Tease (Songs of Submission #2)(22)

“When you sent me to Barney’s, you were saving me from embarrassment,” I whispered after another introduction. I held Jonathan’s hand, leaning into him as if he was a string bass.

“I just wanted you to fit in.”

I squeezed his hand and looked over the crowd, my eyes scanning the staircases.

“Why are you nervous?” he asked. “I’ll introduce you to anyone you want.”

“I’m not nervous.”

“Yes, you are.”

“Kevin.” I looked right at Jonathan when I said it. I was a little ashamed to have my eyes peeled for my ex-boyfriend while I was with my current lover, but I had no illusions about my future with either man. “I’m looking out for Kevin. I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be rude. I just suddenly want to avoid him.”

“Monica, when you’re with me, you don’t need to be nervous about seeing Kevin or anyone else.” He led me up the stone stairs.

“I’m not nervous.”

“You better keep the truth on those lips.”

I shook my head and looked away. I saw her at the top of the stairs: Jessica Carnes. She didn’t photograph well. She looked gorgeous on film, but in person, she was exquisite. She wore a long white dress over her straight, slim figure and low heels on small feet. She saw us, or rather Jonathan, and excused herself from the couple she was speaking to.

Jonathan squeezed my hand. I looked in his direction and spoke close to him, keeping my lips as still as possible. “And this is who makes you nervous.”

“I hate this,” he said.

“We can lean on each other. Then you can take me home and bruise the rest of me.”

“The things that come out of your mouth.”

“They please you?”

“Yes.” He looked at me and took one long blink before facing his ex-wife. “Jess, how are you? Congratulations!” His smile was so wide I thought his face would snap. It wasn’t a happy smile. They kissed each other’s cheeks, his hand on her bare shoulder.

“Thanks,” she said. “I’m glad you could come.” She made a quarter-turn so she faced me completely, her sky-blue eyes twinkling with icy delight. “We haven’t met.” She held her hand out.

Jonathan spoke before I could get out a word. “This is Monica.”

I shook her hand, and to my surprise, it was warm. “It’s nice to meet you,” she said. “Very, very nice to see you here.”

“Thank you,” I said. As I tried to pull back my hand, Jessica put her left hand over our clasped hands for a second, then let go.

“Where’s Erik?” Jonathan asked.

Her expression didn’t change. Not a hair nor muscle moved. “He didn’t come.”

“Ah, too bad. Well, we’re about to sign in. We’ll see you in there?”

“Sure.”

Another half turn and she was speaking to someone else. Jonathan put his arm around my shoulders and guided me away.

“Who’s Erik?” I asked.

“The man she left me for.”

I shook my head. “You people are too f**king mature for me.”

He chuckled as if he had so much to say, but he didn’t know how.

CHAPTER 13

The galleries were designed to change. The vast space was chopped up by permanent-looking temporary partitions that still left enough room for huge sculptures. The lighting was flat, warm, and consistent, flattering the people in it. The space was so big, I stopped looking for Kevin and looked at the work.

Lynn Francis was still doing huge, photorealistic canvases of branded stuffed animals. Star Klein put out a bucket of meat encased in Plexiglas. Borofsky was still counting from one to a billion in ball point pen. Elaine Slomoff knitted pullovers with the names of the war dead. Jessica Carnes exhibited three sculptures thirty feet high that could only be accommodated by removing pieces of the modular ceiling and making the sky visible above them. The bottoms were shaped like Popsicle sticks and the tops, which reached into the night sky, were living trees. She’d cut them to look like a bomb pop, a fudgesicle, and one of the double flavor jobbies that had two sticks you broke in half and shared with your sister if you had one.

“Any insight?” I asked Jonathan, standing next to him under the leafy fudgesicle.

“She glorifies nature against popular culture. It’s what she does. She’s cut the trunks, so these are designed to die, like everything.”

I turned to face him, feeling ornery and out of my depth. “I think its bullshit on a stick.”

“The ability to talk about modern art is the sign of an educated mind.” His voice was smug, yet inviting. He wanted a comeback.

I faced him but stood to the side and laced my fingers in his, speaking quietly into his ear. “Jeff Koons’s grandiosity, plus Damien Hirst’s embellishment of the mundane, divided by Coosje van Bruggen’s extremity of the unremarkable … equals bullshit. The presence of the stick is unimpeachable.”

We regarded each other for a second. “Suitably erudite,” he said. “And you pronounced van Bruggen’s name right. What other tricks do you have up your sleeve?” He stroked the inside of my forearm, leaving trails of tingling nerve endings in their wake. I wanted to kiss him, but I was a stranger there, and I had no idea who I’d upset.