by Alix Strauss
A month later you are at Olive’s parents’ home in Connecticut. They’re away so she’s having a party. Look at your best friend lying in the water doing the dead man’s float in an enormous pool enclosed by rocks and shrubbery. Her eyes are closed. Strands of dark hair sway with the ripples. Her blue bathing suit masks most of her body so all you see are pale appendages and a bobbing head. There are seventy-five pounds less of her than last year. It has taken over thirteen months for her to shed them and although she has an additional forty to go, she looks amazing.
Wonder if she feels lighter in the heated water, lighter when she walks, when she breathes. For more than a decade, you’ve been the encouraging one, the instigator of activities, the cheerleader of new projects. Though you offered to join a gym in her neighborhood so she could have someone to go with, choked down sandy-tasting protein bars, picked out smaller-size clothing at heavyset women’s stores as incentives, nothing has worked until now. His name is Ray. She met him at a bar. Suddenly the word “baby” has formed on her lips. Now there’s a ticking clock. The world is getting married and she, too, wants to be part of that. A worried look from her doctor during a recent checkup when he took her blood pressure and she refused to get on the scale probably helped, too.
Glance around and mentally tally up the guests you don’t know—eighteen. Outsiders. Friends of Ray’s, some of Olive’s who she met online, or at the park or God knows where.
It used to be these parties were filled with both your contemporaries: business associates, art directors, sculptors and artists, co-workers from MoMA, where Olive works. Now, instead of being surrounded by friends, you are surrounded by photography magazines, portfolios belonging to wannabe artists, resumes, show proposals, slides, and contact sheets from eager publicists who represent today’s new artists, all of whom want to exhibit their work in your new space.
Ray’s friends are hefty, burly, and unkempt. They wear Hawaiian shirts or ones that have rock bands you’ve never heard of printed on their chests. Their swim trunks are faded and pilly. There’s too much hair on their backs and arms, and on their faces. Beer cans and bottles are in their hands instead of the martinis or cosmos you used to serve. They talk about alternative music and independent films as if they were authorities or part of the business. Words like “dude” or “right-on” start or end every sentence.
The stereo changes CDs, the White Stripes invades the air. Long for Ella Fitzgerald or Sarah McLachlan. Wonder if you’d feel this badly if you and Ed were still together. If he hadn’t broken off your engagement last year. You have nothing on your finger to prove someone loves you. But you do own a gallery and that means something.
When you met Ed, you had liked him immediately. He was intense and sexy. Shaggy yet polished. He wore faded jeans and a camel blazer with a white shirt and tie. You had just turned thirty-one and had celebrated with a small photo exhibit in SoHo. He was a friend of a friend’s and he kept looking up at you, smiling boyishly during introductions. He bought one of your photographs. Hung it on his bedroom wall. When you had sex at his place, it always caught your eye. Five months later he had a drawer in your apartment, you commandeered closet space in his. A respected journalist, he would read you his work in bed: travel essays, articles, celebrity interviews of Prince, Julia, your mother. You took photo after photo of him, memorized his features in your head.
Then one Monday, two and half years later, you entered your home and found it half-empty. At first you thought you’d been robbed. You went to your jewelry box, checked your camera equipment, and when you looked for Ed’s computer, realized his belongings were the ones missing. Ed himself was gone, too. A last-minute press trip to an exotic place was a reasonable explanation. But he phoned from some bar hours later, mumbling incoherently that he needed space, he wasn’t ready, he didn’t have the feelings he once thought he had for you. It only added to your bewilderment. You waited for a letter explaining, an e-mail or last-minute invite to your favorite restaurant so he could tell you face-to-face what was going on. Tell you what went wrong—a midlife crisis, cold feet, anything would have been better than sheer confusion. You phoned his cell for days, but he never answered. You phoned his friends, but they avoided your questions. You prayed to God in your bathroom, in full kneeling position, naked and wet from the shower, to send him back, but he never materialized.
For weeks you used his shampoo and conditioner, shaved with his razor, drank his pomegranate-flavored vodka, anything to feel closer to him. For the first month, doped up on Ambien, you’d wake from thick, groggy sleep, and for a moment, forget he wasn’t next to you. Almost call out for him, half expecting to hear his muffled voice coming from another room in your apartment.
You’d already written thank-you notes for the thoughtful engagement gifts bought off your registry. The boxes and packages sat neatly stacked by the front door along with the belongings Ed had left behind: ski equipment, a spare computer, dumbbells. You’d booked a loft for the after party, investigated honeymoon trips, listened together to CDs from bands recommended by your friends.
It was Olive who filled your apartment with flowers, took you for long car trips to picturesque places, made you spa appointments. She insisted you get out of your funk, helped you clean your usually spotless apartment, stood in your hallway, vacuum in one hand, scrub bucket in the other. Empty pizza boxes, sour cartons of skim milk, half-eaten pints of ice cream, dirty clothing, used tissues, unread newspapers, and stacks of old ARTnews and Focus magazines carpeted your floor. She begged you to shower, to do the laundry, to take a walk around the block. She finally called your parents and asked them to come see for themselves what had happened to their only child. Your father was in Europe creating sculptures while your mother was at Yaddo, a writing residency. Unable to leave, she phoned and suggested you document the process. “You need to use your suffering better, Trish. All great artists are in constant pain. Put that in your work,” she had said.
Until Olive’s recent meeting of Ray, it was you two who were like a married couple. You joked that if she were a man, you’d propose, flaws and all, because you love her so, like no one else ever will. She gets the jokes without having to give additional explanation. You’ve had more holiday dinners with her family than your own. She taught you how to drive, to blow smoke rings, to make apple crumb pie from scratch. Some of your most creative times are due to her. When you broke your foot five years ago, she drove you out to her parents’ home, turned the basement into a darkroom, and gave you full use of the guest room.
Get up from the pool area and enter into the kitchen, walking directly past the basket of bread and sticky buns, and the apple pie someone brought, and into the bathroom. When you close the door you catch your reflection in the mirror. At five foot five and 120 pounds, you are fit and athletic, lean without having to try too hard. It’s only recently at thirty-five that your body has failed you. Switched sides in the middle of the night without your consent, like Ed—one minute he loved you, then not. You’ve noticed over the past several months as Olive loses part of her, you are gaining some of it. Now your jeans, which once fit perfectly, showing off your svelte body and cupping your ass just so, are hard to button and though you’d like to blame it on the dryer, you know in your heart, and the scale confirms this, that it’s you who’s gotten bigger, not your jeans that have become smaller. In fact, everything is tight. You could almost be what people call pudgy.
Recall your thirty-fifth birthday party, which was a few months ago. A sugary frozen margarita was to your left, a piece of chocolate cake with vanilla buttercream frosting in front of you, where someone commented, “From this point forward Trish, it’s all downhill. You’ll see, everything changes and drops.” You laughed the comment away. Took a forkful of cake, shoved it defiantly in your mouth as if to say, “Oh yeah, try me.” And now, of course, it has. As you stare at yourself, notice how stretched out your bikini looks, that your hand can pinch more than an inch of belly fat, that sideways, if you pu
sh all the air from your lungs into your stomach, you look pregnant. Consider telling people you are, should they ask or comment that you’ve put on weight. You could lie and tell them you’re working on a series of distorted self-portraits and you’ve purposely packed on a few pounds in the name of art. Consider this seriously. Your mother would finally be impressed, say you were really throwing yourself into your work, and encourage you to gain more weight so your whole body could be distorted. Slide your hands down to your hips and admit they, too, appear wider, your ass has expanded, your thighs rub together, your neck looks thicker, your face fatter. Even your breasts, though this could be the only positive place to get bigger, seem fuller. Jump up and down and watch everything jiggle.
Return to the deck area. No one has even noticed your absence. Slip on a T-shirt and pair of sweats to hide your body, then reach for your 35 mm Nikon, your hand fitting comfortably, familiarly around the base, the cool metal feeling nice against your skin. Look into the lens, zoom in, like you did that first day in photography class and snap away, searching for who Olive has become.
The weight isn’t the only thing different about her. She does things now that make you uneasy. There are late-night rendezvous with older married men she’s met at weird parties, in hotel lobbies, or online. Ray is unaware of this and she swears she’ll stop once a ring is on her finger. You cry inside when she insists she doesn’t want to know their names, that she likes sex rough, that she wants it like this. Enjoys it. You ache to hold her in your arms and ask her to be honest with herself. To be more safe. You don’t want to sit in another abortion clinic with her, filling out forms and not talking. You don’t want to celebrate a negative blood test. You don’t want her to die early from AIDS or a massive heart attack, which was how you foresaw her future if she didn’t lose weight. And though it upsets you to hear these stories, you’d rather her share them with you than not.
Olive’s look has changed, too. Her clothing, once worn conservatively, seems skimpy and tight, as if she trying to squeeze into her new frame before her body is ready. There’s also the buying of expensive items—small blue boxes from Tiffany’s, orange bags from Hermes, leather high-heel shoes that feel like butter—you know she can’t afford from her curating job, and when you ask her how much something cost, she shrugs her shoulders and changes the subject. There are no slips or receipts, no price tags on any of the unworn clothing that hangs in her closet.
Watch her emerge from the pool. She still hurries to cover herself with a towel. Notice that everyone is staring. You don’t know whether to start clapping or distract people by dropping your glass. What you really want to do is toss the camera into the pool, sit next to her, and make her swear she’ll dump Ray. That she won’t leave you.
The following week you are standing in your gallery on Fifty-seventh and Fifth Avenue, watching traffic merge from your eighth-story window. After nine months of searching for a space, negotiating price per square foot, and haggling over rent, the gallery space is finally yours. The walls, painted eggshell white, are smooth and crack-free, the doors lock, the phones ring, the computer connects to the Internet, the lights work, even your windows have been cleaned and the name Fresh Art etched in large red letters. You’ve purchased a message pad and notebook. You have an unblemished calendar, which hangs on the wall next to your desk/reception area. Your name is spelled correctly on the business cards and stationery. The community bathroom, shared by others on your floor—another gallery that specializes in fine art and three established designers—is clean and private.
Your space is ready.
You are ready.
Today you are interviewing gallery assistants and artists whose work you are considering to show.
Meet with several students, each from FIT, all of whom are young and eager and wear too much makeup and not enough clothing and talk about their boyfriends and their degrees and what a great location the gallery is in because Bergdorf Goodman, Abercrombie & Fitch, and the Louis Vuitton flagship store are just a block away.
How can you give a job to girls who are so young? Why on earth is everyone suddenly so fucking young?
The first artist appears without his rep. He’s thin and fair and girly. His fingers, which are long and feminine, remind you of spider legs. He tells you about his vision before he hands over his bio. The black-and-white photos he has spread out on your floor are of people, buildings, everyday objects, each taken purposely, he tells you, out of focus.
“People are always watching the world incorrectly. My goal is to show them what they’re missing—and what they really see.”
Strain to decipher one large print. You think it’s of a woman, but you can’t be sure, maybe it’s a child or a man with a lot of hair.
Think about your own work. For years you carried around a camera snapping away at random people you saw in the street. You wanted to steal a bit of their soul to dissect later. You would stand for hours staring at their faces, a nose, a smile, the shape of a forehead, desperate to find yourself. Slight resemblances that could connect you to them. This was the basis of your work, your manifesto. An exhibit of strangers who look similar to you, even in the minutest of details. The woman on the bus with the sad blue eyes had your hands. A woman waiting for a cab in front of Saks had your full lips. A third, your large eyes. Click. Snap. Last year you were convinced that you were related to the man sitting next to you in an all-night diner when he ordered his tuna melt exactly like you. He apologized for the special changes, but he was allergic to tomatoes, as are you. Only 3 percent of Americans have this allergy. You’ve spent hours researching it on the Internet—tracking anything that could help solve the puzzle of your life.
Your mother and father swear they have no concrete knowledge of who your real parents were. You’ve been to the National Adoption Center in New York, driven out to the United States National Adoption Department in Albany, searched through files at the police department for missing children. Unbeknownst to your family, you’ve hired two different private detectives each who specialize in searching for birthparents. Both came up empty. According to them, you have no past.
The out-of-focus artist is still talking.
“People need to look harder in order to really see the world they live in,” he says. “The quick glances they take are not sufficient anymore. We need to slow down, and well, smell the flowers,” which of course, is the last photo in his collection. The only piece taken in color. It’s a less-out-of-focus shot of pink roses.
“I’m what you call an environmental/cultural artist,” he adds, smiling.
Stare at him blankly, thank him for coming after he asks if the paint you’ve used in your gallery is “ecofriendly.”
The next hopeful, a woman in her forties from Georgia, is dressed in red. Red cords, red shirt, red boots, even a red portfolio case. She has taken photos of toilet seats, bathtubs, soap dishes, sinks—and anything else she’s deemed as “restroom art.” From the rest stops on freeways to restaurants from around the world to McMansions, she shares all the dirty, personal, and telling moments of life. Her Southern accent is jarring. Wonder what drove her to New York. The art is interesting and something to consider, it just doesn’t move you, though looking at it makes you need to pee, which you’re sure is not the intent of the artist, or the reaction a buyer is looking for.
The third is a meaty-looking man with tan skin and thick, dark hair.
“Gage, this is Trish, Trish meet Gage,” the rep says.
He’s tall and broad and when he shakes your hand, you feel how calloused and coarse his skin is.
“We brought you three completed pieces to see. The others were too large or fragile to get on the subway,” the rep continues, as he leans his client’s work against your wall.
Even though the artist is smiling at you, something feels off with him. He’s creepy and stands too close to you when he talks. You can smell his breath, a mix of beer and ham and cigarettes.
“As you can see, Gage uses sev
eral textures and materials in the work,” the rep says.
“Real objects, oil paint, and photographs I’ve taken.” He winks at you. This makes you cringe inside.
“He then brings the three components together to create disturbing, yet character-like versions of people. Or he makes statements on societal trends.”
In one of the pieces, a screaming woman’s face is in the center of the canvas. Outlining her are objects of desire: a ring, money, a miniature groom—the kind you imagined on your and Ed’s wedding cake—and a house made of Legos, all of which have been attached to the painting. “I want” is spelled out using pennies.
Another is of two brothers, you guess, who face each other. Medals from swim, track, and wrestling meets have been purposely placed around their faces along with badges from camp or Boy Scouts, college acceptance letters from Yale and Harvard, a report card or two, and CPR certificates. Underneath, the words “Mother’s Favorite?” have been spelled out using stickers in the shape of newborns.
The last is the real deal. Instead of canvas, the artist has used large pieces of mirror, which stand about your height. Framing the mirrors are syringes, a medical bracelet from a hospital, a surgical mask, a birth certificate, a passport. A woman’s disfigured post-face-lift photo is stapled to the top of the structure. The words “Age Before Beauty” have been spelled out using mini birthday candles. Two large candles, shaped in the numbers five and zero, have been glued to the bottom of the piece. Most of the mirror has been left untouched so that if you stood close enough, your face would be replaced with the woman’s, and your body would be the only part reflecting back.
The work is upsetting, yet captivating.
“Your gallery is great,” the artist says, his voice raspy and deep. He stares at you strangely, as if he’s trying to uncover something you’re purposely not showing him. You realize he’s the kind of man, who, if you met him in a bar, you wouldn’t accept a drink from. In fact, you would thank him for his kind offer and then switch seats or pretend you see someone you know. You watch his mouth move because you don’t want to look him in the eyes. He sees too much of you already.
