Page 30 of The Muse (Beautiful Magic 1)
Today is no different, as two Americans stand in front of the red-and-blue Van Gogh and marvel at such a price. I’m about to leave them to their debate when a man clears his throat loudly enough to interrupt the couple.
“Great art demands a great price,” the man says.
I search out the voice and am surprised to see Max, the artist I pass almost every day drawing caricatures by the river. “You have to be great—have great talent—to make art that matters,” he adds.
I don’t know Max well, but this doesn’t sound like the guy who joked about horses the other day. The pair in front of the Van Gogh do that smile Americans do when they don’t know how else to respond and then make an awkward exit with the last of the tour group.
Max, though, strides over to me and lifts his chin defiantly. “Your painting is a fake.”
I blink, unable to put that into context. “I’m sorry?”
“Woman Wandering in the Irises. It belongs to my family.” He stares at me with unflinching eyes, and a thick curl of dark hair slides onto his forehead. “To my parents.”
“Whoa. I don’t think so.” I want to ask how a street artist could even own a Renoir, but I suppose that’s elitist. For all I know, his family could be reclusive millionaires, collectors who live in a castle full of Dr. Gachets. In his ratty sweatshirt with worn cuffs hanging down to his fingernails, Max could be some kind of family rebel, I suppose.
Sweatshirt. The other night, leaving the museum after my date with Clio, didn’t I see a guy in a sweatshirt and jeans lounging on the steps? It certainly could have been Max. But why? Had he been watching me? Or was he staking out the museum?
He’s definitely confronting me now, tapping a black leather folder he’s carrying. “I have the papers to prove it,” he says.
That shakes me out of my dazed confusion. “How come you’ve never mentioned this all the times I saw you by the river? You knew I worked at the Musée, and it’s been in the news that the Renoir was coming here. Why are you just bringing this up now?”
“It was not part of our conversations,” he says. His voice is off somehow, like the words and cadence don’t quite fit. “And if you’ll just introduce me to your sister, I can resolve the matter with her.”
Adaline has enough worries at the moment. More than that, though, there’s the queasiness that sets in at the thought of Max—of anyone—taking Clio away.
Her painting is mine to keep safe. Mine to protect.
I motion for Max to follow me to the stairwell where we’ll have some privacy, and I channel that desperate feeling into a voice of steady authority. “Show me the papers first,” I say when the stairwell door closes behind us. “Then I’ll take you to the curator’s office.”
Max still holds the folder against his chest like we’re in a standoff. “It was ours,” he insists. “It was stolen during the war, and we’ve been searching for it since then.”
Reaching inside the folder and using only the tips of his fingers to handle them, he pulls out a sheaf of papers and hands them to me. A quick scan shows they claim his family bought the painting from Remy’s family before the Second World War.
When Max leans closer to look at the papers alongside me, his breath smells like heavy rose perfume, like how I imagine the girls at their vanities in those Renoir paintings smell.
Max nods to the papers. “I would like to show Ms. Garnier the documents.”
I’m not an expert on authentication, so even though it’s the last thing I want to do, I lead him downstairs to my sister’s office and introduce her to Max, who corrects me to say his name is Maximillian Broussard. He launches immediately into an impassioned assertion of his family’s ownership of Woman Wandering in the Irises, and all I can think is, You don’t own Clio. No one does. No one can claim her, and I vow to make sure that stays true.
As he talks, all I can think about is the woman I kissed last night, how warm and sensual she is, how clever and fun, and how sad she is at times . . . sad to be trapped.
I cannot let this man take her away.
I can’t let anyone get their hands on Clio. I have to protect her until I can figure out how to help her.
Free her.
It’s the first time I’ve let myself think it in so many words. But if she’s trapped, then it stands to reason she can be let loose. I haven’t a clue how, but I won’t figure it out if Max or anyone else takes the painting out of the museum.
