“Okay,” Lizzie said. She waited. Was there more to it than that?
“What do you think about Bruce?” He was looking at her with such intent, nearly grimacing.
“I think he’s fine. I like him fine.” The truth was, Lizzie didn’t have a strong opinion about Bruce Springsteen. On the musical front, she was a hanger-on, usually decades behind the times.
“I would respect you more if you hated him,” Bob said.
“Oh, please,” Rose began. “Do not start.”
“Why? You hate Springsteen, and I adore you,” Bob said. He leaned over, his enormous face intent on Lizzie’s. “I’ve seen him dozens of times. God, Staples Center, 1999, the reunion tour: Those opening cords of ‘Jungleland.’ And the Big Man on the sax, and then Bruce yelling, ‘Is there anyone alive out there?’ And it’s a good question, don’t you think? It’s the most important question we should be asking, all the time: Is there anyone alive out there?”
Lizzie was already woozy but she took a long pull on her wine. “You’re right,” she said. In the middle of the clinking glasses and clatter of dishes and conversation and smoky smells and rush of waiters and all of the rich abundance, gustatory and material, it felt like a striking, profound question. All she could think of were her parents: her father, dead in a nanosecond, her mother’s agonizing demise encircling her childhood. Is anyone alive out there? Was she? “I should see Springsteen in concert,” she said, and her voice turned hoarse with emotion. “I will.”
A slow smile flitted across Bob’s face. “I know you will,” he said with a gravelly satisfaction. “And you will not regret it.” He stood, wiped the corner of his mouth with the napkin with a surprisingly delicate gesture. “Now, ladies, if you’ll excuse me a moment.” He wove past the other tables and the fireplace and disappeared from view.
“Why the Springsteen obsession,” Rose said. “I do not know.”
Lizzie leaned across the table, touched Rose’s wrist. “I love him,” she proclaimed. “I do.”
Was Rose blushing? “He can be a handful, but I am fond of him,” she admitted.
“He is besotted with you,” Lizzie said. “As well he should be.”
“Yes, well,” Rose said. “I’ll tell you what I’m besotted with—these rolls.” She broke one in half, spread on a thin layer of butter. “It seems easy to do a nice hot roll, but it isn’t, and it shouldn’t be overlooked; it should be taken seriously and celebrated.”
“I’ll celebrate that,” Lizzie said as Bob returned. The waiter came by and offered more wine, which Lizzie gladly accepted, despite what she suspected was a look of disapproval from Rose.
“Remind me how you two know each other?” Bob said.
“Lizzie’s father was the one who owned my family’s painting.”
“Oh yes. The one that was stolen from the house. The painting by—what’s his name?”
“Soutine,” Lizzie and Rose said nearly in unison. Lizzie blushed.
“Chaim Soutine,” Rose amended. “You would find him interesting. If not as a painter, then as a person. He was a character, a hypochondriac who lived in fear of going bald. He loved his friend Modigliani and the Old Masters like Rembrandt.” Rose hadn’t told Bob about Soutine before? For a moment, this surprised Lizzie, then she thought: Who did she talk about Soutine with?
“And boxing,” Rose continued. “Apparently Soutine used to say that if he hadn’t been an artist, he would have liked to be a boxer. The writer Henry Miller was his neighbor for a time and they used to go to matches together.”
“Really?” Lizzie said. She didn’t know that Henry Miller had lived nearby. What else did she not know? Her head was so fuzzy. “You like boxing?” she said to Bob.
“I do. I used to box myself, years ago. I know what people think of it, but they’re wrong. It actually taught me to be more patient. I learned that if you swing at an opponent’s face, he’ll hit right back. It taught me to hold back a bit, to be more controlled.”
When the waiter came over with dessert menus, Bob told him: “We’ll have the chocolate cake. One slice, three forks.”
“We will?” Rose said.
“It’s the only thing to get here,” Bob said. “Hot molten chocolate cake. It’s delicious.” Lizzie was already so full, but when did she ever say no to a few tastes of sweetness? “So the detectives never came across any clues?” Bob added.
“No,” Rose said.
“There were no signs of a break-in,” Lizzie said. “It happened during a party—a party I threw.” She managed to say this in a steady voice.
“And they don’t think one of the guests took it.”
“In the beginning, yes, they thought it might have been a prank, but the artwork—there was a Picasso drawing too—they were the only two things taken. Whoever stole them knew exactly what they were looking for. And all my friends were in high school. None of them knew anything about art.”
“That must have been terrible,” Bob said. “Being there at the time, knowing that it happened.”
“Yeah,” Lizzie said. “It sucked.”
“‘Sucked’?” Rose repeated.
Lizzie blushed. “You know what I mean,” she muttered. “It was horrible.”
The waiter delivered the cake with a flourish, placing it in the center of the table—round and dark and dusted with powdered sugar. Bob cut into it, and melted chocolate oozed out, darkening the plate. “Delicious,” he said. “Have some.” When neither Rose nor Lizzie reached for it, he added, “The detectives must have talked to everyone, including your father.”
“Yeah, they did,” Lizzie said. “He was in Boston when it happened.”
“Oh,” Bob said, and he gave the one syllable force. His forearms were planted on the edge of the table, and Lizzie was struck by how large his hands were—boxer’s hands. “And the paintings were insured, weren’t they?”
“Of course,” Rose said. “Why?”
“I just wonder how much they were insured for, how much they were worth at the time. The art market is famously volatile. It’s interesting.”
“How do you know about the volatility of the art market?” Rose’s voice was sharp. “And nothing is just interesting. Things are upsetting or wonderful, stupid or delightful, charming or beautiful or terrible. What do you mean, ‘interesting’?”
A flicker of uncertainty crossed Bob’s face. Lizzie saw it, a sudden shift. “I used to have a neighbor who worked as an investigator for an insurance company,” Bob said. “He was always talking about the fraudulent claims he uncovered.”
“No,” Rose said. “Do not. Joseph wanted to get them back. That’s it, end of story.”
Lizzie felt caught behind a thick distorting pane of glass. What was Bob saying? Rose was sitting up straight, her body tight with anger.
“You’re right, I’m sorry,” Bob said.
“Of course I’m right. He worked for years to get them back. Do you want to accuse a dead man of anything else, while his daughter is sitting here?”
“I don’t understand,” Lizzie said.