Still Lives(24)

“What did the investigator ask you?” Dee says to Yegina. “I missed everything. Out sick Wednesday and Thursday.”

Dee sounds funny when she says it, and not just because she has an adorable British accent that coordinates well with her dryer-lint cats and her muscular handiness with carpentry tools. Dee is Brent’s charismatic first mate, the longest-standing member on an often revolving crew. Without Dee’s upbeat wrangling, Brent’s ideas would not be so easily realized. But she must be feeling awkward. Wednesday and Thursday—the last two full installation days for Still Lives—were odd ones for her to be absent.

“He asked me not to tell.” Yegina loops her yarn and begins to knit.

“Oh, come on,” says Dee.

“It was nothing,” Yegina says primly.

I struggle not to frown. I know Yegina is trying to protect me. After Greg moved out, I camped in her apartment—in a bed she made for me between her Pocky sticks and hard-core record collection—until I could bear to go home. If someone says the word kindness, I see a curvy silhouette like Yegina’s bringing cookies and Valium on a tray. Yet Yegina protects by exerting control, even over other people’s feelings. She saw me freeze last night in the galleries, and she doesn’t want to see it again.

“We could talk about the ‘I Survived Cancer’ party that I invited you to tomorrow,” I say. “On horseback.”

I feel Evie’s eyes flick to me. I could have invited Evie instead. I probably should have.

“You survived cancer?” says Lisa. “I’m so sorry. I mean, I’m happy.”

She’s almost tearing up over her sewing needle, so I explain. My friend Kaye has survived throat cancer and she’s throwing herself an official fete. I Survived Cancer. Join Me on My Gallop Back to Health.

“Her words,” I say. “It’s at some ranch in Griffith Park. We’re supposed to ride over the hills at dusk, eat dinner at a Mexican restaurant, and then ride back.” I’d debated about making an excuse not to go, since Greg is also friends with Kaye and a couple of weeks ago he RSVPed yes for two. I retaliated by RSVPing for two as well. I didn’t have a date until I successfully coerced Yegina.

“Griffith Ranch? I’ve been on that ride,” says MeiMei. “Make sure you get a mellow horse.”

“Or what?” says Yegina. Her brows are furrowing.

“They have to have mellow horses,” I say. “Or they’d be out of business.”

MeiMei regards both of us before continuing. “It’s just a long way in the dark,” she says.

An awkward quiet falls. I know Yegina wants me to release her from her promise, but I need her tomorrow. I don’t want to be out alone on winding roads.

“That private investigator guy’s been watching the loading dock all afternoon,” Evie says in her soft voice. “He just sits there. Maybe he thinks the stalker’s going to show up.”

And then we’re sliding into the same conversation we’ve been having all day, all over the museum and outside it, too. About the rumor of the stalker. About Kim Lord’s theatrical nature, how she often had some performance element to her exhibitions. About the large still life I didn’t view last night, the one called “Disappearances.” (“She changed the name on Monday,” Yegina tells me. “I didn’t want to bother you for one label.”) Our voices grow hushed, and we are bending closer together like conspirators, knowing that beyond these walls the press and the world await the news of what will happen here, at our museum.

After a while, it grows clear that my friends are of two camps. While Jayme and Yegina believe something ominous has happened to Kim, the rest are hopeful that the disappearance is a stunt. It doesn’t surprise me that the groups would divide this way, given Yegina’s usual cynicism, Jayme’s anxiety about the show, and the others’ tendency to heroworship artists and invest them with intentions and capabilities far beyond a mere mortal. I am the only one on the fence. Kim Lord hasn’t even been missing forty-eight hours, and given her oversize, confrontational approach, I agree with my pals and Kevin that she might have another performance up her sleeve. But it’s hard to ignore the cold, blank fear that flooded me last night in the exhibition, or the tone of the artist’s statements in the press release. She didn’t sound like she was planning to vanish.

Evie thinks Kim Lord might be leading us to another set of paintings, somewhere beyond the museum, representing all the women murdered outside the media spotlight. “For all the Jane Does,” she says with a smirk. Sometimes the way Evie contributes to discussion reminds me of Nikki Bolio—she speaks to the air in front of her, with a self-conscious twist of her lips, as if her utterances are aimed at some invisible, judgmental third party. Maybe it’s how you learn to talk when you grow up afraid of the place that raised you—in Evie’s case, a series of abusive homes in small-town Northern California. The few stories she’s told me make me both sad and impressed by her current job, her loft across the river, her neat olive suit and chunky beads.

“I did see her leave the museum in a rush on Wednesday,” I say, and tell about my view from the stairs.

“I wonder why,” says MeiMei.

“She never made it to the galleries,” Evie confirms. “She just got upset about something and left.”