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Chapter 1
Olivia
“Tiamo.”
“Excuse me?”
“I love you.”
“What?”
“You don’t believe it is possible?”
The beautiful dream weighs heavy on the back of my eyelids when Contessa jumps on me to tell me it’s time for breakfast. For her anyway. I squeeze my eyes tight shut, desperate to get back into the dream; to reignite the images of Gianni’s handsome face; the sparkling river; the warmth of his skin; the touch of his lips on mine. But the dream of the memory has disappeared. It’s not coming back no matter how hard I try. I stare at the ceiling lying perfectly still, leaden limbs too cumbersome to move. Contessa is at the bedroom door saying something like, ‘Get up, stupid human, and attend to my needs.’
Yes. I am the crazy cat lady. Contessa is a pure white Persian with blue eyes that I inherited from the previous tenants of my apartment. She is absolute kitty royalty. And she knows it. My sole purpose, in my otherwise humdrum life, is to be her servant. I get it now, the saying about dogs having owners and cats having staff. It is perfectly true in my case.
“Be right there, Your Highness,” I tell her, although I am still in bed.
I’m going to be late for work if I lie here for much longer. It’s a good thing I have a cat. Something other than myself to care for, otherwise I may just stay in bed dreaming, remembering a golden moment that I lived: the best time of my life. Never to be repeated. Done. Gone. Thank you and goodnight.
I lived a dream in Florence, Italy, and fell in love with the place and the most beautiful boy imaginable. But that was years ago. So long ago, it seems as if the memory belongs to someone else. And that is kind of true. I was different back then, when I was eighteen. I was a different person from who I am now. Isn’t everyone?
Contessa tells me I’m a saddo and to get my life together before things get any worse.
I love her. She is so honest.
I ride the subway with a gazillion other people who work in New York, then pick up a coffee and muffin on my way to Mayfair & Lewis Gallery of Fine Arts, my place of work for about a thousand years. A slight exaggeration, perhaps. But that’s the way it feels sometimes.
Margot is in already. I’m her assistant and should be in first. No matter what time I arrive at the glass-fronted Manhattan gallery, she is always there ahead of me. Alright. I haven’t really altered my arrival time much to test when she comes to work. I used to care, but no one has said anything, so I just keep coming in after her. I try and sneak in under the radar.
“Morning, Olivia,” Margot says before I enter the office at the back of the exhibition space.
She is a witch and can see through walls. Although we do have a CCTV camera security system for seeing through walls. But still.
Margot is at her desk looking at the screen of her laptop. She doesn’t look up when I walk in. Usual. Her immaculately made-up face is expressionless. Business-like. As smooth and cold as the marble statue of Venus that stands against the wall behind her. It was new in this week and immediately got snapped up by a client in The Village. It has to be shipped today. That’s my first job. Or one of my first jobs.
I settle myself into my desk, open the laptop, and turn it on. The office space behind the gallery is serviceable most of the time, but with artworks coming and going, I need to be on top of things and organized. Perhaps more on top of things and organized than I am.
Artwork arrives. It has to be unpacked and checked. Then there’s a show in the gallery space. Or, most of the time, the artworks are purchased on behalf of a client who has submitted a detailed brief of what he or she wants. Our sales team has an intimate knowledge of what the clients are after and often sells a piece on to someone specific, less a percentage, of course. If the piece is not quite right for them, we send out a blast to our substantial client list, have a show at the gallery, and shift it that way. Mayfair & Lewis or M&L are high-end art dealers. I mean, our clients are the crème de la crème of big money collectors.
Margot is brilliant at keeping the admin up to date. She basically runs the place. And I am her assistant, so I pretty much get told what to do.
Margot: Jump
Me: How high?
I’ve got to hand it to her. She can turn it on, right down to the London accent that she wears like lipstick depending on who is in the room. She also keeps tabs on client trends and international markets. So, judging by the pieces I’m unpacking, there seems to be an uptick in European post-renaissance and classical Italian, which is perfect for me. I love Italian art. Especially Florentine.
A hazy memory flows across my mind as I cut away the cardboard outer casing of today’s shipment. I’m sitting on the bank of the Arno, sketching the wonderful shapes, shadows and light, of the Ponte Vecchio. But then, Margot asks something, and my attention is pinged back to the gallery.
I wear white cotton gloves to gently remove the layers of bubble wrap and tape from the painting that’s on the central table in the office. It’s a portrait of a haughty young woman wearing an elaborate lace-trimmed satin dress, cut low around her shoulders and pulled in with a structured corset. She casually shows off her gem-encrusted jewelry. Eighteen-century. A wedding portrait perhaps. The oil paint is fractured with age. I can see there has been some attempt at restoration, but it’s a bit heavy-handed. Probably done in the early twentieth century by someone who didn’t know what they were doing. The frame is finely carved and gilded. Possibly added at a later date. Margot comes over to the table to have a look. She shines a torch along the painting’s surface.
“Needs work,” she says, sucking air through her teeth.
“I’ll get on to Henry asap.”
Henry is our restorer of choice. A true artistic genius, he can bring a painting back to life and restore it to its former glory. Even one like this, which looks beyond help: dark, heavy, colorless. Henry will remove the yellowing varnish and clumsy overpaint to reveal the beauty hiding beneath layers of grime build-up and unloved years.
