Still Lives

by Maria Hummel

  “Highbrow euphemisms are my stock-in-trade,” I say. I ask Kevin about his own gig, and he tells me he’s here from New York for a week to get the inside scoop on Still Lives. He hasn’t done much art writing; he’s more of a rock critic. But he knows the magazine publisher, and she likes his style.

  “Lowbrow euphemisms abound,” he says.

  As we banter, Kevin’s tweediness recedes, and I am more aware of his height, his broad shoulders. If we were dancing partners, the top of my head would rest right under his chin.

  “So where is the queen of art?” he says.

  “Not here yet. That’s her gallerist, though. Nelson de Wilde.” I point out a lithe, silvery man as he joins a cluster of the Rocque’s board members.

  Nelson de Wilde’s relationship with Kim Lord is historic—after The Flesh, when she was only twenty-one and he was an unknown gallerist, he paid her a significant monthly stipend to complete Noir, a group of paintings in which she depicted herself as fifteen different black-and-white film stars. Despite the poor critical reception, the show sold out at huge prices. Nelson must have been holding the same financial expectations for Still Lives. He is wearing gray tonight, which makes his closeshorn hair look more metallic than ever, but his mouth hangs down and both his hands are plunged deep in his pockets. Mine would be, too, if I were about to watch millions of dollars in commissions disappear.

  Kevin asks me why Nelson looks perturbed.

  I tell him it must be preshow jitters.

  “How’d you get this job?” he says. “You have an art history degree?”

  “Not exactly,” I say.

  “Communications? Journalism?”

  I don’t want to talk about my past, so I cast about quickly for someone else to identify. I gesture at Brent Patrick, striding from the bar in steel-toed boots. “He builds the shows. You should talk to him. He used to be a big set designer on Broadway.”

  I don’t add that Brent quit his New York life because his wife, Barbara, suffers from schizophrenia and they moved to L.A. for a new treatment program. Unfortunately, Barbara’s condition worsened in the program, and she had to be institutionalized. It’s a tragic story, and almost justifies Brent’s bullying condescension toward everyone upstairs, even the curators. (“Because they don’t actually make things,” Yegina explained once. “Neither do half of the artists we show,” I said. “Well, he hates them, too,” she said.)

  But Kevin should meet Brent because Brent is unbelievable at his job. He can take an artist’s flimsiest idea and transform it into a real experience—it is Brent who envisions the lighting, the path the viewer takes, and even sometimes the artwork’s actual construction. “You know the Executed show we did last year? Jason Rains?”

  Kevin nods vaguely.

  “Brent was the genius behind it,” I say, watching Brent slug a shot beneath a battered stop sign. The sign looks absurdly red and shiny now that it is surrounded by white linens and lilies, and I wonder if some lowly production assistant had to soap it clean for tonight. Some of the graffiti on the nearby tunnel also looks fresh and bright, and, is it me, or did someone fill those glass vases with broken windshield pieces? This kind of stagy urban decadence is Brent’s legacy on Broadway; his set for Rent was nominated for a Tony. But I bet it rubs him the wrong way here. This party isn’t art. It’s commerce.

  As if on cue, Brent glances up at the stop sign, then shakes his head grimly and clomps away.

  “He created the whole set,” I say. “Jason Rains just watched.”

  “You think I can interview Kim Lord?” asks Kevin, but just as I’m about to struggle with a lie, one of Hollywood’s highest-paid actresses arrives on the red carpet and everyone stops breathing.

  The actress is wearing jeans and a yellow blouse, platform sandals, a gauzy gold scarf in her hair. She is blond, willowy, and tall, and on anyone else this outfit would look suitable for a picnic. Yet as the actress gently spins for the flashing cameras, she rewrites the entire occasion around her. She’s showing up for a real party, not another stuffy fund-raising affair. When she smiles the gleaming, genuine smile we’ve all adored on giant screens, people start talking again, louder, chattier, leaning into one another.

  “That’s—” I say.

  “I know,” Kevin mutters, and writes something in his notebook. The last sun lifts from the staircase, and the real crowds start pouring down, a happy, upbeat mob: TV sitcom stars, famous architects, young sculptors looking gawky in their finery—and, far back at the line, Greg. Lean as a fox, in a dark-blue suit. Alone. Seeing him hits me like a punch to my sternum and I swallow the last sip in my glass. I tried so hard not to be here. Greg’s face looks different, but it always looks different to me now, with its thin fringe of stubble and keen expression. This isn’t the Greg who lounged in the hammock next to me peeling a purple mangosteen, or the Greg who helped me lug a secondhand couch into our new Hollywood apartment and hugged me as we surveyed its ruined gold grandeur. Nor is it the Greg who sobbed at our kitchen table when his mother died. He is no longer any of those people. He is Kim Lord’s boyfriend. She sent him ahead. Or he came ahead of her, to have more time hobnobbing with the rich patrons he hopes to woo to his gallery.

  “I take that as a no,” says Kevin.

  “Huh?”

  “Kim Lord’s probably booked for interviews.”

  “Probably,” I say.

  I see Greg make his way to one of the cocktail stations. A server, a skinny brunette, passes him and thrusts out a tray of crackers heaped with rare beef. Greg stares at the red offering, then shakes his head. The server’s eyes stay on him after he walks away.

  “Might wander around, then,” Kevin says.

  As if he senses my own gaze, Greg spots me and waves.

  “No. Wait,” I say, turning and taking a step closer to Kevin. “Stick with me. I’ll take you to a party with the crew that built the show.”

  “Right on,” he says eagerly.

  Now the crowd is spilling past every guardrail and curb of the decorated urban cave with their leather and perfume and expectations. The guests are milling and staring, holding red cards with their assigned dinner seats. The more people who enter, the bigger this space feels, the higher the girdered ceiling, like we’ll never be enough to fill it. The vast scale reminds me of old cathedrals—the architecture made to dwarf us, to remind us of our insignificance, no matter how many we are. This will be the party everyone dreamed of. The guests will start to notice the smaller touches—the trails of scarlet rose petals over every folded napkin, the Hitchcockian soundtrack the DJ is playing. They’ll line up for snapshots around the stop sign. But soon the novelty of the space will wear off. They’ve come to see Kim Lord and her new show, and to be seen seeing it. So where is she? Where is she?

  I keep my head turned from Greg. I should be saying something clever to hold Kevin’s attention, I should be taking his arm and leading him around, but suddenly I’m struck by the fear that everything we’ve made tonight—everything Kim Lord made—is spinning on the same sick fascination that she spoke against in her press release. That beneath all these layers of pleasure and provocation are women who were slaughtered.

  4

  Ke-vin!” shrieks a voice. “Kevin Rhys! What on earth are you doing here?”

  I have never been so glad to see Thalia Thalberg in my life. Actually, I’ve never been glad to see her at all. She’s the chair of the Rocque’s Young Collectors Club, and her life’s work—being rich and spending her money in elegant but fussy ways—puts her in a caste of people who bear as much resemblance to ordinary human beings as fur coats to the animals from which they were flayed. Nevertheless, to my relief she grabs Kevin’s arm and twirls him toward her and her formidable attire, which looks like a tutu made from shredded sandwich bags.

  “Just here on assignment,” mumbles Kevin.

  “Mindy’s new magazine?”

  “Yeah,” Kevin says with a sheepish glance at me.

  “Fantastic.” Thalia�
��s eyes rake up and down my torso. “How is Mindy?”

  “Busy,” says Kevin. “Have you met Maggie?”

  Of course she has. But she won’t remember.

  “I work in Communications.” I extend my hand and shake Thalia’s. Her fingers are the texture of thawing shrimp. “I’m showing Kevin around. How do you two know each other?”

  “We went to school together in New York,” Thalia says, and mentions some expensive-sounding academy. “And Kevin’s father was my history teacher.”

  “Faculty brat, that’s me,” Kevin says wearily.

  Thalia wants to know what Kevin thinks of the Gala, and I’m expecting some glib version of the observations we’ve been hearing all around us, how cool it is to see the gritty street and the glamorous party together at once, but Kevin seems to take her question seriously. He knits his brow and scans the scene as if he just noticed it.

  I wait awkwardly beside Thalia, trying to think of one thin sentence of small talk to screw into the impassable social wall between us.

  Thalia touches her brunette bob. “Oh, come on, Kevin. It’s not an exam.”

  “Well,” he says finally, “I’ve seen the lions and the otters, and the panda was cool. But I can’t find the aye-aye house, and I’ve heard they’ve got this creepy long finger for picking out fruit. I really want to see that.”

  “You are too funny,” Thalia says in a blank tone, then waves at someone over my shoulder. “I’ve got to introduce someone to Lynne,” she says. “I’ll see you later, okay? Nice to meet you, Mary.”

  Kevin squints after her, shaking his head.

  “Non sequiturs are the only way to get rid of her,” he mutters, but he sounds bothered by the exchange.

  I’m about to ask why when I see Greg. Alone again, walking the rim of the cocktail area, where the wall breaks for the museum’s loading dock. Greg’s never alone at parties. He instantly finds a group and joins, hands in his pockets, head bucked back for a ready guffaw. A camera flashes near him and he cringes.

  “Ladies and gentlemen!” Bas booms from the stage in the middle of the dinner tent. “Please take your seats for dinner.”

  Around us, conversation ceases, and people start cutting and weaving toward the tent, talking about their table numbers. Greg starts heading our way, and Kevin looks lost in the swirl of pushy, ageless ladies desperate to know their social standing. So I grab Kevin’s hand.

  “Follow me,” I say. “You’ll want to get your seat before all the paparazzi take them.”

  His fingers, surprisingly dry and strong, grip mine back. Suddenly we’re not doing that light-steering social touch—we’re actually holding hands, the gesture more intimate than I intended. My heart starts thumping, and I try not to trip in the boots that have been squeezing my feet to throbbing hooves. Kevin hunches forward as if he’s ready to tackle anyone who impedes us.

  I drop Kevin’s fingers when we reach the dinner tent and it gets too tight to move in tandem. We pass Janis Rocque—affectionately known in-house as J. Ro—heir to the Rocque fortune and her father’s floundering private museum. Tonight she looks distinctly uncomfortable in her sea-green suit and coils of brown hair. J. Ro likes being at the center of things, but she hates the spotlight and she must be getting worried about our missing guest of honor by now. After her trails an expressionless Nelson de Wilde, and Lynne after him, checking the watch on her slender wrist. It’s six o’clock. The caterers have lined up with the salad plates.

  On the other side of the tables, the crowd opens and I turn back for Kevin. I don’t know what expression I’m wearing, but it seems to silence him.

  “You can find a seat over there,” I blurt, showing him the tables reserved for the media, where photographers are now sitting with their cameras and peering around like meerkats. “I’ll be nearby if you need me.”

  I point to the back entrance of the dinner tent, where Jayme and I will perch at an unbouqueted white table with other Rocque staff members and our laptops, pretending we don’t need to eat. I can feel Kevin’s eyes on me as I limp away.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” Bas repeats, “I’d like to welcome you to the Rocque’s Gala for 2003, a street party literally in the street. Any traffic violations will be prosecuted by the board …” He pauses for some faint, forced laughter. “Before we tuck into this delicious dinner and begin the extraordinary evening we have planned, I have a brief announcement. Our Gala honoree and the star of the evening, Kim Lord, has been delayed.”

  A murmur of concern rises from the crowd.

  Bas holds up his hands. “She will arrive quite soon, and I can assure you that her paintings are already here, and they are devastating. Here’s some advance praise from the New York Times, just in: ‘Kim Lord’s eleven portraits and one monumental still life are the product of years of examining the lives, deaths, and media coverage of murdered women, but they are also a statement about painting, how alive it is, how it can still challenge the dominion of photography in our age.’”

  Clapping interrupts him.

  He smiles. “Thank you all for coming out to celebrate Kim Lord, the Rocque, and the gift”—he lurches and grips the podium, as if he has for a moment lost his balance—“we are bringing to Los Angeles for the next three months.”

  He hasn’t announced the real gift. The millions-of-dollars gift from Kim Lord, courtesy of her donation of Still Lives to the Rocque’s permanent collection. I search for Kim’s gallerist again and spot him holding his fork, about to spear his frisée and beets. For some reason, Nelson’s tan, metallic look always makes me think of prosthetic limbs, things that are made to look natural but are creepy instead, and also more durable. He sneers and shakes his head, briefly, as if disgusted. It’s an odd expression for someone whose prize artist just got heaped with critical praise.

  Bas returns to his seat in a storm of applause. His wife pats him on the shoulder. She is a predictably pale blonde with a talent for smiling without seeming friendly at all. I’ve heard a rumor of divorce. Does she know Bas may lose his job?

  I reach the PR table and relieve Jayme so she can ply the most impatient reporters with extra bottles of champagne. Yegina comes over in a tight blue dress and combat boots and sinks down beside me.

  “What was that?” she asks in an impressed voice.

  “What?”

  “Maggie Richter grabs handsome stranger’s hand just as ex Greg approaches,” says Yegina. She can’t bear to call him by his new moniker either. (“Shaw,” she said scornfully. “It’s like a cross between a soap opera name and a tractor brand.”)

  “Handsome stranger is called Kevin. I was afraid we were about to be devoured by Thalia Thalberg,” I say. “Clearly she hasn’t eaten since 2001.”

  “I wish you were edible,” says Yegina. “I’m starving.”

  I laugh. She waits, gazing at me with her gray-brown eyes. Yegina has carried me through my breakup, as I bolstered her last year during her divorce from Chad, the bitter end of a long string of white surfers, skaters, and Tibetan Buddhism majors that she has been rescuing since age sixteen.

  Now Yegina has given herself over entirely to Asian speed dating and singles nights at her parents’ church, but every fellow she meets has some fatal flaw. Humming when he drives. Absolutely silent in bed. Never heard of the Dead Milkmen. Mispronounces Ed Ruscha’s last name. Bad teeth. Too-perfect teeth. Doesn’t know the meaning of ennui. Yegina needs a guy who gets her, and that’s hard to find. There’s a large class of men who can’t endure humor in a woman.

  “Anyway, what did our beloved chief curator show you on her phone?” I ask.

  Yegina confirms that Lynne got a text from the artist announcing her arrival at seven o’clock. I tell her what Jayme told me about a possible stalker.

  “That’s creepy. No wonder she’s been showing up in disguise,” says Yegina.

  “Though why can’t she disguise herself as Margaret Thatcher or something?” I ask. “Why only dress as starlets? She’s practically forty.”


  Yegina shrugs but doesn’t reply.

  My fingers find my little butterfly earrings and twist them. I wish I could rid myself of this poisonous jealousy. At the head table, Kim Lord’s absence looms at Greg’s left elbow, and Greg himself is looking worse and worse, his cheeks rough and red, as if he shaved them with a dull razor. In times of stress, he forgets to take care of himself. He was a stubbly, hollowed wreck the month after his mother died.

  I watch Janis Rocque lean across the table and start interrogating him, which is the conversational equivalent of being whipped around in the locked jaw of a pit bull. I have witnessed Bas being berated by her through the glass door of his office, and Greg now has the same eye bulge, as if he is forgetting, second by second, how to breathe. Dark-haired J. Ro—with her masculine suits, enormous cash flow, and abrupt, decisive manner—is CEO, patron saint, and mercurial monarch of the L.A. art world. She is greatly beloved by many and feared by more. Although the Rocque is just one of her projects, it’s been the core of her vision since the 1980s—that L.A. will not play second fiddle to New York, with its entrenched and historic art scene, but will seize the future by taking risks, supporting art that surprises people and forces them to self-examine. Those of us who love the Rocque believe that if we fail, it’s not just the museum that will go under but also the potential of our city and what it could become.

  Regardless of the Rocque’s fate, J. Ro’s public censure could be a big blow to Greg’s gallery. Before I feel sorry for him, however, I remind myself that he chose this fate, this attempt at life among the ultrarich. You can’t succeed in art dealing without such effort.

  After a few minutes, Greg stares down at the table, silent and rigid. J. Ro yanks out her phone and wanders away to make a call.

  “You guys hungry?”

  I look up to see Kevin standing over us, holding three dinner plates. Why am I blushing? I duck my chin and stare at the ink stain on one of my fingers.

  “Half the paparazzi are heading out,” he says. “Apparently there’s a premiere in Hollywood.”