She nodded, collecting herself again, and this time, it stuck. “By the way—everyone is going to be walking around,” she said pointedly, eyes lingering on the hole in my inside-out shirt. “We’ll open our studios. You don’t have to, but you might want to move your painting from upstairs.”
She was clearly aware that I was remaking more than one painting. Yet—it didn’t feel like a threat, coming from Marlin. It felt like a warning.
“Thank you,” I said. “I’ll move it tomorrow.”
* * *
I called Tyler the next morning, in case people arrived in the afternoon, to ask if he could help me move Prudence from her station in the lobby over to the studio so that she could be framed and crated along with the rest. He agreed readily and arrived ten minutes later without apologizing or acknowledging his disappearance from the night before. I let it go. When we were finished, we clicked her panels together and set her upright in the back, against the wall, overlooking the other six.
He asked what I wanted to do with the two older panels of First Prudence.
“Burn them,” I said.
“Can I keep them?”
I laughed. “Why?”
“Because they’re a piece of you.”
“They’re only a fragment,” I said, shaking my head.
“I’ll settle for fragments,” he told me.
As we kissed, I wondered how fragments could ever be enough—for him, or for anybody.
Chapter Sixteen
I sent Tyler away so I could work, but it didn’t go well. I was distracted and nervous. Everything felt like a mistake even though I was following my own instructions exactly. I worried, all day, that the feeling had gone out of them—that the feeling is the thing that made them real and not knockoffs. I felt extremely lost and under a great deal of pressure.
But I pushed through and did what I was supposed to. At the end of the day, I used two rocks to grind stray ribbons of aluminum into a sparkling dust. When I struck handfuls of it over Humility, she was finished.
Or at least, I think she was—I wanted her to be—and so it was true.
* * *
Tyler knocked while I had one leg in the kitchen sink, half covered in soap, a razor in my hand and rollers in my hair.
“Come on in,” I said, running the razor under the water. “I need five more minutes.”
He carried the silver brush-holder, weighted at one end and nicely balanced. “I meant to bring this earlier.”
“I can’t wait to use it.” He leaned against the wall. “You want to watch?” I teased, waving my razor at him.
“Absolutely,” he said, and then we kissed again. I wrapped one wet soapy leg around him, bubbles disappearing into his shirt, and it wasn’t until I felt the tenderness of my chin that I pulled back.
“I’m not going to dinner looking like”—I waved my hand at my mouth—“a teenager.”
“Fair enough,” he said, backing off. When I finished shaving, I unclipped the rollers and brushed out my curls. He watched me curiously as I added mascara and my purple lipstick.
“It’s funny to see you in makeup,” he said. “I don’t think of you as someone who wears makeup. You’re so natural.”
I pulled one pink curl and let it spring back. “Real natural,” I said with a smile, ducking into my room.
“Your hair seems as though it grows that color.”
“I’m trying to dress up,” I said, pulling my purple dress on. “See?”
“Nice.” Tyler smiled. “There’s a stain from Max’s party, though.”
I frowned, picking at a spot of grass and dirt caked to my hip. “Atticus,” I muttered, spinning on my heel and marching to the closet. “My friend bought all my clothes and they’re all insane. I look like a teenage runaway.” Piles of dirty clothes coated the floors and shelves. I hadn’t done laundry for weeks. The only clean thing I found, a knee-length t-shirt with a male bodybuilder’s be-Speedoed beach body printed on the front and back, was both ugly and wildly inappropriate. Then I remembered the white dress from Maria’s boxes. Maybe that’s a better idea.
“One second,” I yelled. The zipper got stuck halfway up, and I backed out of the closet, tapping it. “Could you?” I asked.
His fingers touched the skin of my back and the fabric of my dress. I heard the sharp buzz of the zipper rise and rise and rise, but then it paused an inch or so before the top. I turned around, confused, and he glared at the dress. He looked slightly horrified. I patted the sides—had I ripped it? Didn’t it fit?
“Where’d you get this?” he asked.
“Maria’s boxes?” I said, a slow question. Uh-oh. “The boxes in the studio?”
“Maria.” He said her name quietly, like he was trying to recall who she was.
“Carey’s friend from home? She left behind her drawings in the studio. They were horrible.”
Startled, he ran a hand through his hair, twice in a row. “Oh. That’s what you meant.”
“She stayed in this house, I think,” I said, gesturing toward the closet. “Her initials are in there.” He didn’t look at the closet, or at me. He only looked at the ground.
“This was Carey’s dress,” he finally said, pulling the zipper back down, in ragged little yanks. I hated it—I hated how he tugged—but I was too stunned to move. Carey’s dress. Not Maria’s. I was such—I was such a creep. “I don’t think you should wear it.” Of course not. By the time I took over the zipper from his shaking hands, his cheeks were olive green, and sweat mobbed his hairline.
“Oh my God,” I mumbled, clutching my chest. Maria wasn’t even sophisticated enough buy her own dress. Of course Carey lent it to her. I should have known. It’s exactly my size. “I’m so sorry.” I retreated into the closet and yanked it over my head. Too tight, my breathing too heavy, it stuck somewhere around my bra, pinning both arms above my head. “I’m so sorry,” I called out, my voice muffled by the fabric, as I twisted and wiggled, anxiously trying not to rip it. “I didn’t even think about that. I thought that because it was in the same boxes…I just assumed.” I sucked in my stomach, gave a hard yank, and it flew to the ground.
“It’s fine. Carey probably gave it away,” he mumbled.
He sounded so upset. I hated what I’d done.
I reappeared in the purple dress, one hand on my hip to cover the grass stain. “This is all I have.”
“It doesn’t matter what you wear,” he said, and he was far away, shaken up, lost. I was so mortified that my cheeks burned neon red all the way to the Mission, and I kept apologizing over and over.
“Let’s forget about it,” he said, taking my hand. “Please?”
His fingers were wrapped so strongly around mine that I had to wrench one hand away and pry them off. When he noticed the strength of his grip, he jumped. “Oh no,” he said, taking his hands back. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to—”
“It’s okay,” I told him. “I know the difference. I know when it’s on purpose.”
Then he fell into me, burying his face in my neck, smelling my hair, whispering apologies that I didn’t need. I kissed him, there in the shadows of the trees that sighed and fluttered above the driveway. The lights draped across the deck grew brighter with each passing second; I saw the bonfire flickering, heard bluegrass music in the air, and everything was as I’d imagined. The summer heat, the fireflies, the streaks of orange light—the colors of golden peaches and ripe grapefruits, shades so bright you could taste them—that signaled the beginning of sunset.
We let go of each other and made our way to the party. One of the enormous round tables had been moved outside to the deck, overlooking the water, and set with the gold-and-black place cards. Candlewicks burned in erratic, sculpted lumps of wax, pooled in a delicate, oddly shaped ceramic dish. Someone had placed fresh wildflowers bound with clear fishing line at each setting of striped napkins and mismatched, tarnished silverware. I found my place card next to Tyler’s. Max was on my other side.
“No Char
lie?” I asked.
Tyler, fully composed, shook his head. “Artists only,” he said, as though that was the only reason.
Tom Healy, a sculptor who worked mostly in foam and plywood, was sitting in an Adirondack chair and playing an old acoustic guitar. He nodded at us gently and kept on singing a country version of “Stardust.” A group of people were inside at the bar.
Marlin burst out of the restaurant with a cartful of glass pitchers filled to the brim and garnished with different fruits. She poured us each something clear, basil leaves floating to the top.
“Thank you,” I said softly.
“It’s tradition,” she said, kissing me on the cheek, an unexpected burst of affection, before turning around and running back to the kitchen. “Ty, we need your help!”
He squeezed my hand and ran to follow—and left me alone on the deck. In that moment, Jes walked out and climbed atop the railing, like a cat. She turned and looked at me with narrowed eyes, dissatisfaction slicing through the air.
“Was that you the other day?” she snapped.
“I—I don’t know what you mean.”
“Really?” She tilted her head back in contempt.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“It was you. You sneaked into my studio and then ran away. I saw your hair.”
“I’m—I’m so sorry,” I stuttered.
“Did you seriously run away?”
“I…I panicked.”
“I was at your studio the other day, and you acted like I wasn’t even there.”
“I was…” I looked at her skeptically. “I looked at you. You didn’t say anything.”
“I smiled at you,” she insisted, her face equally dubious. I knew she’d sneered at me. She knew it, too. She was trying to knock me off-balance.
“You had a lot of stuff,” she observed. Damn.
“Well, I’m very sorry,” I said to her, trying to sound like I meant it. “I’m not…I’m not like Max. I’m…” I shook my head, trying to figure out what to say. “I’m shy.”
“Whatever,” she muttered, rolling her eyes. “Grow up.” She spat that one at me, the words stinging like a hard slap, then swung from the railing and walked inside to the group, all smiles.
I looked over at Tom Healy, singing happily to himself, and he nodded, as though nothing had happened at all.
A laugh went up from the group inside. I didn’t dare go introduce myself—not while Jes was standing there talking to them. Cheeks burning, I stood frozen, watching the peach of the sky turn to apricot and then cherry, across the half mile of glassy black lake that stretched in front of us. I thought about Carey walking into it and wondered if Jes was the one who had pushed her to do it.
Eventually Tyler came up behind me, putting his arms around my waist.
I unwrapped them. “Not here,” I whispered.
“You’re embarrassed of me?” He smiled.
“No.” I shook my head. “I don’t want people to think I’m only a summer girl.”
Tyler tilted his head in confusion, like he’d never heard the term, but before he could reply, Max appeared, and we were hugging hello, and then a group of famous artists stood in front of me, shaking my hand. Anele Muir, the sculptor who carved boat-size pods, was there. So was Kerry Bee, who made enormous installations of electrified fabric. Filmmaker Jeanne Petit, photographer Lena Addario, performance artist Rachael Krieger, and conceptual sculptor David Bird rounded out our dozen. They had all been guests here. Tonight, they would stay over, and linger through the weekend.
“Oh these plates, Marlin! I forgot about these,” Jeanne said, in her beautiful accent. She sounded like Isabella Rossellini.
“Me too. I made them for the Yokefellows dinner,” Jack said. “Now, that was a million years ago.”
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“Oh, he threw them,” Marlin explained. “Jack is magic on the wheel.” She rolled her eyes. “He has a three-D brain. Some people have all the luck.”
“Before your babies,” Jeanne said, and Jack was already pulling out his phone. “Oh, these fat babies, I want to be as fat as this baby,” she cooed. “A little butterball of baby.”
“No,” I said, haltingly. “I mean, Yokefellows.” I nearly recited the line from the notebook: to yoke me as his yokefellow, our crimes our common cause.
“Oh—it’s James Joyce,” Marlin said quietly, leaning in and putting her hand on my arm. “Do you mind if we—if we don’t right now?” She flicked her eyes at Tyler, the electric fence around everything Carey.
I nodded, chastened, and then I walked over to Max and clung to her skirts like a lost little girl.
It took forever to sit down to dinner. Everyone had to get cocktails first, and then they were smoking cigarettes and catching up. When Marlin and Tyler were back in the kitchen, still cooking, I found myself on the edge of a conversation with Tom and Lena and David and Max about the party they’d all been at, the one on the barge floating in front of Hart Island.
“Did you meet Suna? The woman from Pakistan who only creates forgeries?”
“I heard her telling the Browns that they should pay her to replicate everything in their collection and then they could sell the originals and keep the copies, and nobody would ever know the difference.”
“I love lesbians who wear hijab. It hits so many buttons.”
“Oh, Suna’s equal opportunity. She’s married to Spark Suleman.”
“For the passport?”
“No, I think they have a baby.”
“Did you eat those bananas he brought? They taste like oranges, apparently. I was too grossed out to try one.”
“Starting a farm of genetically modified fruit is a massive-scale project. At a certain point, aren’t you just a farmer?”
“He exports the fruits into other nations. The customs paperwork is the artwork.”
“He must have a gig.”
“I think he’s at RISD.”
I stood there quietly, nodding occasionally. The conversation continued in the same vein for an hour, until we all sat down to eat, and then during dinner it got even worse. Every artwork they discussed was an idea, a piece of an idea, a joke, a commentary, a repositioning of a theoretical argument from twenty-five years ago, a reaction, an indictment, an impeachment of something else. It was like someone had taken the last two hundred years of culture, put it in a blender, pureed it into a sauce, and eaten it, only for this semiotic mash of ironic purposelessness to be then expelled back out again. I nodded along, laughing when I was supposed to laugh and shaking my head when I was supposed to be outraged, at the money someone had been paid for a joke that wasn’t that funny, or at how they hadn’t been hailed as geniuses, and we might as well have been discussing television, or politics, because all of it centered on our reactions, the infinite hall of mirrors echoing our responses to and over each other, to the arts that had become our entertainment.
Eventually, someone asked me a question. “…political purpose?”
“I’m sorry?” I said.
“Does your work have a political purpose,” Lena said slowly, deliberately, and Tom and Anele turned to listen. Jes raised one perfect eyebrow and waited for my inevitable stumble.
“I’m not sure what you mean,” I replied.
“Well, in this day and age almost nobody is just making paintings,” she said, and then everybody turned to listen, and anxiety surged through me as I tried to think about how to respond. I’d never found a way to cleverly encapsulate what I was doing. I mean, I’d thought plenty about bullshit. Part of the beauty of abstraction is that in theory, you can bullshit your way out of anything. “It’s a meditation on discourse,” you could say about a big blue square. “It’s an indictment of a post-formalist universe whose lenses are viewed solely through a Rawlsian utility-dependence.” “It’s about Ana Mendieta falling out a window.” “It’s about the impermeability of dirt.” Really—you can say anything and get away with it, if you’r
e bold enough. And yet I was not a person of theory. I was a person of practice; my paintings were the exact things I meant for them to be. They were not bullshit. But I couldn’t defiantly tell her, Well, I am, because it could only sound angry and defensive. I settled on deflection. And first, I wanted to acknowledge the hostility of putting me on the spot like that.
“Hold on,” I said, trying to keep my tone light. “Can a girl get a drink first?”
It worked. Everybody laughed. Tom reached over and poured me one. Tyler handed me a lit cigarette.
“Here, take this too,” he joked, and I took a long puff and rolled my shoulders, like a boxer, and everybody smiled, though Jes’s was predatory. Then all of a sudden I was talking.
“I make enormous oil paintings,” I told them, a quiver in my voice at first, “because they are the pinnacle of labor. They are expensive, delicate, unwieldy. They take more work than anything else I could imagine—work and investment and time and space—and that work, that labor, takes me outside of myself. The paintings are not a criticism—or an indictment—or a commentary.” The quiver stopped, and I heard myself speaking in another woman’s voice, one that was confident and sure. “They are objects that exist unto themselves, moving and beautiful, worthy of the space they take up in the world, political because they do not crouch in a corner, because their labor is obvious. Their weight is obvious. Their heft cannot be ignored or dismissed. They are the only part of me that is big,” I said, and then everyone, even Jes, silently stared at me as though I had said something radical, and I could not believe what I said about my own work. It sounded so vain.
“I know that I’m not supposed to be vain,” I heard myself saying, “that I’m supposed to be humble. But my work is huge and loud and important even if they are, as you said, just paintings. I know that’s outré—everyone else is playing some hundred-year-old game where they make fun of the gallery, and the collectors, and the people who are taking selfies, and find a clever new way to sell immateriality and throw gold in the river, to be wink-wink know-it-alls, repurposing the archive to destroy the institution from the inside…but I’m not ironic. I make things that are emotional,” I confessed, and in that moment, with the candles flickering and the lake splashing against the pillars beneath us, it was true. “And it’s all that I am.”
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