The Reluctant Nude - Meg Maguire [76]
Fallon nodded, so overloaded with information she felt numb.
“Listen, I have very little time to finish this, now. And I am so close. Give me until the end of the day, and I can do this. But I have to go back to work, before Forrester or some authorities arrive and all of this grinds to a halt. Your job is to come back tomorrow with the press, whoever you can get. The scaffolding will be gone. By dawn everyone will see your statue.”
“All right…”
Max stood. “I will answer questions, in my way. I’ll make a press statement and try to back Forrester into a corner. And I will say that you’re overseeing this memorial. You are in charge of setting it up, in your vision, yes? The Gloria Engels Memorial Home for Teens or what have you. And we will pray that he lets you, without a fight. Then I will go, because you know how I feel about fame.”
Fallon shook her head, punch-drunk. “This is all so weird.”
He rubbed both her shoulders, looking pleased. “Yes, I was told I am very weird by someone, once. Now I have to go. I will look for you tomorrow, with cameras. And then we will say goodbye.”
The next twenty hours were a haze. Fallon made dozens of phone calls to television and radio stations and newspapers, just as she suspected Forrester was making calls to lawyers. She hoped even one of the stations would bother to show up, the story sounded so ridiculous.
The following morning at five she arrived back at the Engels house where all was silent and dark. Her headlights revealed the scaffolding to be gone. She climbed out of her car with a flashlight and crunched across the frosty lawn. Nearly all the evidence of the construction had been wiped clean, save a few hunks of granite here and there. She trained the beam on the gigantic stone feet, their eerie relief in the tiny spotlight, up the legs to the robes and bare shoulders. Massive arms, outstretched and echoed by unfurled, feathered wings, a long neck. The head was what she feared most. She held her breath and slid the light up, surprised not to find her own face, her mane of curls.
Instead it was Gloria, her elegant hair cascading, those features Fallon knew so well, minus a couple decades’ wrinkles. The whole figure was framed in an arched alcove. Fallon began to cry, sobs tightening her throat, choking. The jerking flashlight strobed over the image of the woman she’d loved most in the whole world, surreal in scale and context and mere existence.
Headlights panned across the property and Fallon turned. Too small and too early to be a news van. She held the flashlight under her chin so the party would see her.
“Fallon!” It was Forrester.
She blinded him as he made his way across the grass. Donald Forrester, broad and white-haired and deceptively grandfatherly in appearance, accompanied by a tall, thin man in a suit who reeked of litigation.
“Hi, Donald,” Fallon said as they neared. For the first time in the three years she’d known him, he didn’t intimidate her.
“What have you done?” He was angry but also visibly awed, and there was no physical threat behind his rage.
“I didn’t have anything to do with this. It’s Emery. I only found out after I called you.” She swung the light over the statue. “What took you so long?”
“I was in Madrid. What in—”
“The press is coming, in less than an hour…I hope. I called the morning news, every network and paper in the state. I’ve been given a script, as it were,” she said evenly, though inside she was trembling. “In this script you come off as a philanthropist, and the most sensational arts patron in recent history. It’s an amazing bit of PR. It paints you very favorably. I’ll be curious to see if you play along. If you’re interested, leave the talking to me this morning. And if you want to fight this, I’ll see you in court. As usual.”
“You can sue, Donald,” the lawyer said. “Do not say anything to the press. It’s your right. It’s your property. Let me do the talking.”
Forrester was silent for nearly a minute. Eventually he turned to Fallon and asked, “Have you been