Catch 26

by Carol Prisant

  “Great,” he replies, sounding pleased and truly sincere. “I’ll see you at 642 West 23th Street. At around 10:00?”

  “Oh. Sure. See you there.” Fernanda says, clicking off and simultaneously realizing that she must be the only twenty-six-year-old in all of Manhattan who expects to be picked up for a date. Probably the only woman her age, too, who thinks 10:00 is an hour before bedtime.

  The bar is down a flight of dark stairs and tucked beneath a gallery showing works by new masters, of course. (Or so its online advertising claimed.) But Fernanda has spent far too long this evening walking up and down 23rd street and trying to find its unmarked entrance. She’s a little put out by that, too, although now, at last, she’s found it.

  At first glance, the place seems to be a subterranean version of Randi’s casino, without the sound effects, however, and without the senior citizens or that memorable, terrible carpet. The inevitable jeans are here, of course, as are the braless women, while at the knee-to-knee bar, every man she passes by seems to be looking deeply into his partner’s eyes while every partner – unless that partner is a man – is doing the sexy-nervous hair-flip thing.

  I really ought to practice that, Fernanda thinks.

  Daniel is already there, at the far end of the bar. Noticing that she’s making her way towards him, he rises and hurries over to kiss her hand and to expertly usher her to an empty table on which a votive light flickers and a sad carnation hangs its striped head. Down at one end of the narrow room, on the peripheries of a mini-stage, several couples are lounging in their chairs, exhaling marijuana, she’s pretty sure, and seeming to listen to a band that even at this distance, deafens her.

  “This is my favorite place,” Dan appears to be saying now. (She has to read his lips.) “I come here two, three nights a week. To relax. They know me here. They know what I like to drink. I don’t even have to give them my order. They see me walk in, they bring it over.”

  He beams at her and points to his glass, half-filled with something that looks like iced tea.

  “What is that?” she asks.

  “Single malt,” he says. “What are you drinking?”

  “Um, vodka,” says Fernanda.

  “What brand?”

  “I don’t care. You pick.”

  “You don’t care? Really? Wow!”

  While he’s signaling the waitress, Fernanda glances at the stage. Two women are dancing alone there.

  Dan watches her watching.

  “That’s another reason I like to come here. That stage.”

  A peculiar reason to like a bar, Fernanda thinks. She studies his profile wondering who he is, how he thinks.

  “What else do you like to do, Daniel? In your down-time, I mean.” She has to shout to be heard, and she can’t hear herself.

  “Oh, mainly, I play golf.”

  Like the carnation, Fernanda’s hopes wilt. She takes the little flower from its vase and sniffs. It retains the faintest scent of clove.

  “Golf, did you say?”

  “Yeah. I belong to a couple of good Westchester and Connecticut country clubs. I have a membership at St. Andrews in Scotland, too.”

  If his abs weren’t already taxing his shirt buttons, he’d be puffing up with Jock-y pride.

  “Do you play?” he asks.

  “Not really. I used to, once. Just a bit. With a friend. I wasn’t very good.”

  Can she go home yet, she wonders?

  If Dan has heard her, he isn’t listening. Or rather, his ears may have picked her up, but his eyes and mind are focused on that stage, where a slender woman in black-framed glasses, her black hair falling to her waist, has just now removed her shoes and sweater and begun to gyrate slowly to the music in her head. Her hips move, her legs are suggestively splayed and in a moment or two, she’s joined by a second young woman, this one wiry, much too thin and pasty-pale. They sway together to their own music, each just grazing the other at first, then, very slowly, they move closer. They’re fondling each other’s breasts now. Fernanda looks away.

  “That’s Sharon and Summer,” says Daniel, his eyes glued to the stage.

  At that very moment, blessedly, the band takes its break, and he’s hollering into the silence, “That’s Sharon and Summer!” Everyone in the bar turns their way, and simultaneously, something … something, drags itself along Fernanda’s bare upper arm and comes to rest on the nape of her neck, under her hair. Startled, she turns to see a doughy young man with a partially-escaped chest tattoo.

  “Mmm, warm,” he says, caressing her upper arm. “Hot. Dance a little?”

  Who is this? His familiarity is repellent, and so is the reek of his sweat. Fernanda turns to Daniel for help, but he’s lost in Summer and Sharon, both of whom are writhing now, not needing music at all.

  She’ll just have to do this on her own then, Fernanda thinks, and pushes back her chair.

  Standing and turning to face him, she draws herself up to her full six-foot-nine (in heels) and stares him down, saying nothing. His face reddens. He licks his lips and she watches his touchy-feely hands steal into his pockets, where they belong. Fernanda stays on her feet to watch him walk away. Oooh, intoxicating, she thinks, she’s come a long way from those two guys in the park, and she’s suffused with a fierce kind of joy. She remembers Randi at the bar as she watches him try the identical move three tables down.

  Reluctantly, she returns to her seat and contemplates her glass. Daniel’s still light-years away.

  Well, then as long as she’s more or less alone, it seems, she might as well order another drink.

  It doesn’t take long, unhappily – three vodkas-worth, she kind of recalls next morning – until she turns blissful, then silly, then nauseated, all in a dizzy flash. Later, at home on the bathroom floor, she’ll remember that it was somewhere in the “silly” section that Dan insisted she go up on the stage and dance a little, just for him. The “silly” section is also why, just after noon on the following day, in the middle of counting out packets of patent gold leaf at Zisk’s, she flashes on an uncertain memory of doing an awkwardly languid strip-tease on the stage – one that she’s pretty much certain lacked any “tease” at all. That might have been when she and Summer began to dance together and an equally drunken Daniel tried to insinuate himself between them, whispering – shouting, rather, because the band was back, “How about a threesome, tonight?” That threesome thing again. And she really would have done it, she thinks, except for that sudden descent into nausea. She vaguely remembers retching in the street, throwing up at some point, several points, and eventually, finding a cab. So she didn’t have the three-way. She didn’t have a one-way. She never saw the art.

  Berger’s doorman doesn’t come on duty until 9:00, which is why, at 8:45 on her first day at work, Fernanda leans her shoulder into the heavy glass door and pushes it hard. She’s dressed so carefully for today: tailored black suit, black tights, some new black pumps with modest heels.

  A week ago, she’d asked Marcia for the name of the most fashionable store in New York and, over the weekend, she’d taxied over there to buy herself some “Berger’s clothes.” Within that splendid store, however, when confronted by eight floors of clothing – most of it black – the immensity of the selection overwhelmed her and her brain simply shut down. Fortunately, a saleswoman found her mindlessly wandering through sportswear and shepherded her over to Customer Service, where, like some ministering angel, this woman called a “personal shopper” arrived, took her in hand and the day began to improve. They moved from clothing to shoes to bags and back, and Fernanda thought she must have tried on thirty things before realizing she just wouldn’t be able to buy: the prices were making her ill. Shoes for $1500; “little jackets” for $3000. (Although nothing about her was “little” anymore. Especially her shoes.) It was when her guide took her to the teen department – where the “little jackets” bore $500 price tags and the handbags, the same – that Fernanda began to assemble something of an appropriately – inconspi
cuous-but-somewhat-chic work wardrobe: mostly black and mostly suits, but reasonably priced enough that she wouldn’t feel guilty putting them on. She was rich now, true. But she had absolutely no intention of spending those millions on clothes.

  So now, on her first day of work, she’s bundled her bright unruly hair into a wide silver clip that barely contains it all, and some long wayward strands are trying to obscure her view as she furtively observes her fellow early arrivals: smart-looking young people who seem enviably comfortable in what she’s always thought of as a “European” way of putting things together – casual and scarf-y and soft. She takes a quick swipe at those strands (she’s freshly shampooed after a long morning’s run) and stops halfway across the lobby to yank her jacket sleeves down. When will she get used to the sensation that her sleeves are too short? It isn’t true, of course. She can see that clearly in the mirror. It’s just that her arms feel so long.

  The witches from Macbeth haven’t arrived, she notes. Too early in the day, possibly. And while they’ve been almost pleasant since the Poussin sale, Fernanda doesn’t care to see them today. Not when she’s feeling so much like a high-school freshman again. And sure enough, she has to double back to the main door and ask one of the guards which floor the Old Masters department is on.

  “I’m afraid I’ve forgotten,” she confesses.

  “Oh, you’re early, Miss. We’re not open yet.”

  She doesn’t understand. Then she does.

  “Oh no, no. I’m new here. This is my first day.”

  The man smiles up at her, revealing, along with an unsavory exhalation of morning coffee, a cruel overbite.

  “Oh, my mistake, Miss. Welcome,” he says. “I’m Danny. You’ll want the fourth floor.”

  “I’m Fernanda, Danny. And thanks.”

  She’s idiotically grateful for his smile, even for the lecherous look she sees it slip into as she starts to walk away. She’s so “getting into” being “hot”. Already, on her walk over here, she was noisily cheered by a clutch of squatting workmen waiting outside a hi-rise, and a block farther on, she’d returned the wave and whistle of a biker. It’s my height, she thinks. Because she hasn’t done a thing to her face. Well, mascara and lip gloss. That’s all she’s ever worn, actually. Even before. But her size makes her extraordinarily visible, and the thing she likes best about her new self, she admits to that self, is also – after her height – her most conspicuous characteristic: her hair. It’s the kind she used to envy in shampoo ads: thick. Naturally wavy. A vivid, flattering frame for her face. She flicks a couple more strands into place. She doesn’t need to have it trimmed anymore, since it doesn’t seem to grow. Odd.

  Fernanda exits the elevator to a wall of unmarked doors and knocks very lightly on the last, hearing the tap of her knuckles reverberate through the vacant space like a jet touching down. Too late, she notices the doorjamb; it’s studded with numbered buttons. Dummy, she chastises herself, and she’s just looking for a button marked “talk” when, three doors down, a young man – even younger than she is, perhaps – abruptly appears. He eyes her with that unsettling mixture of condescension and inborn good manners that she’d decided is Berger’s basic style. He doesn’t smile or say hello. He merely asks, “Are you the new assistant? Ms., um …?”

  “Turner. Yes, I am.”

  “Come on in then. I’m Richard Sinclair, one of the junior cataloguers.” She remembers him now. He bid for the Russian at her sale.

  Holding open a door, he nods affably and steps to one side as she passes, then leads her through a dim and narrow, sort-of-storeroom space comprised of infinitely subdivided partitions. Scattered behind these, she catches glimpses of other early arrivals, already typing or texting or chatting. It isn’t 9:00 yet.

  The workspace seems poorly lit, perhaps because all the traditional offices – those belonging to senior specialists, Fernanda assumes – seem to be arranged around the room’s outer walls, where they block all the natural light. Dividing the central space are several cubicles made of twelve-foot-tall steel bookcases, each freighted with what appear to be hundreds of reference books. Bookcases also line what remains of the perimeter walls, and as she passes by, Fernanda tries to peep at a title or two, but isn’t fast enough. She does spot hundreds – probably thousands – of Berger’s auction catalogues, however, all haphazardly stacked on the floor or lying skewed atop scores of oversize books. But all around, everywhere, she sees paintings: hanging; interleaved with cardboards and propped against bookshelves; lying casually, face down or up, on various desks. The paintings are uniformly dark and very old, it seems to her, and very often, rococo-framed – since this is Old Masters, after all – although more than a few of them are hanging, as well, in splendid solitude on empty partitions. Others, tipped on one edge with their faces to the wall, have been stacked along the ill-lit corridors. Fernanda has never seen so much art treated so unceremoniously.

  Now and again, in their passage, she thinks she’s made out an arm or the pinkly flexed toes of a foot; a leafless tree, or a sheep-clogged path. She doesn’t really know where to look first until, at one of many shadowy junctions, she is thumped squarely in the chest by a luminous mother and child. Fernanda stops, heart-struck, overcome all at once by that terrible, bottomless, longing. Up ahead, her escort seems to have sensed her pause and returns.

  “Isn’t it gorgeous?” he says by her side, his voice unexpectedly low. “Batoni.” They stand there together for a moment and Fernanda can’t bear to turn away. But now Richard Sinclair is taking her by the hand and hurrying her on, past another gorgeous Madonna, past a terrifyingly wooden rendering of a shipwreck, past far too many listless cows in pastures and at last, over to a small corner cubicle where a young woman sits, confidently tapping on a laptop. A receptionist, Fernanda thinks wryly. Just beyond her, at a corner cubicle that seems airier and larger than it actually is, her chaperon stops, and announces cheerfully, “Here’s Courtney.” He leans around another book-filled partition.

  “Here’s your friend, Court,” he says. “See you later,” and in a flash, he disappears into the general murk.

  Courtney Bamber, dressed yet again in the obligatory black, rises from her metal desk and extends both her hands.

  “Fernanda! Welcome to chaos. You’ve met Richard, I see. Richard is kind of brilliant, although a little socially inept sometimes. But here, drop your coat and let me show you around. Introduce you to the rest of our colleagues.”

  Colleagues, thinks Fernanda, transported. I have colleagues!

  Less than an hour later, she’s managed to fit herself behind a narrow kneehole desk and seated, at last, she looks up into the uncompromising rods of a huge fluorescent fixture. Along with emitting regular, static-y ticks, it seems to flicker intermittently. So when he appears out of nowhere again, the unprepossessing Richard Sinclair – adjusting the already perfect knot of his orange-striped tie – he seems weirdly strobe-lit. She hadn’t noticed it earlier, but he’s trying to grow a goatee, with moderate success.

  “I’m afraid we already need you to go down to the basement to write up a lot of works that are coming in as we speak, and right after that, I’m sorry, you’ll have to go over to Sold Lots to pick up something we’re going to be storing for a client. I apologize for having to put you to work so soon. I can see you’re just settling in.” He doesn’t actually look sorry, he looks rather pleased. But it doesn’t matter at all, Fernanda’s in love with his bass-baritone voice.

  “But I guess Courtney told you, we’ve been understaffed for a while. I’ll take you down.”

  Richard is probably savoring his own promotion, she thinks – probably from this very job. She isn’t envious, though. She’s lucky to be here. Besides, something about this boy touches her deeply. The voice is part of it, for sure, but even more, it was his sensitivity to that wonderful mother and child. It’s never crossed her mind that men might share her feelings for art. The money part, she’d always pretty much assumed was male, and the collecti
ng part, too. Men are usually the scholars, she knows that from college. But Richard obviously loves this work, and she already loves him for that. And for telling her about … was it “Batony”?

  “Thanks so much for your time, Richard. I know you have a million other things to do. Is your cataloguing very exacting work?” she asks politely, trailing him down the escalator.

  He’s delighted to be asked, it seems, and in framing his reply, his forehead wrinkles and, unwelcome and unbidden, Fernanda abruptly sees what this boy will look like when he’s as old as Frannie. Suppressing a sudden jolt of fear, she turns away and pretends to study a tiny landscape hanging on the side of a nearby bookcase.

  “Savery, we think,” he informs her, nodding at the landscape, “and well, yes” he adds, “Cataloging is. But that’s not a problem for me. That’s the kind of thing I love. And the paintings, of course. That goes without saying. But collating every scrap of info about works of art that may not have been studied in years, filling in the blanks of ownership where I can, setting the record straight and bringing all that up to date, I really love that. It’s incredibly satisfying.”

  His passion lights up his inherently solemn face and belies his sweet timidity, and Fernanda has to stifle a sudden desire to put an arm around his narrow shoulders. She doesn’t want him to get old.

  “Although,” she changes the subject, “why are we storing pictures for anyone? You mentioned that before. I thought Berger’s just sold things.”

  “Oh no. We make an effort to provide every service for our top clients.” He’s proud of that. “If they’re adding a room to their house, say, we’ll keep a painting they’ve purchased here until their work’s complete. We help them find restorers, too. We even sell paintings privately. Just like art dealers do.”

  “You do? We do?”

  By now, they’re down in the bowels of the building, where, among raw pipes and wires, she has to step quickly, but extremely carefully around massive pine crates and teetering piles – silk-upholstered chairs, porcelain-inset tables, hulking bookcases, mottled-silver mirrors – all being unloaded from seeming droves of idling trucks. Fernanda’s afraid even to blink, afraid she might miss something marvelous. The opulence is staggering here. The splendor. The almost overwhelming beauty.