THE FIRST INSULT of the art show—before all the injuries—was placement.
I arrived at the gallery to find my portrait hung in the worst conceivable spot—half under a staircase, fully at the back, right near the bathrooms, under an exposed air-conditioning vent that was literally dripping into a bucket. There was a moldy smell to the area—not to mention a tinge of Lysol.
You’d think that a bright, airy, recently renovated art gallery wouldn’t have a dank corner—but you’d be wrong.
And that’s where they stuck me.
At the art gallery equivalent of a restaurant’s sucker table.
Worst of all, the spot was hard to get to, but because of the U-shaped layout of the gallery, it was easy to see. Everybody entering the building could get a full view of my indefensibly tragic situation.
So any and all humiliations to come would be on full display. And there were plenty of humiliations to come.
Starting with the fact that no one was there.
Oh, people were there—at the show. The show itself was packed. Just
—no one came to my shadowy, mildewy, forgotten corner.
I stood courageously next to my portrait, under the cold, damp, blowing air of that drippy vent, feeling as exposed as a hermit crab out of its shell— as I watched the entire gallery milling with eager art patrons.
Everywhere—except where I was.
No one came up to me and said hello. No one talked to me at all. Only a few freakish outliers even glanced at my portrait, which was clearly, easily,
the big loser of the night from minute one. I scanned people’s outfits and hair and gaits for identifying clues, but I did not recognize one person.
The artist closest to me, layout-wise, was a guy named Bradley Winterbottom, who’d done a portrait of a child on the beach. He had at least twenty people gathered in his area—chatting companionably about the composition, delighting over the way he’d captured that late-afternoon sunlight, swooning over the sweetness of the child’s face.
I mean, nothing against Bradley Winterbottom, but I really hated that guy right then.
He had more admirers than he deserved. I, in contrast, had zero.
I didn’t even need admirers. I would’ve been happy for someone to talk to. A person who needed directions, say. A lost hiker.
But no luck. It was just me. Alone.
Nothing to do but panic over life-altering decisions about where to rest my hands. They were too posed and awkward at my sides, but they felt hostile if I crossed them over my chest, and they had too much judgy-mom energy if I rested them on my hips. I just kept shifting them around. Was behind the back too goofy? Was clasped at the pelvis too meek? Was clenched into fists of misery too … honest?
Nothing worked. Every few seconds I tried a new pose. Like an animatronic scarecrow.
To no avail.
I had no idea where to look, either. Looking at the floor would make me seem ashamed. Looking at other people would make me seem needy. Looking at my own portrait on the wall would make me seem like I was fully, heartily giving up on my dreams in real time.
Which I was, by the way.
There is nothing—nothing—more socially awkward than standing alone in a crowd waiting for someone, anyone, to come and join you.
I cursed Sue for getting kidnapped. And for eloping. And for every Angry Canadian she’d tossed back.
Then I felt guilty and took it back.
I cursed Joe instead. For everything. Then I felt guilty about that, too.
Then I toyed with cursing myself … before deciding I was cursed enough, already.
 |
THE WHOLE EXPERIENCE was wall-to-wall agony. There were no two ways about it.
I finally set my phone’s timer for eleven P.M.—the moment when the show technically ended, according to the invitation—so that I could stride out, or possibly sprint, the very second I was done.
Only two hours and forty-five minutes left to endure.
For the auction component of the show, each artist had a sleek, Jetsons- style cocktail table next to their portrait with a clipboard on it for patrons to write down their bids.
Bradley Winterbottom had to request an extra bid sheet after his filled up—front and back—but do I even need to say how many bids wound up on my clipboard during the entire time that I stood there?
Zero. That’s right.
But was that the worst, most insulting part of the evening? Wow. That’s a tough call.
Let’s review the options:
There were all the shocked looks people gave my portrait from across the room—hands over mouths, eyes big with pity—the way you might rubberneck past a car wreck.
There was the moment when I accidentally knocked over the bucket of A/C drippings and then apologetically mopped it up with paper towels from the bathroom, one drippy bunch at a time, while other artists and patrons glanced over with irritation like I was really bringing everyone down.
There were the endless ten minutes when another finalist, who wore a little porkpie hat, went by the single pseudonym Lysander, and apparently possessed a nervous digestive system, had to work through some brutal digestive issues in the men’s room, which I could of course hear in detail from my primo spot by the bathroom doors—grunts, splashes, and all.
Oh. And there was the time when I took a pee break and overheard some judges who seized that moment to dart over and laugh at my work.
Yes, that’s how close my placement was to the bathrooms. I could literally hear these people talking from the stall.
“What is happening here?” Judge 1 asked, in a horrified whisper. “I know,” Judge 2 said.
“Did the artist … leave?” “Wouldn’t you?”
“I never would have shown up at all.” “She must have fled.”
“Right? Off to not quit her day job.” “Or to fling herself off a bridge.” They snickered at that.
“It’s just so bizarre,” one went on pensively. “The body and background are so exquisite…”
“But then you get to the face.”
“I keep thinking it’s Carl Sagan.” “I keep seeing Steve Buscemi.”
“It looks like a wolf face, in a way.” “Impossible. Animals are against the rules.” “Right? It’s not veterinary portraiture.” “Whatever it is, it’s like the face melted.”
“Or got hit with a pie right before the sitting.” “Or landed facedown in mud.”
“Or had a botched cosmetic surgery.”
“I just don’t understand how this piece is even here.” “Maybe they notified the wrong artist?”
“It’s just insulting, more than anything.” “It kind of makes me angry.”
“What a waste of a Top Ten spot.”
“Too bad we can’t give negative points.” “Isn’t it?”
At that, I’d had enough. I pressed the toilet handle with my shoe and held it there.
Mercifully, the blast of the industrial flush was loud enough to startle them away.
In the silence that followed, I washed my hands, smoothed my hair in the mirror, smiled encouragingly at my unintelligible face, stood up straight
like how I imagined a person with some remaining human dignity would, and walked back out to my post.
Just two soul-draining hours to go …
It was okay. It was fine. What was it Joe had said about sitting for the portrait? “Trigonometry is hard. Climbing El Capitan is hard. Landing on the beaches of Normandy is hard.” All I had to do was stand here—and keep standing here—until my alarm went off.
And then I could go home. And brainstorm a new life’s dream.
This was the big break I’d been working toward for over a decade. This was the moment I’d been waiting for—dreaming of. This was the life I’d chosen. This was a competition that if the past five weeks hadn’t happened, I’d be crushing right now. This was a showcase moment for the thing I was best at in my entire life … Just not anymore.
Could I have used at least one person there with me in that moment? Yes.
And would I have even minded if it was Lucinda? Not at all.
But I got fully stood up. By everyone. Even though my dad’s secretary had put it on his calendar and Lucinda had interrupted my last—only— night with Joe to give me that news. Even though I’d been dreading them coming ever since I found out. Even though they were the last people I ever would’ve chosen.
I was out of choices.
As time wore on and the smile I’d stapled to my face quivered more and more, I found myself hoping for someone, anyone, to show up—and, if I’m honest … imagining how great it would be if that someone could be Joe.
It wasn’t impossible, was it? Crazier things had happened, right?
If nothing else, imagining it gave me a nice distraction. Joe: Having an epiphany in line at the airport, abandoning his suitcase, hailing a cab, but then hitting too much traffic, sprinting the final blocks here only to burst through the doors and shove past elderly art critics to my dark corner like it was the only place he’d ever wanted to be … and then breathlessly begging my forgiveness while declaring his undying love—thereby validating my entire existence for everyone here, including me.
Maybe I should pop out for some air freshener.
Thanks a lot, Lysander.
Anyway. I knew it was impossible. Joe had already refused to be my anybody.
But be careful what you hope for.
I did get an anybody—at last, two hours in … But it was Parker.
Confirmed: Hope is the worst.
|
YOU KNOW THAT saying that people look like their pets? Parker slinked over to me like a human Sphynx cat, and I swear her pupils were vertical slits. “Aw,” she said, with delighted faux sympathy. “Did Daddy and Lucinda stand you up?”
“They weren’t invited,” I said. “And neither were you.”
Parker looked at my dress and said, “Are you headed to the prom?” That was her best insult? It was almost disappointing. “Maybe,” I said. Then she stage-whispered, “Are you totally alone over here?”
“No,” I said. I clearly was.
Then she looked around theatrically. “Looks like they put you at the sucker table.”
“It’s mood lighting,” I said.
“Why does it smell like diarrhea?” Parker asked next.
I glanced over at Lysander, now back at his station. But I said to Parker, “Must be your perfume.”
At that, Parker turned her attention to the portrait and studied it a good while.
“Who’s it supposed to be?” she asked at last. “The guy from The Hobbit?” She shifted her stance. “Wait—is it John Denver?” Then she took a step back. Then like she’d nailed it at last: “Hold up! Danny DeVito.”
“Don’t you have anything at all better to do?” I asked. “There’s nothing better than this.”
“Know what your being here right now tells me?” “That I’ll always win?”
I gave it a beat. “That you still don’t have any friends.” “I don’t need friends. I stole yours.”
“Yes, you did. But you didn’t get what you wanted.” “Neither did you.”
She wasn’t wrong.
Parker looked around the room. “This is so brutal,” she said then. “Your painting sucks, your dress is awful, I’m pretty sure you’re being shunned by the art world, and your nemesis is right here, gloating.”
“Parker?” I said. “Get out.” “No.”
“Get out before I call security.”
But Parker just smiled. “You won’t do that. You’re already at maximum humiliation.”
“Joke’s on you. I don’t have maximum humiliation.”
But did the universe hear me right then and think, Challenge accepted?
Because we were about to redefine maximum humiliation. “Parker,” I said, “just go.”
“No way. I want to savor every minute.”
“Why are you the worst person in the world?” I asked, like she might try to answer.
“Oh my god. You’re always the victim, aren’t you?” “Well, whose fault is that?”
“You just have to blame me for everything.”
“I don’t blame you for everything. You actually do everything.” But she leaned in. “Your persecution complex is unreal.”
“I don’t have a persecution complex!” I said. “I am literally being persecuted.”
“It’s not my fault your mother died,” Parker said then. “It’s not my fault your dad married my mom. It’s not my fault we sold our house, and I gave up my room, and we got thrown together every minute of every day. I didn’t ask for that, and I certainly didn’t ask for you. I was not consulted—about any of it! And yes, I did all those terrible things! I framed you and lied about you and coaxed them both into pushing you away. But your dad not loving you? That’s not my fault, either. He stopped loving you well before we met. You lost him all on your own. And you want to know how you did that? Because you”—and here she seemed to rise up on her dragon haunches—“are the reason that your mother died.”
I guess our voices had accidentally gotten loud.
When she stopped talking, there was not a sound in the gallery. I could hear the A/C dripping into my bucket.
I could hear a toilet flush.
And I could hear all those people who’d been ignoring me earlier suddenly taking a new kind of interest.
I lowered my voice, in a comical shot at privacy. “What are you talking about right now?”
“I overheard them talking one night—Dad and Lucinda. He told her what happened. That your mom had a messed-up blood vessel in her brain. That he’d begged her to get surgery to fix it. But she refused. She put it off till summer. The two of you had planned a spring break trip, to go visit some artist’s museum, and she wasn’t going to disappoint you. Your dad told her to cancel the trip. He begged her. But she wouldn’t listen. She went anyway. And then one week later, she collapsed.”
What was she saying?
I felt a weird pain in my chest, like the shell of my heart was cracking. “That’s what he said that night,” Parker went on. “That it was your
fault. That try as he might, he couldn’t help but blame you. I heard him say those words out loud. So you can stop thinking I ruined your relationship with your father. It’s not my fault he doesn’t love you. It’s not my fault you lost your family. You did all that to yourself.”
Was something going on with the floor? It felt like the room was shaking.
So much for staying until the end.
I looked up for an escape route, and that’s when I saw my father. I knew it was him at a glance from that navy polka-dot bowtie he’d been wearing to fancy events ever since I was little. And I’d know his stance—not to mention his outline—anywhere. And there he stood, a forgotten bouquet of grocery store flowers in his non-bandaged hand—watching us, his sheer motionlessness telegraphing that he’d just witnessed the whole thing.
And that it was true.
I didn’t even bother to walk closer. There were no secrets with this crowd now.
“Is she lying?” I said to my father. “Or is it true?” My dad took a half step forward, then paused.
I stood up straighter. “Tell me she’s lying,” I said. Then, yelling: “Tell me she’s lying!”
Where the hell was Joe when I needed him to flip the breaker and save me?
Oh, well.
I guess I’d have to save myself.
