She drank her coffee standing at her closet in the living room, trying to decide what to wear to her own exhibition. What was the image of herself as an artist that Anna wanted to transmit to the world? Von Bizmark cast-offs were too rarefied and out of character. The other candidates were almost entirely inherited from Julie, and this was where Anna found the simple Morgane Le Fay black raw linen dress that fit her like couture. She’d pair this with a statement necklace—an amber piece from Egypt—and a high bun with her thick tortoiseshell glasses. That said “Downtown Artist” as clearly as any clothing-and-accessory combination in her closet. She left these items carefully on the chair so she’d just have to throw everything on in the hour between work and the show.
As she pulled on her usual jeans and Frye boots, Adrian turned onto his back, snored once loudly, and stopped. He must have made it to bed from the couch sometime in the middle of the night. Anna had barely seen him lately—he had been working so hard—and when she did, like the night before, it wasn’t so pleasant. She knew he was under pressure to churn out designs for shopping bags, fragrance logos, gift boxes. It was a “real job,” he kept saying with a new ever-so-slightly superior tone, as if such a thing was removed from her realm of experience.
She turned her thoughts once more to the accolades that would soon be hers. How wonderful it would feel to finally have recognition for and income from her art. She let her fantasies run further, into the future, where she and Adrian were both flush and secure: everything would fall into place.
Anna had done everything she could think of to make the exhibit a success. She’d spent half a day interviewing and finally hiring an intern from her MFA program to help Adrian set up. She’d sent an invitation to every gallery, media outlet, artist, collector, friend, and family member she could think of and printed one on special paper for Mrs. Von Bizmark. Adrian had planned to help her prepare the space, but when he’d had to work, Julie had filled in. They’d spent several happy hours debating which piece to hang where in the one-room storefront on Greene Street. In the most prominent position, they agreed on her largest piece, a nine-foot-wide canvas of bright frolicking circles, racing and overlapping, paint dripping from one form into another, all entwined and joyful. Anna had painstakingly woven grass from an elaborate picnic with Adrian into the most prominent viridian swirl; on that breezy afternoon, they had first exchanged “I love yous.”
After hanging, rearranging, and rehanging the paintings, then adjusting, tweaking, and retweaking the lighting, Julie and Anna had sat on the floor in the middle of the room, taking it in: the sum of her work since earning her MFA over five years ago. All that time and energy and inspiration. So much of herself up on the walls, each piece cradling its own cached secret. Anna imagined the way strangers would conjecture the meaning of her pieces, intuiting their autobiographical nature. The interview questions she’d have to address. Maybe more than one gallery owner would be interested in showing her work; how would she decide?
“Whatever happens after the show, you just have to keep painting,” Adrian had said to her that night as she shared her anticipatory thoughts with him.
“Adrian!” Anna smacked his thigh. “That’s like saying you don’t think it’s going to be successful.”
“It just—it could take a long time to make it, whatever that means, and I don’t think you should pin all your hopes on one party.” Of course, he was right. But knowing this and feeling it were two different things. Anna believed in her gut it was finally her time for a big break after so much effort. “There are no guarantees. In art, anyway,” he said, and she could not help but feel that he was comparing the two of them and finding her career lacking. In response, Anna had simply jabbed at her laptop keyboard in the kitchen, silently projecting her hurt feelings. But Adrian had not seemed to notice in the few minutes before he passed out, falling into a deep sleep, undisturbed even as Anna ate breakfast and got dressed the next morning.
Just before she left for her big day, Anna called from the door, “Adrian! Adrian, you never told me how many of your LVMH peeps are coming tonight.” Based on his original estimate, she expected somewhere between fifteen and twenty, but Adrian only groaned in response. Anna returned to the bedroom door and asked from there, “Not that many?” already telling herself that it would be fine if only a few came.
Adrian kept his hand pressed firmly over his eyes. “I never sent the invitation.” Anna’s stomach lurched, and not because there would be fewer people at her opening but because Adrian had forgotten to do something important to her. Maybe for the first time. “I just . . . I’m so sorry, it’s just been so crazy busy at work and . . .”
Anna walked out, thinking there really was nothing else to say.
Although Anna’s main focus at her job was to prevent unpleasant surprises, each day as the elevator ding-ding-dinged on the eighth floor, she no longer knew what she was in for. She kept letting little things slip: the Mrs.’s favorite pens had run out, she patched through a phone solicitor rather than screening the call, she frequently forgot to drop the mail in the postbox. Each morning had become a possibility for a small failure. Even the foyer doors, which used to be reliably open, were now sometimes open, sometimes closed. That morning, they stood at odds—one swung open, the other shut—a metaphor for the state of the Von Bizmark marriage.
In the office, Mrs. Von Bizmark’s computer beamed the family’s last professional portrait all together, clustered barefoot on a borrowed yacht in New York Harbor, VBO headquarters somewhere in the cliff-like cityscape gleaming behind them. Mrs. Von Bizmark’s smile in the picture said, How could I be anything but happy? Meanwhile, she’d come home with many bitter complaints about “being stuck on some boat.”
In any case, the screen saver meant she had been there within ten minutes, an unusual early-morning visit. Or an all-nighter. The chair was angled out, as if she had risen and run. Mrs. Von Bizmark’s computer suddenly went dark. Unsettled, Anna scooped up the short pile of notes on her keyboard before taking off her coat or bag.
Wake me for meeting.
Please invite Richard. Make sure Opal is coming!
Sent opera check
Tucked on the bottom of the stack of notes was one of the proofs for the luncheon invitation. Felix Mercurion’s name was circled in red Sharpie, and scrawled all over it were the words,
WHAT IS THIS?
Oh no. Anna had never relayed that key piece of information. Mrs. Von Bizmark had just seemed so down, and Anna still wasn’t sure if Mercurion was good or bad news. And now she had allowed a negative surprise to slip past her usually impenetrable safety net. And what was this about the check? Mrs. Von Bizmark essentially never wrote her own checks.
Anna reached into the drawer next to Mrs. Von Bizmark’s chair for the oversize foundation checkbook and flipped through the stubs . . . to the last one . . . written out to the New York City Opera for $10 million. Shit. Shit shit shit.
While Anna dialed Marco, Julie walked in wearing a long, billowing trench coat cinched at the waist, large squarish shades, and windblown waves that either had taken her an hour to perfect or were a new wig. “She called me,” Julie mouthed, “for the meeting.”
“She sent a foundation check for ten million to the opera,” Anna said when Marco answered so that Julie could hear also as she hung her coat up and turned to Anna, openmouthed.