Page 111 of The Girl You Left Behind
Marianne Andrews sits back and lights a cigarette. She takes a theatrical breath. “Is that accent Brooklyn?”
“New Jersey.”
“Hmph.” She asks him his old address, nods as if to affirm her familiarity with it. “You been here long?”
“Seven years.”
“Six. Came over with my best husband, Donald. He passed away last July.” And then, her voice softening slightly, she says, “Well, anyway, how can I help you? I’m not sure I have much more than what I said in court.”
“I don’t know. I guess I’m just wondering if there’s anything, anything at all, we might have missed.”
“Nope. Like I told Mr. Flaherty, I have no idea where the painting came from. To be honest, when Mom reminisced about her reporting days she preferred to talk about the time she got locked in an aircraft lavatory with JFK. And, you know, Pop and I weren’t much interested. Believe me, you hear one old reporter’s tales, you’ve heard them all.”
Paul glances around the apartment. When he looks back, her eyes are still on him. She regards him carefully, and blows a smoke ring into the still air. “Mr. McCafferty. Are your clients going to come after me for compensation if the court decides the painting was stolen?”
“No. They just want the painting.”
Marianne Andrews shakes her head. “I bet they do.” She uncrosses her knees, wincing as if it causes her discomfort. “I think this whole case stinks. I don’t like the way Mrs. Halston’s name is being dragged through the mud. Or Mr. Halston’s. He loved that painting.”
Paul looks down at the cat. “It is just possible Mr. Halston had a good idea of what it was really worth.”
“With respect, Mr. McCafferty, you weren’t there. If you’re trying to imply that I should feel cheated, you’re talking to the wrong woman.”
“You really don’t care about its value?”
“I suspect you and I have different definitions of the word ‘value.’” Marianne Andrews stubs out her cigarette. “And I feel plain sick about poor Olivia Halston.”
He hesitates, and then he says softly, “Yeah. Me, too.”
She raises an eyebrow.
He sighs. “This case is... tricky.”
“Not too tricky to chase the poor girl to bankruptcy?”
“Just doing my job, Ms. Andrews.”
“Yeah. I think Mom heard that phrase a few times, too.”
It is said gently, but it brings color to his cheeks.
She looks at him for a minute, then suddenly lets out a greathah!, frightening the cat, which leaps off his lap. “Oh, for goodness’ sakes. Do you want something a bit stronger? Because I could do with a real drink. I’m sure that sun is somewhere near the yardarm.” She gets up and walks over to a cocktail cabinet. “Bourbon?”
“Thanks.”
He tells her then, the bourbon in his hand, the accent of his homeland in his ears, his words coming out in fits and starts, as if they had not expected to break the silence. His story starts with a stolen handbag and ends with an all-too-abrupt good-bye outside a courtroom. New parts of it emerge, without his awareness. His unexpected happiness around her, his guilt, this permanent bad temper that seems to have grown around him, like bark. He doesn’t know why he should unburden himself to this woman. He doesn’t know why he expects her, of all people, to understand.
But Marianne Andrews listens, her generous features grimacing in sympathy. “Well, that’s some mess you’ve got yourself into, Mr. McCafferty.”
“Yeah. I get that.”
She lights another cigarette, scolds the cat, which is yowling plaintively for food in the open-plan kitchen. “Honey, I have no answers for you. Either you’re going to break her heart by taking that painting or she’s going to break yours by losing you your job.”
“Or we forget the whole thing.”
“And break both your hearts.”
Her words lay it bare. They sit there in silence. Outside the air is thick with the sound of barely moving traffic.
