CHAPTER 77 – Father and Son (2)

Eppie found her mark near the edge of the exhibition’s temporary lobby space, set up with canapés, drinks, photographers and posters of what was to come inside the Tisch Gallery’s partitioned spaces.

Valorie stood next to… Eppie squinted.

Picasso’s “Woman in White”?

To Lana, the significance lay in the 40 million USD figure attached to the work, when the Met gradually became hollowed out by political influence, until its own charter was changed to allow individuals like Bezos to “own” certain paintings through donations.

To Eppie, the significance lay in that, in Vaughan’s house, Valorie had stood beneath Madame X in black.

What this symbolism portended, Eppie could only guess.

Valorie looked glorious in a scattered emerald dress. Unlike her costumes with Sir Woodhouse, she had swapped her iconic deep plunge for something more demure. It was a maxi dress that swept the floor, leaving her shoulders bare while everything else was covered.

Long enough to hide the bruises? Eppie studied the girl as she approached.

The man next to her could only be Senator Francis Sanders, looking exactly as a decade of C-SPAN clips and campaign photography had conveyed: silver at the temples, a jaw that photographed well, charming and charismatic. If the man hadn’t looked so cold, she would have attributed his resemblance to George Clooney.

“Valorie!” Eppie slid into place, her heels click-clacking as she looked at the giantess. “We meet again.”

“Eppie.” Val’s smile was automatic but frantic, stretched a little too carefully over whatever was underneath. There was fear in Val’s eyes, like the moment the school principal finally met their unknowing parent for the first time, for a meeting about anti-social behaviour.

“And you must be Senator Sanders.” Eppie offered her hand; his grip was firm; it was the shake of a seasoned politician.

She returned the same shake, much to Sanders’ unexpected recognition.

“Ms Fontaine. I’ve heard a great deal about you.” His eyes crinkled at the corners. “I am so glad that you found Kiritani Sensei. Had we lost him to history and discovered his art too late, the whole country—its history—its conscience, would have suffered.”

“Valorie was there as well,” Eppie recalled seeing Val with Sir Woodhouse. “I should have dragged her with me into Central Park, hahaha.”

The three of them laughed, Valorie’s with more nervousness than mirth.

“Thank you for being Valorie’s friend,” Sanders said. “Sir Woodhouse had nothing but praise for you. He said that you helped Valorie make up with Dame Vaughan. That you helped my daughter when she got lost at the Christmas Gala.”

“I did what I could,” Eppie blushed for Valorie, who was now blushing so furiously that her exposed shoulders were pink.

The word Friend did a lot of quiet, revelatory work in Francis’ sentence, and Eppie wasn’t going to let sleeping dogs lie. If that’s what Val had been telling her father, then her plan for Val was already falling into place.

“Eppie is a fantastic songwriter and singer,” Valorie said quickly, the compliments coming out of her uncontrollably. “She’s a Grammy winner. Record of the Year—she wrote ‘Umbrella.’”

“You’re the one responsible for my intern’s taste in music?” Francis laughed again. “Well done, Ms Fontaine. Will you be gracing us with a song tonight?”

Eppie smiled.
[Charisma], [Comeliness] and [Persuasion] fired up all at once.

“Only if Valorie joins me.”

“WHAT?” the two of them answered as one.

Valorie’s paranoia turned into genuine confusion, the kind that not even a natural actress could hide. Then, it turned into suspicion.

“Fontaine! What the hell are you up to now?” Her fear leaked out before she could catch herself. Her tone was accusatory, sour, acerbic, truly… prime Valorie.

Beside her, Senator Sanders looked at his daughter as if seeing a side of her he had never seen before. “Val?”

Valorie rocked shut like Antigone’s tomb.

“Excuse us a moment, Senator.” Eppie gave the Senator a blindingly dazzling smile. “I think Dame Vaughan wants a personal word with you.”

Eppie looped her arm around Valorie’s waist before either of the Sanders could object, picked her up like a paralysed Barbie doll with her [Strength] of 21, then moved her Roman marble body away from her father into the contemporary arts wing, where the lights were ambient and patient.

The MET.
The Contemporary Arts Wing.

It took Valorie about five minutes to finally recover from being bodily carried by a girl who had lifted her off the floor and dragged her away. The pain, when it finally reached her brain, made her kneel for another minute before she could stand.

“What the hell was that?” Val huffed, the emerald silk of her dress catching the gallery light. “How the hell are you so strong?”

“Does it hurt?” Eppie pointed to the small of Valorie’s back, her hips, and her abdomen. “Last night, I couldn’t tell if you were beating William, or if he was going to town on you.”

Valorie went red. Not embarrassed-red, but a deep, sudden, involuntary flush that told Eppie everything before a single word could be uttered. Valorie lashed out, in Eppie’s eyes, in slow motion, with a hand, aiming to slap Eppie across the face. Eppie caught Valorie’s wrist easily, then—gingerly—she reached out and pinched Valorie above the hip, an old, cruel, childish little test.

Val’s breath caught in her throat. The flesh there must be bruised, for the half-moan, half-groan that escaped from Val’s intake of breath was sharp and unbidden.

“Sorry…” she winced. “I didn’t think… it was that bad.”

Fuelled by another flush of embarrassment, Val moved to slap her again.

“What would Francis think?” Eppie effortlessly diverted the strike. “If he saw you now?”

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Valorie froze so fast, Eppie wondered if the [System] had cast a spell.

Her complexion turned from drunk-happy pink to ivory-white so fast it looked like a trick of the light. Valorie’s eyes cut from Eppie to the door, toward where Francis was tied up by Juliana Vaughan and Mirabelle, who would play along even without complete knowledge of Eppie’s plans.

“You must… love him very much,” Eppie said, her tiny body against the enormous dark door. Her words weren’t an accusation. They came out softer than she intended.

Val’s neck grew scarlet again. Something ugly and grief-shaped moved across her beautiful face: anger, shame, some unspecified fury. Valorie had no comebacks for the truth. She looked like she might, for one terrible second, cry in the middle of the Contemporary Arts wing.

“If you love him so much, then you should know that what William is doing to you, to your body, to your… head, will break his heart.” Eppie’s [Vocality], [Persuasion], and [Charisma] made her voice no less aphoristic than if Morgan Freeman had delivered the speech himself.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Valorie’s denial came hard and fast, but at least she wasn’t trying to bitch slap her Sophomore classmate.