Lena had put on a bathing suit and gone to the beach. The woman who answered the door told Vivian where to find her, then said, with unmistakable satisfaction, that she would have to take her own shoes off.
Vivian left them beside the pink wall and walked through the garden. The sand beyond the gate was hot. She went quickly until she reached the wet part, holding her bag high, feeling absurdly like a person who'd dressed for the wrong invitation.
Lena sat on a towel with her knees drawn up, looking out. A book lay open facedown beside her. She had sunglasses on; Vivian could not tell whether she was being watched.
“Did you swim?” she asked.
“Would you like to know what I did every minute you weren't here?”
Vivian stopped beside the towel. Lena took off the sunglasses.
“Sorry. Bad afternoon.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“Your mother—”
“My mother thinks I buy people things so they'll stop having opinions.”
Vivian put down her bag. There was no chair. She sat in the sand, felt it get into the folds of her trousers, and decided she could afford the trousers.
“She thinks you want a result before she's decided what she wants to do.”
“She wants the picture back. She was clear about that. Even you must have heard it.”
“Yes.”
Lena looked at her. The wind lifted the edge of the towel and dropped it. Vivian put her hand on the book to stop the pages turning. It was a novel, its spine badly creased, a wet mark across the cover. She'd expected something about art and was relieved to find Lena doing something she couldn't convert into an appointment.
“I came to tell you what's happened,” she said.
“All of it?”
“The Red Room is a copy.”
Lena's face did not change at first. She pressed both feet into the sand.
“The one in their house,” she said.
“It was in their house. It was moved today to my apartment.”
“Why?”
“Celeste asked. She's trying to make an arrangement about the loan. The original was sold abroad.”
“By Nicholas.”
“The material I saw came through his office.”
“Sold. Not misplaced. Not with somebody who might lend it back for the exhibition.”
“Sold.”
Lena got up. She walked down to the water, stood with her feet in it, came back without looking at Vivian. There was space on the towel now but Vivian stayed where she was. She had come to give an answer, and could not make the answer easier by accepting the vacated place.
“You said there was a problem with the loan.”
“There is.”
Lena turned. “Don't.”
Vivian looked down. A line of tiny bubbles moved through the wet sand beside her heel and disappeared.
“I should have said it plainly.”
“When I asked you the first time.”
“Yes.”
“And the second.”
Vivian did not answer. Lena laughed once, very shortly, and rubbed both hands over her face.
“God. She's been choosing where to stand beside it. Do you know that?”
“I saw the plan.”
“Not on the plan. Herself. She's worried people will take pictures and she won't be able to stop looking proud.”
The detail struck harder than Frances's anger had. Vivian had watched the woman touch the little rectangle on the page, imagined her pleasure, and still come away with a list of things to settle before giving her a true answer. She could see Frances beside the absent original, holding herself upright for the attention she'd earned by owning it so long.
“I know,” she said, then stopped. She did not know. She'd been late.
Lena looked toward the house. “Does she know?”
“Not from me. Not yet.”
“That's going to change.”
“I'm going to see her.”
“Before somebody tries another plan?”
“Before Monday.”
“No. Tomorrow, three o'clock. You go to her and tell her. The whole thing, when you found out, what you've done. Not just what Nicholas did.”
Vivian brushed sand from the back of her hand. She wanted to explain the settlement, how hard it would be to begin with nothing more than a theft and a delay, how much better if she could bring Frances a funded commitment and a lawyer's name instead. Every version of the explanation made Frances a person who had to be prepared for the truth by those who'd withheld it.
“I can go tomorrow,” she said.
“By three. Otherwise I tell her what I know and take her myself.”
“Why not tell her now?”
Lena looked toward the house. “Because if I do it, she'll think I bought a painting and invented a reason to punish the seller. I want her to hear you say what you did.”
“And if she asks why you waited?”
“Then I'll have to answer.”
Vivian nodded. “Three.”
Lena bent and picked up the book. For a moment Vivian thought she meant to throw it, not at anybody, simply into the open space. Instead she put it in the bag beside the towel.
“I want The Swimmer,” she said.
“I haven't asked you not to.”
“You came down here with a face that says you've been asked to make me reasonable. I want it. I don't want an alternative, I don't want a different painting with a better future. I want that one.”
“I know you do.”
“Then know something useful.”
She sat down again, not beside Vivian but at an angle from her, the sun along one bare leg. Vivian could see a fine pale scar near the knee. She found herself wondering how Lena had got it, wanting a question with an answer that did not concern money or a painting somebody had sold. There was no right time to ask.
“What do you think will happen Sunday?” Vivian said.
“I'll get the work. I'll go to dinner. You'll introduce me.”
“And your mother?”
“You heard her. She wants to ask Nicholas.”
“I don't want her put in a position where she has to confront somebody in front of people.”
“She's putting herself there.”
“Because nobody's told her enough.”
Lena looked at her, waiting.
“I want to speak to her first,” she said.
“Then do. Don't ask me to make her easier afterward.”
They sat without talking while two women walked past near the water, keeping their distance but not far enough to avoid looking. Lena put her sunglasses back on. Vivian did not have any; they were in her car, inside a case Nicholas had once borrowed and returned with a pair of glasses that weren't hers. She thought of the case, the eggs, Celeste's peaches. The care they all took of little pleasures while large injuries went on waiting.
“I didn't buy it to replace hers,” Lena said.
“I told her that.”
“I heard you.”
The woman took off the sunglasses again. She looked younger without them, annoyed at her own need to continue.
“I wanted her to have something to enjoy about this. Not only worry.”
“She might not want to enjoy your answer.”
“You make her sound so simple. Just let Frances do what she wants. Be a nice daughter at the edge. I did that for years. Do you know who my first collection adviser was? Her adviser. He came to my apartment and told me I had room to grow. I was thirty-six. He wanted to put a bronze bird by my window because my mother had one in a different size.”
Vivian looked at her.
“I didn't buy it,” Lena said. “You look relieved. I bought a stupid light instead, so at least it would be my own mistake.”
“The one in the hall?”
“I like that light.”
Vivian smiled despite herself. Lena's mouth moved, a reluctant answer, and the interval between them altered. Not forgiveness. Something less organized and more usable, two people remembering they could still amuse each other while angry.
“I like it too,” Vivian said. “I was trying to find out whether you knew the switch was taped.”
“I did that. It flickers. I keep thinking somebody will come fix it, then remember it's my house.”
She stood and shook out the towel. Vivian stood too, more slowly, sand falling from her trousers. Lena watched the damage.
“Those look expensive.”
“They were.”
“I'm glad you sat down.”
On the walk back, they did not try to resolve the conversation. At the gate Lena held it open, then went ahead to the terrace, where a jug of water waited in the shade. She poured two glasses. Vivian accepted hers. They drank as if they'd both done something physically tiring.
Through the open doors Vivian could see the place Lena had selected for The Swimmer. Not the hall, not the obvious wall across from the entrance. A room at the back where the light entered from one side and a low sofa faced the view. There was nothing on the wall yet, only a small pencil mark at the height Vivian had suggested when she first came.
“Did you measure again?” Vivian asked.
“Twice.”
“It should be right.”
“Come see.”
They went in. Lena stood beside the mark, then moved away as though making room for the painting's body. Vivian could see it there. The water in the canvas would change with the room's light. In the morning it might be nearly silver; late in the day the warm underlayer would emerge. It would be a very good place to own it. Celeste had never put a sofa directly in front of it; other people had to circulate.
“You'll sit here?” Vivian asked.
“I thought that was allowed.”
“It's better than allowed.”
Lena studied her. “Do you want it?”
The question was so direct Vivian nearly made a joke.
“Yes.”
“Good. I hate buying something from a person who acts as if wanting it is foolish.”
“I'm not selling it to you.”
“You're selling me everything around it.”
Vivian looked at the empty wall. It was true, and not entirely an insult. She had made the purchase possible. She had also made it more attractive by concealing what she knew and letting Lena suspect the rest. The million dollars did not distinguish between the good work and the bad.
“I'll come to the appointment,” she said. “Not a replacement. Not somebody who's been briefed to tell you what I would have said.”
“And dinner.”
“And dinner.”
“I'm not promising to make it pleasant.”
“You're good at pleasant. You can decide how much you want to spend.”
Lena laughed. For a second Vivian could see the woman upstairs in the green dress again, asking whether she would come closer. Now she stayed where she was. She had given Lena a truth that made her less trustworthy, and it was reasonable that the distance should have changed.
At the front door, Lena touched the bracelet.
“Hers?”
“She gave it to me.”
“I know. I saw her wear it.”
Vivian turned her wrist, moving the clasp away from Lena's fingers. “It isn't part of the purchase.”
“I didn't ask to buy it.”
The words were quiet. Vivian looked up. Lena was not smiling.
“Tomorrow. Three,” she said. “Don't make me come looking for you.”
Vivian nodded and went to put on her shoes. One contained sand, though she'd left them on the other side of the gate. She shook it out, tapped it against the step, bent to put it on again. Lena stood in the doorway until she'd finished, watching without offering to make it easier.