A Nearly Perfect Copy - By Allison Amend Page 0,15

St. Roch was most interesting because of the trio of figures standing along the canal edge. Though blurry, there was a naturalness to their poses; something had caught their eyes while they were busy with other tasks. A man in robes, two women, one of whom was carrying her shopping. Quickly, Gabriel got absorbed, picking up his pencil and sketchbook. He sat on the high stool and began to draw. He sketched the form of the man, his female neighbor next.

He hummed nearly silently, “The doge is coming, the doge is coming,” to remember why the figures were staring at the palace, though nothing was happening. “The doge is visiting. It is an important day, a day to keep heads up and eyes bright. A day to shade foreheads to see farther in the setting sun.” Gabriel sketched a sharp shadow, a raised flat hand. “The robes swirl in a sudden gust of wind. The sleeves of the woman puff and undulate. She clutches her basket. She has purchased … a chicken and …”

His own preparatory sketches looked anemic, incomplete, yet this one, in Canaletto’s style, for Canaletto’s painting, that had already been long completed, was alive. The lines were fluid, like Canaletto’s, the hand sure, the graphite thick. This was not the way art was done. This was backward, drawing sketches of museum pieces would get him nowhere but the weekend swap at the marché aux puces.

Disgusted, Gabriel lit a piece of incense, aware that if Marie-Laure were here, she’d yell over the partition. He felt constricted—roommates, studio-mates, boss, even his fucking pants were too tight. Fuck mother-fucking Canaletto.

Sure enough, Marie-Laure’s tight soprano summited the corrugated walls. “We agreed you wouldn’t light that in here,” she said. “You know it bothers my lungs.”

And yet the turpentine and oil paints and fixative are mountain air, Gabriel thought. Out loud he said, “Sorry.”

His phone vibrated. It was a text message, which he had to hold far from his face to read the small letters. “What’s up?” it read.

It took him several minutes to type out, “Who is this?” Why did everyone think texting was so much faster than calling? He could not get his phone to put in the correct accent marks.

“Colette :)”

Was that a sideways smiley face? Still, he sat up straighter. This was an interesting development.

“What are you up to?”

He tried to make his fingers hit the small keys, but he kept passing up letters and turning them into numbers. Without meaning to, he pressed call.

By the time he realized what he’d done it was too late. Colette answered on the fourth ring. She sounded out of breath.

“Hi,” he said. “It’s me.”

“Hello?” Colette said. “Who’s this?”

“Gabriel,” he identified himself.

“Oh, hi!” she said. She was someplace loud. The gym? A restaurant? A train station? His left hand worried the seam of his jeans against his thigh.

Colette let the silence sit over the phone. She was obviously not going to help him. But why would she have contacted him if she didn’t want to see him?

“Would you like to have dinner?” he asked.

“Sure,” Colette answered quickly. “When?”

“Um, I don’t know. Tonight?” Gabriel said. There was a silence. Gabriel closed his eyes, though it felt like it was brighter behind his lids. Why was he so awkward? Had it been so long since he’d asked someone out?

“Yeah, okay, sure. Where do you want to meet?”

Gabriel ran through a mental log of places he’d eaten before. They were few. The couscous place near school. That place he passed by on his way to the métro. Very French: candles and boars’ heads and lots of silverware. Finally, he named a touristy brasserie where he’d never eaten.

Colette laughed. “You’re hilarious.”

Gabriel laughed as well, as though he’d meant to make a joke. “You decide.”

She said, “La Tour de L’Oqueau,” and named an address.

Gabriel hung up, elated. There was nothing to do to clean up, no paints to cover, no chemicals to dispose of. Just put the pencil back into the box and close the coffee table book. It was like Gabriel was never even there.

Elm

Elm’s colleague Ian had investigated the Attic and returned with some postcard-sized oils and accompanying drawings of the Hudson River School. Whittredge, not Elm’s favorite, but still name enough to draw the Hudson River Rats out of the proverbial woodwork for the fall auctions. Elm asked Ian to do the legwork—confirm the provenance, send the pieces to the authenticator, investigate potential reserves. The Hudson River School was in a minor resurgence—there’d been