Dolly Lindsey—Yale had met her once before, briefly—opened the door as if she’d been in a great, frantic hurry to get there, and yet the room behind her was immaculate, and the smell of tomato sauce filled the house. She’d been ready for hours. Dolly was short and plump, her hair in tight curls. If Yale was right about Bill being in the closet, then he’d chosen his wife predictably: plain, but put together; sweet enough that she likely forgave a lot. Yale hadn’t mentioned his suspicions to Charlie. The last thing he needed was for Charlie to worry about a workplace affair.
Dolly said, “Get in out of that weather!” And then, as if she were delivering a line in the school play, she said, “And this must be your friend Charlie. Such a pleasure.”
Charlie wasn’t thrilled to be there—he felt he was neglecting work tonight, and he was worried about Terrence, who’d been admitted to Masonic with a sinus infection—but you’d never know it. “Shall we take our shoes off?” he said. “Your floors are so beautiful, I don’t want to track slush in.”
“Oh, they’ve seen worse,” Dolly said. She was smiling, blushing. Charlie had already won her over, in two sentences. It helped that his accent contained a top hat and monocle.
Yale found himself planted on the couch next to Charlie with a “glass of vino,” as Bill called it, watching Bill pick out records. Everything was still decorated for Christmas, candles and angels and sprigs of holly.
Dolly said, “I hope you like veal parmesan.” Charlie didn’t eat mammals, and they both had issues with veal, but they nodded, said it sounded delicious.
Charlie said, “If it tastes as good as it smells, I’m never leaving your house.”
This sent Dolly back into a deep blush, a high-pitched giggle that would have been irritating if it weren’t so genuine. She said to Yale, “I understand it’s an exciting time at the gallery!”
“We’re having fun at least.” Even before the holiday break, the whole situation had been on ice: no further news from Nora, no angry calls from Cecily. And the surer Yale had become of the paintings’ authenticity—the more he and Bill stared at the photos, the more Bill ran into his office with some new bit of detective work, the evidence that yes, Foujita had used that exact shade of green, look at this!—the more it hit him that it wasn’t just Cecily and her egomaniacal donor he was up against, but Nora’s family, a family that might easily block the transaction, might lock her in the house or intercept her mail.
“Well, it all sounds wonderful.”
Bill had put on a Miles Davis album, and now he awkwardly bobbed his head to it. He sat in the big yellow chair across from Yale.
He said, “Roman will be here soon.” Roman was one of the two PhD candidates who’d be starting as paid interns after the New Year thanks to Mellon Foundation grants. Yale hadn’t met him yet, but Bill had been Roman’s master’s thesis adviser a couple of years ago, back when Bill’s position was academic. Roman would be working with Bill again this coming quarter as a curatorial assistant; the other intern, a woman named Sarah, would work with Yale. “He phoned to say he had no running water, had to dash over to shower at the gym. The life of the grad student, no? I don’t miss it. Charlie, did you do graduate work?”
“Not a day of it,” Charlie said, and didn’t add that he’d dropped out of university. The best Yale could reconstruct was that Charlie had stopped classes but just hung out for three years on and around the campus of King’s College, galvanizing people and leading protests and being, generally, the crown prince of gay students. Charlie wasn’t likely to explain this all to Bill, and Yale was relieved when he excused himself to help Dolly in the kitchen. Charlie was no cook, but he was fantastic at grabbing up a pot to scrub.
Yale said, “I think we simply have to drive up to Door County again. You and me this time. You can talk to her, and I’ll talk to the lawyer.” He steadied his overfilled glass; the red wine had almost splashed onto the arm of the cream sofa. “It’s not like she won’t be home. It’s not like she’ll be having a party.”
“So just show up unannounced?”
“She’s ninety. We don’t have time to wait.”
Bill sighed, looked around the room as if someone might be hiding in the corner, eavesdropping. “I want to make sure you understand what you’re getting into,” he said.
“I do. The worst case is very bad.” It was a scenario that involved their trying to get the art but failing, or (less likely, but still possible) procuring the art and then learning it was forged. In either case, Northwestern would lose Chuck Donovan’s money for nothing.
Bill said, “If Cecily gets word of what we’re doing, or if it comes out badly in the end, she’s going to take this higher and higher up the ladder, just to cover her own behind. It’s only two million, but she’s—things haven’t gone well for her lately.” He scooted his chair closer to Yale, and the back legs caught on the edge of the pale oriental rug, curling it over on itself. “I’m willing to try to take the fall for this, because they’re not going to fire me. For one thing, I’m actually still tenured. But I can’t guarantee what would happen. They might be determined to fire someone simply to prove a point, and that person would be you.” Yale wasn’t sure who they were, but he nodded. “I doubt they’d throw the entire gallery to the wolves, although—”
Charlie stuck his head back through the door. “I’ve been instructed to check your wine glasses!” Yale raised his full one and took a sip; Bill gave a big thumbs-up. It must have been clear they were talking business, because Charlie vanished silently.
Bill said, “Dolly’s already on me to retire. I figure I’m putting in two more years at most. And listen, I’ll stake the tail end of my career on this, and gladly. But you’re a young guy, Yale. You’re at the start of things. And we’re shooting the moon.”
A year ago Yale might have let his nerves back him out of the whole thing, but he felt ready now. He was full, the past few weeks, of an energy he couldn’t name. It might have had to do with the way Julian had looked at him at the fundraiser, the residue of feeling chosen—or it might have had to do with the evidence all around him that life was short, that there was no point in banking on the future instead of the present.
He said, “I want to do this.”
“On a tangential note,” Bill said, pointing a long finger, “let’s talk about interns. Bear with me, because it’s related. So, there’s Sarah and there’s Roman. Both excellent. You were going to have Sarah, but I’ve been thinking I’ll swap. I want you to have Roman instead.”
Yale was confused. “He’s an art history guy, right? He wouldn’t want to work in development.”
“Well. Sure he would. We’ve discussed it. He’s interested in museum administration. Maybe that’ll be his next degree, who knows. He’s the perpetual student type.”
“Okay, I—”
“His dissertation’s on Balthus, so he’ll—well, it’s not exactly Nora’s period, is it, but close enough. He’s innocent. A lovely young man. I want you to have him.”
Dolly was back in the room, putting out a bowl of mixed nuts. She said, “Roman is wonderful!”
“Thank you,” Yale said to Bill. He wasn’t sure what had just happened, but it seemed that thanks were expected.
“And I’ll take Sarah.”
Dolly looked absolutely delighted. The opposite of how most wives would react to their husband bringing on a young female intern.
She disappeared into the kitchen, and then Bill said, “And if you think it might be helpful, we can take him to Wisconsin with us.”
* * *
—
When the Sharps showed up, shrieking and laughing about the cold, Yale felt instantly more at ease. Esmé hugged him and exclaimed that Charlie looked just as she’d pictured. Yale had an excuse now to stand, to move around the room. The Sharps were only in their forties, but Allen Sharp held the patent on the shut-off device used in
almost every gasoline nozzle in the world, and now they split their time between Maine and Aspen and a small place in the Marina Towers. They were odd donors, intensely interested in helping the Brigg build its collection—Allen had gone to Northwestern and Esmé had studied architecture—but with no art of their own. Beautiful people with matching chestnut hair, matching Greek noses. “I know we ought to start collecting,” Esmé had said to him once, “but I don’t see the point in hogging something.” Yale wished the Sharps would adopt him, would give him and Charlie a room in their little wedge of Marina Tower.
Bill spread the photos on the coffee table and Yale told the Sharps the full story. Bill had instructed him to leave the Ranko Novak pieces out—and because there was no way to authenticate those anyway, Yale didn’t see the harm; they weren’t relevant to the conversation. Charlie and Dolly listened intently, too, and Yale realized he hadn’t explained this all to Charlie, not in so many words. Well, Charlie had been so busy.
“It’s incredible,” Allen said. “I’m embarrassed to say I haven’t heard of Foujita.”
And because Bill didn’t jump in, Yale said, “He was a fixture in Paris in the twenties, a celebrity. Just about the only Japanese man in France. There was an unfortunate period during the war when he moved home and made propaganda. But no one cares about that anymore.”
Allen laughed. “Don’t they? I think my old man would care.”
Yale leaned close, like he was telling a secret. “Well, one of his drawings just fetched four hundred grand in Paris. I don’t think that buyer minded.”
Charlie gave Yale a look, and it took Yale a moment to decipher the look as impressed, proud. It was rare that Charlie saw him in action. If Yale had a wife, she’d be dragged along to every dinner with a donor, every alumni event. She’d wear a short dress and flatter the men and then imitate the wives on the way home. Or, well, no. Maybe if he were straight he’d have married someone like Charlie, too busy with her own life to play the nodding and smiling game.
The doorbell rang, and Bill and Dolly both jumped to answer it.
Yale had imagined that a person named Roman would be built like a soldier, but the young man who stepped inside half frozen was small and blond, Morrissey glasses magnifying his eyes. He wore a black turtleneck, black trousers. “I’m so sorry to be late,” he said, handing Dolly a small poinsettia that must’ve been on post-Christmas sale at Dominick’s. He looked like an undergrad, in fact, although Yale soon found out he was twenty-six, that he’d started an MFA in painting before switching to art history. Roman turned down a drink and perched awkwardly on the end of the sofa to chat with the Sharps about the research he’d done in Paris last summer. He had a quiet voice, kept his hands glued to his knees. He said, “My mom was worried I wouldn’t want to come back.”
Esmé laughed and said, “Yes, why did you?”
“Well. I mean, I—my education, and my—”
“She’s teasing,” Allen said. “Christ, Esmé, you’ve traumatized the kid!”
Roman was adorable, and Yale figured him first of all for gay—why else the strangeness from Bill?—but also for the type who didn’t even know it yet himself. Yale might have wound up like that if he hadn’t, sophomore year at Michigan, gotten Mark Breen as his macroeconomics TA—older, beautiful, confident, persuasive. Five minutes in Mark’s apartment, and Yale couldn’t remember his own past or anything else he’d ever felt.
Dolly asked Roman if he’d gone home for Christmas.
“Yes, well, we—I’ve got six brothers and sisters. So we all converge on the house. Northern California.”
“Seven kids!” Esmé said.
The family, it turned out, was Mormon.
Yale could sense Charlie appraising Roman too. He wasn’t Charlie’s type, but Charlie did have a thing for glasses. Before he got so insecure, they used to play “Who Would You Screw?” at the beach or at the airport (one of them would identify three men, the other had to pick one hypothetical lay, and only one, and the other would guess which he’d chosen) and Charlie always went for men with glasses. Yale teased him about his Clark Kent fetish.
Charlie said, “So you’ll be working in the gallery?”
“Actually,” Bill said, “he’ll be working under Yale.”
Dolly invited them all to the table, and when Charlie went to wash his hands, Yale followed him around the corner and down the hall, touched his arm outside the bathroom. He whispered. “Bill just sprang that on me. The intern thing.”
Charlie smiled thinly.
“I wonder if Dolly made him switch,” Yale went on. Everyone was finding seats back in the dining room, exclaiming over the good smells. “Do you think? It was so sudden. It was weird.”
Charlie whispered too. “It’s okay. You expect me to freak out?”
Yes. He did.
“I’m not some monster, okay? I’m not going to flip my lid every time you come in contact with someone.”
“I know,” Yale said. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
* * *
—
At the table, after the Sharps had both drunk a fair amount of wine, after they’d grilled Charlie about his newspaper and asked him for travel recommendations and raved over Dolly’s cooking, Yale looked for his moment. He turned the conversation back to the donation and the plans to visit Nora again (leaving out that they hadn’t been invited, leaving out the entire issue of Nora’s family and Chuck Donovan and the development office) and said, “I want to float something a little unorthodox.”
Esmé said, “I love unorthodox!”
“This donor has no assets beyond the collection. She can’t pay for authentication, and she can’t endow maintenance on the works. Sometimes there are grants for restoration, but not authentication. Because—”
Esmé nodded. “Because it’s a gamble.”
Allen rested his fork on his plate.
“Now, I have no idea if this would be acceptable to her,” Yale went on, “but she doesn’t seem to have an ego. I’m thinking if someone wanted to endow those things, we might put two names on the collection. Not a quid pro quo, but, you know, an in honor of your generosity deal.”
Bill said, “The Lerner-Sharp Collection, for instance.”
Esmé and Allen glanced at each other. “We’re intrigued,” Esmé said.
“This is putting the cart before the horse a bit,” Yale said.
Esmé raised her glass. “Well, here’s to the carts. May the horse catch up.”
* * *
—
On the way to the El, Charlie said, “If you have to have a hot intern, at least it’s a Mormon virgin.”
Yale laughed.
“No, wait,” Charlie said, “not a virgin. He has a girlfriend, a little blonde girlfriend who lives, conveniently, three hours away. Sweater sets and pearls. Sees her every other weekend.”
Yale said, “She can’t figure out why he won’t propose.”
“Republican. She is, at least. And her parents. He pretends to be. He doesn’t actually vote.”
“But his work is on Balthus!” Yale said. “Do you know who that is? All these naked young girls. Really controversial.”
“Exactly.”
“Exactly what?”
“You have one confused turnip on your hands.”
Yale, because the street was completely empty, swung Charlie around to kiss him.
* * *
—
Charlie had arranged to take the paper’s staff out for a year-end lunch the next day, before people headed to their various New Year’s Eve celebrations. Charlie and Yale were planning to visit Terrence at Masonic instead of partying. He’d called yesterday and said he was ready for visitors. Apparently they did a good job celebrating holidays on the new AIDS unit, but Terrence didn’t expect them to make a huge deal of ringing in a year few of them would see to the end.
New Year’s was his favorite, though, and he wanted to do it right. Or at least as well as he could. Fiona would pop in early, but then she had to head back to her nanny job so the parents could go out on the town. “I need you guys too,” Terrence had said. “It doesn’t have to be midnight. I just want my party.” Yale could have used a real celebration, some pure stress relief—but the staff lunch counted, he supposed. He liked these people. They would celebrate now, and tonight Yale and Charlie would stay sober and walk to Masonic together. They’d sidestep puddles of vomit on the way home.
At noon, twelve staffers plus Yale crowded around smashed-together tables at the Melrose. They passed around yesterday’s issue, containing Richard’s photo essay. The write-up of the fundraiser had appeared last Monday, but Richard had needed more time. This was art, not reportage. As the paper made its way toward the bench where Yale was sandwiched, he felt irrationally uneasy, as if Richard had managed a photo of him and Julian gazing at each other in the bathroom. But no. Here, instead, was a shot, snapped from below, of Yale and Charlie listening to the speeches, Yale looking emotional. It must have been taken right before he broke down. There was a shot, too, of Cecily laughing with two men—presumably the friends she came with. “What’s her deal?” Gloria asked and reached over to point. “She was cute.”
Yale said, “Straight. And confused. She kind of hit on me once.”
They all found this hilarious. Charlie called down the table, “Women used to hit on me all the time. Before I started losing my hair.” And, good employees, they clamored their protest.
Yale knew most of the staff well, although there’d been some turnover. Nico, for one. And two others of the original crew were sick now too. “Is it terrible that I want to replace them all with women?” Charlie had said that fall. “It’s insurance. Dykes won’t die on me. They won’t even take maternity leave.” Yale had answered that yes, it was terrible. “Blessed be the dykes,” Charlie said, “for they shall inherit all our shit.”
The Great Believers Page 15