The Talented Miss Farwell Page 17

I should congratulate myself, is what I should do, Becky thought. Standing in the space where the unlooked-at painting had been.

  21

  Chicago

  1996

  Becky got so many voice messages on the answering service she kept only for art business that she had taken to listening to the most recent one first. She could usually figure out what information she needed for the deal or the issue or the contact without needing to listen to all the recordings that came before. But she listened to every call that came pouring in on October 10, frozen at her desk in Town Hall.

  “I can’t believe it, even though I knew it was only a matter of time.”

  “Reba, you were always so dear to him. So, so dear. And if he could only—”

  “—meet for coffee. Fuck, even a drink, on a day like this. What he would’ve wanted, right?”

  She hung up and called her service right back, this time punching buttons to find the first message received. It hit her hard, straight in the middle.

  “Reba? Mac’s gone. Sometime last night, I think. Apparently it was peaceful, so—so—that’s something right? Reba, call me. I’m a mess.”

  Becky slowly replaced the receiver. Mrs. Fletcher called for something, but she was too stunned to respond.

  For the rest of the afternoon, she went about her business at the office as usual. She returned a few calls to council members, went down the hall to remind Ken about a memo they needed to revisit, even held a scheduled meeting with Accounts to look over the projected budget for the first quarter of next year. And yet throughout the day the knowledge of Mac’s death ribboned through her, a disconcerting blend of regret, sadness, and anger.

  The weirdest thing was that she kept picturing exactly how Mac himself would have responded to the news of his own death. “Devastating,” he’d say, impeccably mournful, “absolutely gutting.” But then one flash-second later he’d have that wicked twinkle, ready as ever to get into the gossip, the juicy stories, the good stuff. Oh, Mac.

  Four days later she was at Four Farthings in Lincoln Park, some kind of ye olde pub that Mac’s crowd had never frequented, as far as she could remember. Becky had assumed there would be a reception in the funeral home afterward, where she would stay for a pro forma cup of coffee and then escape. But a mass pilgrimage was hastily organized, even though the old places—the Red Lion, Katerina’s—had closed or reopened under boring new management. After the service, a grim affair in a west side funeral house, everyone had hurried out to the sidewalk, bundled up and shivering dramatically in the October chill. Shouting confusedly across open cab doors. Somehow, Becky was swept up.

  Now here they were, twenty or so of Mac’s cronies, the good-time gang. They drank gin, they drank the cheapest red. They told and retold all the old stories. Becky sat a bit apart, nursing one whiskey. Across the street was a small corner park with a crumbly stone fountain whose pipes were still somehow working in this early cold snap. One gusher of water flung itself up and up, never reaching higher than a foot or so.

  Andy Morse, of the Pape Stewart Gallery, tall and stooped and curved down toward her like a floor lamp, had planted himself by her side and wouldn’t stop talking. People were selling again, buying, big deals and bigger offers. Last week the starting bid on a Jasper Johns actually began at the reserve and the whole room applauded.

  He wasn’t the only one here tonight marveling, nervously laughing about the near disaster. They were once again moving art and money, if in a newly superstitious way. Too bad Mac would never know how it came back, they said. Hoisting a rare somber glass.

  He’d known, Becky thought. Even though she’d heard he’d been foggy, in and out of the hospital for months, he would have known that the market would come back.

  Andy talked on but Becky was thinking about Mac’s funeral, toward the beginning of the service, when those in attendance had finally stopped whispering, began to pay attention to the priest at the altar. Becky, though, in her back row, was still craning her neck. Mel, Christophe, Annette, Jon and Allan, Wayne, even Carole P. All there, dressed to the hilt, faces suitably downcast. A full house. So why did she feel like people were missing? Extra chairs had been set up in the aisles, each row filled, flower arrangements the size of small trees on either side of the polished casket. Mac would have been pleased by the handful of young men—or men shooting for young—with wet faces and heaving shoulders, bravely holding back their sobs. What was this nagging unease?

  It wasn’t until the third Latin prayer that she realized no one was missing, and that was the source of the strange feeling. Gone was that curious watchful tension, a constant waiting to see who would next push through the door at Yoshi’s Café. Or, later, into her own lost Chicago pied-à-terre. Nobody’s name to learn, no angling for a way in. No gossip, no backstory, no fear she’d embarrass herself. No more delicious hope each time the doorman called up.

  As the priest intoned the phrases of a dead language Becky sat back against her pew and considered the facts: One, it was possible to become bored by this very group of people she had once desperately ached to join, this glittering appendage she’d assumed would be as endlessly fascinating as their art. Two, she was bored.

  Huh. She’d been right to pull the plug on that condo. On Chicago. Though at the time she’d thought her problem was the money. To distract herself from the skitter of fear edging the feeling of boredom, she examined the program in her lap. “In Memory of Frederick ‘Mac’ Palliser, Beloved Friend, Brother, Uncle.” Handsomely produced, the pages included not only the schedule of readers and hymns, but quotes from friends and colleagues praising Mac as a bon vivant, an art appreciator with a world-class collection, a generous mentor to countless bereaved followers. Becky skipped over all that. The last two pages displayed some of Mac’s “favorite works” and artists he’d “championed,” leaving as his legacy the discovery and nurturing of talent that would have been otherwise overlooked.

  There in the middle of the page was a reproduction of Peter Wand’s Wall, in Blues, one from the series that had shown at the Gagosian, sold out instantly. Becky studied the image and waited to see if the hurt would reemerge.

  They had still seen each other after the confrontation in his office, of course. At shows, at parties, even at the same dinner tables sometimes. At each encounter Becky was ferociously friendly, hailing and dismissing Mac in a firestorm of fast-talking energy. By then he was more and more a minor part of her circle, which had spread to other networks and other cities with other flamboyant figures at their centers. And over time the pain of that first betrayal lessened, under the armor of her furiously smiling facade, until Mac might have guessed that it had evaporated.

  In the funeral home, staring hard at Wand’s Wall, in Blues, Becky could just barely feel it there. Shellacked by pearly hardness, but a grain of hurt inside, nonetheless.

  “I’ve been thinking about your Picabia sketch,” Andy Morse said, as if casually. He meant the piece included in the most recent packet of photos Becky regularly sent out to her mailing list, offering works she was ready to sell. “Forty by twenty centimeters, is it? I have—”

  “Forty-four,” Becky corrected. Two people walked quickly along the sidewalk, arms linked, passing the fountain without a glance.

  “—a client who is very interested in the Transparencies series.”

  “I’m listening.” Did those night walkers notice the fountain, wonder why it was still on this late in the season? What did they think of its water’s perpetual bloop bloop upward thrust, never quite making it high enough?

  Andy Morse, pleased, started at four thousand. He’d love to do more, but without the client’s prior knowledge he couldn’t— Not that it wasn’t a lovely picture, but the composition of woman and horse didn’t have quite the same— Also she must have noticed a slight fading near the—

  Becky said eight. Morse protested gallantly. She let him do more of his pitch, work up his giant exhaling effort about where he could top out—presuming client�
�s approval, of course—knowing all the while what she’d take and what they’d end on. He said $4,999, she said eight. They shook on $7,400, Morse much less happy to do so than Becky, who’d paid five thousand for the sketch less than a year ago. All her deals went like this now, a win for her and a loss for the other party. Wait until they saw what she had planned for next year. Or the year after, if she could wait that long.

  Becky clinked her glass against Morse’s—“To celebrate!” he said, and then, chastened, “to Mac, rather”—and thought about her profit. She had gotten two thousand and four hundred dollars of pleasure from the small piece, yes, in these months it had hung on a side wall in her Art Barn, next to a funny Botero oil and above a Franke 3D wall piece. But what she’d gained was potential for a much greater degree of pleasure, the one she was tasting now: thousands of dollars of possibility, of other pieces, future works, the unknown.

  Becky shivered. Her untouched drink was melting icily against her cold palm. For some reason she couldn’t bear to look at that fountain anymore.

  A burst of shouts and laughter from the group in the banquette. She met eyes with Morse, both of them acknowledging the impropriety, and the inevitableness. “It’s awful of me, doing a bit of business on a day like today,” he offered. He was decent, she knew.

  “He would have approved.”

  “True. I’d better be off.” They shook awkwardly. “Oh. Right.” Andy paused. “Are you set up for getting e-mails on your computer? A bit poncy but—”

  “Just leave a message on my service. I’ll call you back.”

  “Well, for the invoice I mean. We’ve moved to routing all billing through the computer. Vanessa swears everyone is switching over.”

  Becky forced herself to let go of the cold glass.

  “Much easier to keep track, apparently.” Morse put his own glass down on a nearby radiator. “All the dollars, where they go, et cetera. Or so they tell me. I’m an old fart. Lovely to see you.”

  E-mail. Over the next few minutes as Becky extricated herself from the group—endless maudlin goodbyes and we never see you anymore—the term pinged her brain. E-mail. E-mail?

  Becky stalked the tiny corner park, forcing herself around the small loop over and over in the cold and dark. She tried to remember what the computer repair guy had said some weeks ago, in the office, half-hidden under Mrs. Fletcher’s desk, connecting the cables for her new IBM. Something about how they could send messages back and forth to each other, from Becky’s computer to Mrs. Fletcher’s new one. That’s interesting, Becky had said, wanting him to get on with it. As if she and her sixty-year-old secretary needed to type each other computer letters! Mrs. Fletcher hovered, deeply unhappy about the man poking around under her desk, that dark secret cove where she kept her ancient slip-ons.

  E-mail was supposed to be a tedious new feature of the office, of Town Hall, like a rearranged filing system or a change in the staffing schedule. She hadn’t thought twice about it after the repair guy plugged everything in and left the bill. Pape Stewart would e-mail a sale agreement to her?

  “But they can’t,” she said out loud, over the witless fountain gurgle. She didn’t have e-mail! Or would it just show up on her computer screen at work, right in the middle of her notes for the budget meeting? “I won’t get it,” she told the fountain. But of course she would. With a sinking heart Becky saw the inevitable encroaching of computers, giant calculators that would never forget a number. How this would delight Ken, who always bragged about his car phone, and how soon enough all the computers, his, hers, and even Mrs. Fletcher’s, would be linked up together.

  Goddamn it goddamn it goddamn it. Why did everything have to get harder, all the time? She’d hung on through the worst of the art market plunge, losing values on all her best pieces, losing her condo . . . Those shitheads still inside Four Farthings whimpering about flat prices had no idea what she’d had to do! Could they gather here in the cold fountain spray and comprehend even one percent of what she had accomplished against the odds, the massive undertaking that was her reinvention of what ARTnews called “a surprisingly stellar private collection,” did they even have the ability to understand what kind of heroics and magic and nineteen-hour days it had taken to turn things around, financially and logistically?

  Becky screamed, a wordless howl, and attacked the fountain. Kicking at its crumbling stone, slapping the foul-smelling water with her Fendi purse.

  Anyone with half a brain cell would admit that what she’d done, go from art world nobody to settled perch with fresh capital, all on her own, no stable of assistants, no backing or insurance or advice from trusted elders, no men, was miraculous. Couldn’t everyone just get out of her fucking way?

  “E-mail?” she screeched. Hitting and kicking and splashing. A crowd was gathering at the window of Four Farthings. “E-mail?”

  Hours later, from the Marriott on Michigan, she described the scene to Ingrid, minus, of course, Mac’s after-party, Andy Morse, and the person who shouted from a condo next to the fountain park, “We just called the cops.” Actually, all she told Ingrid was that an unbearably long management conference after-party had ended up at a bar in a neighborhood she didn’t know. And that some banker jerk stole her cab right in front of her—Dick, Ingrid whispered sleepily—so she momentarily went off on a park fountain. Ruining her purse. Her thousand-dollar purse, she did not say.

  In truth, once she could collect herself she’d scuttled over to Lincoln and found a cab like magic. Shook with cold all the way to the hotel, where her gold card member status made checking in after midnight—with no luggage and sewer-splashed hair—swift, no questions asked. Becky had let her fear and frustration drain away in a hot shower. She made tea with the tiny plastic hot water machine and then did what she always did when she felt small and embarrassed: called Ingrid.

  Now under the covers in the dark hotel room, she curled on her side and listened to Ingrid’s yawn-filled recounting of her day: horrible kids’ party run by horrible mom who made everyone take off their shoes in her house and only served one small square of pizza per kid, nothing for adults except iced tea, and whose daughter’s cake was whole wheat, I mean who does that? We were all eyeing each other like, this girl’s headed straight for an eating disorder.

  Becky expressed sufficient outrage in hmms and ughs. Every sentence from Ingrid a balm for her anxious brain. She could picture Ingrid’s exact facial expression as she prodded the slice of dud hippie cake with a plastic fork. Soon there were long gaps in Ingrid’s part of the conversation, a steady slow breathing that sounded like sleep, but Becky, wide awake, didn’t want to end the call. She kept the receiver close to her face, a thin invisible tether to a world so much farther away than the hundred miles between them. So many things she wanted to do for Ingrid. A new car to replace that rattletrap Hyundai. A massage at the new day spa in town. Or a “salt scrub,” whatever awfulness that was. Spanish tutor for Rachel, extra art classes that Ingrid always had to say no to. And whatever would help with TJ. This was the trickiest area: Ingrid kept such a lockdown on his treatment and education, cutting Becky off at every turn when she made the slightest suggestion for private this or big-city that. Worst of all was her banding together with all the other moms whose kids had similar conditions, organizing to demand more from the public school, coordinating campaigns to push for accessibility, privacy, acceptance. If she’d only let Becky take care of things her way!

  After a while Becky softly hung up the phone. It was nearly 3 am but she had a new kind of clear energy, a returned confidence in her own wiliness. She didn’t know about the World Wide Web but she knew one thing: Andy Morse and his computer mail sure as shit weren’t going to be what brought her down. She picked up the receiver and dialed Ken at the office, waiting impatiently for his voice mail message to finish.

  “Hi, it’s me. Few thoughts, we can discuss on Monday.” She left messages like this frequently, on her own machine as well as others, an all-hours to-do list that probably was
n’t anyone’s favorite habit of hers. “Let’s push the Springfield call to later in the week. I heard Grigson’s out of town until midweek and it’s pointless to talk to anyone else. About the situation with what’s-his-face, I agree, it isn’t working out. Let’s have Barb meet with him once more, making sure to document the—” On and on she went, pretending to list items in random order, tossing off solutions as they came to her. Then, when she thought she could say it in sufficiently casual tones, she threw in: “Oh, and I’ve been kicking around some more thoughts about technology in the office. You may be right that we need to make a move here.” Easygoing, happy to help out, Becky offered to form an exploratory committee—she’d head it up, of course—to investigate Internet options, get some pricing plans.

  She moved on to a few other quick matters, scooching down farther under the covers and sliding the towel off her now-dried hair. Getting involved never failed. Enough of a flurry of proposals, agreements, ideas, and plans could always deflect attention from what she didn’t want others to look at.

  She couldn’t know in the Marriott that night the exact way she’d adapt the Activity to the Internet, but Becky as usual could see the vague shapes of a future solution to a present problem. In this case, she would end up keeping the basic structure of invoices and diverting, only what used to be “paperwork” would become bills created on Becky’s home computer and e-mailed to herself, via a series of fake addresses, from a separate server. Once you got the hang of it, it was the same as everything else she’d handled. Bank drafts would feed into RF Capital smoothly, and she’d make sure to link enough government business stops in between so that by the time the money reached its final destination it had been swished clean. She would pay her credit card bills by check as long as she could, but even when that switched over to online, she’d make sure her tracks were as covered by the computer as they had been by typewriters.