Restoration: A Novel (Contemporary / Women's Fiction) (3 page)

New York City always had been a sea of humanity and a
jumping off point for new beginnings like hers.  But she was more fugitive than
immigrant.  Ironic, given that she wasn’t the one who’d committed any crime.

Tess hated thinking she might have to leave, but she
needed to plan for it.  Eventually, in this city of millions, her mother would
find out exactly where she was living.  One would think Manhattan would offer
more protection, but in this day and age the persistent could track anyone
down. 

When Tess had moved to Atlanta shortly after graduating
from college, she wasn’t savvy enough to avoid her mother finding her and had
chalked that up to inexperience.  And when Tess had been in Chicago, her
brother hadn’t been able to give their mother Tess’s address and phone number
fast enough after Alish had hounded him for weeks and used her tear tactics to
break him.  Brice would rather walk over hot coals than deal with someone’s
emotions.

Who’d betrayed her this time?  Tess wondered.

She’d considered not letting her family know her
whereabouts when she’d left Chicago and moved to New York, but it was a
fleeting, irrational thought.  It would mean severing her father from her life,
and he was just as much a victim of Randall Wright as she was.  She’d figure
out something for her next move if it came to that.  Tess was tired of packing
up and moving.

If the state of Florida followed through on its commitment
to execute Wright before he contacted her, she wouldn’t have to flee again, but
the killer had eluded his death sentence too many times.  If he did so again,
she’d have to lose herself in a different sea of people.

“Good morning, Tess.”  A coy smile greeted her as she
walked through the front door of Mazzaro Brothers’ New York studio.

“Good morning, Sharon.”  Tess stroked one of the dozen red
roses arranged in a crystal vase on the edge of Sharon’s desk.  “Beautiful
flowers.”

“Aren’t they?”

She liked Sharon.  The young blonde was fresh out of art
school.  She’d talked Gianni Mazzaro into a job as his assistant after he’d
rejected her as an apprentice conservator.  Mazzaro Brothers didn’t want
inexperienced help, nor did the other studios.  Sharon had persisted, following
up and keeping in touch with the various studios that had turned her down, and
she’d developed relationships with administrative assistants who fielded her
calls. 

Before Mazzaro’s assistant gave notice and quit, she’d
told Sharon.  Through her tactical use of flattery, Sharon had convinced Gianni
Mazzaro to hire her even though she lacked administrative experience.  When
Gianni needed her, he usually was forced to track her down in the studio, where
she hovered around the conservators asking questions, observing and learning
the business.

As much as her lack of attention to her primary job
exasperated Gianni, he liked Sharon and never followed through on his rants
about firing her.  Everyone there knew that eventually Gianni would buckle
under the need to have a “real” administrative assistant and permanently banish
Sharon to the studio to become what she’d set her sights on being—an art
conservator.

Tess reached into a drop file behind Sharon’s desk and
retrieved her mail.  As she walked through the studio door behind the desk,
Tess commented, “A dozen red roses.  It looks like someone is quite taken with
you.”

Sharon followed Tess through the doorway leading into the
cavernous studio where she worked with Mazzaro’s other conservators. 
Five-foot-high partitions jutted from the walls, carving out space along the
perimeter for conservators to claim as their own.  They all used the large
common area in the middle of the room for tables, easels and other equipment
they needed to work on the various projects that came through the studio doors.

“I would agree with you, especially if the flowers had
been delivered to me,” Sharon said.

“They’re not yours?”  Tess asked while flipping through
her mail.

“No, they’re yours.”

She stopped sorting through the envelopes and turned
toward Sharon.  “Mine?”

“Don’t act so stunned.  I recall taking a few messages for
you from a guy named Ben.  And there’s a case to be made for the brown-haired
guy with the sexy goatee.  You know, the hottie who met you right outside here
after work and who took you to dinner, I presume.  Or are Ben and the hottie
the same person?

Tess tossed her mail on a large table that served as her
desk.  “As a matter of fact, Inspector Clouseau, they are one and the same.”

Sharon smirked, pleased with herself.  “I knew it.” 

“Do you have a dossier on me at your desk?”

“It gets so boring up front.  I need a little
entertainment.  Some people do crossword puzzles.  I do people puzzles.  You
know, try to figure things out about others using the clues around me.”

“Have you tried filing?  Answering the phones?”

“Now you sound like Mr. Mazzaro.  Confirm another
hypothesis for me.  Is Ben
the
Benjamin Elliot, art critic for the
Times?”

Tess shook her head and whistled.  “Damn you’re good,” she
said sarcastically.

“Thanks!  I recognized him from the picture that runs with
his column.  Now, let’s see if those flowers are from him.  I’ll be right
back.” 

Tess shrugged off her corduroy blazer.  “Is it just me or
does anyone else here think Sharon missed her true calling and should be
working for the CIA?”

Francesca Caponi looked up from the painting she was
examining, peered over the top of her bifocals and chuckled.  “Do you not know
by now there are no secrets from Sharon?  I think she will be right at home
working with us back here where there are no walls and no privacy.”

“I can’t wait.”

Tess’s workspace was diagonal to Francesca’s.  She held
the distinction of being Mazzaro’s best conservator, assigned to oversee the
highest profile projects in the States, and she often flew to Europe to consult
on projects. 

A chemist with a love for art history, Francesca had
trained at the Central Institute for Restoration in Rome.  She was an
attractive, middle-aged woman; tall and lithe with strong, sinewy arms and long
hair that she always wore pulled back while at work.  Gray strands weaved
through her black hair like fine pieces of tinsel.  Her English floated on an
Italian accent.

Like most Italians whose native tongue is dominated by
words ending in vowels, Francesca couldn’t help that the vowel “a” punctuated
her English.  It usually slipped out on the last word she spoke, like a soft
hiccup.  It took Tess a few weeks of hearing her voice before she noticed
Francesca never used the contractions so rampant in conversational English. 
Their absence and the lilting “a” vowel at the end of her sentences gave
Francesca’s voice a sophisticated sound.

Sharon returned holding the vase of roses.  “Where would
you like them?”

“You can just set them down right there.”  Tess pointed to
the edge of her table and went back to sorting through vials of powdered
pigment.

“Well?”

“Well, what?”

“Aren’t you going to open the card and see who they’re
from?”

“You haven’t already?”

“I might be nosy, but I do have my limits.  Besides, the
envelope is sealed.  It’s gotta be that guy Ben.”

Tess extended her hand.  Sharon hurried to the roses,
snatched the card and handed it to her.  As Tess opened the card, she hoped the
roses weren’t from Ben, but she knew better.  She nodded.  “You were right,
detective.”

“What does he say?”  Sharon asked.

Tess scanned the words looking for an innocuous one to
share.  “Ben.”

“Ben?”

Caught unprepared, it was the best Tess could come up. 
She didn’t want to read “Thank you for sharing part of your soul and your pain
with me.  Always, Ben,” and give Sharon something else to solve while she
played her people puzzle game.

“Not even, ‘Love, Ben?’ ”  Sharon asked, perplexed.

“No.”  Tess went back to sorting through pigments, keeping
the card tucked safely in her palm.

“That’s not too incredibly romantic.  And he’s a writer. 
Go figure.”  Sharon shrugged and turned toward Francesca.  “You look like a
doctor today, Francesca.”

Francesca inserted a needle into a painting.  “Just taking
a sample from this gentleman in the portrait.  It’s better than being a
doctor.  Look, he does not even mind when I stick him.”

“Taking a paint sample instead of a blood sample?”

“Yes, then I place the paint sample on this slide, like
so, and look at it under a microscope.”

“Sort of like a biopsy?”

“Exactly like a biopsy.”  Francesca always took the time
to explain herself to Sharon.

“What are you trying to determine?”   

“Sharon!”  Gianni bellowed, his voice rumbling through the
studio. 

“That wasn’t a good yell!”  Sharon said.  “Gotta run.  Can
you catch me up later?”

“I will be here.”  Francesca smiled.

“Hey, Sharon.”  Tess’s voice snatched at Sharon before she
disappeared.  “I need about five minutes with Mr. Mazzaro today.”

“No problem.”

She watched Sharon dash through the studio.  When she
disappeared through the doorway, Tess drew the card from her palm and re-read
the note.  It complicated things.  She tore the card into tiny pieces.  As she
turned to walk back toward her desk, she noticed Francesca gazing at her.

Francesca didn’t avert her eyes at the last minute as most
would do and pretend not to have seen the surreptitious act; instead, she
shrugged it off and said, “I am not overly sentimental either.”  Whatever
personal hypothesis she had about Tess, she kept it to herself and went back to
her work.

***

“Tess?”  Sharon said as she quietly approached.

Tess stepped back and examined the painting she’d labored
over for the past two hours, working on a section no bigger than a postage
stamp, attempting to match the color of the original painting and replicate
what had been painted on that spot more than two hundred years ago.  It was a
technique referred to as inpainting.

“Tess, if you want to catch Mr. Mazzaro, now is a good
time.  Oh, and Francesca, Ingrid is here.”

“Grazie, Sharon.  Tell her I will be just a few moments.”

Tess set down her brush on the easel’s ledge and followed
Sharon back to the lobby.  Gianni’s office was just off the lobby.  He oversaw
Mazzaro Brothers’ U.S. operations from his desk chair that looked out on a busy
Chelsea sidewalk.  Tall and perpetually tan with wavy gray hair, Gianni always
wore three-piece suits even though vests were out of style; but on him, the
look was elegant, and his natty appearance was a good argument for bringing
vests back in vogue. 

Gianni blamed the small belly he’d developed on American
food: too many processed foods, too much fat and not enough fresh fruits and
vegetables.  Tess’s stereotype of Italians was of the overweight “Italian
mama,” but after visiting Italy while in college, she discovered that’s all it
was: a stereotype.  She found Italians lean and fit and the portion sizes of
their meals satisfying rather than the overly generous amounts American
restaurants served, which were often large enough to feed three.

She hesitated walking into his office when she saw Gianni
on the phone and lingered at the threshold instead.  One hand pressed the
telephone to his ear and the other twirled the end of a fountain pen between
his lips.  He slipped the pen out of his mouth when responding in Italian and returned
it when listening.  He’d hum an occasional acknowledgement to the caller. 
Glancing up, he saw Tess.  With a nod, he motioned to the seat across the desk
from him.

Gianni hung up the phone, tossed down his pen, and clapped
his hands.  “Finally.  I thought he’d never shut up.  Now, what can Gianni do
for Miss Olsen today?”

“Remember when I interviewed?”  Tess sat on the edge of
the chair, unable to get comfortable.  “I explained that someday I wanted to do
this type of work in a city where the world’s greatest artists lived and
created.”

He chuckled.  “You’re asking an old man to remember what
he discussed with a young lady many months ago.  I can hardly remember my
conversations from last week.  But now that you mention it, I remember you
mentioning something about wanting to go to Italy, yes.”

“I want to go to Florence.”

 “Hmm.”  He studied Tess.  “I think that maybe next time
Francesca goes over there to consult on a project, we can take a look at having
you join her.  It would be good experience for you.”

“I was thinking something a little more permanent than
that.  I’d like Mazzaro Brothers to consider relocating me there.”

“You are not yet here one year and already you are
restless?”

“It doesn’t have to be for a few months.”  She didn’t tell
him it might not have to be at all.  She’d sound too indecisive.  And she was
indecisive.  Everything depended on the Supreme Court.  She needed a
contingency plan if Wright didn’t show up for his date with the executioner.

“You do good work here.  Why Florence?  It’s old.  Things
are falling apart.  Too many tourists.  Nice place to visit but,” he waved his
hand, dismissing the rest of the cliché.

“I visited Florence when I was in college, so it’s not
like I don’t know what to expect.”

“But it’s different living there.”  He leaned across his
desk, smiling, relying on his charm to help build his case.  “Besides, you do
not even speak Italian.”

“I heard a lot of English while in Italy.  I had no
trouble getting around while I was there.”

“Typical American,” he said with a smirk.  “You expect
everyone else to know English, and yes, many do, but it is not appropriate to
work there and expect people to cater to your language needs.”

“I’ll learn the language, and I’ll learn a lot quicker
living there than from a book over here.”