TWO WEEKS LATER, BECKY FLEW to Miami on a Hail Mary. With only days to the Planting Festival, Ken was either too busy or too discombobulated to confront her about why she wouldn’t be at the Saturday walk-through. She started applying sunscreen on the plane and kept it up for the entire thirty-six hours of frothing international art fair madness. Pierson needed approximately two million dollars to climb out of its perilous debt. If she could sell nearly her entire collection, Becky could possibly close the gap. But all of that depended on Emi and Josh Robb-Tenner.
Becky started chasing the Robb-Tenners as soon as she landed. Impossible, of course, to find them in the fair’s main tent, where she was in any case distracted by dozens of people who wanted to chat with her, even more she needed to avoid, and a barrage of art she couldn’t afford. The couple’s one announced panel—“Future/Text/Image,” whatever that meant—was so full that even though Becky thought she’d arrived early she couldn’t see a thing over the heads of those standing in front of her. At that night’s parties she “just missed them” or “they’re supposed to stop by . . . at some point?”
She was hardly the only one chasing them. Emi’s work, subject of an Artforum profile and a solo show at the Getty, was having a moment. “Encounters,” the artist called them: semi-staged interactions between viewers and hired actors impersonating viewers. Tense know-nothing gatherings of people in empty-walled galleries, studying each other, wondering—out loud, eventually—where the art was. Sometimes Emi inserted herself into the encounter, feigning boredom and bewilderment, although she did that less now that her photo regularly appeared in Vogue, Musto’s column, and Page Six.
The whole thing didn’t do much for Becky, but then again Emi wasn’t the prize. That was Josh, founder of the Tenner Gallery in London, a scrappy hip place in a shitty neighborhood that everyone was talking about, after two dazzling shows last year. Tabloid photos of Matthew Broderick leaving the gallery and Julia Roberts rushing in, shaded by a security team, cemented Josh’s reputation.
“Reba!” On her second night, her last night, Becky’s own party’s cohost rolled in two hours late, barely bothering to cover up the fact of having been somewhere more important or interesting. “Look at all this gorgeousness! And I did nothing. You hate me.”
“No more than usual.” Becky did the double-kisses against Dani DeStefano’s mock-pout cheeks, hardened with fillers. In fact she had practically killed herself all day getting the suite’s pool area ready and could have used a hand, even one of Dani’s.
But if her one Miami contact came through, all would be forgiven. This was her last and best chance to snag Josh Tenner, and Becky had gone all out. Four cater-waiters for a party of twenty. Platters of ceviche on every surface, a dozen baskets of moon lilies floating in the pool, and a pleasingly sullen trio warbling Irish folk-punk flown in this morning—an early profile she’d dug up on Josh had mentioned that he loved the live Dublin music scene.
Dani sideswiped a ground arrangement of ankle-height votives with her stiletto. “Oops! Fire hazard! Yes, champagne please. Lighting these must have taken you hours.”
“It was nothing.” Becky couldn’t waste more time on pleasantries. “Are they coming?”
“Hmm, it’s so buggy out here, though. Who, darling?”
She wanted to take away Dani’s champagne flute and bash her with it. “The Robb-Tenners!”
Dani looked at her. “They’re here.”
“What?”
Dani pointed, not nearly as subtly as she might have, to the clutch of six or seven people near the bar, sitting sideways on chaise longues, huddled up in a low conversation. Sure enough, now that Becky actually examined faces, she recognized Emi’s Asian features, Josh’s dark sideburns. But—but—that group had been here for at least half an hour. Emi was in jeans and a button-down . . . and so was Josh. Their sneakers weren’t even couture!
Jesus, she’d missed them? Could they have come in during the four minutes—six, max!—that she’d run to use the restroom? Both Becky’s arms went numb with panic. She was going to kill Dani. But first, she gripped Dani’s elbow and marched her over to the nondescript group, instantly affecting warmth, generosity, welcome. As Emi rose to kiss Dani, Becky wedged herself into the empty space next to Josh, setting her foot on the low table rung to cordon him off from whatever loser he’d been talking to before.
“So, what’d I miss?” She put on a huge, complicit smile while frantically eye-signaling a particular server. “Is there any more news about Darras? What a fucking nightmare.” Everyone was talking about the empty booth where one of New York’s top galleries was supposed to have been, before last week’s stunning news of its collapse, the owners pulling out at the last minute.
“It’s bad,” Josh said.
“Bad? It’s an incompetence tsunami. You’d think someone would have—”
“We’re pretty upset for Paul, actually. Emi has two good friends who show with him and now—” He spread his hands.
“And that’s the hardest part,” Becky said, smoothly downshifting. “Where it leaves the artists.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve known Paul for years and I’m sure he’ll do right by those guys.” Becky watched Josh aim this reassurance at Emi, now perched on the arm of someone’s chair.
“Of course he will,” Becky murmured, slapping a mosquito on the back of her arm. “Oh good. Here’s a little treat. We could all use a pick-me-up, am I right?”
With less of a flourish than he could have made, the server leaned over the group and placed on the table a glass tray holding three straight razors, a bank-new twenty, and a Bayer’s aspirin bottle holding a quarter ounce of high-grade Cuban cocaine.
Astonishment and delight from the hangers-on, but Josh only said “Um. Wow.” He looked around, but Emi was deep in conversation with two women and his other friends were snorting lines like pigs at the trough. Becky felt a sharp thrill of satisfaction; she had him cornered.
“So. Secondary market, huh? How’s that going?” Tenner Gallery’s move into resale had made headlines.
“Well, thanks.” Josh’s tone was warily polite.
“Good, because I have a deal to propose, and I hope you won’t be too modest when I say that Tenner is the only shop I’d consider placing my—”
“Sorry, what? I’m having trouble hearing you.” Josh winced as the Irish troubadours shifted into a loud cover of—why?—“Mr. Bojangles.”
Becky spoke fast, going in for the kill. She explained her proposal: Tenner’s handling the sale of her entire Chicago collection, immediately, in exchange for which she would host a Happening, or an Encounter, or whatever it was called, for Emi’s first Chicago exhibit, at whatever venue—
“Anything like that,” Josh interrupted, “is for her reps. I don’t have anything to do with—”
Chicago’s art market, Becky said, straining to be heard, has such potential for—Sensing his displeasure, she switched tacks: she’d had a ton of interest in her own collection, as a whole, (not true; everyone had scoffed at the idea of such a short sale in this market) but she had a feeling that Tenner was—Of course, totally, no one should talk business on such a gorgeous night but if he’d only take a quick look at some images—
That’s all you got? She heard Mac in her mind, disappointed and just a tiny bit amused. Time to nut up, buttercup.
“Is anyone else getting eaten alive?” Josh said, only a little desperately, slapping the back of his neck.
“I’m not,” Emi said, and Becky could have kissed her. Her own skin, thanks to a Herve Leger bandage dress and its stupid cutouts, was covered in bites.
“I think it’s all the candles,” someone else said, tipping his head up from the coke.
“Well, I’d rather not bring home malaria,” Josh said, landing his hands on his thighs.
She knew it was desperate, but Becky didn’t care. She pulled out a slide sheet. “Look. This Diebenkorn is part of the same series you have in your catalogue.”
Josh looked. He nodded.
“And I have two De Staëls from the same period. Plus an André Derain, the one of the bridge. You said you’d always hoped a good Derain would—”
“How do you know that?”
“That it could hook a buyer into Fauvism who would then—”
“No, wait. Where did you hear I said that about a Derain?”
Becky bobbled, her pitch thrown off. Josh stared hard at her, annoyed. How had she known about his desire for a Derain? Honestly, she couldn’t remember. She’d pumped Dani for info, although that was spotty at best. She’d done hours of research on the Tenner Gallery, their financials, purchase history, forecast trends, party attendees. Made calls to the Robb-Tenners’ associates and acquaintances, pretending various levels of closeness to Emi and Josh in order to keep the conversation flowing. Well, and there was the time she’d paid a freelance art installer to end up with one of Josh’s exes at the end of a long Tribeca late-night bash—she’d never specified what he had to do with her in those hours!—and to report back in the morning with everything he’d gleaned.
By now Josh had stood, disentangling himself from the chaise and the coke table and Becky’s leg. She started up again, “Forget the Derain, you’re right, let me show you the numbers I ran on—”
But Josh had backed away enough to get a bead on Becky and the rest of the scene. He took in the lilies, the acoustic faux-Pogues, the circles of bare skin running up the side of Becky’s electric-blue dress. Then it all collapsed. As if in concert, led by Josh, the others rose too. Even Dani, who was the only one to thank Becky and kiss her goodbye. Flustered, Becky began calling after people, urging them to the raw octopi, the silver tequila. They could throw the candles in the pool! Or move inside—
Josh and Emi slipped away, arms around each other, into the palm tree shadows lining the property. From the back, in their matching clothes, they looked like two brothers consoling each other, or plotting revenge. They turned a corner, and were gone.
Becky sat down on a chaise and scratched her bug bites until they stung. What would Ken Brennan say, in this moment, on this patio? Becky visualized him: pleated khakis, loafers, no socks, mustering an oh well smile for her. He would’ve said the coke was a cheap shot, which it was. He would have said that she gave it her best, that Tenner was overrated, that there had to be another gallery. That tomorrow was another day and he had faith in her.
She was so, so tired. And so broke. This ridiculous last-ditch party. A second opinion on TJ’s neuropsych evaluation. The private investigator who’d been on her payroll for less than a month. He’d done well, she admitted, he’d gotten her almost everything she’d asked for, and he’d asked no questions.
Tomorrow’s flight was at 5:45 am, and by 10 she’d be leading a presentation on the final Planting Festival numbers at the council meeting. Easel pad, markers, bad coffee, bad jokes, her Rockport Total Motion comfort pumps. She’d come so close to fixing what was broken. What she’d broken. But she’d failed, misjudged a hundred social cues and made a fool of herself. Now they’d all have to soldier on with more platitudes and hard work, good Midwesterners to the end.