Tamsyn:Are you going to Art Basel this December?
Tamsyn:Why don’t you just ask around there?
Adrian had been in such a funk that he hadn’t even considered his calendar of upcoming events, since they’d all been associated with Nora’s gallery. He’d gone to Art Basel twice before, and most of his paintings had sold each time. It drew a crowd much more open to his conceptual work than the walk-in clientele in Boston.
Adrian:I was planning to, but Nora won’t show my work now.
Tamsyn:You sure about that? Check the blog.
Feeling a pang of unease, Adrian complied. Just opening Nora’s personal gallery page sent a wave of discomfort through him, but he scanned the recent articles until he found what Tamsyn was talking about. Nora had a long post about her most recent application to the art fair, dated only a week ago. There were new photographs of his most recent works. New descriptions. All of it total bullshit.
Adrian Landry reinvents the historiography of Western art, causing the viewer to contemplate the ravages of time and space on our conception of conflict.
Landry’s layered use of paint evokes bruises and trauma in the rubble of Kruševo.
Landry’s grasp of anatomy makes departures from the figurative more startling in their abstraction.
Word salad. Nora was better than this; it didn’t sound like her. She’d probably let one of the new interns run amok. Adrian felt a rush of anger prickle up through his body and inflame his face. If Nora was still selling his paintings, was she just planning tokeepall the proceeds?
Adrian:Thank you. It appears that I will in some sense at least be going to Art Basel this year
Tamsyn:If you go in real life, take video. I want to see Nora’s face if you just show up and stand next to your work.
Adrian liked that mental image. He liked it a lot.
The immediate problem, of course, was money. Nora would have paid for everything. Adrian didn’t have enough saved for even flight and hotel expense, and he’d turned over his entire first paycheck to Tom for rent.
Running the numbers in his head, even assuming Caroline kept him on payroll for the next few months, he still wouldn’t be able to afford the trip. He could put it on a credit card and assume he’d sell work once he was there, but that sounded like the kind of bet that could leave him permanently indentured to Capital One.
Adrian:Good idea if I can swing it.
Tamsyn:Thanks. All my ideas are good ones
Tamsyn:That’s why they pay me the big bucks
Tamsyn:Come to my opening next month?
Adrian:Of course
Adrian put his phone down and rubbed his mouth, considering his options. He supposed he could moonlight with yet another patron off the escort website. Perhaps he’d find some elderly snowbird art lover who’d pay to vacation with him in Miami and rub elbows with the international art set. He could just make that a condition straight up, rather than the weekly stipend Tom had negotiated with Caroline. It wasn’t anything like a job to spend time with Caroline; he still had free time to spend on someone unpleasant.
Something told him Caroline wouldn’t be impressed by that plan though. She’d probably expect him to ask her first. Which he was reluctant to do.
But if the hypothetical eighty-year-old wanted to go with him, why wouldn’t Caroline? He couldn’t immediately classify it as a good idea or a bad idea, but his brain began to present him with itineraries. Nora had always wanted to spend most of their time checking out the competition and other galleried works, but Caroline would probably like seeing the installation art best, maybe the moderated panels, if she wanted to learn more about current movements. Adrian could probably secure invitations to some of the bigger parties. He could walk Caroline through the chaos of the satellite fairs. It was the sort of thing she’d hired him for in the first place. New experiences. What was wrong with that?
Before he could talk himself out of it, he texted her.
Adrian:Have you ever heard of Art Basel? Do you have any interest?
If he’d held a piece of charcoal in his hand, Adrian could have sketched the joyous expression his mind rendered on Caroline’s face as she gazed up at the rainbow totem of Miami Mountain. Who wouldn’t like going to Miami to see contemporary art? And the restaurant scene. Boston was a culinary backwater, but he could show Caroline some real five-star cuisine in Miami.
Maybe they’d even have time to go to the beach.
A warm, glowing tendril of hope skidded through his chest before he even saw her response:
Caroline:I’d love to go!
Caroline:That sounds perfect!
