Inescapable, p.3
Inescapable, page 3
Aimee peered closer. There was something about the angles of the strokes. “Hmm…I don’t—”
“It was on a table. Painted from above. Even you should be able to see that.”
Aimee nodded, she should have been able to see the evidence, but in her excitement to begin, she’d rushed forward. She unclamped and lifted the canvas down, setting it on a nearby table.
“Fine,” she sighed. “I’ll fix it.”
“As you should,” he said, lip curling in disdain. “It’s entirely and completely wrong.”
Aimee glared at him. “I said I’d fix it.”
She picked up a clean brush, dabbed away the undried paint, and restarted. The apparition waited at her elbow as she twisted her wrist to match the angle of the original brush work. She imagined the scent of sweat mixing with the odour of spices. Cloves? she wondered. There was almost always a reason why she imagined her artists a certain way, but she couldn’t remember this particular detail. She expected Eugène to vanish, but he didn’t. He waited through her work, pacing. The repainting was slow going, unpleasant, and another half-hour passed. Her neck had begun to throb when the apparition spoke again.
“Yes, yes. Much better, madame,” he said, leaning in. “Almost as good as it was.” Eugène moved closer, momentarily blocking her view.
That’s the difference between artists and restorers, Aimee thought. The ego.
“Now if you’ll just add a little more light,” the ghost advised, “and a bit of shadow here, then—”
“I don’t need your help.”
He turned, hands rising to his hips. “Everyone needs help, no matter what their trade. Artist,” he touched his chest, “or not.” His gaze rested accusingly on Aimee. “It’s just a matter of playing the game long enough to find it.”
“Hmmph,” Aimee snorted.
Eugène stood taller, adjusting his painting jacket like a prince’s robe. There were burgundy marks, Aimee noticed, on the white shirt-sleeves. And as irritable as he was, he really was attractive.
“An untrained eye might not see what needs to be done,” Eugène sniffed.
“I was an artist before I was a restorer,” Aimee said. The ghost had the temerity to look surprised. “I know what I need to do. I don’t need anyone’s help.”
“Are you certain of that?” Eugène leaned closer; his cheeks were flushed, breath warm. Cloves in the wine, she realized. That’s what I smell. “Because it seems to me that you’re locked in a basement of a museum, talking to yourself, while you rush through your work.” His gaze dropped to her hand. “Careful now, madame, or you’ll smudge my work and have to restart.”
Aimee opened her mouth to argue with him, but began to giggle. She was talking to herself, as she often did when lost in a painting. She set the brush carefully to the side, unexpected laughter breaking from her chest like a breath of fresh air. Eugène—like any of her other ghosts—wasn’t actually there. He was her own thoughts reflected back to her; Aimee’s own mind, wandering and lost.
Mirth faded into giggles and she wiped at teary eyes. “Well, Eugène,” she said dryly, “when you put it that way…”
Her words faded. The ghostly form of Eugène Delacroix was long gone. It was only Aimee and her paint, and a tiny, repaired section of an artist’s work; the artist himself, long since turned to ashes. She glanced around the empty room. Her smile disappeared.
Imagined or not, Eugène was right. She did need help, but not the kind he could give.
CHAPTER TWO
May melted into June. The rain stayed. Aimee felt the cold draw inward, wearing away at the brittle shell which had protected her since George’s death and forcing its way inside. Even the places she’d once loved—like the tiny coffee house where she and her mother sat on Friday afternoons—felt cold. Empty. Only work gave her reprieve.
Did life change? she wondered. Or just me?
The waitress stopped at the small table, unloading a teapot and filling two cups. Aimee’s mother, Claudine, carried on the conversation without Aimee’s participation, her narrow hands fluttering like birds as she chattered.
“Haven’t had a spring this bad in years,” Claudine said with a dramatic sigh. “Snow in April. Snow in May. Snow all spring and now the endless rain! Incroyable!”
Aimee nodded, a conditioned response. She held her cup with icy hands, but didn’t drink.
“And I can’t very well start gardening if it’s freezing each night,” her mother continued. “I’m still wearing my winter boots, for goodness’ sake.”
“Terrible.” Aimee knew she should be concerned about this—about life—but she couldn’t feel anything.
“June!” Claudine scoffed. “You’d hardly believe it if you looked outside. Not with all the rain. The tulips in the garden are barely up, for goodness’ sake. A month late.”
Aimee made another sound of feigned interest, but like everything else, the effort wearied her. She was stuck in limbo, frozen. Damnit, George. Why did you have to leave me? At the thought, her gaze flicked up, fearful, but the coffee house was blessedly empty. This place was one of Aimee’s haunts, not his; no shadow of his memory filled it.
“Hasn’t felt like this since we first came to Calgary,” Claudine said. “I can remember how cold it was the year we moved. There was snow that June too, but not the deep, heavy kind. Just cold, bitter cold and dry heaps of snow. Ah! Such a time.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“And I wanted to go back to Montreal, but your father had a job here, and I didn’t. Mon Dieu, what a mess! I remember how terrible it was for you: No friends. All alone. New school, new house. Oh Aimee, you were such a sad little girl in those days. Barely talking or eating. Lost in your own world. Talking to imaginary friends rather than other children.”
Aimee stared down into her cup. It felt like she was stuck, like the spring weather that wouldn’t change, and the cabin that wouldn’t sell. “It’s the time of year,” the real estate agent assured her. “Come summer, I won’t be able to keep the buyers away.” But it felt like something worse. An omen of all that had gone wrong since that morning.
Why, George? a voice inside her cried. Why did you have to leave?
“Aimee?” her mother said sharply. “Are you even listening?”
She dragged herself back to the surface. “Sorry, Mom, I have a lot on my mind.”
“Like?”
“Like the cabin. The will.”
Her mother’s expression darkened. “Jacqueline still being a bitch about it?”
Aimee winced, remembering the last weeks of disagreements. The primary settlements had been agreed upon, but George’s daughter, Jacqueline, was fighting tooth and nail for the details. “Mom,” Aimee groaned. “Please don’t start.”
“Well, she is!” her mother said.
“Jacqueline’s just Jacqueline. She’s always been like that. Always will be.” That the two women—daughter and widow—were nearly the same age had been a thorn between them since the start. In the beginning, Aimee had fought for her share of George’s estate, but now—months into litigation—she didn’t care anymore. Her dead husband’s will was a tangled mess, just like his life. And Aimee was drowning in it.
“Well, I don’t like how she’s treating you,” Claudine said. “It’s not right. George loved you. He wanted you to be taken care of.”
Aimee nodded. “I know he did.”
Her mother blew over her tea. “I just wish he’d cleared up his affairs before, well, you know.”
“He didn’t know he was going to die.”
“Yes, but it could have been done!”
“Mom, please just let it go,” Aimee sighed. She pinched the bridge of her nose. “This isn’t helping.”
Claudine watched her for several long seconds. Aimee could feel her mother measuring her, testing the way she’d done when Aimee had been a child, claiming illness.
“You’re not eating again,” she announced. “I can tell.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not. You’re skin and bones. Your clothes are hanging off you.”
“I had a touch of the flu, that’s all,” she lied. The fake smile was beginning to hurt her cheeks. “I’ll be back to normal in no time.”
Her mother reached out, pressing Aimee’s hand between her two warm palms. She dropped her voice. “Have you been back to the doctor again?”
Aimee jerked her hand back, annoyed. The mask dropped. “I don’t need more pills.”
Her mother frowned. “I know you want to do this on your own, cherie, but sometimes the pressure is too much for one person.”
“I told you I’m fine.”
“You’re not.”
“I am. And I wish you’d believe that.”
“Believe?” Claudine coughed, throwing her hands into the air. “I believe what I see.”
Aimee scowled. “I’m fine. I just need time.”
“You’ve had a year, and if anything, it’s gotten worse,” her mother said.
Aimee shook her head, fighting the urge to scream. Her mother had forged her way through her husband’s death with stolid determination, rebuilding a solo life in no time, something Aimee had—even as a teenager—never truly understood. Claudine expected her daughter to do the same.
“You don’t go out. You don’t call,” she continued. “Honestly, Aimee, you haven’t been the same since that day. You can’t go on like this. You’re too young. You can’t—”
“But George died!” Aimee shouted. Around the coffee shop, people turned in surprise. An uneasy silence followed her explosion.
“Aimee!” her mother gasped.
She closed her eyes, fighting unwanted tears. Her mother’s hand returned, patting her arm. “I’m doing the best I can,” Aimee said haltingly. “I’m trying, Mom. I am. But your pestering doesn’t help.”
“I’m just worried. It’s been over a year. You’re young, Aimee.” She smiled sadly. “You could meet someone else, you know. I did, after your father passed.”
Aimee jerked her hand back. That too, had been something Aimee hadn’t understood. “But I don’t want someone else.” She couldn’t keep the venom from her voice. “I told you that.”
“How can you know that, unless you go out on a few dates, eh?”
“I don’t want to date.”
Her mother’s lips pursed in an irritated moue. “Fine, then don’t. But at least stop shutting yourself away.”
Aimee took a swallow of tea, scalding her mouth. The heat burned her throat before settling like a coal in her chest. “I’m here, aren’t I?”
“Tell me this: where are your friends? Do you talk to anyone?”
Aimee took a long time before answering. She wanted to run, but that would make it worse. “I talk to lots of people,” she said in a saccharine voice.
“Anyone you don’t work with?”
“Well, I’m very busy trying to sell the cabin,” she said, fiddling with her teacup. It was burning her fingers, but she needed something to hold. “I’ve had a lot of restoration work on my plate.”
“A-ha! I knew it,” her mother said, waggling her finger under Aimee’s nose. “Locking yourself away in the Glenbow. Working all the time. Not answering my calls. My only child and I don’t even see her.”
Aimee sank lower in her chair. “Don’t start with the guilt, please.”
“I’m worried, and I love you. Please, cherie. I just want you to get out once in a while.”
“I do get out,” she lied. “In fact I’m going to George’s retrospective on Friday.”
Her mother’s expression softened. “Oh? I didn’t think you would. I mean, I think it’s good, I just thought after what you’d said about avoiding the art crowd, you wouldn’t.”
Aimee took another sip of tea. She couldn’t taste anything, but burning her mouth was better than discussing that.
“Anyhow, it’s good to hear,” Claudine said with a smile. “And if you’re getting out again, you should think about dating too.”
“Mom, please.” Claudine had been widowed at forty-eight, but she’d bounced back into the dating scene within six months. Teenaged Aimee had carried her father’s death like a personal badge of grief, raging at her mother’s pragmatic: “C’est la vie.” With each date, Aimee had felt her mother’s betrayal on her father’s behalf, and today it felt like her mother wanted her to do the same to George.
“I’m not saying run off and get married, but a friend might be nice. George is gone, after all. Get out, do things, don’t just—” The sound of ringing interrupted Claudine’s words. Aimee jumped for her purse in relief.
“Hello?”
“Aimee, hey girl! Where you at?” The voice on the other end was muffled by the sound of the other patrons in the coffee shop, but Aimee recognized it at once: Niha, the intern. Her ebullient chatter was unmistakable.
“I’m at lunch with my mother,” Aimee said. “It’s Friday, remember?”
“Right! Right, yeah. Sorry!” Niha laughed. “You hardly ever go out, so I didn’t even think of phoning you until I’d paged you, like, three times.” Aimee winced, imagining how the other staff would feel about that.
“Well, you found me,” Aimee said. “What’s happening?” She crossed her fingers beneath the tabletop, hoping for an emergency that would give her an excuse to leave.
“There was a man here about twenty minutes ago,” Niha said cheerily. “He said he needed to talk to you.”
“A man?”
“Yes, a man,” Niha said. “And a good-looking one too! He seemed disappointed when we couldn’t find you.”
Aimee glared at her mother who was refilling their cups. It was on her tongue to ask if she’d set this all up, but subterfuge wasn’t Claudine’s strength. All the same, it didn’t make sense. Who would be looking for her? When Aimee had disappeared from the art scene, she’d lost touch with many of the acquaintances who’d done the rounds when she and George were a couple. And Aimee’s closest friends from art school lived in Toronto and Vancouver. Who else was there?
“Was he there for a restoration?” Aimee asked. “I told Luis I couldn’t finish the Delacroix for at least another week.”
“That was my thought too, but he told me he wasn’t. Just said he needed to talk to you. Seemed really peeved you weren’t here.”
“Why?”
Claudine turned, her thin brows rising in interest.
“He didn’t give me details,” Niha said. “But he told me it was very important.” She dropped her voice conspiratorially. “I think he might’ve been a reporter or something.”
Aimee’s hand tightened on the phone. She’d been fielding all the reporters to George’s agent: Hal Mortinson. It worried her that one had made it through her barriers. “Did he leave a number for me to contact him with?” she asked.
Across from her, Claudine’s brows were almost in her hairline. Who is it? she mouthed.
“No number,” Niha said. “But he promised he’d call back. Like I said, Aimee: he seemed really determined to talk.” She paused dramatically. “And he only would talk to you.”
—
The retrospective for George Beecher Westerberg was held at Calgary’s Gainsborough Gallery, the oldest of the city’s many art galleries, and the same one which had represented George for the last three decades of his career. Aimee had left all the arrangements for the affair in the hands of Hal Mortinson, George’s agent and dealer, refusing—under the threat of not attending—any part in the ceremonies. Hal had begrudgingly agreed, though he’d given her dark looks all evening. Aimee fought the urge to flip him the finger, but knowing Hal, he would have taken that as an invitation to chat. A piece of conversation Aimee and Hal had once shared in this very room, years earlier, floated to mind.
“You don’t mind travelling out from New York for George’s openings?” Aimee asked him. “Seems an awful long way to fly.”
“Not at all,” Hal said. “Besides, it’s worth my while. George is a blue chip artist.”
“Blue chip?”
Hal slung his arm over Aimee’s shoulders, gesturing to the milling crowd. “There’s two types of artists in the world. Blue chip and white chip.” He winked. “George is one of the blue chips. That makes all the difference.”
Aimee pulled away, forcing a smile she didn’t feel. Even then, Hal made her uneasy. “What do you mean?”
“Oh, white chips are fine, important even. They’re artists, and talented ones at that. But they don’t make what sells.” He snorted in laughter. “Can’t very well put an installation with rotting fruit, or a photograph of dying children in the front entrance of a bank, but a Westerberg painting, on the other hand. Now that’ll bring the money in.”
“Money.”
Hal grinned, sharklike, at the crowd that circled them. “Blue chip is big money. And George is one of the best.”
Aimee frowned as the memory faded. For all George’s earnings, he hadn’t saved her from money troubles. From her position at the back of the room, Aimee’s gaze lingered on the press of people. Vultures, her mind whispered. It wasn’t easy to make small talk with George’s friends and colleagues, but it was endlessly easier than being centre stage. She’d left that to Jacqueline Westerberg-Kinney. George’s daughter had done a long, touching speech about her father’s life and his importance to the Canadian art scene. It would have been perfect except for one glaring omission: George’s widow hadn’t been mentioned once.
Eyes smarting, Aimee turned to peer up to the front of the gallery. There near the podium, Jacqueline held court. She laughed and smiled, greeting the throngs of friends and neighbours who had come to pay homage. A New York socialite, her status was embossed on every detail of her attire: she wore a narrow-legged black suit, and a single string of pearls. Her long blonde hair hung in a sheet down her back.
