I take the shears and chop into the paper until the scissors start to glide in that satisfying way they do. “Ouch!” I snap my hand back as a white-hot pain slices into the meat of my palm.
“You okay?” Kim asks.
I study the slash in my skin as a drop of blood wells to the surface. “Paper cut. A big one.” I wince, putting down the scissors so I can press my mouth to the wound.
Kim pulls a sympathetic face before helping Dad wrap the painting. George then reappears with some paperwork and Dad follows him over to a table, copies down some numbers from a credit card and signs his name with a flourish as Kim finishes tying the string. You can tell she’s done this before—each corner is supported, and the extra string forms a handle of sorts as she picks it up.
“I guess we’re stopping by the gallery before we go for coffee, then?” I ask.
“No way.” Dad shakes his head as he pockets his copy of the paperwork and takes the painting from Kim, beaming at it. “Alessandra is away until tomorrow, and I don’t trust anyone else with it. This baby’s coming straight home with us.”
Oh, great, I’ll be living with a demonic painting for the foreseeable future.
What could possibly go wrong?
TWO
“Easy does it,” Dad muttersto himself as he maneuvers the package up the steps to the front door and then squeezes past Kim, who holds it open. Their apartment is only a ten-minute walk from Professor Williams’s house, but he practically sprinted home despite the weight of the painting. I pause at the door to catch my breath as Kim follows him inside.
“Coffee? Tea?” Kim calls from the kitchen to my left as Dad disappears into the living room on my right.
I slip off my sandals and leave them by the coatrack at the front door, shuddering as my fingers brush against the ancient velour wallpaper. Seriously, this place is creepy enough without Dad bringing that monstrosity of a painting home.
“Fliss?” Kim sticks her head round the corner. “Sorry it’s not the lavender latte I promised, but your dad didn’t seem up for stopping.”
“It’s fine, I know what he’s like,” I say. We can hear him mumbling to himself in the living room from here.
“Do you want a cold drink instead? I have sparkling water or kombucha, if that’s your thing?”
“No thanks,” I reply, before realizing how thirsty I am.“Actually, water would be great.” I start to offer to help with the drinks, like I would at home, but that would suggest I’m trying to bond, and I’m not quite there yet. “I’m just going to get changed quickly.”
“No problem, I’ll have it waiting.” Kim smiles and disappears back into the kitchen, so I carry on down the hallway, which ends at the door to the bathroom. I take a right and follow the short corridor to my bedroom. If I’d gone left, I’d get to Dad’s room—and Kim’s, I suppose—and I find myself thankful that the bathroom in the middle separates us.
The apartment might be in major need of redecorating, but it has some perks. Even though there aren’t many rooms, it’s pretty big—it’s the downstairs of a big, old house, and we have the whole ground floor. A lot of the decor is dated, some even original to the building, which is nice in some ways, like the wooden flooring, and the huge, ornate fireplace in the living room. It’s not so great in others, though, like the fact that it’s dark all the time, there’s creepy wallpaper in the hallway that feels like moth wings and there are only two plug sockets in my entire bedroom.
I guess my bedroom is a plus too—I was worried I’d end up sleeping in the living room for two weeks (or worse, in their bedroom), but Kim made sure the spare room was cleared out, freshly painted in a “calming sage green” (her words, not mine) and ready for my arrival. She’s even put in a sofa bed for Izzy.
I walk inside, eyeing the pastel pink duvet that makes the bed look like a Pottery Barn catalog threw up on it. I go to shut the door so I can get changed, when I hear Dad start to talk again, so I change my mind and leave it ajar, before sitting down amongthe throw pillows and pretending to scroll through my phone. He hates it when I’m nosy.
“…Yes, I do think you should show it tomorrow evening. I know I won’t be here, but I am ninety-nine percent sure this is it, Alessandra. His signature is on there…” He pauses and there’s no response. He’s clearly on the phone. “I have someone coming to appraise it later, and I’m about to organize the paint sample for testing so we can submit it to the relevant boards for verification…Yes, I know the results will take a while, but it will be fine if you keep tomorrow night as a select gathering for faculty and donors. Just make sure you get them to agree to some extra funding once we get a letter of authentication. When I’m back and it’s all verified, we can decide what we’re going to do officially…Okay, speak to you soon.” I hear him come closer to my door, so I resume my fake scrolling. “Fliss?”
“Here,” I say without taking my eyes off my phone.
“Look at you, all nonchalant.”
I glance at him now. He’s practically beaming at me. “All what, now?”
“Come here.” He holds the door and waits for me to heave myself off the bed. “You should be proud, Fliss. This could be the find of the century,” he says, leading me down the hallway.
Oh, hell no.
As the front door comes into view, so does the painting. Dad has hung it in the hallway, in the place of a hastily discarded print that was probably here long before he was. It looks even more disturbing in a homey setting, and I half expect the lilies that Kim has placed on the console table beneath it to wilt and diebecause of its proximity. We stand before it in silence. It’s horrendous.
I can’t look away.
“Please tell me you haven’t changed your mind and decided that thing is staying here,” Kim says, emerging from the kitchen with a steaming mug that she hands to Dad and a glass of water for me.
I take it, letting the cold seep into my palms, soothing the fiery sting of the paper cut. Kim returns with her own mug and the smell of coffee fills the air.