by Lynn Messina
I put a hand on his arm as a gesture of comfort; he tries to shrug it off. I hold fast, suddenly scared that something truly awful has happened. “Tell me what’s going on.”
He takes a deep breath and says, with more scorn than I’ve ever heard in my life, “Jesus’ New Birthday Suit.”
“Oh,” I say, dropping my hand and taking a step back. I’ve known for more than three months that this moment was inevitable, but somewhere in the New York Times-Van Kessel champagne haze, it slipped my mind. I should have warned him about Fashionista’s December issue last night. I should have confessed everything while he was giddy from wine and giggling at awful knock-knock jokes.
Gavin sneers. He actually lifts and curls his top lip like a rabid dog and sneers at me. “Oh?”
His anger is completely justified and I don’t know what to say. For several long moments we stand there facing each other—he with a curled lip, me with uncertainty—listening to the speakers squeak and the engineer say, “Testing one-two-three.” “I wanted to tell you—I meant to tell you—but I didn’t know how.”
He glares at me and his contempt becomes something almost palpable—it’s another half-dressed statue in the room. “Christ: Trendsetter or Savior?”
I flinch as if struck. The lines on the cover of the December issue were always in bad taste and vaguely embarrassing, but they never seemed this awful. Somehow they’re ten times worse coming from the wronged artist himself. “I’m so sorry this happened. I’m still not even sure how it happened,” I say, my eyes making contact with the offending magazine, which is lying half open on the floor. There are footprints on the belly of the bikini-clad cover model. “One minute we’re doing a tasteful spread on your artwork and the next we’re brainstorming article ideas related to Jesus.” I’m trying to sound calm, but I’m seconds away from dropping to my knees and begging. And not just because I want to overthrow Jane. There’s more than one evil editor in chief on the line now. Fashionista promised the New York art scene and the national media a party. We can’t renege now, not without a lot of humiliation and rolling heads. Mine, certainly. Suddenly Christine’s stolen doormat doesn’t seem so innocuous.
Gavin is about to rattle off another December bon mot when Maya arrives. She’s wearing a floor-length black dress and a glittering tiara.
“Hello, darling,” she says, greeting Gavin with a heartfelt kiss on the lips before looking around at the dozens of gleaming Jesus statues. She’s momentarily taken aback by the unexpected beauty of the sight. I can hardly blame her. Gilding the Lily isn’t what I expected, either. It’s not shoddy, over-dressed plaster-of-Paris mannequins grabbing fifteen minutes of attention, but lovely sculptures with exquisite details. She points to one statue in particular—Jesus in Givenchy. “I don’t want to sound catty, but doesn’t that dress make Jesus look fat?” she asks, glowing happily.
Gavin doesn’t respond in kind to her jest. His disappointment in Maya is keen and he stares at her with puppy-dog eyes and a quivering mouth. Maya doesn’t get stony-faced Gavin. She gets sad-faced, on-the-brink-of-tears Gavin. “Loincloth Lust: Resurrect an Ancient Fashion Staple,” he says.
Maya isn’t familiar with Fashionista’s December issue, and she stares at him blankly. Although she doesn’t know what he’s talking about, she has an inkling that something is wrong. The caterers and the sound-check guy and the protesters on the doorstep might think everything is okay, but Maya knows better. The air is tense and prickly and she looks to me for an explanation.
“He’s angry about the Jesus articles that the magazine did in honor of this exhibit,” I say.
Maya blinks. “Oh.”
“You’re not going to deny it?” Gavin asks, yanking the jacket off the statue. It’s a haute couture garment with delicate seams, but he tugs at it as if it’s an old painter’s smock.
“Deny it?” Maya echoes. It’s obvious from her blank look that she has no idea what she’s supposed to be denying. The Jesus package isn’t a living, breathing thing to her. It’s not a page she bookmarked or number she jotted down in her Filofax. It’s just a Post-it note buried under piles of newspaper in her mind.
But Gavin doesn’t understand this. He crumples the jacket and tosses it into the cardboard box. “You knew they were going to humiliate me and you didn’t say a thing. Even last night when we were—” He breaks off here, as if memories of last night are too painful to be remembered now. “You still didn’t say one damn thing about it.”
While he’s busy glaring at Maya, I walk behind him, pull the jacket out of the box and shake out the wrinkles gently. Even if the show doesn’t go on, I can’t leave the jacket in an indifferent ball. I’ve been at Fashionista for too many years to stand idly by while a Chanel is abused.
“It’s not Maya’s fault,” I say, impatient with his unfair behavior. “Stop taking it out on her. Blame me. Be angry at me.”
He laughs mockingly. “Oh, I am angry at you. Don’t get me started.”
But I want to get him started. Now that he’s talking to me in full sentences and not cryptic magazine headlines, I very much want to get him started. His rage needs a place to go. I’m the best target. I’m the right target. “Look, I’m very, very sorry this happened and I’m very, very sorry that I didn’t have the power to stop it, but we don’t have time for this. Not now. As soon as the evening is over I’ll do whatever you want to make it up to you. I swear—whatever you want. But we must have the party.” I glance quickly at my watch. It’s already 7:12. In forty-eight minutes glittering debutantes and sarcastic wits will be walking through that door and Chanel Jesus is only half-dressed. “Please, please don’t do this,” I say, panic edging its way into my voice. Hysteria is only seconds away.
Gavin dismisses my entreaties with an indifferent shrug. He picks up the discarded issue, rolls it up and waves it under my nose. There is now a blue vein popping out of his forehead. “You’ve made me a laughingstock with this…this—” he sputters for a moment as he searches for the right word “—prurient nonsense. You’ve trivialized everything I’ve done. You’ve turned Gilding the Lily into an elaborate punch line.” He throws the magazine against the wall, where it flutters and falls to the floor. “Do you have any idea how hard I’ve worked to gain respect? Do you have any sort of clue how tough it is for a bloke with a royal crest and a Tudor castle to be taken seriously as an artist? For God’s sake, I even have a bloody Victorian plunge pool in my backyard. Critics love to skewer poor little rich boys who dabble in art. Dabble. Well, I don’t fucking dabble. I’m not Prince bloody Charles with his watercolor stamps. This is important to me. This is what I do. It’s not a goddamn three-ring circus for your magazine to shit on.”
I look at Gavin. His blue vein is throbbing and his breathing is coming in short, ragged bursts. His anger is solid and real, but I’m not sure about his intentions. Calling off the party is a magnificent, grandstanding gesture—it punishes me, it shows the editors of Fashionista that they can’t treat his work like an elaborate punch line, it assuages his ego—but it might be an empty one. Still, I can’t take the chance. You don’t call the bluff of irate artists who hold your future in the cardboard box next to them. “You can do this,” I say quietly, deciding to give in to the inevitable debasement. I won’t win this battle with logic or threats. “You can slam the door in the faces of eager party-goers and go merrily on your way. Your career will survive, perhaps even flourish because of it—being an enfant terrible has never been terrible for business—but you’ll be ruining me.”
He runs a hand over his eyes and is silent for a long time. Maya watches with her fingers clenched at her side. She wants to help, but there’s nothing she can do to make this better. Fashionista isn’t her fight. She’s only an innocent bystander, a tiara-wearing sedan at a stop sign, which had the bad luck to be sideswiped by drag-racing sports cars. “Damn it, Vig,” Gavin says. He sounds tired.
“I know it’s not fair,” I say, pressing my advantage. I recognize pity when it sta
nds in front of me with weary eyes. “I know you’re not here to do me any favors, but think about it. Fashionista can’t hurt you. It’s just a silly magazine with lots of beautiful photographs that people love to flip through. That’s all. We’re something to occupy your hands while you wait for a haircut or for the train to pull into Grand Central. We’re not permanent. We won’t be around in two hundred years when your statues are gracing the entrance to the Vatican. But you can hurt us. You can punish us. Please don’t.”
Gavin gives in. Maybe if he hadn’t drunk to my success last night or kissed me on the forehead fifteen hours before, he would’ve been able to withstand my pathetic pleading. But he had. And he doesn’t. “All right.”
Maya cheers and throws herself into his arms. “Thank God that’s settled. Now, will someone please comment on my tiara? I wore it to work as part of my article and not one person commented. I’m half convinced it’s invisible.”
Gavin laughs and rushes to assure her that she—and the tiara—are perfect. Then he extracts from her the promise to warn him the next time her best friend intends to make a fool of him. I’m somewhat offended by the wording—it wasn’t my intention so much as Jane’s—but I appreciate the sentiment and remain quiet.
With one disaster narrowly averted, I do a quick inspection of the gallery to make sure Fashionista hasn’t inadvertently offended some other crucial party. I even stick my head outside to check on the protest, which is coming together nicely. The three-foot podium is standing solidly and the demonstrators are practicing their chants. God bless them.
I drop by the bar to get a drink. I know I shouldn’t start consuming alcohol until the party is officially under way, but I can’t resist. Recent events demand something stronger than tonic water. They require vermouth and two generous ounces of gin and a stuffed green olive.
After thanking the bartender, I wander over to Gavin to see if he needs help dressing Chanel Jesus.
“No, I’ve got it under control,” he says confidently as he wraps a scarf around Jesus’ head. He ties it under the chin and slides on a pair of large wraparound sunglasses. Suddenly Jesus Christ looks just like Jane McNeill on a lunch date.
Since there’s nothing for me to do, I walk over to the stage, which is set up for the four-piece band, and sit down on the edge. The room is festive, with white-cloth-covered tables and shimmering votive candles, and alive with expectation. Something is about to happen here. The smell of hors d’oeuvres—baby quiches and tiny crab cakes—wafting in from the kitchen confirms it. We’re having a party.
I sigh deeply, take another sip of my martini and wait for the next disaster.
Calgary
Krystal Karpfinger wants to open an outdoor shopping mall in New Jersey.
“In one of those places redolent of suburban New Jersey like King of Prussia. We’ll put down cobblestones and recreate the layout of Soho exactly. Prince Street south: Face Stockholm, Mimi Ferzt Gallery, Olives, Reinstein/Ross, Harriet Love, Pleats Please, etc. Prince Street north: Replay, the Met shop, Club Monaco, Myoptics, Camper, etc. With the right streetlights and some well-placed scaffolding, shoppers won’t even notice the difference. They’ll save on sales tax for items more than $110—and, really, what in Soho costs less than $110—and they won’t have to deal with Holland Tunnel traffic. It’s win-win,” she says conversationally. But this isn’t a conversation; it’s the first act of her one-woman show. “And we’ll call it Faux-Ho.” Pause here for laughter.
I don’t laugh, but I smile politely and glance around for someone to save me from the gallery owner’s wife. Maya is standing less than three inches away talking to a hipster in black, but right now she’s useless. She’s too engrossed in the woman’s story to care if I live or die of boredom and ignores my pointed looks as though I were a complete stranger with a twitching-eye problem.
Gavin, who is also a few feet away from me, isn’t in the mood to throw me a lifeline either. He’s here and he’s playing affable host but he’s quite happy to watch me dangle over hot coals. Krystal Karpfinger at the Jesus party is almost worse than no Jesus party at all.
The gallery owner’s wife launches into act two—how to spot a suburbanite at a hundred paces—and I grab the arm of a passing waitress. The woman is startled by my attention and tries to brush me off like I’m an unwanted fly, but I hold tight.
“I’m sorry, did you just say that the band refuses to play unless someone removes all the green M&M’s from the candy dish?” Before the waitress can voice her denial or call me insane, I turn to Krystal. “I have to go. Band emergency. You know how it is with temperamental artists. One minute they’re like self-sufficient human beings, the next they’re helpless babies in diapers. You do understand, don’t you?”
It’s clear from her expression that she doesn’t understand anything—three cards have been shuffled quickly under her nose but it all happened so fast. While she’s trying to find the dollar, I make a beeline for the other side of the room. I get a club soda and a puffed pastry filled with lobster and stand quietly in a corner next to Jesus in a blue Badgely Mishka. I’m watching the crowd mingle when Jane taps me on the shoulder. The room is thick with people, but Jane finds me easily, as though there’s some sort of computer-chip homing device in my right top molar. “Vig, you’re supposed to be controlling the press,” she says angrily over the conversational din. A woman slinks behind Jane, causing her to spill white wine all over my silk dress. Jane doesn’t apologize. She is too annoyed with me to care about my dry-cleaning bill. I shouldn’t be standing by while Paris is burning. But the only thing burning here is her rage: The photographers are taking pictures of Gavin against the Karpfinger banner. This is unacceptable.
Jane darts off, clearing a path through the crowd with her shoulders, and I make my way to the press area slowly. The room is packed, and you have to slither between socialites and art-world critics to cross it. The huge crowd—glittering and unexpected—are here in support of freedom of speech. They are defending the First Amendment and having their pictures taken as they push through the angry mob that lines the streets. This is not turn-of-the-last-century China and the protesters are not Boxers, but it feels as though the gallery is a mission under siege. Outside the demonstrators chant and hurl insults and we try our best to ignore them like picnickers on the edge of a storm.
Gavin is standing in the middle of the gallery’s banner, so that from whatever angle you take the picture you see either K-A-R or I-N-G-E-R. Our more media savvy backdrop—the word fashionista repeats in forty-four-point type from one corner to the other—is on the adjacent wall being neglected. Gavin is supposed to stand between the two, but he’s feeling rebellious and not at all willing to comply. When he looks at me, the corners of his lips turn into a smile. Smug bastard.
Jane is behind me, with a hand on the small of my back. “Go on. Fix it,” she says, as if this were an easily solved problem like a loose lightbulb or an uneven hem. “Go on.”
I look around, wishing Kate or Sarah or even Allison were here. This was their plan; things like this should be their problem. But it’s my problem now, and as I consider my options, I realize there’s only one thing to be done: I must make a fool of myself. Taking a deep breath, I walk behind Gavin, lose my balance and clutch on to the banner for support. We both tumble to the floor—the banner with more grace and enthusiasm than I—and Anita Smithers rushes in and adjusts Gavin’s position. She doesn’t want her client being upstaged by an editor with two left feet.
Once justice is served, Jane rushes to Gavin’s side and grabs the attention for herself. She is not just a sponge, she is a leech, and every moment she sucks belongs to someone else. Her smiles are bright as she flirts with reporters and cameras, but her knowledge of art is appalling—she cites Rodin as the greatest living painter—and I stand there watching Gavin flinch.
Jane’s thirst for the spotlight is ardent and brazen and is the sort of compulsion that doesn’t acknowledge boundaries. She will stand there on that
makeshift stage until the prop guys carry her off and the stage manager locks the doors. I’m not one of the prop guys and I don’t think I can lift Jane, but I approach her anyway with resolve. We have taken enough from Gavin and I’m determined to leave him this.
“…and if I had to compare him to only one artist of the twentieth century, I’d have to say Seurat. They both have the same cleanness of line,” Jane explains, falling back on a common Fashionista cliché, even though Sunday in the Park is not a modern sofa or a sleek Calvin Klein dress.
Although she is annoyed at me for blocking her light, I lean over to Jane and whisper into her ear that the demonstrators outside are waiting for her statement. Such a statement was never part of the game plan, but the idea appeals to her. There are five times as many people outside, and she is suddenly envisioning sixties protest rallies that she never attended and Martin Luther King, Jr. on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. She has a dream.
After fielding a what-took-you-so-long glare from Gavin, I follow Jane through the crowd. The protest outside is loud but orderly, with hundreds of people gathered behind blue police barricades. A short, neat man wearing an unobtrusive brown suit leads the rally, and the street lamps of Mercer shine off his bald head, giving him an odd sort of halo as he stands on a platform with a megaphone in his hand. “No Jesus, no justice, no joke,” he shouts, in sync with his audience. “Respect our icon, respect our beliefs, respect us.”
The man pauses to inhale and Jane takes this as her cue. She climbs the five steps to the top of the podium, seizes the megaphone from the shocked man’s hand and greets the crowd. “Hello,” she says, her voice booming down the cobblestone street. “My name is Jane Carolyn-Ann Whiting McNeill.” She expects instant name recognition from them—it’s what she expects from everybody—and when they cheer wildly she assumes she got it. “My name is Jane Carolyn-Ann Whiting McNeill,” she announces again, because she likes the way it echoes off the tenements, “and I’m a Christian.”