Picture This

by Tobsha Learner

  Now convinced, Gabriel pushed himself up as high as he could and peered over the wave of shoulders and heads, then set off. In seconds he had made his way over to her. As she turned and began walking away from the crowd, Gabriel started to follow her, careful to stay concealed in case she turned around.

  *

  Susie was drunk and bored. Her half-eaten peach sorbet seemed to stare up at her, winking from the middle of its melting centre. She was tired of the calculated celebrity and staged presentation. Looking around, she decided most of the guests could be divided into two categories: the watched and the watchers. The watched were mainly professional performers – models, actors, celebrities, the professionally famous and the professionally infamous. The rest were the punters or the indifferent like herself. Idly she pushed the dessert around her plate. She reached into her handbag and pulled out her digital camera, then discreetly photographed the man next to her, a Japanese billionaire who had recently invested in British tweed, as he stared indiscreetly into the massive bosom of the corseted burlesque dancer sitting next to him. She then photographed the band, the dessert on the plate in front of her with her lipstick-stained fork laid over it, and then Felix, who was sitting at a table opposite, his hands mid-air in the middle of a conversation.

  The atmosphere seemed so contrived, which was ironic, considering this was an homage to the punk movement, surely the one youth movement that was renowned for its spontaneity and anti-fashion stance. She felt as if some weird kind of time travel had arbitrarily landed her in a bad joke.

  The reception hall was decorated like a punk club – or at least like one envisaged by American event coordinators living 30 years after the fact, with circular tables strategically scattered around a stage and catwalk. Anna Wintour, the omnipotent editor of Vogue magazine, had placed the burlesque celebrity who talked of nothing but herself, a corporate sponsor, a socialite, an eye-laser surgery entrepreneur, and the Japanese tweed importer, as well as the usual eclectic wealthy individuals (who’d paid $15,000 each for their tickets) at her table. She had found herself seated between the middle-aged CEO of a supermarket chain who couldn’t understand her accent and seemed to mistake her for Sarah Lucas, and the Japanese billionaire who didn’t appear to speak English. There had been a parade of models wearing British designs; the only clothes she’d been remotely interested in had been Alexander McQueen’s, who was sitting in the far corner of the room with his muse Sarah Jessica Parker beside him in a McQueen Scottish/punk theme ballgown with a tartan sash.

  To make matters worse, she’d had the uncomfortable experience of watching Felix flirt with everyone seated at his table; now he appeared to be entertaining them with a number of hilarious anecdotes. And she didn’t like the way the tall, supernaturally beautiful blonde model (Kiki? Wasn’t that the name the publicist from Baum Gallery had told her?) seemed to be leaning closer and closer to Felix. It had taken all of Susie’s self-control not to stare.

  To her chagrin she’d felt herself succumbing to the kind of misanthropic mindset she hated in others, and the excellent burgundy had made her belligerent in her drunkenness. She’d already got into an argument about the US invasion of Iraq, only to discover the portly white-haired man sitting opposite (who for some reason she’d thought was an old actor from the TV series Dallas) was a Republican senator who’d backed George Bush Jr, and had suddenly found herself alienated from the rest of the table. There was also the odd way one of the waitresses serving her table kept staring at her from across the room. Susie surmised that maybe she’d been recognised; there was something vaguely artistic about the waitress’s pink fringe and nostril piercing that made her think she might be a struggling artist moonlighting in catering. Or perhaps she was gay. She wasn’t unattractive, but when Susie had returned her gaze provocatively she hadn’t responded.

  On stage the band – playing a medley of famous ‘British’ band riffs from the Beatles to Queen to the Sex Pistols – finally finished their set, to Susie’s relief. She bent down and picked up her Marni bag from the floor. As she did she glanced across the floor to the view of the undersides of the other tables. Between the edges of the tablecloth on Felix’s table she could see his hand on the blonde’s leg. She sat up again and pulled out her mobile phone from her handbag.

  *

  As the other guests around the table erupted in laughter at another of his stories, Felix glanced over to see whether Susie was watching; she was, intently. Good, let her see how great a player I really am, he thought with some satisfaction. They’d had one brief conversation on the phone since she’d left his apartment in the middle of the night – artificially casual banter that did nothing to appease the emotional vulnerability Felix felt. He wanted her more than he should and although her elusiveness excited him, her masked emotions frustrated him. Then there was the Gabriel situation – had he actually heard the youth call out his name as they were coming down the red carpet? Or was it his mind playing tricks; was he becoming paranoid? He was always so careful about keeping his lovers in separate compartments – neatly geographically pigeonholed across New York City, from Manhattan to Queens to Brooklyn.

  Determined to provoke the artist into a reaction, he squeezed Kiki’s thin knee under the table.

  In that second a waitress crossed the floor, momentarily blocking his view. To his dismay he recognised angel girl, Leia, the waitress from Dungeon. She was serving at the tables and appeared to be part of the catering staff. He froze; to have three conquests converge in one place was terrifying: a potential disaster. The sensation of his mobile phone vibrating pulled him back into the moment. It was a text from Susie.

  So you like blondes?

  Smiling, he moved his left hand higher up Kiki’s thigh while texting back with his right:

  Not particularly, but I suspect you do

  Touch her and imagine it’s me, Susie texted back. He gazed down at the message a little perplexed; unsure whether he was now jealous or excited. Tentatively he ran his fingers further up Kiki’s impossibly long leg – yep, Susie’s text had ruined it for him; the sensation was now decidedly unerotic.

  But it’s not you, he texted back, a little peevish, deflated by her game-play. The more he touched Kiki the more he realised he wanted to be with Susie. God, she’s good, he found himself thinking. His phone bleeped again.

  Just do what I say.

  No, he texted back, feeling like a petulant child and resenting it.

  Oblivious to the nature of Felix’s texts, Kiki, her dampness beneath his fingers belying her cool, detached Nordic/Asiatic expression, encouraged by his caresses, now reached over and squeezed his crotch under the table. His cock, on autopilot, hardened and Felix was forced to watch as Susie got up and began winding her way to the restrooms, unable to follow because of his erection.

  *

  Latisha first became aware that she was being shadowed as she descended the stairs into the subway station on 86th. A skinny white youth in a hoodie and torn jeans had been on the edge of her peripheral vision the whole time she was walking down from the Met, skulking along the walkway either on the other side of the street or at some distance, ducking into doorways when she turned. She told the ghost who’d been accompanying her ever since she walked away from the entrance of the Met and all those rich folk behaving like mannequins for the cameras. Maxine, a golden light that shone brighter in the shadows, flickering into a translucent sliver under the streetlights and gleaming shop displays, seemed to agree. She thought the youth was drawn to Latisha for a purpose and that Latisha should not frighten him off. Besides the kid was a bad sleuth, a total amateur, Latisha noted. Nevertheless, despite Maxine’s presence and the youth’s incompetency, she was thankful for the weight of her steel crutch, knowing it was deadly if swung.

  Who was he? Now on the uptown platform she paused at a vending machine selling sodas. Reading the reflection in the glass, she watched him loitering at a distance, pretending not to notice her. She knew him from somewhere: the heavy brows
, the fragile sweep of the jaw, an Italian or Mediterranean set to his features… Now she remembered – a caricature in pencil over a doorbell.

  ‘Maxine, do I go to him?’ she asked the ghost out loud, startling a fellow passenger reading a few feet away. But as soon as she’d finished her sentence she sensed the ghost had gone.

  Feigning indifference, Latisha turned and began walking toward the young man, pulling down her invisible cloak, the one she adopted when she wanted to melt entirely into the background. Poor, blue-collar, disabled and probably on benefits – people, especially white folks, visibly flinched when that walked toward them, and it was a useful weapon when she needed it.

  This kid didn’t move on; he stood his ground, planting his feet defensively apart, folding his arms over his chicken-runt chest – so he was following her.

  Now that she was closer, she noticed paint stains on the knees of his torn jeans, and that the kid was skinny, real skinny – starving, she’d say. But it wasn’t for food, she surmised, judging by the panicked, brittle air around him and the crook of his shoulders, an instinctive flinching just waiting to be triggered – another thing she recognised. Starving for company and maybe human affection, she concluded. But as she got closer she smelt the fear coming off him in sweet, dank waves. And then there was the shadow falling halfway down the side of his body like a scar that hadn’t happened yet. She’d seen it before; on recruits off to war, on the young men of her ’hood whose deaths in gunfire she would read about two days later, and then on Maxine, weeks before she fell off that bridge. It was the mark of early death tracking this youth like a hungry dog and she couldn’t help but feel pity for him.

  I ain’t frightening, she wanted to say, forgetting that it was she who was being followed; such was the jitteriness of the boy. She reached him, and stood before him like Judgement Day itself, and for a moment he looked as if he was about to run. But, to her secret relief, he stayed.

  ‘You been following me, and you know I ain’t your aunt.’ Her voice was loud in the subway chill.

  ‘So who are you? And why did you steal my paint?’ Gabriel retorted, hidden fists now tensed. The woman was at least five inches taller and several stone heavier than he, but there was something else that terrified him, the sense that she could see right through him, read his mind as easily as the board announcing that the uptown-bound A train was approaching the platform. And, as the wind preceding the train whistled down the tunnel, he found himself fighting the desire to jump, to stop the fear, the ambiguity, the wanting. As if reading his thoughts, the massive black woman stepped forward and put a hand on his arm.

  ‘Don’t you dare, Gabriel. We have too much work to do for that shit.’

  And they stayed like statues until the train pulled into the station.

  *

  The train of Susie’s ballgown was so long that it was practically impossible for her to manoeuvre herself down onto the toilet, especially as her coordination was impaired. For some reason, probably because she was so drunk, she’d started to find the whole situation hysterically funny. It didn’t help that she had the impression she often got when intoxicated – that everything appeared to be happening in the past tense and therefore any outrageous act she felt like performing had no consequences because it had already happened. It was a liberating delusion that had driven her to drunkenness more than once.

  Laughing to herself, she flipped some of the train of the dress over her head and the rest to one side – managing to catch it in the beak of the stuffed raven perched in her elaborate hairstyle.

  ‘Jesus fucking Christ! I guess royalty don’t piss, or when they do the servants hold up the gown,’ she said out loud while urinating, her body now flooding with instant relief. It was nice in there, away from the judging masses, her own little mental sanctuary.

  ‘You’re Susie Thomas, aren’t you?’ The voice, female, young and American, came from under the cubicle door. It was a shock and, before answering, Susie contemplated the idea that perhaps the voice might be internal – some kind of audio hallucination of her own id, or maybe just her bursting bladder berating her. Then she looked out under the door. A pair of sensible working shoes were definitely visible – manifest and concrete and waiting outside the door.

  ‘Well, if I am, I’m entitled to a little privacy when on the toilet – even in New York,’ Susie retorted, then wiped herself, pulled her dress back down, flushed and emerged from the cubicle.

  It was the waitress who’d been staring at her earlier. Feigning casualness, Susie made her way over to the sink. As she washed her hands she studied the tall, russet-haired girl, who stared defiantly back.

  ‘Let me guess.’ Susie leaned back against the wall to steady herself; the raven headdress was beginning to feel awfully heavy, and she calculated that it would only be a matter of minutes before the room would start spinning. ‘You’re either a disappointed fan, a wannabe artist, or maybe a “friend” of Maxine’s?’ she added hopefully, in case fate had finally thrown her some kind of clue or lead. ‘You look like her type, in that you look a little like me.’

  ‘Who’s Maxine?’

  ‘More to the point, who are you?’ Susie countered, losing interest by the second. ‘At least, when you’re not being a waitress?’

  ‘This is temporary. One day I am going to be as big as you are.’

  ‘Fabulous. I wish you the best of British luck.’ Susie sat heavily on the gilt-edged stool in front of the mirror and began straightening her headpiece. Considering how drunk she felt, she was pleasantly surprised to see that the styling as well as the centimetre-thick make-up had held up well; the fake blue tattoos, however, were beginning to peel.

  ‘Felix Baum. You’re with him, aren’t you?’

  Oh Christ, another disillusioned crazed ex-girlfriend, Susie now surmised, as she reached for her lipstick. ‘I’m not with him; that’s not how things are in my world. I have a show with him in July.’

  ‘I know, I read about it. He’s a total psycho, you should know that. I mean, as a fellow female artist you should know that.’

  Ignoring her, Susie pulled out a cigarette and lighter from her bag and lit up. Peering more closely at her reflection, she studied her headdress. ‘This bird’s bloody heavy. God knows what the Queen feels like when she’s wearing one of her crowns, like she’s got the whole of the British Isles resting on her loaf. I met her once, you know. She’s a lot shorter than you’d think. Makes you feel at ease – that’s real class. Something you and me will never have. The raven’s cute though.’ She took a last drag of the cigarette, stubbed it out on the marble-topped dressing table, then strategically pushed the cigarette butt into the beak of the raven so that it appeared to be smoking, giving the bird an irreverent appearance. ‘That’s better. Now I’ve gone from Queen of the Night to Queen of the Rakish Ravens.’

  ‘Didn’t you hear what I said? Felix Baum’s dangerous. He’s a psychopath.’

  Susie stood up and began making her way to the door, her train dragging behind her. ‘I can take care of myself.’

  The waitress followed. ‘You don’t understand. A few nights ago he invites me back to his place, the usual hook – you know, how he was going to remake me, brand me, launch me… You see, I have this thing about wings, and I was wearing them that night. So I get there, he drugs me and then he almost kills me, then he rapes me… ’

  ‘Rape? Really? You’re both consenting adults, aren’t you?’ Irritated, Susie let the restroom door fall back on the waitress. Surprised by Susie’s indifferent reaction, she pushed the door open and followed her out into the corridor.

  ‘You don’t get it. I’m telling you this as a fellow artist and a fan – the guy is sick!’

  Ignoring her, Susie moved into the ballroom, the waitress running after her. ‘I almost fell off his balcony!’

  At the last sentence Susie swung around. ‘What do you mean, fell off his balcony?’

  ‘Oh, so now you believe me?’

  ‘Just tell me exac
tly what happened.’

  ‘He’s so charismatic, you kind of fall under his spell. I was, like, hypnotised standing on the edge of his wall staring down at the cars roaring below and he kept saying how we were making art together, history – the ultimate performance piece, and he was filming with this camera… I was totally caught up in the moment. I could have jumped – I mean, it’s a miracle I didn’t… ’

  ‘You were standing on the edge of the wall as if you were about to jump?’ The image began to float before her like some horrible memory she’d failed to repress – Maxine, on the bridge.

  ‘Susie? Is this waitress harassing you?’ Felix’s voice startled both of them. ‘Because I can have security remove her.’ He was standing behind them, stiff with rage.

  ‘Just you try, Felix,’ Leia taunted, while stepping back a little, frightened.

  ‘Do I know you?’ His voice was icy cold.

  ‘Do you?’ Susie asked Felix, now genuinely confused about who was telling the truth.

  ‘Don’t play that bullshit game with me, Felix. You took me back to your place a week ago.’ Leia pushed Felix on the shoulder.

  ‘Security!’ he called out to a guard who was discreetly hovering nearby. The man immediately hurried over. ‘I want this woman removed.’

  Reluctantly the guard began to manhandle Leia towards the front entrance.

  ‘You can’t do this! I have rights! Felix–’

  Felix turned back to Susie. ‘I’m so sorry, I’ve never seen this woman before in my life—’

  ‘He’s lying! I’ve been inside his apartment! What about the Frida Kahlo? The Paul McCarthy? The Gursky photograph in the bathroom? He tried to kill me!’ the waitress managed to shout before being wrestled out the door.