Chapter Seven

Gordon Kendrick was hopelessly self-centered. Nothing about that surprised Gen. She was used to self-centered people in the art world. The artists, the dealers, the collectors—all of them tended to be wrapped up in themselves to a degree that would be alarming in any other line of work, except maybe acting. And this was acting, when you thought about it. Dealers had to act powerful and knowledgeable. Collectors had to act like they were influential enough that their interest in an artist could elevate his career. And artists had to act brilliant and eccentric.

Gordon Kendrick didn’t have the brilliant part down just yet. But damned if he didn’t seem eccentric.

Once Gen had convinced Kendrick to consider her offer—which wasn’t hard, considering she would be footing the bill for his lodging in a stunningly beautiful locale for five months—they’d gotten down to the nitty-gritty of their arrangement.

She wanted exclusive rights to sell the art works that he produced during his stay. He wanted a limo to bring him from the airport in San Luis Obispo. She wanted him to make a personal appearance at the show she would hold for him at the end of the residency. He wanted her to provide a specific list of items at the cottage, ranging from particular art supplies—reasonable—to a foreign brand of yogurt that was not sold in most U.S. stores—less reasonable. She wanted him to meet at least once with the McCabes, who had agreed to sponsor the program in exchange for a painting and a mention of their names whenever the program was publicized. He stubbornly argued that the McCabes were bush-league collectors and unworthy of his time, let alone his art.

By the time the negotiations had been completed, she was nearly ready to tell him to screw it, she’d find another artist, one who would eat Yoplait like a normal person and who would shut his goddamned trap about what he needed for maximum artistic expression. But then she reminded herself how talented he really was, and how deeply she believed that he would eventually have breakout success. This was a guy whose paintings would one day be reproduced on coffee mugs and museum gallery gift shop T-shirts; she could feel it. And when they were, people, or at least people who knew about such things, would think of Genevieve Porter as the person who had discovered him. And even if they didn’t, she had negotiated to keep one of his art works for herself. If his career went where she thought it would, the eventual resale of the painting she selected would more than compensate her for the trouble he was putting her through.

He arrived at San Luis Obispo’s tiny commuter airport on a Tuesday in May. She felt ridiculous riding in the back of a big, black stretch limousine to pick him up. Who the hell demanded a limousine? Who would even want one? They were unwieldy in traffic, and you couldn’t even park the damned thing. The back was stocked with Perrier, with an ice bucket and crystal glasses, and she poured herself some fizzy water on the way down the coast.

“I’ll bet you meet a lot of assholes in this business,” Gen mused to the driver, a guy in his forties with close-cropped greying hair and wire-rimmed glasses, as they zoomed down Highway 1.

“You have no idea,” he said. “Half of them get so drunk I have to carry them out of the car or clean puke off the carpet, and the other half put up the divider and have sex back there, think I don’t know it. Then another half won’t even talk to me, act like I’m not even there.”

“That’s more than two halves,” Gen pointed out.

 

Considering the limo, the special yogurt, the Egyptian cotton bed linens Kendrick had demanded, Gen should not have been surprised when he made her carry his luggage. Somehow, though, she was. He’d brought a full-size suitcase, two carry-ons, and what Gen could only describe as a man purse, and Gen had it all piled onto her little five-foot-two body as they made their way back to the car. Kendrick was yammering on about a solo show he’d done back in Chicago, and how oppressed he felt because no one appreciated his style, when Gen caught the eye of the limo driver with her own desperate gaze.

Startled by the sight of her laboring under the weight of all that luggage, the driver jerked up from where he’d been leaning against the car in the passenger pick-up zone and hurried over to Gen.

“Thanks,” she murmured as the driver took the bags from her shoulders and hauled them to the car. Kendrick was going on about the unreasonable demands at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago.

“Do you have any physical disabilities I can help you with?” the driver asked Kendrick in a solicitous tone.

“What? No. Why?” Kendrick said.

“Oh.” The driver’s eyebrows rose in apparent puzzlement. “I just thought you must have a disability, since you had the lady carrying all of your luggage.”

“Oh, ha, ha,” Kendrick said, laughing as though the driver had shown a sparkling wit. “It’s all part of the service. Right, Genevieve?”

“Sure,” Gen said. When Kendrick was climbing into the back of the car, the driver holding the door for him, Gen arched an eyebrow at the driver and gestured toward Kendrick. “Which half is he?”

“The back half,” the guy said before Gen climbed in, and he shut the door.

 

Kendrick was in his midthirties, medium height, with a receding hairline and a sharp, angular face that put Gen in mind of a fox, or maybe a weasel. In what Gen considered to be a self-conscious display of hipness, he was wearing Birkenstock sandals and a man bun. The open top button of his loose white linen shirt showed a dark blue bead on a cord around his neck.

“Pleasant flight?” Gen inquired inside the limo as she poured him a glass of Perrier and handed it over.

“Ugh. We were all shoved in there like sheep in a pen. And they don’t even provide a meal anymore—as though anything they might feed people would be edible in the first place. I should have insisted on first class, or at least business class. Why I let you talk me into flying economy, I will never know.”

“Ah. Well. I’m sorry it wasn’t more comfortable.”

Kendrick was an ass, but he was the ass who was going to get her back to New York. She looked out the window at the strip of blue ocean to the left side of the car, and reflected that this was going to be a long five months.

 

Thank God Rose hadn’t stayed mad at her, because Gen really needed a drink after she got Kendrick situated in the cottage. She sat at the bar in De-Vine, the wine tasting shop where Rose worked, and sipped a glass of pinot grigio as Rose leaned on the counter, listening to her moan about her day.

“And it wasn’t even the right damned yogurt!” Gen exclaimed, throwing up her hands. “I had to search for days to find a specialty grocery store that would order it, then I had to drive to goddamned Paso Robles to pick it up, and apparently, he wanted Icelandic style, with added goddamned probiotics. Did you even know Icelandic style yogurt was a thing?”

“No, I did not,” Rose said.

“Well, it is! And I didn’t get it! And now all he can do is bitch about the yogurt and how his goddamned digestive tract is going to be all atwitter without it. Good. I hope he’s backed up for days!”

Rose looked at Gen, her pierced eyebrow raised in question. “Did that rant make you feel better?”

“Not yet.”

“Would another glass of wine help?”

“Wouldn’t hurt to try.”

Rose refilled her glass and went back to doing whatever it was she did behind the counter. She arranged bottles, washed a couple of glasses, opened a new case of merlot.

“How did Ryan react to your digestively challenged artist?” she asked while she worked.

“With bemusement. Yes. That’s the word. He was bemused.” Gen took another drink of her wine. “As anyone would be who was a normal, sensible person and not a self-centered pain in the ass.”

Rose pointed one finger at Gen. “You’re the one who invited the self-centered pain in the ass to Cambria. You didn’t just invite him. You ‘wooed’ him. I think that’s what you said at the time.”

“True.” Gen nodded. “I wooed.”

“And now he’s here.”

“Yes. And now he’s here.”

A couple had come in and sat down at the bar, and Rose explained the wine tasting menu to them.

When Rose returned, Gen had calmed somewhat, the wine relaxing her, making her feel loose and slightly tingly. “You know, that’s a nice place he’s got over there. Ryan. The guest house is gorgeous. And the barn. The old barn, he specifies, not the new one. It’s an artist’s paradise. God. I hope Kendrick appreciates it.”

“He won’t,” Rose said.

“Probably not,” Gen said with a sigh.