Clearly, that was not going to happen. Inez would have to be the one to turn this sinking ship around.
“I know you had high hopes for making Lulu a part of the gallery,” Inez said, moving to stand close to Anna at the black marble-topped wet bar in the corner of the living room. “Maybe she’s too young.”
“You were her age when you started with me. And you didn’t miss a beat,” Anna said, tossing a single ice cube into her glass. Inez smiled, thankful that Anna made the comparison. It was glaringly obvious to Inez, but she couldn’t assume Anna would think the same way.
“Not everyone is cut out for this business. It’s pretty on the outside, but as we both know, it can get ugly.”
“I’m extremely disappointed.”
“We can’t control Lulu’s bad choices. So let’s focus on things we can control: Brandt’s work is a disaster right now, but it’s fixable. You’ve done it before.”
She sighed. “I’m going to an auction tomorrow night at Sotheby’s. Ordinarily I’d be selling him hard, but I can barely bring myself to do it with any enthusiasm.”
“I’ll go with you. I’ll blow the smoke screen about Brandt’s genius. We’re a team, Anna. I’ll take Lulu’s place dealing with Brandt and making him visible in a positive way. Do what you have to do to stabilize the gallery financially, and starting next year it’s all about rebuilding.”
Anna turned around and sighed. “You say it like it’s so simple.”
“I’ll tell you one thing that’s simple: You can’t ship me off to Asia.”
Anna pursed her lips, painted a deep maroon. After a moment of reflection, she sipped her drink. Then sipped it again.
“What’s your game, Inez?” Her hazel eyes were sharp, focused, unemotional.
“Success. The same as yours.”
Anna nodded. “It’s a lonely game. Are you prepared for that? I don’t think anyone of your generation truly is. Your constant need to be ‘connected’—all that social media bullshit. You have no idea what it is to be truly alone.”
“I’m not going to be alone.” Inez takes Anna’s drink and sets it on the bar, freeing her hand to press it against her breast. For a few seconds, Anna’s was still, not even moving a finger. The only movement was her eyes fluttering closed, as if she were concentrating very hard on something. Then, slowly, like a statue coming to life, she caressed Inez’s breast with gentle but possessive strokes.
Inez took a few steps back, bracing herself against the wall as Anna began to undress her. She realized in the moment when Anna yanked down her Cosabella thong that she had misjudged—Anna was not different in the bedroom than she was in business. Any illusion Inez had about seducing her, about taking control of the situation for once, of being in charge, disappeared with the first searing stroke of Anna’s fingers between her legs. She heard herself moan, and her last coherent thought was that once again she was at Anna’s mercy.
*** ***
“How much time do you think we have before we get arrested?” Niffer says, holding her side of the three-foot stencil up against the brick wall. We are both dressed head to toe in black and wearing ski masks. I’m so hot I feel like my face is melting.
It’s three in the morning, and we’re on Broadway, just feet away from the hatch to Rory’s underground art world. Being so close to the place where I was attacked is difficult, but I have to push through my anxiety. What I’m about to do is absolutely necessary. If I don’t, I’ll probably regret it for the rest of my life.
“Not that long,” I say, seeing if the stencil is straight. It will have to do. “This is it. Don’t move.”
I use painter’s tape to hold the stencil in place. Then I pull two cans of black spray paint out of my canvas messenger bag and toss one to Niffer. We both start spraying, and for two full minutes the hissing sound is all that I hear—not a car, no foot traffic, no sirens in the distance. I am completely focused on the kiss of the paint against the wall, the smell of chemicals rising in the black mist, and the blood pumping through me with such ferocity I can barely hold my hands steady.
“Is that enough?” Niffer says. I don’t know. But we can’t stay here forever, and the stencil is only part of the work. The hardest part is next, the freehand note I am leaving for Rory.
We pull the stencil from the wall, I shake the can, aiming it at the right side of the image. My father’s sculpture is rendered crisply, symmetrically, perfectly. But I don’t have time to revel in my handiwork. With a wide sweep of my arm, I spray the words in all caps: LET’S SET HIM FREE. I step back to see if it’s legible.
“Stop that! Go vandalize someplace else. I’m calling the cops,” a woman calls from across the street. I see a flash as her phone camera goes off.
“Fuck you,” Niffer calls, giving her the finger.
“Shut up—let’s go.” I grab the stencil off the ground, and we run to the Prince Street subway stop. I hear a clatter as one of our spray cans drops to the street.
Niffer has taken off her mask, and I hear her laughing in front of me.
“Go, go, go,” I say, all too aware of how fast police can appear at the scene. I pull a MetroCard from my pocket and swipe us both through the turnstiles just as the N train pulls into the station. We jump between its sliding doors. I don’t breathe until they close, and Niffer and I collapse against each other on the plastic bench. I fold the stencil in my lap, stuffing the ski mask in my bag, breathless and paranoid.
“By the way,” Niffer says. “This was totally worth skipping the last three weeks in Spain. I love grand romantic gestures.”
I roll my eyes. “Look, you’re in full-bloom rose-petals-and-champagne mode with your engagement and all, but that’s not what this is about.”
“If that painting isn’t a grand romantic gesture, then what is it?”
“An apology.”
I can tell she doesn’t believe me.
Chapter Thirty-seven
“Yes, it’s surprising, to say the least,” I say to Umberto. We are on the Upper West Side, near his apartment on Central Park West, having brunch.
What’s not surprising is his Mediterranean good looks. With his thick dark hair, tan skin, white button-down, and driving moccasins, he reminds me of the Ralph Lauren poster boy/professional polo player Nacho Figueras.
“It surprised me, too,” he says, threading his fingers through Niffer’s. She is positively glowing, despite the fact that neither of us has had more than a few hours sleep. I’m dying to head back downtown to see what the painting looks like in the daylight. I tried to convince Niffer to let me do it first thing this morning, but she insisted I join her for brunch and meet Umberto. Since she spent the entire night listening to the saga of my mother, Brandt, and Rory—not to mention risking arrest by defacing public property with me—I couldn’t say no. “But your Jennifer is something special.”
For a minute, I’m like—who’s Jennifer? Then I realized it’s an entirely new game in town. I’d have to get used to it. I wonder what other changes are on the horizon.
“Have you discussed the logistics with her?” Umberto asks Jennifer. I’d imagined he’d have a Spanish accent, but apparently he’d been born in Madrid, but raised in New York. So he really seems just like every other hot guy Niffer’s brought home—albeit with a quicker willingness to buy her expensive jewelry.
“What logistics?” I ask. The waitress brings our mimosas. Niffer gulps hers before responding.
“Since Umberto and I are engaged, we’re obviously going to want to live together.”
Oh. So that’s what this morning’s tête-à-tête is all about. And I’d just been thinking that my mother might refuse to pay my half of the rent now that I’ve quit the gallery and totally alienated her. Now I have to worry about the entire rent until I find a new roommate.
“I get it,” I say. And I do. I’m happy for them. I just wish my own life wasn’t in such a tailspin.
My phone buzzes with a text.
“Oh my god. Will you—I�
��ll be right back,” I say, pushing my chair away from the table. We are outdoors at Sarabeth’s, so in just a few steps I’m alone on the sidewalk. I touch my fingers to the words on the screen, as if it will somehow make me closer to him.
What do you want?
That’s all it says, but it’s enough for me to know that he saw the stencil. And he knows it was me.
My heart leaps, and I text back, It’s your turn to help me with a project.
He doesn’t respond. After a few minutes, I glance back at Niffer, and she gives me a what’s-up look.
Spirits plummeting, I head back to the table. Umberto and Niffer are talking to me, but I’m not processing a word of it. The silence of my phone is torture.
The check comes, and I know I can’t wait another minute. He’s obviously not going to reply, so I write, My mother is only one half of me, one half of the story. I know u love my dad’s work.
“Lulu, are you upset about the apartment situation?” Niffer asks.
“No, it’s okay. I get it.”
“You haven’t said a word since we told you.”
My phone buzzes. I can barely look. It’s one word.
So?
I quickly text back, So meet me at the garage on Seventh Avenue tonight at 8. I’m asking for him, not for me.
He doesn’t respond.
*** ***
Tonight’s the only night I’m certain it will work. My mother is going to the Sotheby’s auction. It’s been on her calendar for weeks.
Besides, if I don’t do it now, I’ll lose my nerve. The idea came to me sitting in her living room, and it’s morphed from a fleeting, semi-insane thought to an intractable need that’s eating at me, an itch I have to scratch. But I don’t know if I’ll have the guts—or the physical strength—to do it alone. If Rory doesn’t show, it might not happen.
I’ve been standing on the corner of Seventh and Waverly for twenty minutes, and there is no sign of him.
“This better be good.”
I whirl around. How did he get behind me? Of course he’s completely hidden behind his usual hat and dark glasses, as if I haven’t seen his face already. As if we haven’t touched, kissed, revealed ourselves to one another in a moment of pure want and need.
“It will be,” I say, barely able to contain my excitement. “I’m going to get the car. Don’t move.”
This time, the garage attendant hands over the keys without a phone call to my mother—thank god.
I pull the Jaguar slowly onto Seventh, and open the passenger door for Rory. He climbs in without looking at me.
“You should have told me,” he says.
“I know. You’re right. I’m in the habit of not mentioning my mother to people. And that day on the roof—I was shocked. I had no idea she was even on your radar.”
“On my radar? Anna Sterling discovered maybe the best sculptor of the twentieth century—the first artist whose stuff meant anything to me.”
“So why are you so anti?”
“Look at the timeline: Shane Holland produced ninety percent of his work in 1991. He started working with your mother in 1992, did a few pieces. And then nothing for a full year until his death. She rode him into the ground. Worse, she made it impossible to see his art after his death. Where the fuck is it?”
“Every fan of my father somehow feels the need to vilify my mother. It’s like the conspiracy theorists who say Courtney killed Kurt. It’s a fucking fantasy for people who can’t deal with the fact that sometimes there’s no one to blame. Yeah, it sucks when people kill themselves. Okay, I get it. But I lost more than anyone. So stop telling me that my mother crushed his art. The only thing that crushed his art was the bottle of pills he swallowed. I know that’s a lot less sexy to rant and rave about, but it’s the truth.”
I feel him looking at me, but I keep my eyes on the road.
“Fair enough,” he finally says.
Chapter Thirty-eight
I find parking on Houston.
“Can you take all that gear off of your face? You’re just going to draw more attention to us walking down the street. I mean, I’ve already seen you. Why do you have to be so dramatic?”
“I like it this way.”
We walk to Greene Street in silence. The sun is barely starting to set even though it’s at least eight thirty at night. Usually, I love that about this time of year. But right now I wouldn’t mind a lot less visibility.
Being so close to him out on the street, side by side, gives me an adrenaline rush. Maybe it’s Pavlovian—I’m used to doing thrilling things with him, so my body is already shifting into fight or flight.
“How can you like it? I wore a ski mask last night when I was spray-painting and I was dying of heat.”
“Well, you’re lucky enough to feel comfortable in your own skin. And you should—you’re beautiful. On the other hand, I like to be under wraps.”
“I thought it was just because you’re trying to stay anonymous.”
“That’s part of it.”
“Oh please—don’t tell me you don’t know how good-looking you are. Sometimes it takes all of my self-control not to reach out and touch you.”
“Don’t tell me—you also have a fetish for scars.”
“It’s barely noticeable.”
“And just when I thought we were having an honest conversation.”
“I am being honest.”
But I feel the wall going up around him. He doesn’t actually shift further away from me toward the passenger door, but he might as well. It’s heartbreaking to know that he’s wearing all that stuff because he feels his face isn’t worthy of being seen. I can barely believe it.
We turn onto Greene Street.
“You never told me what we’re doing,” he says.
“I’m taking one of my father’s sculptures out of my mother’s place.”
I glance at him. He’s smiling. “So I’m helping you steal it?”
I shake my head. “I’m not stealing it—I’m just … relocating it. My mother’s at Sotheby’s tonight. But I need help carrying it down the stairs and getting it into the car.”
“What’s the piece? The one you stenciled onto the building? Nice work, by the way.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. I’m impressed.”
Now I’m the one smiling—beaming, actually. “My roommate, Niffer, helped me. But then this crazy old lady across the street started yelling at us and threatened to call the cops.”
“You surprised me, Lulu NYU.”
“You know my last name now. But I still don’t know yours.”
“I only know your last name because you got busted. Don’t think I’m forgetting that so easily.”
“Fine. Be that way.”
I use my key in the front door of the building. It crosses my mind that Inez might be here, but I doubt it. She’s always out at night. And if she is here, she really can’t stop me. She’s just an employee—she has no say over what goes on in the private residence upstairs.
But it’s a nonissue—the gallery is dark and we are clearly alone.
“I don’t have a key to work the elevator, so we need to take the stairs,” I tell him. But he’s distracted, already drifting over to look at Dustin McBride’s paintings. How can he resist? He might disdain my mother and the gallery world, but he is a true art lover.
When he’s done, I lead him up the stairs to my mother’s apartment. I turn on the switch for the central chandelier, and it’s not until I see her furniture and smell the faint hint of her lingering perfume that I feel the weight of what I’m about to do. It might not technically be a criminal act, but I feel sorry for anyone who tries to explain that to my mother.
A few steps into the room, and I can’t move any further. My heart is racing.
I feel Rory behind me, waiting. “Are you going to pussy out, NYU?”
Turning around, I catch his smile. And I want to kiss him again, right here in my mother’s living room. Really, the sculpture is sudde
nly secondary to the very intense need I have to finish what we started two days ago in my own apartment.
“Not a chance.”
He takes my hand. “Then lead the way.”
I don’t so much lead him as stand there holding his hand. Now my heart is pounding for an entirely different reason.
“Look around. Do you see it?”
Before I even finish the sentence I know that he’s spotted No. 7.
“Jesus,” he says, dropping my hand and walking slowly toward it, as if the sculpture is a skittish animal that might run away.
“Yeah. It’s major.”
“Is it copper?”
“Yeah.”
“I hate to break it to you, but no way is this fitting into the car.”
Now that he mentions it, that fact is glaringly obvious. What was I thinking?
“Fuck.”
“I’m going to call my buddy with a truck.”
What buddy? I thought he was a solitary creature of the night.
“Wait a second—I don’t want to get someone else involved in this.”
“This guy is all business. Flies under the radar and does not mess around.”
“So why didn’t you call him the night we drove to the FreshDirect warehouse instead of cramming all those boxes into my car?”
“He was working at the warehouse that night.”
I hesitate.
“You don’t trust me?”
“I trust you,” I say.
*** ***
Banger—that’s his name—drives a FreshDirect truck.
Rory did not give me advance warning about this—maybe he thought the fact that the guy works at the warehouse should have prepped me. I walk out onto Greene Street and I’m shocked to see the massive vehicle with the familiar green-and-orange logo on the side, along with a twenty-foot mural of organic salmon.
We’ve wrapped No. 7 in a sheet, not because we’re trying to hide it but because Rory reminds me that copper scratches very easily.
Ruin Me Page 15