“What? What are you thinking?”
“I want to see what you do when I’m not with you.”
It took me a minute to register his request. “Now?”
“Now. Show me.”
When I got to our booth at the fair just before eleven the following morning, Matt was already there poring over his laptop. Lulit had yet to arrive.
“You want the good news or the bad?” he greeted me.
“No ‘Good morning’?”
He smiled, pushing his glasses up onto his face. “Sorry. Good morning. Good news: We’re going to sell a lot of art today.”
We’d been doing well thus far. Glen Wilson’s installationGatekeepingwas striking. Salvaged chain-link fences, with large-scale portraits woven throughout the steel mesh, symbolic of the gentrification transforming the artist beach community of Venice. The pieces representing the remnants of once-affordable properties and their displaced residents. It was political, powerful art.
“So what’s the bad news?”
“You’re a blind item,” he said, positioning the laptop so I could view the screen.
“A what?”
“Jo just sent this.”
The browser was opened to a website I didn’t recognize. Blind gossip something or another. At the top of the page there was an item titled “Naked Lunch.”
Which pretty boy with a penchant for mature women has been moonlighting as a collector in South Beach this week? Is he fulfilling his artistic desires or that of his amorous dealer?
I stared at it for a moment, trying to compute. It seemed so esoteric to me, random. “Is there a photo?”
“No.”
“Is my name up there?”
“Not yet. But it’s a matter of time before someone guesses.”
“How did Josephine know it was us? It could be anyone.”
Matt sighed, shutting the window. “The clues:Wise or Naked, August Moon,Petty Desires. It’s all in there.”
“Fuck,” I said. We’d been so careful. So lucky. “Who reads that thing?”
“Pretty much everyone who cares about gossip,” he laughed. “Sorry.”
I nodded. It was bound to happen. “‘Amorous dealer.’ Great.”
Matt smiled. “It could have been much less favorable. Lulit doesn’t know. We don’t have to tell her.”
“Okay,” I said. “Maybe that’s best.”
My pretty boy friend showed up sometime after two, wanting to see me, to see the fair. There was something of a lunchtime lull, and so we slipped away with Lulit’s permission.
“This dress,” he said as we meandered through the neighboring booths.
“What about it?” It was a cream-colored crepe shift. Sleeveless, short.
“It’s rather …wee.”
