Swiftly she helped with the arrangement, grouping the oils, the watercolors, the pen-and-ink sketches, the charcoals.
“You’ve got a good eye, Jenny,” Mr. Hartley said, visibly brightening as the last canvas was placed. “I knew we’d make it.”
Sure you did! she thought, trying not to sigh.
The gallery opened at eleven. By five of eleven the featured painting was in place, the handsomely lettered, velvet-framed announcement beside it: FIRST NEW YORK SHOWING, ERICH KRUEGER. The painting immediately began to attract the passersby on Fifty-seventh Street. From her desk, Jenny watched as people stopped to study it. Many of them came into the gallery to see the rest of the exhibit. Not a few of them asked her, “Were you the model for that painting in the window?”
Jenny handed out brochures with Erich Krueger’s bio:
Two years ago, Erich Krueger achieved instant prominence in the art world. A native of Granite Place, Minnesota, he has painted as an avocation since he was fifteen years old. His home is a fourth-generation family farm where he breeds prize cattle. He is also president of the Krueger Limestone Works. A Minneapolis art dealer was the first to discover his talent. Since then he has exhibited in Minneapolis, Chicago, Washington, D.C., and San Francisco. Mr. Krueger is thirty-four years old and is unmarried.
Jenny studied his picture on the cover of the brochure. And he’s also marvelous-looking, she thought.
At eleven-thirty, Mr. Hartley came over to her. His anxious fretful look had almost disappeared. “Everything’s all right?”
“Everything’s fine,” she assured him. Anticipating his next question she said, “I reconfirmed the caterer. The Times, The New Yorker, Newsweek, Time and Art News critics are definitely coming. We can expect at least eight at the reception, and allowing for gate-crashers about one hundred. We’ll close to the public at three o’clock. That will give the caterer plenty of time to set up.”
“You’re a good girl, Jenny.” Now that everything was in order, Mr. Hartley was relaxed and benign. Wait till she told him that she couldn’t stay till the end of the reception! “Lee just got in,” Jenny continued, referring to her part-time assistant, “so we’re in good shape.” She grinned at him. “Now please stop worrying.”
“I’ll try. Tell Lee I’ll be back before one to have lunch with Mr. Krueger. You go out and get yourself something to eat now, Jenny.”
She watched him march briskly out the door. For the moment there was a lull in the number of new arrivals. She wanted to study the painting in the window. Without bothering to put on a coat, she slipped outside. To get perspective on the work she backed up a few feet from the glass. Passersby on the street, glancing at her and the picture, obligingly walked around her.
The young woman in the painting was sitting in a swing on a porch, facing the setting sun. The light was oblique, shades of red and purple and mauve. The slender figure was wrapped in a dark green cape. Tiny tendrils of blue-black hair blew around her face, which was already half-shadowed. I see what Mr. Hartley means, Jenny thought. The high forehead, thick brows, wide eyes, slim, straight nose and generous mouth were very like her own features. The wooden porch was painted white with a slender corner column. The brick wall of the house behind it was barely suggested in the background. A small boy, silhouetted by the sun, was running across a field toward the woman. Crusted snow suggested the penetrating cold of the oncoming night. The figure in the swing was motionless, her gaze riveted on the sunset.
Despite the eagerly approaching child, the solidity of the house, the sweeping sense of space, it seemed to Jenny that there was something peculiarly isolated about the figure. Why? Perhaps because the expression in the woman’s eyes was so sad. Or was it just that the entire painting suggested biting cold? Why would anyone sit outside in that cold? Why not watch the sunset from a window inside the house?
Jenny shivered. Her turtleneck sweater had been a Christmas gift from her ex-husband Kevin. He had arrived at the apartment unexpectedly on Christmas Eve with the sweater for her and dolls for the girls. Not one word about the fact that he never sent support payments and in fact owed her over two hundred dollars in “loans.” The sweater was cheap, its claim to warmth feeble. But at least it was new and the turquoise color was a good background for Nana’s gold chain and locket. Of course one asset of the art world was that people dressed to please themselves and her too-long wool skirt and too-wide boots were not necessarily an admission of poverty. Still she’d better get inside. The last thing she needed was to catch the flu that was making the rounds in New York.
She stared again at the painting, admiring the skill with which the artist directed the gaze of the viewer from the figure on the porch to the child to the sunset. “Beautiful,” she murmured, “absolutely beautiful.” Unconsciously she backed up as she spoke, skidded on the slick pavement and felt herself bump into someone. Strong hands gripped her elbows and steadied her.
“Do you always stand outside in this weather without a coat and talk to yourself?” The tone of voice combined annoyance and amusement.
Jenny spun around. Confused, she stammered, “I’m so sorry. Please excuse me. Did I hurt you?” She pulled back and as she did realized that the face she was looking at was the one depicted on the brochure she’d been passing out all morning. Good God, she thought, of all people I have to go slamming into Erich Krueger!
She watched as his face paled; his eyes widened, his lips tightened. He’s angry, she thought, dismayed. I practically knocked him down. Contritely she held out her hand. “I’m so sorry, Mr. Krueger. Please forgive me. I was so lost in admiring the painting of your mother. It’s . . . It’s indescribable. Oh, do come in. I’m Jenny MacPartland. I work in the gallery.”
For a long moment his gaze remained on her face as he studied it feature by feature. Not knowing what to do, she stood silently. Gradually his expression softened.
“Jenny.” He smiled and repeated, “Jenny.” Then he added, “I wouldn’t have been surprised if you told me . . . Well, never mind.”
The smile brightened his appearance immeasurably. They were practically eye to eye and her boots had three-inch heels so she judged him to be about five nine. His classically handsome face was dominated by deep-set blue eyes. Thick, well-shaped brows kept his forehead from seeming too broad. Bronze-gold hair, sprinkled with touches of silver, curled around his head, reminding her of the image on an old Roman coin. He had the same slender nostrils and sensitive mouth as the woman in the painting. He was wearing a camel’s hair cashmere coat, a silk scarf at his throat. What had she expected? she wondered. The minute she’d heard the word farm, she had had a mental image of the artist coming into the gallery in a denim jacket and muddy boots. The thought made her smile and snapped her back to reality. This was ludicrous. She was standing here shivering. “Mr. Krueger . . .”
He interrupted her. “Jenny, you’re cold. I’m so terribly sorry.” His hand was under her arm. He was propelling her toward the gallery door, opening it for her.
He immediately began to study the placement of his paintings, remarking how fortunate it was that the last three had arrived. “Fortunate for the shipper,” he added, smiling.
Jenny followed him around as he made a meticulous inspection, stopping twice to straighten canvases that were hanging a hairbreadth off-center. When he was finished, he nodded, seemingly satisfied. “Why did you put Spring Plowing next to Harvest?” he asked.
“It’s the same field, isn’t it?” Jenny asked. “I felt a continuity between plowing the ground and then seeing the harvest. I just wish there was a summer scene as well.”
“There is,” he told her. “I didn’t choose to send it.”
Jenny glanced at the clock over the door. It was nearly noon. “Mr. Krueger, if you don’t mind, I’m going to settle you in Mr. Hartley’s private office. Mr. Hartley’s made a luncheon reservation for you and him at the Russian Tea Room for one o’clock. He’ll be along soon and I’m going to go out now for a quick sandwich.??
?
Erich Krueger helped her on with her coat. “Mr. Hartley is going to have to eat alone today,” he said. “I’m very hungry and I intend to go to lunch with you. Unless, of course, you’re meeting someone?”
“No, I’m going to get something fast at the drugstore.”
“We’ll try the Tea Room. I imagine they’ll find room for us.”
She went under protest, knowing Mr. Hartley would be furious, knowing that her hold on her job was becoming increasingly more precarious. She was late much too often. She’d had to stay home two days last week because Tina had croup. But she realized she wasn’t being given a choice.
In the restaurant he brushed aside the fact they had no reservation and succeeded in being placed at the corner table he wanted. Jenny turned down the suggestion of wine. “I’d be drowsy in fifteen minutes. I was a bit short on sleep last night. Perrier for me, please.”
They ordered club sandwiches, then he leaned across the table. “Tell me about yourself, Jenny MacPartland.”
She tried not to laugh. “Did you ever take the Dale Carnegie course?”
“No, I didn’t. Why?”
“That’s the kind of question they teach you to ask on a first meeting. Be interested in the other fellow. I want to know about you.”
“But it happens that I do want to know about you.”
The drinks came and they sipped as she told him: “I am the head of what the modern world calls ‘the single parent family.’ I have two little girls. Beth is three and Tina just turned two. We live in an apartment in a brownstone on East Thirty-seventh Street. A grand piano, if I had one, would just about take up the whole place. I’ve worked for Mr. Hartley for four years.”
“How could you work for him four years with such young children?”
“I took a couple of weeks off when they were born.”
“Why was it necessary to go bck to work so quickly?”
Jenny shrugged. “I met Kevin MacPartland the summer after I finished college. I’d been a fine arts major at Fordham University in Lincoln Center. Kev had a small part in an off-Broadway show. Nana told me I was making a mistake but naturally I didn’t listen.”
“Nana?”
“My grandmother. She raised me since I was a year old. Anyhow Nana was right. Kev’s a nice enough guy but he’s a—lightweight. Two children in two years of marriage wasn’t on his schedule. Right after Tina was born he moved out. We’re divorced now.”
“Does he support the children?”
“The average income for an actor is three thousand dollars a year. Actually Kev is quite good and with a break or two might make it. But at the moment the answer to the question is no.”
“Surely you haven’t had those children in a day-care center from the time they were born?”
Jenny felt the lump start to form in her throat. In a minute her eyes would be filling with tears. She said hurriedly, “My grandmother took care of them while I worked. She died three months ago. I really don’t want to talk about her now.”
She felt his hand close over hers. “Jenny, I’m sorry. Forgive me. I’m not usually so dense.”
She managed a smile. “My turn. Do tell me all about you.”
She nibbled on the sandwich while he talked. “You probably read the bio on the brochure—I’m an only child. My mother died in an accident on the farm when I was ten . . . on my tenth birthday to be exact. My father died two years ago. The farm manager really runs the place. I spend most of my time in my studio.”
“It would be a waste if you didn’t,” Jenny said. “You’ve been painting since you were fifteen years old, haven’t you? Didn’t you realize how good you were?”
Erich twirled the wine in his glass, hesitated, then shrugged. “I could give the usual answer, that I painted strictly as an avocation, but it wouldn’t be the whole truth. My mother was an artist. I’m afraid she wasn’t very good but her father was reasonably well known. His name was Everett Bonardi.”
“Of course I know of him,” Jenny exclaimed. “But why didn’t you include that in your bio?”
“If my work is good, it will speak for itself. I hope I’ve inherited something of his talent. Mother simply sketched and enjoyed doing it, but my father was terribly jealous of her art. I suppose he’d felt like a bull in a china shop when he met her family in San Francisco. I gather they treated him like a Midwest hunky with hayseed in his shoes. He reciprocated by telling mother to use her skill to do useful things like making quilts. Even so he idolized her. But I always knew he would have hated to find me ‘wasting my time painting,’ so I kept it from him.”
The noonday sun had broken through the overcast sky and a few stray beams, colored by the stained-glass window, danced on their table. Jenny blinked and turned her head.
Erich was studying her. “Jenny,” he said suddenly, “you must have wondered about my reaction when we met. Frankly I thought I was seeing a ghost. Your resemblance to Caroline is quite startling. She was about your height. Her hair was darker than yours and her eyes were a brilliant green. Yours are blue with just a suggestion of green. But there are other things about you. Your smile. The way you tilt your head when you listen. You’re so slim, just as she was. My father was always fretting over her thinness. He’d keep trying to make her eat more. And I find myself wanting to say, ‘Jenny, finish that sandwich. You’ve barely touched it.’”
“I’m fine,” Jenny said. “But would you mind ordering a quick coffee? Mr. Hartley will be having a heart attack as it is that you arrived when he was out. And I have to sneak away from the reception early which won’t endear me to him.”
Erich’s smile vanished. “You have plans for tonight?”
“Big ones. If I’m late picking up the girls at Mrs. Curtis’ Progressive Day Care Center, I’m in trouble.”
Jenny raised her eyebrows, pursed her lips, imitated Mrs. Curtis. “‘My usual time for closing is five P.M. but I make an exception for working mothers, Mrs. MacPartland. But five-thirty is the finish. I don’t want to hear anything about missed buses or last-minute phone calls. You be here by five-thirty, or you keep your kids home the next morning. Understan?’”
Erich laughed. “I understan. Now tell me about your girls.”
“Oh, that’s easy,” she said. “Obviously they’re brilliant and beautiful and lovable and . . .”
“And walked at six months and talked at nine months. You sound like my mother. People tell me that’s the way she used to talk about me.”
Jenny felt an odd catch at her heart at the wistful expression that suddenly came over his face. “I’m sure it was true,” she said.
He laughed. “And I’m sure it wasn’t. Jenny, New York staggers me. What was it like growing up here?”
Over coffee they talked. She about city life: “There isn’t a building in Manhattan I don’t love.” He, drily, “I can’t imagine that. But then you’ve never really experienced the other way of life.” They talked about her marriage. “How did you feel when it was over?”
“Surprisingly, only the same degree of regret that I imagine I’d have for the typical first love. The difference is I have my children. For that I’ll always be grateful to Kev.”
When they got back to the gallery, Mr. Hartley was waiting. Nervously Jenny watched the angry red points on his cheekbones, then admired the way Erich placated him. “As I’m sure you’ll agree, airline food is not fit to eat. Since Mrs. MacPartland was just leaving for lunch, I prevailed on her to allow me to join her. I merely nibbled and now look forward to lunching with you. And may I compliment you on the placement of my work.”
The red points receded. Thinking of the thick sandwich Erich had consumed, Jenny said demurely, “Mr. Hartley, I recommended the chicken Kiev to Mr. Krueger. Please make him order it.”
Erich quirked one eyebrow and as he passed her he murmured, “Thanks a lot.”
Afterward she regretted her impulsive teasing. She hardly knew the man. Then why this sense of rapport? He was so sympathetic a
nd yet gave an impression of latent strength. Well, if you’re used to money all your life and have good looks and talent thrown in, why wouldn’t you feel secure?
The gallery was busy all afternoon. Jenny watched for the important collectors. They’d all been invited to the reception but she knew many of them would come in early to have a chance to study the exhibit. The prices were steep, very steep, for a new artist. But Erich Krueger seemed to be quite indifferent whether or not they sold.
Mr. Hartley got back just as the gallery was closed to the public. He told Jenny that Erich had gone to his hotel to change for the reception. “You made quite an impression on him, Jenny,” he said, sounding rather puzzled. “He did nothing but ask questions about you.”
By five o’clock the reception was in full swing. Efficiently Jenny escorted Erich from critics to collectors, introducing him, making small talk, giving him a chance to chat, then extricating him to meet another visitor. Not infrequently they were asked, “Is this young lady your model for Memory of Caroline?”
Erich seemed to enjoy the question. “I’m beginning to think she is.”
Mr. Hartley concentrated on greeting guests as they arrived. From his beatific smile, Jenny could surmise that the collection was a major success.
It was obvious that the critics were equally impressed by Erich Krueger, the man. He had changed his sports jacket and slacks for a well-tailored dark blue suit; his white French-cuffed shirt was obviously custom-made; a maroon tie against the crisp white collar brought out his tanned face, blue eyes and the silver tints in his hair. He wore a gold band on the little finger of his left hand. She’d noticed it at lunch. Now Jenny realized why it looked familiar. The woman in the painting had been wearing it. It must be his mother’s wedding ring.
She left Erich talking with Alison Spencer, the elegant young critic from Art News magazine. Alison was wearing an off-white Adolfo suit that complemented her ash-blond hair. Jenny became suddenly aware of the drooping quality of her own wool skirt, the fact that her boots still looked scuffed even though she’d had them resoled and shined. She knew that her sweater looked just like what it was, a cheap, misshapen, polyester rag.