“Sure,” my dad said, brightening. He always used getting us snacks as an excuse to partake too. “Want some chips?”
“I’d prefer plain almonds.”
My dad sighed and turned to go, then stopped, like he’d just remembered something. “Oh, Stevie, I just wanted to say I got the kindest note from your mother. Please tell her thanks for me—and that I loved working with her, too.”
“I will,” Stevie said, her voice polite, but we exchanged a quick look. This summer, my dad had written an article for the Times Sunday magazine, about incomplete art collections—either by theft or just circumstance. He discussed the famous heist at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, and the empty frames that still hang there; and a Russian billionaire who’d spent decades and untold sums of money trying to track down one Basquiat, without ever getting it. And he’d also featured Stevie’s mom, who’d taken over her mother’s hunt for one particular painting.
Neither one of us had liked the few weeks when my dad was spending so much time talking to Stevie’s mom. We were fine with our parents chatting postshow or at school events, or when we were all taking prom pictures, or whatever. But this regular contact had unnerved us both, just because it was in an environment we couldn’t control. Over the years there had been a lot of times that I’d been “sleeping over” at Stevie’s house when we both went out to a party, and when Stevie was “staying the weekend” at my house, but was actually at Beckett’s while his parents were at a play festival in Scotland. What we really didn’t need was our parents starting to compare notes and stories.
“Why were you working with Stevie’s mother?” Grady asked as he adjusted his glasses.
“It was an article about a painting Stevie’s mom has been trying to find,” my dad explained, his face lighting up the way it did whenever he was about to go into detail about one of his articles. “By Hugo LaSalle.” He frowned at my brother. “You know who that is, right?”
“I’m guessing a painter?”
My dad sighed. “We need to get you into a museum.”
“I like museums. Like the one in the stock exchange.”
“An art museum.”
“Oh. In that case, no thank you.”
“Stevie’s mom,” my dad said, taking a deep breath like he was trying to will himself to find patience, “has been trying to find one particular painting for a long time now.”
“Starting with my grandmother,” Stevie said, giving Grady a smile. “It’s a multigenerational art search.”
Mary Anne Pearce was an avid collector of Hugo LaSalle, the Pittsburgh street artist turned world-renowned painter. There was a series, New York Night, that the Pearce had three of. But it was a four-canvas series, buildings and colors stretching across an interconnected tableau in a horizontal line, blue turning to purple to black. At the Pearce, New York Night one, two, and four hung on the wall, with an empty space where three was supposed to go. Hugo LaSalle died twenty years ago, and Mary Anne Pearce had assumed that at some point, she’d be able to buy number three and complete her collection. But she hadn’t been able to find it anywhere.
My dad’s piece had gone into the blind alleys and rabbit holes that Mary Anne—and then her daughter, after her death—had gone into trying to track it down. Apparently, it was an art world anomaly that there was not even a record of a sale. There were rumors, of course—that LaSalle had it stashed somewhere in a storage unit, or had destroyed it because he wasn’t happy with it, or even that he’d given it to his mover when he had admired it—but these were unsubstantiated.
“So did she ever find it?” Grady asked.
“Not yet,” my dad said.
“Wow,” my brother said in a deadpan he didn’t often use, but was nevertheless quite skilled at. He turned to leave. “That sounds like a riveting story, Dad.”
“Watch your attitude, young man,” my dad called after him. “Or no plain almonds for you!” He headed for the door. “I’ll leave you to it.” A second later, though, he stuck his head back in my room. “Just let me know if you’ll be staying for dinner—we’re getting pizza. GRADY!” he yelled as I heard him walk down the stairs.
I shook my head and closed the door behind him. “Sorry about that. Want me to take another look in the closet?”
“It’s okay,” Stevie said, shaking her head. “I can