The Exhibition (An Executive Decision Trilogy) (7 page)

Those were hungry times, painful times, and she’d prayed that she’d never be put to the test like that again, but her conversation with Dina was the reality check, the wake-up call that said there would now be no turning back.

Settling again at the table, she pulled up the website of the
Washington Post
. It was Jamison’s face that smiled back at her, accompanying the write-up about the auction. Jamison and his million dollar sculpture. Was he turning over a new leaf? the article asked. She was sure the reporter didn’t believe that any more than she did, but there were a lot of naïve people in the world. On a whim, she punched in Ingrid Watson’s number, but there was no answer. She left a message. It was just your basic
congratulations, sorry you couldn’t join us last night; if you need me, I’m here
sort of message. She tried not to think how the young artist’s evening with Jamison had gone. She tried to hope for better, but if that had been the case, the woman would have joined the party with the rest of the artists and the people in the art world who could have made a real difference for her. She would have chosen the legitimate path to success and not the quick fix Jamison offered her, the one with way too many strings attached, strings Ingrid Watson would only discover when it was far too late.

Stacie was still thinking about the young artist when her BlackBerry signaled a text into the silence of the flat. She jumped at the sound, then fumbled to check it.

Congratulations, my darling, on the stunning success of the auction last night. It certainly was an extravagant event and, as always, NWG spared no expense. I missed your company afterwards. Though Ms. Watson is truly delightful, she’s just a little girl compared to you. We must catch up, Stacie. We have so much to talk about, and even more so as you face the challenges of opening New World Gallery West.

TJ

The chill that climbed her spine left her reaching for the hoodie hung carelessly over the back of her chair. She wrapped it tightly around her and moved again to stand in the sunshine, but still she felt like she had been touched by winter. She’d had a long grace period in which she’d stayed beneath his radar, but she always knew he hadn’t forgotten what had happened between them. She always knew her return to Portland, her opening of the new gallery, couldn’t help but catch his full attention. It had begun. And now she would have to play out the game to the bitter end.

Terrance Jamison was her past, and when she had left him in that place of dark, gut-knotting memory, her world had blossomed bright and warm and urgent. For ten years she had lived in the sunlight, lived free of the man’s grasp. And now, he was about to come into her present. But this time he wouldn’t be dealing with an innocent. This time she knew who he was, and this time she knew she would walk back into that darkness willingly and deliberately. Her choice, this time. Not his. That thought was meant to cheer her up. It didn’t.

It was another incoming text that made her aware of the painfully tight grip she had on her BlackBerry. She yelped out loud and dropped the device as though it had bitten her. Her heart hammered in her chest. She closed her eyes tightly and breathed in and out, waiting for her pulse rate to steady. At some point, she’d have to text Jamison back. It was her move now, and they both knew it.

As her breathing slowed, and the tension left her stomach, she picked up the phone and opened her eyes to see that the text was not from Jamison after all. It was from Harris Walker.

Impress me. Tell me why I should exhibit my work in your gallery.

She nearly cried with relief. This was good news. This was something positive, and wow, did she need something positive right now. All right, he hadn’t said he’d do it yet, but she’d cross that bridge when they got to it, and she’d win him over. She knew she would. With a smile on her face, she replied.

All right, I will. Meet me at the Boiling Point, Wednesday evening, at 7.

His reply was almost instant.

Urg! The Boiling Point is not the place to impress me, Ms. E!

Dee had told her about the little adventure she and Harris had had at the Boiling Point a few months ago, but there was a good reason she wanted to meet him there.

Not your fave place, I know, but I’m meeting Kyle Waters there. Sure you’ve heard of him – does photos of urban decay and renewal. Believe it or not, the BP is a fine example of both. I’m there to watch him work. We can talk after.

Again the response was almost immediate.

All right. I’m intrigued. But we leave before the police arrive and the raid begins!

She chuckled to herself as she replied.

Will do my best to keep us out of jail, Mr. W. See you there.

Can’t wait :-/
came the reply.

And instantly Stacie was in a better mood than she had been since Jamison arrived at the auction last night. It would be a rough ride from here on out, so she would happily take whatever good cheer she could get. If that cheer came in the form of Harris Walker, surly, moody but totally hot photographer extraordinaire – well, so much the better.

Chapter Nine

The Boiling Point was as dark and shadowy as ever, though quieter than usual, since it was only seven in the evening. But even if the room had been crowded, Harris would have immediately picked out Stacie Emerson. The woman had a polish and shine about her that set her apart. Granted, there wasn’t much competition here when it came to polish and shine, but still, he was pretty sure she would be eye-catching anywhere. She sat in a booth across from Kyle Waters wearing snug-fitting red trousers and a black tank top that wasn’t risqué by any means, but on her, it didn’t have to be. On her it said classy and sexy in a place where both were seriously lacking. Not that Harris minded a little biker bar smuttiness from time to time, but wow, it was highly overrated when Stacie was in the room.

She motioned him over with an enthusiastic wave.

‘I hardly recognized the place without the long row of Harleys outside or the lovely smell of pot wafting through the air,’ Harris said.

Stacie gave him a wicked smile. ‘The night’s still young.’

He slipped into the booth next to her and offered a handshake to Kyle Waters, who sat across from her looking like a cat who’d just eaten a very succulent can of tuna. ‘Waters. Good to meet you.’ It surprised Harris to realize that it really wasn’t, that he really wasn’t keen on sharing Stacie’s time with a man who looked a little too much like someone had used an airbrush on him.

The man returned a hearty handshake. ‘Love your work, Walker. Great to finally meet you in person.’

Harris was pleasantly surprised when Stacie kissed him warmly on the cheek. ‘That is for the mountain lion,’ she said, when he shot her an inquisitive look. ‘And thanks for agreeing to talk with me here. I know you have tender feelings for the Boiling Point, but I wanted you to join us because I’m here to watch Kyle work. That’s a part of the PR for the exhibition, which, if you agree to work with me, I’d want to do with you as well. I like to understand, as much as I possibly can, the artists who exhibit in my galleries and what inspires them. That also helps me plan the best, most effective way to display and promote your work.’ She shoved her iPad across the table to him. ‘These are some of the pictures Kyle took in Brazil.’

Harris glanced down at the iPad then back up at the photographer, who shrugged modestly. ‘Those are just raw images. I haven’t had time to work with them yet or to choose the best ones.’

‘Everything of Kyle’s work I’ll be using – and of yours if you agree to the exhibition – will be from the Northwest only, of course,’ Stacie said.

Harris had seen Waters’ work before and, though he found urban photography a bit claustrophobic, he had to admit this was powerful and gritty in ways that captured the observer and drew him in.

With a quick flick of her fingers, Stacie brought up another page. ‘These are the images Kyle’s taken of the Boiling Point so far this evening They’ll be exhibited along with this set taken ten years ago, and these that were taken when the building was bought out and rebuilt by a local company hoping to make the place into a successful roadhouse-style restaurant. But there were problems,’ she said, flipping through from the very modern, very quirky clean rebuild to its decay and fall into disuse, and then continuing on to the next incarnation, more similar to the squat cinder block build of the present. ‘At this point,’ Stacie said, ‘the place was bought out by Core Invest.’

Harris stopped her hand with his palm. ‘Wait a minute. Core Invest – isn’t that one of Terrance Jamison’s companies?’

She held his gaze. ‘It is. Though they don’t own the Boiling Point now. At least not technically.’

‘Not technically?’ Harris asked.

Her gaze didn’t waver, but it was Waters who spoke up. ‘The place has stayed open through some seriously nasty legal battles, which tend to magically disappear just when it looks like the doors are about to close for good.’

Almost by instinct, Harris glanced around to make sure no one was listening. There was no one else in the place but the bartender and a couple of slummers in designer smart casual who leaned against the bar. Across the cavernous interior that appeared much bigger inside than it did from the parking lot, a grungy-looking band was setting up. ‘I thought this was photography, not investigative journalism.’

Waters gave him an impish grin. ‘Come on, you’re a fine one to talk about art, Walker, when you’re the editor of one of the most trouble-making green rags on the West Coast. And the trip you made to the Valderia a few months ago with Ellison Thorne – well, that wasn’t exactly about taking pretty pictures, now was it?’

Before Harris could respond to what he could only consider a compliment, Stacie cut in. ‘I’m not looking for pretty pictures. I’m looking for stories, stories of the Northwest. I’m looking for histories and journeys and the things that make this place what it is.’ She waved a hand to indicate the space around them. ‘I don’t mean just the Boiling Point, although its history goes way back to before Prohibition. I mean the whole Northwest. It’s shaped by the people who live here. There’s no place left you can go where that’s not the case. In some areas, the evidence of human interaction is less than in others. But the evidence is there, and in some cases it’s devastating. In others, the environment and humans have evolved to live in some kind of tenuous harmony.’

The band began to warm up, and Harris noticed that while they were talking, there had been a steady trickle of people coming through the front door past the bouncer, a trickle that was increasing rapidly.

‘Here’s my moment.’ Waters grabbed his camera, practically bounced out of the booth, and began to snap photos, leaving Harris and Stacie sitting next to each other to observe.

For a little while they watched Kyle moving easily in and out among the new arrivals, who were a well-tattooed lot, mostly clad in leather and denim with a fair smattering of overworked spandex.

‘There.’ Stacie nodded to half a dozen suits at the bar who Waters was now shooting. ‘They know how to work the camera,’ she said. ‘I recognize their type; cocky, barely out of university, more money than brains, most of which they spend on hookers, blow and expensive cars. They’re a big part of the problem here, if you ask me.’ She spoke next to his ear. ‘They never used to hang out here until about the time Core Invest sold the Boiling Point to a company out of Vegas, which magically appeared out of nowhere when it looked like Core Invest would have trouble holding the place legally. I don’t know all the details, but all at once this was where all the testosterone-driven banker boys came to party.’

Harris felt his shoulders tighten as he watched the men preen for the camera and check out the asses of a couple of women in very short, very tight skirts. ‘It bothers me a bit that you know all this stuff. Hardly a part of the typical gallery owner’s education.’

She smiled without looking at him, and somehow it wasn’t a smile that did anything to relax the tension in his shoulders. ‘I’m nosey. You should know that by now, Harris. I want to know everything. All of it. Every last detail.’

‘Sounds kind of dangerous,’ he said.

She laughed, and this time the softening of her face was genuine, self-deprecating. ‘As you’ve seen already, walking’s dangerous for me.’

Waters had lost interest in the pretty boys, who were now chatting up the two women. He moved to the band, snapping shots of their set-up and of their interaction, managing to render himself so innocuous no one paid him any attention. This crowd seemed a lot more forgiving of photographers than Harris’ great horned owls had been. Grudgingly, he had to admit that he admired Kyle Waters’ ability to blend in and shoot without disturbing his subjects. But he couldn’t hold Harris’ attention for long when he was sitting next to Stacie Emerson, who was practically bursting with enthusiasm. He turned to her. ‘So what exactly is it you want from me?’

‘I want your worst, Harris. I want your worst.’

‘What?’

A waitress delivered a pitcher of margaritas and three glasses, and the band began to play the Eagles’
Take it Easy
, certainly a bit more palatable than the heavy metal blasts Harris remembered from his last experience of the place.

Stacie leaned close to be heard. ‘The beer here’s crap, but the margaritas are drinkable. Plus, I paid the bartender extra in advance to actually add tequila.’ She poured them both a glass, then nodded to where Waters was snapping away near the bar.

‘Kyle’s work will definitely compliment yours. He deals with urban settings. But your work shows the broader impact of how humans have affected the natural environment in the Northwest.’ She took a sip of her margarita, then pulled up Harris’ website on her iPad. ‘I don’t want pretty pictures. Those are easy to come by. I want the reality of how humans live in the world they’ve taken over.’ She flipped to the most devastating of Harris’ galleries – the clear-cuts, the oil spills, the illicit landfill near John Day – and slowly scanned through the photos of destruction. As always, his stomach churned and his palms felt damp when he revisited those photos and the memories of those shoots. None of them had been in the least bit pleasant. But at the same time, his respect for Stacie rose another notch. She appreciated more than just the pretty pictures; she understood what his art was really all about.

She continued. ‘Oh, I don’t want to just show the destruction. I know there’ve been some amazing reclamations of old mill sites, of eroded clear-cuts. Polluted streams have been cleaned up, the balance has been restored, even been restored to benefit both nature and humans. I want to see both sides of the story.’ She nodded to Kyle. ‘From both of you.

‘And you, Harris, can give me what most people can’t. You can give me the full story behind it all, both the devastation and the hope, as well as the legal implications, being a lawyer and all. Ultimately, hope is what the Vigilant Trust is all about, isn’t it? What
Wilderness Vanguard
is all about, what everything you do is all about.’

He sipped at his margarita and stared at the dance floor now filling with goths and bikers and more than a few slummers here from their posh jobs in the city. ‘You don’t want mountain lions or owls, then.’

She offered him a smile that did things down below his navel. ‘Not this time. No. I want you to tell a story that may not be so pretty, but that might still give us hope. I want you to
show
us a story that we absolutely need to see and know and understand.’

Harris had to admit the idea intrigued him more than just a little bit. He hadn’t expected that from Stacie. He’d figured she’d want a few of his adorable baby wildlife shots, a few stunning sunsets over the Pacific and that would be it. But this was something that excited him, something that he’d thought of doing in
Wilderness Vanguard
, but never really had the scope – nor had he known exactly how he wanted to approach it, especially since it was very hard for him to spend time revisiting any of the photos from what he called his Armageddon Shoots.

‘I don’t think anyone could get the message across in a visual form quite like you can, Harris. And since the proceeds all go to Vigilant Trust, it seems to me this is the perfect exhibition for New World Gallery West’s maiden voyage. Don’t you think?’

On stage, the band cranked up a notch and blared an earsplitting version of REO Speedwagon’s
Riding the Storm Out
. It was only then that Harris realized the place was nearly full. Kyle Waters returned to the booth. His shirt was partially unbuttoned, his chest was heaving, and the shit-eating grin plastered on his face made him look like he’d just gotten laid and was up for round two. He put his camera down and shot Stacie a wolfish glance. ‘Care to dance?’ he asked.

Harris would never know what came over him. He wondered if Stacie had paid the bartender to spike the margaritas with something other than tequila, but he slid from the booth. ‘Sorry, Waters. You’re too late. The lady’s dance card’s already full.’

He offered Stacie his hand before he gave any thought to the very real chance of her turning him down. Certainly after the way he’d behaved toward her, he deserved it. But he needn’t have worried.

She smiled up at him and took his hand. ‘How can I refuse the man who bought my mountain lion?’

They left Kyle Waters in the booth, looking a bit dazed as he poured himself a large margarita and drank thirstily.

After the tumble she’d taken into his arms Friday night, Harris was a little surprised to discover that Stacie was such a good dancer. But then just being comfortable with making a fool of oneself was pretty much all that was required in places like the Boiling Point. And though he wasn’t really … comfortable with making a fool of himself, he was the one who asked her to dance, so he would do his best to act like he knew what he was doing.

‘Are you hoping I won’t fall on top of you and embarrass us both, Harris?’ she asked, almost as if she had read his mind.

‘I’m just a little surprised after Friday, I guess.’ There was no way for him to approach the topic of her clumsiness gracefully, so he continued to move about the crowded dance floor in front of her, feeling very much like he was the one about to fall over his feet while she watched him with her usual inside-joke smile.

‘I grew up with the Thorne brothers,’ she said as she moved in close. He held his breath, half fearing half anticipating what would happen next. ‘No one could spend any time with that family and not learn to dance. Dr. Thorne thought dance lessons might make me a little less clumsy. Did you know Emma Thorne was a certified ballroom dance instructor as well as a physics professor? It’s the truth, I swear. She taught Ike Thorne to dance. Two fabulous sons later, and the rest is history. Garrett tells me his parents still never miss a chance to tango.’

‘I didn’t know,’ Harris yelled back, admiring the way she shook her booty in the tight red trousers that made her stand out in the sea of leather and denim. ‘No one taught me to dance. Your bad luck, I guess.’

‘I don’t care if you can’t dance,’ she said, placing both hands on his shoulders and shimmying like she meant business. ‘Just as long as you’re here to catch me if I trip.’