Still Lives(9)

I drop Kevin’s fingers when we reach the dinner tent and it gets too tight to move in tandem. We pass Janis Rocque—affectionately known in-house as J. Ro—heir to the Rocque fortune and her father’s floundering private museum. Tonight she looks distinctly uncomfortable in her sea-green suit and coils of brown hair. J. Ro likes being at the center of things, but she hates the spotlight and she must be getting worried about our missing guest of honor by now. After her trails an expressionless Nelson de Wilde, and Lynne after him, checking the watch on her slender wrist. It’s six o’clock. The caterers have lined up with the salad plates.

On the other side of the tables, the crowd opens and I turn back for Kevin. I don’t know what expression I’m wearing, but it seems to silence him.

“You can find a seat over there,” I blurt, showing him the tables reserved for the media, where photographers are now sitting with their cameras and peering around like meerkats. “I’ll be nearby if you need me.”

I point to the back entrance of the dinner tent, where Jayme and I will perch at an unbouqueted white table with other Rocque staff members and our laptops, pretending we don’t need to eat. I can feel Kevin’s eyes on me as I limp away.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Bas repeats, “I’d like to welcome you to the Rocque’s Gala for 2003, a street party literally in the street. Any traffic violations will be prosecuted by the board …” He pauses for some faint, forced laughter. “Before we tuck into this delicious dinner and begin the extraordinary evening we have planned, I have a brief announcement. Our Gala honoree and the star of the evening, Kim Lord, has been delayed.”

A murmur of concern rises from the crowd.

Bas holds up his hands. “She will arrive quite soon, and I can assure you that her paintings are already here, and they are devastating. Here’s some advance praise from the New York Times, just in: ‘Kim Lord’s eleven portraits and one monumental still life are the product of years of examining the lives, deaths, and media coverage of murdered women, but they are also a statement about painting, how alive it is, how it can still challenge the dominion of photography in our age.’”

Clapping interrupts him.

He smiles. “Thank you all for coming out to celebrate Kim Lord, the Rocque, and the gift”—he lurches and grips the podium, as if he has for a moment lost his balance—“we are bringing to Los Angeles for the next three months.”

He hasn’t announced the real gift. The millions-of-dollars gift from Kim Lord, courtesy of her donation of Still Lives to the Rocque’s permanent collection. I search for Kim’s gallerist again and spot him holding his fork, about to spear his frisée and beets. For some reason, Nelson’s tan, metallic look always makes me think of prosthetic limbs, things that are made to look natural but are creepy instead, and also more durable. He sneers and shakes his head, briefly, as if disgusted. It’s an odd expression for someone whose prize artist just got heaped with critical praise.

Bas returns to his seat in a storm of applause. His wife pats him on the shoulder. She is a predictably pale blonde with a talent for smiling without seeming friendly at all. I’ve heard a rumor of divorce. Does she know Bas may lose his job?

I reach the PR table and relieve Jayme so she can ply the most impatient reporters with extra bottles of champagne. Yegina comes over in a tight blue dress and combat boots and sinks down beside me.

“What was that?” she asks in an impressed voice.

“What?”

“Maggie Richter grabs handsome stranger’s hand just as ex Greg approaches,” says Yegina. She can’t bear to call him by his new moniker either. (“Shaw,” she said scornfully. “It’s like a cross between a soap opera name and a tractor brand.”)

“Handsome stranger is called Kevin. I was afraid we were about to be devoured by Thalia Thalberg,” I say. “Clearly she hasn’t eaten since 2001.”

“I wish you were edible,” says Yegina. “I’m starving.”

I laugh. She waits, gazing at me with her gray-brown eyes. Yegina has carried me through my breakup, as I bolstered her last year during her divorce from Chad, the bitter end of a long string of white surfers, skaters, and Tibetan Buddhism majors that she has been rescuing since age sixteen.

Now Yegina has given herself over entirely to Asian speed dating and singles nights at her parents’ church, but every fellow she meets has some fatal flaw. Humming when he drives. Absolutely silent in bed. Never heard of the Dead Milkmen. Mispronounces Ed Ruscha’s last name. Bad teeth. Too-perfect teeth. Doesn’t know the meaning of ennui. Yegina needs a guy who gets her, and that’s hard to find. There’s a large class of men who can’t endure humor in a woman.

“Anyway, what did our beloved chief curator show you on her phone?” I ask.

Yegina confirms that Lynne got a text from the artist announcing her arrival at seven o’clock. I tell her what Jayme told me about a possible stalker.

“That’s creepy. No wonder she’s been showing up in disguise,” says Yegina.

“Though why can’t she disguise herself as Margaret Thatcher or something?” I ask. “Why only dress as starlets? She’s practically forty.”

Yegina shrugs but doesn’t reply.

My fingers find my little butterfly earrings and twist them. I wish I could rid myself of this poisonous jealousy. At the head table, Kim Lord’s absence looms at Greg’s left elbow, and Greg himself is looking worse and worse, his cheeks rough and red, as if he shaved them with a dull razor. In times of stress, he forgets to take care of himself. He was a stubbly, hollowed wreck the month after his mother died.