The Prize

by Jill Bialosky

  “I’m glad that’s over. I have to admit, though, that it is exhilarating to speak about my work in front of others. It’s like coming out of hiding.”

  “So then you want to go to the dinner?”

  “To watch everyone impressing each other? Of course.”

  “Is that how it looks?”

  “You’re one of the gatekeepers. Don’t you know when you’re being impressed?”

  He laughed. “I try to keep my head down. My job is to keep the stable filled.”

  “And you represent Agnes Murray.”

  “So Agnes makes me famous?” For a moment he considered telling Julia about the studio visit and what had happened, but he wasn’t ready to articulate it. He still hoped Agnes would come around. He took it as a good sign that Reynolds had not been in touch. It meant Agnes was thinking things over. Or maybe it wasn’t. He didn’t want to think about it.

  “No. You made her famous.” Julia looked up and brushed back a lock of hair.

  “Thank you.”

  “It’s not an act, is it?”

  He looked bewildered.

  “You really don’t see it, do you? That’s your gift.”

  “My gift?”

  “That you don’t see it.” She paused and looked at him with curiosity. “Who you are. You should have more confidence.”

  “When I walk through galleries and see what sells it can be humbling. I take on what moves me and then worry about whether it’ll sell. People like Savan, he’s smarter. He takes on what sells.”

  “Don’t let them corrupt you. The Savans of the world.”

  “It works for him. Collectors respond to his energy. Artists, too. He’s a terrific salesman.”

  He thought again about Savan going to Agnes’s studio. It infuriated him all over again. He looked across the table and then past her out the window. The rush-hour crowd streamed past.

  “Do you ever wake up and wonder how you got here? And what it all means?”

  “Sometimes. I try not to think about it. When I think that way it’s usually when I’m unhappy or doubting myself.”

  An idea possessed him. “Would you consider moving to Mayweather and Darby?” As soon as he said it, he wondered if he would regret it. It wasn’t his style to poach from other galleries. If an artist was on the market for a new gallery, then he’d listen. But there was something about Julia that made him want to make an exception. And if Savan got away with it, why not he? He thought about her talk, her dancers and the idea of being powerless, and it made him think about the randomness of life and death. Why some are touched by tragedy early and others are spared, and what, if anything, it meant.

  “That wouldn’t be too weird?”

  “Why, because we’re friends?”

  She nodded. “I don’t know. I’ve been with Watkins from the beginning. He didn’t come to the talk this afternoon. And he’s been in London all week. I’ve been handed over to one of his underlings. And yet he understands what I do.”

  “I love your work. I knew I would that first night I met you when you got the Rome Prize.”

  “You remember that night?”

  “Of course I do. You said you hadn’t done anything remarkable yet. Now you have. What are you working on now?”

  “I’m doing some commissioned work in Vienna and Amsterdam. Watkins got them for me. And a work of public art here in London. Tomorrow I have a meeting with the Arts Council. But what I’m most excited about is more personal. I’m working on a series of small stone pieces.”

  “I’d like to see them when we’re back in New York. What you said in your talk about sculpture, about it being the poetry of shape?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I liked that.”

  “When I make something I can hear my materials. They sometimes laugh at me,” she said, and grinned. “But really, the stone pieces mean a lot to me. They’re helping me. I told you. We lost a child.”

  “I know. I’m sorry.”

  She lowered her eyes. “I still see her face in my mind.”

  “I’d love to see the sculptures.”

  “I can’t think of anyone I’d rather let see them.”

  “Two foreign cities,” Edward said, suddenly brightening.

  She waited for him to finish his thought.

  “Berlin and London.”

  “Three cities,” she corrected him. “Don’t forget Hamburg.”

  “And your lost passport,” he said.

  “Lost among my possessions.” Julia rolled her eyes.

  “Aren’t we all?”

  “I don’t feel lost tonight, do you?”

  “No. I’m happy to be away from all the nonsense at the gallery. It’s been tense.”

  “Who will be at the dinner?”

  “Charlotte’s arranged it. Everyone will be there.”

  CHARLOTTE’S DINNER WAS held in a trendy, too brightly lit restaurant. Though there were twenty or thirty people at the table, aside from the quick hellos and pecks on the cheek when they arrived, he barely spoke to anyone other than Julia.

  “Your husband?” he said, after their starters. They were sitting next to each other on the banquette of a long booth.

  “Roy.”

  “Yes. Remind me, what does Roy do?”

  “He’s an architect.”

  “Ah, yes.”

  “I tried living with an artist once. I told you. Frederick. Inevitably one or the other becomes more successful. Or is deemed such. It’s dangerous.”

  “I suppose so.” He thought about Agnes and Nate. “But maybe the competition is good for the work?”

  “Maybe for some. Roy doesn’t expect me to be brilliant. He wouldn’t know how to judge what I do. He keeps me honest. It’s better for the work.”

  “His name makes him sound like a cowboy,” he said, and then regretted his pettiness.

  “He’s not a cowboy,” she said, protectively. “He designs buildings. He’s designing a library in the city and projects in Portugal and Spain. He’s been working on one in Tokyo for years. Some eventually get made and some don’t.”

  “Does he mind when you travel?”

  “I suppose he does. Doesn’t your wife mind?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “And does it bother you? That she minds?”

  “Yes.” He looked at her and grinned. “What is it about marriage?”

  She looked up from her wineglass and began to laugh.

  “Is something funny?”

  She touched his arm. “I’m not making fun. I understand what it’s like. Being married. Roy and I built our careers side by side.”

  “Have you thought of me? Since our lunch at the oyster bar?”

  She grew thoughtful. “Yes, of course I have.”

  He slid closer to her on the banquette they shared, and having made a decision, or having had the decision made for him, whispered in her ear, “I want to be with you.” He breathed in to calm himself. He’d been thinking about it all through the talk she gave earlier in the day, and then at the bar, and throughout dinner. Here he was in London, far away from his life at home. It was improbable that they had met years ago when he was first starting out as a dealer, and then again in Berlin, and now here in London, and each time there had been a feeling in the air between them that seemed as if nothing was at a distance; it was not simply a matter of the way they looked at each other, or spoke to each other, but a sensation in the gut, and whatever it was it felt, in the state he was in, impossible to deny. The idea of it had already inhabited his consciousness.

  “To go down on you,” he added.

  “What did you say?” The restaurant was noisy. She began to blush and moved uncomfortably so that she could see into his face.

  “You heard me, Julia. I can’t stop thinking about it. About you.”

  He’d been feeling unsure of himself since Christmas. Another week had passed and still no word from Agnes. He’d gone to London reluctantly, unsure of whether he should stay until things with her were
sorted, but told himself he couldn’t rush her. The not knowing was unbearable. He felt disconnected from Holly. And from himself, and something had been building inside since Berlin; he felt reckless, impulsive, unable to control himself. And then here was Julia, having pressed up against his mind for months and now suddenly realized in the flesh before him. He couldn’t stop thinking about it.

  “Would you let me?”

  She laughed and then she looked at him and her face flushed again. She nervously reached her hand into her marvelous stream of hair and sent it cascading from her fingers.

  “You’re serious, then.”

  “Yes.”

  She placed her napkin on the table. “What you’re asking. That would be asking me to reveal everything.”

  “Yes.”

  “But why would you ask that of me? When there hasn’t been anything . . . I mean, anything physical really between us,” she said, her look at once provocative and unsure at the same time.

  “Because I can’t not ask it. But you don’t want to.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  The room grew quiet. Charlotte stood up to give a toast. She was wearing a tight spandex dress and half her breasts were showing. She welcomed everyone and acknowledged the ones who had traveled from New York, Tokyo, San Francisco, Paris, and Amsterdam. He tried to catch Julia’s eyes to read her gaze, but after the toast she started a conversation with the person on the other side of her. He glanced across from him at an odd character with a broad and deformed nose, beefy, wearing a hoop in his ear. He was giving a tarot reading to a woman next to him dressed in a pink leotard and ballet tutu. When he saw Edward staring he said, “They hired me for the after-party. To read cards.”

  “The after-party. It’s going to be one of those circuses, then.” Edward sighed.

  “Will you read hers?” He pointed to Julia, who had turned back to look at him.

  “Mine? Really?” Then she laughed. “Why not yours?”

  “Because I know what I want,” he said, staring at her as if he had already undressed her. Who was he kidding? He wanted to do everything to her, with her.

  The card reader motioned for Julia to sit next to him. He shuffled the deck and turned up a card. “The Fool,” he said, handing it to her. “The Fool is the power behind all manifestations. He is the spark that sets everything in motion.”

  The second course had been finished, coffees drunk, and talk began about going to the after-party.

  Edward leaned over to ask Julia if she was going, but before he could get a response, Charlie high-fived him at the table. “Dude,” Charlie said, and Edward stood up and they gave each other a hug.

  “I didn’t know you were coming, Charlie. When did you get in?”

  “About an hour ago. I took a cab from the airport straight here.”

  Whenever Edward and Charlie were together a dangerous adolescent streak rose inside him. They’d had a lot of good times in his early days in New York. Charlie married Cath, a tall, slender museum director from Boston, shortly after Edward and Holly got married. He moved to Boston with Cath and opened a gallery there. They saw each other occasionally at art fairs and Charlie always called when he was in New York.

  “How’s Holly?” Charlie asked.

  Edward suspected Charlie still carried a torch for his wife.

  “Holly’s good. Her father isn’t doing so well.”

  “That’s too bad. Let’s do dinner in New York. It’d be a kick to see her. Coming with us for a smoke?” Already stoked for a good night of it, Charlie’s hair was out of place and his skin glistened. He’d put on weight.

  Edward looked back at Julia, who was engaged in a conversation with the tarot reader and the woman in the tutu. There was a fuss about who was going to share a cab with whom, and he saw Julia pick up her coat and glance back at him anxiously to let him know she was leaving. He acknowledged that he’d follow, but once outside he watched her crowd into a cab with a group and take off.

  Jimmy Oldman emerged from the restaurant with a young female art student on each side of him. “Hey, man, you’ll see her at the party. Don’t look so strung out,” Jimmy said. Yes, he told himself, he’d see her at the party.

  He smoked a cigarette on the curb with Charlie, Jimmy, and the two lanky grad students with jet-black hair and twiglike legs. The tarot reader joined their conversation.

  “There’s another side to the Fool. He represents unmolded potential, pure and innocent. He does not care what others think or say about him, because he knows that what he is doing is right for him.”

  Edward stood a foot taller than the card reader. He put his cigarette out on the ground, rubbed it with his foot, and urgently hailed a cab.

  WHEN HE ARRIVED at the club it was jammed. Three or four hundred intoxicated and overheated art fanatics packed the room. The loud music thrummed through his body. He felt surprisingly alive. He craned his neck to see above the crowd. Where was Julia? Was it possible that she’d gone back to her hotel without him? Maybe she was having second thoughts. He bumped into Charlotte and thanked her for dinner while anxiously peering over her head. A gallerist in New York, she was a tastemaker known for her expertise in the international art scene. Robust with stringy blond hair and needy blue eyes, she thrust out her breasts so that they bounced against his chest. He stepped back just a tad. Her energy repelled him.

  “Charlotte, have you seen Julia?”

  “I saw her come in.” She gave him a peck on the cheek. “Don’t look so desperate, darling,” she whispered.

  “It’s an oven in here,” he said, tugging at his collar, unable to think of anything but Julia.

  He spotted her near the windows. He elbowed his way through a group of wilted and wrecked Spanish artists to reach her.

  “I thought I’d lost you.”

  She looked up at him and smiled. “You haven’t lost me.”

  Body girdled and spilling out of her spandex dress, Charlotte tagged behind. She leaned over and whispered in Julia’s ear and then reached for her hand and lured her to the dance floor. Julia looked back reluctantly. The women swayed together, moving loosely to the rhythms of the music. Everything was moving slightly and his head felt heavy. He labored to keep focused. He sipped his warm beer, already wishing for another though the glass was not yet empty. He elbowed through a group of stylish Italians to the dance floor and dislodged Julia from Charlotte’s arms. He took her by the hand, brought her close, and kissed her.

  Afterward, she looked at him, stunned, and then her eyes broke into a smile. Relief flooded him. He tugged her by the hand and whisked her away from the mayhem of the dancing crowd and then through the packed club. They wound their way upstairs to the vestibule of the hotel. The lobby was overlit; he wished for darkness and beauty.

  “Let’s have a drink. Can we go to your hotel?”

  He helped her into her coat and, night still holding, led her by the hand to the taxi stand. If they spoke it might not happen, so he refrained. In the cab, he kissed her again and reached for her hand in her lap. She seemed as bewildered as he by what had overtaken them.

  “Did you really do that?” she said.

  Her hotel room was very tiny. He felt as if he could not stand straight, that the ceiling would crush him. Just one night. I’m allowed one night. He was alone with her, helping her take off the thin slip of her coat. There had been some awkwardness in the hotel lobby when she went to claim her key, and then some fumbling to get the key into the lock. They had drunk an awful lot. He took off his coat. She looked at him and went into the bathroom. When she came out he smelled toothpaste in her mouth and kissed her mint-flavored lips.

  “I’ve never done this before.” She was trembling.

  “Done what?”

  “Invited a man to my hotel room.”

  They began kissing. He slowly moved her against the wall to press himself against her more fully. Her mouth was full and warm and penetrable. They were kissing standing up, she still in her tight skirt and sw
eater and tights, having taken off only her high boots. He pulled up her skirt to feel the shape of her. He drew her across the room and took off her sweater and her skirt and they fell onto the bed. Then he sat up and unbuttoned his shirt and took it off and unbuckled his belt and took off his pants and left them on the floor and for a moment stopped just to look at her. There was a tiny mole on her neck just beneath her ear. He’d never seen it before. He pulled her hair away from the nape of her neck and kissed it. Then he moved his lips to hers again. They were soft, wet petals. Her lithe body was hot to his touch. He slipped his hands underneath her bra—it was lacy and black—and he felt her breasts. He tried to slip a hand underneath her pantyhose and panties, but she stopped his hand with hers and looked up at him, uncertain for a moment.

  “I want you, Julia,” he said. He had to have her.

  He slipped his hands back underneath her panties and she let him, thank God. He moved over her and felt himself gather more force and intensity, and they moved until they found their rhythm, until he felt as if he had explored every region of her body, her mouth now tasting of wine, her hair caught underneath him, her hands and mouth on him, until her breathing and motion quickened and she groaned, digging her fingernails into the back of his neck, and then he held himself there until he couldn’t anymore and came into her. It was a relief beyond relief, as if all his mindfulness for those months had dissolved, and he was out of his head, free of his directive. He lay on his back and then turned to kiss her.

  “Are you okay,” he asked, pushing her hair back from her face, afraid for a moment.

  “Yes, it’s okay,” she said, her breathing beginning to quiet.

  “It was inevitable, wasn’t it?” she said.

  He thought about how little he knew about her. The abandonment of her father, her forays in art school, the pain of losing a child, it was all there underneath the flesh that he had touched and held and kissed. Somehow, in a manner of days, hours, she’d become utterly indispensable to him. He opened his arms to her and she fell into them. He closed his eyes. It had been twenty years since he had slept beside a woman other than his wife. It was at once extremely peaceful and nearly unbearable. He wished to stop the clock, to allow himself a few more luxurious hours in limbo before the night ran out. He sank further into the bedsheets and felt her stirring next to him.