A boutique in the hotel sold 35-hundred dollar Japanese jeans (woven with platinum strands), a knee-length jacket made out of fetuses cut from ewes’ carcasses, and a 32,000 dollar cellphone. He wanted to buy them all, for kicks, but she said no 5 times. (When she returned to LA the jeans and phone were waiting for her at ARK. At least he didn’t send the coat.) Though he seemed to relish her spirited refusals, he absolutely would not let Joan turn down his offer of a Guerdon credit card. At that point, she caved. He is going to be the father of my child. She bought a 12,000€ belted Lagerfeld dress coat at Anouschka on Avenue du Coq (Catherine Deneuve was having lunch in the vestibule with an employee), a Goyard doctor’s satchel, an incongruous pythonskin ultra P&G bag, a Spaksmannsspjarir sweater with button-on collar, a tacky Andrew Gn coral print coat, a black Lurex Boudicca shirtdress, and a reworked 20s flapper gown from a husband-and-wife team who called themselves E2.
She walked on the street.
She hated the bustle — people stuffing their faces with food, on the fly. It was the same all over the world. She hated watching daughters or wives or mistresses attentively watching their fathers or husbands or lovers talk on cellphones: the men usually spoke with bizarre, heightened urgency, as if negotiating with abductors. Everything was so intensely grave and poppycockish, and she knew that if she could understand what was being said it’d be the most mundane thing imaginable.
She watched television back at the hotel. Larry King again, always a comfort. All Larry, all the time. This one was a BTK rerun. A cop was talking: “I always thought he had the misfortune, given his aspirations, to live in a small media market. He never got the attention of an LA or New York market because he lived in Wichita.” On the BBC, Condi Rice was telling an interviewer that she was a social scientist; Condi was weirdly comforting too. Sexy.
A soap came on. Some kind of Latin couple. The guy said, “I am not going to make love to you.” The girl said, “You are going to make love to me.” The guy said, “How can you prove you made love to me?” The girl said, “Why would you want to make love to me?” Nothing made sense. Maybe she wasn’t paying enough attention.
The ads were mostly tourist promos for other countries. She liked the slogans: MADRID ONLY HAPPENS IN MADRID. UGANDA — GIFTED BY NATURE. MALAYSIA TRULY ASIA. DO BUY IN DUBAI. (RWANDA IS FOR LOVERS.) A funny one was aimed at the Arab Emirates; people there were so parched that India was offering trendy new “monsoon mania holidays,” even though recent floods had killed thousands.
GOA — COME FEEL THE RAIN.
DARFUR — FEEL THE JANJAWEED.
Condi’s moment dissolved into a feature on Viktor Yushchenko, he of the toxin-ravaged face. One poll taken said the Ukrainians thought he was shit and things were now worse than before the revolution. But the poll that closed the news segment said 2/3s of the populace were “very happy.” Shit Happy Shit Happy Shit Happy.
She drowsily focused on another image byte — people in New York shouting, “Where’s my Xbox? They promised Xboxes but it’s a lie!”—before drifting off to sleep.
THEY were supposed to fly on to the small Swiss town of Rossinière, where Lew had been asked by the widow of the painter Balthus to see a dusktime outdoor puppet show, an invitation which, through the intervention of Louis Benech and Trinnie Trotter (who had codesigned the landscape for one of Samuel’s homes), took months to procure. Setsuko and her daughter, Harumi, lived in “The Grand Chalet,” a converted hotel-castle, supposedly the largest of its kind in Switzerland. But at the last minute, the widow became ill and regretfully informed she must bow out. An intermediary told Lew that Setsuko would still be delighted if he came, even if it meant they might not meet. Since Harumi was in Los Angeles, as much as he wanted to visit the legendary place, Lew decided it wouldn’t be right.
THEY gave it to Goldsworthy.”
“What do you mean?” said Joan.
“I just talked to Eugenie — at Guerdon. They’re flying Andy in from Scotland next week so he can do his walkabout.”
“Barbet, what are you saying? We already knew that. We knew Andy was going to do something.”
“And we were correct. But evidently, it’s a little more than ‘something.’ From what I’ve gathered.”
“Like what?”
“No details immediately forthcoming.”
“So it’s totally over?”
“Let’s say we’ve gone from dark horse to black hole horse.”
“It isn’t funny.”
“I’m not laughing, Joan.”
“Lew would have called me. He’s knows I’m going up there with that fucking maquette!”
“You still are. And here’s to you, Mrs Frei-berg, Jesus loves you more than you will know. Wo wo wo. Maybe he’s going to make you a different sort of proposal. A decent one. You’ve already won the mother of all commissions, right?”
“Oh bullshit. Anything on Rem?”
“Definitely out. Outré. Rien. Rien Koolhaas! At least we didn’t lose to Dutch Schultz. Pointy-head bitch motherfucker.”
“I cannot believe this.”
“Well, you’ll always have Paris.”
She was so angry at Lew and herself and the world that she felt on the verge of serenity.
“What about the maquette?”
“Being trucked to Mendocino and delivered in a crate as we speak. In situ. What a situ-ation. Honey, look: I’m drinking and cannot be disturbed. The guys’ll meet you at the property.”
“But why?”
“For the unveiling.”
“Does Lew know about this?”
“Of course he knows! I told Frieberg I wanted him to see the thing, in the chapel. In twilight time. Goin to the chapel and we’re…gonna get mar-ried—not! Maybe it’ll turn him around. Isn’t that brilliant?”
“You mean he wants us to go through the motions. Sadist.”
“Motions? Um, no, not us, that would be you, ma chérie. ‘Distant as the Milky Way’…no shit. Your fucking motions made us who we are today! Or who we aren’t. I meant fucking motions. But don’t worry, Mrs Robinson. Still plenty o’ mems in them thar hills.”
T hat was last night.
She’d been home for 2 days, and now it was noon. She turned her phone back on. She was hungover from the Ambien CR. The jet was leaving at 3. Her conversation with Barbet seemed like a bad dream. She didn’t know whether to give it credence; Lew could be playing mindgames. Who was this Eugenie at Guerdon anyway? Maybe Barbet had a mole. A moll. A Molly. A fuckmole. She felt strangely secure, or at least secure in her own insecurities. It was probably because of the baby. As fanatical as it seemed, Joan still wanted the Napa commission more than anything; maybe even more than the child itself.
She turned on the Impressa and listened to her voicemail while fishing soy milk from the fridge.
A blasé sobered-up message from Barbet wished her luck. He was going to his house in Rancho Mirage, shorthand for having made a new conquest. The Molly. He sounded depressed, and she knew what he was up to: fucking his way out of it, per usual. Call when you get to Mendocino so I can help coordinate. Completely unnecessary — she’d phone the art guys directly to make sure the model had arrived intact — but it was Barbet’s way of doing the team thing. The ARK thing.