A Note From an Old Acquaintance (12 page)

True to his word, she found Erik hunched over rolls of blueprints in his study, a four hundred square-foot mahogany-paneled expanse. He looked up when she entered the room.

“Hi, sweetie,” he said, yawning. “This project’s a bear, let me tell you.”

Joanna bent over him and kissed him on the cheek. “How bad is it?”

Ruby leaned back in his chair, tossing a pencil onto the blueprints. She noticed a yellow legal pad covered with the scrawl of his notations. “Old Man Wrightson read me the riot act today, telling me to get my act together or he was taking his business elsewhere.” He shook his head, scowling. “I’m telling you, the man doesn’t want to spend the money it takes to do things right.”

“Not everyone does, Honey. Not like you. And it is his money.”

“Well, you’re right about that.” He gave her a penetrating look. “Anyway, how was your day?”

She turned away from him. “It was okay. Lots of student meetings. And I’m really tired. I’m going to meditate for awhile.”

Ruby nodded. “That’s fine, but before you do, I want you to look this over.”

He reached under the rolls of blueprints and pulled out a piece of poster board. Pasted to it, along with the requisite crop marks, fold lines and notations to the printer, was the layout for the front and back of a tri-fold brochure.

Joanna took it from him and stared at it. A moment passed before she realized what it was: the mailer Erik had hired Nick to design for her first show. She had to admit that Nick had done his usual terrific job. On the front was a picture of one of her more dramatic sculptures, a lighted sphere with fiber optic appendages.

The inside of the brochure was another matter. Nick had used a photo of her posing next to another one of her pieces. She was dressed in a black body suit and reclined on the floor, propped up on one elbow, with the other arm draped casually over a drawn-up knee. The photographer had captured her with what she now considered to be too much of a “come hither” look. Erik loved it, of course, had it blown up to nearly life size and hung in his office. At the top of the page was a headline reading:

JOANNA RICHMAN: AN EXCITING NEW FACE!

“Well, what do you think?” Ruby asked.

“How could you?” she said, tossing the layout onto the desk. “How could you do this? I told you—
I’m
not the show! Did you hear anything I said? Do you even care how I feel?”

He shot her an annoyed look. “Of course, I care.”

“Then, why, Erik? Why are you using this—this cheesecake? It’s degrading.”

Ruby stood up, a vein throbbing in his temple. “It’s
not
degrading. It’s a terrific picture of a beautiful woman who just happens to be you. Something you’ve never been comfortable with. And I wish to hell I knew the reason why!”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It sure as hell matters to me. I’m proud of you and I want to show you off.”

“I don’t want to be shown off. I want my art to speak for itself.”

“It will, Joanna, it will, but the public loves a pretty face to go with its entertainment. It’s just the way it is....”

Shaking her head, she moved toward the door. “You really don’t understand, do you? My art’s not ‘entertainment.’ It’s a part of me.”

She walked out, tears stinging her eyes once again, and ran up the stairs. Passing the master bedroom, she rushed to the end of the hall and entered her meditation room, slamming the door behind her. She left the light off and leaned back against the door, sobbing.

How could he be so stubborn? Couldn’t he see what he was doing? Couldn’t he see that to market her work in that way only cheapened it...and her? Why did he always have to try and get his way? It was almost as if he didn’t care what she thought, that she was just another part of his business.

Joanna pushed that thought from her mind, wiped her eyes with the backs of her hands and stepped into the middle of the room, empty except for a large down pillow that sat facing a statue of the Buddha. She sat down on the pillow, placed herself in the lotus position and closed her eyes, letting the silence in the room calm her. She began her rhythmic breathing and called her mantra to mind.

A knock sounded at the door.

“Joanna, I’m sorry. Can we talk about this?”

Joanna opened her eyes, knowing that any attempt to meditate now was pointless. She rose to her feet went to the door and opened it. Erik stood at the threshold, looking contrite.

“Look,” he said, “I’m a schmuck, I know it. I thought I knew better. I don’t.”

“No, you don’t,” she said.

Ruby took her hand. “Forgive me?”

Joanna nodded. “Yes.”

Ruby took her in his arms and hugged her. “I’ll tell Nick to change it, take out the photo, put in some more of your work. That okay?”

“Sure,” she said, hugging him back. She held onto him so he wouldn’t see the tears spring anew.

What on earth was she going to do?

11

BRIAN
AWOKE
SATURDAY
MORNING
more rested, more alive than he’d felt in a long time. The sun sparkled through the bare-limbed trees outside his windows, dappling the carpet with a kaleidoscope of light and shadow, and somewhere on the floor above him he heard a woman laugh. He smiled. Someone was having a little early morning fun. A glance at the clock told him it was just past 7:00. Time to face the day.

Rising, he threw on his robe, and went upstairs to retrieve his
Boston Globe
from the front stoop. He stood for a moment, struck by the beauty of the early morning light glinting off the windows of the ancient brownstones across the way. The air was warmer today, nearly in the forties, and birds twittered in the canopy of stately maples and lindens high overhead. It might not be spring yet, but the day seemed to hold the promise of something nearly as good.

Back downstairs, Brian toasted a bagel, spread it with cream cheese, poured himself a tall mug of fresh coffee and sat at his breakfast table, leafing through the paper. The hard news was the usual panoply of horrors, sprinkled with liberal doses of moralizing. Putting the front section aside, he turned to Arts & Entertainment, checking to see who might be playing at the Paradise or any of the other clubs he liked to frequent.

Nothing too interesting there, mostly a bunch of bands struggling through the last gasps of New Wave. And there wasn’t anything special in the Movies section, either.

Turning the page, he read through the gallery listings, checking out the exhibitions.

So, Weller, interested in art now, are you?

“Can’t imagine why,” he said, taking a bite of his bagel, a big sloppy grin on his face.

He did find a number of listings of galleries at the eastern end of Newbury Street announcing new exhibitions starting that day. One of them, The Holliston Gallery, was hosting a show for Alexander DeLarge, an artist of the Photo-realism School. These were painters whose skills were so exacting and so refined they could paint a still life or a portrait that looked as real as any photo. Brian had always had tremendous respect for those who could draw or paint, his own artistic skills limited to stick figures and crude disembodied faces. The examples of Photo-realist paintings he’d seen in the past had fascinated him no end. Critics hated them, however, accusing the artists of being little better than commercial hacks best suited for billboards and movie posters. Brian thought the critics were fools. Anyone with half a brain could splatter paint on a canvas and call it art. Hell, even J. Fred Muggs—a precocious chimpanzee famous for his antics on
The Today Show
in the 1950s—had sold finger paintings looking very much like the canvases Jackson Pollock had painted on some of his better days.

On a whim, Brian decided to visit the gallery after putting in some time on the new book and a quick visit to the office, if for no other reason than to show his support for the artist.

After cleaning up his breakfast dishes and showering, Brian brought out his Royal and got to work. The words came hard, though, his mind continually returning to Joanna’s comments about his stories. She was so dead-on right that he found his admiration for her growing by the moment. The problem was, he was about halfway through the latest book and was coming to the realization that it was pointless to continue working on it. It was more of the same stuff he’d been collecting rejection slips on for the past five years. And did he really want
that
to continue? Did he really want to put in the titanic effort it took to finish a book only to have it end up in his dresser drawer, collecting dust along with the others?

He forced himself to re-read it from the beginning, resisting the urge to tweak it as he went along. Two hours later, after reaching the point where he’d left off, he realized the book was a failure. It had no heart. Sure, there was plenty of suspense and action, plenty of “red herrings,” but in the end he didn’t give a crap about what happened to anyone in the story. They were all interchangeable. Even his protagonist seemed bland and colorless to him now.

You can do better than this, Weller.

The problem was he didn’t know what the hell to do.

It was just approaching noon, when he tossed the manuscript back in its box, threw on his leather jacket and walked to the office. He spent the next half an hour going over the books and checking supplies to see if they needed to order more videotape come Monday. Everything was in order, so he hit the street. He debated whether to stop for something to eat and decided against it. Time enough for food later.

The Holliston Gallery occupied the basement level of a redbrick Queen Anne row house located between Clarendon and Dartmouth Streets, and he almost passed it by, nestled as it was between an Indian restaurant and a bohemian style coffee house. Going inside, he was struck by the tranquility of the interior. Walls were a stark white, as were the freestanding partitions stationed at strategic points. Soft track lighting overhead highlighted each of the paintings without overwhelming them. Immediately inside the door was a poster set up on an easel. It depicted an example of the artist’s work, the artist’s name and the dates of the exhibition.

A slight woman in her fifties, with straight gray hair, approached him. “Welcome to Holliston Gallery. I’m Claire Holliston,” she said, smiling. “Can I help you with anything?”

“Hi. I’m not sure, actually. I saw your notice in the paper this morning, and I thought I’d come by. I really love this style.”

The woman’s smile widened and she leaned closer to Brian. “It really goes against the grain nowadays, and that’s something I’ve always enjoyed doing.”

Brian chuckled, charmed by the woman’s warmth and candor. She pointed toward the rear of the gallery. “There are refreshments in the back, coffee and pastries, and the artist is ‘holding court.’ He’s a little full of himself, but he comes by it honestly.”

Brian thanked the woman and began looking at the paintings. Every one was a dramatic tableau with chiaroscuro lighting, making the images look as if they were frame blow-ups from out of a motion picture. In fact, the artist had reinforced that impression by using the same Panavision-style wide-screen aspect ratio for most of the pieces on display. It was mesmerizing.

He worked his way down one wall to the back where he spotted the artist conversing with two patrons. The table with the refreshments stood nearby. Brian nodded to the artist, who watched him grab a blueberry Danish and fill a disposable plastic mug with coffee, all without missing a beat of his pontification. And while Brian could admire the man’s facile way with pompous pronouncements, he only needed to hear a snippet of the conversation for him to agree with the gallery owner’s opinion. The man
was
full himself.

He decided not to try and join the conversation and began examining the paintings on the other side of the gallery. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of a couple entering the front door. They appeared to be in the midst of an argument. He was tall, with dark, almost black hair swept straight back and was dressed in an expensive-looking black and white herringbone blazer and black wool slacks. The woman was—Joanna!

Brian nearly choked on his Danish. Ducking behind one of the partitions, he pretended to look closely at one of the paintings, while keeping the other eye and both ears on Joanna and the man who could only be her fiancé. A flurry of mixed emotions rushed through him. A part of him wanted to stay and another wanted to duck out the back.

He stayed.

“...So, why don’t you just go on to your office, Erik?” Joanna said. “You know that’s where you’d rather be. You don’t have to keep torturing yourself on my account.”

“Fine, then. You want to keep popping into these little holes in the wall all day long, have at it. I’ve had my fill.”

“Fine. Give my regards to Mr. Wrightson,” she snapped.

Joanna’s fiancé glared at her then shook his head. “I’ll call you later.”

Brian watched the man stalk out the door and vanish from sight. Joanna turned and sighed, her eyes downcast. For a moment, it looked as if she might follow her fiancé out the door, but then she straightened her shoulders and stepped up to one of the paintings, her expression intent.

He realized he still had a piece of soggy Danish in his mouth. So absorbed was he in watching Joanna that he’d forgotten to swallow it. He took a sip of his coffee and watched her move closer to the spot where he stood.

She was even more adorable in the daylight. As before, she was dressed all in black, her hair a fiery halo around her head. She moved to the next painting, her brow knitting in concentration.

Brian drained his coffee, threw the empty cup and the remainder of the Danish into a trash basket and moved toward her, a smile forming on his lips.

“We’re going to have to stop meeting like this.”

She turned, her initial shock transforming into delight. “Brian! Oh, my God, what are you doing here?” she asked.

“I read about this exhibition in the paper, I thought I’d check it out.”

Joanna squeezed his arm. “I’m so glad you did. I could use some cheering up.”

“Well, then, you’ve come to the right guy.”

She smiled up at him. “I know.”

Brian felt as if he might float off the floor. Swallowing, he nodded toward one of the paintings. “So, what do you think of our friend’s work?”

“His technique is excellent, but there’s nothing of
him
in it.”

Brian frowned and looked toward the painting. It showed a prostitute leaning against a brick wall a lit cigarette dangling from her mouth, the only lighting the red glow of a neon sign. The woman’s expression was tired and forlorn.

“Look at the woman,” Brian said, “look at her face. She looks as if she has no hope left in the world. Pretty powerful, wouldn’t you say?”

Joanna peered closer, scrutinizing the face of the prostitute, which was only a small part of the picture, yet spoke volumes.

She turned to him with a new respect in her eyes. “You’re right. I didn’t see that.”

“Every one of this artist’s paintings has an element like that, something in it that’s the real message. It reminds me of a painting I saw one day, years ago, as I passed the window of a gallery on Boylston. It was a landscape depicting this dark foreboding Victorian-style house atop a hill covered in wild grass and dotted with twisted Black Ash trees. Very dramatic. The title of the piece was ‘Redwing.’ For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why it was called that, until I looked closer. There, in the bottom right-hand corner, right above the artist’s signature was a little red-winged blackbird perched on a stalk of wild grass. I’ve never forgotten it. It taught me always to look closer to find the truth of things and never be content with the obvious.”

“What a wonderful story,” she said.

Brian grinned. “Would you like to get some lunch?” he asked, after a moment. “All I’ve had since breakfast is half a lousy Danish, and I’m famished.”

“I’d love to. How about the Indian place next door?”

Brian looked dubious.

“Come on, I hear they make a mean Tandoori.”

After thanking the gallery owner and taking a couple of brochures, Brian and Joanna went next door to The Raj and sat at one of the tiny tables overlooking the street. As Joanna suggested, Brian ordered the Chicken Tandoori with rice, Nan bread and ice water. Joanna rattled off a list of dishes, whose names meant nothing to Brian. When the food came a few minutes later, he was surprised to see that none of the dishes Joanna ordered contained meat.

“No Tandoori for you? I thought you liked it.”

“Erik loves it. I’m a vegetarian.”

“Really? Why?”

“I’m a Buddhist. Buddhists by tradition and teaching are vegetarian. We don’t believe in killing anything that contains a soul.”

“A Buddhist from Long Island? Not too many of those, I would imagine.”

“Now, you’re making fun of me,” she said, her eyes sparkling.

“I wouldn’t dream of it. But I suspect your upbringing was slightly different.”

“Jewish-American Princess through and through.”

Brian laughed. “Somehow, I can’t imagine you as a typical example of that breed. You’re too—”

“I’m too...what?” she asked, raising a ginger eyebrow and stifling a grin.

“You’re too grounded, and far too intelligent to be concerned about what color to paint your nails and how many parties you’ve been invited to. You make those women look like the caricatures they are.”

Joanna reached across the table and grasped his hand, her thumb caressing his knuckles. “I can’t believe no one’s snatched you up, Mr. Weller.” Her eyes locked onto his. “But I’m glad they haven’t.”

“Me, too,” he said, suddenly thirsty.

For the rest of their meal, they talked about art and afterwards, they decided to visit more of the galleries along the street. It was growing dark by the time they left the last one.

“I should get going,” she said. “Erik’s meeting will be over soon.”