The Prize Read online

  “We have a budget meeting at two. And Agnes. She called this morning. She’s on the agenda.”

  “Better get to it. She’s paying our salaries,” May said.

  BY FOUR, LESS anxious and settled into his routine, he secured his mental resources and called her.

  Agnes was around the corner and asked if she could pop in.

  He got off the phone, went to the men’s room, sprinkled water on his face, and redid his tie.

  He greeted her in their lobby. She looked thin and pale. Dark circles lined her eyes. He invited her into his office and offered her a seat on his couch.

  “It’s good to see you, Agnes. In Berlin your work is creating quite a stir.”

  “I’m glad.” She smiled with tight lips.

  “It’s a good sign.” He stood up from his desk and took the seat next to her.

  “I hope so. I’ve pushed hard.”

  “What’s it like? You’ve been secretive.”

  “I’ve tried to keep myself in the dark as much as possible. The short answer is that the work is about artists and historic oppression. I suppose the real question is whether art can be owned. I hope the conceptual elements I’ve chosen, the textures and materials, convey that anxiety.”

  He listened carefully. Most artists weren’t as articulate about their work as Agnes. She had a habit of lecturing, but he didn’t really mind. Not all of the time.

  “I want to call the show Things Fall Apart. It’s from Yeats’s ‘The Second Coming.’ The new work is nothing like Immortality. It’s painted with a darker and more conceptual edge. And I’m using other materials beside paint.”

  He had hoped for something with perhaps more levity and playfulness. They’d budgeted for the revenues it would throw off and had been counting on them for the following fiscal year. It bothered him that he had to think about the marketplace. Before Agnes’s success he hadn’t thought about it much, but now that the gallery had profited and been taken up a notch, he had to make sure it stayed that way. It was a struggle, knowing how to make sure an artist wasn’t compromising her talent for the marketplace, but also ensuring that the work would sell.

  “My paintings are about the way in which art can express a moment in time. If it exists on the canvas, then it exists in history. The understory is about the oppressed and their unwillingness to forgive. ‘One wants from a painting a sense of life. The final suggestion, the final gesture, the final statement, has to be not a deliberate statement but a helpless statement. It has to be what you can’t avoid saying.’ Jasper Johns said this. I’ve had the statement pinned on the wall in my studio.”

  She suddenly rose, wandered to his window. Though she was dressed in grunge wear—an expensive-looking army jacket, jeans, and low-cut work boots, and her hair tied back with a swath of a pink rag—he noticed the understated emerald pendant she wore on a black string around her neck. It must have cost a pretty penny. She turned around and her eye lit on the painting she’d given him when they first signed and her lips widened into a smile of satisfaction. A bitch, one of her European dealers had called her, and he supposed the dealer was right—but beneath it all there was a stream of sweetness.

  “I’m at your disposal. What can I do to help?”

  She sat back down and crossed her legs. “I think you’ll understand what I mean when I say this. You have a daughter. I’m interested in the idea of that primal fear in the work. The fear of losing them, the twins. Nate thinks I’m paranoid but he’s wrong. And of course it ties back into 9/11. How vulnerable we are.”

  “Of course.”

  “It’s complicated, because that’s what’s making it difficult for me to contemplate letting go and showing the work. Even to you. It freaks me out. It’s that same vulnerability that is my subject.”

  “You have nothing to worry about.”

  “You heard about Nate’s latest show, right?”

  “It was called Necrophilia, wasn’t it? It was in the air.” Of course he’d heard about it. Who hadn’t? It outdid his previous show in provocation and profits. An artist could be dismissed by the press, and by his contemporaries, and still wind up the most prized artist at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Or not.

  “The press can’t come after me. Can they? I mean, my work is nothing like his.”

  “The work is all that matters,” he said, deciding to take the high road.

  “The critics called Nate’s last show offensive, demeaning, and vulgar. But it was his most successful yet. He’s review-proof. The public adores him. Men can be provocative and unsettling, but when a woman painter goes after the same effect it’s considered derivative.”

  “Your work isn’t provocative in the same way, anyhow. It’s more complex.”

  “Abramović said a woman had to be like a man if she wanted to be an artist. Do you believe that? I wonder if being a mother has hurt my work.”

  “Or deepened it.”

  She looked at him and smiled.

  “It doesn’t have to be all or nothing, you know,” he said.

  “The truth is, I’m terrified. I’ve worked on the paintings in utter isolation. I need to be alone with my materials. Beauty and seriousness are all I have to work with. Nate is different. He’s out nearly every night going to openings, back and forth to Europe to see private clients all the time. He doesn’t need it the way I do.”

  “You have nothing to be afraid of.”

  “You think so?” She tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “Thanks. I’d be nowhere without you.”

  He undid his tie and opened his top button. How did Nate put up with Agnes’s neuroses? From time to time Edward wondered what kept Nate enthralled. He supposed it was her beauty and her money—her parents had underwritten a concert hall in Lincoln Center dedicated in their name—or the fact that her extraordinary talent kept him on his toes. Perhaps he was drawn to her neuroses, too. Maybe Nate got something out of feeling needed in this way.

  “Have you run into Nate lately?” Agnes said, as if reading his mind.

  “I haven’t. Why? Is something wrong?”

  “He’s been distant. Something’s going on he won’t tell me about.”

  “It’s like that after a recent show. I’ve watched it happen. No matter how successful, there’s an emptiness that comes after it. It’s like postpartum depression, isn’t it?”

  Agnes’s face broke open and she burst into tears.

  “What’s wrong?” Edward moved next to her and she crumbled into his arms. Her shoulders were bony and fragile. He felt as if he were holding a skeleton.

  “Of course you’re right. I always feel empty after a show.” She hugged him again and then let go and wiped her eyes with a Kleenex from her handbag. “It’s all the isolation that’s getting to me.”

  “Are things good with Nate?”

  “They have to be. With him I’m like his child, his mother, and his lover. Sometimes I don’t know what role he wants me to play.”

  “Then why . . .?”

  “Nate knows everything about me. It’s intensely erotic to be known in that way. It’s the closest rush to painting. He’s good for me. Who would I be without him? How would I manage all this?”

  “We won’t let you down, Agnes. You can consider the gallery your second home. We see you like family. Everyone here does.”

  “I feel that way too.” She stood up to leave, still sniffling.

  “There’s one more thing,” Agnes said as he walked her out to the lobby. “Alex Savan called from Berlin. He saw a painting of mine and gushed about it. He said he’d been talking my work up to every impressive gallery in Germany.”

  “I have two deals pending in Berlin. I was waiting until we’d gotten final terms to put you and Reynolds in the loop. Galleries want exclusivity. And trust. I don’t need Savan mucking it up. I’ll take care of it.” Goddamn Savan, he thought, trying too hard again and screwing things up.

  He said good-bye, kissing her first on one cheek and then the other. When the elev
ator door closed, he was glad she’d gone. Back at his desk, he picked up the phone and called Leonard. They had bonded over the careful handholding Agnes required, and even though Leonard was no longer her manager, Edward often consulted him. Six weeks before her first show at the gallery, Leonard’s wife had left him. His young son suffered from anxiety and wasn’t doing well. Leonard had taken him away skiing. Agnes was nervous about the opening and kept calling his hotel and leaving urgent messages. When she finally reached him, she lit into him, saying she needed him in New York. He said if she wasn’t happy she should find another manager. It was one of the occupational hazards of dealing with an art star. They forgot you had a personal life. Agnes hadn’t taken it well. Shaken, she’d fallen into a depression, and for a few days, having momentarily lost her confidence, threatened to postpone the show. She called the gallery four or five times a day, asking Edward to walk her through every painstaking detail, and then broke down. She said that Leonard knew everything about her. Every collector. Every interested museum director. She was angry that he’d cut her off and was seemingly unaware of her neediness and solipsism. She spent weeks interviewing managers, until she decided on Reynolds, calmed down, and allowed the show to open as planned.

  The result of being left by his wife, and then cleaning house of his most valuable client, was that Leonard saw others with a kind of knife-sharp perception Edward found nearly profound, as if by being betrayed Leonard was alerted to character nuances he had hitherto never been privileged to see. There were those who preferred not to see and those whose need to see at times made life unbearable. Edward did not know which camp he belonged in.

  “I just spoke to Agnes. She’s getting ready to show me her work. She’s incredibly uptight. I’ve never seen her like this. The last time was after you let her go. The work didn’t come easy. It’s been four years. What if, you know . . . It will be brilliant, won’t it?”

  “Has she given you reason to doubt it?”

  “Not exactly. She’s been quiet about it until now.”

  “Regardless, tell her you’re blown away. Don’t let her walk you into a corner.”

  “I have to be honest with her. She trusts me.”

  “She trusts no one.”

  “That’s reassuring after all these years.”

  “Your problem. Not mine,” Leonard said, almost gleefully.

  Edward packed up his briefcase, eager for a drink.

  11 NEW YORK

  MELODY WAS WEARING a tight T-shirt without a bra—Edward had thought that braless had gone out with the ushering in of the eighties—and it was impossible not to notice her nipples were at attention. She was drinking an extravagant cocktail, something cranberry-colored with a twist of lime, and her far-gone eyes had the glassy sheen of marbles; they’d been drinking since lunch. Jimmy, earnestly enthralled, made Edward squirm. He touched her arm, her hand, then leaned over to kiss her neck. You’d think he’d nabbed Natalie Portman instead of Mel, with her boyish haircut and piggish nose. She was British. Perhaps that was part of the appeal.

  Melody greeted him and planted a kiss on each cheek. That she seemed especially glad to see him lifted his mood. “Darling,” she said, once he sat down. “Jimmy says you’re in love.”

  His face broke into a grin, thinking of Julia and then, realizing it, he recovered quickly. “I’m married, Mel,” he said, soberly.

  Jimmy glanced at Melody. Her face dropped and she straightened herself and took a sip of her cocktail. “The pieces are coming together.” She moved her shoulder away from Jimmy’s. “Jimmy likes being married. That’s why he won’t leave his wife. It makes things more intense when we’re together, doesn’t it, darling?” She bounced her leg, unable to keep still. Edward looked at the hipsters in leather jackets and trendy haircuts at the bar and felt old and out of place.

  “Mel,” Jimmy said, “I’m crazy about you.”

  “Let’s talk about Edward. You never change. Edward, on the other hand, has been transformed.” She touched Edward’s arm. “I could tell when you walked in the door that something was different. How terrible is it, darling?”

  “Tell what?” Edward said. Was it really that obvious?

  “I could make a building out of my knowledge.” She raised one eyebrow. “Jimmy said you met someone.”

  “Jimmy,” Edward said, and shook his head. “Get us another round, would you?”

  Jimmy got up and headed toward the bar.

  Once he was out of range, Melody put her head in her hands. Edward rose and moved into the booth next to her and touched her shoulder. “Mel,” he said, genuinely moved. “What’s wrong? You and Jimmy are perfect.”

  “Are we? If you commit one sin, then you commit them all.”

  In Los Angeles Jimmy had a wife and two daughters he worshipped. Edward had been to their home with a swimming pool that overlooked a canyon and a magnificent house with one side made of windows. He’d suspected something was up with Jimmy after he showed up in New York for the Armory Show, then a month later an auction, two weeks later to go to an exhibition. Jimmy said he’d fallen in love. Edward wondered whether he had meant with Melody or with the intoxication of the New York art scene and the people who were part of it, or if they were both the same for him, an adrenaline-inducing fictional world (for art could only masquerade as reality) where he could reinvent himself. Before Melody there was a girl, an artist, with hair cut shorter on one side than the other, which had made Edward just a little dizzy when he looked at her, and then there was Julie Johnston, an art critic for the Times, and briefly a slim Italian art dealer. Melody was the latest. She was overstimulated and—Edward could tell—highly sexual. It was what Jimmy saw in her.

  “But you’re the one he’s with now,” Edward offered.

  “What’s she like?”

  “His wife?”

  She nodded, and bit her bottom lip.

  “You don’t want to know. Best to not know anything. This is what’s absolute. You and Jimmy are good together.” He didn’t know if he really believed this or not, but he wanted to—just as much as he wished he were more free and easy, like Jimmy, who didn’t stop to think about the consequences of his actions, or if he did, was willing to risk it. And poor Melody—she looked so strung out, he had to say something.

  “So you approve?”

  “How many absolutes do we have proof of? We don’t even know what color the sky will be on any given day.”

  “You’re masterful,” Melody said, and sniffed back her tears.

  He didn’t think so, or believe really in what he’d said, but her mood lifted and it made him feel better. Jimmy returned with drinks and Edward rose from the booth so that Jimmy could sit beside her. Jimmy slid in close and kissed her. Then her hand reached under the table. Edward excused himself to catch his train.

  Outside it was dark and the wind blew in swirls. A loose piece of paper skimmed his cheek. The buildings loomed overhead. He walked over a sewer grate and felt it tremble under his feet. A homeless man dressed in rags picked at a half-eaten sandwich in the garbage can. Traffic went by in an unremitting flow down Fifth Avenue. He walked swiftly to the station, pulled by its powerful force. He thought about Julia and wondered if Melody was right. Had meeting her changed him somehow?

  He found an empty car at the back of the train. The severe light exposed sections of newspaper, soda and beer cans, and sandwich wrappers strewn on the floor. The cheap upholstery was ripped. The train pulled off, rattling the cans, and the lights dimmed. Rain appeared on the window, and as he listened to the stop-start patter on the glass, pressed against the side of the darkened car, he retreated into its sound.

  Like Jimmy, he had had opportunities. He supposed there always were if one wanted only sex. Once an ambitious assistant shocked him by coming up to him at a reception and asking him point-blank if she could give him a blowjob. He had refused her, awkwardly heading toward the door of the gallery claiming he had a train to catch. Had he given off the vibe that he had been attra
cted to her? He wasn’t sure he had been, though he’d noticed the way her body moved when she walked in and out of his office. When he was outside, he had broken out in a rash of perspiration, wondering if he had led her on. In the coolness of the night, away from the warm bodies standing arm to arm in small clusters, he had wanted to go back in and find her. On the train home he fantasized about inviting her into his office the following morning. But when he got there, bright and early, he avoided her and was glad when a few weeks later she left to take a sales position at Sotheby’s.

  He watched the lit houses near the tracks rush past. Then a long ravine. A cemetery. The rain made him relax and for a few moments he retreated into a rich forest of fantasy. He thought of Julia next to him in the dark car and his hand went to the empty seat at his side. In the forty-eight hours since he’d been back from Berlin he couldn’t shake her. He closed his eyes and breathed.

  The train came to his stop and he robotically rose, reached for his briefcase, and departed. He felt inside his pants pocket for his keys, opened the car door, slid inside, and sat for a few minutes before he turned the key and the car accelerated. The streets were dark and wet. He pulled up his driveway. It was unbearably quiet, with no sense of the trees as companions, no sense of any living thing, not the deer that had begun to deplete his garden or the occasional fox that ran through his yard. The rain stopped. The house seemed to belong to ghosts.

  12 CONNECTICUT

  AT THE ACKERMANS’ cocktail party he watched Holly in a short black dress, snug at her hips, and high pumps. She looked amused conversing with Tom Drury. She and Tom had been close friends as kids, and now he owned the barn where she and Annabel rode. Holly was flirting with Tom, Edward observed, almost abstractly. They were such old friends it didn’t worry him. Hand on her hip, high cheekbones, square chin, and hair cut in a long bob, she caught Edward’s eye and he returned the glance. They both smiled, and he brightened. It was a rare moment at a crowded party to get a moment of her attention. It excited him, seeing her across a crowded room like that, even after all these years.