Two of a Kind by Yona Zeldis McDonough

Author:Yona Zeldis McDonough
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2013-08-01T04:00:00+00:00

TWENTY-TWO

Christina hurried up the steps of the Haverstick house. She was so excited; Derrick had called Phoebe to tell her that, yes, the Sargent was authentic and that given it was a late—and therefore highly unusual—portrait, it would be worth even more than he had initially estimated. Christina felt hurt that Derrick had not called her first—she supposed he was still angry, humiliated, or both—but she wasn’t going to dwell on it. The important thing was the painting was real.

“Have you had it insured?” asked Christina when Phoebe had ushered her inside.

“Yes, but we’ll need to change the policy now that we know it’s worth more.”

“That makes sense. Why don’t you and Ian go ahead and start putting that in motion?”

“Derrick said he’d like to do a light cleaning,” said Phoebe. “Do you think that’s a good idea?”

“I do. You don’t know what’s on the surface; what if it’s something potentially corrosive?”

“All right, then.” She seemed to be thinking something over. “How long do you think that will take?”

“I’m guessing a couple of weeks at most.”

“Good. I need time to work things out with Ian,” she said.

“Because you think he’s going to want to sell it?” Christina phrased this as neutrally as she could.

“I know he is,” Phoebe said. “Especially now.” She stood up. “You had some fabric samples to show me, right?”

Christina pulled them from her bag, relieved not to have to discuss Ian anymore. But she fretted about him all into the city, where she was going to meet Oliver. What was the source of his hostility? She couldn’t attribute it entirely to the painting; the feeling had been there almost from the start.

Once she reached the showroom on West Twenty-eighth Street, she was able to push Ian out of her mind. She wriggled her way between the bolts of fabric that were everywhere, stacked horizontally in rows on industrial metal shelving, or standing packed together like saplings. But after half an hour of searching, she still did not see what she had come in search of: a crinkly, douppioni silk in a shade somewhere between pale ale and champagne. A sudden thud startled her. “Oliver?” she called. “Are you okay?”

“Uh, I think so,” he called back.

“What happened?” she said when she made her way over to the other end of the store. “Are you hurt?”

He shook his head. “I made kind of a mess, though. . . .” He gestured to the bolts of fabric he’d knocked off a high shelf and which now created a barricade in the narrow aisle.

It was a week before Thanksgiving, and Oliver’s third week of working for her. Christina had felt so horribly guilty over his expulsion from school that when he had asked if he could hang out with her, she immediately said yes. But although he undoubtedly meant well, he’d been more of a hindrance than anything. He cleaned a season’s worth of debris from her garden but had also inadvertently dug up several recently planted peonies; he’d thought they were weeds.

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