Adrian wiped a hand across his sweaty chest with distaste. Caroline thought he’d be surprised at what people might pay for that privilege. It was her, she was people, even. She sucked on her lip, wondering if she wanted to ask. Maybe a different day when he didn’t look so sad.
“I need a shower and a change,” he replied. “But I thinkAnastasiais being performed at the opera house right now, if you’d like to see a musical.”
“Is it supposed to be good?”
“You’ll have to tell me,” he said, making it sound like an order. She let it slide.
Chapter Eight
Adrian leaned forward to prop his chin on his forearms, as though the new angle would make the spreadsheet in front of him more encouraging. If he’d been unproductive in Tom’s living room over the past few weeks, entering data into spreadsheets from his studio only drove home how little he’d accomplished recently. He was still a man with a spreadsheet, but he was now a man with a spreadsheet surrounded by blank canvases that should have been paintings.
Caroline was right though: the quickest way out of the hole he’d dug for himself was signing on with a new gallery and selling some of his existing work. So he’d spent the morning on the phone with the galleries he admired around the city, slowly realizing that this problem was bigger and more complicated than he’d thought.
He’d never had to apply to work with a gallery before. Exhibitions, juried shows, yes, but Nora had approachedhimwith an offer of representation seven years previous. Before that, back when he was an art school wunderkind and anexciting new talent, he’d been sought-after and recruited by many of the same places he’d called that morning. He discovered that there was now an application process or a portfolio review fee between him and anyactual human he might talk to. He tried calling a couple of galleries he’d shown at as a student only to discover that the staff had turned over and didn’t know him.
He frowned at the daunting list of requirements he’d copied into a cell in Caroline’s market research template—high-resolution photographs, an artist statement, an updated CV—things he’d once possessed but which had vanished from the website of his former gallery. Adrian decided to text a friend from his MFA program and check whether he was really going about this in the right way.
Tamsyn had the kind of solid career he’d assumed he possessed until a few months ago. Now he contacted her because she had the things he’d lost: a girlfriend, a gallery, and a good reputation in the art community.
Adrian:Did you go through the online application process before you signed with Beacon Hill Contemporary?
He winced when he noticed that their last exchange of messages had been nine months ago.
He didn’t expect Tamsyn to respond right away, but he hadn’t even moved on to another gallery’s site before she responded rapid-fire.
Tamsyn:Hi
Tamsyn:Hello
Tamsyn:Good to hear from you
Tamsyn:I was a little worried you might be dead
Tamsyn:Glad you’re not dead
Tamsyn:No, I met my gallery director at an after-party for the Whitney Biennial three years ago
Tamsyn:Why do you ask?
Adrian took a deep breath. He hadn’t been good at keeping in touch with anyone recently, it seemed.
Adrian:I’m looking for new gallery rep.
Adrian:Why did you think I might be dead?
Tamsyn:Heard Nora dumped you
Tamsyn:Didn’t hear from you
Tamsyn:Assumed you were stuffed in the trunk of a burnt-out car down in Southie somewhere
Tamsyn:Surprised she let you live
Tamsyn:That woman scares me
Tamsyn:Guess that explains the need for new gallery rep though
That did, in a nutshell, explain things, he supposed. He pinched the bridge of his nose between his knuckles, at a loss for how to proceed. Just start over. Fecklessly dispatch copies of his art to strangers and hope they liked it. But Tamsyn wasn’t done.
