Love Love (38 page)

“This is amazing,” he said.

“Wait for it,” Claudia said.

The artwork slowly started spinning on its axis, stopping when it revealed its opposite side. Initially, it looked like a black-and-white landscape seen from an airplane's window, the white houses tiny and the streets laid out like black ribbon, but when Kevin considered the entire canvas and not the individual components, a face emerged, a man's face, a winding swath of the grassy park transformed into his beard, a swimming pool shaped like a nose. Before he could get a better look, the painting spun again.

“Pretty nifty, eh? It's titled
1:59
, and we're still trying to figure out how Jarkko worked those numbers into the piece. For example, that's how long it waits until it turns again, a minute and fifty-nine seconds. There are 159 houses on the other side, and there's one house that's bigger than all the others, at a scale that is 1 to 59 to an actual building. It's the one with the roof open, and inside, you see
little figurines of the man and the woman, sitting down on a sofa and staring up at a two-sided painting.”

Between this and the matchbook sculpture was Judy's section, her lone sketch looking like a brightly lit postage stamp next to these behemoths. There were three empty frames surrounding her drawing, spotlights pointed to each one, waiting to be filled with additional sketches she must be bringing. Kevin didn't know whether to be worried or impressed, because if Claudia considered Judy's work on the same level as these others, that was some high praise.

As if noticing his concern, she laid a hand on his shoulder and said, “I can't wait to put the rest of Judy's works on display. This is going to be a wonderful show.”

“Thank you,” Kevin said. “What you're doing for my little sister . . . you're gonna change her life. You've already changed it.”

“I'm not doing it for anyone but myself,” Claudia said. “You know that as well as I do. Now who's that woman you brought?”

Kevin had been so entranced by the artwork surrounding him that he'd forgotten about Denise. And she'd made herself easy to forget, sitting on a bench off to the side.

“My new sister. I'll bring her over.”

Denise was admiring a painting, a nude woman sleeping on her side on a mattress of roses. Every rose contoured to her body, and she was half awake, her green eyes slightly open, peering furtively at the viewer. The rest of her face was obscured by a bouquet of white roses.

“What do you think it means?” Denise asked.

“I have no idea. Sometimes I think it's enough for a work of art to be beautiful.”

They wended their way through the sudden thicket of gallery workers who moved with a heightened sense of immediacy. Heels and shoes clicked on the immaculate white floor; the level of collective noise elevated the din to a noisy clatter. Caterers wearing classic white tops and black slacks set up the drinks and hors d'oeuvres on the north end of the room while a sunglasses-wearing DJ set up shop on the opposite side. Claudia directed with a yardstick, showing the lighting guy where to nudge a pair of halogens above the rotating painting, while a cadre of assistants and underlings with clipboards and tablets consulted with her. When there was a lull in the commotion around her, Kevin snuck in front of her with Denise.

“Claudia, this is Denise.”

“Norman's daughter. Nice to have you,” Claudia said, extending her hand. She then turned to him and said, “A family gathering. I like it.”

“That rose painting,” Denise said, “just out of curiosity, how much is it?”

Claudia tapped the yardstick on her shoulder, thinking. “Rosalind sold her last painting for somewhere around thirty grand, but that was before her show in Milan, so you're probably talking about thirty-five now, maybe forty if she's got the balls to ask for it.”

Denise let out a whistle. “Everything good I've ever wanted in life, I've never had enough money to buy it.”

Soft jazz gradually, quietly flooded the room, the music coming from everywhere, and Kevin remembered Claudia mentioning something about this, how she'd flown in one of the lead engineers from the Bose Corporation to build a sound system that used the walls themselves as a giant speaker to provide the most organic listening experience. As the saxophone and piano meshed into a harmonious whole, Kevin saw the double doors of the entrance swing open to reveal his sister.

It hadn't been that long, hardly a month, but as he excused himself from Denise and Claudia and made his way over to see her, his heart tightened. He hadn't felt a swelling of nostalgia this strong since college, when he'd returned his freshman year after fall break. As he watched Judy hand her leather portfolio to the girl by the front counter and then pull off her coat, he couldn't shake the idea that he'd known her for her whole life. He'd been a month shy of turning three, but when he saw her bundled up in the hospital bed, sleeping in the crook of her mother's arm, he climbed in and proclaimed, “I like you.” At least that's what his mother had told him for so long that it had become an implanted memory. Judy used to gift him her dolls, sling the arm of the plastic baby in a dramatic arc and into his hands, her smile so guileless. She loved to sing the Korean folk song “Arirang” with her mother, belt out the chorus with abandon.

“Little sis,” he said, and she turned around. There was a glow to her skin, her hair shiny like a long, wet stone. She wore a simple black dress that made her look older and assured.

“Big bro,” she said, and there was that same kid smile on her face, just a bit wider with the passing of a few decades. It felt so good to
hold her. Their mother was gone, and when their father left, then it would be just the two of them.

“What is this?” she said when she caught his eyes welling up. “That's usually my job.”

“Maybe we've switched places,” Kevin said.

She scanned the room and slowly shook her head. “I have to stop saying that I can't believe this is happening. Holy shit, is that like a giant matchbook? I wonder if it works. I wonder if it's made by one of those artists who'll set it on fire at the end of the night.”

A media crew arrived through the entrance, lugging their cameras and AV equipment, a stream of burly stagehands grunting through the door while a pair of well-coiffed media folks, a thin man in a Euro-cut suit and a woman in a skin-tight red dress, stepped gingerly over the threshold. Judy and Kevin stepped off to the other end of the counter to stay out of their way.

“I took him to see Dr. Elias,” she said. Still she avoided using the words
father
or
dad
. Maybe he was expecting too much—the fact that she'd followed through was an accomplishment.

“You did?”

“Don't sound so surprised.”

“Well, you didn't call when I rang you. How's he doing?”

“About the same. Maybe a little worse.”

“You don't get better from renal failure.”

A caterer paused with a silver tray in his hand, holding flutes of champagne and glasses of wine, and Kevin was glad to see Judy decline.

“So,” she said, changing the subject. “I brought Roger with me.”

“And I'm looking forward to meeting your man.” It had been a while since he'd seen her so happy, which was good but also imbued him with trepidation. Judy had a way of falling hard for people, and though after Brian she'd become more guarded, Kevin didn't notice her holding anything back as Roger Nakamura walked through the door. He was about Kevin's height and build, and looking at his face was like staring at one of those traditional Japanese flat paintings where the eyes were thin and wide and the faces were horsey-long, almost like caricatures.

“You must be Kevin,” Roger said. He spoke with equanimity, each word its own island.

“And you must be Roger. Thank you for taking care of my sister.”

“It was just a few weeks. She healed up quickly.”

“Still, I wasn't there. I'm grateful.”

The three of them made small talk. Judy regaled Kevin about the first-class flight from Newark to San Francisco where they sat in a recliner-like seat and were given bibs for their lobster dinner. Kevin looked around as he listened, trying to find Denise, until one of Claudia's assistants interrupted them.

“We need you, Ms. Lee,” she said, “you and your artwork. Our installation people are ready.”

“I can use Roger's help, too, so we'll let you catch up with your former star student,” Judy said.

“What are you talking about?”

“Look behind you,” she said, before being whisked away with Roger.

He'd never seen Alexa like this, decked out and dolled up. Her normally straight blond hair, which was always tied back in a ponytail, was waved out to a luxurious fullness, and her black satin dress was a tube of elegance. As she approached him, he saw that the dress wasn't all black but varying shades of darkness, the gradations shifting with each step.

“Surprised to see me?” she asked.

“I guess I shouldn't have been.”

“But surprised nonetheless.”

He leaned over and gave her a quick, innocuous hug.

“So,” she said. “Mom told me you guys had sex.”

Kevin's mouth and his brain were not cooperating, and he was certain he looked like a guppy out of water.

“Yes,” he finally said.

“I'm not judging you,” she said, sounding exactly the opposite.

“Well, thank you. Claudia felt the need to tell you this, I see.”

“She feels the need to say a lot of things she shouldn't,” Alexa said. “So do you feel complete now? Are you satisfied with your life, your
longing
? Are you in
love
?”

She was trying to sound funny and sarcastic, but mostly what came across was her hurt, of exactly what, Kevin didn't know. He had a feeling Alexa didn't, either. There was a complicated dynamic of emotions at work here, and as the grownup, he thought the best way to diffuse the situation would be to play it straight.

He kept his voice as neutral as possible as he asked, “What do
you
think?”

It did the trick. Alexa's shoulders fell, then they rose up to a nonplussed shrug. “I think . . . I think maybe we should talk about something else.”

“Small talk.”

“Tiny talk.”

“You're out here visiting your mom.”

“It was her idea. I haven't seen her in a couple of months.”

“How's your tennis going?”

She picked up a flyer on the counter, rolled it into a baton, and mimed a perfect drop shot.

“That's totally Bill.”

She nodded. “I'm working with him now. It's different. He's a very different player than you. A very different person. It's fine, but it's . . . different.”

“The way we play is who we are,” Kevin said.

“Oh, and I just got accepted to the Bollettieri summer camp,” she said. “Some advanced techniques thing.”

“That's fantastic!” Kevin said. It was the premier tennis academy in the country, where top players like Maria Sharapova, Pete Sampras, and Andre Agassi developed their skills.

“I suppose. I don't think I'll learn that much more, considering how much you and Bill have already taught me.”

“Spoken like a true teenaged know-it-all.”

Behind and beyond Alexa, there was something going on, something that sounded like more than the chatter of pre-opening excitement. Claudia was vehemently shaking her head, and Judy was holding on to one of her mounted sketches.

“It's my mother.” Alexa grabbed his hand and pulled him toward the now full-blown commotion, a crowd forming, the savvy media folks already rolling the camera. “Before things get out of hand, which I guarantee they will, let me just apologize ahead of time for her being who she is.”

“You don't have to tell me about her eccentricities,” he said. “I've been staying with her for almost a month now.”

They'd reached the eye of this widening gyre. “I'm sorry,” Claudia said to Judy, “but I just can't.”

“What's going on?” Kevin asked.

“She says she won't display my drawings,” Judy said, her voice disembodied, a ventriloquist's dummy. “She says they're no good.”

“No, please, that's not what I said. What I did say is that they're not going to work here. I made a mistake. It's me who fucked up. And I am deeply, deeply sorry for that, but I just can't let these go on.”

“But she's here,” Kevin said. “You brought her here.”

Claudia, looking exasperated, closed her eyes as if to blot out the mess she'd created. “You're not helping.”

Judy looked to Roger, who had his hands in the pockets of his pants and met her eyes with the same, utterly composed face. Kevin remembered Judy telling him that Roger was medically unflappable, whatever that meant, but if there was ever a time to flap, this was it. Judy dropped her gaze, dropped her head, and dropped her framed piece from her hands, and as it made its inevitable, awful descent, Kevin saw that it was one he hadn't seen before, a tennis ball–shaped planet in outer space, her largest work yet. The glass shattered as the corner struck the floor, the noise amplified with the unnatural hush that had fallen over the gallery.