I met him in October, at the opening of my first solo show in New York, a series of ten portraits. I was saying good night to my sister-in-law at the door when he parked his silver coupe at a hydrant in front of the gallery. We watched him walk to the center of the room to greet my dealer and two of her clients, an older couple he seemed to know well. My dealer kissed him on both cheeks and complimented his navy double-breasted suit. Her clients clasped his hands in theirs, embraced him, and clapped him on the back. They all repeated his name many times, excited to be with him, calling him by his first name. I heard him complain that he and his wife had caught a cold from their teenage daughter, that he had a sore throat and a headache. He was upset because he had loaned a painting from his collection to the Kunsthalle Dusseldorf and they had not used it to advertise the exhibition, as he had been promised. I saw how his mention of such a well-known piece pleased everyone who could hear his voice. We all inched closer.
He said the portraits in my show were good. I said, Then buy one. I wasn’t going to pretend I didn’t want his help. He wouldn’t buy anything, but any interest he showed in me could attract other collectors. He sat in my chair in front of an empty easel and took a cigarette from a pack on the floor. He said, I will buy one. He took a handkerchief from his jacket pocket and blew his nose. Then he told me about his friend’s studio, which I already knew was about ten times the size of mine and had a view of the river. She was the first of my contemporaries to have exhibitions in big galleries. She made serious money from her painting. I told him which piece from my show I wanted him to buy and bequeath to the Modern with the rest of his collection when he died. It was a big painting, 108 by 102 inches, of a man in three-quarter profile; his eyes are downcast, he is turning away. He laughed and said, OK, I’ll buy that one. But I knew he wouldn’t.
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He came over again the next day, in the early afternoon, and we ordered Thai food. The lemongrass soup made his nose run. He hadn’t slept well because he was still sick. He wore another dark suit. I liked the way his voice sounded in the tall quiet room, deep and slow. Twice he held out plastic forkfuls of his pad thai for me to taste even though we were eating the same dish. He was going to California the next week to see exhibitions and thought I would be interested in seeing the work there too. He pronounced his words carefully. I said, I am interested. But my show was hanging: two paintings had sold at the opening and I wasn’t going anywhere until it came down. He kept saying he had to get back to his office but he didn’t leave until it was nearly dark outside, and then he went home.
The first time I kissed him we were eating clam chowder he brought from a diner on Church Street. He had wanted to share a bowl, but I was afraid he might find it romantic to spoon-feed me so I ordered my own even though I wasn’t hungry. He gave me a book of short stories that he had just read and said, I want you to like these, too. There was a photograph of a woman’s pale back on the cover. I knew that he wanted something to happen, more than watching me paint and buying me lunch and giving me things. I leaned my shoulder into his and kissed him on the lips. He closed his eyes for a few seconds afterward, which made him look weak.
He wrestled his bag from between us to the floor of the cab. He is an awkward man and I looked out the window to not feel embarrassed for him. For a few seconds I pretended he wasn’t there, that I was just taking a ride in a cab alone. I remembered cab rides at the end of nights years ago, before I was married, when I looked through the car window at women who were out with men who didn’t seem to suit them. I used to wonder if my life was like theirs, or if it would become like theirs. How would I become a woman in my 30s, stepping into traffic to hurry across the street and disappear into a restaurant or apartment building? The women I saw ran purposefully through the city, vanishing into places I didn’t know existed.
I would think about kissing him while he was away. I would kiss him more when he returned. It was simple.
I didn’t tell him that my show had already gotten two good reviews because I knew he would have read them. Both write-ups said that my work is exceptionally well painted. One described the figures as elegant and suggestive and the other said that the palette is elegant and vivid. The Times used the word bravura. Three paintings were sold and another was on hold for the museum in Toronto.
