eschewed the headsets to avoid the burden of following the exhibition in a controlled time, along with possibly being trailed by foreigners with different hygiene habits than mine. And, regardless of my not wearing a headset, an Italian, or perhaps he was Spanish—a man who wore his short-sleeved gingham shirt tucked into his pulled-too-high jeans, who either used too much hair gel or proved my theory that some foreigners were on a different wash cycle—approached me.
“Vu vike DaVinci?” he asked in some Franco-Italian-Anglaise, which was either a really Euro come-on or he knew very little English.
“Leonardo? He seems very nice, though I never did meet him.”
Euro laughed at me, adding to the oily wetness of him with his flecks of spit that shot from the wide front gap of his cigarette-stained teeth.
I was quite impressed with myself. If Euro had made the moves on me pre-Henry proposal, he would have certainly been the recipient of an Emily smirk. But now, feeling more mature and perhaps a bit forlorn for the attention, I felt quite charitable.
“Vy vont vu join me?” he said, to my breasts.
Just then I remembered my ring, feeling as if I had just been given extraordinary superpowers. Drunk with this control, I lifted up my hand, which looked like I took the Mayor’s recommendation to be armed with duct tape with the city on red alert to neurotic extremes.
“Thanks. Real enticing offer. Real sweet with you being from out of town and all. Checking out the sites, getting in a little culture, taking in Leonardo—and not in the ninja turtle or the Hollywood heartthrob way! Very well then, I really should be off, working. Off to work. And I do need to meet someone.”
I bolted, hoping that he really didn’t know how to speak the language, otherwise I had just added to his impression of the dumb dizzy American blonde without having the excuse of being a blonde.
In the next room, I was pulled to Leo’s sketches of aqueducts like a magnet to a fridge. Feeling smart and interesting, learning—getting the culture in—perhaps I should retake the IQ test on the cereal box when I returned home.
In the main room of the exhibition, DaVinci’s pages of notes were pulled from the Leicester Codex, rolled out like ancient scrolls (selling for over $15 million at Sotheby’s—almost four Reade Street lofts, not that I had been particularly obsessing over its price). Interesting, these scribbled notes on handmade paper with no fun doodles that one would see in one of my journals. For the man who stretched the beauty of a smile to century-endured marketing, he did have scribbly handwriting.
Having learning enough, I eschewed the last room and went to the reason for my visit, the portrait galleries. I always began with Francois Boucher’s The Toilet of Venus, to be reminded that in 1751 men found women who didn’t skimp on their carbs to have the ideal body type. The model was portrayed as being so beautiful that pudgy winged cherubs dressed her, a trend that should be brought back.
Feeling that late-afternoon pinch of drowsiness, all of the condensed culture and antique incensed air began to tire me. Before I had a turn-of-the-century-corseted collapse, I cut to the room with the Sargents.
While his portrait of Madame Gautreau had been the number-one-selling postcard from visitors who wore cameras around their necks, I always preferred Sargent’s Mr. and Mrs. I.N. Phelps Stokes.
In many ways, Sargent reminded me of Henry James. They both had an appreciation of the new American woman and celebrated her spirit, strength, and independence. Sargent’s depiction of Mrs. Stokes established that. In his painting of her, she is the one prominently featured. Her stance is proud and confident, while her husband looks on, slightly shadowed in the background. She asserts herself, shown from her hands firmly planted on her hips and that great grosgrain-banded straw hat.
I also loved what she wore—very Ralph Lauren his early years, with a dark coat nipped at the waist, crisp white shirt with a dark bow tied at the collar, and that wonderful elegant skirt, probably linen as this was more of a spring outfit, which cascades down in an avalanche of white. She has a soft, pretty face with dark hair, rosy cheeks, and blue eyes—the kind of girl I would have shared a thermos of peach schnapps mixed with orange juice in the back of a wood-paneled station wagon.
What I found most intriguing, considering my current occupation, were her knuckled hands clasped at her waist. The gold wedding band nestled with the engagement ring like stuck-together pasta. The diamond was emerald cut. Classic, simple, large—I’d gather four carats—very much in the mode of the Fairfield County ladies. The rings stood out, and Mrs. Stokes showed no shame in having them notably pictured.
Mr. Stokes’s hands are folded in a manner that shows he is not the spineless husband that plays to the demands of a bossy wife. Quite attractive, also wearing white linen, he has a trim beard and angular face, and I felt somehow drawn to him even though he’s just a figure in a portrait. But this was incredibly immoral of me, considering that his wife and I had a bond, that I was engaged even if my ring finger may not prove so.
“Emily?”
Startled, shaken from a mental zone similar to the one I get from running, I turned to face the source of my interruption, and was greeted by J3 Hopper. J3, a friend and business relation of Henry’s and mine who we knew from L.A., was largely responsible for the financing of our film, Combining Art Forms, based on the coming together of our cartoon strip’s alter egos. A project I had no longer been involved with, due to that slimy way I felt, the way you needed to cleanse yourself after a day of commercial flight travel.
J3 was my unusual acquaintance who I could get the tab on if I read Forbes. He ran an electronics company, specializing in computer games. His success never seemed to be mentioned when we met up, as there always seemed to be other, more important things to cover.
J3 was assured, confident, and today, looked quite attractive—similar to Mr. Stokes, with the chiseled cheekbones you could roll a marble down, dark hair, and rugged good looks. His deep blue eyes, gleaming under a thicket of dark brows, struck me as mysterious—intense and sparkling. I hadn’t recalled how handsome he was. It may have been the distinctive brows, which I never really took to, considering he wore sunglasses a lot—though never indoors.
“J3!” I beamed, kissing him on the cheek. I noticed a slight flush of red to his cheeks.
“I was afraid to approach you. Honestly, I’ve never seen you so absorbed.”
“Right,” I said, embarrassed from being noticed. “It’s just that this portrait gets me every time. I always see something different when I come to visit.”
Both J3 and I looked at Mr. and Mrs. Stokes.
“It really is something,” he said. “Sargent said that, when he painted, he was most interested in uncovering the personality of the sitter. With this particular couple, you can tell that he was impressed by them, how Mr. Stokes truly respected and admired his wife.”
“That’s exactly it!” I said too loudly, so the entire room looked in my direction. I became nervous from the security guard’s sudden approach toward me, but was saved by a kid who appeared to be more of a liability by humming loudly from tunes that filtered into his ears from an iPod.
“Sorry,” I said, considerably lower. “But there is this confidence about him that I’m completely drawn to, an intelligence, really. I’m sure he could be quite prickly, as shown by his quiet male authoritative stance, but he has no problems if his wife asserts her character. Again, that takes an admirable bit of security.”
