The first thing I notice is that Brandt left all his lights on.
The second is that he’s got his dick in some other woman’s mouth.
At first, I think I’m hallucinating—because there is no way this is happening.
But I recognize the woman. A face like that is unforgettable; she’d been at Dustin McBride’s gallery party.
And then Brandt turns around to see what’s caused his little Kewpie doll to freeze mid-blow job. He’s horrified. And for a second we just stand there, locked in agony.
“Lulu!”
The sound of his voice hurts.
He walks toward me, stumbling as he pulls up his pants.
“No—stay away from me.” I pull the door open and run into the hall.
*** ***
Inez pushed through the revolving doors of Brandt’s building. Mission accomplished—she had a fresh supply of coke and a pack of smokes.
She paused at the sight of a hysterical brunette stumbling across the lobby. Was that … Lulu?
Her long brown hair was hanging in her face, her jean shorts were smudged with dirt, her legs were scraped and one seemed to be bleeding. And she was sobbing.
“Jesus, Lulu. What the hell happened?” Inez asked.
Lulu looked up at her with a blank stare. Finally she said, “Inez?”
“Yeah. What’s going on?”
“What are you doing here?” Lulu asked. The right side of her face was dirty and a bruise was forming under her cheekbone.
“What happened to your face?”
“I tripped,” Lulu said. “Why are you at Brandt’s building?”
Inez had no problem pulling a lie out of her ass. “Brandt said he was having a party. I thought I’d stop by. Not much else going on tonight.”
Lulu brushed by her, walking to the door. Inez followed close behind. “Wait. Where are you going?”
“Home,” Lulu said.
“Do you need a cab, ladies?” the doorman asked. Probably eager to get rid of them.
“Yes, actually. That would be great,” said Inez.
“Please … just leave me alone,” said Lulu.
“Don’t be an idiot. I’m not letting you go home like that. Your mother would kill me. And probably not let you out of her sight the rest of the summer.”
Had Lulu busted Brandt and Bianca? She couldn’t believe it. If she’d wanted to make it happen, she wouldn’t have believed it could work.
Her moment of elation quickly turned sour. She couldn’t let herself get implicated in this. She had to calm Lulu down, and convince her that it was in her best interest not to pull her mother into all her drama.
“I’ll take you home. If your mother is there, just let me do the talking. You go upstairs and chill out.”
The cab pulled into the drive. Lulu didn’t protest when Inez slid into the seat next to her.
“133 Greene Street,” Inez said to the driver. She turned to Lulu, who was quiet now even though tears were still streaming down her face. “So what happened? You and Brandt have an argument?” And had she fallen down the elevator shaft on her way to the lobby?
“He’s cheating on me,” Lulu said.
Inez had to admit that even though she’d orchestrated the whole thing—and for good reason—she felt kind of bad. But, she reminded herself, she’d feel a whole lot worse sitting in an apartment in Beijing.
“Men are pigs,” Inez said. “Don’t let it get to you. Besides, didn’t your mother warn you to never date an artist?”
Lulu didn’t respond. “I can’t believe this,” she said, her head in her hands.
“Look, you’re young and gorgeous. You’re going back to school in the fall. There must be dozens of guys to bang at NYU.”
She looked at Inez, her big hazel eyes wide with suffering. They were the same color as her mother’s, though larger and more dramatic.
“You’ve always been the coolest woman I know,” Lulu said. “This would never happen to you. None of it.”
“So take my advice: Cut Brandt loose, go out with your friends tonight, and just have fun. Don’t be all serious. And that goes for work, too. You have your whole life to be at the gallery. You should have gone to Europe with that psycho bitch roommate of yours.”
“Niffer,” Lulu breathed. And for the moment, she looked almost calm.
“One more piece of advice,” Inez said. “Don’t tell your mother all the gory details. You want to tell her you and Brandt split, go for it. But leave it at that. The more you tell her, you’re just inviting her to get involved. You know Anna likes to manage everything.”
Lulu nodded. “She thinks she can control everything … I used to believe she could, too.”
Chapter Twenty-nine
“Lulu. I know you’re in there.”
My mother’s voice is worse than nails on a chalkboard. But judging by the amount of light in my room, it’s late morning, if not afternoon already. And I can’t hide in here forever.
My back hurts every time I raise my right arm, a development I would not like to share with her. I rummage through my handbag and swallow two Advil dry.
I open my bedroom door. An inch.
“I’m sick,” I tell her, poking my head out.
“I’m not going to have this conversation standing in the hallway. Let me in.”
I sigh, and step away from the door. I do not have the energy to argue. She strides in, dressed in a beautiful white suit and her crazy Van Cleef & Arpels brooch of some kind of wild-looking gold, emerald, and diamond bird carrying a giant yellow diamond dangling from its beak. My mother doesn’t wear a lot of jewelry, but when she does, it’s big and expensive—usually stuff she bought at auction at Sotheby’s. When I was little I used to play with that bird.
“What conversation?” I say. I wish I could just throw myself into her arms, sobbing.
“Lulu, what in god’s name happened to your face?”
My hand instinctively covers the bruise on my face. “I fell.”
“Were you drinking?”
“No. I’m sick.” I know I’m not making any sense, and I don’t care.
“If you’re sick, why did you go out last night?”
“Out?”
“Yes,” she said, closing my door and leaning her back against it, crossing her arms. “When I got home from the MoMA party, you were not here.”
“Oh. Yeah. I went to Brandt’s.”
She nods. “He was very charming at the party. The publicist said she’s already getting a tremendous amount of requests for him leading into the show.”
“He’s cheating on me.”
Her eyes blink rapidly, but other than that, there’s no sign that I said anything more troubling than I have a headache.
“What do you mean?” she says.
“I mean, I went to his apartment last night, and he was with another woman. Naked.”
She sits on the edge of my bed. “I hate to say I told you so,” she said. “Now, I need you to be an adult about this, Lulu.”
That’s my mom’s catchphrase for don’t get emotional.
“I think even adults get upset about this sort of thing, Mom.”
“Not when they work together, they don’t.”
“Let me get this straight: Your daughter is telling you her boyfriend broke her heart, and you’re worried about work?”
My mother shakes her head. “Stop being so dramatic.”
“Thanks, Mom. You know, Inez had more empathy.”
“You talked to Inez about this?”
“I ran into her last night. And she knew I was hurting, and she brought me back here and at least pretended to give a shit.”
My mother touched the sparkling bird on her chest, poking at the dangling diamond. “Well, I appreciate that. Inez is someone we can both count on. As for this situation with Brandt, he’ll apologize, and you two can work it out. Or you can move on. It’s your choice. In the meantime, keep your focus.”
“My focus on what? Doing data entry? Upd
ating the Web site? Going to parties? I thought I’d spend the summer learning how you built this place. I thought you wanted to teach me. I thought that you were starting to take me seriously.”
“I can’t do that until you start taking yourself seriously, Lulu,” she says.
I start opening drawers, tossing stuff into an overnight bag. Moving back home had been a mistake, but fortunately one of the few I could fix. Right now.
My phone beeps with a text. I ignore it, but my mother doesn’t hesitate to pick up my phone to check it out for herself.
“It’s Brandt,” she says, looking at me expectantly.
“Fuck him,” I say.
“Lulu, you might not want him for a boyfriend at this moment. But he is still a client—a client who has a showing in the fall that is important to this gallery.”
When my bag is full, I zip it closed. She sighs heavily. “When we had breakfast at Balthazar, I asked you what you wanted, and you said you wanted this. You said you saw your future here. And that you were ready to start that future now. So why do I feel like I’m dragging you, kicking and screaming, every inch of the way?”
I pull my bag onto my uninjured shoulder.
“Don’t get me wrong—I love art.” Maybe more than you love it. “It’s like, this language that communicates something different to every person. But somehow we all speak it. And I always thought you felt the same way, and that you spoke this language better than anyone because you made these artists visible to the whole world. And I thought, I want to do that, too. But being at the gallery this summer just makes me feel further away from doing that.”
“Hmm. And why do you think that is?”
I look at her, surprised. Is this going to be a real conversation?
“I don’t know.” I can’t really tell her that it’s because the stuff hanging in the gallery doesn’t give me the feeling I have when I see Rory in action.
“I think I know why,” Anna says.
“You do?”
“Yes. It’s because you’re a quitter and a loser. Just like your father.”
*** ***
I curl up into a ball on my sofa, wishing Niffer were home. The fabric smells faintly of her cigarette and pot smoke. I breathe it in, missing her. She’d told me she’d get an international data plan so we can text, but so far she hasn’t responded to anything. I tap out a new one anyway. Ru there? heinous events the past 48 hrs.
Nothing. But I do get yet another “I’m sorry, please let’s talk” text and voice mail from Brandt.
Delete.
I close my eyes, trying to sleep so I can chip away at the exhaustion that seems to have infiltrated every cell of my body. But the second I do, I’m below ground in the complete darkness, the man’s hand around my throat.
I sit up, gasping for breath. I don’t know if I can stay here alone, but there’s no way I’m going back to my mother’s.
I hate that she said those things about my father. He was more talented than anyone she’s represented since. If he’d stuck around, it would be his sculptures filling Nina Saroyin’s apartment. And MoMA. And the Whitney.
My entire life, I’ve seen her forgive artists a multitude of sins all in the name of their talent. Except for him.
I don’t know why he killed himself. Growing up, I felt like he left me. The fact that my mother never talks about him—never talked about him when I was growing up—made it worse. To this day, I have no idea how she felt about him when she married him, or how she felt about his suicide. She’s never said anything.
I’ve spent hours looking at photos of the parties she had at that house in the early 1990s. I loved looking through the albums. This was before digital cameras, so she had hundreds of physical photographs in drawers and in these thick black albums embossed with her initials. My mother had everyone who was anyone at that house: David Bowie on the terrace with Tupac Shakur and my dad; Madonna holding infant me on her lap while talking to Johnny Depp; Sharon Stone the year Basic Instinct made her a superstar; Liz Tilberis celebrating her first issue of Harper’s Bazaar. And that’s not even counting the art people. My dad’s in a lot of the photos. And then he’s not. That’s when I stop looking at them, when they cease to matter.
My phone buzzes with another text. A flutter of happiness somehow breaks through my despair as soon as I see the name on my phone. Rory.
Are you ok? I’m thinkin hospital was the way to go last nite. Tell me I’m wrong.
Chapter Thirty
I text back that I’m having a PTSD freak-out alone in my apartment. And then I regret it. I don’t need him thinking I’m weaker than he probably does already.
He responds, where ru?
My apartment.
Where’s that?
I answer, but I don’t expect him to actually show up here. I’m curled up in the fetal position on the couch, pretty much committed to the idea of staying this way until Niffer walks in the door in August.
And then the intercom buzzes.
Even when he is standing right outside my apartment door, and I see him through the peephole—hood, dark glasses, and all—I barely believe it.
“What are you doing here?”
He walks right in, as if it’s the most natural thing in the world. He’s wearing jeans, a gray t-shirt, and a red hoodie sweatshirt.
“You shouldn’t be alone,” he says.
“Yeah, well, I’m starting to see the virtues of your lone wolf policy.”
Exhaustion washes over me and I crawl back into my position on the couch. He stands there, looking down at me. It’s incredibly awkward.
“I’ve been in a lot of fights,” he says. “You get that adrenaline dump, and the next day, you just have to cash out.”
“It’s that,” I say, half mumbling into the curve of my arm. “But I’m also just hating everyone in my life right now.”
He drags over a wooden chair.
I roll onto my back and look up at him.
“You have to take off all that stuff,” I say.
“What thing?”
“The hat. The hood. The glasses. I mean, you saw me at probably the worse moment of my life yesterday and you can’t even show me your face?”
“I don’t need this shit,” he says quietly, but in a way that makes me think, yeah, he does. And then, slowly, he pulls down his hood. And takes off his glasses.
I have to bite my lip to keep from smiling. He’s hot. Really hot, with sharp cheekbones and a strong jaw and a full lower lip that I want to touch. I’ve seen pieces of this puzzle, but having it all come together in one visual moment is powerful. And that’s why it takes me a few seconds to register the vivid scars running from the corner of his left eye down the left side of his face.
“Scalding water,” he says, glancing away.
“Oh.”
“My dad.”
“Oh.”
I sit up and we’re face-to-face, our knees almost touching. A faint beard shadows his jawline, framing his sensual lips. I lean forward and press my mouth to his. A flood of heat goes through my entire body, a heart-pounding euphoria, something electric and dizzying that leaves me breathless. I have to pull back to take a gulp of air, and he’s looking at me in shock, not moving. I kiss him again, hand touching his face, his hair, until he finally opens his mouth and I taste him. My body wants him so much it’s like a physical pain. And though he barely responds to me at first, I know when it clicks with him, too, because he pulls me to him, tight.
My phone rings next to me on the couch. I ignore it. But he stops kissing me, and I realize he’s looking at it. And the expression on his face makes me turn around to grab it.
A photo of my mother fills the screen. Along with the stark white letters spelling out MOM.
Chapter Thirty-one
My mouth is still vibrating from the kiss. I run my fingers along my lower lip, dazed.
But my phone is ringing, and the picture of my mother is like a grenade tossed into the room. The few seconds of heart-stoppi
ng happiness when Rory held me in his arms has turned to dread.
We both look at the phone, then at each other.
Rory’s face says it all. Disbelief. Hurt. Anger. Before I can react, he grabs my phone and puts it on speaker.
“Lulu?” My mother’s voice fills the room.
“Hey,” Rory says, talking to her but flashing his furious dark eyes at me.
“Who is this?”
“An artist you can’t buy or sell,” he says, tossing the phone to me. And then he walks out.
I jump off the couch and follow him to the hall. He’s so fast that he’s already down the stairs. For all I know, he went out the window and down the drainpipe. From the hall, I hear my mother still squawking out of the phone.
“Hello? Lulu? Are you there?”
I want to hang up, but that would only make things worse. My mother is persistent, and the last thing I need is her tracking me down in person.
“What do you want, Mom?” My tone of voice is so disgusted, so thick with irritation, I know it’s begging her to snap at me. But she holds back.
“Where are you?”
“My apartment.”
“Who answered your phone?”
“No one.”
Silence. After a long pause she says, “I’m sorry our conversation took a bad turn.” I hear her directing her driver through traffic. “I’m coming by with the car to bring you back to the gallery. I just had a meeting with some very important collectors about the upcoming show, and if you want to be really involved—as you claim to—you need to get back to work.”
Amazing how Brandt’s show is now just “the upcoming show.” As if I’m going to forget that it centers around the guy who just cheated on me.
I hang up on her.
*** ***
Inez was certain the interns would topple off the ladders. Frankly, she could care less if they broke their necks—they were so useless they made Lulu look like a genius.
With a mountain of paperwork on her desk—invoices, purchase orders, artists’ tear sheets—she had the time-suck of hanging some work from Anna’s permanent collection to replace the spots left vacant by some of the sold Dustin McBride pieces. Some collectors are okay leaving their art in the gallery for duration of exhibition period, others are not. Nina Saroyin was one of the irritating “gotta have it now” collectors.
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