PIECE: Flyer promoting the Equal Rights Amendment, from an Inauguration Day 1981 demonstration in Washington, DC.
Annie noticed the woman in the red dress right away. Aside from the bold color of her garment, the woman gave off an air of confidence and timeless elegance. Her short gray hair was stylishly cut and a large diamond necklace glittered on her collarbone. She looked older than Annie, in her seventies maybe, though it was so hard to tell. Age seemed more and more irrelevant to Annie. Either you connected with someone or you didn’t. Either you had something to offer to them, or them to you, preferably both, or you moved along. Annie supposed she could have saved her younger self a lot of unnecessary angst had she accepted those basic truths about human interactions decades earlier.
Betsy Barrett was the woman’s name. At least, that’s what Robbie, the curator of the gallery, whispered to Annie as the woman made her way across the room.
“She always buys something when she comes to New York. Always,” Robbie said, resting one elbow on the opposite hand. “Sometimes it’s here, sometimes other galleries. But she comes like she’s got money burning a hole in her pocket. And those are my favorite kind of customers.” Robbie stepped forward and shook Betsy’s hand.
“Betsy, meet Annie Beck,” Robbie said. “She’s our featured artist.”
Betsy smiled at Annie, a genuine smile that brought color to her face, which looked rather pale, now that Annie saw her up close.
“I believe we’ve met once before,” Betsy said.
Annie tilted her head, trying to place the woman. It had been such a long time since she’d shown new work. And exhibition openings were the only type of event where Annie would expect to cross paths with someone like Betsy. The opera-going, gala-attending, diamond-wearing crowd wasn’t exactly Annie’s scene.
“It’s okay if you don’t remember,” Betsy said. “It was ages ago, and only for a moment, at Reagan’s inauguration,” Betsy said. “I was on my way to one of the parties and you stopped me and handed me a flyer about the ERA.”
“Ah,” Annie said. “I could probably print up the same flyer today and it would still be relevant. Just swap in the name of the current president.”
“Unfortunately, I think you’re right,” Betsy said. “I kept the flyer. Back then, I’d already heard of you—the work you did with the Feminist Art Collective.”
“Well, my new project is a big departure from what I’ve done in the past.” Annie waved her hand toward the large black-and-white photographs framed on the gallery walls. “So if you’re looking for that sort of thing again, then you’ve come to the wrong place.”
“I’m not,” Betsy said. “I’m actually much more interested in what you’re doing now.”
“Tell that to the reviewers. I can’t seem to escape the shadow of what I used to create.” Annie shook her head. “Not that I want to. I’m proud of what I did back then. But I didn’t know that that’s all I’d be allowed to do. Ever.”
“Forget the reviews,” Betsy said. “Somehow I don’t think you’ve ever cared much about what critics think. Or what anyone thinks, for that matter.”
“No,” Annie said. “But I do want people to pay attention to what I’m doing. It’s quieter than my past work. More intimate. But I still have a lot to say.” She pointed to a picture that hung on the wall behind Betsy. A woman lay in a four-poster bed with an IV attached to her arm and a collection of prescription bottles scattered on the nightstand. She was propped up against her pillows, a flowered scarf wrapped around her hairless head. And she was reading Proust in French.
“Geraldine,” Annie said. “She was a retired literature professor at Columbia. She spoke three languages. Lived in Paris in the summer of sixty-eight when all the student protests were going on. Bone cancer had her bedridden at the end. Her granddaughters would bring her magazines and movies to keep her occupied, and the magazines just piled up on the dresser, unopened. She said she wanted to spend her last days rereading some of ‘her early loves.’ And so she did. Goethe and Kafka in German, Camus in French.”
“I envy her,” Betsy said. “I’ve tried to pick up a few foreign phrases here and there for travel, but I’m not proficient enough to read much more than a menu or a road sign in any language.”
Annie nodded. “I envied her a little, too. And that’s what I wanted to portray here. That this woman was not someone to be pitied. She’d be the first to tell you that. She led an incredible life. Sharp right up until she passed away in her sleep.”
“The picture says all of that,” Betsy said.
“Good,” Annie said. “Because if I took the Proust novel and the silk scarf out of the picture, a lot of people would just see a sick old lady. And even with everything I’ve tried to get across in these photos, by surrounding people with the things they love and trying to capture little bits of their lives as they’re forced to look back on them . . . some people still don’t seem to get the message. They see my name and come in here expecting, I don’t know, performance art against the patriarchy or something. And, yes, I had a lot to say about that, once. And I still do. But it’s not the conversation I’m most interested in now. I have other things to say. But no one seems to be able to hear me because the past me is so much louder.”
“I hear you,” Betsy said.