The Talented Miss Farwell Page 21
She took fewer calls, named higher prices, and sold by the lot. Or didn’t, as she chose. This caused consternation and a fair amount of bitterness from some of her connections, but her own calls got put through right away. Invitations began to arrive with scribbled “Hope to see you there. xxxxxxx,” signed with initials anyone would recognize. Even more than her infamous sale at Christie’s, this new approach turned Becky (Reba) into an art-world player at a level she hadn’t been before.
Once a month Becky drove to the Barnes & Noble mall superstore on Big Hollow Road in Peoria, eighty-five miles south of Pierson, an hour and a half drive. Yes, it was stupid, and, yes, she did it anyway. She loaded up her arms with thick glossy issues and took them to a table, keeping her sunglasses on like a proper girl on the lam. Afraid to subscribe to any of these magazines, afraid that even having them in her home—in her town—would make her vulnerable. In its periodical room the Pierson library held Vanity Fair but not Town & Country, and obviously not i-D, Artforum, or Interview. No one she knew in Pierson took any paper other than the Tribune, the Sun-Times, or maybe USA Today. If—against all odds—someone from home saw one of the photos, she’d pass it off as a one-time thrilling adventure, this random invitation to big-city fanciness. If she was asked about the name Reba? Oh, well, you know those busy magazine editors were bound to get someone’s name wrong. Just my luck it had to be me.
She ran mental drills for dozens of possible encounters, under her breath, there in the Barnes & Noble. Fine-tuned her voice for tones of pleasant surprise, patient explanation, abashed Midwestern humility. But still she hunched over her café table, covered the layout with her hand while she covertly studied the photos.
On the long drive home she amused herself with the photo layout those photographers could get of Becky, not Reba. Becky presiding over last week’s contentious open hearing about cutbacks in the residential garbage pickup schedule. Becky passing out new copies of “Zoning Code Regs” after the first batch of copies (for “Future Unreg Codes”) had an unfortunate acronym. Becky at Rachel’s hip-hop dance performance. Becky, drinking Schlitz with old-timers at the VFW. Who was she with? Who was she wearing?
27
Milan
2003
Becky was deep in conversation with a German painter and his translator. The man wanted to switch to larger works—or was it that he had already switched? The translator didn’t seem certain about tenses. Becky, interrupting in half-German phrases, set him straight. Nein. She had contracted for the full set of smaller canvases. She wouldn’t take one if she couldn’t have them all, and if he moved now to larger pieces she’d be forced to—
“Reba,” Michel whispered, urgently, at her side. One half of the duo she’d spent the past two days with at the Milan Art Fair.
Tom and Michel were a twin-like NYC couple in their late twenties who seemed to spend their days drinking Campari and making up scandals and gossip. The three of them fell into an instantaneous best friendship, strutting through the galleries and the parties, texting each other good night at dawn. Tom’s father—or was it Michel’s?—was an SVP at Lehman’s. Becky called them “The Babies” to their faces; they hung on Becky’s every word, making purchase after purchase on her advice. It didn’t hurt that they looked like Calvin Klein models and turned heads of every type and age.
“You must come,” Michel said. Becky apologized to the Germans and extricated herself. She allowed Michel to take her arm and steer her through the twisting crowds and walled dividers. Around every corner another person to greet, fend off, promise to call—I know, so sorry, we’ll talk later—in this thunderous gathering of money and power. And art.
Eventually they reached Tom, beaming, sweating under the display lights. He threw his arms open at the work, and Michel crossed himself. Besotted, they waited for her blessing.
Two nights ago at their suite at the Oasis—technically by then it was morning—Tom and Michel had invited the bellhop who brought up more ice to stay for drinks. And drugs. Soon they were cuddled close together on a divan, murmuring and touching, these three beautiful men. Tom—or was it Michel?—had asked Becky to stay, to watch.
She demurred, amused. Showed herself out.
Over insalate puntarelle at lunch the next day both Babies trembled behind their Tom Ford sunglasses, appalled at their bad behavior, and asked her to forgive them. Becky had just laughed and laughed. They were so grateful, so abashed.
Now she looked at the great discovery they needed her to sanction. It was a video piece, on a small TV monitor. A repeating loop of about four minutes of film: a woman (the artist), giving speeches as George Bush. She was slight, brown-haired, and dressed in a simple black shirt and jeans. But each clip had her at the presidential podium, or at Ground Zero, or in the Rose Garden posed exactly like Bush. Speaking his words, surrounded by his advisers, without a single knowing wink. Becky watched the loop once, and then again. She pronounced the artist’s name in her mind, Caitriona Molloy, slowly, without speaking.
“Interesting,” she said at last, in a loud but utterly flat voice, which had the desired effect of quelling the hovering gallery assistant. Then she drew Tom and Michel aside. She let them go on and on: the doable prices, the promising show in London, the way the piece mixed politics with humanity, how funny it was, how weirdly heartbreaking.
Becky heard them out. And then, as gently and thoroughly as she could, deflated their every hope. She named half a dozen other video artists on the market with similar projects, she told them the gallery was a bit player, a JV house trying too hard. She reminded them to build on their strengths, a parent’s Barbizon holdings, a very nice Ashcan purchase, instead of chasing every whim. She urged focus in the face of distraction, and sure, if they wanted to they should make an offer but frankly she’d seen better work at a recent student show, not that they had to care about her opinion, of course . . .
No! They did, they absolutely did! The Babies were utterly chastened. She’d been ridiculously generous all weekend and they hated themselves for wasting even a moment of her time.
Becky held an indulgent smile, forgiving, understanding. What everyone needed was an Amaretto, was she right? She was right, she was always right.
After twenty minutes at the bar Becky excused herself. She doubled back and bought the Molloy piece for asking. She bought up the gallery’s entire Molloy holdings—videos, a large-scale photo, comics, sketches—most of it sight unseen, hurrying the assistant, using two different credit cards and more than a thousand in cash.
That night she let Tom’s calls go to voice mail, watched Michel text until 11:30, midnight, one. She changed her flight and went back a day early, collecting grateful messages from Molloy’s agent, manager, and New York dealer, all of whom sounded a little stunned.
By May Caitriona Molloy had shows scheduled for later in the year in Tribeca, Toronto, and Berlin. Artforum ran a Top Ten column, and Vanity Fair posed her in Marc Jacobs, high-heeled boots hooked over a metal stool rung in a grungy studio. Becky sold selected works fast, to top collectors. But she kept every Molloy video piece, and struck a deal for first option on each new work. Stills sometimes reminded her a little bit of Tracy Moncton, although she’d heard through the grapevine that Tracy was now moving into feature films.
Becky archived all but one of the Molloy videos and for her own viewing displayed only George Bush, C’est Moi, streaming it on a perpetual loop against a bare space on the wall in between a decent Max Weber and a nearly photographic Richard Estes. She could look at it for long stretches of time, taking immense pleasure from the intelligence, the creativity, the vision, the Babies who found it for her intentionally forgotten.
28
Pierson
2003—2008
Date
Received
Notes
April 4, 2003
$14,500
Lester Snow Removal
$9,440
Lester Snow Removal
$33,000
/> Lester Snow Removal
Why did she keep these accounts? Why, after all the years and years of skimming? When she knew by heart the dozens of false companies she rotated through for made-up invoices? Becky didn’t really know. She took; she kept track. She paid out; she kept track. Sometimes she told herself that this stupid accounting of her own crimes was to ensure she didn’t slip up and double-bill by accident. A safety measure. But she knew that leaving such a clear record of the Activity was far more dangerous than the risk of messing up any fake company names or bills. Plus, no one noticed and no one questioned, not a single false invoice in all these years. No matter how obvious (to her) or how much she pushed the edge (they didn’t even have that many snowfalls the winter of 2002–2003!). Sometimes, as comptroller, she had to shake her head. Defalcation was the technical term, which Becky had come across occasionally when she browsed issues of The Journal of Accountancy or Accounting Today.
Incredible, what a person could get away with. She wouldn’t have believed it herself.
In May of 2003 she hung up a call and swiveled to find Ken and town council president Tyler “Ty” Rosario standing in her doorway, both smiling with anticipation.
“Uh oh, what’d I do now?” She stood as they came in, carefully closing the door against Mrs. F.’s peering nosiness.
“We’ll make this brief,” Ty said. “You’ve been very good to us, Becky.” He handed her an unsealed envelope.
Becky looked to Ken, who was nearly bouncing with excitement. Before she could unfold the single sheet he burst out, “It’s a three percent raise.”
Becky’s heart sank. She took her time studying the numbers on the page so she wouldn’t have to look back at Ken. Sure enough, her annual salary, effective June 1, would now be $72,400. “Is this across the board? Is the freeze over?” They had been on a wage and hiring lockdown for the past eighteen months.
Ty shook his head. “Unfortunately, as you know, that isn’t possible.”
“I don’t feel comfortable unless the whole team is part of this.” But when she tried to hand the envelope back to him he held up both hands, no takers.
“You’ve got Mayor Brennan’s full support. I hope you’ll see it as a gesture of goodwill from all of us.”
Becky bent the corner of the envelope and let its sharp point dig into her thumb. Probably Ken had forgone any bump so that she could have this. If only he wouldn’t stand there beaming at her! $72,400. Blood squeezed from a stone. How much were the fake snow removal invoices she’d only last week submitted without a second glance? Nearly that.
It took everything she had to muster the right expression, which was the least she could do for Ken: taken aback, gratified, oh but you shouldn’t have. You shouldn’t have.
Date
Paid
Notes
February 19, 2004
$4,700
Round-trip airfare, business class, Japan Airlines
$2,440
One night, Mandarin Oriental
$23,000
Three Carrington map sketches, ink on paper, sizes various
During the thirty-eight hours Becky spent in Tokyo, her first visit to Japan, she ate two meals, the first a type of fried chicken at a stand-up lunch counter outside the private gallery—she saw what the businessman next to her was eating and pointed to that—and the other a steak, medium rare, ordered from room service. She didn’t go to a single boutique or sushi place. She closed the deal for the Carrington works—which were even better in person—and opted out of a star-studded cocktail party in favor of an earlier flight back. As the formally polite stewardess began her welcome, Becky shook her head and asked for an eye mask and ear plugs.
In the time it took for her to fall asleep, her body thoroughly confused by the quick turnaround across time zones, Becky mused about all the art she hadn’t seen in Tokyo. Nothing at Ishii or Arataniurano or Misako & Rosen, though she had contacts at each. No visits to the Hara or Mori museums, despite their holdings. Instead, her buying had taken place at a private home in a meticulously hushed and blank viewing space where the Carrington pieces she had expressed interest in were brought out one at a time, shown to her alone.
That was the thing about completism, she thought sleepily. The term made it sound like it had to do with more. But in practice it meant less. All she needed, all she was interested in, were the works that fit her predetermined categories—in this case, the sketches that Leonora Carrington used to develop Map of Down Below. The collection Becky was working on now was twentieth-century cartographic-like drawings made in preparation for fuller pieces. Not finished works but sketches, plans, maps for future maps. Several times gallerists had misunderstood, had wanted to show her oil paintings of map images, sometimes glorious works by big names. She had refused to even look. Only prep work, only maps, only twentieth century.
Now she had three of the Carringtons she needed. There was at least one, possibly two, still at large. She had leads, she’d find them. But right now she was at 35,000 feet over the Pacific, and her Ambien was kicking in.
Date
Paid
Notes
November 23, 2005
$49.00,
Office party sheet cake
Schinkel’s bakery
$50.00,
Office party sparkling wine and sodas
Quick Bev Mart
Too much to hope that her fortieth birthday could pass quietly. She had to attend not one but two parties organized for her. The first Becky went along with because not doing so would have jeopardized a precarious deal in progress that depended on several people’s goodwill—or at least what passed for goodwill in the art world: great shows of abundance (food, drugs, luxury abodes) cut with mean-spirited gossip and backbiting.
Becky never figured out how the Van Voutens found out it was her birthday, her “big birthday,” as they kept calling it. But when they insisted she hop on their Gulfstream to Costa Rica, with twenty assorted others, she realized it really was insistence. What followed was a nightmarishly over-the-top four-day weekend in a Punta Islita villa with two private staff members for every guest, no Wi-Fi, and drunken Europeans being loudly naked in the pool all day and night. Howler monkeys woke Becky (Reba) at dawn, and the endless rum drinks gave her diarrhea. On day three she found a giant bullfrog in her toilet and so for the final fourteen hours she peed in the scrubby bushes outside the villa, praying that no snakes—or Europeans—would catch her doing so.
The second party, held on her actual birthday—the day before Thanksgiving break—was in the Town Hall second-floor conference room, of course, where Becky was toasted with a long limerick-style poem whose line endings threatened to be risqué but mostly reverted to rhyming “Farwell” with “barbell” or “is swell.” Paper banners and twisted streamers, decorative paper plates, and a Schinkel’s ice cream cake (yes, ice cream in November)—every detail the same as not just Becky’s previous office birthday parties but every other staff member’s party, ever. Becky had managed to find out the one extra they had planned—sparkling wine to go with the soda—and called ahead to place the charges on her own bill, not the town’s. But that was as much as she could do.
“And now . . .” Ken moved to the ominously draped item propped up on the whiteboard, motioning Louise from HR to help him.
Please don’t let it be a painting. Please don’t let it be a painting.
“Voilà!” Even before Ken and Louise managed to fully uncover her gift Becky could see that it was, indeed, a painting, 24 inches by 18 inches, possibly acrylic. She recognized it right away as one of the constantly rotated items at Prints Unlimited, a frame shop in a mall just outside town. This one was of a dog curled up asleep on a bed, on top of a white comforter. The modeling wasn’t bad, but the artist was clearly enamored of his or her ability with chiaroscuro, because shadows fell on every side of the dog—east and west, front and behind.
“I know you don’t have a dog or anything. We just thought this was the
sweetest.”
Becky gave Louise a huge smile. “It’s really something. I’m so . . . wow.”
“It’s a Van Gogh!” someone shouted from the back of the room.
Becky laughed along with everyone else, then, when the crowd quieted, said, “I’m so very touched. Thank you.” She wondered how much each of them had chipped in. Five each? No more than ten, she hoped. “I know exactly where I’m going to put it.”
By her side, Ken was still scrutinizing the painting. “Can’t tell what breed that is,” he muttered. “Huh. Anyway, it’s bad training to let them sleep on the bed.”
Date
Received
Notes
April 19, 2006
$64,200
South Elementary wiring repair
$4,030
Cafeteria upgrade
$500
Books and supplies
$81,000
North Elementary playground reconstruction
Date
Paid
Notes
April 26, 2006
$10,000
Table, NYC All Stars Project fundraiser (J. Scanfield)
May 5, 2006
$5,000
Donation, Art Start (J. Scanfield)
$3,000
Donation, Painting Promise (J. Scanfield)