And suddenly I realize there’s something odd about this whole setup. Surely the FBI could subpoena Ben’s bank records and phone logs if they wanted to. Do they really need me, a faux nanny, sneaking around his house and rummaging through his underwear drawer?
I know whyI’mhere: It’s because I’ve been promised the world. Or at least, the return ofmyworld the way it used to be. I can’t give that up.
Besides, next Saturday, October 30, is the Harrison Gallery party. Maybe I’ll be able to discover something then.
CHAPTER 51
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 30. It’s the night of the big party.
I walk into the gallery and hand my coat to a coat-check girl. Then I get a sudden attack of Impostor Syndrome. After all these years as a successful adult woman in the world, you’d think I would have outgrown that.
Yeah. You’d think.
I feel like sweet old Mrs. Patmore crashing one of Lady Cora’s Downton Abbey dinner parties. Just by showing up, I destroy the demographics. Will Ben be angry that I’m here? What if he makes a scene and has me thrown out on my big foam ass?
I see him across the room, working the crowd. I remember what Ben’s ex-wife, Sherry Quinn, said, how he tooktheir last eight hundred dollars out of the bank and with nothing but determination built a successful gallery. Now I understand.
He’s chatting up fifty people who’ve come to see and be seen and maybe even buy some art. Ben is smiling at everyone. Then he turns and spots me. I see a quick flash of something in his eyes. Curiosity? Recognition? He thinks he knows me, but from where? It’s like when you see your bank teller on the street.
I get it. I’m still wearing my foam bodysuit. But instead of my cheesy white uniform, I’m wearing a cheesy black dress I bought online. It’s size XXX or XXXX or maybe even bigger, but they couldn’t fit any more Xs on the label. I’ve put on makeup—eyeshadow, blush, foundation, the works—even some cat-eye eyeliner, applied with my somewhat shaky, out-of-practice hand. And I added a snappy black velvet beret that sits sideways on my gray hair at an angle that can only be described as jaunty.
Tonight’s featured artist is a twenty-seven-year-old Czech guy named Sabura Nemec. His specialty is upcycling. It sounds like a sport I’m not interested in. But no. It’s an art form I’m not interested in.
Upcycling isn’t new; it started over a hundred years ago when the artist Marcel Duchamp wanted to change the way people defined art. And, boy, did he ever. Duchamp submitted a men’s urinal to a New York City exhibition, claiming it was a piece of sculpture. In a gesture of pure whimsy, he turned the urinal upside down, trying todisguise it. Some art critics compared its form to a classic Renaissance Madonna. Other critics said it resembled a sitting Buddha, or a modest woman with her head covered. I guess none of them ever read “The Emperor’s New Clothes.”
Thus upcycling was born—defined by Duchamp as “everyday objects raised to the dignity of a work of art by the artist’s act of choice.” Too bad Duchamp didn’t live long enough to meet Sabura Nemec. His work is garbage. That’s not me being bitchy. It really is garbage.
Nemec’s mission statement begins: “Ever since I was a young boy in the Czech Republic, I have looked around the world with dismay at what humanity is willing to discard. As a child, I scoured garbage pails and rescued bits and pieces I could use to create something eternal. We turn away from the ugly and unusable when we should be serenading them for their service.”
I feel awful. Just this morning, I threw away an old pair of Odor-Eaters. And I never even said goodbye.
Waiters are walking around with trays of champagne and chocolate-dipped strawberries. I help myself to one of each. On the other side of the room, Felicia and Paulo Velasquez are talking to Ray and Meg Taggart. I pop a strawberry in my mouth and wave to them. Do they recognize me? I’m not sure, but they have the good grace to wave back. I see a few other faces I remember from Bella’s birthday party. Is one of them the dreaded lone photographer? And if so, is he watching me now?
The guests are gushing about Nemec’s “artistic intent” and “emotional clarity.” A few of them seem enchanted by his “pluralistic view of the universe.” I decide to walk around and see for myself. The pieces of humanity he saw fit to save include old pipe fittings, rusted safety pins, cracked plastic hairbrushes with strands of blond hair blowing in the breeze of a nearby standing fan, and combs and dentures, both with missing teeth. And at the end of the gallery wall, a bunch of broken dolls with the wordsSAVE MEspelled out in pistachio shells.
I would have thought that was the pièce de résistance, but no. On the other side of the gallery is a floor-to-ceiling canvas entirely filled with shellacked clumps of Kleenex.
The artist himself follows his own philosophy. He’s wandering around in a purple brocade suit that looks like it was made from drapes.
Okay, I’ve seen the gallery art. Now I’ve got to meet the gallery people.
CHAPTER 52
A LUCKY BREAK: The people who work in the gallery are all wearing name tags. I introduce myself to the first tagged person I see. Her name is Wanda. According to her tag, she’s theGALLERY DIRECTOR.Wanda is a slim, handsome woman with her hair in a braid that runs halfway down her back. I tell her I work for Mrs. Harrison, and she probably assumes I’m Amber’s social secretary or executive assistant. I don’t correct her.
“We’re so sorry Amber couldn’t join us tonight,” Wanda says. “Please, when you see her, tell her I hope her mother is doing better.” Ah. So that’s the excuse Ben gave. Liar, liar, pants on fire.
“Have you been with the gallery long?” I ask.
“Six years,” Wanda says. I ask what a gallery director does. She says her job is to keep everything functioning day to day.
“So if Ben is the heart of this place,” I say, “I guess that makes you the brain.”
She smiles. “Well, I never thought of it that way. But if the brain is the center of all activity, then yes.” She looks pleased with the analogy.
“And if anything was off, you’d be the first to know?”
“Yes. Unless someone went directly to Ben.”
