Aftermath of Dreaming(57)

“When’s your birthday?” was the only thing Raul wanted to know, then he and C.A. looked at each other for a moment after I gave the date.

“Not a bad fit for this group,” C.A. finally said. “And her Chinese year is excellent.”

I had no idea what a Chinese year was, let alone that I had one.

“Figure out the details,” Raul said as he extracted his hand from the massage and exited his loft’s antiseptic front room.



A few weeks into my apprenticeship, days at Raul’s studio preparing canvases for art and nights at the restaurant preparing customers for dinner, Andrew called. His hello was like Led Zeppelin playing Bach, infinite and perpetual, familiar yet new. He was back in L.A., wouldn’t be in New York after all, did I still love him?

“Yes.” Emotions tangled themselves inside me. Euphoria to hear from him, relief he was no longer halfway around the world, but crushed he wasn’t at the hotel for me to run over to see.

“Are you learning a lot from Raul?” Andrew’s voice slid the question in so easily that it took me a moment to remember I hadn’t told him about my apprenticeship. Tory tattling probably. “Interesting artist, isn’t he?” Andrew went on. “Not that I’ve ever bought his work, but I understand why others do. What do you think of him?”

“I’m a bit sequestered off. Another assistant and I stretch and treat the canvases, clean the brushes, that sort of thing, but I’m sure that will change the longer I stay and there’ll be time for me to do some of my own work.”

“Have you been smoking?” Andrew suddenly said, as if none of my words had been heard by him, only the voice that said them.

“No, why?” I couldn’t believe he could tell. And, okay, it was stupid of me to lie and I wasn’t even sure why I did, it came out automatically.

“Your voice sounds different than it used to—are you sure you’re not smoking? You’re not doing drugs, are you?”

“No, I’m not…smoking or doing drugs. Maybe the bronchitis changed it.”

“It wouldn’t do that. Get more sleep; you don’t sound good.”

I hated and loved that he detected so much. We talked for two hours, and he asked about everything, remembering things we’d discussed that I’d forgotten myself in all those months. Everything. Except the gallery opening—and that was a relief, but it also made me feel kind of worse. Like it was too horrible for him to mention.

So things at Raul’s better go well, I thought when we hung up the phone, and my new work better be great. Though I still hadn’t been able to do any because somehow that studio space I was promised never materialized, but I was sure it would, and I’d get new sculptures done, and Tory, please God, would love them, and Andrew would be thrilled.



In almost three months of working at Raul’s, I rarely saw the famous artist himself. The assistant I worked with, Todd, who was from Nevada, though we were referred to as one and two by C.A., talked nonstop about his dance club exploits while we stretched and treated the canvases, which were then transferred to assistants three and four who filled in large swatches of color before assistant five painted in subtle multihued lines, finally culminating with them being speckled with a sheer gleaming coat by C.A., and voilà, a painting was done once Raul scrawled his signature on them, something I figured he did at night when we were all gone since none of us but C.A. ever saw him.

I was certain I was missing something. Raul must be aware that the paintings being created weren’t really his, but they all bore his signature as if he had slaved over them for months. Though maybe they were reproductions, some kind of self-knockoffs for sale—that must be what it was. But how odd that the public wanted that.

Then one day, I overheard C.A. talking to number five about the deadline we were under for the show of Raul’s new work, so in confidence I said to Todd, “But Raul didn’t paint a stroke on any of these.”

The stillness and silence of Todd’s response made it clear I was f*cked. I could immediately imagine him whispering my remark to C.A., see C.A.’s birdlike hands rubbing Raul’s massive ones as he told him what I’d said, while the Russian model Raul had recently acquired for a girlfriend sat nearby with triumphant boredom on her face.

I was fired that afternoon, so Peg’s phone call the next morning was not a surprise when she informed me that my association with the Sexton Space gallery was formally dissolved and my sculptures would be shipped back to my mother’s home.

“I appreciate everything you did for me, Peg.” I had liked Peg, had given her a compact for Christmas, half sheer powder, half rosy lip gloss—natural and clean like her prettiness. She seemed embarrassed when opening it—because she had nothing for me I’d thought, but now I wondered if she was already seeing what lay ahead.

“Yeah, well, good luck.” And she quickly hung up.

I lay on the floor of my room after I hung up the phone, my feet smushed under the three-legged table, as my August-to-April art world whirl crashed down around me and pinned me to the ground. Andrew would definitely find out about this, if he hadn’t already. I suspected that Tory had called him first to let him know. I could hear her British vowels enunciating each horrendous word of my demise and dismissal. The dreadfulness of it filled my soul while desperation and despondence ran through my veins. Why had I screwed this up so badly? If only this were a small thing, but it was my dream—my art and Andrew. How could I ever be in his world now? What on earth was there in my life to interest him—my restaurant job? Ha. Without the ascent in the art world he had decided I would have?