by Janet Goss
Of course: Ray Devine was alive.
“Guess Renée saw right through your Simone Saint James act,” Elinor Ann said.
“Either that, or she tells everybody he’s dead.” For all I knew, scores of women had shown up at her open houses to make discreet inquiries about her father. I remembered Ray coming to work one morning, putting his hand in his pocket, and withdrawing a half dozen scraps of paper in bewilderment. They turned out to be phone numbers. A half dozen women from the gallery opening he’d attended the previous evening had slipped them into his pocket when he wasn’t looking. He’d laughed about it. I’d stifled a pang of what I refused to acknowledge as jealousy.
Elinor Ann sighed. “You know, Dana, if you’d just thought to call him in the first place, you could have spared yourself an awful lot of trouble.”
“To say nothing of sparing Renée’s Uggs.” I had a discomfiting mental image of her traipsing through the streets of Bay Ridge in her socks that would linger in my mind until Alzheimer’s set in.
Thanks a lot, Lark, I thought to myself for at least the hundredth time since that mortifying episode. If she hadn’t spurred my quixotic quest for self-enlightenment, Renée’s boots—as well as my self-respect—would be intact.
“So, what’s your next move?” Elinor Ann wanted to know. “Are you going to call Ray back?”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe? After all that?”
“Maybe.”
The thing was, after all these years, I wanted Ray to get in touch with me—and this time, to remain on the line long enough to speak. The way I viewed it, a salvo had been fired when I’d attempted to make contact. Now it was his turn. As any seventh grader would agree, those were the rules.
But enough time had elapsed since the double hang-ups that I knew the call wouldn’t come that afternoon. And since the only thing I’d managed to keep down all day was a superannuated Quaalude, hunger was quickly becoming a more pressing issue than resolving an affair that was even older than the pill in my stomach. I grabbed a jacket and my keys and tossed a treat to Puny.
As soon as I reached the sidewalk, a sharp rapping on the glass of Vivian’s storefront made it clear lunch would have to wait.
“Well, it’s about fucking time,” she said when I walked through the door of Chase, Manhattan, which is what she calls her shop. Chase is Vivian’s last name, and even though she receives regular cease-and-desist letters from the similarly named bank, she refuses to heed them. (“I know my rights. As long as that comma’s in there, they can go to hell.”) She grabbed a formal gown off a rack and thrust it into my arms. “You’ve got to put this on right now.”
“Can’t we do it later? I’m starving.”
“Are you kidding me? This is a never-worn fifties Balenciaga with sleeves.”
I gathered this was a great rarity in the Balenciaga oeuvre, since she pronounced the word sa-leeves.
She rummaged underneath her desk and emerged with a digital camera. “I need to get a picture for the Web site. Hit the dressing room.”
There was no point in arguing. Vivian’s edicts were never subject to debate. Besides, I worked for her. Posing in her latest find came with the job. I’m tall and skinny enough to wear pretty much anything—once the bodice is stuffed to compensate for my triple-A cup size. Vivian was too tiny to serve as her own model; she stood barely five feet tall and wore sizes that ran the gamut from zero to double zero. Walking next to her made me feel like a Clydesdale clomping alongside a gazelle.
“Would you look at that beading,” she said after I emerged from behind the velvet curtains to strike my pose. “I’ll get four for it easy.”
“Four thousand?”
“No—four dollars. What do you think?”
Not for the first time, it occurred to me I might be severely undercharging her for my work.
We’d met several years ago when I stopped by the shop for a glass of the free wine she was offering during Grand Opening week. “I live upstairs,” I told her. “Directly overhead, as a matter of fact.”
“God, I wish you’d move,” Vivian said. “I’m already strapped for space in here. I’d love to knock through the ceiling and turn this place into a duplex.”
“Uh, I don’t think that’s going to happen,” I replied, a much more polite response than what I’d originally planned to blurt out, which was, “Try it, and I’ll turn my living room into a round-the-clock salon for the tap-dancing community.” I’d been in my apartment for fifteen years by then; the rent was less than half what my next-door neighbors were paying.
After sizing up my paint-spattered jeans and sweatshirt and obviously dismissing me as a potential client, Vivian immediately swooped down on a young Japanese woman who’d just wandered in, cocooned in fur and clutching an Yves Saint Laurent tote large enough to park a Hummer in.
“I’ve got absolutely the perfect thing for you!” She seized a sixties baby-doll shift and held it under the startled girl’s chin. “It’s gamine… No, it’s naif! Audrey Hepburn by way of Swinging London! And only six twenty-five. It’d be absolutely adorable with these fabulous new-old-stock go-go boots I tracked down on my last buying trip. Now, let’s see.… You’ve got to have these Lucite earrings.…” Without letting go of her customer’s elbow, she worked her way through the shop to the rear dressing room, snatching accessories at every turn. The girl trailed after her, nodding energetically and wearing an ardent expression common to religious zealots and winners of large jackpots on The Price Is Right. I settled on a couch with my glass of wine, took out a pen, and started doodling on a napkin.
After I’d snuck a second glass of wine and finished my drawing, I called toward the back of the store.
“Uh—see you later, I guess.”
“Probably.” She gave me a dismissive wave without turning around.
Moments later she was standing at my front door, brandishing the doodle in my face.
“Is this yours?”
Oops, I thought. Stalling for time, I inspected the napkin. I’d drawn the customer, outfitted in full sixties regalia, and bracketed her with commentary in elaborate lettering: Gamine over one shoulder, Naif over the other. Below her feet, I’d written the word Sucker.
I’d only been riffing on Vivian’s spiel, but I guess I’d hit a nerve.
“Sorry,” I muttered. “Meant to toss that before I left.”
“Are you kidding? This is exactly the right tone for my clientele—without the ‘Sucker,’ obviously. I’ve been thinking I should take out ads in some of the local freebie papers for a while now.… How much would one of these run me?”
I made a few quick calculations, factoring in the twenty or so minutes I’d spent on the drawing, the prospect of dealing with such an abrasive personality on a regular basis, the exorbitant price she was charging for the dress.…
“Two fifty a pop,” I said, fully expecting her to cut the bid in half.
“Done. I’ll need a new one every week. To tell you the truth, I was prepared to pay twice that.”
She brushed past me into the apartment while I mentally kicked myself for lowballing the job. Even so, I thought, I’ve just made a deal that will cover roughly half my monthly expenses. Maybe I could go part-time at the gallery in Chelsea. And—
Vivian paused in front of a painting propped against the kitchen cabinets. “Is this yours, too?”
“It is.”
She was looking at a still life I’d just completed: an experiment in unlearning everything I’d been taught by my art professors. Rather than follow their textbook advice—“start everywhere”—I’d painted the items one by one, finishing the bowl of lemons before moving on to the vase behind it, and so on. Only after each object was completed did I start in on the background, an elaborate floral tablecloth. The end result would have likely resulted in a D-minus back in school, but I’d had fun, and it satisfied me. Its lack of depth and disembodied forms made it look like the work of an untrained hand. And seeing as how the output from my
trained hand had failed to make an impression on even a single Manhattan art dealer, I considered it an encouraging development.
“Can you do something like this with, say, shoes?” Vivian said. “I’d love to hang one over my desk in the shop. And maybe you could give me a couple for the dressing rooms—jewelry would be good. Patterned scarves, too. Be sure to put some flowers in the background—chicks love flowers.” She paused. “You know, forget the ads for now. I’d rather be selling these paintings. I bet we could get seven fifty for one this size.”
“Sounds great,” I said, suddenly thrilled I’d stopped into the store for Vivian’s cheap chardonnay. Goodbye, boring gallery job, I thought, making a mental note to whip down to Pearl Paint first thing in the morning for fresh supplies.
A few days after our initial encounter, I entered Chase, Manhattan, toting the first canvas, an ensemble piece featuring items culled by my new patron: a pair of red patent leather platforms, an animal-print scarf by Vera, several Bakelite bangles, along with the requested floral accompaniment, a spray of forsythia.
“Perfect,” Vivian said. “I’ll get my hammer.”
As it turned out, she didn’t need it. A blowsy, middle-aged woman draped head to toe in flowing white garments entered the shop and let out a squeal of delight at the sight of my painting. “Fabulous,” she declared.
“You’ve got excellent taste,” Vivian informed her. “That’s a Hannah.”
“Hannah?” the woman said, which was exactly what I’d been about to say.
“An outsider artist from northern Maine,” Vivian explained. “Terribly reclusive. She lives alone in the cabin she was born in, miles from the nearest town. It’s insanely primitive. The only source of water is a stream on the property—do you know she’s actually never had a hot bath in her entire life? And she’s eighty-two!”
“Unbelievable!” the woman said.
“Scads of dealers have traveled up there to woo her into showing publicly over the last few years. Hannah wouldn’t have anything to do with them,” Vivian continued. “But one of my pickers heard about her and went to pay a visit, and for some reason she took to him—you’ll never believe this, but she served him a stew she’d made from root vegetables and squirrels she’d trapped in the woods.”
“Incredible!” the woman said.
“Oh, you can’t make this stuff up. Authenticity can’t be faked.”
As much as I was enjoying Vivian’s performance, I saw a potential pitfall down the road. “If Hannah’s so reclusive, then where did she find those?” I said, pointing to the patent leather platforms.
“Photographs,” Vivian replied. “I send up a new batch every month, along with some food items she’s grown partial to. She’s absolutely crazy about Cool Ranch Doritos.”
“Astonishing!” the woman said. “How much?”
“To be honest with you, I hadn’t really planned on selling this one.… Oh, what the hell. I like your outfit. Comme des Garçons really suits you. How’s twelve hundred sound?”
“I’ll take it!”
I had to fake a coughing fit to keep from laughing out loud.
“That’s fraud!” Elinor Ann said when I called with news of my nascent career.
“That’s much too strong a word for it,” I parried. “It’s… creative license. Plenty of artists paint under assumed names.”
“Well, sure, but speaking of licenses, it doesn’t say ‘eighty-two’ under ‘age’ on the one in your wallet. And as far as I know, you’ve never set foot in the state of Maine, let alone dined on squirrel. And the last time you took a cold bath was about twenty-five years ago, when Cabin Five decided to go skinny-dipping in Lake Wallenpaupack on that overnight camping trip.”
“Details.”
“This Vivian sounds dangerous,” she said.
“Oh, stop. That’s what you used to say about Ray Devine.”
“See? She is dangerous!”
“So what was the fantastic news you couldn’t wait to tell me?” I asked Vivian after the pictures for the Web site had been taken and I was struggling to free myself from the Balenciaga.
“Hannah sold two paintings yesterday. The opera gloves with the beaded purse and the orchid, and the rhinestone necklace draped over the watermelon backed by the row of hyacinths.”
“Really?” Even I’d thought the watermelon might have rendered Hannah just a little too eccentric.
Vivian handed me a check. I reached for it, but she wouldn’t release her grasp. I tugged for a moment, then finally looked down to discover I couldn’t see her hand. Well, most of her hand. It was nearly obliterated by a massive diamond.
“Chad finally proposed!” she squealed. “Last night at La Grenouille!”
With anyone else I knew, such an announcement would constitute a momentous event, but in Vivian’s case, engagements occurred more frequently than one-day sales at Macy’s. Chad was a hedge fund manager Vivian had been dating for a grand total of five and a half weeks. In fact, he was her third hedge fund manager in as many years, and, improbably, her second Chad.
“That’s—wonderful,” I finally managed. “Congratulations.”
“We haven’t set a date, but—”
My stomach growled loudly enough to be audible in Midtown. “Listen, I’m really happy for you,” I said, “but if I’m not seated in a restaurant within the next five minutes, I’m going to pass out. How about a late celebratory lunch? On me, of course.”
“Are you out of your mind? Didn’t you hear me tell you I was at La Grenouille last night? I’m not eating a fucking thing until Tuesday.”
“Okay, well—thanks for the check. I’ll get started on some new Hannahs in the morning. And congratulations again.”
In response, she flashed her ring, fingers waggling. “Six carats!”
CHAPTER FIVE
SPEAK OF THE DEVIL
It was hard to muster much enthusiasm for Vivian’s news. Two to three weeks seemed to be the average shelf life of her engagements. Eventually her suitor would commit an act so blasphemous that he’d be banished permanently from her zip code. The last one had been sent packing for the unforgiveable sin of being lowborn.
“What are you, eleventh in line to the throne?” I’d asked at the time. “Didn’t you tell me you were from Ypsilanti, Michigan?”
“I am. But he claimed to be from Philadelphia’s Main Line. Turns out his parents own a pizza joint in Paoli. Which is hardly a pedigree that’s going to get my unborn twin daughters into Brearley, is it?”
It won’t be long before Chad meets the same fate, I thought, making my way down First Avenue en route to lunch. But before his engagement ring was back in Cartier’s display case, she’d find someone new who would not only meet her rigid standards of genealogical and physical perfection, but also have enough purchasing power to corner the market on the world’s platinum reserves. Plus he’d enjoy gourmet cooking and bestowing expert, lengthy foot massages in his spare time.
The cliché was true: All the good ones were indeed taken. By Vivian.
Then again, I reminded myself as I made a left onto Seventh Street, she was interested in only the high-net-worth good ones. Therefore, it was still open season on the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker.…
Or whoever drove that Dodge.
Parked in front of a boarded-up brownstone just east of the avenue sat a vintage panel truck that stopped me in my tracks. It had been restored to perfection, with rechromed bumpers and a two-tone paint job of cream and sea-foam green.
Hmm, I thought. I would happily forgo foot massages and ragoût de lapin braisé aux chanterelles for a few spins around town in this baby.
On the windowless rear sides of the truck, J. H. Wheeler and Son was painted in brush script, with three lines of smaller block capitals underneath reading RESTORERS OF FINE HOMES, WOODWORKING AND PLASTER, and MASTER ELECTRICIANS.
Hmm, I thought. The light switch in my bathroom could really stand to be rewired. Come to think of it, it was probably a
major fire hazard in dire need of immediate professional attention.
This wouldn’t be the first time I’d experienced love at first sight—of a vehicle. In college, I’d spent the better part of senior year attempting to determine the identity of the owner of a classic Falcon, parking my own classic, a Chevy inherited from Dad, as near to it as space would allow. Finally, with weeks to go before semester’s end, fate intervened in the lot reserved for students.
“So you’re ’sixty-four Sprint.”
“So you’re ’sixty-seven Camaro.”
We spent the remainder of our academic careers with our pants down around our ankles, our cars and futures all but forgotten. We’d relocated to opposite coasts after graduation, but I’d held fast to the belief that automotive compatibility was as valid a basis as any for selecting a mate.
Further investigation was called for. I stepped off the curb to read the year printed on the truck’s registration tag: 1948. I looked up at the brownstone, which had been a source of much recent speculation around the neighborhood. After years of sitting empty, allegedly due to a disputed estate, signs of renovation had begun to appear. Roofers had been spotted replacing gutters and missing shingles. Mini-Dumpsters filled up with chunks of rubble and were carted away. The old, cracked windowpanes were now covered with plywood, as was the door, which was secured by a heavy chain and a massive padlock.
But on this day the padlock was clamped firmly shut, and I doubted that any electrician, master or otherwise, had worked on a Sunday afternoon since the invention of the lightbulb. Therefore, J. H. Wheeler (or Son) would not be found inside the building. It was time to get some lunch.
As I came around the rear of the Dodge on my way back to the sidewalk, a loud grunt emerged from the cargo area, followed by snoring that could have drowned out the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.
