Picture This

*

Behind the rope and sandwiched between a Japanese TV crew and four screaming teenagers, Latisha, using her height and bulk to secure a prime viewing position, watched Susie’s antics on the red carpet. To her eyes the artist resembled a fallen angel, with a raven like a terrible omen perched on top of all her red hair. She looked completely different to the way she’d appeared at the studio the day before, dishevelled in paint-stained jeans and T-shirt, hair a loose wild bush about her face. Here she reminded Latisha of a painting of a saint who’d sold her soul to the devil: beautiful, strong and burning up. Now she could see why Maxine had loved her.

Latisha had taken the subway downtown to the opening of the ball because the New York Post had stated that the maverick British artist would be there. She’d also read how Susie was famous for her ‘erotic’ photographs, the drug and sex scandals and a string of broken relationships she had apparently left behind in England. The article, entitled ‘Queen of Sex Art Graces the Big Apple’, appeared beside an old photograph of a younger Susie Thomas emerging from a London club bedraggled and drunk. It also mentioned that the prestigious Baum Gallery would host Thomas’s first solo US show in July, and that there was a rumour the art gallery director – the omnipotent Felix Baum – had been banned from seeing the work until the show opened – a historical first for an artist. The article raved about the extraordinary money rich people now paid for a Susie Thomas work – hundreds of thousands of dollars, sometimes, millions.

Although Latisha knew all this, to see it in print amazed her. How come Maxine had ended up in East Harlem in a rent-controlled apartment, she kept wondering. What was it that had driven the young sculptor so far from the lifestyle and company she normally kept? As if to answer her question, Felix Baum, dressed in tartan trousers and a shirt, waistcoat and jacket that looked to her like it belonged to a 19th-century bartender, appeared at the far end of the red carpet with an impossibly tall and impossibly blonde young woman on his arm. As they drew nearer, Latisha could see that the girl, obviously a model, was of Eurasian background, her Asiatic eyes in direct contrast to her almost albino colouring and pale blonde hair. The girl was as tall as Felix himself, perhaps even a couple of inches taller in her high heels, and they made a striking couple. They were greeted by a barrage of flashbulbs until an uber-famous film star and his wife took to the carpet just behind Felix and his companion. The paparazzi, like vultures interested in a better piece of fresh kill, immediately swung from Felix and his partner to the other couple, turning their cameras like one multi-eyed animal.

Transfixed, Latisha stared as Felix and his companion swept past, so close she could smell the woman’s exotic perfume. For a moment Felix’s gaze seemed to settle on her and Latisha found herself holding her breath, wondering whether he would recognise her from all those months ago when Maxine had introduced them at the group exhibition. Instead his gaze moved on blindly and indifferently. As Latisha suspected at the time, to Felix she had been less than a piece of furniture, a prop in the background noise – forgettable, of no value to him either professionally or personally. Expedient, like Maxine turned out to be for him. He’s gonna pay for that attitude, Latisha told herself. He’s gonna end up remembering me big time.

*

On the other side of the red carpet Gabriel Bandini was busy trying to push himself to the front of the bustling fans. Being slight and small was proving to be an advantage; he ducked under the barrier and squeezed in between an overweight gossip columnist giving her

commentary into a microphone and a security guard who, arms outspread, was holding back the fans.

Gabriel’s panic had grown and he’d woken up earlier that day with an overwhelming desire to see Felix, whatever the risk. Knowing that he wouldn’t be welcome either at the gallery or at the gallery director’s apartment uptown, he’d decided that seeing him at a distance might be enough to take the edge off what had become an uncontrollable urge. I am addicted. I am addicted to the bastard, Gabriel thought, with the helplessness of someone who knows his own nature, as he caught sight of Felix’s head above the others. And there he was, looking extraordinarily composed, aloof and impossibly handsome, an exotic girl with the vacuous expression of the professionally beautiful floating along the red carpet beside him. Gabriel’s stomach clenched and his heart jolted as if it had received an electrical shock. Swept up by the fans around him shouting out the names of the actors walking the carpet, he reached out across the barrier and called out: ‘Felix! Felix!’

Recognising the voice, the gallery director turned toward the flashing cameras, trying to peer beyond the medley to place the voice. After a second of blindly peering into the crowd, he gave up and deftly manoeuvred the fashion model (who must have been six foot five in her heels) up the carpeted marble stairs.

Gabriel watched in dismay as they disappeared into the museum entrance.

Afterwards, as he moved to the walkway, he noticed a tall, large black woman in her sixties looming over the heads of the jostling photographers. Something about the way she, too, appeared transfixed by Felix Baum’s retreating figure resonated with him.

It didn’t make sense; why would a woman like that be interested in a gallerist, when the red carpet was awash with far more famous celebrities – unless she had a personal interest? It had to be the woman who’d broken into his apartment. She matched the description Chung had given. As she began to move off, he saw that she was walking with a crutch.

Now convinced, Gabriel pushed himself up as high as he could and peered over the wave of shoulders and heads, then set off. In seconds he had made his way over to her. As she turned and began walking away from the crowd, Gabriel started to follow her, careful to stay concealed in case she turned around.

*

Susie was drunk and bored. Her half-eaten peach sorbet seemed to stare up at her, winking from the middle of its melting centre. She was tired of the calculated celebrity and staged presentation. Looking around, she decided most of the guests could be divided into two categories: the watched and the watchers. The watched were mainly professional performers – models, actors, celebrities, the professionally famous and the professionally infamous. The rest were the punters or the indifferent like herself. Idly she pushed the dessert around her plate. She reached into her handbag and pulled out her digital camera, then discreetly photographed the man next to her, a Japanese billionaire who had recently invested in British tweed, as he stared indiscreetly into the massive bosom of the corseted burlesque dancer sitting next to him. She then photographed the band, the dessert on the plate in front of her with her lipstick-stained fork laid over it, and then Felix, who was sitting at a table opposite, his hands mid-air in the middle of a conversation.

The atmosphere seemed so contrived, which was ironic, considering this was an homage to the punk movement, surely the one youth movement that was renowned for its spontaneity and anti-fashion stance. She felt as if some weird kind of time travel had arbitrarily landed her in a bad joke.

The reception hall was decorated like a punk club – or at least like one envisaged by American event coordinators living 30 years after the fact, with circular tables strategically scattered around a stage and catwalk. Anna Wintour, the omnipotent editor of Vogue magazine, had placed the burlesque celebrity who talked of nothing but herself, a corporate sponsor, a socialite, an eye-laser surgery entrepreneur, and the Japanese tweed importer, as well as the usual eclectic wealthy individuals (who’d paid $15,000 each for their tickets) at her table. She had found herself seated between the middle-aged CEO of a supermarket chain who couldn’t understand her accent and seemed to mistake her for Sarah Lucas, and the Japanese billionaire who didn’t appear to speak English. There had been a parade of models wearing British designs; the only clothes she’d been remotely interested in had been Alexander McQueen’s, who was sitting in the far corner of the room with his muse Sarah Jessica Parker beside him in a McQueen Scottish/punk theme ballgown with a tartan sash.

To make matters worse, she’d had the uncomfortable experience of watching Felix flirt with everyone seated at his table; now he appeared to be entertaining them with a number of hilarious anecdotes. And she didn’t like the way the tall, supernaturally beautiful blonde model (Kiki? Wasn’t that the name the publicist from Baum Gallery had told her?) seemed to be leaning closer and closer to Felix. It had taken all of Susie’s self-control not to stare.

To her chagrin she’d felt herself succumbing to the kind of misanthropic mindset she hated in others, and the excellent burgundy had made her belligerent in her drunkenness. She’d already got into an argument about the US invasion of Iraq, only to discover the portly white-haired man sitting opposite (who for some reason she’d thought was an old actor from the TV series Dallas) was a Republican senator who’d backed George Bush Jr, and had suddenly found herself alienated from the rest of the table. There was also the odd way one of the waitresses serving her table kept staring at her from across the room. Susie surmised that maybe she’d been recognised; there was something vaguely artistic about the waitress’s pink fringe and nostril piercing that made her think she might be a struggling artist moonlighting in catering. Or perhaps she was gay. She wasn’t unattractive, but when Susie had returned her gaze provocatively she hadn’t responded.

On stage the band – playing a medley of famous ‘British’ band riffs from the Beatles to Queen to the Sex Pistols – finally finished their set, to Susie’s relief. She bent down and picked up her Marni bag from the floor. As she did she glanced across the floor to the view of the undersides of the other tables. Between the edges of the tablecloth on Felix’s table she could see his hand on the blonde’s leg. She sat up again and pulled out her mobile phone from her handbag.

*

As the other guests around the table erupted in laughter at another of his stories, Felix glanced over to see whether Susie was watching; she was, intently. Good, let her see how great a player I really am, he thought with some satisfaction. They’d had one brief conversation on the phone since she’d left his apartment in the middle of the night – artificially casual banter that did nothing to appease the emotional vulnerability Felix felt. He wanted her more than he should and although her elusiveness excited him, her masked emotions frustrated him. Then there was the Gabriel situation – had he actually heard the youth call out his name as they were coming down the red carpet? Or was it his mind playing tricks; was he becoming paranoid? He was always so careful about keeping his lovers in separate compartments – neatly geographically pigeonholed across New York City, from Manhattan to Queens to Brooklyn.

Determined to provoke the artist into a reaction, he squeezed Kiki’s thin knee under the table.

In that second a waitress crossed the floor, momentarily blocking his view. To his dismay he recognised angel girl, Leia, the waitress from Dungeon. She was serving at the tables and appeared to be part of the catering staff. He froze; to have three conquests converge in one place was terrifying: a potential disaster. The sensation of his mobile phone vibrating pulled him back into the moment. It was a text from Susie.

So you like blondes?

Smiling, he moved his left hand higher up Kiki’s thigh while texting back with his right:

Not particularly, but I suspect you do

Touch her and imagine it’s me, Susie texted back. He gazed down at the message a little perplexed; unsure whether he was now jealous or excited. Tentatively he ran his fingers further up Kiki’s impossibly long leg – yep, Susie’s text had ruined it for him; the sensation was now decidedly unerotic.

But it’s not you, he texted back, a little peevish, deflated by her game-play. The more he touched Kiki the more he realised he wanted to be with Susie. God, she’s good, he found himself thinking. His phone bleeped again.