by Robinne Lee
He laughed, throwing back his head. “You can’t just say things like that to me. And then … Okay, hurry up and show me the rest of the house.”
We proceeded down the corridor, Hayes pausing at a photograph of me dancing with the Boston Ballet School, back when classes six days a week did not seem so insane. “How old?”
“Fifteen.”
“Wow.”
And then coming to a complete standstill before a shot of me, seven months pregnant with Isabelle, on the beach in Kona. He was silent as he pulled me into him, my back against his chest, his chin on my shoulder. We remained like that for a few moments, neither of us speaking, until he moved his hand over my belly, holding it there.
“You are so beautiful.”
“Don’t.” I pushed his hand away. “Don’t do that.”
“Oh-kay … What … what am I doing?”
“Don’t do the baby-fantasy thing with me.”
“Is that what I was doing?” He sounded so confused I almost felt sorry for him.
“That’s where it was heading.”
“Oh-kay,” he repeated. “I’m sorry.”
He dropped it, which was wise. Because if I allowed myself to entertain any of the numerous paths I thought he might be taking in his head, I most likely would have asked him to leave and not ever come back. I could not stomach the weight of that just yet. The idea that with us there could be no happy ending.
Our tour continued: my office, the guest room, Isabelle’s bedroom. My daughter was going through a Hollywood Regency phase with her fuzzy throw pillows and ornate lighting fixtures. It was all white lacquer and fuchsia with metallic accents and Moroccan poufs.
“I know this is surprising, but I haven’t been in many thirteen-year-old girls’ rooms,” Hayes said, nosing around.
“That’s probably a good thing.”
Isabelle had a couple of framed graphic prints on her wall, pretty pink posters that read “For Like Ever” and “Keep Calm and Carry On.” But above her desk, tacked up to the busy bulletin board, were no fewer than half a dozen pics of August Moon and the band’s calendar. Her photo from the meet-and-greet was sitting on her night table.
Hayes spotted it, exhaling deeply.
“Weird, right?”
He nodded and then turned to me. “We’ve fucked up royally, haven’t we?”
“Yeah. So now you know what I’m dealing with.”
“I’m sorry. It’s slightly different from this perspective.”
“You think?”
“Yeah.” He plopped himself down on the bed and lay back, his head on the fuzzy pink pillows. “Fuck. This is going to be ugly.”
“Yes, it is.”
“She’ll be there tomorrow evening? What are we telling her?”
“That you’re my client. That you’re a friend. That’s it.”
“She’s going to buy that?”
“Let’s hope so.” Daniel’s words were weighing on me.
Hayes was quiet for a second, his eyes searching mine. “Why haven’t you told her, Solène? You’re feeling guilty…”
I said nothing. Guilt did not scratch the surface.
“Are you trying to protect her? Or are you protecting yourself?”
“Both of us, maybe.”
The corner of his mouth curled slightly, more sorrow than smile. “Do you feel like if you just wait long enough this will be over, and you’ll get away with not saying anything at all?”
“I suppose that’s a possibility, isn’t it?”
He held my gaze, serious. “I’m still very much here…”
“So it appears…”
“Come here,” he said, tapping the duvet beside him.
My expression was beyond incredulous. There was not a chance in hell I was going to lie on Isabelle’s bed with Hayes. “Absolutely not.”
“Sorry.” He sat up. “I suppose that’s awkward.”
The doorbell rang. I had not been expecting anyone. “All of it’s awkward. I’ll be back in a sec.”
There was a fine art delivery service at the gate. I recognized them from the gallery. I had not arranged to have anything shipped, but Marchand Raphel was on the work order, so I signed for the package and led the two handlers in. The guys carefully positioned the large piece against one of the walls in the living room and cut away the cardboard packaging at my request. Josephine’s name was on the attached paperwork, but when the tableau was finally revealed my heart leapt. There, in my living room, was Ailynne Cho’s Unclose Me.
I began to shake.
“Hayes!”
It took him a moment to appear from the corridor, an impish grin on his face.
“Did you do this? Is this from you?”
“You said it was the one piece you loved.”
I nodded, and then, unexpectedly, I began to cry.
Hayes saw the embarrassed handlers to the door, and then returned to me, holding me in his arms. “Shhh.” He was kissing the side of my face. “It’s just art, Solène,” he teased.
I laughed. Through the tears and the waves of emotion and the realization that what he’d done was huge, I laughed.
“Thank you. You didn’t have to do this.”
“I know that. But I couldn’t give up the opportunity to make you feel—what was it you said?—‘everything.’”
My heart was melting. “You.”
“Me?”
“This is why they love you, isn’t it?”
“Who?”
“Everyone.”
He smiled. “Yes, everyone.”
I stood there for some time, losing myself in the seductive image. The garden, the woman, the light. The rush, the idea that it was mine. The realization: this was what it was like to be high, on art.
Hayes made his way back to the walls of glass to admire the vista. The sun was beginning to lower, casting the room in an apricot light. “Are you happy?”
“I think you know the answer to that.”
“Good,” he said. His eyes were still on the water, but I’d heard the change in his voice.
“When do you have to pick up Isabelle?”
“Six. We have a while.”
I watched him stroll across the room.
“Is this a midcentury dining table?” he asked, his finger running along the lines of the oblong Arne Vodder. I’d got it in the divorce—the furniture, the house. Daniel got the cottage on the Vineyard. And Eva.
“It is.”
“It’s nice,” he said.
“Glad you like it.” I made my way to him at the table’s head, where he was once again gazing out at the view: the lawn, the sky, the sea, the dipping sun.
Hayes reached for my hand, and then, without warning, twisted my arm, turning me away from him. He did not speak, letting my wrist loose and placing his palm firmly at the center of my back, folding me until I was bent completely over the table, the rosewood smooth and cool against my cheek.
He took his time.
His hands: climbing the sides of my thighs, lifting my skirt, peeling off my underwear. I could hear him unfastening his belt, unzipping his jeans, and then the maddening lull. My eyes were on the Cho piece, the colors blurring, evocative, while I anticipated the crinkle of the wrapper. It did not come. I felt him against me suddenly: hot, swollen.
“You’re not wearing a condom.”
“I’m not.”
I lifted my head to look back at him, but did not speak.
“I made a choice,” he said. His words sat in the air, heavy.
I didn’t stop him when he slid it in. Thick, smooth, deep. The feel of him, unadorned, raw, sent me spinning. Hayes, filling me. He pulled out for a moment and waited, teasing, before gliding it back in, slow. Deeper. And then withdrawing again.
The third time he did it, he spoke, low, “Do you want me to put one on?”
“No.”
“You sure?”
I could feel him at the opening, tempting. Fuck. Me.
“Yes.”
“Good,” he sa
id, and then drove his dick in so hard and so fast, I bruised my cheekbone against the table.
In the middle of it—with his hands gripping my hips and the sound of his balls slapping up against my skin—I had the thought that perhaps this table had experienced this before. Some Danish 1950s housewife, her pale thighs banging along the smooth edge, making the most of the Scandinavian design, with a casserole in the oven and the kids upstairs in the playroom.
Hayes’s hand was in my hair, yanking my head up from the table. His breath hot on my neck, his teeth on my shoulder, his dick so deep it hurt. His arm wrapped around my ribs then, his fingers grabbing me through my blouse. And just the sight of the veins in his forearm, his watch, his rings, the size of his hand, was enough. I was done.
After, when he’d collapsed atop me and I was once again lying with my face on the cool rosewood, so close I could count the striations in the buffed grain, I had the realization: this was what it was like to be fucked, on art.
* * *
Joanna Garel was a Filipina model turned actress turned fine artist whose Pop Art–influenced pieces centered on Los Angeles beach culture. She’d created a series of iconic lifeguard towers in mixed media that was the basis of Sea Change, her first solo exhibition at Marchand Raphel. The turnout was impressive. Even before my boybander was added to the equation.
That night the gallery overflowed with Joanna’s photogenic multiracial family and model friends and an eclectic mix of our usual diverse clientele. And to me, it was the most lively, colorful crowd anywhere on our stretch of La Cienega. At some point early in the evening I hugged Lulit and thanked her again for birthing this idea. The desire to shake things up.
Hayes arrived to what I hoped was little commotion. I had told Isabelle that he was planning to attend, but to not set her mind on it. And yet still she spent countless hours on the phone with Georgia and Rose, scheming about what they were going to wear (jeans, not dresses) and how they were going to act (cultured, not crazy) and where they would all gather after for a full postmortem (Georgia’s for a sleepover, which I encouraged for obvious reasons).
I knew he was there before he’d made his presence known. I sensed it: atoms shifting, heightened excitement, a variation in the volume. People change when they’re around celebrities. First they become quiet and murmur among themselves. Then they talk louder as if they want to be overheard. They become bubbly and jovial and terribly witty. I’d seen it at Starbucks with Ben and Jen, and at the premiere for a film Daniel worked on with Will Smith. I’d seen it at SoulCycle and at yoga and Pilates. I’d seen it at Whole Foods. This kind of bizarre, forced “see, we’re just like you, our lives are just like yours” behavior. But I never imagined someone so close to me would inspire it.
“Mom, he’s here, he’s here, Hayes is here.” Isabelle found me in the kitchen, where I’d been instructing one of our servers.
“Did you say hi?”
“No, I didn’t say hi. He won’t know who I am. I can’t just go up to him and remind him I met him once, that’s so embarrassing. Please come and reintroduce us.”
“I’ll be right there,” I promised. If she’d had any idea that only yesterday he’d been lying on her bed, she would have died.
She led me to him, in the front room, where the crowd was thickening. Where chatter was loud and wine was being swilled and Georgia and Rose were lurking off to the side, trying to play it cool while waiting for their introduction. Lulit was showing him one of Joanna’s pieces: a bold lifeguard tower, shadowed by Ben-Day dots in sunset colors, rendered on a large slab of wood.
I caught his eye as I approached him, and the expression on his face was pure sex, and I knew we were not going to make it through the night without one of us fucking up.
“Hi.”
“Hi.” He smiled.
“You came.”
“I came.”
Lulit smiled knowingly. “I am going to leave you two alone, yes. I have people to flatter, art to sell. Hayes, can I get you a drink? Wine? Water?”
“No, thank you. I’m fine.”
“Well, if you need anything, don’t be shy. Although I’m sure this woman will take good care of you.”
“I don’t doubt she will.”
I leaned in to kiss him the second she stepped away, one of those double-sided French cheek kisses, which was something I’d never done with him before and which felt so awkward and foreign that we both started to laugh. But I could feel it: people watching him, watching us. Including the newly minted teenager just beyond my shoulder. The one who would later sleep at her friend’s house, completely oblivious to the fact that her mother was engaging in unspeakable acts with one-fifth of the world’s greatest boy band, just down the hall from her pink-and-white bedroom. Keep calm and carry on, indeed.
“Hayes, do you remember my daughter, Isabelle?”
“Isabelle. I believe I do.”
“Hi, Hayes.” Isabelle was divided between offering up the biggest smile of her life and hiding her braces.
“How have you been?” He hugged her, and she visibly turned to mush, her arms folding in at her sides, her hands not knowing quite where to go.
Oh, if she knew … If she knew …
“I can’t believe you’re here.”
“I’m here.” He placed his hand atop her head. “I think you’re taller. Are you taller?”
She nodded, beaming up at him.
Something fluttered in my chest. Something like betrayal.
“And you brought your friends?” Hayes continued, sticking to the script.
Rose and Georgia had sidled up to us. I reintroduced them to their idol and watched as they fawned.
“Congratulations on your VMA,” Georgia blurted.
“We were really hoping you would perform,” Rose chimed in, flicking her red hair over her shoulder. According to Isabelle, she’d had it blown out earlier that day, signifying just what a big deal this evening was.
“They teased us and made us think you were going to be there, but you weren’t really there, so it was just a whole lot of Miley.”
“Ah, yes, Miley.” Hayes smiled.
“My mom doesn’t approve of that video,” Rose said. “She says she’s a bad influence and she’s putting ideas in our head.”
“Is that what Miley’s doing? Okay, then you should probably listen to your mum. And stay away from construction sites and such.”
“But it’s a great song,” Isabelle added.
“It is a great song.”
“Are you guys still recording your album?” Georgia asked. How they managed to know everything going on in these guys’ lives and still live their own was fascinating to me.
“We’ve just now finished it. They’re still doing some mixing, but we’ve done our bit.”
“I can’t wait to hear it.” Isabelle smiled, her hand hiding her mouth. The ring from Eva was twinkling on her middle finger. She had not taken it off since camp.
“I can’t wait for you to hear it.”
I took my cue when Georgia crossed her arms over her breasts (dear God, when had that happened?), cocked her head, and very seriously said, “So, Hayes, are you into contemporary art?”
I gathered this was all part of their “act cultured” plan and so I politely bowed out.
“I’ll be wandering about, should you have any questions,” I said. “If you can’t find me, check my office.”
He smiled, nodding. Rakish Hayes with his silk scarf, his gaggle of pubescent girls, his perfect hair, his fetching smile. “I will,” he mouthed. It was a promise.
Josephine had assembled a playlist for the opening, and Ed Sheeran’s blue-eyed alternative hip-hop acoustic soul pumped throughout the gallery. It was the perfect complement to Joanna’s serene pieces. Pop Art done in unexpected muted shades of sun, sea, and sand.
“Your boyfriend.” Lulit approached me in Gallery 2, the middle room. “Wow.”
“Please don’t call him that.”
“He’s killing
me with the puppy dog eyes. The way they follow you around the room. What did you do to that poor boy?”
“I have no idea,” I said, waving off a server with a passing tray. “We just … click. It’s terrifying actually.” I turned my body into her and away from those surveying the art. “You know why he’s not drinking anything? Because he can’t.”
Lulit’s eyes widened, and we both started to laugh. “Oh, Solène. That’s bad.”
“Yes, I’m aware of that. I have no idea where this is going. I’m just enjoying the ride.”
“I bet you are … You are like the poster woman for reclaiming one’s sexuality.”
I laughed at that. “I didn’t know I’d disclaimed it.”
“I think it was lying dormant, and now it’s back in full force. Lest anyone think we women of a certain age were no longer sexually viable.”
“Yes.” I smiled. “Lest anyone think that.
“I’m going to give him a few more minutes and then I’m going to save him from the girls. And then I’ll get him to take some pictures, yes?”
“Yes.” She nodded, stroking her neck. Her hair was pulled back, and the thin straps of her dress accentuated her delicate bones. “Daniel is going to lose his mind.”
“Yes, well, Daniel fucked up, didn’t he?”
* * *
I was navigating the sea of bodies filling our space when I bumped into Josephine chatting up a guest. She stopped me, grabbing my elbow.
“Great show. Great turnout.”
“Yes, I’m very happy. You guys worked hard. Awesome DJ-ing, by the way.”
“I made sure not to put any August Moon on the mix.” She smiled.
“Probably wise.”
She introduced me to the guest she’d been chatting with, an early-thirties male with a man-bun and one of those lumbersexual beards. I did a quick check of the condition of his shoes and fingernails. These days, it was getting harder to tell who the potential buyers were.
The hipster excused himself to look at a piece, and Josephine leaned into me, furtively. “I assume you got your package.”
“I did. Thank you.”
“He wanted to surprise you. You have no idea how difficult it was to not mention it all this time. And the look of disappointment on your face when you realized it was sold…”
That Saturday night in July, at the Smoke; and Mirrors opening, I’d noticed a mark on our master list indicating the piece had been purchased. When I asked Josephine who the buyer was, she threw out some name I’d never heard.