Anders was grudgingly attending the benefit auction at Cubed, a dumpling house turned independent gallery in Chinatown better known for its riotous after-hours parties than for any of the art it displayed. The space was packed with artist types, all dressed to express maximum individualism, yet all looking the same to Anders. You could recognize an art student anywhere in the world, he thought. The quest for individuality had resulted in the opposite: complete predictability. He peered over the bobbing crowd of beanies and bleached heads for someone he knew, spotted two women he’d slept with talking to one another by the far wall, and veered in the opposite direction toward the bar. New York, which had once fit him like a perfectly tailored suit, was feeling snugger every year.
On his way to the bar he bumped into Elijah, the creator of a cult-followed website that acidly reviewed the reviews of art shows, and whom Anders’s magazine was currently courting as a staff writer. Elijah was busy looking unimpressed at a sculpture comprised of sex toys on a conveyor belt as Anders approached.
“Have you ever noticed how closely a butt plug resembles a Native American arrowhead?” he asked.
“Good to see you too,” said Anders.
“I’m trying to find something to bid on,” he said. “Though I appear to be the only one.”
They made their way around the periphery of the gallery, Elijah declaring his opinions, mostly negative, in a loud falsetto. Anders absently scanned the photographs and paintings, keeping one eye out for the pair of women he’d spotted earlier. It never ended well for him when women united. If he was honest with himself, he was growing tired of the parade of beautiful creatures careening through his bedroom. Or rather, he was tired of himself. He had disappointed all of them. Not because he had broken any promises, but because he had refused to make any. He had offered them moments when they wanted months, years, marriages.
“You look lost in thought,” said Elijah. “Considering making a bid?”
Anders looked around. Most of the work here was impenetrable to him. It all looked like it had been made by computers. He bee-lined toward an oil painting of a nude woman. This one, at least, wasn’t bad. He liked that you could feel the painter’s presence on the canvas, the brushstrokes equal parts expressive and restrained. He leaned in closer to read the artist’s name. It was Cleo’s.
“What do you think of this one?” Anders asked.
Elijah pushed his glasses up his nose and frowned.
“Timid,” he declared. “Girlishly sentimental. I hate when you can look at a painting and just know it was done by a woman. Art should be unconstrained by the tropes of gender. Shame, really, because technically she’s pretty good.”
Shame for you maybe, thought Anders. You just talked your way out of a job.
“Well. Let’s get a drink,” he said.
“Oh, I don’t drink alcohol.” Elijah pressed his fingertips protectively to his chest. “I went to rehab for Adderall two years ago. Didn’t you read the bio on my site?”
Anders smiled without opening his mouth.
“Sparkling water then,” he said.
He spent the rest of the evening braced to run into Cleo. He scanned for her blond head among the crowd, felt the stomach twist of excitement when he thought he saw it, then the drop of disappointment when it was not her. After more plastic flutes of champagne than he could count, he bid on her painting. He offered twelve hundred, not much more than the last bidder, but enough to get the price up so she would sell at a respectable rate. He was surprised to receive an email the following day informing him that he’d won it. That afternoon at work, he got the call from her. Anders smiled at himself in the mirror above his desk as he pressed answer.
“Twelve thousand dollars,” she said. “What on earth is twelve thousand dollars supposed to mean?”
Anders was sure his reflection had physically paled.
“Is this Cleo?” he stammered.
“Is this your way of apologizing for what you did?”
His brain whirred to digest this new information. Twelve hundred. Twelve thousand. The placement of a decimal. Eight, ten, twelve glasses of champagne …
“I’m glad you’re sorry,” she continued. “You should be. But it’s been a year, and this—it’s pretty extreme.”
“How did … I thought the bidding was anonymous?”
“I couldn’t believe it when they told me.” Cleo laughed, ignoring him. “I even heard someone was contemplating outbidding you. Can you imagine? It’s like ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes.’ All you need is one person to believe, and it’s true.”
“Well, I certainly believe in you.”
Anders was already recalibrating last night’s events to suit this new narrative. Perhaps he had meant to bid such a large sum. It wasn’t ideal, of course, but he could afford it, and it struck him now as charmingly spontaneous.
“Thank you, Anders. Really.”
He heard her sigh with satisfaction down the phone.
“What are you going to do with the money?” asked Anders. “Buy yourself something pretty?”
“It was a benefit auction, Anders. I don’t get the money. But it still looks good I sold for that much.”
“Who gets it then?”
“I think it goes to the Avian Society of Central Park.”
“What is that?”
“Bird conservationists.”
“You’re fucking kidding me. I gave twelve thousand dollars to a bunch of bird-watchers?”
“Apparently there are a couple of hawks that need protecting.”
“Tell me you’re joking.”
“I never joke about money,” said Cleo in a voice that neither confirmed nor denied whether this was true. “So, where are you going to put it?”
“Put what?”
“My painting, Anders.”
“Oh. Isn’t a wall the usual place?”
“Don’t be clever. In your apartment?”
Anders hadn’t thought about it. He’d never expected to end up actually owning the thing.
“Why don’t you come over and see? You can help me pick a spot.”
“We both know I’ve already seen your apartment.”
This surprised him. Neither of them had ever openly acknowledged any detail of the night they’d spent together. It had happened shortly after she and Frank met, before any of them knew it would be serious. In fact, he realized, this was the first time they’d spoken without Frank present since.
“Never in daylight,” he said.
“And whose fault is that?”
“No one’s fault. Just a fact.”
But it had been cold of him, he knew, sending her home in the middle of the night like that. It was guilt. Letting her sleep next to him, touching her in the sober light of morning, would have felt like a second betrayal of Frank.
“You humiliated me,” she said quietly.
“Look,” he said. “I crumbled my teeth over it, I did.”
“What?”
“It’s what we say in Denmark when we regret something we’ve said.”
He could hear her smile in the silence. “How many teeth did you crumble?”
“All of them. Anyway, it’s different now.”
“What is?”
“My apartment. You should come see it.”
“How?”