The Prize (24 page)

“Maybe it's the cure for restless husbands.” Holly had had a few glasses of wine. “Inviting pretty artists to the house.”

E
MPTY WINEGLASSES AND
dessert plates still on the coffee table and scattered throughout the living room, cigarette butts in the ashtray on the porch, the cushions on the couch sunken, still holding the ghosts of their last inhabitants, the fire nearly extinguished. Edward went to the kitchen to start the dishes. Dirty plates crowded the sink. On the counter sat the picked-over turkey carcass and charred casserole dishes. The windowpanes above the sink were black. The house felt uncomfortably still.

Holly wrapped the leftovers, pulling out a sheet of plastic wrap and meticulously placing it over the bowl, stretching it so that it sealed the container without letting any air in. He thought of the way she had flirted with Chip at dinner. He slipped the sponge into a crystal goblet and the glass broke in his hands. “Goddamn it,” he said.

“Are you okay? Did you get cut?”

“I'm fine.” He shook his hand to stop the blood.

“You're not fine.” She came over and wrapped his finger with a paper towel. Blood oozed into it.

“I'm sorry.” He pressed his finger against the paper towel to stop the flow of warm blood.

“What's wrong?”

“Chip Lawson is a dick. He never stops talking about himself. He put me in a bad mood.”

“He's Chip.”

“He's an asshole.” He turned to the sink and with his free hand picked out the broken glass. “Sorry. I'm not myself tonight.”

“I'm not either.” In the half-light of the kitchen, Holly kicked off her heels and appeared suddenly smaller, more diminished.

“Maybe it's the holidays? I always feel a little sad this time of year.”

“Maybe.”

He dried his free hand on a dishtowel and turned to Holly.

“That's not it,” Holly said. “I've been thinking. You know, about what I said earlier to Ruth. About inviting that artist, Julia, to the house for cocktails. Why don't you ever bring your artists home? Or take me to one of your dinners?”

“I guess I didn't think you'd be interested.”

“It's like you're ashamed of me,” Holly said.

“I'm not ashamed of you. I thought you'd be bored. You know what it's like when you get a group of artists together. They only want to talk about themselves. Hol, you don't invite me out with your friends at the barn either.”

“I guess,” Holly said, drifting. “I've just been thinking. In taking care of everyone else—you, Annabel, Mother and Daddy, this house—I've lost a bit of myself.”

“That's not true. We'd all be lost without you.” He wondered about his own unhappiness but it upset him to think Holly was unhappy or disappointed or had lost faith in him. Was what Holly said true? Was he embarrassed by his wife? That wasn't it. He liked keeping her separate. Home was his refuge.

“I don't know,” Holly said. “Nothing seems fun anymore with us.”

She stretched out another piece of plastic wrap. His eyes moved down her body and stopped at her legs, covered in sheer nylons. On one leg her nylon had snagged, causing a rip up the seam. He leaned into her back and nuzzled her neck. A shimmer of desire went through him. As if sensing it, she moved away, picked up the plastic wrap, tore off a sheet, and placed it tightly over a plate
of cookies. Why was she always moving away? If only she would come into his arms and kiss him—for so many years he lived for her to take him in like that. He wanted to be adored. Maybe all men—everyone—did.

“It seems as if you've lost interest.”

“I've lost interest?” She turned to look at him. “You really are dumb. In the morning you don't look above your coffee cup to acknowledge I'm there.”

His thoughts raced. He could not break through the layers to figure out how to reach her or what to say. Or how to get what they once had back. It seemed in that moment that if he went any further it all might fall apart. He looked at the copper teakettle on the burner next to the sink. It was a wedding present from one of Holly's cousins. It was discolored after years of tarnish; the bottom had corroded and puckered from built-up residue and the copper had pulled back to expose the raw metal underneath.

He wanted to say something more to her about their unhappiness, something simple that might fix it, but the words fought him. He considered telling her about Agnes and stopped himself. He didn't want to bring it up. Not then.

“My work seems to have lost its meaning.”

“Until your next discovery. The way you spoke of Julia Rosenthal, it doesn't sound as if the magic is gone just yet.”

The room seemed to go around him. His heart sped. He peered at his reflection in the dark pane, and farther back, the shadow of Holly. The grandfather clock in the hallway chimed.

They finished in the kitchen, unease lingering, abstract but all-inclusive. He turned off the lights, one after the other, darkness shadowing them, and followed Holly to the staircase.

PART TWO

1 LONDON

T
HE FAIR PRESENTED
more than a hundred galleries of modern and contemporary international art. Julia gave a talk about her exhibited work in the crowded space of a new British gallery: “Sculpted figures that hang from the ceiling like naked mannequins in dancer-like poses,” the catalogue read.
All Powerful Individuals Eventually Become Powerless
, the show was titled. In her talk she said she aimed to depict the unknown individuals in society. “At the end of the day, who are we really?” she said, then she quoted from Auden's “Musée des Beaux Arts”: “About suffering they were never wrong, / The Old Masters: how well they understood / Its human position; how it takes place / while someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along.” She spoke about the strangeness of making something out of nothing and of how her dancers lifted themselves out of the iron in which they'd been molded and brought themselves to life. Her cheeks were pink as she turned to look anew at her sculptures projected on a screen behind her.

Edward waited for her in the back of the gallery. After Christmas, in clear moments, he had told himself to cancel their dinner plans, but from the moment he boarded the plane to London she was the only person he wanted to see.

“It was wonderful,” he said to her, after the last of the crowd had drifted to the drinks buffet. “I'm spellbound.” He kissed her on one cheek and then the other.

Julia's face was flushed, high from the talk. “I didn't embarrass myself?”

“No. You were terrific.”

“I'm glad it's over.”

“Charlotte invited us to her dinner. Do you want to join?”

“Charlotte knew we were getting together?”

“I ran into her at Saatchi this morning. She asked about you. She's been trying to get in touch.”

“Will the others from Berlin be there too?”

He nodded. “Charlotte said if we don't attend her dinner she'll make sure we're the main topic of conversation. And people need to see you after your talk. It was brilliant.”

“Well, then, we have to join,” she said, a little reluctantly.

“We have time for a drink first,” he said, walking her toward the door and then around the corner to a small, dark, and crowded pub. They sat in a back booth. He ordered a Guinness and she a glass of cabernet.

“I'm glad that's over. I have to admit, though, that it is exhilarating to speak about my work in front of others. It's like coming out of hiding.”

“So then you want to go to the dinner?”

“To watch everyone impressing each other? Of course.”

“Is that how it looks?”

“You're one of the gatekeepers. Don't you know when you're being impressed?”

He laughed. “I try to keep my head down. My job is to keep the stable filled.”

“And you represent Agnes Murray.”

“So Agnes makes me famous?” For a moment he considered telling Julia about the studio visit and what had happened, but he wasn't ready to articulate it. He still hoped Agnes would come around. He took it as a good sign that Reynolds had not been in touch. It meant Agnes was thinking things over. Or maybe it wasn't. He didn't want to think about it.

“No. You made her famous.” Julia looked up and brushed back a lock of hair.

“Thank you.”

“It's not an act, is it?”

He looked bewildered.

“You really don't see it, do you? That's your gift.”

“My gift?”

“That you don't see it.” She paused and looked at him with curiosity. “Who you are. You should have more confidence.”

“When I walk through galleries and see what sells it can be humbling. I take on what moves me and then worry about whether it'll sell. People like Savan, he's smarter. He takes on what sells.”

“Don't let them corrupt you. The Savans of the world.”

“It works for him. Collectors respond to his energy. Artists, too. He's a terrific salesman.”

He thought again about Savan going to Agnes's studio. It infuriated him all over again. He looked across the table and then past her out the window. The rush-hour crowd streamed past.

“Do you ever wake up and wonder how you got here? And what it all means?”

“Sometimes. I try not to think about it. When I think that way it's usually when I'm unhappy or doubting myself.”

An idea possessed him. “Would you consider moving to Mayweather and Darby?” As soon as he said it, he wondered if he would regret it. It wasn't his style to poach from other galleries. If an artist was on the market for a new gallery, then he'd listen. But there was something about Julia that made him want to make an exception. And if Savan got away with it, why not he? He thought about her talk, her dancers and the idea of being powerless, and it made him think about the randomness of life and death. Why some are touched by tragedy early and others are spared, and what, if anything, it meant.

“That wouldn't be too weird?”

“Why, because we're friends?”

She nodded. “I don't know. I've been with Watkins from the beginning. He didn't come to the talk this afternoon. And he's been in London all week. I've been handed over to one of his underlings. And yet he understands what I do.”

“I love your work. I knew I would that first night I met you when you got the Rome Prize.”

“You remember that night?”

“Of course I do. You said you hadn't done anything remarkable yet. Now you have. What are you working on now?”

“I'm doing some commissioned work in Vienna and Amsterdam. Watkins got them for me. And a work of public art here in London. Tomorrow I have a meeting with the Arts Council. But what I'm most excited about is more personal. I'm working on a series of small stone pieces.”

“I'd like to see them when we're back in New York. What you said in your talk about sculpture, about it being the poetry of shape?”

“Yeah.”

“I liked that.”

“When I make something I can hear my materials. They sometimes laugh at me,” she said, and grinned. “But really, the stone pieces mean a lot to me. They're helping me. I told you. We lost a child.”

“I know. I'm sorry.”

She lowered her eyes. “I still see her face in my mind.”

“I'd love to see the sculptures.”

“I can't think of anyone I'd rather let see them.”

“Two foreign cities,” Edward said, suddenly brightening.

She waited for him to finish his thought.

“Berlin and London.”

“Three cities,” she corrected him. “Don't forget Hamburg.”

“And your lost passport,” he said.

“Lost among my possessions.” Julia rolled her eyes.

“Aren't we all?”

“I don't feel lost tonight, do you?”

“No. I'm happy to be away from all the nonsense at the gallery. It's been tense.”

“Who will be at the dinner?”

“Charlotte's arranged it. Everyone will be there.”

C
HARLOTTE
'
S DINNER WAS
held in a trendy, too brightly lit restaurant. Though there were twenty or thirty people at the table,
aside from the quick hellos and pecks on the cheek when they arrived, he barely spoke to anyone other than Julia.

“Your husband?” he said, after their starters. They were sitting next to each other on the banquette of a long booth.

“Roy.”

“Yes. Remind me, what does Roy do?”

“He's an architect.”

“Ah, yes.”

“I tried living with an artist once. I told you. Frederick. Inevitably one or the other becomes more successful. Or is deemed such. It's dangerous.”