The Curiosities Read online

  “As a matter of fact it was,” she said. “I accept.”

  “Great,” Don said. “I’ll need you to fill out some paperwork, but we can do that later.”

  “So what can I do for you?” Nell asked.

  “Remember when I told you how one of the artists selected was a university student?”

  “Sure,” Nell said. “For one of the three slots.”

  “Well, I just got a call from the chair of the art department there. She wants the young woman, a senior, to come and meet with you before the program starts and was wondering if today would be okay. Could you come by Betsy’s house later? I’m sorry for the last-minute notice. Apparently the student is flying out to Rhode Island tomorrow morning to do an intensive interim class before winter break ends. When she gets back, it sounds like she’ll be quite busy with both the residency and her spring semester classes starting up around the same time.”

  “Uh, sure, I can meet you at the house,” Nell said, grabbing a paper and pen. “I just need to know where it is.”

  After they hung up, Nell opened her closet to search for something to wear. She couldn’t wear the same suit she’d worn to the interview the day before. And, anyway, she wasn’t sure she wanted to look quite so formal when meeting with a college student. She settled on a black jersey wrap dress that mercifully still stretched to fit her.

  That afternoon, Nell left the house earlier than she probably needed to, taking her time on the slippery streets leading to the Mansion Hill Historic District. Some of the homes here had been lovingly restored and now housed B&Bs or law offices. Others, sadly, had been divided into crowded student apartments. These could be identified by slumped porches and crude For Rent signs tacked onto peeling siding. Only a few of the buildings in the district had remained single-family homes.

  So much for historical preservation, she thought.

  A light snow started to fall, and Nell slowed down, checking the addresses. The numbers matched those on a white Greek Revival mansion with black shutters, a red door, and a charming third-floor cupola that overlooked the lake. Its architectural style was simpler than that of the homes that bordered it—a multicolored Arts and Crafts beauty on one side and a blue Queen Anne Victorian on the other.

  The house’s clean design provided the perfect backdrop for a sculpture garden in its yard. A bronze tree stood in the middle of a berm topped by snow-covered bushes. A stone sculpture of a mother and child holding hands stood at the edge of a border made from tall grasses, now flattened by snow. The figures didn’t have faces or really any detailed features—just two assemblies of rounded bodies and limbs. Still, the way the small figure’s head was turned upward toward the taller figure brought a lump to Nell’s throat.

  A black Lexus sat idling in the mansion’s brick driveway. Nell parked behind it and, before she could even get out of the car, Don already stood at her driver’s-side window, tapping on the glass. Nell rolled the window down, shivering at the blast of cold air from outside.

  Don thrust out a leather-gloved hand dangling a set of keys. “Here you go,” he said.

  She took them and got out of the car. “So this is Betsy’s place?” she asked, staring up at the massive house. A wraparound porch hinted of lazy summer days spent staring out at the lake.

  “You should see it in spring,” Don said, gesturing toward the front yard. “Betsy had her gardener rip out some of the grass and plant a native prairie garden. It blooms from April to October.”

  Nell took a few steps toward the mother and child sculpture. “I bet it’s gorgeous, with all the sculptures.”

  “They’re by Wisconsin artists,” Don said. “Inside there are plenty of pieces by artists from all over the country, even the world, but Betsy said she felt strongly that if she was going to put artwork outside the house, where everyone would see it, she wanted it to be ‘native,’ just like the flowers she had planted.” He looked at his gold watch. “I only have a few minutes before I need to head back to meet a client. But I can let you in and show you a few things.”

  He jiggled the key in the lock and pushed open the front door. Nell followed him into a foyer with marble-tiled floors, high ceilings, and a curved staircase lit by a crystal chandelier. She noticed a huge portrait of an elegant, gray-haired woman hanging on the wall of the landing. The woman wore a pale blue tailored jacket and diamond cluster earrings.

  “That’s Betsy,” Don said. “It was painted several years ago, before the cancer diagnosis. She wasn’t the sort of person to put a portrait of herself on the wall, but she cast the winning bid in a charity auction on a commissioned portrait by a local artist. I’m the one who hung it there, actually. Found it in a storage closet after she died. I thought that if this place was going to serve as her legacy, people might as well know what she looked like. Come on, let me show you where the trust documents are.”

  He led her to a room in the back of the house with large windows overlooking Lake Mendota. Out on the ice, Nell could see a few lone shanties and red tip-up flags signaling where fishing holes had been drilled. She turned around to look at the fireplace on the opposite side of the room flanked by built-in bookcases that looked like they’d been styled for Architectural Digest. Colorful books shared shelf space with small sculptures, folk art pottery, and the occasional natural object—a smooth, gnarled piece of driftwood here, a bird’s nest there. In the middle of the room stood a large, lacquered desk.

  “Was this Betsy’s office?” Nell asked.

  Don nodded. “It used to be Walt’s, but after he died Betsy overhauled it. I guess it used to be all dark wood paneling and old maps on the walls. He collected them.”

  “Well, she did a beautiful job redecorating.” Nell admired the sheer curtains and the window seat topped with ikat throw pillows.

  Don walked over to the desk, where he fished around in a drawer and pulled out a sealed, cream-colored envelope and handed it to Nell.

  “That’s the trust,” he said.

  “Can I open it?”

  “Please,” he said. “It’s the original, though, so make sure you keep track of it.”

  Nell slid a finger under the flap of the envelope and, with care, removed the document folded inside. The paper was thick and soft, almost like velvet. She ran her fingers over the bolded letters at the top of the first page: THE ELIZABETH BARRETT TRUST FOR THE FINE ARTS.

  “She was constantly calling me about little things she wanted to change. I was worried that she’d pass away before I could finish the next draft so, in the end, I wrote the trust documents as flexibly as I could, just so we’d have something in place.” Don nodded at the paper in Nell’s hands. “But even after Betsy signed the documents, I know she kept making notes about her ideas. I told her to hang onto everything because it might be helpful later, for whoever ended up running this place. Which reminds me . . .” He pulled a slip of paper out of the pocket of his sport coat. “Keep track of this, too. It’s the combination for the safe.”

  “Where is it?” Nell asked.

  “To be honest, I’m not exactly sure. Somewhere in the house, supposedly. I looked around for it, right after she died—checked the closets, the attic, the basement—but couldn’t find anything. This was all conveyed to me by a hospice nurse who called me a couple of days before Betsy died. Apparently Betsy was on so much pain medication she could barely remember her name, but she kept repeating the combination numbers.” He shrugged. “It was like that at the end. She wanted to make sure she left everything ‘just so,’ but she ran out of time.”

  Don walked back over to the desk and opened up another drawer. “Somewhere around here there should be information about all the artists she picked for the program.” He fingered past a couple of file folders.

  Nell blinked, letting all of this settle in. “Is there anything else I should know?”

  Don gave up and shut the drawer. “I wish I could be more helpful. The truth is, I haven’t spent much time here except to check the mail and make sure th
e pipes aren’t frozen. I write checks for the insurance and the property taxes, but other than that, I’ve been saving all the real work for the director.” He gave her a sheepish smile. “I’m a lawyer, not an artsy type.”

  “I’m not really an artsy type, either,” Nell said. “I just happened to have studied art.”

  “Well, that makes you ten times more qualified for this job than I am,” he said, glancing again at his watch. “Look, the college kid should be here soon. You’ve got the keys, so just make sure to lock up when you leave. As far as I’m concerned, this is your baby now. I mean, it’s Betsy’s baby, really. Which makes you, what? The nanny? The governess?”

  Nell swallowed the sting that rose in her throat at the words “your baby.” She didn’t want to be the nanny of anyone or anything. She wanted to be a mother. Then she chided herself for being so sensitive about a simple figure of speech. Like Josh had said, she needed something else to put her energy toward. And, from the sense she was beginning to get from Don, it looked like the directorship would require all her energy and then some.

  Chapter Three

  Paige

  PIECE: Dale Chihuly, Seaform, circa 1997. Blown glass sculpture.

  By the time Paige got off the bus, she was already twenty minutes late for the meeting her advisor had set up. She probably could have walked faster if she hadn’t felt so jittery, which, in turn, made her need a cigarette. She fished one out of her pocket, but couldn’t find a lighter. A boy at the bus stop stood smoking, so she asked him if he had one.

  He nodded and leaned forward, cupping the flame as he lit her cigarette. Paige noticed he was cute in the way she liked best—shy and soulful, all dark hair and skinny angles under his army surplus jacket. She inhaled, then stood back and smiled. “Thanks.”

  “What’s in the folder?” he asked, nodding toward the nylon portfolio that hung against her hip.

  Paige didn’t usually like small talk, but she made exceptions for men she was attracted to. “Some prints I was working on earlier,” she said. “I don’t like to leave my stuff in the shared studio up at school. Is that weird?”

  He shrugged. “It’s your stuff. Are you an art major?”

  She exhaled a stream of smoke, savoring the exquisite emptiness within her lungs before answering. “Yeah.”

  “You sound hesitant about it.” He toed a clump of snow with his boot.

  “Do I?” she said. “I’m not. I mean, it’s the only thing I’m good at.”

  “I’m sure that’s not true.” The boy looked up and held her gaze for a fraction of a second before looking back down at his shoes.

  Paige saw potential in that tiny opening, a momentary break in the dark clouds that usually muddied her mood. The clouds shifted only when she stood over a canvas or print, or sat with a sketch pad on her lap. Or, like now, when she felt the glow of a boy’s attention. They weren’t always boys, though. Sometimes they were much older men.

  She felt the strap of her portfolio growing heavy on her shoulder, a reminder of just how late she was for her meeting. “Shit,” she said. “I’ve gotta go. Thanks for the light.”

  She stomped out her cigarette on the sidewalk and, before she left, pulled a pen and scrap of paper out from the side pocket of her portfolio. She scribbled down her number, then stuffed it in the boy’s pocket before turning and hurrying down the sidewalk.

  The address she’d copied down from her acceptance letter from the residency program matched up with an honest-to-God mansion set back on a deep lakefront lot. Her parents had waterfront property, but it was nothing like this, at least from what Paige remembered.

  Going “up north” when she was a kid meant sleeping in a trailer parked on forty acres of swampy woods abutting a river that attracted deer, geese, and all other sorts of hunting prey that kept her dad and older brother busy on fall weekends. She could never get used to firing a gun, so she’d stay back at the trailer with her mother or venture out on hikes with her sketchbook. Once, when she was fourteen, her mom caught her drawing a picture of a buck carcass, shading its bloody, matted fur with a red colored pencil. Her mom tore the page out and showed it to the high school guidance counselor, which set off a slew of meetings, evaluations, and a psychologist referral. Paige hadn’t gone up north since.

  The white mansion in front of her now was so foreign, it sent Paige searching for another cigarette. The brief reprieve afforded by the one she’d had at the bus stop had already worn off, leaving her nerves as jagged as the icicles hanging from the porch roof. But then she remembered she didn’t have a lighter, so she rang the doorbell and picked at the paint underneath her fingernails instead.

  The woman who came to the door looked to be in her thirties, maybe, with brown hair pulled into a low ponytail.

  “Hi, I’m Nell,” she said, extending her hand. “You must be the student from the university.”

  Paige shook her hand. “Paige Jewell. Nice to meet you.”

  She noticed that instead of looking her in the eye, Nell seemed to be staring at Paige’s hands. Paige looked down and realized that the cuff of her quilted flannel coat had crept up to reveal a pink, puffy mark across her wrist.

  Most of the time, she forgot about the scars. They had long since healed over and, now, held no more of her attention than the mole on her left cheek or the closed-up hole where she used to have a belly button ring. She forgot, though, that other people noticed.

  Paige pulled her hand back and yanked down her sleeve.

  “Sorry I’m late,” she said. “I just found out about this meeting today from my advisor. I was in the studio up at school and totally lost track of time. I’ve been trying to finish this screen print before I leave tomorrow. But I’ve got five different screens and I can’t seem to figure out which order to use them in. Each sequence produces a totally different end result.” She stopped, realizing that she’d been rambling.

  Nell nodded and said, “It’s okay. Come on in.”

  Paige stepped into the foyer and stomped out of her combat boots, dripping dirty slush on the rug. She tilted her head toward a crystal chandelier hanging from the vaulted ceiling. “Wow,” she said. “Do you live here?”

  Nell shook her head. “No, I’m just the director of the program. But you and the other artists will stay here. The house was Betsy Barrett’s—the woman who set up the residency program. She loved the arts, so she left her home and estate to an arts foundation she set up.”

  “I bet her kids were pissed.” Paige set her portfolio carefully on the ground, leaning upright against the wall.

  “I’m told she didn’t have any children,” Nell said. She gestured toward the living room. “If you want to come have a seat, I can tell you a little more about the program.”

  Paige shrugged out of her coat. She meant to ask if there was somewhere she should hang it up, but then she got distracted by a pair of glass objects displayed in a wall alcove in the hallway. She dropped her coat onto the rug next to her boots and walked over to inspect the items at closer range. One of them looked, to her eye, to be an ancient Asian vase made from white and blue porcelain. Beside it stood a more modern blown glass bowl that resembled a sea creature—a coral or anemone.

  “Huh,” Paige said. “I wouldn’t have thought to put those two pieces together, but it works.” She took out her phone and snapped a picture. Then she realized that Nell was standing behind her, and that what she just did might have seemed weird.

  “I hope that’s okay,” Paige said. “I like to take pictures of things that are beautiful or unusual or unexpected. You never know what might inspire something later.”

  “It’s fine,” Nell said. “This will be your home for the next year. Take as many pictures as you’d like.”

  Paige followed Nell into the living room then. Nell sat down in an armchair and gestured for Paige to have a seat, too, but Paige walked over to the fireplace, where a large abstract painting hung above the mantel. She studied its thick black and gray brushstrokes and the white
spaces between them that stared out at her like eyes. And then she felt her phone vibrating in her hand. She looked down at the screen. There was a text from an unknown number: This is Dylan. From the bus stop. What’s your name?

  Paige felt the sun break through the clouds. She smiled and typed back: Meet me somewhere and I’ll tell u. As she hit send, a rush of excitement drowned out the soft, but nagging, voice of caution in the back of her head.

  Paige lived for the adrenaline buzz of meeting someone new and, when it came to art, creating something new. These two things made everything else around her seem more interesting and alive. In the throes of a new relationship, her senses heightened. Colors became more saturated, even within winter’s limited palette of grays, whites, and blues. She noticed nuances in music she’d never heard before, expanding the range she perceived between the low and high notes. Her artwork, in turn, got a jolt of inspiration. It had become a habit of hers to dive headlong into whatever medium she was working in, just as she dove into a new love interest. And then, when she became bored with a lover (because she always, always did), she became tired, too, of whatever type of work she’d been doing.

  When she’d been sleeping with a software engineer that spring, she’d been heavy into graphic design work. The graphic design obsession came first, which led to her spending a lot of time in the fancy computer lab at the engineering school, where she hit it off with the only other person who stayed as late as she did. But they parted ways after he made the mistake of introducing her to someone as his girlfriend. Paige was a lot of things, but a girlfriend was not one of them.

  She swore off graphic design shortly after that. She told her advisor it was because she didn’t want to end up designing corporate logos for a living. Then she moved on quickly to oil pastels after she started having sex with a guy she met at the skate park. She’d been sketching the skateboarders as a study on movement, and he’d had the good luck of missing a landing, sending his board skidding toward where she sat cross-legged near the chain-link fence. She spent a lot of time at the park that summer, and at the boy’s apartment nearby, but broke things off in the fall when classes started back up and her focus shifted to watercolor painting and to a shy vet student. She’d since given him up, too, and the break led her to her current obsession with screen printing.