An Object of Beauty: A Novel Read Online Free Page A

did.
    When the couple left, Cherry turned to Lacey and asked her what she thought the picture would bring. Lacey knew this was a test and decided to make a calculated but extravagant guess. She thought it might be better to have her guess remembered than forgotten. She considered the picture to be a small gem that could easily snare a strong bid, so she said, “Probably one hundred seventy thousand.” Cherry smiled at the poor, innocent child.
    Lacey ran down the interior escalators. The Avery couple were on their way out of the building when Lacey caught up with them. “Do you mind if we reframe the picture?” she asked. “It might help.”
    Not quite understanding why—it had been framed the same way for fifty years—they consented at Lacey’s professional urgency.
    She took the picture downstairs and measured it, knocked off early, and dropped by Lowy, the Upper East Side framer to the magnificent. She approached the woman at the desk: “Hello, I’m Lacey Yeager, I’m with Sotheby’s. I’d like to talk about a frame for a Milton Avery.”
    Lacey’s voice carried past the desk to the racks of luxurious samples, where velvet easels held pictures while corners of frames were laid over them. Customers stood back and imagined the other three-fourths of the frame. A man walked over to her. “Hello, I’m Larry Shar. How can I help you?”
    “We have a Milton Avery that needs a frame. It’s being auctioned in the next sale. Could something be done in that time?”
    “Sure. Where’s the picture?”
    “Well, here’s the situation. The couple who’s selling it can’t really afford a frame, so I was wondering if you could make a frame on spec. We could auction the picture stating that the frame is on loan from you. Whoever buys the picture would certainly want to purchase the frame. Your work is so good.”
    “We usually—”
    “And if they don’t buy the frame,” Lacey added, “I will.”
    Larry said curiously, “What is your name?”
    With that, Lacey knew he had consented.

7.
    LACEY LIKED THE GAMBLE, and she flew home with other thoughts of how to ratchet up the picture’s appeal. She had noticed after it had been pulled from the frame that the picture was brighter where it had been hidden under the liner. Maybe the owners were smokers or had hung the picture over a fireplace, where it had been layered with grime. Certainly the picture could be freshened. She had an idea that she could corner Tony, the conservator from downstairs, and persuade him to give it a light cleaning.
    When she got home there was a message on her machine from Jonah Marsh: “Hey, want to do X tonight? I’ve got some.”
    Sure, Lacey thought, let’s do X.
    Jonah Marsh arrived at six p.m., minutes before dark. Lacey threw a maroon scarf over a lamp, reddening the room. Outside, the streets were wet from a sudden, cooling rain. Lights were coming on in windows across the street. Jonah produced the pills, displaying them in his hand like buttons. “Supposed to be excellent and very clean,” he said.
    Lacey poured two glasses of tap water and momentously swallowed a pill, then laid the other pill on Jonah’s tongue, gave him the water, and kissed him as the pill was going down.
    “You’ve done it before?” asked Jonah.
    “Yes, once.”
    “What was it like?”
    “I saw my goddess.”
    Huh?
thought Jonah.
    Minutes passed. He lay on her bed, and Lacey lay down next to him, not with romantic proximity, but at the polite distance of two travelers sharing a bed. The sex that Jonah had anticipated now seemed very distant to him. Lacey breathed deeply, and an eerie wave shimmied up her body. She gripped the bedspread beneath her and hung on until the unpleasantness passed. She comforted herself and had closed her eyes again, when, unexpectedly, a stronger, final flood of chemistry saturated her body from head to toe, placing her in its ecstatic grip. In this dream state, she saw her mother extending her hand toward her. Her