PIECE: Catalog for first Art Basel Miami international art show, canceled due to the September 11 terrorist attacks.
At first, on the day after Annie’s arrest, everyone sat around in the living room with the fireplace lit, as if holding vigil. Paige sat in a leather wingback chair, scrolling the screen of her phone and biting on her lip. Odin leafed through art books, pulling one after another from the shelf. Nell made every effort not to check her own phone, instead pacing the floor from the kitchen and back, bringing plates of crackers no one ate and cups of coffee that grew cold.
Eventually, Paige excused herself. “I’m gonna go upstairs and try to work. You’ll let me know if you hear anything?”
Nell promised she would, and Paige went up, leaving Nell and Odin alone. A charged silence grew between them. The last time they’d been alone, they’d almost kissed. Nell had wanted to, so badly. Even now, with everything that was going on, she felt a strong, pure pull of attraction to him, even though he was across the room. It was such a different sensation than what she felt with Josh.
With Josh, everything was . . . complicated. Even before their recent fight about the credit card debt, Nell had felt like she and Josh were on completely different pages, in the lengths they were willing to go to have a child, and in the way they mourned the one they lost. Josh mistrusted her now, and rightly so.
The mistrust went both ways, though. Since Josh seemed to have moved on from their loss more easily than Nell, she had stopped revealing her deepest emotions to him. She didn’t trust Josh to understand without judging her, without thinking she was somehow broken. As a result, it had been a long time since Nell felt like anyone had really listened to her. But Odin had. And Nell had been so starved for connection that for a few moments late last night, she’d contemplated cheating on her husband. She wasn’t sure what that said about her marriage, or about her. She’d have to answer those questions at some point, but at the moment, she had much bigger worries to deal with.
Now, Odin got up from the couch and cleared his throat. “I think I’m gonna get back to work, too,” he said. “I need to get my mind off things.”
By “things,” Nell guessed he meant Caroline and Annie. But she wondered if he was thinking, too, about what had transpired, or not transpired, in the office last night.
Nell envied the fact that Odin and Paige had their work to distract them. Sitting alone in the big living room, Nell stared at the hole in the wall above the fireplace. It occurred to her that, based on his last phone call to her, Grady and his subcontractors should have been out to the house by now to finish the wiring. She was beginning to wonder if the hole would ever be patched up. It seemed symbolic of the rift that the events of the previous night had torn through the balance of work and life at the Colony. She couldn’t stand to look at it.
She went out to her car and got her running clothes. She usually waited until after work to run, but she needed to clear her head. She changed and set out along the sidewalks, winding her way down Gorham, past James Madison Park and toward the university campus. She wondered what was taking Josh and Annie so long at the station, and decided it couldn’t be a good sign.
She ran until she could strip away, at least for a couple of miles, the shock of the last day, the marital stress of the last few weeks, and the grief that had clung to her heart for months. She knew it would return, all of it. But for a little while at least, she focused on the soft thump of her shoes on the sidewalk and the quick, simple cadence of her breath.
When Nell got back to the mansion, she went into the office. She normally wouldn’t hang around at work in her running clothes, but if the events of the previous night had taught her anything, it was that this was far from a regular job. A little bit of sweat and some sneakers were the least of her worries.
She picked up the shoebox she’d taken out of the safe the night before and left on the desk. She remembered seeing some exhibition catalogs rubber-banded together among the other papers, and she dug through the contents of the box until she found them. She sat down on the office floor and spread them out around her, sorting them by date. It was a soothing task that took a bit of the edge off her anxiety. There were thick catalogs from various years of the international Art Basel exhibition in Miami, skinnier pamphlets from Wisconsin galleries, and dozens of publications from shows in Chicago and New York. Some of the catalogs were yellowed and curled at the edges, others were slick and new.
Among the newer items was a small one from an art gallery in New York. The cover read Annie Beck: Elysium. Now that she saw it, Nell remembered having read on an art blog that Annie had done a small, private show that didn’t get very good reviews from the handful of press members who were invited. Here, though, was a catalog that seemed to indicate that Betsy had been there.
The cover of the catalog bore a note handwritten in blue ink: “No. 2?” Nell flipped to the inside, where reproductions of black-and-white photographs had been printed on thick matte paper. She located the image labeled No. 2. The picture was a close-up image of a pair of eyes, dark and bright and framed by laugh lines at the sides. From the way the lashes spread out like spokes, thick with mascara, the subject appeared to be a woman, and not a young one. The rest of her face was obscured by a veil of smoke, but the angle of the woman’s long, graceful neck could be seen at the bottom of the frame. There was something haunting, yet beautiful, about the image, and Nell could see why Betsy had made note of it.
Nell flipped through the rest of the catalog for more handwriting, or for some indication as to whether Betsy had purchased the photograph. She didn’t find anything that gave her an answer, but she did find a folded newspaper clipping tucked into the pages. The article read much like the blog piece Nell had seen.
Beck brings her keen eye for social commentary to her latest project, a potentially groundbreaking photo essay on death and pain management. However, her technical skills fall short of the level required for her ambitious subject matter. Though fans of Beck’s earlier work will no doubt flock to view the full series when it opens in earnest at a later (still unannounced) date, they will likely leave disappointed. Bottom line: Beck should stick to the large-scale, abstract work and performance pieces on which she built her reputation.
In blue ink, a handwritten note had been scrawled in the margin of the article: “How dare an old lady try something new?” Nell smiled. Betsy’s slanted script hinted at her insight and humor. Nell wondered how much Betsy had known about this project when she chose Annie for the residency. Annie’s application said only that she was working on a “groundbreaking photo essay on human pain.” It didn’t say anything about death, like the article mentioned, and certainly didn’t say anything about addiction. If Betsy had traveled to New York to see the exhibition, it was likely she’d met Annie in person. How much had Annie disclosed?
Nell set aside the catalog and sifted through the other scraps, hoping to find anything else that might give her some insight.
“Hello?” At the sound of Josh’s voice in the foyer, she placed the papers back into the box and went out to greet him.
Before Josh even said anything, Nell could tell he didn’t have good news. His shoulders slouched under his rumpled button-down shirt, and one clasp of his thick leather briefcase hung undone. A sense of gratitude washed over her. Josh had spent the entire day at the police station, canceling his lectures to field questions with Annie, simply because he knew it was important to Nell. For a moment, everything else that had happened between them faded, and she went over and hugged him. Josh must not have felt the same warm feeling, though, because he startled at the physical contact from her.
Nell stepped back. “What happened at the police station?” she asked.
He shook his head. “I made every argument I could think of, but they wouldn’t let Annie go. They’re holding her in jail until they can get her into court for an initial appearance tomorrow. Then hopefully they’ll let her out, at least on bond, until the next court date.”
From the earnest expression on his face, Nell could tell that he truly felt terrible about not being able to do more. Josh did not like to fail, and she was certain he saw this as a failure.
“Give yourself a break,” Nell said. “Annie didn’t exactly make it easy for you to defend her. You literally walked in as the cops were holding up a bag full of pot. And, anyway, Annie’s a pretty strong woman.”
Josh cracked a small smile. “I overheard someone say at the police station that a guy was arrested at the Capitol today for disorderly conduct during the Solidarity Sing Along. Perhaps he and Annie can lead a rendition of ‘Have You Been to Jail for Justice?’”
“Did you eat anything?” Nell asked.
Josh shook his head.
“Well, come on, you must be starving.” She brought him to the kitchen, where the untouched plate of cheese and crackers she’d made hours earlier was still sitting on the counter. “I can offer you some cheese that’s been sitting out all day. Or . . .” She opened the cabinets. “A bowl of cereal? Sorry there’s not much else. Except for the monthly dinners, the artists are in charge of their own food.”
Josh grabbed a cereal box from the open cabinet and read the label. “Granola, huh?”
“I know, it’s exactly what you’d picture an artists’ colony having in the cupboard.”
Nell opened the fridge, then shut it. “Sorry, there’s no milk or yogurt or anything.” She handed him a spoon. “Guess grocery shopping hasn’t been a priority.”
Josh sat down at the table, poured the granola into a bowl and ate it dry, with his fingers. When he’d finished one bowl, he poured himself another.
“Did you talk to your friend in the prosecutor’s office? The one who used to teach at the law school?” When Josh didn’t answer right away, she added, “Sorry, I guess maybe you can’t talk to me about Annie’s case.”
“No, I was just chewing,” he said in between bites. “She said it was fine for me to talk to you about it. Anyway, my friend said the DA’s office will likely put together a plea deal.”
“Do you think I should come to court tomorrow?”
Josh shook his head. “Tomorrow she won’t even be in front of a judge, just a court commissioner. It’s pretty short and routine. But eventually, yeah, it might be good for you and the others to show up for some of the court dates, so the judge can see that the residency thing is real and not just some sort of cover for running pot out of the basement.”
Nell shook her head. “It’s ridiculous, right? I mean, that we’re even having this conversation.”
“Yeah. When you got your PhD I can’t say this was a career scenario I ever would have pictured for you.”
“Which part, directing an artists’ colony or defending it from criminal charges?” she asked.
“Both—I mean, neither. I pictured you lecturing alongside slide shows of old paintings. Maybe working for a museum. Definitely something more . . . I don’t know, removed?” He put his spoon down. “Today I realized just how removed my job is. I like teaching and research, but I realized I’ve never represented an actual client. Depending on how far Annie’s case goes, I may need to refer her to an experienced criminal attorney to take over things. I’m a little out of my depth.”
“I don’t think she can afford to pay a private attorney,” Nell said.
“She filled out the paperwork to see if she qualifies for a public defender,” he said. “But I can help her out in the meantime.”
Nell listened as he explained what was likely to happen when Annie went in front of the court commissioner the next day. She noticed the fire in his voice as he talked—she hadn’t seen him get this animated over anything in a long time. So much of their lives in the last several months had been mundane at best, a struggle at worst. It was good to see him get excited about something. It was sexy, even.
He caught her watching him and said, “What?”
Nell smiled. “Nothing. I just really appreciate what you’re doing for Annie, and for the Colony. You would have had every right just to tell me to figure it out for myself, after the mess I made of everything with you and me and the money . . .”
Josh set his lips in a firm line. “This doesn’t have anything to do with that. I’m still angry. Like really, really angry.”
And there they were, completely out of sync again. Just as she’d started to feel a spark of attraction for Josh again, he’d snuffed it out by reminding her of just what a mess their marriage had become. Nell looked down at her hands. She noticed that she’d been fidgeting, unconsciously, with the cereal box on the counter, tearing the corners of the cardboard top into little shreds.
“But,” Josh said, “even though I’m still mad at you, I don’t see that as a good reason not to help out.”
A warm feeling expanded inside Nell’s chest. One of the main reasons she loved Josh was that he was a good person, a generous person. He was lending a hand, despite being pissed off on a personal level, because it was the right thing to do.
“Thank you,” she said. “And I’m sorry. Again.”
Josh nodded in acknowledgment. “Anyway, we really can’t afford for you to lose your job right now, so we might as well manage this the best we can.”
Nell cracked a smile in spite of everything and reached out to touch Josh’s hand. Hearing him say “we,” even if he was still angry, was a great comfort.
Odin walked in at that moment and saw them. He looked away, as if it was something he wasn’t supposed to see, or didn’t want to see.
Nell immediately thought of holding Odin’s hands the night before. Guilt churned in her stomach. She had liked the way her hands had felt in Odin’s. His hands were larger and rougher than Josh’s, callused from working with metal. Contact with Odin had sent a tingly thrill all over Nell’s body. It had made her forget, for a moment, about all of her grief and emotional exhaustion.
But the hand Nell held now was her husband’s hand, and he’d just spent an entire night and day at the police station with Annie, without being paid for it, just because she’d asked him to. Josh’s touch didn’t set off the same sort of chemical fireworks now that it once had. But it did give her the solid, reassuring sense that everything would be okay. And, at this moment, it was exactly what she needed. She gave Josh’s palm a squeeze, then stood up straight, slipping her hand out of his.
Josh nodded in Odin’s direction and said, “Hey.”
“Hey.” Odin grabbed a glass from the cupboard and filled it with water. He swallowed a sip and asked, “Any news?”
“Annie has to stay in jail until her court appearance,” Nell said.
“That’s too bad,” he said. “But something tells me she’s probably rounding up all the other people in jail as we speak, giving them a lecture about speaking truth to power.”
“I was just saying something along those lines,” Josh said, smiling.
Nell forced herself to smile, too, but she was relieved when Odin went back out to the garage.