by Adam Mitzner
“Are you okay?” Stephanie asked.
His expression must have betrayed that he was not okay. Wayne had told Stephanie all about his breakup with Jessica, how it hurt at first but that he was over it now. It was the kind of thing he was expected to say, whether it was true or not. The reality was that it hurt every day, almost as acutely as it had when Jessica had told him that their marriage was over. Worse, even now he wished for nothing more than a chance to be with Jessica again. He still loved Jessica the way you only get to love once, and it absolutely shattered him that she now loved James in that way.
“I’m fine,” he said.
3
Jessica greeted the first few guests at the door. Soon enough they were coming in too quickly for her to provide such personal attention. As the room began to fill, it no longer looked as empty as she had feared, and the champagne trays were circulating without a hitch.
“Everything looks magical,” James said to her as he surveyed their home.
“It did all come together rather nicely,” Jessica replied.
“Thank you.”
She laughed. “You didn’t even want this party. I should be thanking you.”
“Not for the party,” he said. “For my life.”
“I should be thanking you for that too,” she said.
She had declined James’s original overture, two days after their Starbucks “date.”
“I’m married,” she had said. “And so are you.”
He’d said that he understood.
And she’d assumed that would be the end of it. After all, she’d done nothing to lead him on. In fact, over the next few weeks, as they closed on the loft, she had been all business. Even when James told her that he thought someday they’d live in the loft together, she smiled and said that she didn’t think his wife, or her husband, would approve of that arrangement.
“I’m going to leave Haley,” James confided. “It has nothing to do with you. We’re just not right for each other. Sadly, I’ve known that for some time. Maybe since the beginning. But I didn’t listen to that little voice inside my head that told me not to marry her. And now that same little voice is shouting at me that we’re destined to be together.”
She tried to inject some reason, but her “you barely know me” protestations fell on deaf ears.
“I’m not one of those love-at-first-sight believers,” he said, “but I’m as sure about this as I’ve ever been about anything in my life.”
Jessica never questioned James’s over-the-top pronouncements as anything but sincere. Although other men tended to tell Jessica whatever they thought would get her into bed, she somehow knew it wasn’t like that with James.
The only explanation she had for her lack of skepticism was that she believed him. And the only reason she could attribute to her conclusion was that she felt the same way.
After the sale of the loft closed, Lisa Rollins invited Jessica, James, and his wife to a group dinner. A thank-you for the rather sizable commission her firm had earned. James accepted for him and his wife but showed up at the restaurant alone.
“My wife’s working late,” he said.
Before they ordered, Lisa’s phone rang. “A family emergency,” she explained, apologizing for having to leave so suddenly.
As soon as Lisa left, James looked at Jessica with a smile that made her wonder whether he had orchestrated Lisa's sudden departure.
“Did you create her family emergency?” Jessica asked.
“No, but I do plan to take full advantage of it,” he replied.
They stayed in the restaurant until the maître d’ told them that the staff had to go home, at which point James suggested they go to a bar he liked so the night didn’t have to end.
She told him she had to go home. But when he put her in a cab, they kissed, and from that moment, she knew that everything he’d said about their future would come true.
Owen heard the first guests arrive. That was also the time that the party music abruptly changed from the crap his stepfather liked—Sinatra and other crooners from a million years ago—to the crap that his mother favored—soulless Top 40 pop.
He stayed sequestered in his bedroom until the moment the clock on his computer read nine, then stepped into the living room to keep his promise to his mother.
Jessica and James were on opposite sides of the crowded room. James was in the company of a woman whose dress was a size too tight, whose hair was dyed a shade too blonde, and whose body language—the way she tossed her hair over her shoulder when she laughed or touched James’s arm when he laughed—was a little too desperate. His mother was talking to some guy with tennis-player hair.
A girl not much older than Owen approached with a tray of champagne flutes. He was tempted to grab one, but out of the corner of his eye, he saw his mother shaking her head.
“No, thank you,” he told the girl.
“Are you in college?” she asked.
Owen’s first thought was to lie. She was obviously in college. And once he told her that he was still a year away, he knew their conversation would be over.
But he wasn’t the type to lie to a girl. To his parents, sure. But not to a girl.
“Next year. I’m a senior in high school now.”
“Cool. Where do you go to school?”
“LaGuardia.”
“Nice. I had a friend who graduated from there. What’s your . . . do they call them majors?”
“Yeah. I’m instrumental. I play the violin.”
“You must be really good. My friend was a vocal major, and I swear, she sings like an angel.”
“I’m okay. Where are you at school?”
“NYU. Freshman. So we’re practically the same age. Is this your parents’ party?”
“Mom and stepdad. First anniversary. So you can only imagine how much I really want that drink. Unfortunately, my mother is watching me like a hawk.”
The server laughed, a lovely sound.
“I’m Owen, by the way.” He thought about extending his hand, but realized that she was holding the tray, so that wouldn’t work.
“Emily,” she said. “You know, I can hide some rum in a Coke and nobody will know.”
“Yeah?”
“For you, sure.”
Owen was trying to think of something witty to keep Emily with him a few seconds longer when out of his peripheral vision, he saw his father enter the loft. That was par for the course. The first, and probably last, moment of the party that Owen was actually enjoying, and now it would be cut short.
“Oh, great. My dad just got here,” he said.
“Wait . . . your father’s coming to celebrate your mother’s anniversary with some other dude?” She laughed that sweet laugh again. “I better get you that rum and Coke. You’re gonna need it.”
He watched her walk away, feeling the ache that he sometimes did when things weren’t the way he wanted them to be. The party had now joined the ever-growing list of things his father had ruined for him.
“You look stunning, Jessica,” Reid Warwick said.
He kissed Jessica on both cheeks, European-style.
“Thank you. I’m so glad that you could make it.”
He didn’t expect Jessica to return the compliment. Not because he didn’t look stunning too. Jessica wasn’t blind, after all. But Reid knew that he had yet to win her over. He would, eventually. He always did. Especially when it came to the fairer sex.
“Wouldn’t have missed it for the world. It’s like every major player in the New York art scene is here. If there was a fire in the apartment and everybody died, the value of the art market would triple.”
“Isn’t that a lovely thought.”
Reid laughed. “But mainly I’m here to pay homage to my best friend being the luckiest sonofabitch in New York City.”
“Is that right?”
“It is from where I’m standing,” Reid said, looking hard at Jessica.
Even with the mood lighting, Reid thought he saw
the slightest flush color Jessica’s cheeks. A pregnant pause hung between them. Reid was leaning in closer, about to comment on Jessica’s dress, when she said, “My son has apparently decided to grace us all with his presence.”
This pushed Reid back a step. He turned to take a look.
“He’s getting big.”
“Tall, yeah. Still skinny as a rail, though.”
“How’s he doing?”
“Okay, all things considered. I think sometimes he can’t wait to go to college just to get away from the circus of a life I’ve thrown him into.”
Reid looked around the space. “It doesn’t seem like such a bad life.”
“You don’t remember being seventeen, do you?”
Reid turned back to Owen, and Jessica followed his sight line. Owen was now speaking to a younger attractive woman, one of the caterers. She appeared to be enjoying the conversation.
“I remember seventeen all too well,” Reid said.
Jessica shook her head. “I can only imagine what you were like at that age, but I assure you that Owen is about a million miles away from being that kid.”
“Trust me. All seventeen-year-old boys are the same.”
“Trust me, they’re not. Not at seventeen. Not at forty. There are good ones and bad ones.”
Reid held his tongue. He had little doubt on which side of the divide Jessica believed he fell.
“If you’ll excuse me, I need to mingle a bit,” she said.
Reid returned to the bar, where he got himself another Johnnie Walker Black, neat. Drink in hand, he surveyed the crowd. He had decided to come stag with the fleeting thought that he might not leave alone. Based on the attendees, that seemed unlikely. Most of the women were coupled up and about his age, which was a good ten years older than he favored. The caterer chatting up Owen had caught his eye, though. Maybe later.
He reminded himself to focus. Tonight was about business, not pleasure.
Wayne and Owen had reached that awkward stage in a father-son relationship where neither knew how to express affection. Owen was too old to hug, and Wayne felt ridiculous shaking hands with his son like they were about to close a business deal.
“You look really good, O,” Wayne said, placing his hand on Owen’s shoulder.
Stephanie kissed Owen on the cheek, which Wayne noticed made his son wince a bit.
Wayne scanned the room, looking for Jessica or James, but he couldn’t spot either in the crowd. “Not too shabby,” he said, taking in the room.
Owen didn’t answer, which was nothing new. In fact, it surprised Wayne when his son actually responded to something he’d said.
“You having fun so far?”
“Not too much. Mom said I could go back in my room after the toasts.”
“I suspect we won’t stay much longer than that either. I mainly came to see you.”
Owen had just finished his sophomore year of high school when Wayne and Jessica told him that they were getting a divorce. Like so many things with his son, Wayne couldn’t decipher how Owen actually felt about what was undoubtedly a sea change in his life. At the time, Owen was two years removed from his cancer diagnosis and it had been a year since he was told he was in remission. Perhaps compared to such an existential threat, his parents’ divorce was of lesser importance. On the other hand, Owen could often be a black box. Teenagers keeping their emotions hidden from their parents was nothing new, of course, but Owen seemed to elevate it to an art form. Wayne almost could never tell how Owen felt about anything, good or bad. But the one thing Wayne was near certain about was that Owen had not been surprised by the news that his parents were no longer in love, as if his son had somehow seen coming what had so blindsided him.
Wayne originally resisted Jessica’s request that Owen live with her in Manhattan and visit Wayne only on Wednesdays and alternating weekends. He claimed he was thinking about Owen’s best interests, but that hadn’t been his true motivation. He’d simply wanted to push back about something. Make Jessica pay some price for destroying him. The way he saw it, even though he couldn’t stop Jessica from leaving him for James, he could at least deprive her of Owen for as many nights as possible.
So he told her that she was being selfish. That she should think of Owen.
“I am thinking about Owen,” Jessica had fired back. “Maybe you should too. He’s going to high school in Manhattan already, so it’s actually easier for him to spend most of his time with me.”
In the end, Wayne had acquiesced. He liked to think that it was because he had elevated his son’s well-being above his own, but deep down, a part of him knew that he’d done it for Jessica—to make her believe that he was the kind of man who’d elevate his son’s interests above his own. And that revelation made him hate himself.
“So, you in or what?”
James had lost the thread of the conversation about thirty seconds before. He knew Reid was presenting him with a business opportunity. It had something to do with a friend of Reid’s who had access to some Jackson Pollock sketches.
“How’d this guy get the Pollocks again?” James asked, if only to show that he was paying attention.
“The guy is Tommy Murcer,” Reid said, emphasizing his name to convey that he wanted James’s undivided attention this time through. “Like I said, he was fucking Lee Krasner back in the day. She gifted them to him.”
Lee Krasner was a first-rate artist in her own right but even more well known for being Jackson Pollock’s widow. She’d died in 1984, almost thirty years after her husband.
“How old is this Murcer guy?”
“I’m not sure exactly, but my guess is he’s closing in on eighty. That’s why he wants to sell now. He knows that after he kicks, provenance is gonna be much harder to come by.”
Provenance. The bugaboo of the art market and the bane of every dealer’s existence. Proof that what you were selling was the work of one of the greats and not a well-executed forgery.
There were experts who opined on the authenticity of works, and certain artists’ estates set up commissions to be the final arbiters when forgery questions arose. A signature was all but worthless in this regard because anyone talented enough to replicate the brushstrokes of a Rothko or a Picasso, or the splatter of a Pollock, could easily copy the scrawl of their signature on the back of a canvas. For that reason, one of the best ways to establish provenance was to link the work’s chain of custody back to the artist. While Murcer was still alive, he could attest that Lee Krasner had gifted him the pieces.
“My take is twenty-five percent,” Reid said. “I’ll cut you in for half of my end. That’s twelve and a half percent for you. A lot better than a typical finder’s fee.”
“You know this really isn’t my sweet spot.”
“Maybe I can get Tommy to do a little more.”
“It’s not about the money.”
“Then what?”
Although Reid was acting like he didn’t understand the basis for James’s hesitation, James knew it was only for show. Whatever weaknesses Reid possessed, being naïve was not one of them.
“I’m sorry, Reid, I’m just not your guy.”
“Do me this favor, will you? Come out to East Hampton with me on Monday and let me show them to you. You’ll see that they’re authentic. Maybe that’ll change your mind.”
“I’ve got some things on my schedule . . .”
“Cancel them. C’mon, James, do me a solid on this, will you? Just take a look at them. No obligation.”
“If I can have everyone’s attention, just for a moment,” Jessica yelled above the din of the party. Some of the guests began to strike their silver against their glasses, and the crowd quieted. “Yes, this is the time for toasts,” she said. “So, if you’re a little low, fill up. I’ll wait. And James, that means you need to join me.”
One or two people took Jessica up on her offer and made their way toward the bar. James stepped away from Reid Warwick. When he reached Jessica in the middle of the room, he took
his wife’s hand.
“James and I want to thank all of you, our dearest friends and family, for sharing this moment with us,” she began. “There is absolutely nothing I would redo about my first year of marriage to James, and that includes our decision to elope. But I must confess that, at times, I’m a little sad that I missed out on the joy of sharing my wedding day with the people I love most in this world. Now that you have all allowed me that by being here today, I can truly say that everything about marriage to James is one hundred percent perfection. If you’ll indulge me for a moment more, I would like now to say a few words directly to my husband.”
She turned to look at James. He was beaming at her.
“James, the last year has been the happiest of my life. It’s the kind of happiness that I thought existed only in fairy tales. But with you, I feel like the person that I was always destined to be, and I cannot imagine wanting more out of life than that.” She paused a beat, and then upon turning back to the guests said, “Please raise a glass and drink a toast to my wonderful husband, James.”
As soon as Jessica finished her sip of champagne, James took up the toast duty.
“I promise I’ll be short, and not as charming as Jessica,” he said, which elicited a few chuckles. “I would also like to thank our friends and family for being here tonight. It means so much to Jessica and me that we have such incredible people with whom to share our lives. And I want to especially say directly to my bride how much I love her. All of you who know Jessica are well aware of what a wonderful person she is. Smart, kind, thoughtful, and of course, absolutely beautiful. But I can say that she’s so much more of all of those things than you can even imagine. This past year has already been the best of my life, and at the same time, I have no doubt that next year will be even better. In fact, I’m quite certain that every year will be better than the last, for as long as we both shall live.”
