We Fell Apart: A We Were Liars Novel(38)

“Then this other cousin of mine, we were supposed to meet up, but he blew me off a bunch. And I don’t know why he didn’t show, or what I did that made him decide to ditch me now, of all times. I wouldn’t have thought that kind of thing would matter so much, but it actually gutted me. Because I lost Johnny and Mirren, so it feels like the threads connecting me to all the family in my own generation just burned to ash and blew away. I’m very…” Holland trails off. She stands and paces the room a couple times.

I wait.

“I know I’m lucky as hell,” she says finally. “I shouldn’t have dumped this on you. I’m not trying to make you feel sorry for the poor little rich kid. But it’s just freaking sad and I’m going through it.”

“It’s okay.”

“This is a picture of them,” she says, pointing to Cliffside Gothic. “My aunts, when they were young. That’s my aunt Carrie, the Cinderella. And that’s my aunt Bess and my aunt Penny.”

“That’s your family?”

“Absolutely no doubt.”

“Kingsley knew Tipper Sinclair,” I say. “Is that her? The mother in the painting?”

“Yeah.”

“Why is your aunt Carrie Cinderella?”

“I have no idea.”

“Why are they on the edge of a cliff?”

“I don’t know. But it looks like the cliffs on Beechwood.”





36


After absenting herself from our meals for well over a week, this evening June is making an enormous meringue. A “pavlova,” she calls it. It’s the size of a lasagna, and she’s topped it with whipped cream and a thousand wineberries, blueberries, and blackberries, dusting the whole with powdered sugar. “Dessert for dinner,” she calls out, when it’s ready.

I come in from the living room, where I’ve been drawing in my sketchbook, and follow her out to the picnic table with napkins and silverware in my arms.

I haven’t told anyone about Holland coming by this morning because they never have visitors—so I’m surprised to see that tonight there is a dinner guest. He’s already standing at the table with a glass of wine in his hand, talking to Meer and Brock.

Gabe is unusually tall and very thin, probably about fifty. He’s Black with cropped graying hair and wears a cream-colored linen suit that hangs on his frame as if he once filled it out with more muscle. He tells me he’s based in New York but he’s been coming to the island since he was a kid, part of the long-existing Black community vacation scene outside Oak Bluffs. He met Kingsley and June here fifteen years ago when he tagged along with a filmmaker friend to a party at Hidden Beach.

Now he’s Kingsley’s cultural property lawyer. He handles “relationships with galleries, purchases by collectors, and estate planning.” June invited him over because an offer came in for one of the more famous paintings, Prince of Denmark. But she can’t get Kingsley to sign the paperwork, she says. Off in Italy, he isn’t answering email or telephone calls. She wants Gabe to talk her through the options, since the buyer is eager to close the deal.

“What’s the painting?” I ask.

“It’s a Hamlet thing,” says June. “It caused a big drama when the Whitney showed it.”

“How come?”

“Critics called it overly violent, untrue to Shakespeare, all that. They said it was a cheap offering aimed at creating a sensation. Not that Kingsley minds. He never cares what critics say.”

“And the offer’s for eight million,” says Gabe, “partly thanks to the controversy.”

“Eight million, for one painting?”

“It’s in a nice frame,” says Gabe, winking.

As we eat, he asks me questions that seem light and friendly at first. Where am I from? Am I headed to college? What do I want to study? But when he’s had a couple glasses of wine and the meal is winding down, he fixes me with a stare. “You came for money, yes?” he asks, slurring his words only slightly. “Your father’s money?”

“No.” I put my fork down.

The rest of the table goes silent.

“Come on. You’ve got college to pay for,” Gabe says. “And while there aren’t a lot of eight-million-dollar paintings, there are a lot of two-million-dollar paintings.”

“I’m not after money,” I say, squirming. “Kingsley’s already giving me a painting. That’s more than enough. I didn’t ask for anything.”

“I don’t know about him giving you a painting,” says June, sharply.

“The one he made of her,” explains Meer. “Lost. That’s for Matilda to have. She has it in her room now.”

“Kingsley’s paintings aren’t birthday presents for his models,” says June. “Just because Matilda’s in Lost doesn’t mean it’s hers.”

“I don’t mean to be rude,” Gabe says to me. “But it’s my job to look out for Kingsley. Not June, not Meer, and certainly not any other children Kingsley might have. Just the man himself. And I need to tell you that gifts of paintings don’t just happen casually when he’s not at home.”

“I have it in an email,” I explain. “And Meer knows about it.”