Lena's house was pink because she'd wanted a pink house.
She told Vivian this before they'd reached the front door, apparently continuing an argument with somebody absent. The color was not a discreet suggestion of pink. In the midday sun it looked almost wet. Vivian had admired it from the road and now said so.
“You don't have to,” Lena said.
“I know.”
“Everyone says it's brave. They mean they wouldn't have done it.”
“Neither would I. I still like it.”
Lena looked pleased. She was barefoot, wearing loose black trousers and a thin white shirt with the cuffs rolled well back. Her dark hair was fastened with something that looked like it came from a stationery drawer. At forty-two, she had the impatient physical ease of a woman who'd stopped letting other people tell her when to smile. Vivian had met her first ten years earlier, at Frances's, where she was still routinely introduced as an extension of somebody else's name.
Inside, the house was less coordinated than the exterior. A beautiful table stood beside a cheap lamp whose switch had a piece of tape on it. There were flowers in a measuring jug. An enormous photograph of a vacant parking lot dominated the hall.
“I bought it before anybody told me not to,” Lena said, following Vivian's look.
“Why would they tell you not to?”
“Because it cost sixty thousand dollars and looks like where we left the car.”
“Is that why you bought it?”
“Partly.”
She led Vivian through to the back, where lunch was on a shaded terrace. The sea was close enough to hear without concentrating. A woman in a blue apron carried out a bowl of potatoes, set it beside a whole roasted fish, and gave Lena a look.
“I know,” Lena said. “It's not a knife for the fish.”
“Use the other one.”
The woman went inside. Lena picked up the other knife and made a disastrous first cut.
“You do it,” she said. “I'll be funny.”
“That's a very familiar division of labor.”
Lena offered her the handle. “You can be funny too. I don't need an exclusive.”
Vivian separated the first fillet and lifted it onto a plate. The flesh was moist, the skin brown and blistered. Lemon juice ran into the olive oil beneath it. She realized she was hungry, and that it was a relief to be somewhere nobody expected her to notice whether another guest's glass was full.
Lena poured wine into two short glasses. “I have a proposal.”
“Eat the fish first.”
“I keep getting told to wait.”
“I'm hungry.”
Lena looked at the fish. “So am I.”
For a while they did eat. Lena talked about the house: the unreasonable depth of a cupboard, the previous owner's insistence that the ugly fountain was historically important, the builder who'd suggested neutral colors before accepting a very large payment to put on pink. Vivian told her about a man who had bought a painting to match a room, then repainted the room and insisted the painting had changed. They laughed without needing an audience to confirm that they'd made a joke.
When Lena reached for the potatoes, her open cuff dragged in the oil. Vivian caught her wrist.
“You're doing that deliberately.”
“Am I?”
Vivian held the wrist a moment too long. Lena noticed. She looked down at Vivian's hand, then back at her face, curious rather than triumphant.
“You can let go. I'll try to be careful.”
Vivian took the bowl and passed it to her.
“That's the first unreasonable thing you've promised me.”
Lena's smile stayed a moment after the joke. She cut a potato in half. “What are you wearing Sunday?”
“I don't know yet.”
“That's a lie. You knew what you were wearing Sunday before I knew I was going.”
“Not to this lunch.”
“Come upstairs afterward. I want an opinion.”
Vivian put down her fork. “About dinner.”
“Here we go.”
“I don't want your first appearance as a collector to look like an ambush.”
“You think I've never been to a dinner?”
“You've never been to this one under these circumstances.”
Lena sat back. “Say the circumstances.”
“You want something from Celeste she doesn't know she's giving you.”
“Her painting. Eight million dollars. Pretty specific.”
“She doesn't know you're Seabrook.”
“You told me the point of the company was privacy. Is she allowed privacy and I'm not?”
“Of course you are.”
“Good. Next objection.”
Vivian took a drink. The wine had warmed slightly and tasted better for it. She had no clean version of this conversation available to her. She had brought Lena far enough for a fee, and now wanted her to behave as if she'd arrived by herself.
“I could introduce you privately. Before dinner. Give you time with the painting, let Celeste get used to the fact.”
“The painting isn't in her house.”
“The introduction.”
“I've met her, Vivian. Often. She always asks me how my mother is.”
“She asks everybody about Frances.”
“I don't.”
The small change in Lena's voice stopped Vivian. Out on the beach a boy chased a ball toward the water and a woman stood up abruptly from a chair. He retrieved it before she had to run. Lena watched too, then turned back.
“I'm not buying an afternoon in a waiting room,” she said. “She invited a representative of the collection. I'm representing it. I'll get the picture, then I'll go to dinner. That's what I agreed to.”
“There's no need to make a declaration.”
“I want her to introduce me as the person who bought it.”
Vivian felt, inconveniently, the force of that. She knew what it was to be described by one's usefulness. Lena had enough money to buy almost any introduction in Palm Beach and could still be made to wait while somebody asked after Frances's hip.
“I'll introduce you,” she said.
“To the room.”
“To the room.”
Lena leaned forward and took another piece of fish. “There. You can eat again.”
They were quiet for a little while. Vivian watched her put the serving fork in the right place this time. A minor act of attention, undeserving of the pleasure it gave her.
“What has your mother said to you?” she asked.
“About which of my failures?”
“The Red Room.”
Lena's expression changed, though not enough for someone who didn't know she was looking. “She wants it back. You know that.”
“You'd asked questions.”
“I've asked a lot of questions. That's what happens when people give me little pieces of answers.”
“I'm trying to handle something.”
“So I keep hearing.”
“It may be more complicated than you think.”
Lena laughed without amusement. “That's what people say when the simple part is embarrassing.”
Vivian looked at her plate. She'd told Lena enough to make the other painting desirable in a new way: a problem with the loan, delays, something the Wrens would prefer to keep private. She had not confirmed the sale or the copy. Lena suspected both. Her questions had grown sharper as the purchase progressed, and Vivian had put them off by giving her something that could actually be delivered.
“If you're worried she won't like my little announcement, I can make it nicer,” Lena said.
“I didn't ask you to announce anything.”
“You mean Celeste. I mean my mother. She thinks every nice thing I do for her is an attempt to move her into a smaller house.”
“Sometimes you call it simplifying.”
“She told you that?”
“You told me that.”
Lena stared at her, then started to laugh. “Christ. Did I?”
“You were holding a floor plan.”
“It was a very good floor plan.”
The laughter let them both retreat. Vivian went with it. She told herself that tomorrow she'd have the beginnings of a settlement, something to put between Frances and the fact of what was gone. She could speak to mother and daughter without turning a lunch into an accusation.
Upstairs Lena's bedroom had windows on two sides and a bed too large for the room. Two dresses lay on it, one red, one a dark green almost black.
“My friend says the red is too much.”
“For what?”
“Existing, apparently.”
“The green.”
“You're surprisingly conservative.”
“The red needs an audience. The green will make them come closer.”
Lena picked it up and held it against herself. “That's filthy advice.”
“It's professional advice.”
“The two aren't mutually exclusive.”
She went behind the open wardrobe door and changed without asking Vivian to leave. Vivian walked to the window. There was a small terrace below, screened from the beach by palms, with a single battered chair facing the water. She liked it more than the expensive things in the room.
“Did you choose the chair?”
“I brought it from my old place. My mother says it makes the house look like a rental.”
“I like it.”
Lena came out, pulling the dress down over her hips. It fitted well. She turned her back.
“Since I'm paying for expertise.”
Vivian lifted the zipper. Lena's skin was warm beside her fingers. She could have finished at once; instead she took care with the little hook at the top, working it into place while Lena waited without speaking.
“There.”
Lena faced her. “Would you come closer?”
Vivian did not pretend she hadn't understood. She looked at the dress, at the bare throat above it, then at Lena's eyes.
“On Sunday everybody will.”
“Everybody isn't here.”
For a moment Vivian let herself imagine it: an unfamiliar bed, a different woman's impatience, nobody making a joke about how well she knew the house. The desire was quick and welcome. It was not the same thing as wanting the person to stay.
“I have to go,” she said.
Lena smiled, but the smile had been altered. “To Celeste.”
“To an appointment.”
“Of course.”
Downstairs, Lena walked her to the front door. The pink wall threw warm light onto her face. She had changed back into the trousers and shirt, the top two shirt buttons left undone where she'd been in a hurry.
“One thing,” she said. “Sunday. I don't want to meet a driver and be told you've been held up.”
“I've said I'll be there.”
“I know what people keep you for.”
Vivian stopped beside the car.
Lena looked past her, toward the road. “I'm not paying you to be available to them first.”
This time Vivian didn't have a reply she could make entertaining. She said she'd see her Sunday, got into the car, and waited until the gate had shut before starting the engine.