Cooking for Picasso (45 page)

I hesitated only a moment, then thought of my mother and my whole reason for being here.

“Look, I can rescue Mom
and
Grandma's
mas
—or I can keep the painting. I know what I have to do!” I insisted. “I just don't know how to sell artwork really quickly, do you?”

“If you wait to put it up for auction, you can surely get a much higher price than if you simply make some quick sale,” Gil pointed out carefully, as if struggling to be straight with me.

“Oh, sure,” I countered, “and give Danny and Deirdre time to find out? Imagine the pair of them wanting to make a claim on it? That's all I need! A legal battle could drag on for years. You don't know those two. There's nothing they wouldn't stoop to. No, I can never go public with this. We've got to find somebody who'd just buy it, right now, no questions asked.” I paused for breath.

“Don't you know anybody with lots of money and no scruples?” I asked dramatically.

Gil fell silent for a moment, then said thoughtfully, “Well, actually, I know a guy who'd kill to get his hands on it. He's obsessed with Picasso.”

“Great! Who is he?” I demanded.

“Paul. He's the guy who hired me to cook on his yacht,” he said slowly, a gleam in his eye now.

“The one you went off to work for when you had your nervous breakdown?” I blurted out.

Gil said quickly, “Look, I never had an
actual
breakdown. Not really. That was just the press.”

“For God's sake, Gil,” I said in exasperation, “pick up the damned phone and call him, now!”

I must have seemed a bit manic, because he then looked me in the eye rather sternly, as if to extract a promise that I would not recant later. “Céline, this is your legacy from your grandmother. So, take the time right now to look at the painting and see how you
feel
. I want to know for sure that you can give it up and never see it again.”

“Can't you get this Paul-guy to invite us on his yacht once in awhile, as part of the bargain?” I said. “So I can visit my painting?” But I thought I understood what he was trying to say, so I did as he asked. I padded across the room and for several intense moments I stood in front of that extraordinary portrait. This Picasso seemed too monumental for any one mortal to possess, and I told Gil so. I gazed into the girl's eyes for awhile longer, thinking,
Grandma, if you don't want me to sell, then please, send me a sign!

But she only looked back at me as if to say,
Don't bother me, it's your life now.

And since no tree fell on my head and lightning didn't strike me dead, I turned away more resolved than ever. “I don't think Grandma Ondine was terribly sentimental. If
she
was in this situation and needed it to help Mom and to keep the
mas,
I know she'd do what she must,” I said briskly.

Then I heard my phone buzzing with an incoming message. I fished it out of my pile of clothes.

“What's the matter?” Gil said when I went pale after seeing the name of the caller. Now I understood my earlier instinct, summoning me back to battle. I put the phone on speaker mode so we could hear the voicemail message. It was from the hairdresser at the care home in Nevada:

Céline, your mother's had an attack of some kind. They've taken her to the hospital as “only a precaution”, but you might want to be here. The good news is, this week your mother began speaking again and she asked where you were. I asked the ambulance driver which hospital they were taking her to. Here's the name and address. But I heard your brother tell the hospital not to put through any phone calls or messages to your mom, nor to allow any visitors.

“
D
AMN IT!”
I
said under my breath, struggling shakily to climb into my clothes. “Those siblings of mine are going to be rotten, right to the very end. But this time I'm going to
really
fight for her.”

“Céline, you ought to call your lawyer,” Gil suggested. “You shouldn't have to face those people without him. Tell me who to call and I'll do it for you.”

I looked at him through a blur of tears. “You want to help me? Get me money. Lots of it, so I can finally defend my mom. Sell the painting, Gil. Do it now, wire me my share and pay off your thugs to save our
mas
. But first—please get Maurice to change my flight to Nevada, tonight!”

Gil gave me a hug, then stroked my cheek soothingly. What I saw in his eyes was lovely and I felt a joyous urge to savor it; in fact, it made me tremble, but I was already steeling myself for the battle ahead and he seemed to understand that.

“I'll take care of everything,” he promised, picking up the phone. “Just leave it to me.”

I was too worried about my mother to even give it a second thought.

“
B
ABY
C
ÉLINE
EST ARRIVÉE
!”
O
NDINE
exclaimed jubilantly when Madame Sylvie came to her front door that afternoon. Breathlessly Ondine explained that, just as she was about to sit down to dinner with her daughter, Julie had gone into labor right here at the
mas,
and Arthur had to rush her off to the hospital. Ondine had been waiting at home for hours, so anxious for news.

“But just now I finally heard from the doctor!” Ondine continued, clearly ecstatic. “Julie's baby
is
a girl, and she's healthy and beautiful.”

Madame Sylvie smiled indulgently. “Well, you don't need me, then,” she said.

Ondine took her by the arm and pulled her inside.
“Au contraire!”
she exclaimed. “Let's go out to the terrace and have tea, and then you can read the tea leaves and the cards.”

“For you or for Julie?” Madame Sylvie inquired.

“I don't want to hear about
me
or Julie!” Ondine said with an airy wave of her hand. “The die has already been cast for us. Now it is the baby's fortune you must tell me!” As the two ladies sat down to tea and an almond
gâteau
with cream and peaches, Ondine remarked, “Poor Julie never had a chance to eat her dinner. Well, tomorrow I'll take her some nice roast chicken from the café, and I'll bring her a cherry
tarte,
too. All right, now, please tell me—what kind of future do you see for baby Céline?”

Madame Sylvie poured tea into a special tiny ceramic cup trimmed in gold which she'd brought as a gift, and Ondine obligingly drank this thimbleful of tea for the infant. Then Madame Sylvie peered at the leaves left behind in the cup. Instantly she tried to suppress a frown, but Ondine was quick to demand, “What's wrong? Tell me quickly, don't hold back.”

Madame Sylvie assured her, “No, it's all right. The girl will be healthy and strong, and intelligent and gifted. And girls today are smarter—they have careers of their own!”

Ondine agreed with this. But she was nobody's fool. “What else can you see?” she prompted.

Madame Sylvie dealt the cards now. She studied them closely, then said forthrightly, “It's only that it won't be easy for Céline. She will struggle to attain the true destiny that was meant for her.”

“It's because of her father, isn't it?” Ondine said worriedly, leaning forward.

Madame Sylvie said hesitantly, “Yes, he's an impediment. He will be exactly the opposite of what a parent should be—an adversary rather than an ally. And—I'm afraid Céline won't get much help from her mother, either. Julie will not protect her from him, which will drive the girl away from home.”

Ondine sighed deeply. “Then—what are my grand-daughter's real chances?” she asked. “Will she succumb to the obstacles life presents her, or will she triumph?”

Madame Sylvie looked at her reproachfully. “You know I can't tell you that, since I can't yet see so far ahead as to how chance and luck will enter her life. I can only say, the girl will sink or swim depending solely upon her own strengths and her will to survive.”

Ondine did not like this one bit. A baby, after all, should come into the world with nothing but hope. She felt the old protective instincts surging in her heart, making it beat worriedly. Some part of her wished she hadn't summoned Madame Sylvie here today at all. “Will she find love?” she demanded.

“Ah!” Madame Sylvie responded. “I see men in her life. Can she choose wisely? That all depends on the path she follows. You can only find love where you are brave enough to see the truth.”

After Madame Sylvie left, Ondine carried her mail into her kitchen, temporarily distracted from her worries while sorting over her affairs, taking comfort in resuming the routine of her life after all this disruptive excitement.

“I haven't done so badly, after all,” she commented as she paid a few bills and consulted her ledger. “One has to be organized, that's the key.”

Ondine enjoyed having money, chiefly for the security of going to bed at night knowing that there was a tidy sum in her bank account as a bulwark against hard times, war, the economy, and anything else those thieves in government and commerce got up to. She liked being in control of her own business; the
mas
was thriving and the café functioned like a well-tended clock, although she had to keep a sharp eye on those rascals in her kitchen.

Ondine stuck stamps on a few pieces of mail, then put them aside with a sigh of satisfaction. At the end of the week, her handsome young lawyer, Gerard Clément, would stop by the café to review her documents and eat his lunch, which he'd done, as a friend, twice a month, for years. But nowadays, he and Ondine no longer discreetly sneaked off together to her bedroom above the café. Still, the passionate trysts they'd had for a few fine months were memorable enough.

“What a surprise that delightful Clément turned out to be!” she recalled with a smile. She'd been in her fifties when he took over the law practice of the elder lawyer that she once cooked for. Gerard Clément, like many young Frenchmen, had chosen a woman nearer his mother's age for his first great love affair.

“Would he have found me so attractive if I didn't have money?” Ondine said with a chuckle. “Yes, frankly, I think he would. But who cares, anyway? Joy is joy. How charmingly ardent he was. Oh, yes, that was fun!” Nowadays her heart wouldn't be able to endure climbing those stairs—not to mention the other exertions that once awaited her in that bedroom!

She sighed and picked up her cane. “All in all, it's a good life.” She glanced at the fine golden sunlight pouring into the room, beckoning her to come back outside.

She stopped by her bedroom to get a scarf, and out of habit her gaze darted to the spot where the Picasso portrait used to be. At first it gave her a jolt to see only the empty space atop the chest of drawers. Then she remembered.

“Oh, yes, I put the painting in the dumbwaiter! All because of Arthur. What a poor little fool Julie was to marry that man!” she exclaimed. “He's not satisfied unless he can control everything he touches. Well, at least Arthur never laid his greedy eyes on my Picasso. And, by God, he never will!”

It was too bad that Ondine had not regained an opportunity to speak to Julie alone, as she'd hoped she might do after dinner. But,
alors!
The baby Céline had insisted on interrupting them to be born.

But perhaps that, too, was an omen, she mused. She'd already set up enough money in trust for Julie financially. She didn't need the painting for a dowry anymore. It was Céline's turn to have
her
dowry. Did girls even have dowries these days? Well, this grand-daughter would!

Ondine went into the kitchen to retrieve her portrait from its hiding place. She pressed the button, but the dumbwaiter, like a stubborn beast, refused to budge, only making an alarming electronic groan before the motor died out completely. Ondine peered down the shaft.

“How annoying that I can't go downstairs and get that painting myself!” she said, exasperated. “Well, I'll just tell Clément about it tomorrow, and ask him to go and retrieve it for me.”

She had never shown Clément the Picasso, nor even told him about it, chiefly because Ondine didn't want her lover to see how much younger her face looked in that portrait.

“Ah, I can't be so vain any longer,” she decided. She'd get him to draw up the proper legal papers so everybody would understand that Picasso's
Girl-at-a-Window
belonged to Céline. Clément was an honest, discreet fellow; he would do whatever she asked.

Thinking of the eager young man who loved to please her, Ondine smiled again.

She felt much better now, having resolved this weighty issue in her mind. When she glanced up, she saw her face mirrored in a window. Drawing nearer she thought stoutly that, while young faces were nice, even at their best there was something a little blank about them because they were only halfway-there to becoming themselves.

Somehow today, for once, Ondine was able to assess her reflection with enough detachment so that she could indeed see something worth capturing—not merely to illuminate who she was, but to express so much about life itself in all its bittersweetness. “Imagine what a portrait of me would look like now! But how would Picasso see it?” Contemplating this, she concluded sagely, “Women should paint. The human face is far too important to leave solely to the eyes of men!”

She gathered her basket and gloves, but then another thought occurred to her that made her pause. A good organizer, after all, knows when there is still a loose thread somewhere in the tapestry.