“Diana!” she says, as if we are old friends.
There is a brief awkwardness as I instinctively put my hand out to take hers and then remember that is not a thing we are doing anymore and instead just give a weird little wave. “Hi, Kitomi,” I say.
“I’m so glad you could come today.”
“It’s not a problem. There are a lot of sellers who want to make sure the paperwork is handed over personally.”
Over her shoulder, at the end of a long hallway, I can see it—the Toulouse-Lautrec painting that is the entire reason I know Kitomi Ito. She sees my eyes dart toward it and her mouth tugs into a smile.
“I can’t help it,” I say. “I never get tired of seeing it.”
A strange flicker crosses Kitomi’s face. “Then let’s get you a better view,” she replies, and she leads me deeper into her home.
From 1892 to 1895, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec scandalized the impressionist art world by moving into a brothel and painting prostitutes together in bed. Le Lit, one of the most famous in that series, is at the Musée d’Orsay. Others have been sold to private collections for ten million and twelve million dollars. The painting in Kitomi’s house is clearly part of the series and yet patently set apart from the others.
There are not two women in this one, but a woman and a man. The woman sits propped up naked against the headboard, the sheet fallen to her waist. Behind the headboard is a mirror, and in it you can see the reflection of the second figure in the painting—Toulouse-Lautrec himself, seated naked at the foot of the bed with sheets pooled in his lap, his back to the viewer as he stares as intently at the woman as she is staring at him. It’s intimate and voyeuristic, simultaneously private and public.
When the Nightjars released their final album, Twelfth of Never, the cover art had Kitomi bare-breasted against their headboard, gazing at Sam, whose broad back forms the lower third of the visual field. Behind their bed hangs the painting they’re emulating, in the position the mirror holds in the actual art.
Everyone knows that album cover. Everyone knows that Sam bought this painting for Kitomi from a private collection, as a wedding gift.
But only a handful of people know that she is now selling it, at a unique Sotheby’s auction, and that I’m the one who closed that deal.
“Are you still going on vacation?” Kitomi asks, disrupting my reverie.
Did I tell her about our trip? Maybe. But I cannot think of any logical reason she would care.
Clearing my throat (I don’t get paid to moon over art, I get paid to transact it), I paste a smile on my face. “Only for two weeks, and then the minute I get back, it’s full steam ahead for your auction.” My job is a strange one—I have to convince clients to give their beloved art up for adoption, which is a careful dance between rhapsodizing over the piece and encouraging them that they are doing the right thing by selling it. “If you’re having any anxiety about the transfer of the painting to our offices, don’t,” I tell her. “I promise that I will personally be here overseeing the crating, and I’ll be there on the other end, too.” I glance back at the canvas. “We’re going to find this the perfect home,” I vow. “So. The paperwork?”
Kitomi glances out the window before turning back to me. “About that,” she says.
“What do you mean, she doesn’t want to sell?” Eva says, looking at me over the rims of her famous horn-rimmed glasses. Eva St. Clerck is my boss, my mentor, and a legend. As the head of sale for the Imp Mod auction—the giant sale of impressionist and modern art—she is who I’d like to be by the time I’m forty, and until this moment, I had firmly enjoyed being teacher’s pet, tucked under the wing of her expertise.
Eva narrows her eyes. “I knew it. Someone from Christie’s got to her.”
In the past, Kitomi has sold other pieces of art with Christie’s, the main competitor of Sotheby’s. To be fair, everyone assumed that was how she’d sell the Toulouse-Lautrec, too … until I did something I never should have done as an associate specialist, and convinced her otherwise.
“It’s not Christie’s—”
“Phillips?” Eva asks, her eyebrows arching.
“No. None of them. She just wants to take a pause,” I clarify. “She’s concerned about the virus.”
“Why?” Eva asks, dumbfounded. “It’s not like a painting can catch it.”
“No, but buyers can at an auction.”
“Well, I can talk her down from that ledge,” Eva says. “We’ve got firm interest from the Clooneys and Beyoncé and Jay-Z, for God’s sake.”
“Kitomi’s also nervous because the stock market’s tanking. She thinks things are going to get worse, fast. And she wants to wait it out a bit … be safe not sorry.”
Eva rubs her temples. “You do realize we’ve already leaked this sale,” she says. “The New Yorker literally did a feature on it.”
“She just needs a little more time,” I say.
Eva glances away, already dismissing me in her mind. “You can go,” she orders.
I step out of her office and into the maze of hallways, lined with the books that I’ve used to research art. I’ve been at Sotheby’s for six and a half years—seven if you count the internship I did when I was still at Williams College. I went straight from undergrad into their master’s program in art business. I started out as a graduate trainee, then became a junior cataloger in the Impressionist Department, doing initial research for incoming paintings. I would study what else the artist was working on around the same time and how much similar works sold for, sometimes writing up the first draft of the catalog blurb. Though the rest of the world is digital these days, the art world still produces physical catalogs that are beautiful and glossy and nuanced and very, very important. Now, as an associate specialist, I perform other tasks for Eva: visiting the artwork in situ and noting any imperfections, the same way you look over a rental car for dings before you sign the contract; physically accompanying the painting as it is packed up and moved from a home to our office; and occasionally joining my boss for meetings with potential clients.
A hand snakes out of a doorway I am passing and grabs my shoulder, pulling me into a little side room. “Jesus,” I say, nearly falling into Rodney—my best friend here at Sotheby’s. Like me, he started as a college intern. Unlike me, he did not wind up going into the business side of the auction house. Instead, he designs and helps create the spaces where the art is showcased for auction.
“Is it true?” Rodney asks. “Did you lose the Nightjars’ painting?”
“First, it’s not the Nightjars’ painting. It’s Kitomi Ito’s. Second, how the hell did you find out so fast?”
“Honey, rumor is the lifeblood of this entire industry,” Rodney says. “And it spreads through these halls faster than the flu.” He hesitates. “Or coronavirus, as it may be.”
“Well, I didn’t lose the Toulouse-Lautrec. Kitomi just wants things to settle down first.”
Rodney folds his arms. “You think that’s happening anytime soon? The mayor declared a state of emergency yesterday.”