Tom told him that he seemed pretty smug for a guy who came home alone before midnight, though Adrian was duty bound to ignore attempts at fishing and told him nothing.Smugwasn’t the right term, anyway.Smugwould have implied some kind of achievement. It wasn’t that he’d ever set out to have a relationship with Caroline. Being in a relationship with her was mostly a matter of accepting that it had happened despite their best intentions. But the acceptance was easier than he could have imagined.
Adrian woke up the next day feeling at peace with himself. He was unemployed again, but that was temporary; he would meet with Mike McMurtry on Sunday and negotiate a deal with his old gallery. He was dating a student, but that was all right. He’d managed to be a generally positive influence on Caroline’s life, he thought, and he was prepared to take things as slow as she wanted, in light of an age difference that would gradually fade in significance. It was only a year and a half until she’d have some air-conditioned office job creating spreadsheets, and then nobody would think it was too bad that she had an older boyfriend who was a gallery artist.
He was in love. He wanted to paint again. Abruptly, his future looked appealing.
He spent the weekend in his studio finishing the Ilinden-Preobrazhenie painting and organizing his digital portfolio of works still with Nora. Late on Sunday afternoon, he got a selfie from Caroline—fingers in a peace sign, black watch cap over blond hair, drawn theater curtains behind her—with a pink heart emoji attached. His chest ached with emotions that hadn’t filled it in years.
Break a leg, he wrote back.
He printed a final copy of his CV and artist’s statement, checked his prints for smears or wrinkles, and tucked his portfolio into his battered leather messenger bag. Most artists had to market themselves to galleries, he told himself. True, they mostly did this at ten years younger than he was, but he’d skipped the portfolio review stage the first time around. Dating a twenty-three-year-old meant that he was likely to be reliving a number of other experiences most frequently enjoyed by that age group, many of which he was even looking forward to.
It was easier than he’d thought to find his old gallery, as though he’d been absent for only a few weeks, rather than seven years. The building, set on a quiet street in Chestnut Hill instead of one of the trendier downtown art districts, was exactly as he remembered it: he entered through a small retail area where Mike sold art books and matted prints, then wandered through a warren of gallery spaces to the cluttered office in the rear.
The man stood up when Adrian knocked on the half-open door. Mike was a big guy, a Boston-Irish bruiser who looked like he might be unloading cargo down on the docks as well as selling fine art, but he had shrewd, wide-set hazel eyes in his pink face, and he moved with purposeful restraint. Adrian had somehow expected him to be exactly the same too, but it had been seven years, andMike was broader and grayer than he’d been. Adrian abruptly felt those years looming over him. Seven years with little to show for it.
“The prodigal son returns!” Mike announced grandly, thwacking him on the back. “How are you doing, kid?”
Adrian was past the age when he might have been plausibly calledkid, but he accepted it as the reminder of who he’d been when he first signed up with Mike versus where he was today.
“Glad to be here,” he eventually responded, thinking that struck the appropriately contrite note.
They spent a few minutes talking about mutual acquaintances, their health, their living arrangements, and Tamsyn’s new show, which Mike had seen in preview. It was less awkward than Adrian had feared. Certainly less fraught than negotiating with Nora over marketing for a new show when he was simultaneously pissed that she’d made joint vacation plans with people he didn’t even like without consulting him.
“So things are really done with Nora?” Mike asked.
“Very done.”
“You know, I thought it was a bad idea when you two got together. It’s a little incestuous, dating an artist at your own gallery.”
“Yes,” Adrian couldn’t help but agree. Of course, even if he hadn’t agreed, what else could he say?
“You still have anything up over at her gallery?”
“I’ve heard she’s showing a few of my most recent works at Art Basel, but I’m not sure that’s... intended for my benefit.”
Adrian thought he could afford to be big about it at this point.
“Gotcha,” Mike said, eyebrows raised.
Adrian smiled uncomfortably, hoping he didn’t need to explain more about the collapse of his personal and professional relationships with Nora.
“So, what else have you been up to?” Mike finally asked, moving back around his desk to settle in his big leather armchair.
Adrian took one of the matching chairs on the other side, gingerly laying his portfolio across several piles of paperwork.
“Do you mean in terms of awards and shows, or...” He trailed off. There had been plenty of those, if not in the past couple of years, and he had dutifully updated his CV with every snippet of recognition. If you looked at him on paper, you would think he was an accomplished artist. But Mike had never much cared for the juried shows and expensive biennials before, which was a point Nora had made in convincing Adrian to switch galleries.
Mike waved a hand in the air. “Nah, I don’t care about any of that glossy art magazine circle-jerk bullshit. Show me your work.”
Adrian nodded and began to open his portfolio, but Mike waved him off again and pointed to a digital projector aimed at a bare wall on the other side of the office.
“Do you have good digital copies?”
With some technological fumbling, Adrian plugged his phone in to the projector and managed to get a painting displayed on the wall, more or less life-size and with good detail.
“Thanks,” Mike said. “When the new kids are applying through the website, I usually do this myself. Thought I’d have you over in person though, see if you got ugly.”
“I think I found a gray hair yesterday?” Adrian offered.
