An Object of Beauty: A Novel (27 page)

“But then I’d face the jury: ‘Let’s say you’re going to buy a puppy. You’re going to buy a yellow Lab. A cuddly yellow Lab. So you read that you should go to a breeder, because you don’t want to get one that’s going to go sick on you. Now you get to the breeder and you find out there’s English Labs and American Labs. American Labs are good for hunting because they’re kind of lithe. But you don’t want to hunt him, so you go for an English Lab, more stocky. Then you’re told that the real prize of the Labrador breed is one with a big head. So you wait and wait, and finally you get one with a big head. Now you take it home and proudly show your big-headed puppy to a friend. You’re thinking, I’ve got this great show dog, an English Lab with a big head, and your friend is thinking, What an ugly puppy.”

By now the other end of the table was tuned in, Tanning enjoying Hinton. He turned to her and said, “Excuse me, Miss Tanning, I’m orating.”

“Please, go on.” She smiled.

Hinton smiled back. “I would rather hear what you have to say.”

Tanning paused thoughtfully. “I believe the last twenty years has
been the most desperate search for artistic identity in the history of the arts. Don’t you think so, Peter?”

Schjeldahl, now that the conversation had turned to art and not money, finally spoke: “All the cocksure movements of the last century have collapsed into a bewildering, trackless here and now.”

The table went silent, then the chatter resumed at the same tempo as after a distant gunshot.

When we left the restaurant, I saw Lacey canoodling at a corner table with a known Russian collector, also known as a playboy, also known as very rich. Now I knew why she’d missed this dinner. Cornelia saw it, too, and she did not like it.

BY THE END OF 2003, Lacey had solidified her business. She had several employees and was making a profit. I dropped by the gallery, meeting her for lunch; she was on the phone, and I could hear her voice from the back office as she closed a deal:

“You know it’s a good picture… Still, you know it’s a good picture. And your Basquiat, how much did you overpay for that at the time? And now it’s worth whatever… Okay, sorry, millions… Look, you know you love this piece. You should buy it because you need it… No, you’re right, nobody needs art. Nobody except for you. You need it. You know I’m right… Okay, then, I’ll take it off hold… No, I’m going to take it off hold. I’m taking it off hold in thirty seconds.”

Then I heard her laughing. “I’m telling you, off hold in twenty-four seconds.”

She laughed some more, and I could intuit that the person she was speaking to was laughing, too.

“I’ve got another buyer on my speed dialer. Twenty seconds…” Then she said, “Smart move. I’ll have it delivered. When’s a good time?”

I took her to lunch, which began with her saying, “I’m dating a vibrator. I think I love it… him… whatever.” I laughed. “And it never cheats on me.”

“Have you been cheated on, Lacey?”

“Never. I always strike first.”

“Where’s Patrice these days?”

“Nowhere. He was a bit too interested, wouldn’t you say?”

“I don’t know him that well.”

“Plus, I’m thirty-three, he’s forty-five. And when I’m thirty-three, he’ll be fifty-five, and when I’m thirty-three, he’ll be sixty-three.”

I laughed. “You don’t plan on aging?”

“Why would I?”

We both had news, and we both waited until the entrées to report it.

“I’m moving into a new space,” said Lacey. “Around the corner, window to the street, a real gallery. Like Andrea Rosen and Matthew Marks… well, not that big, but it’ll have clout. Daniel,” she said, “it’s ten thousand a month. I’m going from seven hundred to ten thousand a month.”

“Jeez.”

“But I’ve been making ten thousand a month, or I’m starting to. I figure the added square footage will pay for itself and attract more artists. I’m doing resale, like at Talley’s. Nobody down here is doing secondary market stuff, nobody. It’s like they never think about it.”

Secondary market is what all the uptown galleries are, what Sotheby’s and Christie’s do—they resell previously owned works. Lacey was right: the contemporary market had little outlet for private sales of this nature.

“I do it in the back room, on the phone.”

“Do people want to buy such a recent picture? Don’t they wonder why it’s being sold?”

“I say divorce, distress, and people love it. Somehow it makes the piece more desirable. And these pictures are going nowhere but up, so no one’s afraid.”

“But ten thousand a month.”

“Plus I have to remodel. With a fancy architect. Look, the only money
I need is lunch money. I put everything back in. So I’m not strapped. Clothes cost, though. They’re like a car for a Realtor. They’ve got to be all class. Lots of evenings out. And you, what’s new with you?”

“Are you sitting down?”

“I could sit on the floor, I guess.”

“Remember Tanya Ross?”

“Lovely girl, nice person,” she said with a tinge of color.

“I’m dating her. Exclusively.”

“What happened to what’s-her-name?”

“Lacey, that was so long ago.”

“But what happened?”

“No fireworks.”

“And there are fireworks with Tanya Ross?”

“Well, she’s not a fireworks person; she’s a different kind of person.”

“So, no fireworks.”

“I’m not looking for fireworks with her. I’m enchanted, maybe in love, with the idea that she’s someone who would always do the right thing. It’s taken a while to get through to her, but I think she’s bending.”

“Over?”

“Lacey.”

“Have you kissed her?”

“Lacey.”

“Sorry. She probably wants to punch me. Tell her she can, and invite her down to the gallery. After the new one’s open. I can make peace; I have that in me.”

I CONTINUED TO SEE Tanya that winter, twice a week, then three times a week, ending with an all-out-effort dinner at Del Posto, paid for by one paycheck for five reviews from
ARTnews
. She dressed up for it and so did I, and she looked so beautiful that I thought I didn’t belong with her. But my best behavior makes me look better: I stand up straighter, and I’m more polished, the way I’ve seen other men be.

She had one glass of wine to my three, but mine were spread out over two and a half hours, so I was never tipsy, just loosened, and she was constant and forthcoming by choice, not alcohol. This night, so memorable, seemed like the last step before unspoken commitment. And when I kissed her good night, it seemed as though little animated larks circled around our heads. She reminded me of a song… what was it? And when she said, smiling broadly, “I think I love you,” she put her hand over her face and smiled into it. I felt as though I were Fred Astaire, my top hat and tails magically appearing, and I sang to her, making up the lyrics, which made her laugh on the dark stoop. Then we paused and looked at each other. She said, “Come up.”

So I was surprised, three days later, when I called her to confirm a dinner date and she said, “I could see you for lunch.”

I can’t think of anything that unnerved me so quickly. My response was so shaky, it meant I had been walking on air, not solid ground. I assured myself that nothing, nothing could have happened between our
flawless night spent together and this phone call. But Tanya, I knew, does not mislead. So the bliss of the good-night kiss and the frost of our latest exchange were both true. This state of unease could properly be called “disease,” because I felt sick. But at least disease has the courtesy to develop over time; this infection was abrupt and arrived all at once. By the time the receiver was replaced on the hook, I was fully in it. I had an elevator-drop loss of appetite and found it difficult to stand: my legs were shivering like a tuning fork. Had she met someone? Impossible.

The two events I am about to describe did not happen simultaneously, but I will present them as though they did, because they are so intertwined by cause and effect that they may as well be connected in time.

I met Tanya for lunch, not at one of our romanticized regular spots, but at the place of one of our first, pre-romantic, all-business lunches. Tanya picked it. On 68th Street, a short distance from Madison Avenue, the restaurant was detached from our previous dating life and empty enough that we could have a conversation without being overheard. I arrived first, my timing sped up by anxiety, and when she arrived, each of her steps toward me was freeze-framed in my mind while I analyzed each inflection of her body language. I perceived nothing, except that she was withholding what I was searching for, intimacy, and that for several minutes there was a faking of normalcy.

“How’s work?” I said.

“Oh, that,” she said. “Just going on. We have a beautiful early Picasso coming up; lots of talk about that.”

“Which one?”

“Garçon à la Pipe.”

“Wow, important picture.”

“It’s going to bring a lot.”

Then the conversation withered like a dehydrating prune on the science channel. I requested menus, not wanting to start anything with this sudden stranger until we got our first course.

While Tanya and I diverted into art small talk, two men walked up the seven flights of metal stairs of 525 West 25th Street and spent minutes turning a guide map this way and that before they found Lacey’s gallery. The Chelsea galleries always look closed and unwelcoming, and they swung her door open a few inches to make sure the lights were on and the place was operating. They went into the gallery and stood at its center, and Lacey, having heard the shuffle of feet and low voices, appeared from the office doorway. These men were familiar. It wasn’t so much their faces that jarred her memory as their clothes—plain suits, dark fabric, beige trench coats that were too thin for the cold outside—and the short army hair.

These were the two men she had seen at Talley’s on her first day in the gallery. They were also the men who had approached her in Boston, covertly handed her an envelope, then faded back into the alleyways.

“Miss Yeager?”

“I probably am,” she said.

“We’re with the FBI.”

“Show me your stinkin’ badges. Or don’t you need them?”

The two men looked at each other, confused. “I’m kidding,” she said.

They tried to smile. “Could we talk with you?”

“Sure,” she said, and they entered her office, knocking about like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

The salads arrived, and I finally began to speak with Tanya. I had no appetite. I suppose I ordered food so I would have a plate to look down
into, some reason to look away from her if the conversation turned uncomfortable, which it already had.

“Something’s up,” I said.

“Yes.” She nodded.

“I’m so curious. And a bit worried.”

“Do you remember the first night we met?”

“At the opening.”

“Yes, and do you remember I said you looked familiar?”

“Yes.”

“Well,” she said, “I remembered where I saw you. On the video. Do you know we tape all our auctions?”

Lacey did not sit behind her desk; she sat in a chair across from the two men and deliberately crossed her legs in front of them.

“I’m Agent Parks and this is Agent Crane.”