Chapter Seventeen
In Between
Simon might be a fuck-up, but he’d built a lot of relationships in the art world, and everyone came out to support his comeback attempt on opening night. His parents and his sister were there, his family’s friends, even former college professors, and art teachers who’d developed him as a rebellious child. There were people who had touted him when he was first appearing on the art scene, and people who had torn him down when his star shone too bright.
There were critics and buyers, gawkers and socialites and glitterati, and the magic of Simon was that he didn’t care. He stared through them until he could escape their attention, and then hung out with his current circle of friends, the drug users and losers. When people tried to engage him about the art, he acted disinterested and precious. It worked for him before, and maybe it would work again, but it irritated me.
Why couldn’t he be professional? I was trying to be professional. My hair was done up in a neat chignon, and I wore a classy, knee-length Pucci dress with Fendi pumps. Simon was in paint-stained jeans and a baggy black viscose button-up. For weeks he’d been telling me how important this was, and now he wasn’t taking it seriously because he was either drunk, or high, or both. Probably both.
Of course Rachel was there, in her raccoon makeup and a sloppy dress carefully designed to look like she didn’t care, but oh, she did care. She followed Simon around, fawning over him and basking in his attention, while I dealt with Boris White, the gallery owner, and Josh Jacobs, Simon’s agent. I was also the one who directed the caterers and decided where to set up the bar. I did it because this felt like Simon’s last chance, and a little bit like our last chance. But under my busy focus, under my frenetic efforts to make this work, two words whispered, over and over.
Love lies.
Whatever. I knew that love lied. If I had a dollar for every time my clients claimed they “loved” their wife while they snuck off to me for twice-weekly sessions, I’d be a gazillionaire.
Sometimes it seemed to me that love was a complete and total lie, but then I’d remember times with Simon that I knew I was in love. Love was definitely out there sometimes, in fleeting moments. Maybe it was more accurate to say that Love flies.
Screw W and his platitudes and poetry. He was as precious as Simon in a lot of ways, with his elevated self-worth. At the height of the party, when people were packed into the gallery like lemmings, I stood off to the side and thought about what I was worth. I couldn’t make art. I didn’t have a real career. I didn’t have money for a room at the Four Seasons. I barely had money for the basics, thanks to Simon and his money-draining addiction.
Speaking of which, was anybody going to buy his new work?
Some things were selling, some paintings flagged with discreet red dots. There was a lot of talk, a lot of nodding heads and scrutinizing and pointing. Simon’s art blared from the walls, irritating me because I didn’t understand it. I was tired of not understanding anything about my life. While people chattered and postured with champagne glasses dangling from their fingers, I shrank into a corner and struggled to discern the essence of myself, the purpose of my life and why I was here, and what had brought me here. Chere: vibrant, flexible, caring, pretty.
The one thing I didn’t feel was worthwhile.
Someone handed me a flute of champagne. I took it because my emotions were a blur, and because I’d paid for the fucking alcohol, and then the crowd in the background receded. I realized that W stood in front of me, blond and tall in his designer suit.
It astounded me that I’d taken a drink right out of his hands without seeing him. He was so big in my mind, so large. How hadn’t I known the second he walked in the gallery door?
I stared at him, helpless to speak. It was so loud all of a sudden, and I didn’t understand his expression. I didn’t understand why he was here.
“How are you?” he asked when I couldn’t muster up a greeting. “How’s the show going?”
“Okay, I guess. There are a lot of people here.” I gestured around the room, trying to act casual. “I think he’s sold a few paintings.”
A burst of laughter interrupted our conversation. W turned his head, then moved so he was beside me rather than in front of me. Simon held court across the gallery, surrounded by art groupies and hangers-on. A prominent New York art critic bandied for space in front of him, her wild hair and manicured fingers waggling in unison. She was either chewing him out or enthusing about his work.
“It makes me proud,” I said, glancing sideways at W. “I’m proud for Simon, that his work excites people. We didn’t expect this kind of turnout.”
“Everyone likes a train wreck. It’s fun to gawk.”
“What does that mean? No one’s gawking.” I looked around. Were people gawking? “There are a lot of big names here, critics and collectors. They wouldn’t be here if Simon’s work didn’t mean something.”
W took a sip of champagne. “Yes,” he agreed. “His work means something, and it will mean something years from now. Everyone here knows that, just like they know he’s a fuck-up. If I didn’t hate the motherfucker, I might buy some of his work myself.”
I didn’t ask why W hated Simon so much. I knew why. Instead I asked, “How can you look around at all he’s done and say he’s a fuck-up?”
W gazed at me with the same cool, derisive look he employed in our ritzy hotel room sessions. I turned away.
“You shouldn’t be here,” I said. “You weren’t on the guest list.”
“I’m still not on the guest list,” he replied with a quirk of his lips. “In case you’re thinking about looking through it to find my name.”
“I don’t care about your name.” I hadn’t even been thinking about that. “I just don’t understand. You make this big deal about privacy, about your boundaries, and then you show up at my boyfriend’s art show.”
He gave a lazy shrug, his shoulder brushing mine. “I do what I want.”
“You shouldn’t be here. You’re one of my clients.”
“Are you ashamed of me?” he asked, joking.
“You shouldn’t be here,” I repeated. “And you shouldn’t be standing here talking to me. It’s not respectful to my boyfriend.”
He gave a half-laugh, half-bark, and rubbed his forehead. “Jesus fucking Christ, Chere. Number one, your boyfriend is higher than a kite at the moment, and he hasn’t looked your way all evening. Number two, I only respect people who deserve it.”
He was talking about Simon, but I thought he was also talking about me. I wondered how long he’d been here, if he’d been watching me run around arranging everything, supporting my boyfriend who didn’t give a shit about me.
Humiliated tears rose in my eyes. I took a sip of champagne to mask them, and it tickled my nose. “I know it’s not…it’s not… I know my situation is shitty. I know he’s shitty. I told you, it’s just for now.”
“Peace, Chere.” He held up a hand. “You can do what you want, and Simon can do what he wants. It’s a shame, though, his addiction. He might have been great, one of those artists who lived on down through the ages.”
The chatter rose around us, or maybe it was the pounding of my heart. “He might still be great,” I said.
“He’ll be dead in a year,” he replied. “You know the kind of shit he’s using, and you know what he spends on it. I guess the silver lining is that dead artists’ work brings higher prices. So keep him painting, if you can.”
I knew W was cruel and sadistic, but it amazed me that he could say those words without a glimmer of empathy. I raised my hand, I don’t know why. To punch him. To slap him. He grabbed it and pushed it back down at my side.
“Listen,” he said in a low voice that was nonetheless perfectly audible above the craziness of the crowd. “I’m not saying anything you don’t know. I thought that’s why you were staying with him. For the end. The payout. If that’s so, you’d better marry him if you can.”
“You’re an asshole.” I angled my body away from him. “Why don’t you leave?”
“Why don’t you leave?” He turned the question back on me with urgent emphasis. “Why the fuck don’t you leave him?”
He nodded toward Simon, the barest nod, but I already knew what he was trying to show me. I saw the way Simon fawned over Rachel in utter disregard for my feelings. I blamed myself. I wasn’t worthwhile.
“Do you use drugs?” W asked.
I hunched up my shoulders. “No. I never have.”
“Why did Simon start?”
“His friends got him into it.”
“They’re not your friends?”
“No.” Bitterness closed my throat, and brought on a second flush of humiliation. “I’m not an artist. I’m kind of shunted to the outside.”
“You’re the money,” he said, parsing the situation perfectly. “But I’m surprised you never caved to drugs yourself. Your life must be miserable.”
I glared at him. “Some people make me more miserable than others. Why did you come here?”
He rubbed his lips, took another sip of champagne and thought a moment. “I don’t know. I’m not sure why I’m here. To watch the train wreck, I guess, like everyone else. Now I wish I hadn’t come. I prefer to see you in other settings.” He reached under my flowy skirt and touched the back of my leg, drawing his finger across my flesh as if he traced an invisible welt. “I’ll see you Wednesday at the Mandarin Oriental.”
“I know.” I wanted to throw my champagne in his face and tell him to fuck off forever, but this party wasn’t coming cheap, and W was my only paying customer. “I’ve been to the Mandarin a few times. It’s a beautiful hotel.”
He stared at me a moment, then looked down at my glass. “You don’t like the champagne?”
I gazed past him, at the back of Simon’s head. The crowd was growing larger, not smaller. It was so hot. “Not tonight,” I said. “I don’t like it tonight.”
“Come here.” He took my hand and led me to the bar, and barged his way through to the front as people made way. He had a commanding presence, even here in this overcrowded room. His gold-blond hair looked even blonder in the gallery lights.
When we got to the bar he took my glass and set it on the counter. I felt a tap and heard a squeal, and turned to find an old friend from Simon’s earlier days, when he was the next great thing. Her eyes flicked past me. I couldn’t blame her. It was hard not to look at W—he was just that hot.
I couldn’t remember her name, so I searched my memory while she chatted at me about Simon’s work and the show, and what a huge success it was. She asked what I was “up to these days.” I could feel W against my back, leaning over the bar. He was talking to the bartender, asking him for a pen.
I wondered what she would think if I told her I was W’s exclusive prostitute, that he beat me and throat fucked me and tormented me at every one of our sessions until I cried. Instead I muttered something about consulting, sounding as vague as possible. I finally remembered that her name was Shelly and that she worked for a museum.
Maybe I could work for a museum. I wondered what kind of degree that required.
“You must be so proud of him,” she said, and I thought she must be talking about W, because she kept glancing at him with her round, black-lined, fuck-me eyes like she wanted him. She didn’t have a clue. W would leave Shelly-the-assistant-museum-curator in a heap of broken dreams. But then I realized she was talking about Simon.
“I am proud,” I said.
W thrust a napkin into my hand behind my back, and closed my fingers around it. A moment later, he moved away. I knew from Shelly’s gaze which direction he went, and that he was leaving me here, alone, in this bedlam and noise.
“Jaysus, Chere, you wouldn’t believe the guy who was just standing behind you. Oh my God, girl. Sex on a stick. I haven’t seen him around before.”
I made some nonchalant noise and held the napkin tighter. “I wonder who it was.”
“I don’t know, but yum. Blond hair and jawline for days, and his suit! Older guys are so sexy. It’s like they’re old enough to know what they’re doing, you know? They have that aura, like, wow, I’m all rich and successful and I enjoy the finer things.”
“I know exactly what you mean,” I agreed. “Will you excuse me? I’m helping Simon with the catering and I have to…you know…check on something.”
“Of course. It was great talking to you. I’ll see you around.”
She gave a fluttery little wave as I clutched the napkin in my palm. I headed into the crowd, toward the back. I pushed around a clutch of socialites and avoided eye contact until I got to the storage room behind the bathrooms. I leaned against the wall and looked down at the napkin, at the handwriting I recognized by heart.
For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright,
Who art as black as hell, as dark as night.
I thought of Simon’s black hair and his dark eyes, which, I’m sure, was exactly what W intended.
Shakespeare. Jesus Christ. He was bringing out the big guns.
* * *
It was after three when the party wound down. The caterers left and the gallery locked its doors. Some of Simon’s friends lingered, strangely animated. I skulked around the walls, looking at red dots. Those dots should have made me happy because they meant success and more money, but I didn’t feel happy.
As black as hell, as dark as night…
“Chere.” Simon’s voice drew me from my thoughts. “We’re going out to a club. Want to come?”
He said it in a surly tone, like he hoped I wouldn’t. Tough shit. We’re together until we’re not. They were all off their faces, and way more awake now than they’d been earlier. I didn’t want to go with them, but at the same time, I didn’t want him to go alone. He was manic and ratcheting up. He’d made a lot of money tonight—and he knew he’d made money. I was afraid he’d do something stupid if I didn’t stay with him.
My feet hurt from the Fendi shoes, it was a hot, sticky night, and I had to chaperone wacked out artists and posers around the Meatpacking District. Love lies. I was so miserable. Love lies. I wanted to go home.
I pushed through his cabal of friends to take Simon’s hand. He smiled down at me, high and happy. “Do you want to dance? Let’s go dancing.”
One of his friends led us to an underground disco, one of those secret-knock, dank-stairwell types of places. It was a cement box with jet-engine level rave music. Simon and his friends surged onto the dance floor while I stared up at the crumbling concrete ceiling and gauged the likelihood of it burying us alive. Wouldn’t that be a fitting end to my life, being buried alive? I already felt buried alive. Your life must be miserable, W had said.
I wish I’d drunk that champagne now. I wish I’d drunk a whole bottle of champagne so this might be more bearable. I looked around for a bar but there was no bar here, nothing so civilized as that. People brought in whatever they needed to get altered. I saw pills exchange hands, clusters of addicts using needles in the corners. I thought I saw someone against the back wall smoking crack. Simon jerked and jumped in the middle of the crowd. Rachel was near him, smiling up at him. He was surrounded by his adoring posse. I was extraneous here.
What would it take to cross the ever-widening distance between us? I was afraid it would take pills. Needles. A crack pipe. I’d grown up with addicts, and I’d always sworn I wouldn’t be one, but standing alone in the middle of hundreds of blissed out people, with my ears hurting, and my heart hurting, I wanted drugs. I wanted to sink down in oblivion and never rise again. Love lies.
Love dies.
Someone shrieked in time with the music, an ear-splitting noise that set me on edge. The person next to me reeked of body odor and the beats were endless, duh duh duh duh duh duh duh duh, over and over to oblivion. My feet throbbed in time to jackhammering rave music, but I couldn’t sit down anywhere or I’d never get the filth off.
I watched Simon on the dance floor, his long hair bobbing, his eyes like deep, black holes in his head. He thrust his hands in the air, waving his arms. His cuffs fell down almost to his elbow. His wrists were so thin. When had he gotten so thin? He was so frail, but I couldn’t shelter him anymore. I had to get out of here before I lost my mind.
I turned and headed back the way we’d come in. Let his friends get him home. Or better yet, let them all die here in this concrete rave death box. Let him bury himself here with the people who idolized him while slowly killing him. I didn’t care.
I covered my ears and pushed my way to the exit. The doorman laughed at me, but it didn’t matter. I knew, finally, that I was doing the right thing. It wasn’t his friends killing him. It was me. I was killing him by letting him kill himself.
No, that couldn’t be right. My conscience was in knots. It wasn’t my fault. It was his. Wasn’t it?
After the stultifying stench inside the club, the humid night air felt cool and cleansing. I tottered down the block. No cabs. I was too tired for this. Fuck it. I was going to sit down and rest, and if any of the jacked-up night crawlers around me tried to mess with me, they’d get a Fendi heel in the eye socket. I was done with this shit. I found a spot free of litter and vomit and planted my ass on the sidewalk, and laid my head against the rough stone wall behind me.
Love lies. W had done everything in his power to show me I was a fuck-up, that my thing with Simon was lame and untenable. Not that it was any of his business. I pressed a fist against my heart. What was I feeling? Tears burned behind my eyes, and I wanted W. I needed W. I needed him to hurt me and punish me, and be really real with me.
I fumbled in my bag for my phone. I had his number from when he’d called me. I’d never tried to use it, for obvious reasons, and now that I needed to use it, I knew it wouldn’t work. He would never have connected us like that, and given me a way to bother him when he didn’t want to be bothered. I called anyway, held the phone to my ear and listened to the whole “this number is not in service” spiel before I shut it off.
I thought for a moment, and then I dialed Henry. When it went to voicemail the first time, I dialed again.
“Geez, Chere,” he said by way of greeting. “It’s four-thirty in the morning. What do you want?”
“I want to know…” My voice wobbled. I was losing it. I couldn’t ask Henry for W’s phone number. That was so against the rules.
I heard rustling, a soft groan. “Where are you?”
I looked around Meatpacking, watched cobblestones blurring mustard yellow under the streetlights. Where had everyone gone?
“I’m nowhere, Henry.” My voice sounded steadier now. “I’m nothing. You of all people should understand.”
He sighed. “Are you at home?”
“No.”
“Do you want me to come get you? Are you safe?”
“Tell me who he is.” I was begging. I had to beg, because I wanted W’s number in the worst way. I just wanted to hear his voice. No, that was a lie. I wanted to know where he lived, so I could go see him right now instead of going home to my bleak loft and my bleak life. I was feeling dangerously needy. “It’s just…I’ve been meeting this guy for weeks now, and I don’t know his name. Who is E.E. Cumming?”
“He’s a poet,” Henry replied in a hard voice.
“I’m not talking about the poet. I’m talking about the asshole I see every week.”
“I know who you’re talking about, and you know I can’t share clients’ contact information.”
“Please tell me his name,” I said. “I won’t use it. I won’t look him up. Just tell me his first name.”
“You don’t need his name. You know everything you need to know about him. You know where to show up for the dates, and you obviously know what makes him happy.” He was silent a moment, then he asked, “Are you falling for him? Is that what this is all about?”
“No, I’m not falling for him,” I said, and I sounded like a whiny, needy liar.
“Because if you are, you need to remove yourself from the situation. You know that’s not how this works, and you know…” I could practically see him shaking his head. “You know any love for him wouldn’t be returned. So if you’re falling for him—”
“I’m not!”
“Then why are you calling me at four-thirty in the morning? What do you need?”
His name. His number. Anything about him. “Nothing,” I said. “I don’t need anything. I’m sorry. Go back to sleep.”
I hung up on Henry. He called back a moment later, but I let it go to voicemail. Fuck him and his accusations. I got up, took off the shoes from hell, and started down the street. Eventually a cab would pick me up, and if one didn’t, then I’d just walk the fuck home, fueled by my frustrated anger.
Even if I was falling in love with W, it wouldn’t matter, because I’d lost faith in love. Love lies. Love flies.
Love dies.
Why the hell would I want to start that cycle all over again?