The Lost Art: A Romantic Comedy

by Jennifer Griffith

  When she didn’t leave Mr. Phelps’s office right away, he questioned, “Problem? What is it?”

  “The other staffers. Will they—?”

  “They’ll have to. You’re the one who works like a dog around here. No offense.” He cleared his throat. “The other staffers on the project will have to deal with the fact that you’re younger, but none of them doubt your capabilities, and neither do I. Now, get working on it.”

  He looked down at his desk calendar, and Ava knew the conversation had come to an end.

  The thought made her stomach churn. No question. She really needed chocolate. Luckily she kept a major stash of snack size candy bars in her desk. The KitKats called to her. And so did the Milky Ways, and the chocolate chips straight from the bag…

  Once her nerves were calmed sufficiently by the theobromine, which she always loved that it comes from Latin words meaning “Food of the Gods,” she sat down at her desk, opened Friedman’s jelly-doughnut-smudged Hudson River Masters file, pulled up her own file on her computer, and began evaluating what had been done and what needed to be done.

  It took her three hours, but Ava finally digested the enormity of the task.

  First, the paintings. Sixty-five large oils were slated to arrive on a Wednesday, at 4:45 in the afternoon. They would be shipped by special freight, most likely by DHL or Guardian Armored Car van service. The seventy-nine smaller paintings would come separately, possibly by FedEx Air. The Glastonbury had never before loaned out this particular collection, and was only doing so this fall for the Phoenix Metropolitan Museum of Art because of a massive remodeling project they had planned for their large gallery.

  This would be the first time these incredible landscape pieces would be displayed outside of New England. Ava felt a shiver of excitement just thinking about it.

  And fear. Security was going to be a major issue. She’d better set up a meeting with local law enforcement as soon as possible. Or even maybe with someone higher up.

  She had always loved the Hudson River School, which was actually an artistic movement and not a school at all. It began in the early 1800s in New York state, and the painters mostly focused on depicting the Hudson River Valley, the Catskill Mountains, the Adirondacks, and nearby areas. Ava adored their romantic views of the grandeur of the new, fresh areas of early America, and there were times she almost wished she could sink into the pictures alongside the green hills, the towering trees, the cattle and the broad sky.

  Her favorite among the masters had to be Albert Bierstadt. Or maybe Thomas Cole. Unless it was William Hart. Bierstadt created the best mountain scenes; oh, but Hart’s paintings always included the cattle, and she loved that. All of them—really, all of them—with their brushes and oils, created in Ava’s mind a sense of what heaven might look like.

  Looking at the Hudson River artists’ work also set her wishing—wishing she could create something beautiful and inspiring and grand with her own set of brushes that now lay long unused in their jar on her shelf in the closet. Not a brush stroke had been made by those horsehair bristles since she graduated from art school seven years ago.

  She sighed and looked through her catalog from the Glastonbury again.

  Four small paintings by Asher Durand would be in the exhibit, plus his sprawling and famous engraving of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. This piece alone should bring in an estimated 35,000 patrons to the Phoenix museum. At $15 a ticket, the financial impact became quite significant.

  In addition, the list included several by Church, who also painted South American scenes, a few by Kensett, and four from Cropsey.

  However, the real prize in the display would be by the master of the masters: Frederic Edwin Church. His grandiose mural of Niagara Falls stretched nearly eleven feet long, and looking at it even in the catalog, the viewer could hear the crash of the water descending its way to the roiling depths at the bottom of the falls. It was incredible. It was a masterpiece.

  And it was coming here!

  Ava caught her breath in happiness.

  More than just her job was on the line here. She had been charged with the duty of protecting a national treasure—nay, a worldwide treasure of artistic beauty, more valuable than anything else she could imagine. It both exhilarated and terrified her. This major booking promised to be a patron draw as big as the Vermeer exhibit three years ago.

  So, that would do for the paintings. At least on that front, she felt ready. The shipping details were set, the provenances all accounted for, the audio-tour had already been written and recorded in a local sound studio. Friedman at least finished up that much before his troubles reappeared. The order of the paintings merely needed to be arranged.

  Other details swirled before her eyes.

  Gallery space. Placement of the art pieces. How to make a crescendo for the patrons. What color to paint the walls where the art would hang. Advertising. Friedman did have notes about an underwriter, so maybe that was solid. She hoped.

  Paying! Now that detail felt like a gut punch. Fundraising had always been Ava’s least favorite part of this job, but when the economy had a blip so did museum funding, which was why she’d been trolling the internet for billionaires. This exhibit might be one of the most expensive she’d ever heard of. Sure, some of the recent showings of European masters had racked up the cost, but the sheer quantity of pieces this time eclipsed previous shows. Booking this showing was a coup d’état, but it could end up being a coup de grâce, a deathblow, if no one came to see it to offset the cost.

  Things were tight.

  Ava sent a meeting notification to the other staff on the Visiting Exhibits team and set to work on her forte: details.

  * * *

  The next morning, Ava arrived twenty minutes early for work. To her surprise, Harmony Billows already sat at her desk, busily applying her daily cake-up.

  “Ava Young. You again.”

  “Good morning, Harmony.” Ava responded—a bit terse, perhaps, but polite. Maintain a working relationship. That was her goal.

  “Fine. Yeah. Good morning. Well, it is for me, anyway. But you look like death warmed over. What happens to you at night? Do you ever, ever sleep?”

  “I sleep fine, Harmony. Thank you for your concern.”

  “A little toner or moisturizer or foundation—ever heard of it?—could really do wonders for those dark circles, Ava.”

  All this exchange occurred in the moments between Ava’s first step onto the top of the staircase and final turn past Harmony’s workspace. Three insults in a five second span. Not a record, but Harmony was in fine form. Ava decided not to suppress the sneer this morning, the special sneer reserved for the resident hoochie mama. Out of the corner of her eye Ava noted Harmony’s fishnet stockings and six inch heels with eleven black leather straps. Ridiculous.

  The truth was, however, Ava hadn’t slept well at all. Stress from thinking about the project drove all restfulness from her soul, and she tossed and turned most of the night, getting up almost hourly. She felt like Harmony said: death warmed over.

  And warmed was right.

  At this early hour the Phoenix sun already seared its way into the sky and heated up an already hot town. Overnight the low had settled in the high 90s and Ava’s clothes stuck to her like those old iron-on patches of yesteryear. The water cooler called to her again.

  Unfortunately, in line ahead of her stood another early bird. This one made a disgusting sniffling sound and sneezed directly onto the entire stack of paper cone cups. Ava recognized the guy, vaguely, as an under-curator for the photography collection, someone whose path hers seldom crossed. Dang it. And now their breath had crossed. She wrinkled her nose and forgot the idea of the drink of water for now.

  “Allergies?” Ava inquired politely.

  “I don’ dow. I dever haddem befo.”

  She felt bad for the guy and decided to say something. “A lot of people who never had allergies before moving to Arizona get them. It’s strange but common. G
ood luck.” She shrugged, and the mucus monster walked away blowing his nose. Ick.

  Now a dilemma presented itself. Yes, she was dying of thirst. No, she did not want to drink out of one of the cups SnotNose just sneezed on. It took her three seconds of pondering before she decided to spring for the bottled water from the Dasani machine down the hall. It was colder anyway.

  The staff meeting went much better than expected. No one openly rebelled against her, not even Nigel the art hack who’d worked as an appraiser at Christie’s and never let them forget it. Sure, he frowned a lot, but he didn’t scream “No!” when she asked him to begin selecting the order in which the paintings would be placed to create a pleasant experience for the viewers. Harrumph, da; screaming in open rebellion, nyet.

  “What are you planning to do about the gift shop items, A-va?” The big haired grand-dame of the team chewed on Ava’s name like it was taffy.

  “Yes. Would you please head that up, Madge?” Ava handed it right back to the asker. “We will need to have postcards made up of all the most famous pieces, as well as several reproductions of all sizes. Can you get some local artists working on those now? Work with the gift shop staff on the other items.”

  Madge frowned, peering over her tiny wire frame reading glasses on a chain, but nodded yes.

  A dozen other issues came up and were delegated in the meeting, which, to Ava’s satisfaction lasted just under forty minutes—the very definition of a successful meeting.

  Back at her desk, she looked at the details she had kept for herself.

  To her dismay, no one had stepped up to the challenge of the final fundraising needs. Other than Ava’s minuscule internet searches, Friedman had always taken care of those himself, and everyone claimed ineptitude. Which left Ava holding the beggar’s plate. She still needed a cool fifty thousand to round out the coffers for all they needed to do to complete their plans.

  Glancing over the list of donors, she saw lots of names she recognized—from private citizens who supported the arts, to corporations who wanted the tax write-off and the publicity.

  Which of these appeared most likely to donate again to make the final details happen? The Traxler Charitable Trust? The Saguaro Institute? Horizon? Horizon had already given so much. She hated to ask them for another penny. But it had to be done. She started at the tippy top of the big donor list.

  “Hello? This is Ava Young from the Phoenix Metropolitan Museum of Art. Whom would I speak to about charitable donations?”

  The hole in Friedman’s note-keeping annoyed her. She had the donor list but no specific names from any. Friedman glad-handed everyone and remembered the name of everyone he’d ever met. He must not have needed to write down the names.

  “Donations?” The Horizon receptionist dissolved in guffaws and hung up.

  That was strange.

  Ava dialed the line again, but this time her call went into voice mail.

  She decided to try them again later.

  Suddenly $50,000 seemed like a much larger amount of money.

  Instinctively, Ava began chewing on her fingernails. When two of them had been bitten down to the nub, she still didn’t have any ideas.

  Except fresh chocolate. Lots of it.

  Over at the vending area, she fed twelve quarters into the machine and then pushed various combinations of letters and numerals and watched in relief as the candy bars dropped: Charleston Chew, Uno, Hershey’s Kisses in a bag, Special Dark, Snickers.

  She ate the Snickers by the time she got back to her desk. Then she arranged the other candy neatly on her desk calendar. There, beneath the corner of the silver wrapped Uno gleamed the day, just two months away, when all her fears culminated: the opening of the Hudson River Masters exhibit. Between now and then her life belonged to the museum.

  She opened the Kisses and unwrapped them as fast as she could.

  “Ugh! Do you know what you’re doing to your body, Ava?” Harmony Billows wafted past. “It’s self-defeating, you know. Those carbs and fats will definitely catch up to you someday.”

  Harmony would know. Years and years of Danishes seemed to perch atop some sort of painful looking underwear making a roll of fat just under her shoulder blade. Ava could see it through the both-tight-and-sheer shirt Harmony sported today. Could fashion go any lower? Hard to imagine. But if it could, Harmony would descend.

  “Oh, and Ava?” Harmony glanced back as she flounced away. “Mr. Phelps needs to see you in his office. Pronto.”

  Again? Not Mr. Phelps’s style to belabor a point. Good news he delivered by email, bad news in person. The feeling a person gets when she sees flashing red and blue lights in the rear view mirror washed over Ava. Her heart pounded, blood drained from her face.

  “Sit down, Young.”

  She obeyed.

  “Now. I know you’ve had a lot to deal with in the last day.” He paused and fiddled with his tobacco pipe that he could no longer smoke indoors since the Clean Air Act a few years ago. The silence stretched until she had to sit on her hand to keep from biting another nail. “And I heard your meeting this morning went fine.”

  “Yes?”

  “But I have some bad news. The Hudson River Masters exhibit for this fall just had one of its major sponsors pull out.”

  Ava’s stomach jumped into her throat. She made a sound like a wounded ostrich.

  “I’m sorry.” Mr. Phelps’ lips pressed into a thin line.

  “Which sponsor?” Please, please don’t say Horizon, she pleaded silently as she glanced down at her ankle, which was looking water-retentive in those white socks.

  “Horizon, I’m afraid. You saw the news at lunch, I assume.”

  She shook her head. Ava always kept a hawk eye on the news, but lunch today she spent at the vending machine. Too much to do here.

  Horizon! The Big Donor. The big donor. Oh, no.

  Ava made an attempt at zen breathing while Mr. Phelps explained about the embezzlement charges, the scandal of the CEO and the impending implosion.

  “It’s bad. Very bad news. Honestly, we ought to grieve for them, but it’s hard to focus on their feelings at the loss when we ourselves will feel such shocking repercussions.” Mr. Phelps shook his head while Ava chewed yet another fingernail and crossed and re-crossed her legs.

  “But, look. Chin up. We’ve already done a huge advertising campaign, so that’s a sunk cost. I’m not going to pull the Hudson River exhibit from the website just yet, and I don’t want you to notify the Glastonbury Museum until you’ve given it a couple of days’ trying to round up more support. The money is out there, I’m sure.”

  Mr. Phelps didn’t sound sure.

  “And Young? Find it. Find it now.”

  In his voice she filled in the blanks. Find it or find another job.

  In a daze, Ava walked back to her desk, barely noticing when Enzio Valente walked past to the water cooler. That’s how distraught she was.

  In less than two minutes, she ate the remainder of the chocolunch splurge, plus the Riesens from her fanny pack. Normally, Riesen chocolate-covered caramels were so stiff they took five minutes apiece to chew through, but she downed them all in record time.

  From this morning’s efforts, she knew Horizon was the major underwriter of the exhibit. With the minor burst of courage the chocolate effected in her, Ava cracked open Friedman’s file to see exactly how much money the laser of death on Horizon evaporated from her Hudson River account.

  Creeeeak. She peeked into the file. Oh, man!

  Suddenly $50,000 looked like chump change.

  Where, oh where would she ever be able to make up that kind of cash?

  Nowhere.

  The exhibit was doomed.

  And so was Ava’s career.

  Chapter 2

  “Needless to say, it’s a crushing blow.” Ava looked around the room at the members of the Visiting Exhibits team. They stared back at her with jaws in various states of drop and brows in all depths of furrowing.

  Madge was the f
irst to speak, taking off her glasses on a chain and scratching her head with one of the thin metal arms. “Ava, this represents eighteen months of fundraising. It’s the death knell of our dreams.”

  “The way I see it, Madge, we will need fifty of our other major donors to cough up very generous sums to make up for this loss.”

  Everyone in the room was frowning a terrible frown at this point. Ava had no good news for anyone.

  “Okay, folks. I wanted to let you know the lay of the land, and that all of our jobs are on the chopping block here. As soon as anyone has any bright ideas, send them to me instantly, please. I’m up for any, any suggestions. Thanks.”

  A general grumble arose from the group, and the other team members filed out, frowning. Ava clomped back to her cubicle.

  Not fair, so not fair. Her first big assignment, and kablooey. Up in smoke a day after she accepted the task. In her six years at the museum, nothing this devastating had ever happened to her—or to anyone in the department, as far as she knew.

  Back at her desk she looked afresh at the donor list. In her search for the original fifty grand yesterday afternoon, she had called every single donor listed, but it had been like trying to get blood from beets. Useless. Everyone was tapped out completely, or at least had given to the maximum of their interest level in the project. She toyed with the idea of calling each of them again today, explaining the situation, including the fact that the exhibit’s very existence was now in question; but she feared that would make them all feel like they would be throwing good money after bad.

  And they might be.

  No, this donor list was as stale as yesterday’s doughnuts.

  She needed to get creative. She read a blog of a European art theft expert on why art theft is more akin to kidnapping than general theft while her subconscious churned. Still no one from her staff had approached her with suggestions about finance, so at last she did what every other person in her generation chose to do at the first sign of questioning: she Googled it.