The Art of Stealing Hearts (12 page)

Right?

Everyone
seems on edge at work, too. Stanford is wound so tight that even me
yawning makes him snap. “If
there is something you’d
rather be doing, Grace, by all means, go ahead and do it.”

“Sorry,”
I apologize.
“I’ll
get back to work right away.”

“We
don’t
need any attitude,” he
says. “Not
today.”

“Did
something else happen?” I’ve
noticed lots of stressed out looking people running around here this
week, plenty of hushed conversation in hallways that break up when
someone passes. But even with the insurance spike, this seems like
something bigger.

“You
mean on top of a robbery that’s
left our international reputation in tatters?”
he asks,
sarcastic.

I
guess not. “Do
the police have any leads yet?”

“Nothing.”
Stanford
sighs. “And
I’m
sorry for snapping at you, it’s
just the members of the board are seriously worked up over this
theft, and they’re
taking it out on Lydia, and guess who she’s
taking it out on?”

“You.”

“Exactly.
I’d
stay out of her way, if I were you,”
he adds,
glancing around as if Lydia’s
about to come striding through on the warpath. “She’s
got that look in her eyes, like she hasn’t
eaten carbs all week and is just itching to fire someone.”

“Thanks,
I’ll
try.”

I
stay hidden down in the basement, cleaning for the rest of the day,
but I can’t
help check my phone every five seconds. St. Clair said he’d
call before the weekend, but Friday afternoon is cutting it awfully
close, isn’t
it?

Finally,
my phone rings. I jump, heart racing, hoping it’s
him, but it’s
Paige instead, calling via a long-distance app from London. “Hey,
you!” I
exclaim happily, putting down my mop and sitting on a rolling crate.

“She’s
alive!” Paige
laughs. “I’ve
been waiting all week to talk, but you’re
never online anymore.”

I
groan. “I
know, sorry. This place has me working all hours, and then I’m
pulling night shifts waitressing at the restaurant too.”

“It’s
okay, I just wanted to see how you’re
doing at your shiny new job. Things must be crazy there after the
robbery,” she
adds.

“How
do you know about that?” I
ask. No wonder everyone’s
tense; they were trying to keep it hush-hush, but obviously the
word’s
gotten out.

“The
painting was insured with my company,”
Paige
explains. “They
don’t
want to have to take the hit and pay out.”

“People
are freaking out here, too,” I
tell her, lowering my voice to a whisper.

“Is
St. Clair upset?” she
asks.

“No.
He seems weirdly calm about the whole thing.”

“I
guess he didn’t
actually lose any money on it, lucky bastard.”

“He
loved that painting, Paige. It’s
not about the money. He’s…not
like you think.”

Something
in my voice must have given me away, because she sucks in a breath
and squeals. “What
happened?” Paige
demands. “Tell
me everything!”

“What?
No!” I
say, wondering how she knew. “Nothing
happened!”

“Oh
my God, you little minx!” She
laughs. “Don’t
even try to deny it—you
know you can’t
keep anything from me. I want details.”

I
finally giggle. “Okay,
something did happen. It was amazing—”

I
stop. Lydia is standing in the doorway, looking furious. Shit. “I
have to go, Paige. Call you back.” I
hang up and jump to my feet.

“Taking
personal calls at work?” Lydia
gives me an icy glare.

“I’m
sorry,” I
say pocketing my phone. “It
won’t
happen again.” I
grab my mop. “I’ll
get right back to work.” I’m
realizing this is the second time I’ve
been caught off my game at work today, and a wave of guilt washes
over me.

“Wait.”
Lydia’s
voice stops me. “What
do you think you’re
doing?”

I
pause. Is this a trick question? “Umm,
mopping?”

She
sneers. “I
can see that. The question is, with what?”

I
stare at her, totally confused. “A
mop?”

“These!”
Lydia yells,
kicking at the bottles of cleaning solution with her pointy-toe
pumps. “Are
you an idiot, using harsh chemicals in rooms where the art is stored?
Do you know the kind of damage you can do? Even just releasing the
toxins into the air can damage the canvas!”

My
heart races. “No,
these are the supplies I was told to use.”
By
Stanford
,
I silently add, but I don’t
want to get him in trouble too right now, so I just stay quiet.

“Those
are for the lobby! For the offices!”
Lydia’s
face turns pink and she points a white-tipped nail at my face. “There
are special products for these rooms. Everyone knows that.”
She glowers
at me. “Or
everyone should.”

I
feel like the idiot she thinks I am, getting yelled at like I’m
back in kindergarten and I accidentally took someone’s
crayons. But this time I know she’s
wrong. “Lydia,
these are the correct chemicals,” I
say quietly. “If
you just check with—”

“Do
you think I don’t
know the difference?” she
cuts me off.

“No,
of course, not. I just think—”

“You
just think you know better than I do?”
Her face is
deep red now, her eyes squinted in anger, and this seems so
overblown, I think something else must have happened to make everyone
so jumpy, so upset. It’s
probably best to keep my mouth shut until this all blows over.

I
bow my head, treat her like an angry animal: don’t
look it in the eyes. “I’m
sorry,” I
mutter.

“Sorry
won’t
re-clean all these storage rooms, will it?”
she says, her
voice icy. “We
have a whole new shipment of artifacts coming in tomorrow. Where are
we going to put them now?”

“I’ll
do them all over,” I
say. “I
can stay late and come in early.”

Lydia
scoffs. “You’ve
already proven yourself incompetent.”
She takes a
deep breath and looks me up and down. “No,
I’ve
had enough of you. This is it. You’re
fired.”

My
heart stops.
What?

“No,
please Lydia, let me make it up to you.”
This can’t
be happening. It’s
only been a week! “I’m
better than this, I swear.” Tears
are building up behind my eyes. This so isn’t
fair.

“Swearing
isn’t
a result, and your results, since the beginning, have been less than
stellar.” She
puts out her hand. “Your
badge, please.”

Slowly,
I pull it from my pocket and hold it out to her. It wasn’t
much, just a slip of laminated card with my photo and name, but to
me, it represented so much more: my ticket to the career of my
dreams.

Lydia
takes it and shoves it in her purse before giving me another snooty
glare. “And
don’t
even think about asking for a reference. As far as I’m
concerned, I was right the first time. You’re
not the sort of person we want in the art world.”

She
stalks out, leaving me along with the mess of cleaning supplies and a
half-mopped floor. A failure.

My
dream is over before it even began.

I
get off the bus early and walk a few extra blocks home to help clear
my head, but it doesn’t
help. I trudge through the streets, noticing all the garbage in the
gutters, the graffiti on the walls. I love this neighborhood, but
right now it feels like all beauty has been taken from the world.

I
walk past Giovanni’s
and stop for a minute, peeking inside like a window shopper. I watch
Carmella serve a family of eight, meatballs for almost everyone, and
she smiles as she grates fresh parmesan over their plates. Jimmy
opens a bottle of wine for a couple, and Fred sticks his head out of
the kitchen window at the back to call an order I can’t
hear. I don’t
see Nona or Giovanni, but I know they’re
in there, somewhere, their hearts full of love they never hesitate to
share. If I go in there and break the bad news, they’ll
surround me with love and support, but right now I just want to be
alone.

I
move away from the window before anyone can see me and go around
back, climbing the stairs past my apartment and onto the fire escape
that leads up onto the roof. It’s
a place where I go to think, and from up here I can see the top of
Coit Tower, its gray-white top sticking up through the fog like a
sentry; the ocean in the distance, blanketed by banks of churning
fog.The tears I've been holding back finally spill down my cheeks.
Is
it too late for me, Mom? Am I just never going to make it, either as
an artist, or in the art world at all?
Carringer’s
was the only place that had even called me back in over a year. I’ve
struck out at every gallery and auction house in the Bay Area, and
then when I was given this gift, this huge opportunity at the most
prestigious auction house in the area, I blew it.

Maybe
I’m
just not cut out for that world. Maybe Lydia and Chelsea were right,
and I’m
not good enough, don’t
have the right eye or credentials. Aren’t
all the rejections a sign that I don’t
have the chops, that I don’t
belong? How much longer can I try to convince myself that someday
I’ll
make it, when the world keeps telling me to give up?

I
hear the metal of the fire escape scraping against the brick of the
building and I know someone is coming up. “Give
it up Eddie,” I
start, but it’s
St. Clair’s
head that appears.

I
stare at him in shock. “What
are you doing here?”

“Well,
hello to you, too,” he
says, climbing up to join me on the roof. He grins. “Miss
me?”

He
leans in for a kiss, but my head is still too cluttered to respond.

“They
told me downstairs where to find you. What’s
her name—Nona,
she seemed particularly happy to see me. I could hardly get away. She
said something about her eggplant parmigiana…”

I
smile, shaking my head. That woman knows everything. “She
likes to feed everyone who steps through those doors.”

“She
clearly loves you,” he
says, smiling. “They
all do.”

I
nod, fighting my tears again. They’ve
been so supportive and now I have to tell them I failed. St. Clair’s
smile slips as he sees my face. He gently brushes my tears away.

“Grace,
what’s
wrong?”

I
take a breath, willing my voice to come out steady. “I
lost my job at Carringer’s
today.”

“What?”
He looks
surprised. “What
happened?”

I
tell him about Lydia yelling at me, and telling me I wasn’t
good enough. He looks furious, like he wants to march right back to
the auction house and give her a piece of his mind. “That’s
ridiculous. I’ll
call in the morning, there’s
no way she can behave like that.”

“No!”
I yelp. “You
can’t.
And she can. She’s
the boss.” I
give a sad sigh. “Thank
you for wanting to help, but I’m
done there.”

“Maybe
this is a good thing, then. You’ll
find something else,” St.
Clair insists.

I
shake my head. “What
if I’m
just not good enough for a job in the art world?”

“That’s
ridiculous,” he
argues. “You
spotted a forgery last weekend!”

“And
your fancy art dealers didn’t
believe me.”

“You
are more than good enough, Grace,”
he says,
taking my hand. “Those
guys, Lydia, all those people who dismissed your talents, they’re
too jaded by image and status—they
can’t
see what really matters underneath.”

He
means it too, I can see it in his eyes. I wonder how he can believe
in me like this, when he barely knows me at all.

“You
have an incredible eye, Grace, and passion, which is the most
important thing.”

“Hiring
committees don’t
seem to agree with you.”

“Well
this hiring committee is ready to offer you a job.”

I
blink. What is he talking about? “What
job?”

“As
my personal art consultant.” St.
Clair smiles.

I
back away. He’s
crazy. Art consultant gigs are the most prized jobs of all: to advise
private clients on their purchases, help build collections and work
with museums. You have to have years of experience, the best
connections…I
shake my head. “Please,
don’t
joke.”

St.
Clair frowns. “I
mean it. I need someone advising me, and I trust your judgment more
than anyone when it comes to art. You don’t
have an agenda, you’re
not swayed by status or trends. What do you say?”

I
gape at him, his words finally sinking in. “You’re
serious?”

“As
serious as a German painting.” St.
Clair grins, boyish and charming. “Think
about it. You’d
travel the world, helping to curate my collection and expand my
holdings. Paris, Rome, Prague…didn’t
you say you always wanted to travel?”

“Well,
yes,” I
stammer, “I
just never thought…”

“What,
that you could have everything you wanted?”
St. Clair
smiles. “Why
not?

Why
not…?
He doesn’t
realize, the world doesn’t
work like that, not for people like me.

Except
he’s
offering it, isn’t
he? The most amazing opportunity, better than any gallery job or
internship by far. This would be real, the chance of a lifetime, and
my heart races just thinking about it. “I
don’t
know what to say,” I
whisper, overwhelmed.

“I
haven’t
even told you the starting salary yet.”
St. Clair
winks and names a six-figure number that’s
more money than I can even imagine in one place, much less in my
possession. “Plus,
of course, you’d
have access to a business expense account and the use of my private
jet while you traveled.”

“Wow,”
I say, too
stunned to say anything else. I’m
about to accept when it occurs to me that maybe this is some way to
make me a kept woman, the kind of mistress who follows him around and
is waiting obediently in the hotel whenever he gets back from work.