The Lost Art: A Romantic Comedy

by Jennifer Griffith

  “Ava Young. Visiting Exhibits. You know her, Enzio, my friend. You met her your first day. I was standing there. Man suit.”

  Ava’s breath caught in her throat. Her name being bandied about like a racehorse’s on race day—by none other than Enzio Valente, he of the will-melting smile.

  Turn on your Dansko clog heel and run, she told herself. Run before you subject yourself to the cruelty of his estimation of you. But she couldn’t. Her clogs left no one in doubt of her arrival or departure from any given area, clip-clopping on the terrazzo tiles. And the damning weakness of curiosity glued her to her post at the wall.

  Enzio chuckled. “Ava Young? You’re nuts.”

  “Oh, come on. She’s kinda, kinda.”

  “Come on. I called her sir. Totally thought she was a man when I met her.”

  Friend chuckled.

  “Look, maybe she has a nice personality.” Way to go, Enzio. He could see the real Ava, couldn’t he?

  “Please. Personality? She’s like a robot with breasts.”

  Enzio stifled a laugh and asked, snickering, “Breasts? What breasts? Who could see them if they exist at all through that man-shirt.”

  “Valente, you’re so right. And with the acne and the grey strands, it’s no wonder they call her Ava Old, instead of Ava Young. More like an old crone. Me and the guys refer to her as the Ice Hag.”

  “Huh. Like the White Witch?”

  “Exactly.” The two dissolved in snuffles of laughter.

  That was it. She could take no more. Mustering all her powers and clenching her jaw, she marched cheeks flaming toward Accounts Payable. In spite of knowing she had received exactly the payment she deserved for eavesdropping, Ava couldn’t help the tear welling in her eye as she clunked past the now-zip-lipped men. Enzio eyed her sheepishly and she sailed past him without a word. The two whispered furtively after she went by, but she shut out their words by sheer force of will.

  How could he? How could they? Were men really so critical? Did they have nothing better to do at work than stand around guffawing about the women who constantly worked circles around them? Did they not have a compassionate cell in their entire bodies? Where did they get off thinking it was okay to be so utterly and completely malicious?

  After a swift deposit of the requisition, she marched robotically (as only she could, as the resident Robot With or Without Breasts) toward the elevator and went down to the lobby and out into the courtyard before allowing the first tear to spill. Ava had never been so ridiculously emotional for so many days on end in her entire adult life. Not since the age of thirteen when every girl turns into a total lunatic for three and a half years had she been so out of control with her feelings. Why now?

  Maybe it was the stress of the Hudson River project. Maybe it was a hundred other factors.

  Or maybe not.

  She walked through the mostly empty back streets near the museum, avoiding all foot traffic possible as she walked off her weeping. In her heart of hearts, Ava knew what drove this pain—truth. Because the truth hurts.

  But, she thought, what about this other pain—the pain in her head that wouldn’t go away? Or the ache she had started to feel in her arms and legs earlier this morning. She had naturally dismissed them as she tackled the myriad details of the craziness at work. Then, her nose suddenly clogged up, and not from crying.

  Ava sneezed. Was it ragweed season again? Were they spraying the cotton on the Fort McDowell Indian Reservation nearby? That always made her feel sniffly. Wrong time of year.

  How hideous she must look to everyone, how repulsive her very being must be to all who encountered her. As she walked briskly through heat-emanating streets she let her tears fall. She was, after all, a person, whether these jerks—in all their forms at work—thought so or not. She had feelings. And they smarted.

  It took a long time, but finally, after trekking past the old bookstore she loved and the art supply house of her fondest dreams, and staring at the display of excellent brushes in the window, she gathered her wits again and headed back to the office in less emotional but more physical pain than when she left.

  “Ooh, uh, Ava? Yoohoo?” Miss Saber Tooth Sunshine called out as Ava passed. “You, like, ought to take this call.”

  Since when did Ava’s calls go through Harmony Billows’ line?

  Groggily Ava made her way back to her desk in time to reach the phone before it hit voice mail. She was dripping with sweat but freezing cold and starting to seriously shiver. What was wrong with her?

  “Ava Young.” Her voice was sounding scratchy. Perhaps from the crying.

  “Is this the Ava Young who asked me if I wanted to buy an art exhibit, because if it’s that Hudson River Masters stuff y’all have been blasting all over the airwaves, I am first in line. First. In line.”

  “Kellen McMullen?”

  “How’d you know it, my love?” He called her his love. Either this was some weird daytime dream or obviously he was one man who hadn’t seen this robot with breasts to be repulsed by her. “Wait. You’re clairvoyant.”

  “Hardly. You’re the only one I offered it to. So yes, Mr. McMullen, you are indeed first in line.” She had to get it together, act professional.

  “Abandon that ‘Mr. McMullen’ stuff immediately because that’s not me. That’s my dad, heaven rest his soul. Call me Kellen, or else I’ll hang up right now and never speak to you again. Got it?”

  “Understood, er, Kellen.” Yeah, this still sounded like a dream. He was kind of weird.

  “That’s what I like to hear. It sounds good coming from you. Before we go on, though, I have to know one thing: 1969 moon landing—real or faked?”

  What? Ava’s head felt foggy, but not foggy enough to dream up this conversation. “Um, faked?”

  “I knew it!”

  “Knew what?”

  “That you were my type of girl!”

  Ava didn’t believe it was faked. She was just asking him to clarify. Her powers of logic were fading in and out. She popped a piece of Asper-gum in her mouth.

  “Not that I’m convinced of the fake myself—despite the evidence. I mean, yeah, the fact photographs didn’t show stars, and the rumor from that Australian woman about seeing the Coca-Cola bottle roll across the lower corner of her TV screen, and the big question—who filmed Neil Armstrong stepping onto the moon’s surface?—I can still buy it.”

  Ava felt like she’d entered another dimension, but she had to give some kind of comeback. “The star question is easy—all the pictures were taken during lunar daytime. The Coke bottle has been debunked. The woman lost her credibility when she told people she had to stay up late at night to watch the landing, and it happened during Australian daytime. And Lunar Lander took the film.”

  “But you still don’t buy it?” Kellen McMullen sounded unconvinced.

  “No, I think it was real. A couple of years ago, they released long-range photographs that show the flags the astronauts planted still up there.”

  “I knew you were my type of girl!” Kellen said again. Wait. Was he contradicting himself? She couldn’t tell. And then he backtracked. “I mean, someone who’s thought something, anything¸ through. That’s just a huge relief. Hey, you’ve got one of those throaty voices I like in a woman. Husky. Nice. Have we met somewhere?”

  Ava, in her weakened state, was powerless to put up a fight against his blatant hitting on her. Normally, a guy like this would be repulsive, but today she shivered with excitement. Or was that … a fever? For one thing, she needed this guy—and his bottomless checkbook—desperately. For another, to be truthful, she found it refreshing in the highest degree, especially after the bludgeoning her self-esteem had taken just a few minutes before.

  “Met?” Had she met him? Nooooo. “I don’t think so.”

  “Why don’t we, then? Over drinks, tonight. The Cold Toad.”

  “That is so generous of you, Mr.—I mean, Kellen. Super nice.” Super weird. And there was no way.

  “But what, darl
ing? You’re engaged? You’re busy? You’re married?” He flirted outrageously. This was foreign ground for Ava. Her sickness and ever groggier head propelled her through it.

  “Ha! Not today, I’m not, Kellen.”

  “Oh, sweet cupids above. Shoot me now.”

  Whatever. He was completely a kook, but Ava needed, so needed, his cash. She had no choice but to play along with this tabloid hopping weirdo.

  “I would love to meet you, but truthfully, I just checked my temperature and I’m running a fever and need to get home to bed. If I don’t I might croak here and now. Forgive me? Meet me a different day?”

  “Your place with a feverish you is sounding real good right now, Ava Young, but I see how it is.”

  “No, seriously, Kellen.”

  “Are you being serious? Cause that flu is going a-round and a-round. No gives. Like cooties. Remember? You could say ‘no gives’ and no one could give you the cooties in grade school? I’m totally against the cooties. And the flu. So, call me when you’re all perky and chipper and we’ll chill it at The Cold Toad. Got it, Ava Young? Got it?”

  “It’s a date, Kellen McMullen.” She about slapped herself after saying that—surreal on so many levels.

  He made little chit chat sounds like he was about to hang up, then added, “Oh, and about the money. No prob. Already had it sent over to the museum. One stipulation, okay? Kellen McMullen brings you the Hudson River Masters. Is that all hunky dory? Gotta make sure I get all the bang for my buck. Or was that bucks? Buckaroo. Buckarooney. Buckarooneys.”

  He hung up, and Ava, even in her now nearly incapacitated state of influenza, wondered exactly how many buckarooneys the much-weirder-than-ever-expected Kellen McMullen had paid to plaster his name all over their once-sacred museum exhibit. She called Jean in Accounts Receivable, who gave her a round number.

  “How much?” Ava about swallowed her Asper-gum.

  Jean repeated the amount.

  “Well. Well. Well now. Well that should about cover today’s disbursement request for the Glastonbury. And a dozen more like it.”

  Kellen McMullen brings you the Hudson River Masters, indeed!

  Ava, in a stupor of roller coaster emotions and near collapse, hailed a cab for the five block distance and went home to crawl into bed.

  She woke up two days later.

  Chapter 3

  “Hi, Mr. Phelps. I’m so sorry I haven’t checked in. I’ve been sick as a dog and passed out on my couch since I left work the other day.” Ava was starving, but too feverish to stand and make herself anything to eat. Empty Capri Sun bags lay in a pile around the side of her bed.

  “Fine, Ava. It’s fine. Now that the financing of the project is up and running, thanks to you, we’re back in business. You just take as long as you need to get better. Well, as long as you need.”

  “You know me, Mr. Phelps. Workaholic.”

  “Attaboy, Young. That’s why I trust you’re home sick and not playing hooky, shopping with friends and getting mani-pedis.” Mr. Phelps huffed out exasperation and then took a confidential tone. “You’re not like the other women in this office, and it’s refreshing. Keep being just plain you.”

  In her haze of illness, Ava didn’t know how to take Mr. Phelps backhanded compliment. She hung up and went back to sleep—for about fifteen minutes, when the phone rang again. Harmony Billows’ trilling laughter pealed on the other end of the line.

  “I know you’re sick, Ava, but I just had to call and tell you the most hilarious thing. I know you’ll get a good laugh, and I just couldn’t wait. Get this! Some jerk claiming he’s Kellen McMullen has called here six times yesterday and today. And he’s been asking for you. You! Isn’t that just the most ridiculous thing? He says he donated a bunch of money to the museum and now he wants his payment, which supposedly is a date with, what did he call you? The oh-so-sultry Ava Young. Please! Get back, Loretta. That’s the most out-of-control thing I’ve heard all week. I knew you’d think it was just a gag, a total gag, so I called. Sorry if you’re still sick. You weren’t asleep, were you? I mean, not like you’re trying to get any beauty rest.”

  Ava didn’t have the energy for the cackles of disbelief. Her head ached, her face ached, her ears ached. And now her feelings ached. Harmony Billows had stepped over the line one too many times.

  After another day of total bed-rest, Ava finally made herself leave her room, take a shower, and move her mobile first-aid station of Sucrets, Mucinex, Thera-Flu, orange juice and Kleenex boxes out to the sofa, where she huddled under a fuzzy blanket and turned on the television. It was strange to hear human voices again after so long in silence.

  Daytime TV—what a scary landscape, Ava realized. How could a person possibly survive as a human with actual detectable brain activity after much time absorbing this content? Soaps, infomercials, bowling? Oh, brother.

  Ava went back to sleep. She dreamed for the first time in a few days, as far as she could recall. Unfortunately, in her dream she saw herself as the model for some sci-fi movie clones readying for war. In the background she heard two men’s voices saying those cruel words, “robot with breasts.”

  But then her daytime sleep created a problem. She woke up at 10:30 p.m. and suddenly felt wide awake. With no appetite and no energy Ava resorted to late night TV. It was not much better than daytime, she concluded. Her skin still pinged from the fever, and her knees and elbows and throat ached. She felt like a mud puddle.

  After surfing through all one-zillion channels, she finally landed on something perky, a show called What Not to Wear. The hosts Clinton and Stacey observed a poor, unsuspecting person and her fashion and then surprised her, criticized her, then did a major makeover.

  Ava lay there, staring blankly at the perpetrators and their victims. The show bordered on intolerable cruelty, in legal terms.

  But then again, it made for undeniable entertainment.

  After trying to look away, checking all the channels, she inexplicably found herself back on What Not to Wear and eventually saw the final, made-over product. Five thousand dollars worth of shopping later, the girl looked fantastic, full of confidence, and measurably happier.

  Weird. Absolutely weird.

  And false, Ava believed. The whole idea that a person’s self-worth should be based on her appearance, and that she ought to find happiness in wearing some ridiculous article of clothing which, sure—flattered her figure and made her look a lot more attractive than before, but which would be completely out of style within about three months, at which time another $5,000 would need to be spent to redo the whole experience—well, Ava found it not just fanciful but repulsive.

  But Ava noticed on the guide another episode of it would be on, in, hmm, an hour.

  For the next hour, the only thing she could stomach was a QVC home shopping network infomercial on some kind of special makeup, a brand called Intrepid. Hadn’t Zoe mentioned she saw this makeup on Oprah?

  Ava, of course, wore no makeup, not even a swipe of mascara, but in her brain fog of influenza, somehow she found the operation fascinating. Moisturizer, concealer, foundation, eyebrow plucking, blush, shadow, liners, lipsticks. In all her life, Ava had never actually paid attention to any of these details. Fascinating.

  Most fascinating of all was the $150 tube of mascara that supposedly contained a chemical that makes eyelashes grow. How could that be?

  The makeup artist, however, had a knack. And the hostess of the infomercial made it sound like such an incredible bargain—the entire line of products for just under $350. Bargain? Hmm.

  But as the night wore on, the more she thought about the bargain. Against her will, Ava memorized the QVC phone number and the product ordering information for all that Intrepid makeup. The bronze-toned products interested her immensely. Would they obscure her acne and her blotchy skin?

  She dozed, then slept. Deeply.

  * * *

  When she woke up the next morning, nose all clogged, the TV blared another episode of Clinton and Stac
y. Ava couldn’t move from the couch. Her muscles ached, and her face burned so she watched it again.

  This time they had a younger woman in their clutches. She wore what they called hideously shapeless clothing (completely obscuring her very nice figure) and ridiculously sensible shoes.

  Their criticism sizzled in Ava’s clogged ears. It hit a little too close to home. She blew her nose, and switched the channel. She was dying of thirst and pulled another juice box from her tabletop stash. Drinking it at least made the pulsing knot in her stomach go away. The TV felt like her only friend. On some local network, she found a health confessional, always good for mind candy. Ava glued her attention to this poor woman, determined to shut out the Clinton and Stacy meanness. Hideously shapeless clothing? But it was functional, right?

  Back to the health confessional.

  “I never ever believed it was possible,” the healthy woman confessed. “But all these years I was suffering! I was the victim of what is now known to medical science as Chocolate Breast Tissue Allergy Syndrome, or CBTAS.”

  Boy, Ava was glad she herself had no allergy to chocolate. What would she be eating all day every day? On the coffee table there still sat a pile of wrappers from her cry-fest with Zoe last week.

  The woman on TV continued. She was a very pretty woman, and definitely showing off her curves, not in hopelessly shapeless clothing. Clinton and Stacy would like her—well, maybe not her Texas-sized hair.

  “All these years, every day I ate lots and lots of chocolate,” she drawled in a charming fashion. “Chocolate ice cream, chocolate candy bars, handfuls of chocolate chips straight from the bag. I was like some kind of drug addict, but I had no idea what the side effects were.”

  Oh, darn. Another weight-loss miracle. Disappointed she took another swig of her steaming hot nasty Thera-Flu mug.

  “All my friends kept telling me, Gregoria, someday that chocolate is going to catch up with you. I just laughed. It didn’t seem to make any difference. I could eat chocolate all day long and never gain a pound. But what I didn’t know was what it was doing to my bra size.”