The Art of Confidence

by Wendy Lee

  “This room gets really good morning light,” he’d said. “I’d never come in here, it’d be all your own.”

  I was too self-conscious to paint around Sam, even when I knew he was awake. I had barely made any art in college. As an art history major, with all the theory and philosophy and examination of the past, there was just no room for it. Then, when I’d moved back home, I’d gone upstairs to the attic and found inspiration for my latest project in a box of old photos. It would be a triptych of portraits depicting the women on my mother’s side of the family. So far I’d been able to identify three generations back: my mother, my grandmother, and my great-grandmother, although there were few photos of the last one. The best was a black-and-white photograph of a woman from what I guessed was the 1920s. She stood confidently against a wall, one hand placed against the stone, her chin tilted up so that her face was turned away from the camera.

  When I got the job at the Lowry Gallery, I pictured a finished project that I could take to Caroline. My boss would say it was the most promising work she’d seen by a young painter in years and offer me a show on the spot. Or, she’d recommend me to an agent or the owner of a larger gallery, and, just like that, I’d have my first solo show.

  Once I started working at the gallery, though, I knew that would never happen. In my first month on the job, I’d walked around to other galleries in Chelsea. After getting over the sleekness of their interiors and the receptionists who worked there, I was thoroughly confused by the art they represented. Nothing spoke to me, not even a murmur. Everything, from neon-light installations to videos that required 3-D glasses, left me cold.

  So I went to the museums, the Whitney, the Frick Collection, the Guggenheim, the Museum of Modern Art, and, as a last resort, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where I wandered its dusky halls as if looking for old friends. Secretly, I liked the French Impressionists. Even though I also realized that made me about as unique in my tastes as my mother, who carried an umbrella imprinted with Monet’s water lilies.

  Now I fixed myself a cup of coffee in anticipation for a long night ahead and took it into my studio. I pulled back the old sheet draped over the canvas on the easel and really looked it. The outline of my great-grandmother’s face gazed back at me, at this point revealing as little as a mask.

  A few hours later, I got into bed and nestled against Sam’s warm back. He stirred slightly but didn’t wake up. I wrapped one arm as far as it would go around his chest and held on as if it were the only thing anchoring me to this earth.

  * * *

  My mother called me the first day of my job at the Lowry Gallery, wanting to know how it went, how was my commute, how Caroline was as a boss.

  “She’s fine, Mom,” I said.

  “She’s not working you too hard already, is she?”

  I thought about what I’d done that day: edit a press release for the Sandro Hess exhibition and compile a spreadsheet of the guests invited to the opening. Basic admin stuff, but maybe it would change as Caroline started to trust me more. I imagined her consulting me as to how to frame paintings and where to hang them, us going around to other galleries, her telling me gossip about artists and dealers. Although Caroline was my mother’s age, she seemed and looked younger, with the potential for more fun. As the weeks passed, though, the work stayed the same. It really was like spending time with my mother, except unlike my mother, Caroline didn’t ask me a million questions about the safety of my neighborhood.

  The one thing I had looked forward to was Sandro Hess’s opening. I’d met him once before then, after his paintings had been delivered and he came to talk with Caroline about how they should be hung. I had also spoken to him on the phone, his peculiar transcontinental accent immediately clueing me in since he never identified himself by name. From Caroline I knew he had been born in Argentina to a German father and an Argentine mother, who had divorced early in his childhood, and he had spent many years shuttling between those two countries. He had been married and had a young son; he and his wife had also gotten divorced and he was constantly needing funds to pay for child support. He had been considered promising twenty years ago when he’d come to America and won some grants. Now, in his early fifties, he was trying to reinvent himself. Caroline had met him at the gallery opening of a friend of his, another South American artist, who made death masks of celebrities everyone wished were actually dead.

  When Sandro walked into the gallery, he immediately came to my desk and said, “Ah, you must be Caroline’s assistant. I can tell from your lovely voice.”

  This was despite the fact I hadn’t spoken to him in person yet. I knew what Sandro looked like from preparing press release material and the Internet, but from what I could tell, those pictures were at least ten years out of date. His temples were now streaked with gray, contrasting with a fully dark, roughly trimmed goatee.

  “What do they call you?” he asked, as opposed to “What is your name?” That must come from growing up in another country.

  “Molly,” I said.

  “Oh, like the drug.” He winked at me, as if to intimate that he knew what all the young people were into these days. Since no one had ever said that to me in college, even as a lame pickup line, I didn’t buy his act.

  “Caroline is out to lunch and should be back shortly,” I told him.

  “No matter,” he said. “Maybe you can help me decide what paintings should go where?”

  I came out from behind the desk and together we looked at the paintings that the framer had delivered, now leaning against the walls. I didn’t have much opinion of Sandro’s work and actually thought his repeated Mickey Mouse motif was juvenile.

  After a few minutes of silence, Sandro asked, “What do you think should go here?” He gestured at the wall that faced the front of the gallery. Any painting hung there would be visible from the window and draw the attention of someone stepping through the door.

  “That one.” I pointed toward a painting featuring a kaleidoscope of colors with Mickey’s head in the center.

  A grin spread across Sandro’s face. “You have a very good eye, young lady.”

  I shrugged. “It’s the most sellable one.” I didn’t mean to make it sound like I didn’t think the others would sell, but Sandro didn’t seem to take offense.

  We’d moved that canvas against the front wall and had stepped back to take a look at it when Caroline swept in through the door. “Sandro! I hope you’re pleased with the framer’s job. You’ve really outdone yourself with this show.” Then she looked at the painting we had just positioned. “Why is that one here?”

  “Molly”—Sandro tilted his head toward me—“thinks this one should go in the front window. Because it’s the most ‘sellable’ of the lot.” I wasn’t sure whether he was making fun of me or not.

  “And why do you think that?” Caroline asked.

  I tried to think of any art history terms I had learned in class, but those wouldn’t work in this situation; they weren’t looking for an analysis. “The colors,” I said, trying to sound more assured than I really was. “People associate Mickey Mouse and rainbows with happy, positive things, right? A parent might want this for a kid’s bedroom, or the head of a start-up for their boardroom.” Surprisingly, both Caroline and Sandro nodded as if what I said made sense.

  “Let’s price this at ten thousand dollars,” Caroline said. Sandro made a protesting noise, but she cut him off. “Affordable enough for both Upper East Side parents and Brooklynite entrepreneurs in their twenties.”

  She and Sandro went on to talk about the pricing of the other paintings. Sensing that I was no longer needed, I went back to my desk. On a whim, I looked up Sandro’s first solo show, at a downtown art gallery in 1990. There was one writeup, accompanied by a photo of the show. From the paintings I could see, Sandro’s style was very different back then. According to the article, the main focus of the show was a series of landscapes from his native Argentina. One in particular depicted a landscape with snow-covered
mountains. I looked from the computer screen to Sandro’s present-day paintings, and then back again. It was as if I was looking at the work of two different artists. How did you evolve into being such a different kind of painter?

  The day of the opening, I decided to wear my only black dress and a pair of heels instead of my usual flats. I spent the entire day in this outfit for no one’s benefit but my own, and then after closing hours, set up a makeshift bar in the back with wine and beer.

  “That looks good, Molly,” Caroline said. She had gone upstairs and changed into a black pantsuit with a silvery scarf the size of a shawl draped over one shoulder. The scarf reminded me of one of my mother’s that was made out of recycled plastic bottles.

  I glanced up as two people entered the gallery. I expected one to be Sandro but, as if reading my mind, Caroline said, “Sandro will be at least an hour late. He likes to make an entrance.” Then she moved past me to greet her guests. “This is Peter.” She indicated the older, shorter man. “And his partner, Damian.”

  Peter, I knew from answering the phone, was Caroline’s art historian friend. His appearance seemed to match his voice: a slight, pale man in his forties with a receding hairline and rumpled clothes that suggested he sat down all day in the presence of other people as opposed to the privacy of an office. His partner seemed to be at least a decade younger, with an expression on his face that suggested he was already bored.

  “Nice to meet you in person,” I murmured. “Do you want something to drink?”

  Peter asked for a beer; Damian, red wine. I handed them their glasses as Peter was expounding on Sandro’s work: “Mickey Mouse, how precious! Derivative of early Roy Lichtenstein, of course, without the comic intent . . .”

  Other people came in, and I skittered about on my heels like a crab trying to serve them. It seemed like they were in three categories: older people around Caroline’s age who looked like they might be her friends; middle-aged ones who were involved in the media; and a younger, less well-dressed set who might have wandered in off the street looking for a free drink. Someone draped a familiar arm across my shoulder and I turned, expecting it to be Sam, whom I’d invited.

  “Molly, my dear,” Sandro said. “Can you get me the strongest drink in the room?” The way the shininess of his suit was reflected in his face made me think he’d already had a strong drink.

  “Sure.” I ducked under his arm and went into Caroline’s office, where I knew she kept a bottle of whiskey. I didn’t think she’d mind.

  “That’s perfect,” Sandro said when I handed him the drink. Then Caroline spotted him and whisked him off to meet somebody more important.

  Finally, I noticed Sam’s face, or rather the glint of his glasses, above the crowd. “You made it,” I said, unable to hide how glad I was to see someone I knew. To my relief, he must have stopped home before coming to the gallery, for he’d changed from his usual uniform of dirt-streaked T-shirt and jeans into a button-down and khakis.

  “You look nice,” he whispered in my ear.

  I got each of us a beer, and we stood at the side of the room, observing the crowd.

  “This is a decent turnout,” I remarked. Because of the gallery’s size, the fifty or so people packed inside made it seem like it was overflowing. In some places it was hard to see the paintings because of them.

  “It’s not what I expected, after you talked about how empty it is during the day,” Sam replied.

  “Once the clock strikes twelve, the magic of this place is over.”

  Sam cocked his head. “Someone’s looking for you.”

  Caroline materialized at my elbow. After I introduced her to Sam, she said, “Can you please go find Sandro? He seems to have disappeared.”

  I handed my beer to Sam. “Hold this, will you? I’ll be right back.”

  Sandro wasn’t in Caroline’s office, where I suspected he might be looking for more of the whiskey, nor in the restroom. I went outside and looked up and down the street, then crossed it. Opposite me, the gallery window was filled with the bobbing heads of people talking and drinking, backlit like a scene out of a film.

  Going into the gallery again, I exited out the back door, which I thought of as Caroline’s secret passageway, to the building’s stairs. On the third floor, the door of Caroline’s apartment was ajar. I knocked on it softly and stepped through.

  “Hello?”

  No one answered, so I flipped on the light. I had never been in Caroline’s apartment before, but it looked just as I thought, with sparse, modern furniture and a few pictures adorning the walls. The paintings looked like they were originals, and I wondered what had happened to the artists. Then I noticed a framed photograph on an end table. I sat down on the sofa and picked it up, turning it to the light so that the figure became illuminated. It was a color photo of a woman with bright red hair, wearing a short beaded dress that appeared to be from the 1960s. Behind her I could make out the outlines of the front of the gallery.

  “That’s her aunt,” a voice behind me said, so close that I almost dropped the photograph.

  “Who?”

  Sandro sat down beside me. “Her aunt, Hazel Lowry. She was the one who started the gallery.” He had removed his suit jacket and was holding a glass of some kind of liquor in his hand, probably refilled from Caroline’s kitchen.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked. “How did you get in . . .”

  I didn’t want to know any more. Caroline wasn’t the kind of person who accidentally left her door open, so that could only mean that Sandro had his own keys, which she must have given him.

  “Oh, don’t look like that,” Sandro said, tossing back the rest of his drink.

  “Like what?”

  “Like you’re disgusted at the thought. How do you think I got this show? Who else would want to display the work of an artist whose best days were twenty years ago, when he first started?”

  I held up my hands. “I didn’t say anything.”

  Sandro seemed to not have heard and continued with his monologue. “This show is the only way I can make some money. And I need it, to pay Claudia.” I guessed that was his wife. “She’s the one I care about. But”—he gestured so widely I was afraid the glass would go flying against the wall—“this is what I have to do. This is how the world goes ’round. And you’d better learn that’s what you have to do, too.”

  “Let me take that.” I reached out for the glass. Our fingers met, and then suddenly the glass went tumbling on the floor. He was so close to me that I could smell the whiskey, and perhaps something else, on his breath, as he pushed me onto the sofa, which would have been uncomfortable even without being pawed by a middle-aged, washed-up artist.

  “Sandro!” I shouted in his ear, and he recoiled. I stood up, trembling with indignation and possibly fear. I straightened myself on my heels. Looking down on him, I said, “What could you possibly offer me?”

  He lowered his head into his hands. “Nothing,” I barely heard him say. “You’re so young, you have everything before you. You have no idea what it’s like.”

  No, I had no idea what it was like, but I couldn’t help but feel sorry for him. “Let’s go back downstairs. Caroline’s looking for you.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  He lifted mournful eyes to me. “I’m scared.”

  I wanted to laugh. “Of who? Those people? You have to go back. At least if not for yourself, for your work.”

  “Okay,” he finally said. A reluctant grin crossed his face. “You make a lot of sense, Miss Molly.”

  I wasn’t about to forgive him, but I wasn’t angry anymore. It would be like being angry at a toad. “You go down first,” I said, and watched as he shuffled out of the room.

  When I was sure he had left, I picked up the glass on the floor and took it into the oddly old-fashioned kitchen, where I rinsed it and placed it facedown on a dish towel. Then I went back into the living room. Before I switched off the light, I glanced once more at the
photograph of Hazel Lowry. I could see a slight resemblance in the eyes between her and Caroline, even though Hazel must have been twenty years younger than Caroline’s current age in the picture.

  The rest of the night went smoothly. I didn’t interact with Sandro again, and the last I saw of him, he was being carted off to a nearby bar by some young admirers. After everyone had left, I made a feeble attempt to clean up the mess left behind, with Sam helping me, but Caroline told us to go home. I tried not to think of what I’d learned about her and Sandro, of them together.

  “God, just wear flats next time,” Sam said as, clutching his arm, I hobbled up what seemed like an endless flight of stairs from the subway into the warm June night.

  Once I got to our corner, I couldn’t stand it anymore, took off my heels, and threw them into the trash can. Sam looked at me in disbelief, and then we started laughing. I think we were both a little drunk. Then he picked me up and carried me the rest of the way down the block, so my feet wouldn’t get dirty.

  * * *

  A few days after Caroline had warned me about the very special client, he appeared.

  I knew it was him immediately. He was the first Asian person to visit since the bohemian and the deliveryman about a month ago. I noticed him pausing in front of the gallery, looking at what must have been an address written on a piece of paper, peering through the window, and then looking at the paper again. Just as I was about to go outside and ask whether he needed assistance, he came in.

  It was hard for me to tell whether he was twenty, thirty, or forty years old. He was casually dressed, not like a tourist, but in a linen shirt and tan pants, expensive-looking loafers, a light jacket draped over his arm. The planes of his face were pale and smooth, topped by a shock of thick dark hair. A silver watch with a complex face gleamed on his wrist just below the cuff of his shirt.

  “Can I help you?” I asked.

  He approached me, and I saw the thin silver of a wedding band on his ring finger. So maybe he wasn’t twenty. “This is the Lowry Gallery?” His English was clear and precise.