Blake sat in the handicapped stall of the Albie’s basement bathroom, trying to breathe deeply. It was opening night. She was wearing a white silk shift, vintage, with straps made of hair. A nod to her Biennial victory. But she didn’t feel like she could savor anything. She was nervous; the nervousness felt like a whole other person living inside of her. This was supposed to be another grand night. The room exhibit, her secret pride and passion for years, finally coming to fruition. More notoriety meant more money. More money meant more freedom. More freedom meant more art. She was on the cusp of real success, and it was even more than the cusp; she was entering into a very elite, lucky world where institutions wanted to pay her to make art. Individuals wanted to collect her art. Her art was making money. It was the pipe dream of every artist, and it was real.
But she was hiding in the bathroom. Nights like this did not come easy. She knew how to do lots of things—or at least, a few very important things. She knew how to work alone in her studio all hours of the night, thinking, reframing, creating, living and breathing her art. When that got to be too much, she knew how to flirt with women. She also knew how to make delicious oat pancakes. A perfect cup of coffee. What else? There must be something else.
She did not know how to schmooze with donors. Some of her buyers were here tonight, along with some former grad school classmates. The head of the Boston Arts Commission. And a lot of rich people.
So many rich people.
She looked in her bag, took out her bright red lipstick, and, without looking, put it on expertly. She had thought about dying her hair blue, to stand out, to say, “See, kids, I’m still a punk rocker inside,” but she didn’t. She kept her buzz cut its natural brown color, the dark, almost black shade she inherited from her mother. Mama would laugh and say, half dismissively and half admiringly, “my little chameleon” whenever she did something new to her hair, including the wigs she sported for years. Blake was used to pretending. She could pass for straight, though she didn’t have much interest in that anymore. Oh, and she could pass for a man. It had been a while, but she’d done it. Bound breasts and a baseball cap. What fun. Could she pass for unflappable?
She heard a dull knock on the stall door. “Blake, honey?” Steve’s voice. “You ready? It’s still cocktail hour, but they want to do the director’s welcome, and you’ve got to stand and smile. You know the drill.”
“Yep,” Blake said, trying to sound upbeat. “Gotcha. Then what happens?”
“Then they go upstairs to the installation, and when they come back, dinner.”
“Do I have to talk in the gallery?”
“No.”
Blake sighed, relief coursing through her. Steve would have warned her earlier if he’d expected her to speak, but still the confirmation was appreciated. She could meet and greet and listen to the patrons comment on the art and go home unscathed. She could do this. She’d be a good sport.
She pushed open the stall, and when Steve saw her he audibly gasped. “Amazing dress,” was all he choked out as he rubbed his slow-growing reddish beard in seeming introspection. Blake savored the effect she was having on him for a moment. Catching herself in the bathroom mirror behind him, she had to agree. The white silk had a shine to it, and it picked up and reflected the light, even dazzling under the tinny basement fluorescents. She’d had it tailored so even though it was a relatively simple sheath, it fit her perfectly, giving the dress the structure of her own subtle curves. Even though it was winter, her nose and cheeks were adorned with freckles, and her skin looked bright against the fabric. The straps, which were woven like rope, made her look like a Greek statue come alive.
She turned away from the mirror. The most important thing, she reminded herself, was that the show was finished and people would like it. She linked her arm with Steve’s. He muttered as they walked up the marble steps into the main gallery, “Really exquisite.”
The small but stately atrium of the museum was decorated mainly with light. Blake had suggested this, and Davis had run with it, to great effect. The marble walls looked like they were adorned with curtains, but it was the rich shine of spotlights Davis had installed in the ceiling. The colors were changing very slowly, but Blake could sense the changes, without even looking, as the tone of the whole room shifted depending on what color filter was being rotated in. The red made everyone more talkative, and then slowly, very slowly, they were enveloped in a quieter blue. Instead of flowers on the tables, there were LED lights attached to wires, sitting in metal vases, illuminating the space around them with what looked like little bubbles. It looked like the chairs were floating off the ground, because there were warm white lights attached to the bottom of the seats.
Steve grabbed two champagne flutes from a passing tray and handed one to Blake.
“Monastic, remember?” she said, putting the glass down at the nearest table and signaling for water instead.
“Excellent,” he said, and Blake wondered if it had been a test. But he seemed disappointed to have to toast alone, holding his lone drink up to Blake, quietly saying, “Cheers.”
“Indeed!” a voice behind them piped in. “Ms. Harrison, I trust everything is to your liking?” It was Davis, shaking slightly, as usual a little nervous in her presence.
“It looks magnificent, Davis, yes.”
“Magnificent?” His eyes grew wide. “Wow, thank you.”
“Truly,” she said.
Blake’s heels were making her tower over Davis, so she was looking down at him a bit. Davis looked up at her, all starstruck nerves. Then he seemed to notice his eye contact was boring too deep a hole in her face, so he looked down and mumbled, “Great dress.”
She thumbed one of the shoulder straps of the dress and whispered, “This is some of the hair from the Biennial piece.” Davis looked up at her and then at the strap. She could tell he wanted to touch it, but she didn’t offer. He took a deep breath, seeming to collect himself. “Well, that’s just genius. Playful and irreverent but also pulled off in a classy way. Not self-conscious, but self-referential. Wow!”
“Thank you,” Blake said, pleased that she was able to let Davis in on a little secret, and even a little flattered by his approval. She hadn’t quite expected what an artist he’d turn out to be, transforming the space so completely. She noticed that another spotlight had begun rotating on the ceiling, making the innards of the dome look like they were a thick green velvet curtain.
Steve tugged on her forearm. “Come on. There are people you need to meet.”
Forcing herself to be satisfied with seltzer and lime, Blake made the rounds. First up was the director of the museum, Walter Smith. He was known for favoring the art of dead white men and acting nearly like one himself. She was surprised that he had welcomed her show at all. Now he was gazing at her warmly. His thick brown mustache made her think of some of her friends’ fathers from childhood.
“I took a peek at the show. Congratulations. You’ve done us proud.” Blake smiled. A woman appeared at Walter’s side and grabbed Blake’s hand before he could introduce her.
“I’ve been telling Walter how excited I am to meet you. I don’t always come to these openings, Christ Almighty, they can be so bloody boring. But I said, I have to support this artist because she makes phalluses out of HAIR.”
Walter smiled, a bit sheepishly, but with clear adoration. “This is my wife, Amy,” he said, and Amy gave a small curtsey. She was short, with a massive head of graying curls. Her accent was British and bouncy. She inhabited her body like she would rather be dancing.
She kept shaking Blake’s hand, and Walter stepped back, apparently used to being upstaged. “When I saw it at the Whitney, I stood there looking at it and my throat just contracted in horror. Literally. I wanted to throw up. I gagged,” Amy said.
Blake laughed, loving the frankness and the irreverence.
“Now this,” Amy said, “this reverent, beautiful show. It’s just gorgeous. I went upstairs earlier. You go from gags to beauty.”
“I’ve been criticized for that, you know,” Blake said, relieved that she felt like she was talking to a friend and not one of the uptight glitterati.
“That’s, if you don’t mind my saying so, utter shit. What, they want the same thing from you over and over? It’s all visceral. It’s all part of this delivery of the senses. Oh, if I have to look at one more sodding Rembrandt—”
“He can be visceral too,” Blake said.
“Oh yes, I like the paint. The problem is that it’s all a little square. Like Walter, bless him, but you see what I mean. We’ve moved on. I keep telling him this. Why confine ourselves to little squares? Isn’t that what all these art movements have been for? That’s the revolution! In with the new, new, new!” She opened her mouth wide and laughed loudly, it was almost a cackle, and then, swallowing the sound quickly, cocked her head and asked, “So, who else do you need to meet besides my husband and me? I know most everyone here.”
It was Amy who escorted Blake around the room. Blake tried to cloak herself in Amy’s confidence, meeting the deputy mayor, the heads of two area colleges, and a few art professors. Amy took her over to a table of collectors. Blake took a deep breath, telling herself that her art spoke for itself. All they wanted was a face with the name. She didn’t have to say or do anything she didn’t believe.
When she walked up to the table, she noticed a couple she knew from New York and felt slightly more comfortable. But the rest were new to her and looked rich in a different way than New Yorkers. In New York, the men, even if they were on the other side of sixty, were still in tight pants and soft cashmere sweaters, sometimes with chains from pocket watches, and with bright pink argyle socks. The women were in tight pants, cage wedges, and tunics, all black and elegant lines. Here, the men were in tuxedos and they wore their money on their wrists and on their feet, not ostentatiously but not hiding anything either. The women here were similarly anachronistic, it seemed to Blake—one in a yellow Chanel suit, matching pumps, matching manicure.
“Truly remarkable,” Yellow Chanel Suit said. “We’re thrilled to be here to witness the debut.”
“Tonight is about supporting the museum, of course,” said a man next to her in a gray Armani, “but it’s also about supporting you. I know you have representation, but I want you to know if you ever need anything, call me personally.” He slid a card across the table. Blake held it, not sure where to put it. She fumbled for a moment, realizing she was without pockets, without a clutch, and she wasn’t about to stick the man’s card in her bra.
“I’ll take that,” said Amy, and Blake smiled, feeling rescued by her new apparent friend.
“Do you have a personal favorite?” Yellow Chanel asked. It was a question Blake usually didn’t answer, but for some reason she was starting to feel more comfortable and more talkative than she usually did. Something about the lights or something about Amy next to her. “I like what the Hockney room does to people,” she said. “I was in there—I saw—a person who claims not to understand art at all—she had to take her jacket off because of the light.” The collectors were looking at her. Blake felt herself choking on her words a little, growing flustered again, her mind on Jenny. “I mean—”
“It certainly affects people. I’m partial to the Vermeer room, myself,” said Armani. “There is a reverent quality to it. Chapel-like. The light is silence.”
The table nodded, and silence overtook the whole rotunda for a moment. Everyone paused, not realizing how loud the music had been. Walter’s baritone came through the speaker system. “Please join us upstairs in the gallery.” The cacophonous sound of scraping chairs and setting down of glasses overtook the room, and a wave of bodies then overtook the main stairs to the rooms.
Blake stepped aside, nodding for Amy to go ahead, wanting to be last one into the gallery so that she could sneak in just in time for her introduction. Her stomach flipped in abject terror. As well as she knew the rooms had turned out, she could not overcome the nerves from bearing witness to so many people experiencing them. She had been heartened when Jenny had basked in the light of the blue room, but this was different. There would be so many people at once, people who would be making decisions about whether or not to invest in her in the future. Someone from the MacArthur Foundation was reportedly at the gala, too. Blake took a deep breath, trying to compose herself. They’ll like it, she told herself. They’ll reach out for the walls, the air, just like Jenny. They’ll feel the light. They’ll push their faces toward the light. She let herself remember, a few days ago, standing with Jenny in the gallery before Liza interrupted them. She was afraid to dissect it too much, afraid to find out what it was, but something had passed between them. Something sudden and slight. The thought of it made her feel buoyed, just a little. Catching herself in the memory, she admonished herself for her lack of focus. Tonight was about the rooms. Not memories of a certain woman inside of them.
Hearing the last of the rush of feet up the marble staircase, she opened her eyes. There, walking quickly up the stairs of the rotunda toward the installation, the reverse direction of Cinderella, was Jenny herself. It was as if Blake had conjured her up. She was wearing a gorgeous, hip-hugging black gown. Blake couldn’t see her face, but she knew her figure somehow from behind, amazed that in just a few meetings Jenny’s gait, her comportment, had become so familiar. She let herself look, for a moment, at the gorgeous hourglass figure ascending the stairs. Those Brooks Brothers suits had nothing on this dress. Jenny looked like a queen.
Clunky footsteps sounded from across the rotunda, and Blake slid herself behind a pillar, not wanting to be caught watching even more than she didn’t want to catch herself thinking. A voice yelled, “Jenny!” and Jenny turned quickly around. Her hair swung, softly landing in perfect waves around her shoulders. The dress hugged her front curves just as well as her back. Her chest was set off with a gorgeous tuxedo collar and the lines of the dress somehow seemed to travel up her body to her bright face and intelligent, glowing eyes. Blake almost sighed, daring to wonder for a moment that maybe what had passed between them was real interest, as she’d hoped. But any daydream was interrupted by a loud, low, but almost screeching male voice. “Jenny!” the voice said again, and a man with a mop of blond hair and a perfectly fitted black suit was galloping toward Jenny. Blake watched as he held up to Jenny a shiny black clutch and said, “Here you are” with a grin. The blond touched Jenny’s palm with the tip of his fingers as he handed her the clutch. Taking the stairs, too, but a few steps behind her, the man, undetected, let his eyes travel up her body, apparently savoring the back view of Jenny just as Blake had done. Oh goodness, had she ogled her so monstrously, too?
Then he did something that made Blake’s skin go cold. He placed his hand on the small of Jenny’s back and let his palm rest there, somewhere between jealous and tender.
So that was him. The banker Blake had imagined when they first met. The asshole who she imagined would propose on Valentine’s Day and who checked his stock portfolio on his phone after sex.
Blake wanted to hit something, and she wasn’t even sure exactly why. Had she really been so off? Why did she care? Jenny didn’t even like her. Why was this making her so upset? She told herself to breathe. In and out. There was no need to be fixated on some uptight straight girl. She had work to do. How dare she let her mind wander so thoroughly. She made her way to the staircase, poised to make her own entrance. Jenny could have her blond stud. Blake had her art.