Lesson In Red

by Maria Hummel

  I watched women with spiked hair and men with tattooed necks, and men with pageboy cuts and women with pageboy cuts, and jeans and flowing dresses and sleeves of roses and no jewelry and fists full of big rings and shaved heads and light brown skin and white skin and dark brown skin. Hands fluttering in the air and hands holding blue plastic cups of beer. People leaving in clumps, and one by one. I saw Erik, I saw Layla, I saw Lynne Feldman, I saw Zania and Hal, I saw my coworkers Phil and Spike, wearing cutoff overalls and combat boots, their legs long and hairy. I half expected to see myself. I’d probably been to one of these openings. The dirty, faded lanterns of Chinatown swung overhead. The traffic lights of Sunset blinked and shone. The partygoers were stuffing themselves into cars and climbing onto motorcycles and stumbling away on foot. The video was boring and endearing, in the way yearbooks and slide shows were boring and endearing. Hal was right. This wasn’t great art. I felt my eyes grow tired, and wondered what I was missing at the gallery. Then on the screen I saw Nelson de Wilde walking away down the street, side by side with a young man it took me a moment to recognize. I knew him from somewhere. From a picture online. I paused the image and went to my search engine to make sure. I was sure. Brenae had captured Nelson de Wilde leaving a party with Ray’s brother, Calvin.

  IN 1993, JAMES COMPTON THREW a street fair called Ditchfest in East London that drew hundreds to a run-down area of the city. In 1994, he died. In 1995, a new venue opened half a mile away, operated by an East London native named Nelson de Wilde. It was a music club at night, but Nelson invited many of the Ditchfest artists to design the walls and spaces. Soon it became one of the hottest nightspots in the area. When he closed the club two years later, Nelson became a de facto dealer, unloading now valuable works in order to fund his emigration to Los Angeles. Then he opened the Westing, his golden nest for so many future art careers. Had Nelson known James Compton? How could he not? Had Calvin talked to him about Compton? Did Nelson know about Calvin’s murder? What about his half brother, a detective, working for Janis? Ray and Calvin didn’t share a last name, but still.

  Nagging at me most of all: Did Ray know who Nelson was, and where he had been? It had taken me thumbing through Calvin’s thesis bibliography and forty hasty minutes on an art history database to piece these bits of Nelson’s past together, and potentially connect him to Calvin. So how could Ray not know all this?

  And yet he had never said anything to me about it.

  The white receiver of my apartment phone grew warm in my hand before I called Ray. The sight of Calvin and Nelson together deeply troubled me. I had no idea what it would do to Ray. At the same time, I feared I already knew. He suspected Nelson de Wilde. Of something.

  I remembered the list in Ray’s notebook, the names of people who might have run into his brother on his last night alive.

  Brenae’s footage held one answer.

  Ray didn’t pick up my call. “There’s something you need to see,” I said to his voicemail. “I have to go back to the gallery, but when you get this, call me and I’ll come down the street and give it to you.”

  17

  HAL GIROUX WAS EXCEEDING HIS thirty minutes with a New York reporter by thirty-five more, but every time I appeared in the doorway to Nelson’s office, he shooed me away. Hal excelled at this—as soon as I materialized, he waved a gnarled hand at me and rolled his head back toward his guest in one fluid motion, the way a horse avoids a harness and ignores you at the same time.

  I retreated with a polite face. Hal didn’t know what he was in for. Let him have his last moment in the sun. Janis must have made some calls by now, and soon the school would have to act. The more I thought about the crew’s interviews with Ray and their reactions to the video, the more I was sure who had erased the files from Brenae’s laptop. It wouldn’t take much, just one confession, to damn Hal to never work again.

  The two waiting journalists had already roamed the installation twice and were sitting at opposite ends on the hard bench by the door, clutching their media packets and glaring at me. One of them had just made a loud, complaining phone call about her delay.

  “Do you think he’ll want to reschedule?” she said to me. Her voice was thick with ire. “I have to go in fifteen minutes.”

  I told her I’d check on Hal, and walked all the way into Nelson’s office this time, and up to Hal, who was lounging on the turquoise couch, legs crossed, grinning at the New York reporter, a skeletal young guy with huge, gorgeous brown eyes. It was clear Hal was loving the interview and wanted something from it.

  I told Hal that two people were now waiting for him. “Should I ask them to reschedule?”

  “Yes, do,” Hal said, but the reporter leaped up.

  “Don’t let me limit your coverage,” he said.

  “Oh, they can wait,” Hal replied in a caressing tone, but the reporter was already thrusting his notes into a satchel and slinging it over his shoulder. The young man’s chest was concave, his limbs long and his fingers thin and white. His physique reminded me of a piano prodigy’s, but I knew who he was—the architecture critic from a major art magazine. Hal wasn’t making a building with Shoe Cathedral, though. So why the huge fascination?

  And then I knew: architecture. The new museum.

  “You’ll talk to Vera, then?” Hal said as he followed the critic out. “I mean, just mention it. I can’t spread myself too thin with these matters, but I’d love to know her interest level.”

  “I’ll talk to Vera,” the critic said, and held out his hand. “Great to meet you, finally. The legend in person.”

  Hal gave a pleased chuckle. “Mary will show you out.”

  “No need. I can find my way,” said the critic, moving off with alarming speed.

  Just as I was about to follow him away, Hal motioned me back inside the office. He shut the door softly before whipping around to me. His eyes were hard, and his slumped cheeks wagged with his words.

  “Are you out of your freaking mind?” he said. “Who gave you the authority to interrupt me like that?”

  “Nelson told me to keep you on time,” I said. “I’m sorry—”

  “Nelson has no idea what it takes to talk to these people,” said Hal. “Time.” He snorted. “It’s not time.”

  He stared into the office with its tangerine carpet and modernist couch, the chrome cabinets. “Look at this crap,” he said. “It’s like an intern picked it out. People are so good at playing like they care, but only some of us really care, you know?”

  I nodded automatically. I said, “Absolutely.”

  “And even fewer of us would stake our lives on it,” Hal said with a little catch in his voice. “The rest just want money.”

  I fought to keep my expression sympathetic. “He’s supported artists for forever, though,” I said carefully. “Hasn’t he?”

  “Of course he has,” Hal said. “Why, are you an aspiring artist, too?” His tone was sly.

  “No,” I said.

  “Good. What else needs to be done out there?” he said, and pointed in the direction of the gallery. “Does it look finished to you?”

  It took me a moment to realize what he was asking. Me, the gallerina.

  “The damaged column,” I said finally. “I wonder if there should be echoes of it elsewhere.”

  “Echoes,” mused Hal. “Tell me more.”

  “A broken shoe here and there. So your eye might catch them, but not your mind.”

  Hal peered at me, the steel in his gaze softened by curiosity.

  “Hiding in plain sight,” I couldn’t resist adding.

  “Thank you, Mary,” he said, and walked over to the blue couches. “Bring in the next one, okay?”

  This time he took the couch the critic had been sitting in. His back faced the door, his bald patch showing. He ran a hand over the bare spot as if he knew I was watching him, and then dropped the hand to his lap.

  WHEN HAL LEFT LATER THAT afternoon, he conferred with his assistants first, speaking in a low, intense, p
raising voice, gesturing at what they’d done. I couldn’t hear his words, but I saw the effect, how they nodded and sat straighter, basking in the light of his scrutiny. Then Hal began grilling each student as he gestured at the columns and arches, and they answered, one by one. By the time their conversation ended, it was clear whose artwork Shoe Cathedral was. Even if he hadn’t personally made much of it.

  Afterward, Hal came by my desk. “I’m sorry about my outburst,” he said to me, not sounding sorry. “But if you want to get ahead in this business, the first thing you need to learn is tact. You were tactless to interrupt us. Who cares if those buzzy little bloggers had to wait? Time doesn’t matter. Power matters. Influence matters. Time is just—” He made a sprinkling motion with his fingers, and his face went suddenly kind. “It’s the most expendable thing you have.”

  Then he strolled toward the door before I had a chance to respond.

  “We’re getting there. Go celebrate tonight,” he shouted back to the assistants. “I owe you all . . .” He paused, opened his arms. “Everything.”

  The assistants waved. In three faces was the same thirst for Hal’s approval. In the fourth, a shrouded mutiny. The door shut behind him.

  Zania noticed me watching her and walked over. “Did you get hell from Hal?” she said.

  “Oh no,” I said. “I was just trying to do what Nelson asked.”

  “We came in while Hal was chewing you out,” Zania said, holding her slim body erect and looking down at me over her long nose. “But don’t mind him. Tomorrow he’ll tell you that your organized mind is exactly what he’s missing and thank you for keeping him on task. Chastising you is the first sign that he likes you.”

  “I’ll be okay,” I said, embarrassed. “This is my last shift.”

  “Then you should come celebrate with us,” said Zania. “We’re having people over at my father’s house. Pearson says we owe you because you carried all those shoes.”

  “I’ll take some payback,” I said, hiding my surprise. Though I’d wanted a chance to observe the crew longer, I hadn’t expected it to happen. Mentally I’d been preparing to return home to my notes, pondering how to pursue Brenae’s story without Janis’s endorsement.

  “You look like you need a good time.” Layla smiled at me, but her head shook no at the same time.

  “And we’re completely sick of one another. You’re fresh blood,” Pearson added.

  They were conspiratorial again, their divisions buried under shallow cheer. I didn’t understand how that was possible. Unless. Unless they had decided to band together to protect someone they still admired. Or most of them still admired.

  “We’re going to jump in the pool before everyone gets there,” said Zania, “and order a disgusting amount of . . . of what?” She turned.

  “Pizza and wings,” said Erik.

  “Sashimi?” said Layla.

  “We had sushi yesterday,” said Pearson. “I vote wings. Dripping with fat and buffalo sauce.”

  A look of revulsion crossed Zania’s face.

  “I’m no carbs,” said Layla. “I could do steaks.”

  “Wings don’t have carbs,” said Pearson.

  “But they have bones,” protested Layla.

  “Steaks have bones, too,” said Pearson.

  “Not filet.”

  “I don’t even have to try,” said Pearson.

  “Filet and pizza and wings,” Zania said to me with a grisly smile. “Coming?”

  18

  WHEN I WALKED HOME TO change clothes for the pool party, the breeze switched. West wind to east wind. I’d experienced alternations in the air currents all my life. Everyone does. But they’d never tasted to me the way they tasted in L.A.: the soft, clear salt wind from the ocean suddenly washed back by the grit and heat from the city, the desert beyond. Sunlight streamed through both winds, my body strode through both, but every time I crossed through east wind to west wind, or back again, I inhabited a different state of being, as if someone had replaced a lilting piano soundtrack with crashing noise rock.

  West wind: What if the crew had found out that Hal was being investigated by LAAC? I wanted to see their reactions.

  East wind: A foreboding filled me. Layla shaking her head at me as she smiled. Quit now.

  East wind: Why foreboding? Because the party was at Nelson’s house?

  West wind: It was a party. What could happen with so many people around?

  East wind: What did Nelson’s connection to Calvin mean?

  East wind: Ray still had not responded to my call.

  East wind: Ray was concealing something.

  East wind: He was protecting himself. Or maybe he was protecting me.

  YEGINA PHONED AFTER I’D STRIPPED off the black dress and was rummaging in one of the dressers for my swimsuit. A calm had settled over me, and I answered on the first ring.

  “Are we still going out tomorrow night?” she asked. “I’ll be in by midafternoon. And what are you wearing?”

  Yegina and I had planned to attend Dee’s gig at a British-themed bar in West Hollywood on Friday. It was the week before Halloween on Melrose, costumes encouraged. “I have that red wig.”

  “The same red wig you wear every year?” said Yegina.

  I was too embarrassed to admit that I liked the wig’s simple transformation. Punk, redheaded Maggie was disguise enough for me. “I could go as you. I have an old dress of yours.”

  “Ha. Too scary.”

  “Do they sell fake British teeth?” I said. “I could dress up as Johnny Rotten.”

  Her silence spoke more than a comeback.

  “Maybe you should go with Hiro,” I said.

  “I can’t go with Hiro,” said Yegina. “He hates loud music. And anyway, I told him I wasn’t ready to answer the proposal. He flew out this morning.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. I felt both disappointed and relieved. I wanted Yegina to be happy, but I didn’t want to face months of conversation about wedding plans. Yet. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “What I want is a real night out.”

  “I’ll find something to wear,” I promised, wanting to relate everything we’d discovered at LAAC, and Janis’s decision, wanting to breach the confidentiality I’d promised to Detective Ruiz and kept breaking for Yegina, but I held back.

  “How was Janis today?” she asked.

  I thought of Janis speeding around LAAC, her determination and grim cheer. “She’s coping.” My voice wavered.

  “The first time I met her, she came into my office and asked to use my phone,” reminisced Yegina. “She called some board member and chewed him out, right in front of me, for voting down the budget because of growing exhibition expenses. ‘We’re here to uphold art and artists,’ she told him. ‘Not to mind our personal collections.’”

  “That sounds just like her,” I said, laughing.

  “By the end of the call, he agreed to donate another five hundred thousand dollars. It was amazing.”

  “She’s never given up on the Rocque,” I said. For the first time, that troubled me. I said as much to Yegina but kept the details vague.

  “It’s like Hal wins or she does, and there’s no in-between,” I said. I told her about the pool party, my last chance to observe the crew who built his show. “It’s clear they worship him the way we worship Janis. What if his museum is good for downtown? Should we destroy the vision because the man behind it is flawed?”

  “He’s not the only one who can dream it,” said Yegina.

  I CHECKED MY INBOX BEFORE leaving. The only nonwork transmission was from my mother, who was still pressing me about coming home for Thanksgiving. We’ll buy you the ticket, she wrote. Just name your days.

  I saw my mother sitting at the keyboard in our wooden house, her blond hair pulled back, her hands slightly chapped from the new cold. The last dry October leaves were stripping themselves from the trees outside. I saw the bareness that was coming for her and my father, their three children grown, their careers wi
nding down, and the slow grip of age tightening around them. Listening to Ray describe Cal’s loss had made me appreciate my family. What luck to be harbored by my steady, generous parents and brothers for all my childhood, to be unmistakably loved.

  I thanked my mom and named my days. It felt like an insurance policy. Whatever happened to me that night, the ticket would be waiting for me when I got home. My mother wouldn’t hesitate to buy it, to cement my return.

  THEN RAY CALLED. “WHERE ARE you? I went by the gallery.”

  I told him I was heading to Nelson’s house, at Pearson’s invitation. “We bonded while I helped him and Erik carry the shoes,” I said. “I think my willingness to do grunt work disarmed him.” Then I added, “I’m not done, Ray. I don’t care if Janis fires me.”

  “I know,” he said.

  A silence fell between us.

  “I ever tell you what Pearson’s felony was for?” he said.

  “You said he assaulted someone.”

  “He was at a party. A guy spiked his soda with acid. A prank. When Pearson came down from the trip, he found out and beat the guy within an inch of his life. With his bare fists.”

  “That’s awful,” I said. “Why are you telling me now?”

  “Just be on your toes,” he said, then hesitated. “What did you want to give me, anyway?”

  I told Ray about finding the DVD, watching it, and seeing Nelson and Calvin together in it, and said that I had the DVD with me.

  “You took it from the library?”

  “I wanted you to see it.”

  “You should always put things back,” he muttered. “You never know who is watching.”

  It took me a moment to understand.

  “You’ve already seen the video,” I said slowly. “You already found it there.”

  “I spent a couple of days at LAAC last week,” he admitted. “That’s how I knew where Brenae’s studio was.”