Epilogue

SIX MONTHS LATER

It’s just as I imagined: laughter and bright swirls of color, champagne and the giddy scent of expensive perfume. Not to mention lots of air kisses. For here I stand, in Markel G, at the opening of my first one-woman show. I say first because I’ve been asked to do two more. One at the Royal Academy of Arts in London and the other at a Tokyo gallery whose name I can’t pronounce. From pariah to darling in less than a year. A heady accomplishment, but one that gives me pause.

The place is packed and five of the paintings have red dots next to them. The reviews are fabulous, the buyers lining up, the curators fawning, and suddenly it looks as if I might really be on my way. Someone to be feted and petted and asked for favors. I’d let it all go to my head if I didn’t know where it came from. The media is always commenting on how unpretentious and down-to-earth I am. I suppose that’s one way to put it.

As I walk through the crush, I see faces I know, faces I don’t, and faces I recognize who now recognize me. I’m pulled from every direction, photographed until I can’t see anything beyond the reflected light in my eyes.

Professor Zimmern kisses me on both cheeks. “Which is more fantastic, this show or how it all came down? Sandra Stoneham, of all people. I’ve known her for years. Who would have thought?” Then he grins. “But I guess you did.”

Zimmern, of course, is referring to the return of Degas’ After the Bath, which now hangs, brilliant and proud, in the Short Gallery, summoning people from around the world and increasing the Gardner’s traffic threefold. The museum had planned a gala installation, not reinstallation, for Belle’s birthday on April 4, but the painting wasn’t hung until June.

And it wasn’t because of Sandra Stoneham. That morning in the parlor, she explained to me that After the Bath was the only item she had of her Aunt Belle’s, that she knew it was wrong to keep it, but that her mother and grandmother had ordered her to. “And I wanted it for myself,” she admitted. “I sit in here all the time, taking her in, loving the fact that she’s mine and nobody else’s.”

“Your mother and grandmother?” I asked.

“Grandmother Amelia had promised Aunt Belle she would bring the painting up from the basement and hang it in the Short Gallery after she died, but when the museum’s director was so nasty and withholding, Grandmother decided to keep it instead. Our secret family legacy, which she passed to my mother, who passed it to me with the stipulation it must never go to the Gardner.”

“To punish the museum or to hide Belle’s nudity?”

“A bit of both,” Sandra said, with a wistful smile. “But I suppose that’s all over now.”

Sandra gave up the painting willingly, said she was actually relieved, and the Gardner didn’t press charges. It was clear from Belle’s will that After the Bath belonged to the museum, but neither the board of directors nor the FBI had the stomach to indict an eighty-two-year-old woman who claimed to be the last living descendent of Isabella Stewart Gardner.

Ironically, it was the will that caused the installation to be delayed. There was a legal battle over whether Degas’ After the Bath could be hung in the museum. Belle’s will specifies that nothing in the museum can be removed or changed, and Virgil Rendell’s forgery was hanging there when she died. Fortunately, common sense won out, and the Gardner will be auctioning off Virgil’s version to bolster the museum’s endowment.

Karen Sinsheimer walks up to me. “Claire, Claire, Claire,” she says. “You just can’t keep yourself out of trouble, can you?”

“Guess not.” I’m encouraged by her smile but still uncomfortable with our history. It’s like this with so many people here tonight.

“I’m so sorry, Claire. I wanted to tell you in person how wrong I was not to take your claim about Isaac more—”

I wave her apology aside. “Not important. I’m just glad things worked out.” And work out they did. After the Gardner determined that Bath II was my work, MoMA went back and retested 4D. And this time, the experts got it right.

I’m suddenly surrounded by the gang from Jake’s. They appear to be even more excited than I am, and they’ve clearly had many more drinks.

Mike throws an arm around my shoulders. “And you thought this day would never come.”

“Crystal’s here,” Danielle hisses. “We’re all ignoring her.”

Maureen holds up her glass of champagne. “About time you were buying me a drink.”

Small squeezes me around the waist and starts to cry.

Kristi pulls me away from Small. “Just got off the phone with the contemporary curator at the Whitney. They’re in a bidding war with a collector in Bangkok for Nighttime T.” She practically pounds me on the back.

Rik comes toward us. He spent the afternoon with me, helping with last minute details at the gallery. Now he grabs both of my hands and gives me a deep, penetrating stare. He blinks rapidly to hold back the tears. I have to grab a tissue quickly so mine don’t destroy my makeup.

“Bear,” is all he can manage.

The discovery of Degas’ After the Bath sent all the Belleophiles into an ecstatic frenzy, each offering different versions of the possible historical events. The biggest debate is between those who believe Belle and Degas were involved in a passionate love affair—there are enough rumors of her extramarital conquests to back this up, although no specific evidence of this particular dalliance—and those who maintain she not only never would have cheated on Jack but never would have posed nude. They attribute the body in the painting to Degas’ imagination. And there’s no denying he had plenty of that. Still, if Belle never had an affair with Degas and never posed nude, why would she have buried the painting and hired Virgil Rendell to forge it?

For it appears Rendell did forge it, but not because he stole it or was blackmailing Belle; according to Sandra, it was Belle herself who didn’t want it seen. Based on a comparison between the painting Aiden turned over to the FBI, the same one he brought to my studio, and Sandra’s Amelia, authenticators determined they were the work of the same artist.

There was another Rendell mystery that troubled me: Why were his journal and sketchbook mixed in with the Prescott/Stoneham memorabilia? When I asked Sandra, she confessed yet another family secret: Virgil Rendell was her grandfather. He and Amelia had a long-running affair; Fanny, Sandra’s mother, was their child. And yes, it was Belle, the matriarch, whose overconcern with class had forced the young lovers apart and compelled Amelia into an unhappy marriage.

It’s ten o’clock, and the party’s going full force, with more people coming in than there are leaving. The whole thing’s surreal: the sales, the attention, the people popping up from odd corners of my life. Kimberly from Beverly Arms. Ms. Santo, my high school art teacher. Shelley McRae, my childhood babysitter. The optometrist from my neighborhood eyeglass store. Even Helene, a third cousin from Providence. It’s so bizarre that at times it feels as if I’m not actually here. That I’m just a façade, smiling the smile, talking the talk, while my real self is off somewhere else being regular Claire.

Kristi and Chantal draw me into a corner. “The Whitney scored Nighttime T,” Kristi cries.

Now I know for sure I’m not really Claire, that I’ve assumed the persona of some other artist. The Whitney.

“It’s true.” Chantal claps her hands together.

Kristi points to a chair, and I sit, stunned, dazed, not able to believe. She glances at her watch and says to Chantal, “Tomorrow’s Sunday. I’ll go down first thing in the morning and tell Markel.” Then she throws me a guilty glance. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to mention.”

“Not necessary,” I say, but the truth is, I’d just as soon not be reminded of Aiden.

He’s still in jail, held without bail, awaiting a trial that probably won’t start for another six months, maybe a year. I haven’t seen or spoken to him since our last conversation, and that’s the way I plan to keep it. Whatever my feelings may be for Aiden, complete disassociation from him is a penance I accept.

The FBI finally allowed the gallery to reopen just last month, and in a concession I almost didn’t make, I accepted Kristi’s offer to hold the show here. Rik said I had to, that I shouldn’t allow misplaced guilt to inhibit my career. But he’s wrong about the misplaced part. A woman who makes a Faustian bargain is not without responsibility.

Finding After the Bath also saved Aiden’s finger. He was released on bail long enough to pay off the sellers. But after the painting he turned over to the FBI was determined to be Virgil Rendell’s forgery, it was also determined to have been the painting stolen in the Gardner heist, and bail was revoked. Aiden’s the only link the authorities have to the Gardner thieves, and even though he keeps telling them he has no idea who robbed the museum, they’re hoping fear of a long prison term will jog his memory. For all I know, it just might.

Kristi drops a hand to my shoulder. I look around me, at all the people, at all the red dots. I think about the life stretching ahead of me, filled with such promise. But, just desserts, it’s impossible to know if this newfound fortune is due to my talent or to my infamy in a world of instant celebrity. Whether I’m a great artist or just a great forger. And no matter what happens to me or to my work, no matter how big the commissions or how great the museums, I suppose I’ll never know.