Aftermath of Dreaming(99)
“That’s great, honey, I’m so happy for you. Matt, you have time to squeeze Yvette in tomorrow to look at her contract, don’t you, love?” Suzanne has addressed the last part to her financial-whiz husband, but I know it was mostly intended for me.
“Thanks, Suzanne, but I don’t need to waste his time. There’s not a contract. This is retail, it’s an order I’m filling and the terms are what every designer gets the first—”
“Matt, talk to her.” And Suzanne hands the phone to my brother-in-law. When my sister has children, I will be a fabulous aunt in terms of empathizing with them on what it is like to be raised by her.
“Congratulations—you’re in a national store!”
“Thanks, Matt.”
“Now, tell me what your deal is.”
“From what I hear from other designers, it’s pretty standard for big stores so it’s not like I can negotiate. Greeley’s policy is that the first time they carry your line, it’s on consignment, then they send you checks each month based on what sells, but Linda Beckman, the head jewelry buyer, feels very confident about my line, says it’s really different from anything they have so it’s just a matter of the money coming later instead of up front.”
“Uh-huh.”
“And there’s the catalogue.”
“The catalogue?”
“I have to pay for P and A—that’s prints and advertising, all designers do—but when you consider what I’m getting, people all over the country seeing my work, and the top-notch photographs, it’s really a good deal.”
Matt is quiet for a moment. I can hear Suzanne in the background picking up their dinner plates from the dining room table, the one from the house we grew up in that has been in the family for three generations.
“Keep your own accounting. Don’t assume they’ll report everything and on time, but it’s great news, Yvette, it’s a whole new level for your career. I’m proud of you.”
Reggie was so ecstatic over my sale that he decided we should take a day off just to celebrate. He pulls his car—late-model El Dorado, which I love because it makes me feel like I’m back in the South—into my driveway to pick me up, and when we hug, I can tell that his tummy that I never thought was a big deal, but was the reason for his diet, I guess, is completely gone. I notice my neighbor Gloria peeking around her curtain, as Reggie opens the car door for me. I am tempted to yell up to her that this isn’t a new boyfriend because I know she will ask later on.
“Santa Boo is where I’m taking you.” Reggie’s infectious cheer is in high gear, or another and the idea of leaving L.A. for a day is heavenly.
As we drive through Malibu up the PCH, we pass houses crammed next to one another on the edge of the highway like a continuous screen hiding the beach and ocean beyond. Coming down the hill past Pepperdine University, we see an expanse of coastline not blocked by development, and the surfless Pacific lies tranquilly under the November typing-paper-white sky. Reggie is playing a cassette he made just for this drive, an hour and a half ’s worth of music to carry us up the coast, then on the way back, we’ll play radio roulette, his term for pushing buttons and never knowing what you’ll get. I have a feeling that Michael’s station isn’t programmed on Reggie’s radio and that’s fine with me. I haven’t listened to Michael’s “voice,” as Kundalini-cum-collagen woman so accurately identified his station, since I stopped seeing him.
The Santa Barbara Museum of Art is a large two-story white stucco Spanish Mission–style building surrounded by attractive businesses against a backdrop of mountains. It is almost more compelling to stay outside and walk around in the gently sunny day, but the large purple banner hanging on the museum’s fa?ade announcing a Picasso exhibit trumps that idea.
Reggie and I step inside the charged quiet of great art on display in the gallery and read the curator’s notes on the show, “Weeping Women,” which has been traveling the country. The exhibit is composed entirely of portraits of Dora Maar and Marie-Thérèse Walter, his wife and mistress at the time the paintings were done, respectively. When the portraits of Marie-Thérèse were first shown, Dora Maar walked into the gallery, saw the work, and immediately knew Picasso was in love with his model, so infused were they with that truth.
“Prick,” Reggie says, when we finish reading the circumstances of the paintings.
“But here you are to enjoy his work.”
“That doesn’t mean I like him personally.”
“You don’t know him personally. He wasn’t Stalin or Hitler sending millions to the grave.” We both know what we are also talking about, or whom, I should say. Even though Reggie and I haven’t talked about Andrew in ages, it sometimes feels as if the subject is always there between us, sitting just under the surface.
“Look what he left the world for eternity.”
Reggie’s eyes stay on mine for a moment defiantly, then he turns and looks around the gallery, as I do. The walls are filled with intense and colorful executions of remorse and desire, sadness and love. The crowds looking at the paintings appear stripped of all outer guise as they stand in their naked desire to view beauty, like babies unable to hide their needs.
Reggie takes my hand and we walk slowly through each room, looking at every portrait, saying few words, and I am struck by Picasso’s insistence for honesty. His decision to paint his mistress despite the consequences. It makes me think about the area of my life I have kept from Reggie—Andrew, namely.