Domino (The Domino Trilogy)

ONE

“I really need you to do me just this one favor.”

I looked up from my dog-eared copy of
Bleak House.
I’d been meaning to finish it for two years, ever since I started reading it in Introduction to Victorian Literature II and wasn’t able to finish it by the deadline. I’d just read the
Cliff’s Notes
instead so I could pass an in-class essay quiz, something I’d always considered it a major breach of ethics.

T
he fact I’d never actually finished
Bleak House
had always bothered me. And now, my best friend was getting in the way. “What favor is that, pray tell?” I asked, dreading the reply.

Hannah Greeley, my roommat
e of three years, flopped down next to me on the bed and sighed. “I need you to cover a gallery opening for me. Tonight.”
I marked my place in the book with a scrap of paper and set it aside. “Excuse me?”

“Please, Nancy. I promise, I won’t ever ask you to do something like this for me at th
e last minute again if you do it for me just this one time.”

“Yeah, that’s what you said the other eighty-seven times you’ve asked me for last
-minute favors over the past three years.” Like helping her cram for literature exams the night before. Like telling her ex-boyfriends and her parents that she wasn’t home when they called on weekends. Like covering gallery openings at the last minute for shit pay, if there was any pay offered at all. “Isn’t it time you did me a favor for a change?”

Hannah rubbed her temples. “I know, I know. But I promise, this
really
is the last time. And I’ll even cover your share of next month’s utilities, too, as payback. How about that?”

That held some appeal. “All right. But this really is the last time.”

“Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU! You have no idea how much I appreciate this.”

“You’re right, I don’t.” 
Hannah might be my best friend, but that didn’t mean I understood her. We came from two different worlds, she and I. The only daughter of a wealthy family, she’d never wanted for anything and never would. I on the other hand had to worry about things like paying rent and utilities and studying hard enough to keep my scholarship. Meanwhile, Hannah’s idea of a crisis was running out of perfume or not having shoes to match her purse.

A former
art history major herself, Hannah had worked part-time at
Art News Now
during her last two years of college and now worked there full-time as their chief Midwestern correspondent---quite an impressive job title for someone only twenty-two. But members of the Greeley family always managed to land on their feet no matter what they did. That was one of the trappings of being independently wealthy with strong political connections. Or so Hannah said---I really would have no idea one way or the other.

It was Hannah’s
job to cover the entire art scene between Cleveland and Chicago for the magazine, but these days she seemed a lot more interested in covering the scene between her sheets with her latest boyfriend, Ted. I hated to say it, but those two fucked like rabbits. I’d learned to keep my door shut and iTunes turned up loud whenever Ted was over.

So no surprise that
I started having second thoughts. “Are you sure your editors will let you pawn the work off on a freelancer? You know, since I don’t even work for the magazine, and it’s sort of your job to do these things. I don’t want to get myself blacklisted with every editor in town before I’ve even managed to graduate.”

Hannah rolled her eyes.
“Yes, it
is
technically my job, but the thing is, Ted just asked me if I could accompany him to the symphony tonight, and since it’s box seats I really can’t say no. Besides, I can cover the performance for the magazine now. We tried to get press comps and couldn’t, so it’s very lucky that Ted’s parents are major symphony donors and were able to sneak us in on their subscription.
Please,
Nancy
.
It will help me out so much if we can cover both events on the same night. I might even get a raise this way.”

She looked at me with those trademark puppy-dog eyes of
hers, the one expression she had that melted all my hard-won defenses. And I knew for a fact that Hannah desperately needed a raise. She earned less money working full-time for the magazine than I did part-time as a cocktail waitress on the weekends. “All right, fine. But in addition to covering my utilities next month, you’ll need to make sure I get paid for the article, as well as any expenses. I don’t want to get stuck with a $100 booze tab like I did when I covered that martini-bar opening for you last year.”

She clapped her hands and gave me a huge hug. “Oh, thank you, thank you, THANK YOU! And don’t worry, there’s no out-of-pocket anything. The gallery opening is free and the refreshments are complimentary. Though you’re on your own if you want to buy any of the art.”

I snorted. “You know that would be against all manner of journalistic ethics.” Not to mention I was far too poor for such things.

“I’m just saying.” Hannah dashed out of my room, then came back carrying a manila folder. “Here’s the press kit. The tickets and your press pass are in here, along with a bio for the artist and some preliminary photos of the work. Though it’s my understanding they’re keeping the
piece de resistance
under very tight wraps until the opening. Try to get a quote from the artist if you can, but don’t give away that you’re there to do a critical review. Let them think it’s just a run-of-the-mill profile. You’ll get better quotes that way.”

I flipped absently through the materials. Nothing very exciting----
it just looked like standard black-and-white postmodern photography to me. The bio on the artist didn’t reveal much either, other than that his name was Peter Rostovich, he was originally from the Ukraine and came to the US as a teenager with his mother, and he was a graduate of the New York Academy of Fine Arts. “I’m not sure I’m qualified to write about something like this,” I said. “I’m an English major. I understand Renaissance and Victorian art but I really don’t get contemporary art at all. And this stuff just looks boring, frankly. No different than what any art student would put up at his senior show.”

Hannah shrugged. “If you don’t like it, then feel free to give it a bad review. In fact, give it the worst review you possibly can. My editor was complaining just the other day that we publish way too many raves and we need some balance.”

I flipped the folder shut and set it aside. “All right, I’ll rip it to shreds then. Unless of course it proves to be something that knocks my socks off, which I can pretty much guarantee it won’t if it’s headlining at some third-rate gallery in Cleveland.” We were a long way from the cutting-edge art scenes in New York City and Paris. I couldn’t help but wonder what a graduate of the New York Academy of Fine Arts was even doing in the Cleveland vicinity. He had to be pretty desperate to be doing a gallery opening here. Unless there was something more to the story, of course.

Could make an interesting angle
, I thought, the wheels in my journalist’s brain beginning to turn. I made a mental note to dig as deeply as I could for anything unusual about the art or the artist himself----the stranger, the better. This kind of story didn’t merit top-notch investigative reporting, but even Bernstein and Woodward had to start somewhere.

I glanced at the clock. I
t was already five-thirty, which gave me only a little over an hour to get dressed and over to the gallery before the opening started at seven. “I’ll need the bathroom, so stay out of there for a while, Hannah,” I said. “By the way, how much are you paying for this fantastic opportunity?” The last two words dripped with sarcasm.
“Fifty fabulous bucks. And all the free gallery booze you can drink.”

I grabbed my b
athrobe and scoffed. “Great,” I sneered. “I can retire on that. I’ll need to borrow some clothes.”

Hannah nodded. “I’ll lay a few of my best things out on your bed for you.”

I shut the door and turned on the shower.

****

I
drove myself over to the opening in Ginger, my beloved twelve-year-old Volkswagen Jetta. The engine knocked and pinged the whole way and the clutch kept sticking, but she managed to make it. I really needed to consider buying a new car. Of course, that would require money I didn’t have at the moment, so I hoped I could just make due with a combination of high-octane gasoline and prayer for a while.

Ginger whined to a painful stop as I parked her just in front of the gallery. I
prayed I’d manage to get her started up again. I knew it was only a matter of time before she crapped out and died, or the muffler fell out on the highway.

The
Flaming River Gallery was in the Warehouse District in a converted paint factory, an area filled with bars and clubs where parking could be scarce even on a weeknight, so I’d hit the jackpot finding a space so close. The establishment was newly opened; this exhibit was only its second major show. I had to chuckle at the name of the place, a dig at Cleveland’s infamous Cuyahoga River, which literally caught fire in the seventies because it was so polluted with chemical runoff.  At least someone had found a way to have a sense of humor about it. But I’d found that you kind of had to have a sense of humor about Cleveland in general, especially when it came to the arts and culture scene. I’m originally from Boston, and only chose Case Western Reserve University because of the generous academic scholarship package I was offered. That, and I didn’t get into my first or second choice schools----Harvard and Tufts---much to my parents’ disappointment. Then again, my broke college-professor parents couldn’t have paid for either school had I gotten into them in the first place, so it was kind of a moot point.

My main goal in life was to graduate college and find a job as a journalist, and taking little freelance stringer gigs here and there could only help me towards that goal
. So I’d been easy pickings to bail Hannah out tonight. Then again, working as a cocktail waitress probably held a better financial future than a career as a writer. Hannah had a supposedly good journalism job and she survived mostly on credit cards and handouts from her wealthy parents. My own parents didn’t have that kind of money. I’d have to do whatever it took to support myself, and I knew that might mean pursuing a career other than journalism.

At least
living in Cleveland was a lot cheaper than living New York or Boston. But it didn’t have many opportunities for writers. So I was thankful for anything that fell into my lap, even if it was covering a cheesy third-rate art-gallery opening for a magazine that almost nobody read.

I paused at the door before entering the gallery. The storefront had a large window hung with
white curtains and posters that proclaimed “OPENING TODAY: Peter Rostovich.” The posters had old-fashioned black block letters on a white background, and gave nothing away about the art that might be inside. Typical gallery protocol, of course. The point was to get you to go inside, and preferably to spend money on the art. Between the couple of press gigs I’d already done and hearing about the openings Hannah had covered over the years I knew the ropes, at least when it came to how they handled publicity. Actually understanding the art was a different story.

I glanced at my reflection in the window. It was ghostly and mostly transparent in the evening twilight, but I could still see enough to check my makeup and hair. I’d worn a simple black pencil skirt with a white silk shell blouse and a tightly tailored black blazer
(all procured from Hannah’s ample closet full of designer couture outfits paid for by her wealthy parents; my meager wardrobe came mostly from thrift shops and Old Navy), along with comfortable dress flats from my own shoe collection. My hair was pulled back into a simple chignon that I’d accented with a jeweled silver comb, also borrowed from Hannah. I very rarely wore makeup, but Hannah had convinced me to break my usual protocol with a light dusting of bronzer powder and a nude lip gloss---“just to give you a little color,” she’d explained.  She really hadn’t needed to explain, though---my fishbelly-white Irish complexion has about as much color as a gray November day in Cleveland. She’d even loaned me her grandmother’s antique silver filigree earrings, which accented the silver comb in my hair.