambrosine wanted to offer Gabriel a show.
When he got to the café she was smoking and drinking a Cognac. He gave her two kisses and discovered that she smelled like cigarettes instead of her usual lemongrass perfume.
“You’ve read this, I assume.” She plopped Le Monde down in front of him. Her tone was accusatory.
“I don’t really read news. In French.”
Lise was wearing a low-cut top. He could see the scaffolding of her ribs above the shirt. Too thin, he thought.
“Read.” She nudged the paper at him again.
Gabriel held the paper out farther so he could read the small type. It took him awhile to read the article. When he was done, he read it again. Lise stubbed out her cigarette and lit another. His coffee came.
His mind spun. Klinman had been arrested? Think, he forced himself. He drank a sip of coffee, trying to hide behind the cup. Klinman arrested. Where was Colette? What would happen to Gabriel? Klinman could tell the authorities it was Gabriel who forged the drawings. But it hadn’t happened yet, so it was possible Klinman wasn’t going to implicate Gabriel. Except that Gabriel would be such an easy patsy, and he was totally expendable. The feeling of guilt, of needing absolution, returned to his stomach, and his legs began to bounce under the table. Lise was looking at him expectantly.
“The hotel drawings we did? Were those for this guy?”
“How did you know?” Gabriel said, not answering the question.
“What happened to them?” Lise asked.
“What do you mean? I don’t know.” This was not a lie. He truly didn’t know. He hadn’t thought about the hotel drawings in a while. Possibly they really were for a hotel. He resolved to ask Klinman about it. In fact, he had a lot to talk to the man about.
“Is there a chance they were used as fakes?” Lise blew smoke down toward her feet. “It’s just, why would he be commissioning drawings for a hotel? Especially drawings in the specific style of certain artists.”
Gabriel said nothing.
“That’s my daughter,” Lise said quietly.
“Sorry?”
“The drawing they talk about in the article. In the style of Ganedis. I sketched Hélène with our shih tzu.”
Gabriel looked at Lise blankly. He had no idea what she was talking about.
“Here—” She ran her finger down the column. The nail had broken close to the quick. “There, they mention a gouache of a girl with a dog.”
“That could be anyone,” Gabriel said.
“My mother gave Hélène that yellow dress.” She held Gabriel’s gaze.
“I don’t know what to say,” Gabriel said.
Lise continued to look at him. She bit the inside of her cheek, and took another drag off her cigarette.
The urge to tell Lise everything was almost overpowering. He’d been forging drawings to make money, because he was pussy-whipped and weak. His girlfriend might have been dating him to keep his mouth shut. Even his show was probably a setup. He wished he could crawl into the ashtray with Lise’s discarded cigarette butts. He wished he could vanish, go back to Spain, throw himself off the Eiffel Tower.