“What are you talking about?”
“Come with me,” he says.
“Where?” Jane asks, thinking partly of Mrs. Vanders, but mostly of this strange little interplay she seems to have going with Kiran’s panoptically attracted brother.
“You do know what cosmology is, right?” Ravi says. “The study of the cosmos? You’re not confusing it with cosmetology? The application of makeup?”
“Condescending donkey,” says Jane, then adds, “No offense, Eeyore.”
Ravi chuckles as he steps away. “Your choice.”
Jane watches him move gracefully up the stairs. She’s completely forgotten to tell him that Mrs. Vanders is looking for him.
“Oh,” she says, meaning to call out to him. But in that moment, a kid darts into the receiving hall below her. This house is like Grand Central Station.
Jane has seen this girl before: She’s the one who was digging up the garden yesterday in the rain. Carrying something close to her chest, she goes to a side table, pushes some lilacs aside, and slides the thing onto the empty space. Jane can’t see it properly; there are too many lilac branches in the way.
It seems almost to Jane as if this little girl waited until the lilac ladies left, then snuck into the hall just when she wouldn’t be seen. The girl darts out again, taking the path under Jane that leads into the Venetian courtyard—spots Jane up on her perch, and freezes. She glares at Jane for a millisecond before continuing on, leaving Jane wondering if it’s utterly irrational to imagine that she looks like the news pictures of the oldest Panzavecchia child, Grace. The one who vanished from her school the same day her parents tried to rob a bank. The one with the mnemonic memory devices.
Ravi is long gone. Mrs. Vanders is long gone. Kiran is long gone and that child is just gone; only Jasper remains, still hopping and wiggling and occasionally whining on his landing. Piles of lilac branches litter the checkerboard floor below, like berries on ice cream.
The house is suddenly still, like it’s holding its breath.
Then the gunshots of Kiran’s boots touch Jane’s ears once more and Kiran stalks into the hall.
She walks to the pile of lilac branches on the floor. She picks one up, shakes the water out of it, then throws it back down again, seemingly just for the violence of it. Then she wraps her arms around her chest, hugging herself, pressing her chin to her collarbone. She doesn’t see Jane. Jane’s ability to see Kiran is an intrusion into Kiran’s personal pain; Jane knows this. Still, Jane reaches out, unable to stop herself. She wants to help.
“Kiran?”
Kiran’s mask slides into place. She raises her eyes to Jane. “Oh,” she says. “Hi, Janie.”
“Are you okay?”
“Why does everyone keep asking me that?” she says. “Do I seem so not okay?”
“You seem sort of . . . missing.”
“Missing!” Kiran says. “That’s just lovely. Why did I even come here if people are going to accuse me of being missing?”
“Did Patrick confess to anything yet?”
Kiran’s face flickers with irritation. “I forgot I’d told you about that. No. He’s said nothing. You’re sweet to remember.”
“What do you think it’s about?”
“I don’t know,” Kiran says, “and I’m trying not to care.”
The lilac ladies come trooping back into the hall with more armfuls of empty vases. Kiran swings her back to them so they can’t see her expression.
“Do you ever feel,” she says to Jane, “like you’re trapped in the wrong version of your life?”
This extraordinary question fixes Jane in place. She’s felt exactly that way, ever since Aunt Magnolia died and the wrong version of Jane’s life wrapped its arms tight around her, dove into the water, dragged her to the bottom, and held her there while she drowned.
“Yes,” says Jane.
“People tell you that what happens to you is a direct result of the choices you make,” Kiran says, “but that’s not fair. Half the time, you don’t even realize that the choice you’re about to make is significant.”
“That’s true,” says Jane. “My parents died in a plane crash when I was one. Most everyone on the left side of the plane lived and most everyone on the right side died. My parents picked seats on the right, randomly, for no reason.”
Kiran nods. “Octavian went to an art auction in Vegas but his flight was delayed. He got in so late that he missed breakfast, so he caught a cab, and told the cabbie to find him a restaurant out in the desert, where he could drink a Bloody Mary and eat eggs while surrounded by flowering cactuses. The cabbie told him forget it and drove him to the Bellagio, where he got lost trying to find the restaurant and ran into a lady drawing sketches of the layout of the casino. He asked her if she was planning a heist. She told him her name was Charlotte, she was an interior designer, and she was redesigning the casino floor. Now she’s my stepmother. Could that be more random?”
“On the other hand,” Jane says, “they did decide to get married. Some things happen because we choose them.”
“Right,” says Kiran. “Go ahead, say it. I’ve chosen to be unemployed and useless.”
“Kiran,” Jane says, remembering Colin’s words to Octavian. “You’re not useless. You just haven’t found your path. I mean, welcome to my world. I don’t have a path either. I’m a way bigger moper than you are.”
“You’re not moping,” Kiran says. “You’re grieving.”
Kiran has a way of saying words that send a beam of light through the bullshit. I’m grieving. It’s like pushing my will through molasses.
“Come walk with me,” Kiran says, “and I’ll tell you the mystery of Charlotte.”
A heating pipe clangs somewhere and the air moves in the hall, whispering a word that she doesn’t quite catch. Charlotte.
Jane rubs her ears, trying to decide. She wants to know more about Charlotte, sure.
But she also needs to ask Mrs. Vanders about Aunt Magnolia—though it’s not as if finding out that her aunt was best buddies with Mrs. Vanders will bring Aunt Magnolia back. Jane suspects that beyond her urgency to know lies a crash into disappointment.
So maybe Jane should follow that Grace Panzavecchia look-alike who vanished into the depths of the house? What if that girl really is Grace Panzavecchia? And what if that’s the answer to the Okadas and Patrick, to the gun?
Of course there’s a part of Jane that wants to follow Ravi wherever he’s gone; really, wherever he goes. Ravi makes Jane feel like she’s been asleep and she might finally be able to wake up.
And what’s going on with the dog? The ridiculous dog, who’s whining on the second-story landing, watching Jane with the single most tragic expression ever seen on the face of a dog.
A bell rings somewhere in the depths of the house, almost too distant to hear, but sweet and clear, like a wind chime. “Choose, choose,” it seems to say.
Mrs. Vanders, the little girl, Kiran, Ravi, or Jasper?
The left side of the plane or the right.
Aunt Magnolia? Jane thinks. Where should I go?
The Missing Masterpiece
Jane decides.
“You know what, Kiran?” she says. “I need to talk to Mrs. Vanders first. I think she knew my aunt. I’ll catch up with you later, okay?”
“Okay,” Kiran says, shrugging, disappointed. “Text me.”
“I will.”
Kiran wanders away.
When Jane reaches Jasper on his landing, he jumps up, circles around her, then runs at the back of her legs in his usual way. She scrambles past. “Geez, Jasper!” she says. “Come with me, you’re invited,” but when she turns back to check on him, he’s gone.
Jane finds Mrs. Vanders at the far end of the second-story east corridor, standing on one leg, studying a painting. The flat of Mrs. Vanders’s bare foot is balanced again
st her inner thigh and her hands are in a praying position. Jane assumes it’s some sort of yoga pose.
“Hello, Mrs. Vanders,” she says as she approaches.
“You,” says Mrs. Vanders, not looking at her, not moving. She’s got a walkie-talkie clipped to the back of her black yoga pants.
“Yes,” says Jane. “I heard that you knew my aunt.”
“You’re not Ravi,” she says.
“No,” says Jane. “Ravi went to visit someone. His mother, I think? Is she in the house somewhere?”
Mrs. Vanders’s response is a dismissive humph. “You’ve been spending a lot of time with Ivy,” she says. “What have you two been discussing?”
Jane is fed up. “Did you not know my aunt, then?” she says, choosing sarcasm. “Am I wasting my time?”
“My question about Ivy is relevant to your question about your aunt.”
“How could that possibly be? Did they know each other?”
“Do you travel much?” counters Mrs. Vanders.
“No!” says Jane. “Why? Did you travel with her or something?”
“We have one of your aunt’s travel photographs,” Mrs. Vanders says. “A little yellow fish, peeking out of the mouth of a bigger fish. Your aunt had a way of . . . finding what was hidden.”
“Oh,” Jane says, astonished. One of her photographs, here? Jane begins to swell with pride. How appropriate that Aunt Magnolia’s work should make its way into the artistic jumble of this house. “So, is that how you knew her? Did you buy the print from her?”
Mrs. Vanders sighs shortly. “Yes. That’s it.”
“I see,” says Jane, feeling that this makes sense, except—except for the parts that don’t. “But what does that have to do with Ivy?”
“I only wondered how much she’d told you.”
“Right, but why would it matter? Is the photo a secret?”
“Of course not. It’s hanging in the west wing,” says Mrs. Vanders, flapping one hand toward the west wing and finally stepping out of her one-footed stance. She brings her face very close to the painting before her.
“Did she come here?” says Jane. “My aunt? Did you know her?”
“We communicated about the photo,” says Mrs. Vanders.
“In person? Mr. Vanders seemed to know things about her, like, how she dressed.”
“Oh, hell,” says Mrs. Vanders, her nose only inches from the painting.
“What?”
“Forgive me,” she says. “Does this picture look right to you?”
Jane, who couldn’t care less about the picture, bites back an impatient retort and takes a look. It’s a lovely, smallish painting of a woman writing at a desk. A frog sits on the checkerboard floor behind the woman, its dusty blue skin touched by sunlight coming through the window. The frog has a secretive expression on its face and the woman is quite intent on her work.
“Right, in what way?” says Jane.
“Like the Vermeer it is,” says Mrs. Vanders. “Lady Writing a Letter with Her Frog.”
“I have no idea what that painting is supposed to look like.”
“Johannes Vermeer,” Mrs. Vanders says. “A woman with a pearl earring? A woman with her frog?”
“I know about Jan Vermeer,” Jane says. “He’s famous and all that. But how am I supposed to know if this one looks right? I’ve never seen it before.”
“Well, what do you think of the light?”
Jane peers again at the painting, which has soft, bright parts and deep, dark parts that she can, in fact, appreciate. The scene seems lit with true sunlight. “Incandescent?” she ventures.
“Hm,” says Mrs. Vanders. “I’m telling you, that lady looks peaky to me. She’s not as incandescent as usual.”
“Are you saying someone’s altered the painting?”
“Altered it or forged it,” says Mrs. Vanders.
“Forged it!” says Jane. “Seriously?”
“Or replaced it with a version by a different Jan Vermeer,” Mrs. Vanders adds darkly.
Jane is beginning to wonder if Mrs. Vanders’s physical balance is inversely proportional to her mental balance. “How much is the painting worth?” she asks.
“Vermeers are rare, and rarely change hands,” says Mrs. Vanders. “It could certainly fetch a hundred million dollars at auction.”
“Good grief,” says Jane. How strange that a painting can be more valuable than the entire house it hangs in. Like a wooden box containing a diamond ring, or a ship containing Aunt Magnolia.
“Listen, I can see it’s important,” says Jane. “But you should talk to Ravi about it, or Lucy St. George, not me. Can you tell me more about my aunt?”
At that moment, Ravi appears at the top of the hall, walking toward Jane and Mrs. Vanders with his remaining slice of toast in one hand.
“I’ll thank you to say nothing outright about the Vermeer to Ravi,” Mrs. Vanders mutters sidelong to Jane.
“Why?”
“Because I want to handle it,” says Mrs. Vanders.
Ravi carries a framed painting of lily pads under the other arm. It’s recognizably impressionistic, certainly a Monet. Except that as he approaches, Jane notices that there’s something . . . off about the frogs sitting on the lily pads. Their eyes are intelligent, but . . . dead. And the lily pads seem like they’re hovering, like, actually floating around the painting. Almost. It’s pretty strange.
“Have a minute, Vanny?” Ravi asks cheerfully. “I’ve brought you something.”
Mrs. Vanders glances at the freaky Monet Ravi’s carrying and comes over with a look of pure disgust. “Oh, honestly, Ravi,” she says. “Please tell me you’re not going to ask me to help you find a buyer for that.”
“Please, Vanny?” Ravi says.
“You try my patience. You and your mother!”
“Yeah, yeah,” says Ravi. “But you know all the specialized collectors.”
“I’ll think about it,” says Mrs. Vanders, then adds significantly, “As we stand here in front of the Vermeer.”
“Yes,” Ravi says, resting his eyes placidly upon the Vermeer. Jane watches Mrs. Vanders watching Ravi.
“It’s always been my favorite,” says Ravi.
“Yes,” says Mrs. Vanders, “it’s incandescent, isn’t it?” then says no more.
Jane looks from Mrs. Vanders to Ravi, still waiting for Mrs. Vanders to ask Ravi if anything seems strange to him about the Vermeer.
“I don’t understand,” she says.
“Mind your own business, girl,” says Mrs. Vanders sharply. “I do things in my own time.”
Something inside Jane snaps. “So you don’t actually care if something’s wrong with the Vermeer?” she says. “Was it just a convenient topic of conversation to keep you from having to answer my questions about Aunt Magnolia?”
“Something wrong?” Ravi says. “What are you talking about?”
“She thinks the lady looks peaky,” Jane says, then adds belligerently, when Mrs. Vanders directs a look of fury upon her, “She used the word forged.”
Ravi freezes. He squeaks out, “Forged?”
“I didn’t want to trouble you, Ravi,” says Mrs. Vanders. “Particularly just before a gala. I’m sure it’s nothing.”
Ravi reaches out and lifts the frame from the wall. “Screwdriver,” he says with what sounds like controlled panic.
“Ravi, I think it’s apparent I don’t carry a screwdriver on my person.”
“I do,” says Jane, reaching into her pocket for the small folding knife she keeps next to her phone. It has a tiny screwdriver extension that she snaps into place, then hands to Ravi.
A moment later, Ravi is crouching on the floor, ever-so-carefully taking the frame apart. With an intense focus, he separates the canvas from the frame, then holds it up against the light. Then he reaches his fi
ngertip toward the face of the writing lady, almost, but not quite, touching her eye.
Mutely, he sets the canvas on the floor, then hides his face in his hands.
“So, I was right,” says Mrs. Vanders, sounding defeated.
“Where’s Lucy?” is Ravi’s muffled response.
“We’ll get her immediately,” says Mrs. Vanders. “Jane, do you think you could find her?”
“Happy to,” she says, but before she can move, Lucy herself appears in the corridor, walking toward them.
Lucy picks up her pace, looking puzzled, when she sees Ravi kneeling on the floor. “Ravi?” she says. “Why do you have that picture out of its frame?”
“It’s a fake,” says Ravi, gripping his white-streaked hair.
“What?” Lucy exclaims. “How can that be?”
A tear runs down Ravi’s face, then another. It’s so odd to Jane, that she should be standing here while someone as rich as Ravi kneels on the floor and cries about the theft of a painting of unimaginable value.
“It’s a perfect fake,” Ravi goes on. “Perfect except that it’s missing the pinprick in the lady’s eye. The pinprick is family knowledge. We’ve never told anyone.”
“What?” Lucy takes the canvas into her hands. “Give me this thing. What on earth are you talking about?”
“The lady’s eye is the vanishing point of the picture,” says Ravi. “Vermeer stuck a pin in the canvas. He attached a string to work out the perspective. That’s why the scene is so well-balanced. Mrs. Vanders discovered the hole, years ago.”
Lucy stares, incredulously, at Ravi. “You had knowledge of the way Jan Vermeer worked?” she says. “And you’ve never shared it with the art establishment? When we know so little about how Vermeer worked!”
“Someone has our Vermeer, Lucy!” cries Ravi in an explosion of passion. “I don’t care if he painted it with a brush stuck up his ass!”
“This is unbelievable,” Lucy says, holding the painting close. “It’s a remarkable forgery.”
“Even the cracks in the paint look right,” says Mrs. Vanders grimly. “At a quick glance, anyway.”