the highways were free of traffic).
“What’s so funny?” asked Daniel West.
“Well. You see, there was this bird,” but I stopped, realizing that Daniel West may be some animal rights fanatic and not find the humor in a bird that would soon be swept into the dustbin of a worker in a gas station jumpsuit.
“Have you been to the new gallery before?”
His last gallery had been located on Prince Street, which I’d frequented many times, drawn by the great parties where you discussed art with celebrities in a mist of champagne.
“No, but I rarely missed your exhibitions on Prince,” I said, as we both stared at his name dripped in blood. Daniel West Gallery—very clear.
He laughed at me with his eyes. Daniel West was quite handsome. His butt most certainly was, thoroughly analyzed as he showed me to a conference room adjacent to the gallery’s main viewing room.
Presenting a seat at the end of a long steel mesh table that seemed to be created from the underwear of armor, I shimmied onto it with flirtation in mind. The chair felt rather uncomfortable. It could have benefited from a cushion, but that would have disrupted the style of the unfurnished room.
Breathing in his $100-an-ounce cologne, I thought that, while cologne topped my list of dislikes on men, worn on Daniel West—with the dark shoulder-length hair tucked behind his ears, a black cashmere sweater, and Prada loafers—the style worked.
I leaned down to give him my portfolio, an aluminum box that encased eight and a quarter-inch images of my paintings glued onto thick pieces of black poster board and a few Polaroids of my most recent works. He thumbed through the pictures delicately, giving each frame significant thought. This lasted about eighteen hours.
“Very Lucian Freud, yet you have this classic training—like the great portraitists if they were on something. Manet, Velasquez,” he finally said. “There’s even a hint of Picasso—his early works. But I also see some Jenny Saville from the realism. And then there’s the Claude Belcham appeal—whom I represent, as I am sure you know.”
Daniel West dropped the names of varied artists the way the fifth floor of Barney’s tested out the brands of new designers. Usually I’d be weary of such overt namedropping, though considering this man had the power to direct my future, I’d play along.
“Listen, Emily,” Daniel West said, shimmying the metal lid on top of my portfolio. He then shot his dark eyes at me. If he kissed me, I wouldn’t be offended. “You’re good, young, and I like this little pixie thing going on.”
Pixie thing?
“So, by the time I return from Paris, I want to have another meeting to see if you have enough sketches to base an exhibition. A portrait—or two. Possibly three paintings—shoot for an entire body of work.”
Was it just me or was his list of demands increasing as he spoke? I should really have used that Smythson planner of mine to take some serious notes, especially considering that there was no one else in the room to copy from. Did he really call me a pixie?
“If I like what I see, I will be giving you the go-ahead to produce enough paintings for an exhibition. We want to shoot for before the summer. Everything stops during the summer months, so you need to work fast and brilliantly.”
“Sure,” I said happily, apparently agreeing to produce more pieces than I had ever created, unless we counted the paintings I made in the particularly rainy summer of ’84 that focused on my friends’ belly buttons (really an excuse to ogle my tennis instructor’s abs). Suddenly I had an image of all of my Smythson planner sections—the wedding, the move, and now a major exhibition. And then there was that wedding portrait of Henry and me. Well, that would just have to be part of the exhibition, along with the picture of Daphne’s Emily and Henry. Daniel will just not be privy to such minor details right now. I started making notes in my head.
“Okay then.” Daniel West gave me his hand, for me to shake, and I offered him my hand with the duct-taped finger. He seemed perplexed by this.
“Too big!” I laughed, and he just looked inquisitively. Why did he call me a pixie? I hoped that wouldn’t stick.
“Jean Paul, outside in reception, will take your information and go over the deadlines with you and set up our next meeting.”
“Sure, Jean Paul.”
“You know Jean Paul?”
Of course I knew Jean Paul. We watched a kamikaze pigeon slam into your window but, again, Daniel West may have been some animal rights activist, so I just gave him a nod.
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