You’ll notice a change in the membership list. After his behavior at our last gathering, CY will not be joining us in future. He has assured me of his discretion, and I have assured him of the consequences if his discretion slips. In more pleasant news, however, allow me to introduce JS, vouched for by DG. I have personally looked into JS’s background and have found no cause for concern, so please welcome him to our little group. All being well, you’ll have a chance to meet him in person on Saturday evening.
Speaking of which, the next gathering will be at the usual place. My driver will pick you up at the airport; as ever, please don’t bring any of your own staff. I know you trust them, but the fewer in the know, the safer for all of us. Please confirm your attendance, and let me know your arrival times, but try to keep it between 4:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m.
Until then, take care, and do post here if you have any questions.
From: DG, Wednesday 8:36 p.m.
Thanks, RR, I’ll definitely be there, and will give you my arrival time ASAP. And please, everyone, welcome JS to our group. He’s an old college friend and a good guy.
From: JS, Wednesday 8:41 p.m.
Message deleted by the forum administrator.
From: RR, Wednesday 8:47 p.m.
JS – I appreciate you’re new to the group, but please show more tact. Yes, this is a private forum, but discretion is still required. Our gatherings are fun, of course, but this remains a serious business, with serious consequences for all of us should anything go wrong.
From: JS, Wednesday 8:54 p.m.
Gentlemen, my sincerest apologies for getting out of line – not a good introduction to the group! What I meant to say was, simply, thank you all for accepting me as a member, especially to DG, who vouched for me. See you all on Saturday – my flight is already booked, getting in at 4:55 p.m.
From: AD, Wednesday 9:06 p.m.
I’m in. Will come back with arrival time.
From: MR, Wednesday 9:15 p.m.
Me too – and thanks, RR, for offering to cover the bonus. Very generous of you. Wheels down at 5:40 p.m. Saturday. Anyone for a quick nine holes on Sunday morning?
From: FC, Wednesday 9:47 p.m.
Sorry to keep everyone waiting for an answer. I have a prior engagement on Saturday afternoon and I’m trying to see if I can get away in time to make it there. I hope I can, but I’ll let you know one way or the other by tomorrow morning.
From: RR, Wednesday 10:12 p.m.
Thanks for the quick replies, gentlemen. FC, I’ve had a better look at the photograph now – you really don’t want to miss this. Clear your schedule and get here, my friend, you won’t regret it. They’re beautiful. They really are.
11
AUDRA DRIFTED IN and out of sleep on slow, sickly waves. Every time the darkness took her, a jagged dream shook her loose again. Over and over, she jerked awake on the bunk’s thin mattress, terrified, disoriented, pain clamoring from her shoulders and wrists. The night dragged its hours out until she lost all sense of their passing. By the time dawn light crept through the skylight outside her cell, the quiet of the place had grown so heavy that she thought she might be crushed by it.
At one point in the darkest hours she had roused from her shallow sleep to see that Whiteside was watching her from just beyond the bars. She had lain there, frozen, afraid to move in case he came at her once more. After a minute or two, keeping his silence, he had turned and left the custody suite.
Whiteside had reminded Audra first of her father, but now he made her think of her husband. She remembered the nights she awoke in their bed to find Patrick sitting at the other side of the room, watching her. Only once did she make the mistake of asking him what he was doing; he had crossed the room in the time it took for her to gasp a breath, grabbed her by the hair, and dragged her from the bed. As she lay on the floor, Patrick leaning over her, he told her it was his apartment, his bedroom, and he didn’t have to explain himself to her.
They had met ten years ago. Audra Ronan had been working at the gallery on East 19th Street – it was named Block Beautiful after the cluster of townhouses it nestled between – for six months, using her evenings to paint. She had enjoyed the job, walking each lunchtime to Union Square to eat whatever she’d been able to afford to pack for herself. The pay was terrible, but what she earned on the occasional sales commission gave her enough to get by. Sometimes enough to go to the big Barnes & Noble at the northern end of the square, or south along Broadway to the Strand Book Store, to treat herself to something from the art section. All the while, she cultivated contacts with the agents of the artists whose work passed through. A couple of them had seen her paintings, told her to keep them in mind when she felt she was ready to start selling.
But somehow she never seemed to be ready. Every piece began with hope that this time the vision in her head would make it onto the canvas unspoiled, but it never did. Her friend Mel told her she was too much of a perfectionist, that she was a classic case of the Dunning-Kruger effect: those with the most talent can’t recognize it in themselves, and those with the least can’t see how little they have. Audra wasted hour upon hour reading articles about the Dunning-Kruger studies, and imposter syndrome, trying to convince herself she could do this. In one piece she found a quote from Shakespeare’s As You Like It:
The Foole doth thinke he is wise, but the wise man knowes himselfe to be a Foole.
She printed it out in big letters and pinned it to the wall of her little studio apartment.
Audra had tried cocaine because she’d heard it boosted confidence. She’d smoked weed at college, just like everyone else, and she imagined cocaine wouldn’t be much different. But she found it made her nauseous, the crackling in her brain too much to bear, so she had stopped using as quickly as she had started. She still smoked the occasional joint, but not often. Sometimes it relaxed her, but other times it made her jittery and nervous.
Instead, she drank.
It had started at college, all those parties, and she always seemed to be the last one standing. She can hold her liquor, they’d say. After college, she dialed it back a little, kept it for weekends. But as time went on, and more failed canvasses stacked up in the corner of her studio, she started drinking more. Soon, it was every night.
But she kept it under control. At least, that’s what she told herself.
‘Just give some of the pieces to an agent,’ Mel had said over and over, ‘see what happens. What’s the worst that could happen?’
Rejection could happen. The agent could tell Audra her work was good, but not good enough. And she knew, if that occurred, what little confidence she had would be stripped away. So she kept trying for the perfect piece that never came.
Patrick Kinney had come to the opening night of a new exhibition. Audra had been applying a red sticker to a large canvas on which someone had just dropped twenty-five thousand when a smooth voice spoke over her shoulder.
‘Excuse me, Miss, is this one sold?’
She turned to the voice and saw a tall and slender man, perhaps ten years her senior, in a suit so well made it seemed almost a part of him. When he smiled at her and said, ‘Miss?’, she realized she had been frozen there, staring, for some time.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, feeling heat on her neck and cheeks. ‘Yes, it sold a few minutes ago.’
‘Pity,’ he said. ‘I like it.’
Audra cleared her throat and said, ‘Maybe I can show you something else?’
‘Maybe,’ he said, and she was struck by the way he looked her in the eye, his utter confidence, and whether she realized it at the time or not, she was his from then on. She had to force herself to look away.
‘Are you thinking of an investment, or do you just want something for your wall?’
‘Both,’ he said. ‘I moved into my apartment six months ago and I still don’t have a single thing to look at, other than the TV or the window.’