and saved a masterpiece. It was up in the attic somewhere, if they could just send some nice young person to muck around in the cobwebs for a couple of days, effectively cleaning out the woman’s attic for her.
“Probably. Upper West Side.”
Elm shrugged. Though the really big sales were from major estates and collectors, it was not inconceivable that some rich widow on Central Park West owned a few minor Guardis or Valtats. Enough of those allowed for a comfortable base on which to search for larger commissions.
“You want me to do it for you?” Ian put his hands on his hips. His jacket neglected to bulge, like it was stapled to his shirt.
“Thank you, yet again,” Elm said. “You know you’re good with the ladies.”
“Right. Old ladies and pedigree dogs. Attractive, successful men my own age with a trust fund, not so much.”
“Where would I be without you?” Elm asked. “What’s more nowhere than nowhere?”
“The East Nineties?”
“Ha.” Elm lived on East Ninety-fifth Street.
Ian’s cell phone sounded. His ringtone was a trumpet calling for the start of a horse race. “Hello? Oh, hiiii,” he drawled, turning down the hall and waving good-bye.
Greer’s office had a magnificent view of the East River. Even on the grayest day it was suffused with light. Elm had learned to make afternoon appointments, as Greer sat with his back to the view, and the strong morning sun blinded those who sat across from him. His office was decorated in the traditional masculinity of dark wood—wainscoting, panels, built-ins—all of it shiny tobacco-brown oak. His grand desk was a nineteenth-century Chippendale masterpiece, Baroque and ornately carved. On its legs were faces, flowers, vines, and, of course, eagle feet gripping balls blunted on the floor. The top was so polished Elm could see her reflection when she leaned over it, and it was devoid of everything except a telephone and a computer—no pens, blotter, photos, in-box/out-box, nothing.
“Elmira,” he said, feigning surprise at her appearance. “There you are. Will you sit?”
“How’s Anne?”
“Connecticut,” he replied, answering a different question. “Putting up the rosebushes or something. Colin?” he asked. “Moira?”
“Great, both great.” Elm smiled. She knew he didn’t really want news; he was merely being polite. There was a short silence. Behind him, framed by the bay windows, a tugboat trudged down the East River, stacks of used tires on its bow.
“Elmira,” he said. “I’m concerned.”
“I know,” Elm said. “You mentioned in the meeting.”
“No, but I’m very concerned.” Greer sat back, placing his ankle on his knee. He was reminding her with his body language that he was the real Tinsley, she the interloper. There had been a scandal involving Elm’s grandmother’s marriage and since then her side of the family got the smallest cottage on the family compound and saw little of the estate’s large dividends. Elm’s father had made some money in real estate, of all things, which was only slightly better than cleaning toilets in the family’s estimation. But then the social order went by the wayside and the company went public and Greer’s insistence on family hierarchy was sheer snobbery.
“Elm, please understand you are a valued and respected part of this establishment—”
“And a Tinsley,” Elm interrupted.
Greer nodded, pained. “But I don’t think Great-grandfather would have wanted it to be run into the ground for the sake of family loyalty.”
“I don’t think Great-grandfather, as you call him, would have considered me a Tinsley.”
“Maybe not,” he said. Elm had found out from Greer’s brother, the sweet and affable, if prodigal, Will, who was now squandering his fortune on snow bunnies in Aspen, that Greer had objected to Elm’s hiring, and was overruled by then-chairman-of-the-board Greer Senior. Elm wasn’t sure now if Greer harbored the same set of prejudices that influenced his opposition to her ten years ago, or if he was nursing new ones. Similarly, she wasn’t sure what the grounds for objection were. The degree from the lesser undergraduate institution (lesser meaning, of course, not Yale or Harvard)? But surely he couldn’t argue with the graduate degree from Columbia. Or the fact that she was considered an expert in her field, the go-to person for a New York Times quote, the one who took big clients to dinner, a member of the board of trustees of two museums and the art consultant to a trendy, invited-members-only downtown social club. Maybe it was just the fact that she wasn’t close family—her blood diluted. It wasn’t worth thinking about. It was impossible to think rationally about irrational thoughts.