The Polka Dot Nude Read Online Free PDF Page B

A certain supreme court judge won’t be too happy to hear his father dallied with Rosalie, but it should be good for sales.”
    “Shocking, huh? There’s another you should take a look at—the father of one of our past presidents, and the worst skinflint in the world. He gave her jewelry, and took it back when she broke off with him.”
    “It just goes to show you,” he said, and took a drink from the bottle. He had glanced at Rosalie’s painting a few times. Its brilliant colors stood out like a new cushion on an old sofa in the dingy room. “That’s an interesting painting. Not quite in harmony with Simcoe’s rubbish. It must be your own. It’s Rosalie, isn’t it?”
    “Yes, a self-portrait. She gave it to me.”
    “Really?” He struggled out of the Barcelona chair and walked toward it. “It’s very good. It could pass for a Pissarro, or do I mean Seurat? One of the pointillists anyway. I wouldn’t have thought Rosalie would have the patience to do it, all those little dots of color, like confetti.”
    “The man who framed it for me called it the ‘Polka Dot Nude.’ I think it’s lovely.”
    He backed away to allow the dots to merge into a pattern, and I regaled him with its history, as told by Rosalie. “Rosalie was kind of an art groupie. She hung out with that set in France on her holidays. Early in her career she started painting, and when she retired from work, it became an avocation. She did this picture in the south of France, at Picasso’s studio. Jean Cocteau was there, Léger, and Villon. She and Cocteau spent an evening doing it with confetti from an old photograph, then Picasso opened a door and the whole thing blew away, so she decided to paint it. She could have been a good artist, if she’d exerted herself in that direction.”
    “She is pretty good, to judge by this. Did you see any other of her works?”
    “She was working on an abstract expressionist thing when I was at Hartland. Of course her eyesight isn’t what it was, but I didn’t care for it. I know painting’s been her hobby for ages, but she didn’t have any others on display. Some of them must be worth a lot of money. She mentioned that Picasso had drawn a girl, and she painted it. She might have had help from other famous artists as well—she knew them all. I certainly treasure this.”
    “Paintings by famous people have some interest value, even if they’re not top quality. A Churchill, for instance, would be something to treasure,” Brad said. “I wonder what she did with them.
    “She probably gave them away, as she gave me this one. Or maybe her daughter has them.”
    Brad’s head jerked up. “Daughter?” he asked, in a loud voice.
    “She doesn’t admit she has one, but there’s a year or so of her life that isn’t very well accounted for. Her diaries from that period are sketchy, to say the least. She misplaced one, she said. The last one before that mentions gaining ten pounds, and in a letter she received from a friend there’s a question about whether she’s feeling better. After the war, Rosalie had what she calls a nervous breakdown, and went to a clinic in Europe to dry out.”
    “Oh, really? Whereabouts in Europe?”
    “She says it was a spa in Switzerland, but I haven’t been able to corroborate it in her diaries. They’re not complete, by any means. There are a few suspicious entries—mentions of stomach upset and weight gain, then there’s blank till she returns home. I tried to question her companion, but came up against a brick wall.”
    “Who is her companion?”
    “A woman named Lorraine Taylor—she used to be Rosalie’s stand-in. She always went with Rosalie everywhere, and when they came back to the States, Lorraine had a new daughter with her. The girl’s name is Drew Taylor. Lorraine was officially married, although she hadn’t lived with her husband for years. He was a prop man in Hollywood. Rosalie was single at the time.”
    “And you think Rosalie was the real