Free False Impressions by Laura Caldwell Page A

herself.
    “Let’s go see Mayburn,” I said.
    “I can’t right now.” She explained about two appointments at the gallery that day that couldn’t be canceled. The first was with an interior designer and his high-maintenance clients, who’d been in about ten times already to visit a sculpture. This, she hoped, was the day they would make a purchase. The other appointment was with a journalist from an art magazine. She’d already rescheduled the interview twice.
    Madeline put her head in her hands. I felt helpless.
    Before I could say anything, she raised her head and looked at her watch. “The designer should be here shortly. I need to pull myself together.”
    “Do you want me to get you a coffee?” I offered.
    She shook her head.
    “Something to eat?”
    Again, she shook her head.
    “Vodka?”
    She laughed. “Now you’re talking.”
    I smiled at her. “I’m sorry you’re going through this.”
    “I am, as well.” A sigh. “But I’m glad you’re here to go through it with me.”
    I felt something different between us enter the room. I wasn’t sure what it was. “Me, too,” I said.
    I tried to think of what I could do for Madeline in the short-term, before her appointment arrived. I decided that getting her talking about art would be best. It would put her in the right frame of mind for her appointments.
    I looked up at the portrait on the otherwise white wall. “Were you the subject for that?”
    She smiled. “No. It’s actually from one of my favorite Japanese artists. He created it in the fifties, a woodblock print.”
    It appeared as if the woman in the portrait was looking out a window, but instead of the sea, like the other painting, the outside was full of flowers. Lush red flowers with yellow centers.
    “I always thought that if my world looked like that, I would look outside all the time, too,” Madeline said.
    We heard the bell of the front door.
    “Can I stay in here?” I asked. “I’d like to use your computer to study the email some more. Do some research.”
    Madeline Saga didn’t say “yes” or “sure” or anything like that. Instead, her eyes closed for a longer second, then opened and focused on mine. A calm expression graced her face. She said one word. “Please.” And then two more. “Thank you.”

19
    I read the email again. And then again. Who could have written it? If “falsity” was referring to the forged paintings, then the author had to be someone who knew about the forgeries. According to Madeline, Jeremy was the only person—other than Mayburn and I—who knew. Madeline was working to determine if she’d sold fakes other than Jeremy’s, but she didn’t know anything yet.
    But the thought of Jeremy writing the email didn’t sit right with me. We’d been out only once, granted, but the words didn’t seem like what I knew of him.
    I read them again. You should be cut and stretched like a canvas.
    The person was clearly threatening violence against Madeline. And yet Madeline, though rattled, was now dazzling the designer and the couple who had just come in. From the gallery, I could hear Madeline’s laughter trilling as she described a sculpture. I could hear the joy in her voice. “Of course,” she said. “You may see something entirely different than the artist did. That’s art. That’s good.”
    I heard her voice change as she showed a different piece. Because she saw everything as unique, her enthusiasm for one thing often sounded very different than her excitement for another.
    “Isn’t it remarkable?” I could hear her saying. “And you know, he usually does nudes.”
    The designer gasped. “That’s right!”
    “They’re stunning,” Madeline said.
    “Stunning,” the designer echoed.
    “But he’s moving on to other mediums,” Madeline said.
    I peered back at the email. Cut and stretched like a canvas…cut and stretched like a canvas…cut and stretched like a canvas.
    I called Mayburn and updated him, then sent him the