Jenny had two main goals. One was to avoid Michael at all costs until they had to show up at the Daubert hearing together. The other was to not to think about Blake at all. She told herself she was succeeding, but memories of the gala, and her brief moments in the Hockney room, kept showing up in her head, unbidden. The only good news of her week was that Michael was in Florida again—with a client or on a golf course or both, she was unsure. She was able to let his calls go to voice mail and respond immediately to his emails with nothing but a businesslike, placid tone.
And then, as he had the fateful Monday when she’d first met Blake, Davis jolted her out of the comforting silence of her office with a loud ping of the phone announcing his text.
Big favor. Tonight. Dinner with museum people. I need a beard.
Followed by a phone call. “Please?” Davis whined. “The Albie director—Walter—and his wife, she’s a hoot—they are having me and the other curators over for dinner.” He ignored Jenny’s loud sigh and pressed on. “This could be good for you,” Davis pleaded, “with all the bank connections with people on the board, right? Please? We’re, like, symbiotic at this point. I need you.”
Jenny sighed. Having to perform for strangers didn’t sound like a lot of fun, but she was supposed to have dinner at her parents that night and was glad for a good reason to cancel. She couldn’t face the rickety Green Line, which had been especially slow with all the snow. Or, of course, them. Them and their pleasantly expectant faces. The grandparents in waiting. But she wasn’t ready to concede.
“Why me? Really, Davis. You don’t need a date.”
“You’re right, you’re not coming as my girlfriend. You’ll be there as my friend who is gorgeous and smart and accomplished and makes me look good by association.”
“Davis. Please.”
“Fine. Sean cancelled. He wouldn’t be as good at it as you will be anyway. I think the director of photography’s husband is a lawyer. You can talk to him.”
Jenny looked at the square walls of her office, the gray dimming light. She wanted to know one thing, of course, but she didn’t know how to ask it. She took a deep breath. Davis answered before she had to ask.
“If you’re wondering, it’s museum people, not artists. Blake won’t be there.”
Jenny couldn’t gauge her own reaction. She was disappointed and relieved at the same time. She’d wanted to apologize, but really, what did she have to apologize for? It had been a week since that stupid gala anyway. Surely Blake wasn’t musing about what Brandon had said. She was probably back in New York, running her hands over the body of that pale, voluptuous assistant, working on her next big project, not thinking a whit about Jenny and the ogres with whom she kept company.
“Fine,” she said.
Davis squealed. “Thank you, thank you. It’s casual. At their house. Just a few people, wine, etcetera. I’ll text you deets.”
A few hours later, Jenny was outside Walter Smith’s townhouse, banging on the pineapple-shaped brass knocker clumsily with her mittened hand. When a hired steward in a crisp, rented-looking tuxedo shirt ushered her inside, she wanted to pat herself on the back for her forethought. Thank goodness she hadn’t listened to Davis. The gathering was at the director’s house—that much was true. But it was more than a few people, and it was not casual. Jenny had expected that much at least. You didn’t show up at a townhouse in the Back Bay, one of the ones with four levels that looks over the Orange Line pathway, in anything other than a cocktail dress and stilettos. It was cold for that, of course, but Bostonians had a trick to handle that. As she’d expected, large baskets by the door were filled with warm winter boots that had been shed like skin. Walter and Amy Smith, the director and his wife, had prepared the house impeccably. Inside, she couldn’t tell it was winter. The chandeliers were plentiful and bright, casting sharp shapes on bright yellow wallpapered walls. It seemed like a spring day, everyone in their finest clothes, cocktails in hand.
Jenny made her way through the first floor, searching for Davis, and rose a few steps up to the first-floor landing to for a better vantage point. She spotted Davis from above, gesticulating and grinning and surrounded by a gaggle of admirers. When she glided to his side, he greeted her more loudly than felt appropriate for the quiet din of the room. “Everyone! My best friend!” Jenny smiled, but it was clear that Davis was in the middle of his story. He was talking about the design he’d done for Blake’s opening.
“So this guy comes up to me, and he says, this looks amazing, can you do my wedding? I say, um, okay, sure, I mean, I’m thinking, he’s going to pay me, right? Or does he just want to know what linens and lights I used and the LEDs on the chair. Then he gives me his card, and he’s a wedding planner. He said ‘his wedding’ but he meant the one he’s working on. For the governor’s daughter! So now I’m on this wedding planner’s payroll!”
Big smiles from the small crowd of colleagues. Jenny felt a surge of pride, too. “So, do you have a contract?” Jenny asked, in part because she wanted to know—and wanted to help—and also because she knew she was there to play a role, and she didn’t mind doing it. Lawyer friend. Strait-laced protector.
“I do. But you can look at it.” Davis said to her, smiling to the circle. “There’s going to be more. I’m going to tell Walter—he’s got to up my salary—because if I get five of these a year, man, that’s really uncomfortably close to the peanuts they pay us.”
His colleagues nodded, a few laughed. One, with glasses and a bowtie, said, “Davis, you could do it! Go out on your own. The museum would hire you to do the galas.”
“I should ask for a bonus for Blake’s,” Davis said. The group laughed, the idea of extra money in the budget apparently a hilarious joke all by itself.
Jenny saw a woman approach the crowd from the corner of her eye, a short, friendly looking woman who was wearing a dress the same color as hers. The woman draped her arm around Davis’s shoulder and said in a charismatic British accent, “What you did for that gala was magnificent.” Jenny realized that the woman was Amy, the director’s wife and the host for the evening. Amy beamed at Davis and the assembled guests. Her hair was gray, but otherwise she looked twenty years younger than her husband, at least.
“You’re Davis’s friend,” she said, turning to Jenny. “Welcome, and I can see you’re very good with color,” she said, gesturing back and forth between her and Jenny’s nearly matching dresses. Jenny smiled, liking her immediately, feeling pulled into her clear enthusiasm and grace. “I have to go check on the catering, but then I’m going to give anyone who wants one a house tour.” She turned back. “Not to brag, but to show you the paintings. We get to take some from the museum! Guess who got to choose!” She pointed her thumbs at herself and made an exaggerated rock star kind of face, gleaming white teeth and scrunched up eyes. Jenny laughed. The night would be okay.
Soon they were all standing by one of the paintings on the third floor. This floor was the least austere, covered in bright angular furniture, all in saturated colors, as if a paintbox had exploded over the room. Nothing was unpainted. Even the pillows clashed. Somehow, though, there was a harmony to it. The loud colors and angles didn’t fight with one another but instead seemed to dance. Jenny let her eyes go from a red- and orange-striped side chair to a knitted magenta pouf, with a translucent, bright red throw blanket folded neatly on top. The blanket clashed with—no, complemented—an enormous vase of maroon Gerber daisies on the yellow table next to it. Walter and Amy were both giving the tour, talking about a small Derain painting on the wall, and Jenny was starting to clue in that the bright, bold furniture was supposed to be in tune with the painting. “Not a study in contrasts,” Amy confirmed. “We went all out on this one. Envelop yourself in crazy pops of color while you look at this kinetic, Fauvist landscape.”
“What my wife means,” Walter said, “is that it is a great privilege to live with this painting—”
“I love Andre Derain, just so we’re clear, yes,” Amy said, smiling as she grabbed Walter’s elbow. Jenny felt awash in their affection for one another. She couldn’t help but feel jealous. She wanted to fit with someone so well. She wanted to banter, to be understood. Davis seemed to sense it and put his hand on her elbow, almost reassuringly, maybe thinking of their conversation over drinks the week before.
Amy ushered them to the dining room. There were about twenty of them, half museum employees, the rest plus-ones. Walter stood at the head of the table, which extended through their dining room and into the formal living room, another white carpet underfoot.
He stood, adjusted his tie, and made a big show of taking it off. “This really is the night we look forward to most out of the year,” he said. “It is our honor to show our appreciation for all of you, our colleagues, who keep the museum running. I know what we all do is for the love of it. Our faith in our mission and what we bring to the city. We do make this world a better place, because we bring beauty into it. Thank you all, and please enjoy.”
Everyone raised their glasses, a few muttered, “hear, hear,” and Amy beamed down the table. Jenny was happy to be privy to Davis’s world and for being around all these people who admired him. She grinned across the table at him and took a sip of perfectly chilled white wine.
The doorbell rang and Amy leapt up. From where Jenny was seated, she couldn’t see who it was. The person’s face was obscured by what she was carrying, a poster-sized folder which had a black plastic bag haphazardly duct-taped over it. A few snowflakes were sticking to the bag. Amy said something—Jenny couldn’t hear what—and then the person walked into the foyer and the door closed behind them. Somehow Jenny knew before she saw her face—deep inside her, simply by being in her presence—knew from the jolt she felt, who was carrying the folder, kicking off her boots, and walking into Amy and Walter’s house, toward the assembled dinner party. She knew.
Blake.
Jenny couldn’t help it. She gasped and looked down quickly, but it was too late. Blake had seen her. Lifting her head, Jenny watched her move across the room. Blake’s eyes settled on her for a moment and then darted away. Jenny felt her own breath hitch at the sudden, brief eye contact. Was she imagining it, or had Blake’s stride faltered for a moment when she saw her?
Amy gestured to a steward to take Blake’s portfolio and turned to the crowd. “Surprise, everyone, we have another guest!” Slowly, the diners realized who was standing before them and erupted into applause. A few stood. Jenny clapped, so as not to look left out, but all she wanted to do was keep eating and ignore her. She watched, out of the corner of her eye, as Blake greeted Walter and sat in the empty chair next to Amy.
“Sorry I’m late,” Blake said to the crowd, and Amy squeezed her shoulder.
“Our last-minute addition and guest of honor, everyone.” Jenny looked down at her plate again. At least she and Blake were at opposite ends of the table. Maybe she wouldn’t have to see her or talk to her or…anything. She would only have to be a good friend to Davis. Make conversation with the rest of the people at the table. Be polite, support him, and leave.
Jenny cleared her throat and turned to the gaunt man sitting next to her, who had been slurping on his wine rather contentedly all evening. “What do you do?”
“In Europe, they never ask that. They ask where you’re going on your next vacation.”
“Okay,” Jenny said, too on edge with Blake so nearby to care how rude he was. “So where are you going?”
“Nowhere,” the gaunt man said. “I can’t get time off work.” Jenny laughed and looked at him, expecting a smile, but finding none, turned back to her plate. Blake, she sensed, seemed to be conspicuously not looking at her. Jenny wasn’t sure how well she could trust herself. Because she knew, even though she was trying not to, that her eyes kept falling on Blake. She was dressed fully in black, with a long necklace that looked like it was made of tiny teeth. On her delicate wrists were stacked orange plastic bangles. Her lips were bright red and looked like they were standing out from the rest of her face. She was joining Amy in jolly conversation that the rest of the table couldn’t hear; hands gesticulating wildly, eyes bright.
Walter, for the moment, wasn’t talking to anyone. Jenny leaned toward him. There were two guests between them at the table, but she hoped he could hear. “Walter, I was wondering how long you’ve had the Derain.”
He smiled and looked a little relieved to have been engaged. “Just about two years. We’re going to have to lend it to a museum in Pittsburgh in the spring, though.”
“It’s a truly gorgeous painting. Thank you for showing us,” Jenny said, and she could feel Davis’s gratitude beside her. This is what she was here for. She could do it even when Blake in attendance.
Blake interrupted. “You have a Derain in this house?” Her eyes were wide, excited.
“I’ll show you after dinner,” Amy said, with another propriety pat on the arm. “It’s right upstairs.”
Then Blake set her gaze on Jenny. She was far across the table, but somehow, when she turned, the space between them seemed to shrink and Jenny felt like they were alone, face-to-face. But not in the way she wanted. Blake was not looking at her kindly.
“I’m surprised you liked it, Jenny.”
The table went silent. Out of respect for Blake perhaps? Or maybe, because Jenny and Blake were so far apart at the table, their conversation overtook the room.
“Why?” Jenny managed to squeak, immediately feeling embarrassed for squeaking. How did Blake do this to her?
“I didn’t think you liked anything abstract. I mean, it’s not a Hoffman or anything, but Derain is a Fauvist. Color, aggressively spread everywhere. He’s pretty out there. I would think that you would like Bierstadt. Big, huge, concrete, American landscapes. The mountain looks real. You want proof that an artist is a skilled draftsman. You only like people who can draw. Am I wrong?”
The silence at the table persisted, and Jenny wondered if it was because the other people at the table could sense the hardness in Blake’s voice. They hadn’t been there at the gala, hadn’t overheard Brandon, didn’t know about the tension that kept leaping up between them. She swallowed, feeling the heat of Blake’s gaze and the oppressive quiet of the dining room, not knowing how to respond. Amy smiled, so big it was enough to break the tension. “Bierstadt made everything up anyway, to call him a realist is like…Lifetime movies. ‘Based on actual events…’”
Davis joined in. “I love those! Did anyone see that one about Clark Rockefeller a few years back? It was totally filmed on the Common.” The other curators of the table picked up the cue, and the dining room filled with the din of voices again.
Jenny chewed her food while looking down, face hot, anger welling up inside of her. Davis had rescued her, in a sense. She hoped somehow the exchange hadn’t embarrassed him. She was supposed to be supporting him, not becoming the center of attention. If anyone should be embarrassed, it was Blake. What had gotten into her? Apparently she had been mulling over what she’d heard at the gala. Apparently she was angry at Jenny, enough to speak disdainfully to her across the table.
Jenny chewed her food, knowing a purple blush was probably raging fiercely across her cheeks and neck. To think she had been considering apologizing to Blake for what Brandon had said! How could she have been regretting standing by him and Michael at the gala when Blake herself was proving to be a kind of ogre? Someone who was comfortable with trying to humiliate her at a dinner party? What was her problem?
Eventually, though it didn’t feel like soon enough, the party started emptying out. The dinner plates were cleared, and dessert was being set up. A coffee urn, sparkling silver, was set up in the parlor. Jenny looked around impatiently, but she wasn’t sure how to exit.
Davis squeezed Jenny’s leg. “Hon, it’s okay for you to head out. I think, um, I’m gonna stay?” he said with an uplift and slightly pleading eyes.
“Good,” she said. “You should.” She wondered if they would talk about her when she left and then berated herself for wondering. It didn’t matter. Blake wasn’t worth any more of her time.
Uneasy, she made her way to the door. She was about to press it open to step out into yet another snowfall when she almost bumped into Blake. She was fishing around for her clothes by the front closet, not knowing, apparently, that everything but boots had been brought upstairs. Seeing her, Blake stepped back, as if dangerously allergic to her proximity. “Sorry,” Jenny said, automatically before clamping her mouth shut. She didn’t want to show any weakness.
“It’s okay,” Blake said. She looked at Jenny for a few moments—longer than Jenny thought she would. Long enough that Jenny began shifting under her gaze. In time a glaze came over Blake’s eyes, and she looked down, with something that seemed like shame on her face. Her mouth turned down. Jenny wanted to say something, but she wasn’t sure what.
It seemed strange, standing in the silence. It made it seem obvious that there was something between them more nuanced than mutual dislike. Some strange fire that she couldn’t explain. Just like when they had been sitting back-to-back on the bench during the gala, there was a heat between their bodies that Jenny couldn’t account for. A heaviness in the silence. Maybe Lydia was right. Maybe she had feelings for Blake. She should go. Get out from under Blake’s gaze, but she felt stuck.
She decided to say the plainest, truest thing that came to mind. No recrimination for what Blake had done at the table and no apology for what Brandon had said at the gala. No looking back. Just the truth. She cleared her throat and looked into Blake’s eyes. “I like your art,” she said.
As soon as the words came out of her mouth, she felt weak and stupid. What was she thinking? She wrapped her scarf quickly around her face so Blake couldn’t see her blush.
Blake looked at her skeptically, her eyes scrunched a little, as if she were studying what was happening between them as if it was in a lab. Then, she smiled, a small smile, but one that was soft. Tiny crow’s feet crinkled at the corners of her eyes. Jenny felt a rush, for a moment, a little victory. It was a beautiful smile, and her small words had made it happen.
“Thank you, Jenny,” Blake said. Then she threw her shoulders back and looked down. “That means a lot,” she said quietly and then looked up again. “I…” she said, and there was clearly something that was supposed to come after it. But she supplied no additional words. She just let the “I” hang, looking at Jenny.
Jenny could feel her gaze down her spine, felt the words all over her chest, felt her blush growing.
She looked at Blake. She was beautiful. She had known that, of course. Had considered it as an objective fact. Now, Jenny felt like she was seeing her for the first time. This Blake, standing before her, even though she seemed to want Jenny to rush out of the house, even though she seemed uneasy in her mere presence, was stunning. Her dark eyes were so deep with knowing, and there was a perfect curve to her cheeks and chin. Her face was regal but looked touchable, too. The slight play of the dimple on her right cheek was inviting exploration. Her spiky hair looked like it wanted to be touched, like it was daring Jenny’s hands to find out what hail of goose bumps would result. She almost wanted to gasp, but her breath felt caught in her throat.
“Good night,” she mumbled, pulling her gaze away from Blake abruptly, just as she caught her pursing her lips. She closed her eyes tight, as if she was about the jump into a pool of cold water. She turned the knob of the door, flipped her hood up to guard against the wind, and launched herself out onto the street, feeling safer in the freezing, whipping dark.