“Why don’t you call your father?” she asked. “And do what, exactly.” “You could start by saying hello.” “That’s it? Say hi?”
“Well, if that goes okay, you could ask how he’s doing.”
“I don’t see this scenario playing out in a way that leaves anyone happy.”
She shrugged.
“We never celebrated Christmas,” I said. “We never even had a tree. My mother used to give me presents but that was the extent of it.”
She nodded, although I sensed something vaguely accusatory. I said, “If I called him up and said hi, he’d expect more. He’d start asking why I hadn’t called before. Trust me, you don’t know him.” “You’re right, I don’t.” “No thank you,” I said. “Whatever you say.” “Why are you doing that.” “Doing what.”
“You’re making me feel guilty for something I haven’t done.”
“I’m agreeing with you.”
“You’re disagreeing with me by agreeing.”
“Will you listen to yourself?” she said.
I walked her to the subway.
“Enjoy the canapes,” she said. “I’ll see you next year.” Then she leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. I remained standing there long after she’d gone.
TO CALL MARILYN’S ANNUAL WINTER BASH a “holiday party” verges on sacrilege, insofar as that term implies drunken co-workers standing round the punchbowl, fondling one another to the strains of Bing Crosby. The event that takes place at the Wooten Gallery the week before Christmas is more like an opening par excellence. Everyone comes out for it, even when weather makes getting there a misery. Whatever the theme”Underwater Cowboys” or “Warhol’s Shopping List” or “Yuppies Strike Back”Marilyn always hires the same band, a thirteen-piece ensemble made up entirely of transvestites whose songbook never deviates from note-perfect Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald covers. They’re called Big and Swingin’.
Busy as I’d been with the case, I’d forgotten to get my costume. For the life of me I couldn’t find my invitation, which meant that I didn’t know the theme. (I couldn’t very well ask anyone without making it scandalously clear that Marilyn and I weren’t talking, which at that point I still believed was a matter between the two of us.)
When I arrived at the gallery in a suit, however, I found myself improbably appropriate, wading through a sea of revelers all dressed like members of the newly reelected Bush cabinet. Without a mask, I attracted a lot of attention, as people tried to guess my identity. It’s a real test of one’s patience to listen to someone insist that you look exactly like Donald Rumsfeld.
“I’m sure he meant that in the nicest way possible,” said Ruby.
“What way would that be?”
“He has nice cheekbones,” Nat offered.
I mingled. Some people asked if I was feeling well; I touched the one remaining Band-Aid on my temple and said, “Minor brain damage.” Other people tried to involve me in conversations about artists and shows that I hadn’t heard of. The pace of the contemporary market is such that you can be away for a little more than a month and find yourself completely out of the loop. I didn’t know what people were talking about and I didn’t care. After two or three minutes of group banter I would find myself drifting, my attention drawn by the surreal spectacle of a kickline consisting of Dick
Cheney, Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, and Dick Cheney. When I did try to follow along, I could not help but get annoyed. Regardless of who or what was under discussion, the true subject was money.
“I hear your murderer’s developed a strong following.”
“How much of that stuff do you have in a vault, Ethan?”
“More than he’s telling.”
“Have you sold any more?”
“Have you sold any more to Hollister?”
“I heard he unloaded his.”
“Is that true? Ethan?”
“You went to the house, didn’t you? I know someone who’s been there, he said the place is too tacky. He hired Jaime Acosta-Blanca to paint all these tacky copies but he gave him seventy percent up front and Jaime ran off with the money to Moscow where’s he defrauding neo-oligarchs.”
“Who’d he sell to, Ethan?”
“Nobody knows.”
“Ethan, who did Hollister sell to?”
“Rita said it was Richard Branson.”
“Does that mean you’re going to get shot into space, Ethan?”
After two hours Marilyn was still nowhere to be seen. I made my way through white rooms covered in red canvases, white rooms covered with pink canvases, white rooms ready to be filled. As the Wooten Gallery has grown, it has gobbled up its neighbors, left and right and upstairs and downstairs. It takes up nearly a fifth of 567 West Twenty-fifth Street, not to mention the overflow space on Twenty-eighth or the Upper East Side prints gallery. As I fought through a clutch of John Ashcrofts, it struck me that I’d never be as big as Marilyn; even had I the ambition, I lacked the vision.
I buttonholed one of her many assistants, who, after consulting a series of people on walkie-talkies, returned with the verdict that Marilyn had retired to the fourth floor.
In the elevator I prepared an apology. My heart wasn’t in it, but it was Christmas.
Marilyn has two offices, much in the way she has two kitchens: one for
the world and one for herself. The big office with the high ceilings and the immaculate desk and the Rothko is downstairs, and she uses it to make deals and to impress her grandeur upon the uninitiated. The real one, with the Post-its and the coffee rings and the corner table mosaicked with slides, is off-limits to all but a few. I didn’t learn of its existence until we’d been dating for a year.
I found her slumped in her rocking chair, a quaintly mismatched piece of furniture and the only thing she kept when she sold the house in Ironton. Her fingertips dangled near a tumbler of scotch sweating into the rug. The room vibrated with the noise of the band four stories below.
“Where’ve you been?” I asked. “Everyone’s wondering what happened
ť
to you.
“That’s funny. Lately people have been asking me the same thing about you.
I waited. “Are you going to come downstairs?”
“I don’t really feel like it.”
“Is something wrong?”
“No.”
I wanted to deliver my apology, but I didn’t feel ready. Instead I knelt by her and put my hand on her arm, as hard as a crowbar. It occurred to me, not for the first time, that Marilyn’s beauty had a sharp, almost masculine edge to it, all strong features and sharp angles. She smiled, her breath scalding me.
“I hate these parties,” she said.
“Then why do you give them?”
“Because I have to.” She closed her eyes and leaned back in the chair. “And because I like them. I just hate them, too.”
“Are you sick?”
“No.”
“Do you want some water?”
She said nothing.
I went across the room to the mini-fridge and got a bottle of Evian, which I set on the floor near the scotch. She didn’t move.
“You’re not having fun, are you,” she said. “You wouldn’t be here if you were.”
I leaned against the edge of the desk. “I’d have more if you came downstairs.”
“I bet you’re seeing a lot of people.”
CCT ť
I am.
“People have been asking about you,” she said. “You said.”
“Like you went off to war or something.” “I haven’t.”
“Mm.” She sighed, her eyes still closed. “I tell them I don’t know a thing.”
I said nothing.
“What else am I supposed to tell them,” she said. “You can tell them whatever you want.”
“They ask me like I should know. They assume I have a direct line
ť
to you. “You do.” “Do I?”
“Of course you do.” She nodded. “That’s good.”
“Of course you do,” I said again, although I don’t know why. “Did you have a pleasant stay, living in my house?” “You were wonderful,” I said. “You know I can’t thank you enough.” “I don’t remember you trying.”