“I don’t!” Mrs. Von Bizmark parroted.
“Everyone will want to gossip with you about it, but the fact as I understand it is that you truly have no inside information.”
“I just knew he was a bad idea!” Mrs. Von Bizmark said.
“Still, the less you say about it, the better. Let the opera people address it. Because you have a Vogue spread to think about!” Mrs. Von Bizmark’s mouth fell open. “When this news broke, my people there finally called me back. They want to cover the luncheon!”
“No!” Mrs. Von Bizmark exclaimed.
“I know . . . ,” Max mused. “It’s almost worth it.”
“The school, though,” Anna chastised. “Did you talk to the principal yet?”
“They’re sending Vivienne Lanuit to cover it from Paris,” Max said, not done basking in his Vogue moment. “Apparently she knows Opal or something.” Mrs. Von Bizmark actually clapped her hands like a little girl. She was smiling so hard Anna worried she would displace some of the perfectly placed filler in her cheeks.
“Max, what about Sellers. Did you talk to her about her ‘ask’ at the luncheon?”
Max’s words slowed to a crawl. “Yes . . . well, it’s a tough sell to this crowd.” He was right. Children like Chester, Vera, and Peony Von Bizmark would not only never attend public school; they quite possibly would never know anyone who had. “We’re working on it.”
The stress had already taken a visible toll on “the opera people,” as Max called them. Richard walked as if he carried a large basket of coal on his back. His darkly encircled eyes suggested he had gotten word of the IRS seizure much earlier in the day. Opal, in a green-gray Issey Miyake dress, was not downtrodden as much as deeply annoyed, a feeling she projected in her pinched expression and constant glancing at her enormous titanium watch.
Bloom and Julie arrived on the same elevator. Julie wore a vintage Italian suit made of a psychedelic paisley with three-quarter sleeves and broad bell-bottoms over beige suede platforms. She had on large square ivory shades, and her hair flowed all around her shoulders in a black wave. Bloom gave her the full once-over.
“What do you think?” Julie asked.
“Better,” Bloom said.
Everyone was sitting at the table by 1:02 p.m., the food still and forever untouched. Each held various pens at the ready, save for Opal, who rested her chin on her hand and sighed every thirty seconds.
Max, asserting dominance in his emergency suit, jumped right in. “I think it’s critical that we come up with a plan B before talking to the press. That way, we can say how sorry we are about Mercurion, but look over here . . . shiny object!” Having missed the last big meeting, he was not about to sit quietly through this one.
“Yes, let’s just move on!” Richard nudged.
“How many pieces are we talking about?” Max asked.
“Three masterpieces and ten smaller works,” Richard said.
“Only three masterpieces?” Bloom snorted sarcastically.
“Who do you know with a huge art collection?” Max, undeterred, asked Mrs. Von Bizmark.
“The Petzers, the Felidias, the Stahls, the Seamanses . . .”
“Which Seamans?”
“Isabelle and Fred.”
“Would each contribute one masterpiece to save a public school?” Max prodded.
Mrs. Von Bizmark didn’t have to give it too much thought. “Probably not. They think of themselves as patrons, philanthropists. Arts and diseases, you know. Not public servants.”
“What about artists?” Max asked Opal.
“Yes?” she said, like a snotty teenager pretending not to understand.
Max, accustomed to divas, answered her as sweetly as possible. “Do you know any artists who produce work of value?”
“Monetary or creative value?” she said.
“Jesus Christ, Opal.” Richard slammed his palm on the table, a pot boiling over. Everyone at the table jumped a little, a spotlight suddenly on the tension between them. She just stared at him while his eyes stayed carefully forward, bulging with fury. His face, fleshy and expressive to begin with, grew more and more inflamed while Opal only cooled down, relaxing into some sort of next-level uber-disinterested resting bitch face. And maybe, it occurred to Anna, it was not the easiest thing to work with the world’s foremost style icon. “Do you know any artists we can sell or not?” Spittle flew from Richard’s mouth.
“Well, Richard, you and I have creative differences about the importance of monetary value. Don’t we? Selling and money. They aren’t everything to me.” She pitched her braid, thick with fresh extensions the color of peacock wings, over her shoulder defiantly.
“Yes, but we’re talking about saving a school here!” Max cajoled, trying to defuse the electric air by becoming a peppy cheerleader. “I just saw a picture of you with Jonah Okanabe. At his house. In last month’s Vanity Fair.” Miranda Chung had discovered this artist’s iconic metalwork in a Seattle suburb and had brought him to New York twenty years ago, jump-starting both of their careers. Anna sighed.
“Mmmm,” Opal said.
“And aren’t you Scarlet Koons’s godmother?” Max asked. “And I know I saw you at Cindy Sherman’s birthday party.” These names swam around Anna’s head. She’d struggled to sell one canvas from her show just to cover her costs, and these people were household names who could raise hundreds of thousands of dollars with a single piece.
“Why don’t you ask Cindy, then, for an art donation?” Opal said to Max.
“I think it would mean so much more coming from you, Opal.”
“Do you?” She was like ice.
“Opal . . . ,” Richard growled. Were they really arguing about who would ask which world-famous artist to toss them some scraps? Even a Jeff Koons sketch would fetch hundreds of thousands. Like the lost Magritte. Art and money had such a strange marriage, Anna found herself musing, as disenchanted as Opal with this strategy session. A school was at stake, and all they needed to save it was one supersize metallic hot-pink balloon bunny.
“I have an idea,” Julie said.
“What is it?” Richard glowered at Opal, his eyes threatening to pop out of his skull.
“How about an up-and-coming artist?” Julie suggested.
“Okaaaay, okaaay,” Max said encouragingly, but Anna knew better. Up-and-coming was just a buzzword for “unknown but still overpriced.” Definitely with a gallery or an agent. A bunch of sales under their belt but not enough to justify the five-figure price tag for some two-toned abstraction of a lower intestine. Anna saw how bitter she had become, how this half-assed attempt at “doing art” was really the worst of all worlds. Her big break might never happen, and it was time to accept that.
“Anna?” Mrs. Von Bizmark said, and she realized that everyone at the table was staring at her. Julie looked concerned. Her private self-reflection trip had taken her completely out of the meeting.
“I’m sorry?” she squeaked.
“I was just saying . . .” Julie emitted one of her odd laughs. “You’re an artist.” Anna’s heart doubled its pace.
“I think it’s a fabulous idea!” Bloom chimed in, her eyes narrowed. What was Bloom trying to do? Set her up for failure?